The pain does not come. I stare into the magma furnace, and still there is nothing. I have been a fool. When I removed Halax's heat-mask after my first expedition into the magma sea, it took me a short while to get used to returning to normal vision also. It was akin to my first step onto the surface, though less extreme.
I sense that Vanerak is becoming impatient—or do I? Is this just a delusion born of fear? Quickly I pull the mask off; nothing has gone wrong with my vision. I look over at Vanerak and Halax, and the miner, who is not looking at anything strangely anymore. He just looks like he wishes to bolt from here.
“It works adequately,” I say, lamely. “I shall strive to improve upon my work on my next attempt, my Runethane.”
“Your next craft shall be your weapon,” says Vanerak. “For that craft you will copy nothing. You will create and manipulate your runes in an original manner to cause maximum damage to the demons. I took a great risk in allowing your excursion beyond the shore. I would see that my risk pays off.”
I bow low. “Yes, my Runethane. It shall. You have my word.”
My word is worth nothing, of course. I have proven that time and again. But it at least seems to be enough for him now, since his reply is simply:
“That is good.” He turns to Halax, daycrystals tracing arcs over his mirror-mask. “See that he writes down the runes and their meaning on paper, thoroughly. And you will check the runic flow calculations yourself thrice over.”
“Yes, my Runethane.”
With that, he turns and leaves. I shiver in relief. It is as if a cold rope tied around my guts loosens and vanishes. He was not enraged with me! And my heat-mask did not destroy my eyes. Despite its strange flow, it is simply a slightly inferior version of what Halax constructed. For once, my power has created something stable.
On my walk back up to the forge, the feeling of relief fills me further, relaxes me. My body feels light and my heels as if they contain springs. I have been granted a reprieve.
Yet when I reach the apex of this feeling, the very peak of my relief, a realization creeps into my heart like poison. I realize that something has changed within me. Something has broken. What is it? I grit my teeth. A new tension tightens within my guts. What is this that has come upon me? What has broken?
Finally, when the lock is turned and I am let through the door into my quarters, understanding brightens. The thing that has broken is my hatred. Though it was once the dominating force within me, my hatred for Vanerak is now all but gone, all but extinguished by my fear of him. The spark of rebellion I felt when I first finished my confinement has cooled nearly to ash.
This realization brings disgust and relief in equal measure.
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The ten runeknights swim-crawl through the congealed heat toward their goal, yet for once they are not aimed directly, for each time Runethane Vanerak's forces have thrust straight ahead, or have only taken small detours, the demons have repelled them. Their advances have stalled. The demons seem to have learned to predict their paths.
So Nazak has ordered this small force to attempt to circumvent the demons, and through the several hours they have been moving they have so far not been assailed. The only life they have seen are salamanders, swimming up near the surface, and small ones at that.
Yet Hayhek is not convinced. In the end they will have to come to where the demons are—this is inevitable. There are too many of them. He is sure that within the city, they swarm, many dozens of them, perhaps even multiplying by the day. Or perhaps they are being forged by some ancient magma-dwelling Runeking, who will not stand for his secrets being uncovered.
The mind is a muscle which uses stamina just like the rest. Speculation is only tiring. Best not to attempt it. Hayhek focuses his effort on pulling himself forward through the molten stone. It impedes him with its heaviness and heat. He imagines its many shades of orange and red, its glow of trapped and tortured light, though of course he cannot see it.
Their leader, Ulruil, a third degree, stops his swimming and turns his head. He points with two fingers. His heat-mask allows him to see further than the more basic one Hayhek wears; just out of sight must be some shards, and big ones. Ulruil would not slow the advance for any piece smaller than a breastplate.
The formation follows him. A minute later and Hayhek also sees the shards: three pieces cracked in such a way that it's obvious they fit together. Upon them are hints of many runes, the strange runes that respond to no reagent.
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Although their goal is to see how far they can advance along this route before the demons assail them, a find like this, of big shards inscribed with so many runes, cannot be ignored.
The dwarves descend quickly. Hayhek's armor creaks. The magma's pressure is growing, and its heat too. The absorbing rubies on his armor are starting to struggle. He worries he may have to replace some, yet again, which is costing him a fortune, setting back his crafting.
A sudden shock kills this worry: three spheres of twisting curves and loops and lines of heat appear at the side of his heat-sense. He turns to fight. No one swims over to be at his side—no one else seems to have noticed them. He yells out, from instinct, but though his voice fills his helmet, it cannot penetrate the molten rock.
He is decisive—he turns from the demons and aims straight for Ulruil. He pulls with his hands, kicks violently, pushes his muscles beyond their limits until he is gasping desperately, his cable unable to keep up with his need for air. Ulruil is not rushing, and Hayhek closes rapidly on him, yet the demons are quicker and close in on him in turn.
Ulruil, sensing the change in pressure a few feet from Hayhek, spins and strikes. Hayhek twists out the way of the blow—slowly, and the strike is slow also—then grabs his leader by the arm, pulls him in, clashes his helmet to his.
“Demons!” he screams. “Look!”
Ulruil sees. He yells in shock. They've crept up from behind, angled their advance so that the dwarves would not notice them—this has never happened before. He gestures violently at their twisted forms, and the runeknights not already alerted by Hayhek's strange rush turn to fight.
They are scattered though, not in proper formation. One demon latches to the runeknight farthest out. He is only sixth degree, and though he struggles and slashes desperately—and painfully slowly—through the magma, his cold-bringing strikes are having little effect. Hayhek does not get to watch the fight to its conclusion, however, because another one of the three demons is bearing right for him and Ulruil.
It passes between two dwarves that try to strike at it. It is nearly at Hayhek now. He kicks violently at the molten rock while trying to pull forward with one hand, while also slashing out with his axe. He does not move forward fast enough nor strike hard enough. He only brushes one outer line. Ulruil manages more expertly, and his sword goes through the demon's center, making it shiver and shrink.
Another blow, from a dwarf behind, disrupts it further in a flash of cold. Hayhek pushes off hard on a denser flow of molten stone, which is revealed to his heat-sense by its slight difference in temperature, and he rips down with his axe. It hits at the same time as Ulruil's second blow, and the demon unravels. Its spilled lines turn colder than the magma, then become the same temperature and vanish.
Hayhek shouts in triumph—the dwarf opposite points. One of the other demons is here too. Hayhek yells in horror and tries to guard, but he can tell his strike will hit too late. The demon does not continue its straight path though. Instead it warps its form and its trajectory curves.
It hits the shocked Ulruil head-on. Its twisting pattern flows into the third degree's helmet through where the breathing cable attaches, through gaps too small even for air, and Ulruil convulses.
He grasps at his helmet. He turns his sword inward, places it at the junction of his neck-plates, but the demon is already taking control, and it stalls the suicide blow.
Hayhek pushes and kicks backward. Taking on a possessed third degree alone would be madness. They must attack it simultaneously, all nine of them. But a quick glance shows that they are nine no longer. Three forms float limp in the heat. Two, including the one the first demon reached, have run each other through with their weapons, while another's air cable has been melted apart; his dead hands are outstretched toward the distant surface.
So they must fight six against one. Yet there are no other third degrees here, and the only fourth degree is one of the dead. Hayhek is a fifth, another two are fifth also, then there are two sixths and a seventh.
Against an ordinary third, they would have a chance. But against a possessed one, in its own realm, their chances are much diminished. And they cannot even communicate to form a strategy.
The demon turns Ulruil's body to pursue Hayhek. It slashes out. Hayhek blocks and nearly loses his axe. A wave of heat washes over his armor and he feels the clink of a ruby shifting in its loosened socket. Some of his runes must have imploded.
He strikes back. The demon pushes forward so the axe only clips its shoulder. The demon reaches out and grasps at his upper arm. The runeknight behind stabs squarely through Ulruil's overheating backplate, nearly the same heat as the magma now. It goes deep but has no effect on the demon's movement of Ulruil's body. Its fingers close around Hayhek's arm-plate. He screams as his flesh scorches.
The seventh degree runeknight swims for Ulruil's air cable. He tries to saw at it, but his poor blade can only scratch it. Hayhek swaps his axe to his left hand and drags it up. It bites into Ulruil's thumb, severs it, and the demon's grip comes away. The runeknight behind strikes again, this time through Ulruil's neck. The demon shows no sign it feels anything, and with speed that is shocking for a movement done through heavy molten stone, but slow enough that Hayhek can see exactly where the demon is aiming—it grabs the runeknight's cable where it joins her helmet. It squeezes hard. The tungsten takes on the equivalent of brightness and falls away, its broken part only barely distinguishable from the magma.
Hayhek yells in rage and slashes upward into Ulruil's armpit. His axe bites the molten metal and breaks through to the burning flesh beneath. Ulruil's arm jerks violently as muscle turns to steam and exploding charcoal. He swims upward and away a few yards, and he gestures for the rest of the converging runeknights to do the same.
The demon is weaponless. One of its hands is thumb-less, and its sword-arm is useless. Its armor is breached in several places and before long Ulruil's body within will be burned to ash.
The seventh degree dives past him. Hayhek yells for him to stop, though of course the shortbeard cannot hear. It is a useless sacrifice. He doubtless thinks he is buying time for the rest to escape, but the demon's movements are already slowing. Yet there is enough strength left in Ulruil's body to grasp the seventh degree in a burning, melting embrace. The seventh degree convulses as his armor buckles and heats.
Hayhek is unable to watch. He and the three other survivors turn and flee as fast as their strength will pull them.