Hands trembling, I attempt to start work on the next poems, those for my legs. I try to recall what I last wrote but cannot—in the presence of Vanerak, the runes won't come. I grip the anvil. Where are they? What did I write? But nothing comes.

“Why have you not yet begun?” Vanerak asks. “You are not in your trance. I can tell this.”

“Wait!” I hiss. “Give me some time.”

Still nothing comes. I remember the theme, of becoming one with heat, and then the same was on the thighs with another theme of strength, yet what were the runes? What was the deeper meaning?

I glance at Vanerak. He is staring at me through his mirror-mask. I turn away and shut my eyes. I will the power to come forth, and it comes as called. I feel red heat around me, white, and then the heavy presence of the sphere behind.

Heat, lahj, that's how my poem began. That was the first word. The heat met its equal in the magma and the two were one. Heat cannot do harm to heat, only strengthen it. I recall the poem, finally, and yet I can see no way to make it stronger.

But if I do not, Vanerak will maim or kill Guthah and Pellas and the two dragonslayers.

Heat can overwhelm heat. The wind whipped up by a raging fire can extinguish lesser candles nearby, can it not? So the heat of my armor can be made overwhelming—it can meet the lesser rage in the magma and shame it, make it fall away. Maybe there is no physical process for this, but these are runes, metaphor given power. If I write with enough skill then reality will bend.

I write that heat, lahj, gives way to fearsome heat, lahj-erj. Two words in one rune. I thrust the meanings together in the furnace of my power and something twisted is born. The form of the rune is half-disintegrated, like it's melting. Yet the runic flow is strong and flexible. I can use it, though I do not wish to.

Yet I have to.

The poem becomes one of greater heat turning aside lesser. It is not a tale of harmony, but of battle. Runes that were of simple power take on connotations of violence, of power being wielded and used to crush. The white heat around me grows hotter. I alter rune after rune, and far off I can feel my hands twisting the golden wires.

I cannot stop. Yet I am at the end of the poem for my shins—I extend it. The power must go somewhere or it will burn me.

My poem of strength to wade through the sea, to push aside the molten stone, becomes one about the power to push against it. Force tears apart stone already bursting with power; the theme is greater force against the lesser, and the object foreign to the magma prevails.

A river of power is rushing through me. The sphere is directing heat from below directly into my soul. I am burning up. My ruby works furiously to cool my body, but I sense that my hands drip with sweat as they work the golden wire.

I try to stem the flow, cut the white heat off. Yet what can one dwarf do against all the heat from below, sent forth by an artifact with power equal to that of a Runegod?

Yes, who else could have created such an artifact as the sphere, but a Runegod? And before them I am nothing. Even Vanerak is nothing before one of them.

To save myself I must continue the composition. I start the poem that will wrap around the loops that form my belly and lower back armor. This was the poem that came out weakest on my original armor: it was about power and its antithesis, heat and cold, yet magma has no cold within it.

I rewrite it totally and create an ode to the sheer power of pure heat, that blazing force that destroys all it touches. My last poem here had no solid metaphors—this one does. It tells of a blazing star of heat that descends into the depths of the underworld whose fearsome heat forces the tides of magma to recede. They are afraid of its power.

My script is one of magma, yet that does not mean it must praise magma, take its power from magma—runes for magma can discuss its defeat also.

The sphere directs more power into me. The magma is shimmering around me. It has gone beyond white heat into something else, something that cannot be seen by eyes of flesh. My soul sees it though, experiences it, and suffers from it. My mind is beginning to go blank. I am barely aware of what runes I'm forming and altering as I move onto the poem for my breastplate and backplate.

I describe a being of blazing heat that the magma cannot bear to touch. The being rips through the magma ferociously. I think this poem speaks of more as well, but it takes all my focus to keep the power being thrust through me from turning my soul to ash. I am only barely aware of what I'm writing. At some point I finish, and write the poems for my arms and gauntlets.

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The runes I make are brutal ones. I cannot tell any more than this. The power is a spear piercing me, killing me. If I lose focus, it will swell and rend me asunder. I direct it to the poems for my helmet. The runes twist into terrible things of heat-pain and heat-obliteration. Far above and away, red-gold power flashes through the forge. I have no control of my body, little over my runes—I am just barely aware of what I am doing.

This is what happens when I draw on power too great for me, I now understand: all my focus is on keeping me alive. I have no time to think about how to make my compositions noble, so some dark part of my inner mind sets itself on them. The rest is only thinking of survival, of suppressing the power directed by the sphere, which is like a lens for the deep heat, and it is like a machine, with no care for if I live or die, stay whole or turn to ash.

And suddenly there is nowhere for that heat to go. It builds up within me. My ruby fights it, screams against it, but the cold flowing out is not enough.

Flames erupt from me.

----------------------------------------

Nazak watches, entranced, as Zathar is flung to the stone as if smashed down by the hand of a giant. The young dwarf is drenched in sweat, his life pouring from his skin, which has become red. His eyes are open. In their pupils flames seem to burn.

“My Runethane?” Nazak says nervously. “The healing chains?”

“Not yet.”

Not yet? But to Nazak, Zathar seems on the edge of death. His breathing, which was heavy and ragged while he twisted and grafted his runes, is now weak and shallow. His hands clutch and open in quick spasms. His skin has become as crimson as blood and his veins stand out like black worm-tunnels on it. His eyes roll up then close.

Nazak hefts the web of fine silver chains in his hands. “My Runethane?”

“Have some patience.”

Could it be that Runethane Vanerak plans for Zathar to die here? Has he already discovered the secret of runeforging in his long meditations? Maybe Zathar's performance here has given him final confirmation of the knowledge, and he no longer needs him alive, and is reveling in his final suffering.

A flame flickers on Zathar's cheek. It is blue. Two more catch on his bare upper arms—then more. It's like the sweat on his skin has become oil.

“Now!” says Runethane Vanerak.

Nazak throws the web of chain over Zathar's convulsing, burning body. The silver links glitter like white raindrops—these are the finest healing chains in the realm, forged by a first degree runeknight for a staggering price, and the moment they fall over Zathar the flames vanish. Nazak breathes a sigh of relief. Clearly the Runethane still needs Zathar: he has not yet found the secret of runeforging. If Zathar were to die here, his rage would be terrible.

The flames on Zathar's skin spring back up again.

“Shit!” Nazak yelps. “Water, now!”

A guard standing by with a heavy bucket of water glances at the Runethane. After the briefest pause Runethane Vanerak nods, and the guard drenches Zathar. The flames die away. But the water is starting to hiss and turn to steam. Nazak feels that they will return.

“Everyone!” he shouts. “Go out and get more water! Quickly! Quickly!”

The guards rush from the forge.

“A wise order.”

“Thank you, my Runethane.”

Runethane Vanerak walks over to Zathar and kneels beside him. He leans over the young dwarf's face. Nazak approaches a few steps too. He watches Zathar's face turning red and white at intervals; heat blooms in patches to be wiped away by waves of cold white, and then more heat wells up from within and red patches appear again. It is not clear which force is winning.

“Wake up, Zathar Runeforger,” orders the Runethane.

Zathar does not respond. His eyes are rolling behind his eyelids as if trapped.

“He's still in his trance, I think,” Nazak says quietly.

“He must be woken from it.”

“A few more splashes of cold water might do it.”

“There may be no time. Hit him across the face.”

Nazak raises his hand, brings it down gently. His rune-enhanced strength turns Zathar's head violently. The young dwarf's right cheekbone crunches on the stone. His eyelids flicker, yet he does not wake.

“Again.”

Nazak repeats the action, bringing Zathar's head around to the other side. His other cheekbone crunches. This time his eyes flicker open for the briefest second.

“Wake up, Zathar Runeforger!” says Runethane Vanerak.

His eyes open a little further, but close again.

“I think you can hear me.”

A hiss escapes Zathar's lips like steam. A flame flickers at the corner of his mouth.

“You do hear me,” says Runethane Vanerak.

“Burning...” says Zathar.

“Where do you burn?”

“Everything.”

“You have drawn in too much power again.”

“Yes. Burning. Cool. Need cool.”

“What did you see in the magma?”

“Too hot. Too much power. The...”

“The what?”

“Need cool. Water! Give me water! Ice and snow!”

More flames are flickering up from where his skin is exposed.

“Did it feel like when you made your runic ears?”

“Ice and snow!”

“Tell me and you shall have it.”

A guard appears, panting, bent double in the door-hollow, clasping a heavy pail of water to his chest.

“Water! Ice and snow!”

“Did what you feel this time, feel the same as what you felt when you forged your runic ears? You were burning down there. Did you also burn when you made your runic ears?”

“Yes!” Zathar hisses. Flames burn from his forehead. “Power, too much! Through me like a spear!”

“The same as when you made your runic ears?”

“Yes, it was the same!”

“You remember clearly?”

“Yes! Power through me like a spear! Ice and snow, please!”

“Throw the water on him.”

The guard dumps the water over Zathar's head. The flames vanish, and the red of his skin fades too. After a few moments, his breathing becomes more even. His eyes close.

“Imprison him,” orders Runethane Vanerak. “He has committed the crime of dishonesty and is to be chained to await my judgement.”