We are fortunate not to meet any more slinkers. Vanerak was right about them being rare. It seems that was the only one in this part of the cave, lurking by the entrance in wait for any juicy travelers.

That's not to say the next five long marches are easy. Two times packs of amphidons attack us, of the biggest specimens I have ever seen. They are driven off, though one of the second degree runeknights is wounded. Poison snakes strike at us from within the vines. Sometimes their venom drips through gaps in armor and causes burning pain, though thankfully nothing more than that.

Our final foe before the crossing point is a copper crab the size of an ore-wagon-pulling blindboar. Vanerak and his runeknights do put it down, though not without damage to their armor; even Vanerak gets a single scratch.

All while they fight, I can do nothing but watch. My ruby burns with the desire to do battle, yet what can I do to assist these masters of forging and fighting? The weakest, even in his damaged armor, is twice my power, even were my equipment newly repaired.

The crossing-point is nothing as convenient as a bridge, just a section of the river where the banks aren't cliffs and the water calm enough to wade through. The water is clear, too. The amphidons see our blades and decide we're not worth attacking.

We continue to head downward, but this time Vanerak is keeping a close eye on the wall for openings. Each time we come to one, he sends Halax paired with one other down to quickly scout. The first ten Halax reports back as being danker than here, likely leading to further rivers and vine-jungles. The eleventh, however, he says leads to a drier tunnel of black stone.

“Let us see where that tunnel leads,” says Vanerak.

It twists and turns, and all the while leads downward. Could we have hit the mark—could we finally be leaving this place? Surely it is too good to be true, but a few long marches later and Vanerak is confident enough to announce that we are out of the underburrow.

“We have come into the realm of Runethane Irik. Finally we have returned to our kingdom.”

Finally indeed. Every fiber of my legs aches, my head is throbbing, my nose is running and I feel sick. In the right environment, and under the right stress, disease can affect even the toughest runeknights with the most powerful amulets of unaging. The other prisoners look even worse than I feel—the two dragonslayers are being held up by two runeknights, and Pellas and Guthah are slumped against the wall.

Still, though, we are out. So the underburrow is not so impassable after all—just so long as you have half a dozen first degrees and a runethane with you. Why post guards when you have slinkers to do their job for free, and far more effectively? I would not like to fight a war there. No wonder our relations with Runeking Talamak are kept neutral. Any army that had to go through here would emerge at one tenth strength, if that.

“We will find a caravanway,” Vanerak continues. “Until then, do not let your guard down. These are still wild and dangerous caverns. I can smell the stench of salamander.”

Salamanders! They hold no fear for me after the slinker. I lie down on the warm rock and shut my eyes. For a few seconds, I bask in relief—then I remember who I am with.

Vanerak is crueler and more dangerous than any slinker. He is crueler and more cunning even than the dragon.

And he has me in his grasp. At every break in the march from this point on he takes me out of earshot and interrogates me about my runes. His questions become more detailed, more pointed, and he does not abide vagueness. He asks after every last aspect of my runeforging:

“Describe every sensation you felt when you walked into the snow.”

“Tell me why you formed sazk in this shape.”

“Did your fingers heal more slowly or more quickly after they bled during the trial?”

“Describe in more detail what you felt while sinking through the magma.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Did you see or feel anything through the magma?”

I answer his questions as best I can, but he is never satisfied. Unlike the first time he questioned me, which took all of ten minutes, his interrogation sessions on this final leg of the march last an hour at a time at least, and each is an hour of intense discomfort—to talk into your own distorted reflection while seeing nothing of the face of your interrogator is unpleasant beyond words.

We march onward through the tunnels of dark stone. We're back down to the layer above the magma seas, I think. The dry heat provides evidence for this, and red glows through occasional cracks in the walls, and now and again our path will be blocked by a crevasse with a river of molten stone flowing at its base.

Many tunnels we are forced to abandon because the air becomes unbreathable. Down this deep, in an untamed part of the underworld, ventilation shafts, natural or dwarf-constructed, are rare. Toxic gas fumes up in certain tunnels too, and more than once we are forced to flee a roiling cloud of sulfur and smoke.

All the same, Vanerak does not seem so hurried. We are in friendly territory now. Eventually we meet some of Runethane Irik's dwarves—salamander hunters in fire-resistant armor wielding long spears. They tell us where the nearest caravanner run is, and we reach it in only a couple of long-hours.

It's different to the caravan road down to the fort was. Maybe because it's less well-traveled, for only salamander hunters have any reason to come to these particular caves, the stone is rough and broken, and it twists and turns only slightly less sharply than regular caverns do. Nevertheless, there is a station, a hollow with a trickle of water bubbling out a crack in the wall, in which we make our final rest.

Vanerak interrogates me for longer this time. After many questions about the exact runes I used on my armor and weapon, and on my shield of light also, he moves on to the topic I like discussing the least:

“Describe to me again how it felt as you sunk into the magma sea.”

“I felt a warmth around me, and saw a red glow—”

“The magma sea glows orange and yellow, not red. You cannot sink through rocks at only red heat.”

“That's what I saw.”

Is it, though? We've been over this so many times that I'm beginning to doubt my own memory. Maybe there was no red.

“Where did you first feel the heat?”

“Around my feet.”

“How hot was it, exactly?”

“Just warm. Like warm water, like a bath.”

“A lot cooler than real magma would feel.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Why do you suppose there was no pain of burning?”

“I... I don't know. I wouldn't hazard to guess.”

“Do you think it was simply a vision, or do you think some part of you was transported to the magma seas?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Think hard.”

I bow my head from his unnerving mask and look at the black rock of the ground. It's rough, a jagged roughness, like glass shattered and remelted with only a medium heat. There are reddish streaks through it of some mineral I do not know the name of. The stone is warm. If I didn't have boots on, it would be too hot to walk on. Beads of sweat drip from my beard and wet it.

I look back up.

“I think it was simply a vision,” I lie. “I don't think any part of me really went to the magma seas.”

“Is that what you truly think? Or are you just repeating what Runeking Ulrike told you?”

“He never told me it was just a vision.”

“You said that he told you it was just symbolic.”

Did I? He told me the sphere was just symbolic. A few rests ago, maybe I told Vanerak, falsely, that he said my journey into the magma was symbolic. My mind is addled from heat and fumes—I can't quite remember.

I think quickly. “Yes," I say, "But he didn't say that it wasn't real either. A symbol can be real, can't it? Like a rune.”

“Indeed. But whether your journey was symbolic or real is of importance.”

“I see.”

“You do not see how important.”

“It appears not, my Runethane.”

“The power of runes is the power of the molten world beneath bound into shape and meaning. You told me Xomhyrk instructed you of this, and I and all senior runeknights would agree.”

“Yes.”

“So if part of you went down into the magma sea, it would imply that you took some power from there, and brought it into the forge. Do you follow?”

“I think so, my Runethane.”

“Whereas if it was a mere vision, your power came from somewhere else. Within you.”

I wonder if his mind is turning to thoughts of cutting me open to see exactly where within me the power might be.

“Perhaps that is the case, my Runethane.”

“But in such a case, I do not see why you should feel as if you were sinking downward. You would sink inward.”

“Maybe. I really don't know.”

“Not yet. But we will find out. My realm lies very close to the magma seas.”

“So I have heard.”

“It lies closer than those in Allabrast know. Only a few miles from my nascent palace is the shore. A dangerous place to colonize, yet there are signs of riches washed up there.”

“You mean to say the magma is metal-rich?”

“No. Riches beyond metal. Knowledge—that is the purpose of founding the realm there. Lost knowledge. Runeking Ulrike believes there to be a great deal of it in the caverns we are conquering. You will soon learn more.”

“I would be honored to, my Runethane.”

“Go and rest now, Zathar. And think on your vision, or journey. It is key.”

Just one short-hour later, a caravan stops by. Vanerak pays the caravanner to turn back and transport us to his realm, and several long-hours' rumbling journey later, we arrive in his realm.