Sleep takes me and I dream of runes. They are not new ones but old, the runes for heat in a dozen different scripts. Some are specific, speaking to particular aspects of the word heat, Iahj, for example its capacity to bring two things into one, or to its capacity for destruction. Most embody all its aspects, all its powers, to melt, burn, remake, hurt, obliterate.
Related runes spin through my mind also—so vividly that I'm not sure I'm dreaming anymore but have returned to the world's blood. There are runes for the word lahr, meaning sudden-blaze-of-heat, and runes for the words lazukh and hankah, heated-steel and process-of-heating. Lazukh is a rare one. Most scripts have runes only for lahj and zhekh, heat and steel, which the runeknight must link with some grammatical piece.
On its own lazukh is more powerful, yet in each script I've found it in its runic flow is restrictive, which makes it sore work to fit into a poem.
I wake up gradually. My room's wormlight glow penetrates the darkness of my sleep, but the flow of runes does not fade nor slow down. The time has come. The steel is hot, ready to be struck. I call on Nazak:
“I must runeforge now. Is our Runethane ready?”
“He will not be able to observe this time. There are things upward that must be dealt with.”
“More salamanders?”
“None of your concern.”
“Of course. I apologize for my impertinence.”
“You will have breakfast and then we will go.”
“I don't need food.”
“You do. I won't have you collapsing face-first into molten metal. Eat and be grateful for it!”
A servant brings a meal. I eat it in the doorway, standing up, barely conscious of what I've shoveling into my mouth. I wash it down with a deep draft of water and then we are walking the black tunnels again.
The guards we pass in the hidden alcoves are wide-eyed. Runeforging is going to take place just below them, they are thinking, a new script is going to come into existence; I can tell this is what they think because there's no malice in their gazes, just awe. Maybe some of them have been tasked with guarding the magma shore before and have heard that my new runes are going to be for their use.
They still think of me as the traitor too, of course. That will never go away. But they also think of me as the second Runeforger, and this identity might start to weigh heavier than the old one.
We come to the first door, turn to walk through the concealed tunnel and reach the second. Nazak unlocks it. Guards precede us as always, search the storeroom and their own viewing-points to confirm there are no intruders. Then I'm in.
Gold and incandesite are what I'll forge my poems from. The two work well together, gold taking in incandesite's rage well and stabilizing it, just so long as the gold wire is thick and the runes bold. Until now I've always chosen thinner wire for my runes, and my text has sometimes been as thin as webs. For some poems this is the correct choice—yet not always.
I uncoil a few inches of gold wire from a coil sitting on the shelf. Point four millimeters, thick yet flexible enough so long as the runes aren't made so small. I take the coil to the anvil, then return to the storeroom for the incandesite. One nugget will suffice, I decide, and I take it to the anvil also. Very gently I break it apart, then sweep the pieces into a stone mortar for grinding.
I grind the pieces into fine sand, then dust, then dust so fine that it almost acts like liquid. As I do so the glow warms and brightens. I breath in its power. My mind whirls. I know what the runes are going to be. They are ready to be created.
I lay down the pestle. I step back and shut my eyes. I hear scratching—my watchers are making records—they will write down my every movement and word. Yet I find that I no longer care. My power is calling to me too strongly.
Heat envelops me. The darkness behind my eyelids becomes dull red, then bright orange, and finally streams of white-yellow. Magma is boiling through me. The heat is a thrill.
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The magma is moving, buffeted from behind, its flows warping around a great object. I will myself to turn—but of course magma is not water and I cannot see the sphere. It's there, though. Close enough that if I had hands I could reach out and touch its surface.
It's time. Lahj, heat—I imagine the concept as it applies to magma. I feel slow, concentrated power than can destroy at a touch. Power so great that nothing can contain it. Power that all the water and cold in the world cannot extinguish. Power that is the origin of everything—for with no heat there is no movement, no life.
From my own mind the form of the rune bursts forth, a triangle open at one side from which lines extend. Heat rushes through me, hurting me, but I restrain it.
Next rune—what is next? I have not planned this poem—how could I without yet having had the runes to form it from? A grammatical piece comes, the negative topic-marker. Beyond it I can imagine vaguely the rest of the line.
Rune by rune, I reel it in toward me—toward the core of power that turns concept and word to rune of real power. I am a focus, a concentrator. Words come to me and emerge as vivid forms.
Soon—or perhaps it has taken many hours—the first stanza is complete. I release the power, an action akin to uncurling my fingers from around a length of flesh-magnetic iron. The heat around me fades and vanishes and I am back before the anvil.
I reach for the golden wire and begin to twist and clip, hammer flat. With each hammer-strike that finalizes the shape of a rune, power trembles through the air. I feel it in my heart. The guards feel it also, and shiver. Even Nazak is not unaffected. Each new rune I create, he leans a little closer.
The poem, for my right thigh-plate, is nothing complicated. It's almost simplistic—or rather, pure. It speaks of heat, and then it speaks of heat's denial, how it can be bent around an object properly attuned. It does not mention salamanders directly, but the allusion is clear.
This is only the first stanza though. I start the second, and then I need a rune I haven't created yet. So for the second time this session I shut my eyes and feel myself subsumed in the world's blood.
The sphere comes and shortly after the power. I draw the word and meaning I want into a symbol, and then more symbols as I compose the rest of the second stanza. The power is rushing through me. I feel that my body, far from here, is drenched in sweat.
With great effort I release the power—if this was a physical act, it would have torn the muscles of my fingers.
Back in the forge. With each dull clang, more new power is brought into the underworld. A couple of the guards have stopped writing and are staring transfixed with awe. I suppose they weren't present at my last session—or perhaps they were, but of course that time I was only altering runes, not creating new ones.
They will be able to tell their guildmates, friends, children: I was there when the Second Runeforger made his second script, the one of magma. And the word traitor will not be mentioned in that story.
But the third stanza proves my limit for this session. I'm barely able to let go of the power this time, and when I return to the forge my skin is bright red and I'm trembling. I feel like it's coated in a thin layer of very hot oil.
Only barely do I manage to twist the last few runes into shape. After the last one, I find myself slumped against the anvil accepting cool water from a guard.
“Time for a rest, runeforger,” says Nazak. “The incandesite won't go rusty that quickly.”
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“How far until the breakthrough from this crossroads?”
“A solid mile, my Runethane.”
“Is the path steep?”
“Yes, my Runethane, and rough too. Much of the rock has not been cleared. And I would keep one eye on the ceiling. The miners have done fast work, but as a result have been untidy. There are dangerous cracks.”
“I am a Runethane, Yalhal. Falling rocks are no threat to my armor.”
“Of course, my Runethane. I will lead you there with haste now.”
Chief of Excavations Yalhal leads Vanerak upward through the tunnel. It starts off fairly smooth, then after the first branch upward becomes tight and rent with wild pick-strokes. The floor is of shifting gravel and broken stones. It steepens as they continue to a near ninety-degree angle. They must clutch the shattered walls to keep from sliding down, and the light of Yalhal's lamp can only just penetrate the black fog of rock-dust.
Finally they reach the last bend and the tunnel becomes level.
“Through here,” says Yalhal, leading them through an oval exit. “Here is our discovery, my Runethane!”
Vanerak perceives a cave. At his first few glances, it seems natural. Then he notices certain things about the chambers, of which there are five in a row, linked by wide portals. They are even in size, for one, and the portals are aligned exactly. He approaches one of the walls. The miner chipping at it hurries out his way. He runs a tungsten-encased finger down it.
There are flat sections.
“You can tell, can't you, my Runethane?” says Yalhal. “The solidblack has been formed into an artificial structure here. Very smoothly, as if cast.”
“Very smoothly indeed,” Vanerak agrees. “Not even my master mason could create a wall so smooth.”
“I theorize that it gained in solidity over time. Perhaps many years.”
“A theory is no theory if it cannot be tested.”
“Yes, my Runethane. Of course. And I can think of no test of this material that has not already been carried out.”
“Are there more sequences of chambers beyond this?”
“We are not sure. The final one of this sequence has turned out to be a dead end, but perhaps there are ways in the sides that have not been cleared yet.”
“I see. Keep your miners working hard. Whoever discovers a way to another chamber will receive three long-hours of paid rest.”
“A most generous reward, my Runethane. Miners! Praise his generosity!”
The miners throw themselves to the gravel-strewn ground. “Thank you, Runethane Vanerak!” they scream in unison. "Thank you!"