To enrune a gem, you must carve with precision that goes beyond ordinary skill. The runes to go on these twelve rubies, which I have spent nearly fifty long-hours perfecting, are to be even smaller than those on my amulet. I must scratch with ultimate care—unless, that is, I surrender my will to the sphere, or whatever is in the sphere, and enrune in my trance.

I do not know what it is that takes over when I am solely focused on keeping the power of the world's blood from incinerating me. Something knowledgeable. Something skilled.

The first Runeforger, perhaps? Trapped inside the sphere?

I take up my engraving chisel—its tip is minuscule—and hold it before the first ruby. My poem is written out on sheets of paper on my anvil. It is complex, though has little creativity. There is a specific formula that must be used to turn your vision to heat, and if the runic flow is incorrect your eyes will boil from the inside as soon as you equip the craft. Several runeknights suffered that awful fate before it was decided that only the higher degrees should be allowed to construct them.

And now my power will force me to deviate from the formula. I grit my teeth. I could lose my eyes from this craft. But Vanerak will see immediately if I have not pushed my power to its limits, and I will not be responsible for another dwarf's torture and death.

“I am expecting to see fascinating things,” says Halax, from behind his barred window. “I wish you the best luck.”

I nod. The other guards are staring at me from behind their windows too. What are they thinking? Are those glimmers of hope I see in their eyes? They have lost too many to the demons—there are only five here watching me this session, instead of the usual ten.

The magma heat comes around me as I shut my eyes. The feeling of the chisel in my palm fades away. I sense a presence behind me—the sphere. It is heavy, huge. Much bigger than a dwarf, I think now. I will have to tell Vanerak this—though the knowledge could lead to my death.

With effort, I turn my thoughts away from Vanerak and the nature of my power, and concentrate on the poem I have memorized. It begins from the leftmost ruby, spirals down its tungsten rod, has another stanza on the metal plate, then moves up the next rod to the second ruby. It then spirals down again, forming a dual-helix with the stanza going up. This flow repeats for every rod and ruby, then to finish are a few more long lines around the edge of the plate in an inward spiral.

The key to the runic flow is the crossing helix down the rods. Each place the lines cross, one rune is used in both. The amount of power these dual-use runes produce must equalize both lines' power, or vision will not be converted correctly to heat-sense. The mathematics Halax researched to get this effect was advanced, and though he has explained it in great detail, I still feel that my understanding is a surface level one. I eventually managed to copy what he did when I composed my poem, but it me took nearly a dozen failed drafts.

And now my power is going to change it all—but Guthah is more important than my vision. Hayhek also. It is for them I do this.

I ready to pull the poem through myself. Power wells up from below; the sphere takes it and directs it at me, bathes me in it—this process is clear to me now that I have experienced it so many times. The heat around me increases, and I pull more power in until it is on the edge of unbearability.

Only then do I take the first rune into me. It twists in the heat. Its runic flow alters. It was one of the weaker runes of my script, uil, meaning dim light, but the connotation I put into it now is of light suppressed under the heavy magma, with nowhere to go.

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I do not know if this decision I just made was my own. Certainly, I have no vision for how the poem can be improved. All I am aiming to do is make my runes stronger.

The next rune comes, and the next. In the tale, trapped light becomes trapped heat which shifts and creates shapes. Down the rod the line flows, and the stanza around its base describes the pattern made. The next line spirals up the second rod.

Its rhythm is strict. There is no room for improvisation—yet my power is changing the flow. I am struggling to hold in the heat, my mind is consumed by fiery pain, yet even so on the edge of my awareness I can sense something going wrong. I reach the runes that are to go onto the second ruby, and I feel that they do not quite fit the facets. There is something irregular here. Some are being bent around the edges.

I recall Wharoth's amulet, with runes spiraling into it, and Xomhyrk's spear had runes within it too. Am I trying to accomplish this? I do not know how.

Down the rod the next line goes, telling of circles of light turning to heat. It crosses the line going the way up. The runic flow, I think, is going in directions that it should not. I try to calculate, lose grip on the heat and it burns me. A fever breaks on my body. My skin is going red. I am sure it is.

I bring the heat back under control and continue to pull through the runes. They alter in ways I cannot quite grasp. New clusters of meaning are born, though I cannot quite tell what the meanings are.

My poem is falling out of my control. This craft is going to burn my eyes out—but Vanerak must have his runes! I let my grip on the heat loosen a little. I will just have to trust my power; my runic ears turned out all right, did they not? They did not injure me. This heat mask will be the same. My eyes will be unharmed. Their scars will not expand to devour every last spark of light.

Up, down, around and around my lines flow. A vague sense of their geometry is all I can see. My fingers are a blur in the forge as they twist the metal, I think. Surely they are bleeding profusely. Maybe I have abused them with the point of my chisel also.

I am losing control. Within the sphere, the three shadows wave and shiver, as if the substance they are cast through ripples like a still pool disturbed.

But I must continue. The heat tries to destroy me, but I do not let it. I keep it contained, and as I reach the final few lines, I force it to retreat. My mental strength reaches breaking point, but at the last rune I finally shut the power away completely. The sphere and magma vanish.

I am standing over the anvil, and continue to do so for a few moments, then I collapse. A bucket of water is thrown over me. The burning of my skin barely lessens. I breath in, and it is like I am inhaling fire, then when I exhale I cough and spit blood onto the side of the anvil. It runs down, drying and turning black as it goes. The drops do not quite reach the stone floor.

“He requires healing chains,” says Halax.

My leather overalls are cut away and cold chains wrapped around me. My vision is going dark red at the edges, and the scars in it seem to be growing, but as the chains' cold penetrates through me, this slows and stops. My skin cools and the air I breath no longer tastes like fire.

Halax approaches me. “Are you seriously injured?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Just somewhat,” I manage to rasp.

“Your poem seems an interesting one. I do not know if our Runethane will allow you to equip the mask, once you've set in the rubies.”

“I will equip it!” I hiss, then cough blood. “I won't be responsible for another dwarf's eyes boiling from the inside.”

“It will be a miner, most likely. Not a runeknight.”

“That doesn't matter!”

“You do not think so?” He sounds a little surprised. “In any case, it is not your decision to make, nor mine, but our Runethane's. Now, are you well enough to set the rubies in?”

“Yes,” I rasp. “I'll do it now.”

“Good. It may be undwarven of me, but I am impatient to see the final effect.”

“I will try not to disappoint.”

I grasp the anvil with my sweat-glistening fingers and pull myself to my feet. I lean on the metal. Upon the mask the runes are grafted, and upon the rubies they are carved, deeply, into facet and edge. Very deeply.

“I will call down our Runethane,” says Halax. “And I will have a miner brought here also.”

“Very well, honored runeknight Halax,” I rasp.

I pick up one of the rubies. I must complete the craft before Vanerak gets here, or I will end up being responsible for the torture of yet another.

I will equip this craft myself!