Three of the seven guards hurry out, looking confused. The four who remain stare at me oddly, as if they cannot quite believe that I am truly about to do this, that a dwarf so relatively young and inexperienced could have already hit upon the deepest secret.

“Thank you,” I say quietly to Nazak, but my concentration has already wandered away from him and back to my metal.

I lay another hammer blow into the rod of white-bright tungsten—steel or titanium would do just as well, but I use what I am now most used to. It flattens, extends, and over the hours becomes a knife, though it is unlike most knives: I give it no point, and make its blade straight instead of curved. This tool is for scraping, not cutting.

Metal on metal echoes and white sparks fly. My shaping fails twice—I cannot allow any error. But my patience seems to have returned, for I feel no anger when I fail. As long as I apologize to the metal properly, no ill will come of my failure, and although that apologizing, that reworking, takes time, time is meaningless in this place of metal. Progress is measured not by hours, but by the flash of sparks and the anvil's rings.

After many, many strikes, the shape is complete. I gasp and stagger over to a waterskin the guards have left me—when they left it, and if I asked for it or not, I do not know. After letting the coolness soothe my throat, I take another look at what I've made. The knife is an ugly shape, almost brutal in its functionality. Though it is not a pick, it reminds me of one. Its purpose is the same.

The shape is still rough. I equip my runic ears and all light fades. I tap. The sound of the piece is brutal also. Its single note is not quite in tune, and even after many heatings and tappings, gentle nudgings to get each plane and edge exactly aligned, the note is still not in tune. It cuts into my ear at an uncomfortable angle, as if my murderous intentions are clear even at this mid-way stage of the craft.

Maybe I should stop—this thought crosses my mind for a brief moment. Just because all senior runeknights are happy to treat noble metal as ore, does not mean I must. I already have a power that sets me ahead of others, do I not? The power of runeforging.

This thought vanishes. My fellow dwarves are more important than metal. My crafts must improve.

The runes are what will provide my knife's real function. I do not know how most runeknights create their tools for the mining of true metal—I have never seen such a tool, all must keep theirs secret, never show it, never speak of it. Each runeknight must make one using his own method.

I have the power of runeforging. I will create a rune for truth and uncover the secret that way. First, I must choose my materials. For reagent I consider hytrigite, but its nobility will not take well to the ignobility of my craft's purpose. Instead I shall use incandesite. It will burn away the untrue metal, the inferior stuff, to reveal what is hidden within. However, for the runes themselves I will use stable platinum, for I do not want to accidentally damage the true metal with the instability that gold or silver can sometimes impart—if it is even possible true metal to be damaged, that is.

Perhaps I will reforge this implement, once I know more about the substance.

Now I plunge into the magma. The sphere propels the heat of the world's blood through me and I create my poem. I use my runes of magma, since they are my most powerful creations, and write of burning and melting metal to extract what is needed. I utilize no metaphors, and my stanzas are simply structured. This choice in itself reflects truth: there is to be no complication—only melting and scraping, to result in revelation.

Only one new rune is needed: that for truth. Into the word vi-seh I put my understanding of what truth is. It is a lack, I decide, a lack of fakery and falsehood. It is everything Xomhyrk was and Vanerak is not. It is the opposite of Runethane Yurok's darkness and delusions, of Runethane Broderick's cowardly attack at the city's weakest. It is the final verdict of the Trial by Forging, and a rejection of how Vanerak attempted to corrupt that.

It is the simple honesty of Guildmaster Wharoth.

The symbol twists into being: a triangle, open at one side, with a single line inside it. This is the most simple rune I've made in my magma script yet, though that does not mean it will be easy to write. I can already tell that if each angle is not twisted perfectly the rune will not function at all.

I do not allow the power to take over me fully, for I do not want to hurt the metal any more than necessary. The hidden element within me, or within the sphere, must not be allowed to raise its head to alter my intentions. When I leave the trance, I am drenched in sweat, but my body remains strong and unfevered.

My hands have not touched the reagent and metal yet. I must twist the runes manually. Although it has been a long time since I did this, my fingers have lost none of their skill and precision. Weaving the wire into symbols, even such tiny symbols, gives me little difficulty. I only have to remake a few, and then the poem is nearly complete. Only the rune for truth remains.

As I suspected when I made it, despite its simplicity in design it requires great precision to create. The first few times I twist and cut, no power at all comes from it, not even the merest hint. I try again, and again once more. Still there is something wrong.

I equip my runic ears. They are more sensitive than my eyes. I will hear the shape and alter it into correctness.

It is nearly too small to make out. I have no way to chime it either, for even the merest tap would bend it. Nevertheless, like a whisper heard from across a vast cave, I can hear it, just barely, and if I still my breathing and concentrate, I can make out far more detail in this whisper than I could visually. I use two metal rods to push, very gently, at its form, and after close to a hundred minor bendings and straightenings, the rune for truth is into shape and my poem is finished.

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Now to graft. I push the grains of incandesite into exact place, lay a rune upon them, light. Red flashes. Rune by rune, power takes shape upon the tungsten blade.

Nazak and the other senior runeknights watch in awe. Perhaps for them this process was much more difficult; perhaps it takes most runeknights many attempts, many long-hours in study of runes and composition of lines until they are able to create a craft that works.

I graft the final vi-seh rune of truth and an aura of power envelops the metal. This aura is not visible, but instead felt as a burning sensation. I wince as I hold the craft up for examination.

In many ways, it is contradictory. It speaks of noble truth, of finding the pure metal hidden in the mundane, yet this apparently noble purpose is in fact anything but. It is brutal. It is mining. Even the name, true metal, is a misnomer to my thinking. Ordinary metal is plenty powerful and useful. What could ever make it untrue? It is cruel to destroy it.

The master mason feels exactly the same way about ore, doesn't he? It is fitting that my craft should be contradictory. The very concept of a runeknight is contradictory. We say we are above destruction and value ourselves solely based on the beauty and power of what we create. Yet in order for that beauty to be born, we must destroy.

The miners are our scapegoat for this. But when it comes to surpassing ordinary metal, what can be extracted from the stone with magic-less heat and force, miners cannot be used. The runeknight must do that himself.

Thus, runeknights are miners. Thus, runeknights must hate miners, lest it be suspected that we are no better than they are.

But I am getting ahead of myself. This is a fascinating and beautiful craft—though within the beauty is also grotesquerie—yet it may not even work.

I take a heavy block of tungsten from the stores, heft it onto the anvil, and place my blade upon it.

The moment the enruned blade touches the metal, warm power hums in the air. The blade trembles; the tungsten seems to recoil. I get the sense that it is trying to compress itself to avoid the blade. I swallow. This is mining, what I am about to do. This pure hypocrisy, destruction disguised as nobility.

I scrape the blade along the tungsten. Red-hot dust blooms and vanishes into nothing. The metal judged unworthy is gone, annihilated. I scrape the blade back the other way. More dust rises and vanishes. Heat turns to cold. I scrape once more. There is a flash of white, a tiniest spark.

Could this be a sign of the true metal?

There is no way of knowing but to dig deeper, mine further into the metal. I scrape again, pressing the blade in hard as I do so. The cloud of burning tungsten nearly scorches my face. More white flashes, in sparks and little trails.

This has to be it! This has to be the true metal. But what exactly is it? And how could it have been so well hidden, never revealed to me before after thousands upon thousands of strikes upon the metal? And what power, exactly, does it truly hold?

I scrape back the other way, applying even more pressure. Over the side of the dark metal a few grains drop and rattle onto the anvil. My mouth drops open in awe. I put down the knife and brush one of the grains into my palm, then hold it up to the light of the daycrystals for examination.

It is unmistakably tungsten. I know that metal intimately and can tell this. But I can also tell that it exceeds tungsten. It is a little heavier than it should be, a little colder. I squeeze it between two fingertips and find that it is a little harder.

I brush the grains into a small shallow crucible. I shake it a little and listen closely. Yes, this substance is tungsten, and at the same time more than tungsten. There is power to it, power akin to the power in reagent—magic. An almost living power.

Heat appears, vanishes into cold. The metal is burning, dying, suffering murder. I delve deeper, scraping harder and more slowly, applying maximum pressure. More white sparks appear. More tiny grains roll off onto the anvil, and I sweep each and every one into the crucible.

This is it! The truth of metal! I have found it, found the power I have been searching for!

Scrape by scrape I whittle away the tungsten. There is only a thin layer left now, and my final strokes eviscerate it. One last grain of true metal flashes and rolls on the anvil. Feeling supremely satisfied, I brush it into the little crucible, which I now proudly hold up under the light to see exactly how much true metal I have acquired

I tilt the crucible from side to side and watch the grains roll. There is maybe a gram and a half in it.

Is that all? I bring the crucible close to my eye, but nothing has been caught in the corners. This is all there is: a gram and a half. Out of twenty kilograms of tungsten I have produced no more than a gram and a half of true tungsten.

The waste astounds me. The magnitude of my crime against the metal drags down upon my heart. A low groan escapes my lips and I sink to the floor. Almost twenty thousand grams of noble, strong tungsten, that could have been forged into something fine and beautiful, has been murdered. I have murdered it. I have rent the metal into nothingness just as I used to rend rocks into dust alongside Hardrick.

“What are you groaning for?” Nazak says angrily. “You have accomplished in a single long-hour what takes most dozens of long-hours to accomplish. Where is your pride?”

“Is this not a crime against metal?”

“It would be a crime against your fellow dwarves, whom you have sworn to help and protect, not to utilize such power.”

“What is it, even?”

“Metal beyond metal. Gems live—metal does also. Some metal lives more than other metal. You have separated the strong from the weak.”

“The weak could have been useful too.”

“No. It was holding back the strong. Just as stone holds back the strength of metal in it, until it is thrown into the smelter.”

“Ore cannot be made useful at all. Ordinary tungsten can.”

“Ore could be walls, or shelter, or ammunition for slings like those troglodytes wield. But it is more useful in death than in life. Same with mundane metal.”

“I cannot accept this. How can the Runethane accept this?”

Nazak's expression darkens. “Halax taught me a word once: heresy. The meaning is to go against a great and good power. The sky-worshipping humans use their equivalents frequently.”

“What have humans got to do with this?” I shake my head. “This is a dwarvish crime.”

Nazak stands and jabs his finger through the broken bars at me. “A crime?” he shouts. “A crime? To call it a crime is heresy! You go against all that we stand for, traitor. Miner! So what if our power is gained through the death of metal? If it protects your fellow dwarves, where is the issue? Tell me!”

I shake my head. I am unable to put my feelings into words. I cannot even sort them into thoughts.

“You cannot tell me. So be silent. Never accuse your fellows, and your Runethane, of committing some kind of crime in our pursuit of perfection. There is no crime here.”

“Yes, honored runeknight Nazak,” I say quietly. “I am sorry if I caused offense.”