“I have, my Runethane,” I say. My voice comes slowly, and it rasps like a rusted blade being drawn, as if I have nearly forgotten how to use it. “I have reflected most deeply.”
“And to what conclusion have you come to?”
“I was wrong to lie to you, my Runethane.”
He waits for me to talk further, but no words come.
“Explain why what you did was wrong.”
After a few seconds I manage to rasp: “Because you are my Runethane.”
“There is a deeper reason.”
“Lying itself is a crime.”
“Indeed, and a very grave one. Yet there is a reason why your particular lie was so foul, so terrible, that two lives had to be taken for it. Even the worst crimes, worthy of execution, only take one life as payment.”
My voice seems caught in my throat.
“Say the reason.”
“It was because the lie was about my runeforging, my Runethane,” I rasp.
“Explain further.”
“My runeforging is the future of dwarfkind. It was wrong to conceal it.”
“Correct.”
“Thank you, my Runethane.”
He stands there staring at me for a while. I want to back away—the force of his gaze is as a gale blowing against me. It proves greater than my will and I retreat a step.
“I will leave now. Reflect further upon your crime, Zathar Runeforger.”
He steps back out into the corridor and the door shuts. He vanishes like a nightmare, back into the blackness. I sit down trembling, wondering if he ever visited at all, or if he visited a hundred long-hours ago.
Eventually more gruel is given for me to scrape up from the stone, and a skin of foul beer also. The cycle repeats many more times until it is as if Vanerak never visited me at all. I become convinced that his appearance was merely a dream to torment me, to give me hope that he was considering my release, that he had not discovered the secret to runeforging after all.
The door opens. My stomach rumbles. It feels constricted—it has been a while since my last meal—I was starting to think that my execution by starvation had begun.
Once more I am looking into my own distorted face. I back away. Vanerak has returned.
“Greetings, Zathar Runeforger.”
“My Runethane!" I cry out. "Greetings to you also!”
“Have you reflected further on your crime?”
“I have, my Runethane, most deeply.”
“Explain to me why it was so grevious.”
The words pour out. They are rehearsed: “Because my runeforging is for the good of all dwarfkind, and in order for its potential to be realized, its secrets must be entrusted to a dwarf so wise, noble, and strong as yourself.”
“A good answer. Yet I feel that you do not really believe it.”
“I do, my Runethane! I swear to you that I do!”
“And how can you prove this to me?”
“I will never lie to you again. Then you will know!”
“I will know until you lie to me once more. You must prove your conviction to me in more solid fashion.”
“I will serve you. I will obey your every command without hesitation.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Then I do not know what I can do to make you believe me, my Runethane!” I am weeping and have sunk to my knees. My beard is wet with tears. “But I will never lie to you again! I know what will happen if I do!”
“You do not know the half of it: your friends will be tortured in ways you cannot imagine. Their pain will last many long hours. Their wounds will be healed with healing chains, and then reopened, time and time again until their minds are naught but vessels for their pain.”
“I understand, my Runethane!”
“What was done to the lady was a mercy.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Yes, my Runethane! You were merciful to her!”
He nods slowly. “Yes. You seem to realize this at last.”
“I do, my Runethane, I do!”
He nods again. “I have made my decision. You will be returned to the forge. You will create more runes for dwarfkind to use in our battles.”
“Thank you, my Runethane! Thank you!”
“Your furnishings will be returned to you, and your armor also.”
“Thank you, my Runethane,” I weep. “Thank you.”
“Goodbye for now, Zathar Runeforger. Do not lie to me again.”
“I will not, my Runethane! I will never!”
The door shuts and I am in blackness once more. I curl up, panting. Tears are still running down my face. Could that really have been real? Could that really have been Vanerak? Yes, I think it was. What else could have brought such fear into me? What else could have turned me into such a quivering, shameless, begging wreck?
Some length of time passes, and I crawl up from my knees. If that really was Vanerak, and I'm sure it was, then I am to be released from my prison to return to the forge, which is also a kind of prison. Yet in that prison I at least can work for the benefit of all dwarfkind.
Nauseous fear wells back up within me. I grit my teeth to force it down. I fight it.
I am still lying to Vanerak. I said I would never lie to him again, and yet that was a lie. He thinks I am broken—maybe part of me is. If he ordered me to strike down an innocent in cold blood, for no good reason, I believe I would do so. I am too afraid of what he will do to Guthah.
But in me is still that spark of hope that says he can be brought down.
----------------------------------------
The wormlight globe is returned to my chamber, and shortly afterwards the rest of my furnishings are too. I once again eat off plates upon a table, while seated on my chair, and I have the option to sleep not on stone but on a bed with sheets. All of this is awkward to me. My body finds it hard to fit into the shape of the chair, and when I lie down in my bed, sleep will not take me.
I sleep on the stone instead.
My bookshelf is also returned to me, with all the same books I was halfway through studying. My desk comes back too, with my papers left in it just as if I had been working on them only a few hours ago. I read through and I've forgotten most of the runes I wrote down.
With light returned, time seems to return also, and I begin to wonder just how long the blackness lasted. I suspect quite a while, by the way my body is so maladjusted to comfort and how some fairly well-memorized runes have vanished from my memory.
A long-hour or so after my dark isolation ends, Nazak is sent to me. I flinch. On seeing him I remember Pellas' death—remember that it was partly his strength that held me back from helping her.
“Greetings, honored runeknight Nazak,” I say, and my voice is trembling a little. I'm unable to keep the fear from it. His mirrored visor, though up, demonstrates his unwavering loyalty to Vanerak.
“Our Runethane has told me to instruct you on what you are to forge next,” he says.
“Very well, honored runeknight. I will be glad to do whatever he tasks me with.”
“Our expeditions into the magma have proceeded greatly since the collapse. This has brought our forces into more frequent contact with the demons. We need weapons against them. There are very few scripts with words for the creatures, and those that do have them are difficult to use.”
“Yes, honored runeknight.”
“So our Runethane wishes for you to extend your script with words for demons. He believes runes that combine the word demon with various words for death could prove effective.”
“Yes, honored runeknight. But may I ask one question?”
“If you wish to, traitor.”
“What is this collapse you mentioned?”
He frowns. “You do not remember?”
“I do not, if I was ever told.”
“I suppose it happened after your interrogation. Very well, you ought to know now. It does affect you. The excavations above the magma sea fell in.”
“All of them? But how many were working up there?”
“We lost a hundred overseers. A sad blow. As well as several thousand miners. But their sacrifice was not in vain: the collapse exposed a path leading to a past collapse, one of a greater city. It's there the shards washing up on the magma shore are from.”
The deaths of so many does not seem to faze him at all. This does not shock me, though the scale of the losses does.
“I see,” I say. “So we are heading towards this sunken city.”
“You are not, traitor. Your life is too valuable to risk.”
“I understand this, honored runeknight. Yet I must ask—how am I to create runes representing demons if I do not face them myself?”
He scowls. “You faced one before. Surely that was enough.”
“It was a long time ago, and I only saw it after it had already possessed a dwarf. I apologize for being so combative, honored runeknight, and so soon after our Runethane saw fit show me mercy, yet I only wish to obey our Runethane's orders to the best of my ability.”
His scowl deepens. “I will talk to the Runethane. In the meantime, you are to examine your armor and devise ways to improve the runes you've used on it further.”
“Yes, honored runeknight.”
Surprised, I step aside as two guards walk through the door, bearing an armor stand between them. Upon it is a set of plate made of hundreds of perfectly formed loops. The metal is dark reddish tungsten shining with bright gold runes. It clinks as the stand is set up at the side of my room.
I stare—is this really my armor? It is too well-made. Surely I am not capable of creating such a craft.
“Your runes, and those upon your failed armor too, have proved a boon to us. Be pleased that you have made up, very slightly, for your betrayals.”
“I am very pleased to hear that,” I say, and I'm telling the truth—if my runes have saved Hayhek and his comrades, then my coming to Vanerak's realm has been of some use, at least.
“I will return when I have further orders from our Runethane. In the meantime, do not slack.”
“I will not, honored runeknight.”
He leaves with the guards and I am alone with my armor. I look up and down it. It still seems unreal to me—could I really have made a craft so perfect? Some of this feeling might be to do with the distance of time between its crafting and now, but also—I am simply amazed. There is not a single flaw.
I approach it cautiously. The air is warm around it, and when I touch the metal it almost burns my skin. The heat is strange though. It does not quite feel like the heat of magma, nor like that of dragonflame, nor even like that of the surface sun. I cannot quite wrap my mind around what it feels like, nor why one heat should feel unlike another.
On re-reading the poems, I understand. They describe fighting against magma, beating it down, overwhelming it. A foreign heat descends into the magma on the poem for the belly-plates, and this metaphor is taken further on the breastplate and backplate: a being of heat hateful to the magma tears a ragged road through it.
It is far more violent that what I remember writing—but then again, I barely remember writing the poem on my breastplate, for all my focus was on keeping my power from burning me to ash. I wince. I cannot recall at all what I wrote on my arms, gauntlets, and helmet. I was too far gone then.
With great trepidation, I read them.