First to change the frame of my weapon. I take up the trident and examine the prongs carefully. How to cut? How to bend? What kind of bident, exactly, do I want to make?

There are two main kinds of bident: dwarf-catchers and weapon-catchers. The first has its prongs spread wide apart to catch the body of an opponent and pin him down, immobilize him. The second has its prongs set closer together to catch the enemy's weapon. The wielder then twists to disarm—or sometimes break, if it is a wrist he has caught.

The second is more popular than the first, since a dwarf-catcher requires allies to be used effectively. I have none—so I will make a weapon catcher.

Yet it cannot be just for catching weapons. It still, ostensibly, needs to be for killing demons. If Vanerak is hale and healthy, armor unbroken, when he emerges from the magma sea to meet my judgment, I will still need him to believe we are allies. Almost friends, maybe.

My rage may have grown, my desire for his blood increased by so much that my throat feels dry as chalk, but this does not mean I have lost control. I will not charge him head on. I am still waiting for my moment. I have patience—no matter how great my rage, I will not forget my patience.

Or have I? Running away—that would have been a more patient choice, no? But there is patience and there is cowardice. Deep down I know that Vanerak would still hunt me. And after he gains the knowledge in the sunken city, whatever it is, he will grow in power, while right now he is at his weakest. Right now, he has no army and no allies but for his few closest. Fighting the demons will have exhausted him. The moment to strike is now. To run would not just have been cowardly, but foolish.

My ruby burns. I laugh, shake my head. I could not turn back even if I wanted to. Braztak, just before we entered the mountain, suggested that if one's crafts seem to control you, it is really the you from back in the forge keeping you on the correct path. Keeping you from cowardice. I should thank my ruby for doing this—

“Stop dallying!” I hiss under my breath. “Forge!”

I use my diamond-saw to sever the middle prong of the trident. The look of the weapon makes me feel sick, all of a sudden. But I will remedy its injury, make it instead an alteration. I turn on my magma furnace to maximum heat and insert the bident's head. When it is glowing to just the right degree of white, I remove it and begin the hammering.

The prongs must be brought together first. I do this with hard strikes—though calculated ones. Excess metal juts out, which I sever, cutting carefully so there will be an even join. I hammer some more, with softer strikes to align the two sides of the scar. Everything I do with great slowness. This is almost natural to me now—I am in no hurry. If Vanerak comes—that does not matter.

Once the prongs have been brought together at the base, and no hint remains that there was once a third one, it is time to bend them. If I were making a careful, even, normal craft, this process would take me a long time. However, for the theme of chaos, of disrupting the insides of the demons, the prongs are already twisted in strange ways. So I do not have to be so exact with my angles, and I finish fairly quickly.

I stand the craft upright. I examine the head and am not quite satisfied. It still needs a more even degree of curvature for the grafting of the runes. With my runic ears on, I correct tap by tap. Its symphony can hardly be called such—the rampant twists, like horns grown wrong, disrupt the sound, and I end up relying more on touch than hearing.

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Nevertheless, eventually there comes a point where I am satisfied. I put my tools down and listen out the corridor.

The only thing outside is silence. However much time has passed, it has not been enough for Vanerak to return, nor for the demons to invade.

I banish the distracting thoughts. My frame still isn't quite complete—I still need to affix the thorns before I weld the true tungsten. I prepared a great many while making the ordinary tungsten's framework, and I bring them out now. Each is an angled spike, and very sharp.

Originally I was going to angle them outwards. But now that I have made a weapon-catcher, it seems more fitting to angle them inwards. When a weapon comes into their grasp, the thorns will scratch and bite at its runes, disrupting the careful layout of the poem and its runic flow.

I grin with teeth bared. This idea matches the double meaning of my own poem perfectly also.

Welding used to be an aspect of forging I was not so skilled at, but now I have no concerns. Helzar was forced to teach everyone her technique for creating and fixing barbs, and I asked many questions about it to the runeknights who came up to talk to me. Two parts quizik, one part incandesite, and half a part glasolite is the formula. I have it ready in a sealed container—this was another part of my preparation work—and I touch it to the base of each thorns. Once they have all been dabbed with the exact amount, according to their size, I heat the bident's head to white heat, though just a touch cooler than usual. Get glasolite too hot and it turns to extremely toxic vapor.

I lay the thorns out more or less at random. This is the way the others found most effective—it matches with the demon-killing poems' theme of discord. As each touches the bright metal, it suddenly glows bright as well. The reagent hisses like a coiled snake, ready to bite.

Now for the real thorns, the points of true metal. I examine the points of the bident against the true metal spikes once more, a triple check, and find the dimensions to my satisfaction.

I turn on both my runic furnace and my magma furnace. First I heat the bident, then lay it on the anvil, blunt points out. I let them cool slightly, to yellow, then I dot a tiny bit of quizik on one point.

I place the crucible holding the first small spike into the runic furnace's blue glow. White burns black shadows across the forge; I heat the true tungsten almost to melting. Quickly I take out the crucible and shake it until the spike is on its side with the base pointing outward. I shake it a little more, until the spike is protruding out the cup.

Very gradually I bring it toward the quizik-touched bident. This is an awkward way of manipulating it, but if I try to grasp it directly with the tongs, I risk melting them. Slowly I move the needle almost to touching. I must get the angle perfect. My heart is beating hard—I do not know if this is the right way to bond true metal to ordinary. I do not even know that you can do so—might all the living power vanish, rather than being imbued into the weapon as a whole?

I have no one to teach me. Maybe Wharoth would have been kind enough to help, once I figured out the main part of the secret. That's the sort of thing he might have done. But he is dead now. His bloody body, unburied, lies frozen on the snow far, far above.

I touch the true metal to the bident. The quizik flashes silver—devastatingly silver. All color vanishes from the forge so that for a moment it as if everything, the floor, the furnaces, and even the daycrystals are bright metal. I do not wince—keep the true metal in contact.

Slowly the silver fades. I put the crucible down, step close and kneel to inspect. A smile comes across my face, a rabid one. I have succeeded. I can feel life from the bident, from each tip of the thorns, and especially from this tip here before my eye. It wants to stab.

Even un-enruned, incomplete, this weapon is powerful. Not powerful enough, yet. I heat the bident again, press on some quizik, weld the next spike. The weapon shivers with more power, more life. I reverse it, heat the other end, and weld the final spike.

It is as if my weapon knows it is complete. I can nearly hear its voice, whispers desiring blood, on the last touch, as silver light covers all. Shadows dance like liquid darkness, angular, sharply-pointed things.

I pick the weapon up and raise it above my head. I yell in triumph. I have done it! I laugh madly. I have done it! I have forged the true metal!

Panting, I lower it back onto the anvil. It clinks. I am not done yet, I remind myself. Next is the poem, the trance, and if I burn, there is no one here to throw healing chains and water over me.