It takes about a full long-hour for me to recover from my runeforging, but eventually I feel ready to tackle the rest of the craft.
First, the metal rectangles must be bent and forged into cylinders. I hammer them directly around the cable, then equip my runic ears and tap each as many times as it takes until the metal rings true and even. Next I heat each to blazing white and tap the edges together to weld. After this, they must be evened out again slightly.
The inferiority of this metal is obscenely obvious to me. It doesn't ring clearly, and when I tap it, its response is weak. It doesn't feel awake and alive. It feels inert.
Could the secret to true metal just be this—that it must be worked over and over, and made alive that way? Yet this does not solve the riddle Braztak set me.
Metal segments ready, it's time to start the grafting. I'm glad I decided to use quizik: its stickiness will make it a lot easier to work with than incandesite on this craft.
Once I reorder the poem's scattered runes, I use a pair of tweezers to gently press each into the quizik dust. I hold each one up to the daycrystals in the ceiling, and brush off any excess dust with my finger. Then I bend it around the metal segment it's to be grafted to. I arrange them in tight spirals, and making each curve of each spiral exactly even proves to be the greatest challenge of this stage. Many readjustments are needed.
Onto the next stage: segment by segment I set the lines ablaze. Gray light illuminates the forge brightly. It looks a little different to the light I saw when using quizik in the fort, and also to that I saw on the occasions I used it in Allabrast; this quizik is a fair bit purer that what I could afford back then.
It has taken me many sessions, but I have finally managed to arrange and graft the runes perfectly. The segments glow with power. Now they must be attached to the cable. I will use quizik to bind them—I have to, for the runic power to penetrate the cable, which is what the runes are to act on.
I measure out an exact quantity of quizik dust and brush it around one the end of the hollow cable. I push the first segment on, touch a white-hot solder to it. Half of it flares into heat, but I haven't put on enough quizik—the whole thing should have glowed. I curse heavily and light it from the other side as well. It burns nearly to the mid-point, but not quite.
I dash the hot solder onto the floor and curse foully. Now I'm going to have to pull this section off and remake it.
“Stop!” says Nazak.
“What?” I snap at him. “I've ruined it. I need to start again. The metal is scarred and insulted.”
“It'll make little difference. The metal of the cable will also be insulted if you pull that section off—are you going to make us purchase another one?”
“Why not? You have the money.”
“Do not presume to tell us how to use our resources.”
“I apologize profusely, honored runeknight Nazak. Nevertheless—”
“Drill a small hole in the segment and solder from within. That should light it.”
“But that would cause terrible damage!”
“It takes a team of expert metalworkers several dozen long-hours to create one of these cables. We can't throw it away. Make the best of it.”
“That is the way lower degree runeknights think!” I protest. “How can you approve?”
“This craft is for a lower degree runeknight. It will still be better than the rest of their armor. Continue!”
His words are un-dwarvish. They make me sick—they insult everything a runeknight stands for. To ask a runeknight of fourth degree to make something of seventh degree quality! It is an outrage, and I cannot fathom why he asks me.
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Carefully I drill a small hole in the segment. Each turn of the drill makes me feel a little more ill. Why ask me to injure this craft, after he's mocked me so harshly before for the same?
After my anger calms a little, I think of a possible reason why: perhaps supplies have become scarce. They cannot afford waste. Vanerak may be a Runethane, he may have given me more riches than I have ever dreamed of having, but his resources are not unlimited. They may even be desperately low. All his efforts down here are focused on retrieving the shards in the magma sea. He has no gold mines, I do not think, nor mines for any other precious metal.
Runeking Ulrike is likely paying him for his efforts. But it is not enough. And with no clear results, the flow of gold sent his way will not increase. It may even diminish.
I nearly laugh—so I am not the only one under terrible pressure from above. Except Vanerak diverts this pressure onto his subordinates. He does not have to suffer under the magma sea himself.
After the quizik lights, I create a small plug of tungsten and push it into the hole. I solder it shut, being careful not to damage the runes nearby it. Then I continue to the next segments, being careful this time to make sure the coating of quizik for each is thick and evenly spread.
It takes me two sessions to complete. The whole cable has an aura of power about it now, albeit one far less strong than that of my armor. The inferiority of the metal detracts from the runes a great deal, especially at the breathing end where the binding of the segment is weakest. Vanerak will not be pleased at this, I fear.
Could Nazak be plotting for me to feel his rage? Is that why he encouraged me to ruin this craft? Maybe there is no scarcity of resources after all.
No. For all his cruelty, he still seems frustrated at the deaths of his runeknights. He would not encourage me to damage a craft for one unless he had good reason, and the only dwarf that can put such pressure on a first degree is a Runethane.
At least for the flotation end I will be able to use properly treated tungsten. I sketch and calculate the dimensions of the shield-form I am to create, then get myself a tungsten ingot from the storage chamber. It's fairly large, and I struggle to carry it to the furnace. It takes a long while to heat to the core—but I am sure it is heated to the core. I can well comprehend the light of tungsten now.
I hammer it out with violent, bludgeoning strokes. The near-molten metal bends to my will, flattening out. Each stroke is carefully aimed, and as the hours pass, a circle slowly comes into being. I replace the large hammer with a smaller one. My strokes remain harsh, but they do not shape the metal so drastically.
Once the tungsten is a near-perfect circle about three-quarters of a yard in diameter, I slice a long cut from its center to the edge. I wait for it to cool, then set it upright in the vise. I hammer to create an overlap, to turn the circle into a shallow cone. Then I place it into the furnace—it only just fits—and heat it to blinding white once more.
I hammer to transform the shallow cone into a shallow bowl. It is long and difficult work. The metal where the overlap is, is twice as thick, and must be beaten flat in such a way that the structure is not disturbed. For very many short-hours the forge rings with the blows of this process. White sparks dance in my eyes, and when I equip my runic ears I hear them burning minute disruptions through the air.
I make no errors. My disgust at how I was forced to use improperly worked metal for the rest of my craft drives me to do this part perfectly. This tungsten has been respected. It is strong—I can feel this. There are no unevenesses, no rough edges left by a metalworker's file. It is the work of a runeknight.
Finally, I cut a small hole in the center for the air. Now for the poem. I let the trance take me, let the magma cover me, let the sphere emanate its power over me. It pulls up heat from the world's blood and thrusts it through me. With it I compose a poem of life corrupted by poison being purified and drawn down to where it is needed.
The life in it, of course, is the warmth of life. It takes a lot of clever use of metaphor to give it the meaning of air without actually using any words for air—my script only mentions air indirectly—all through my last poem I never mentioned it directly. Like cold, air has nothing to do with magma. It does not fit.
And the purification in this poem is rendered as the burning of toxins to inert ash.
I push my power to its limits. When I emerge from my trance, I am red and sweating. My hands are shaking and my fingertips are bloody from where I've cut myself with the clippers. The blood is already dry, though. The trance took a while.
After a long rest in my quarters, I graft the runes, then I attach the cable, also using quizik. I sense a disturbance over the top of the inverted shield, and wave my hand over it. The air is a little thinner. I don't know if this is meant to happen, but in any case, my craft is done.
I feel very little pride in it. It is sixth, or maybe fifth degree quality at best. The worst craft I've made for a while.
“Done,” I say to Nazak, bitterly.
“Good. Finally. I will have our Runethane called on.”
“He will be displeased by the metalwork.”
“He only cares for the runes.”
“They are not properly made—being crafted onto such poor metal means he will have no clear way to copy them.”
“He will have clear enough a way! And then the expeditions can proceed with one more dwarf than would otherwise be able to come. That is his priority.”
“Very well, honored runeknight. We will see.”
“You will, traitor.”
I sit down against the wall, feeling bitter hatred for him, and Vanerak, and every last member of that inner circle.