The runes are complete. The poem lies spread out on the anvil in a circle, each stanza like one petal of pressed flower—a kind of colored surface plant. That this comparison springs to mind is perhaps not a coincidence. My poem references the surface heavily—maybe this was a bad idea, to write of something I have never directly seen.

Or, I consider, recalling Jaemes’ theory of the origin of runes of light, perhaps to write about the surface was the most natural path to take. Did not those northern dwarves yearn for the beauty of the sun and moon shining through the icy roofs of their halls? Maybe runes of light were designed with the beauty of the surface in mind.

We shall see. As always, the proof will be in the finished craft. I lay my mace upon the anvil. Because it’s so long, I have to tie the end of the haft to the square-section while the head sits on the horn.

I move all the runes except for those of the first stanza to a side-table. Into the furnace I place a thin rod, and on the first flange I rest some grains of almergris.

We were told that the quantity that goes on each rune must be calculated exactly. Too much will destroy the rune, too little and it will not adhere properly to the metal. This is the same for every reagent, but with almergris the margins are even more extreme. I count and recount the grains of vivid yellow, double check my calculations, and only after I'm absolutely sure the amount is correct do I use a pair of tweezers to carefully place the rune on top.

I put on my blindfold. Light vanishes; I focus and sound intensifies, but even with my improved runic ears, making out details is no easy task. The rune sounds indistinct, wavers in time with the roar of the furnace, shakes in time with the clangs from the hammering of other dwarves.

I pick up the heated rod and bring it close to the rune. The heat emanating from it disrupts the air and obscures all remaining details, turning the rune to a formless blob in my hearing-vision. I curse and pull the rod away. In order to be accurate, I’ll have to thrust in one swift stroke. Now I understand the temptation the tenth degree had to open his eyes.

I judge my aim and, just as I might thrust Heartseeker into the gaps of an opponent’s armor, jab the hot iron just under the rune. The silver melds to the metal: with no way to see differences in colors, and subtle textures obscured by the interference of the heat, it just seems to disappear.

Briefly I consider lifting my blindfold to check—there should be no danger, technically, since it seems to have grafted—but I’m not going to risk it. If I’ve messed it up there’s no fixing things anyhow.

I proceed to the next rune. Placing the grains of almergris is rather difficult with only hearing to go by, but I think I manage, and the way the rune smoothly disappears into the titanium after I jab confirms this. I repeat the process with each rune, reheating the rod every ten or so, until all of the first stanza is grafted.

I flip the mace over so I can graft the second. My movements gain a rhythm to them. The process is not as difficult as I expected—as long as I aim carefully and jab confidently I’m at minimal risk. Only twice do I slip up and get sparks flying onto my sleeves. They burn through and blister my skin, making me hiss in pain, but I decide not to stop to inspect the damage. Maybe, if the almergris truly does have some spark of consciousness, stopping would be construed as weakness and the runes might flare up to blind me.

Steady hours pass until I graft the runes of the last stanza and step back. Slowly I count up to three hundred then, very slowly and tentatively, I remove my blindfold.

“No...” I gasp.

The runes are flickering unevenly, fading in and out like dying fireflies. A few stay lit, but their light is dim, barely enough to read by, let alone repel the darkness. Others are completely dull and dead. My strange abilities have failed me—this time the runes I wrote were no runes at all, simply twisted errors.

I slump to the stone and hang my head in shame. This is what comes from underestimating the almergris, feeling that I had mastered it so quickly. A lump forms in my throat as shame, sorrow, and self-hatred overwhelm me.

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Eventually I summon the strength to wipe away the tears, stand up, and trudge over to the anvil to pick up my failed craft. No matter how awful it feels to do so, every failure must be examined to prevent similar mistakes in future. I turn the head around, inspecting each flange to see what’s gone wrong. The runes are unchanged to how I wrote them onto the paper, and to me they still read as correct. I attempt to find a mistake. To my eyes there are none—

Wait, there! I see something, a rune with its bottom half melted and deformed. I try to remember on which stanzas I burned myself—yes, it was this one, the seventh stanza, and then on the tenth stanza. I read through that one and find another broken rune.

I stop my sigh of relief halfway. These might be what’s causing my runes to fail, or they might not. All the same, perhaps all is not lost, though I’m going to need to make some pretty drastic repairs.

The two affected flanges will have to be completely remade, re-welded, and re-enruned. First to remove them. I dig out a diamond-edge cutting file from a cupboard in the next forging pit along. It’s old, with about a third of its micro-diamonds missing, but it does the job just fine. Sparks spray onto my hands, my sleeves, and at my face; I hear their hiss and feel their heat.

The file cuts through the base of the flange and the metal falls off with a clang. The next comes off with no difficulty either. I run my finger over the cut. It’s very rough. With coarse sandpaper I polish to make a smooth surface to weld the new flanges to.

Down to the storerooms I go. Waiting for three more dwarves to make a group with takes some while. Once there, I explain the situation to the chamberlain and request permission to requisition two more ingots. He nods solemnly, and before long I am back in the forging pit hammering them out into large triangles.

Once completed, I compare them side-by-side with the old flanges. They sound to be roughly the same dimensions, but roughly isn’t good enough. I clip away excess metal from the edges, heat and hammer to extrude them back into shape, compare again using both my eyes and my runic ears.

Done. Now to weld them. Worried about how the heat will affect the almergris binding the runes on the other flanges, I tie another thick piece of fabric over my already thick blindfold. Onto the smooth edge where the old weld used to be I sprinkle grains of almergris, touch the hot iron to it, weld.

A rush of extreme heat bakes my fingers in my gloves. I grit my teeth, endure the pain and press down hard to ensure the weld is tight. I leave it to cool, and after the heat shimmer dissipates I can hear that although the weld is somewhat rough, there’s no gaps that need to be patched over. Welding the next flange goes smoothly also.

I file away the smudges of excess metal around the welds. Some titanium dust gets into my nose, making me sneeze.

Back to enruning; I twist silver wire into the runes of the removed four stanzas then graft. I go almost comically slowly, determined not to make another mistake. My heart is thudding hard—what if the two melted runes were not what went wrong?

I focus and finish. I close the box of almergris and pace around the forge. The heat-shimmer dies down. Now is the moment of truth. I remove my blindfold.

I breath a sigh of relief. The runes shine bright, filling the forging pit with harsh white radiance. I grin—I never should have doubted myself. I untie the craft from the anvil and lift it high with both hands. It’s gleaming even more brilliantly than it was a few seconds ago.

The brightness increases further. I frown. It increases even further and I’m forced to shut my eyes tight. It's so bright I can see the veins in my skin, then the light begins to dim. My heart skips a beat. I open my eyes: the mace's light goes from blinding to merely very bright, then to simply shining.

Now to dull dimness.

“No, no, no!” I hiss. I shake it. “No!”

The light vanishes entirely. I fall to my knees in despair.

Then, in the center of each rune, a spark of white appears. The sparks expand, and now the mace is glowing softly, now glowing brightly. I shut my eyes, then have to turn my head away when the shape of the mace begins to show through my eyelids. It’s as bright as the hottest dragonfire.

Slowly it begins to dim once more. I look back at it, sick in my stomach, cold sweat forming on my brow. The light disappears. Then, in exactly the same manner as before, the runes re-light themselves.

I place my craft on the anvil and step back. The mace becomes blinding—even when I turn my head away, just the light reflected off the rough gray steps of the pit is enough to send twinges of pain shooting through my pupils. It reaches its zenith, stays at that brightness for a moment, then dims once more.

One, two... at the fifteenth second the light disappears. After another fifteen seconds the light reaches its zenith again. I take a few more counts, and the period doesn’t change. The light is rising and falling as regularly as the breathing of some great animal.