“I heard someone was injured in the forges,” Jaemes says. “What happened?”

I grimace. This is not really something I want to be talking about over my meal. “A tenth degree tried to graft a rune with almergris. It wouldn’t light properly, so the fool opened his eyes to make sure of where he was prodding the heated iron.”

“Ah. Tragic, if predictable.”

“Very bloody predictable.”

“What are the others saying?”

“Some say it was his own fault for opening his eyes. Many put the blame somewhere else—I won’t say any more than that.”

Jaemes shakes his head. “Terrible,” he sighs. “I’m not a smith, of course, but I do wonder if it wouldn’t be prudent to cover your eyes securely when working with the stuff.”

“I plan to. Most do, but that’s because they can rely on their ears.”

“Which the lower degrees cannot,” he sighs. “Very predictable.”

“I just hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“It will. I know you dwarves: a human would tie a blindfold on, do a poor job of the craft, present the mess as his best effort and get away with no risk. But you dwarves are perfectionists. You’ll put your life and sight on the line for your craft, no matter how close that line may be to the precipice.”

“Well, quite,” I say, wondering if he’s insulting dwarfkind or praising us. “I just hope it doesn’t happen to too many more, then. And not as badly.”

“How bad is it?”

“You’ll see for yourself next time you go down to the infirmary. Not that there’s much to see: his eyes look the same as they always did—they just don’t work anymore.”

Jaemes nods. “Flash blindness. I’ve heard of the phenomenon. There’s no pain either, apparently.”

“His scream suggested otherwise,” I say bitterly.

----------------------------------------

Back in the forging pit, I resume work smoothing out the sides of the hexagon. It’s proving rather awkward work. At first, I simply hammered like I was when making the rough cut, but when I turned the piece around, I realized that if I hammered the opposite side while the smoothed side is against the anvil, I’d accidentally warp the smooth side.

So instead I have to heat the rod to yellow heat so it’s soft, stand it up, and hammer without using the anvil.

In order to see the details past the glow, I have to keep my face up close to it, which is unpleasantly hot, making my entire face sting, and also hurts my eyes. I keep blinking. In my runic ears is a constant hiss.

Time passes slowly; each tap frustrates me; the metal doesn’t want to go where I want it. The yellow glow continues to hurt my eyes. My arm grows tired faster than it usually does because of the awkward angles I’m forced to strike at.

Eventually I reach a point where my strikes are warping more than they’re smoothing, and decide to take a break. I sit down against the steps and rub my eyes. Maybe I didn't get enough sleep before coming down here—yes, that’s it. I couldn’t sleep for my worries about the almergris, about the killings, and about the rumors that we’re all going down the Shaft before long.

I look up at the ceiling. White flashes on the rough stone a few times every minute now. Plenty have finished the forms of their weapons and are now grafting—impatient lower degrees. It’s only a matter of time before there’s another accident.

A scream rings out as soon as that thought crosses my mind. I dash out the forging pit and this time am one of the first to make it to the injured dwarf. Blindfolded, he’s lying against the wall of his pit, clutching his wrist and making an expression of intense agony. On his anvil is a half-finished mace of light and an open box of almergris.

Quickly I close the box then dash back to pull him up and out of the pit with a few others. We coax his hand away from his wrist to see what’s happened—a terrible burn, the flesh reddened and blackened. He doesn’t seem to be in so much pain, mostly shock: a sure sign that the injury is a bad one.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“We need to hurry him up to the infirmary,” I say.

We lead him out the forging halls and along the dark corridors.

“I’m fine,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt all that much. Just wrap my wrist in something and I’ll get on with my forging.”

“No,” I tell him. “You’re badly injured, even if you can’t feel it.”

“You need treatment and rest,” adds one of the others escorting him. “You can get back to your craft when you’re healed.”

“I’m fine,” he says, then swallows. “Am I?”

“You will be after some salve and healing chains,” I say. “What exactly happened anyway?”

“Don’t know. I couldn’t see.”

I shake my head. “What degree are you?”

“Ninth.”

I take a look at his runic ears, which are clearly illuminated by one of the other dwarves’ maces. The metal is not very smooth, some of the garnets seem slightly misaligned, and there’s at least one mistake with the rhyming.

“You couldn’t hear what you were doing either, I suppose.”

“I could!” he cries indignantly.

“No you couldn’t,” snaps one of the other dwarves. “Not down to the fine details... Sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped. Not your fault.”

The injured dwarf bows his head. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”

“Not right now, no,” I say. “Not with almergris. Shit, what’s the Runethane thinking?”

“Careful now,” one of the others warns.

“He’s right though,” snaps another. “What the hell is the Runethane thinking?”

We make it to the infirmary and show him past the guards to the runeknight on medical duty. He sits the injured dwarf down on the floor and goes to get the salves. In the meantime I look around. All the beds are occupied, some with more burn victims. Clearly there have been more accidents while I wasn’t in the forging halls. The tenth degree who lost his sight is also here, staring blankly up at the ceiling from his bed and muttering silently to himself.

I walk over to Fjalar, look over him from an arm’s length away. He’s asleep, but apart from the many bandages wrapped around him, seems well. His skin has as much color as any other of the dwarves down here and his breathing is deep and even. I notice that some of the bandages on his shallower cuts have been removed to reveal faint scar-lines.

I don’t know how many days it’s been since we returned from the expedition, but it doesn’t seem like so many. His recovery, I feel, has been remarkably quick for one so brutally injured.

I glance back at the other dwarves. They’re fussing over the injured one, who’s yelping in pain as salve is rubbed into his wound. Very carefully, I step closer to Fjalar and, with a deft movement, pull the covers down a little from his chest to see his amulet.

As Jaemes said, it’s a ruby. A large one, though not unusually so. I can’t read the runes on the facets for the dim light. I reach toward it, then remember that I’m not alone and hurriedly pull the covers back up over it before anyone notices.

“Stop complaining!” someone snaps at the injured dwarf. “This is for your own good.”

“But it damn hurts!” he wails. “You’re making it worse!”

“Just be quiet,” says the runeknight on medical duty, wrapping the salved and bandaged burn tightly with a thin healing chain.

Wound treated, we lead the burn-victim to the meal hall and warn him to stay away from the forges until a thick layer of scarring has formed and there’s no stinging. Someone else will tidy up his materials and equipment.

We return to the forges. On the way, there’s a discussion about whether or not there’s been permanent damage to the tendon.

----------------------------------------

The flow-state I was in before the blinding still won't return, and the work remains grueling and frustrating, yet as a runeknight I endure the heat, stinging sweat, and burning in my muscles. Finally, after what feels like many hours, the sides are smooth enough and I put down the hammer. I file down the edges until they’re even too.

I tap the haft with a chiming rod and listen closely to the discordant ring. My runic ears are good enough that I can detect exactly where the unevenness is—it’s where the hexagonal top part of the rod becomes cylindrical. I heat and gently hammer until all is even, then cool, examine every side and corner from every angle.

Done, finally. Now for the head itself. I start with the flanges; I heat and hammer out the ingots, shaping them first into triangles with the help of tongs and vise, then flattening those triangles into semi-blades. They won’t cut anything—not deeply, anyway—but they’ll impart a great deal of concentrated force into whatever they strike.

Not that this matters against the darkness, of course. But who knows what other foe I might face with it in hand once my time down here with these dwarves of the deep is over?

Once they’re in shape I go through the usual process of evening and smoothing and making symmetrical, then I forge the metal cap they’ll be securely welded to. I bend my titanium sheet around the hexagonal haft-section, cut away the excess, and weld the seams tight.

Then I put it over the haft to make sure it'll fit. It does. Flanges and cap made, it’s time to assemble them—

I should weld with almergris. The realization hits me like a mace-blow. Each flange is going to have two stanzas of the same poem on it, so each should be linked with reagent, just as Heartseeker’s blade and shaft are welded together with incandesite.

I sit down on the steps to gather my thoughts, try to come up with some alternative solution. Could I craft a six-flanged mace all out of one piece of metal? Such a thing has been done, I’m sure. I would need to carve out a mold, pour the titanium into it in such a way that no gaps or weaknesses form...

No. I’ve already made the composite parts. It would be an insult to the metal I’ve just worked if I was to throw it away out of simple fear. There’s no getting away from it: the time has come to use the almergris.