A few weeks pass, and thankfully no one else has been killed, but the atmosphere in the fort remains as tense as ever, and because these dwarves judge time based on order of events rather than hours and days, I think it will remain tense until Mathek’s murderer, dwarf or otherwise, is caught.

Everyone speaks in whispers, though they know full well that the deep darkness is attracted by heat and light. And they speak less than they used to, laugh less. It makes for a difficult environment to live in. The worst times are when I’m in my room alone, trying to sleep. I keep my candle lit, of course—I think everyone does—yet even so, every time I close my eyes I am struck with the thought that I might never open them again.

To stop myself fretting, I try to fill my mind with the complicated business of designing my amulet of unaging. The runic poems I must write are far too difficult to focus on while distracted, and so composing them proves an effective remedy for my fear. When I sleep, I sleep with a mind whirling with shifting runes.

Nthazes has told me that there is no set structure for the runes that must be inscribed into the gems, but that I must create a structure compatible with my own body, mind, and heart. The trouble is, I don’t really know that much about them.

My body, as far as I can tell, is pretty much the same as every other dwarf’s. I am of average height, slightly less than average weight, and there is nothing special to say about my beard, eyes, or any other facial features. Perhaps the gem I choose ought to be slightly smaller, if I am a touch less stocky than everyone else? Yet somehow I don’t think that’s quite what he meant. Maybe I should be thinking less about the outer parts of my body and more about the inner, since that’s where the real damage of aging comes from, yet there’s nothing special about my innards either.

Not that I’ve ever checked, of course.

As for my mind and heart, I suppose I’m more determined than most I’ve met, relatively smart and very talented in the forge, but I’m not quite sure how that can translate to my choice of runes and gemstones.

I draft and re-draft, both inside my head and some paper Jaemes has lent me, and though I come up with plenty of ideas that seem good at first glance, on reconsideration none of them ever quite seem to fit.

Still, Nthazes did warn me it wouldn’t be easy. Nothing ever is—least of all the other task that I’ve decided to take upon me. If none of the other runeknights will take Jaemes’ theory seriously, I believe I ought to. At least someone should pursue the possibility. And if I do catch the killer—if one exists—then maybe that will, in some small way, make up for all the devastation I caused in my dealings with the black dragon.

I’ll need to persuade an ally, though. Someone who knows the fort and the dwarves in it better than I do, and who also doesn’t have an instinctive dislike of anyone born in the caves above them. Nthazes.

He’s promised to meet me here after he leaves the Shaft, yet of course there’s no set time. In the meantime I scribble runes on a piece of paper, cross them out, rearrange them, read them over, and calculate how the curvature and facets of the gemstones I eventually choose will influence the harmonics. None of it comes out quite right.

Quicker than expected, there comes a knock on my door.

“I’m here,” says Nthazes.

I let him in. He's wearing full titanium plate and carrying his two-handed light-enruned mace over his shoulder. Its brightness fills the room and makes my eyes water with pain.

“Sorry about the brightness,” he says, and places the massive mace in the corner of my room, head down and haft leaning against the wall. “You should throw your blanket over it.”

I carefully place one of my blankets over the head, not wanting to disrespect the weapon by throwing one. The cloth dims the light to merely very bright instead of blinding.

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“Shall I sit down?”

“Just on the bed is fine,” I say.

He sits down and takes off his helmet, places it beside himself. His gray-blue eyes flick to the papers on my bedside table.

“Do you want to discuss your runes?” he asks. “I’ll help as much as I can, but your runes really ought to be created by you alone. Though I can give you some more pointers.”

“No. I’ll work them out myself,” I reply, gathering up the mess of papers and putting them in the drawer. “I want to talk about Mathek’s death.”

He nods solemnly. “I see. We’re all on edge about it. But I’ll assure you the deep darkness hasn’t being strengthening. We’re not in danger of being overwhelmed, even if some part of it did get into the fort.”

“So you think the darkness is behind it, then?”

“What else? No creature could have snuck into the fort from above.”

“The deep darkness has never been known to send offshoots into the fort either.”

“Not to my knowledge,” he admits. “But the state of Mathek’s body... It wasn’t so dissimilar to how you end up if the darkness touches you.”

“It wasn’t exactly the same, though.”

“No.”

“If it wasn’t a creature from above, and it wasn’t the darkness, that leaves only one option.”

He frowns. “You’re suggesting we believe the human?”

“Yes,” I say. “Or at least, we should consider that he may be right.”

“I know you’re friends with him, Zathar, but he’s not like us. He doesn’t understand us dwarves. I don’t think he quite understands the importance of our duty, either. To him the deep darkness is a curiosity, to us it’s life and death.”

“I think he understands dwarves well enough. And at any rate, I understand dwarves. Maybe more than most down here.”

“Is that so?” he says.

“I’ve seen dwarves kill each other for pride. Kill each other because that’s what they were told to do. Kill each other for no reason at all. Vanerak—a first degree up where I came from—loosed an abyssal salamander on a bunch of initiates, simply because he knew the Runethane would let him get away with it, if only once.”

“Yes, but that was all up there. Down here there’s none of that.”

“All the same, dwarves are dwarves. You down here are not so different from everyone else above. Don’t you think it’s possible for at least one of you, at some point, to develop a hatred so strong it leads you to slay another?”

He scratches his beard. “I think it’s very unlikely. Certainly I can’t imagine hating someone that much.”

“Maybe you can’t. But others can.”

“Who’s to say Mathek was killed out of hatred anyway?”

“Whoever killed him must have been feeling pretty strongly about something.”

“If it was a dwarf who killed him.”

“Yes, of course. We can’t say for certain. But shouldn’t we at least consider that it’s possible?”

He thinks deeply for several minutes. “I suppose it’s possible,” he says eventually. “Things aren’t perfect here, after all. There are certainly some who feel less strongly about our duty than others.”

“In that case, will you help me?”

“Help you?”

“Yes. Help me to find out who killed him.”

“You only said we should consider the possibility.”

“I know. We might find no one, and then we’ll know that Jaemes was wrong.”

“I... I’m not sure. Certainly the Runethane would never give us permission. I don’t think Cathez would help either—he’s never been the greatest supporter of having a human down here.”

“We don’t need permission. We won’t break any rules or disrupt the fort in any way. All I’m suggesting is that we ask around, see if Mathek had done anything that might have upset someone, or just said anything out of the ordinary. See if anyone saw or heard anything strange lately. Snoop around a little, see if there’s anything in the storerooms someone might have missed.”

“I don’t know about this, Zathar. I don’t want to attract any unwanted attention. I certainly don’t want the Runethane to get suspicious of me.”

“There’ll be nothing suspicious about it. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, and I can’t see what the Runethane or anyone else would have against us taking a good, bright look around the storerooms.”

He looks down, frowning, thinking hard.

“What do you say?” I ask nervously.

He looks back up at me. “All right,” he says. “If it’s for the fort, it’s our duty to at least consider every possibility, no matter how unlikely. As long as we don’t disrupt anything.”

“Excellent,” I say.

“I don’t think we’ll find anything though.”