“Well?” I say. “Have you spoken to your other two yet?”

A few days—I think it’s about that long—have passed since my conversation with Hirthik, and now I'm back in the forges with Nthazes.

“Yes,” he says, without much enthusiasm.

"No luck? Nothing?”

“Nothing, just like I thought. Everyone here gets along, Zathar. No one had any reason to hurt Mathek.”

“Someone did, though.”

“Maybe. But like I said before, it’s only a slim possibility. And it seems our sources have run dry.”

“I don’t think it is such a slim possibility. The more I think about the darkness somehow changing, the less likely it seems.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m sure of it!” I insist. “Mathek was murdered.”

“We haven’t got any evidence, though. Not even a hint.”

“There must be something we’ve overlooked.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to think about it. We ought to search the storeroom where he was killed too.”

“It’s been scoured five times over already.”

“Yes, but they were looking for the darkness, not anything left behind by another dwarf.”

“Even so, if there’d been anything out of the ordinary someone would have noticed.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, all right,” Nthazes sighs. “I’ll go through the storerooms with you, once I’ve finished what I’m working on.”

I nod. “Thanks for all your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll tell you more about the world up above sometime.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I frown. “You don’t sound so keen as you used to.”

“Just tired,” he says. “See you later.”

“See you.”

He leaves me in the pit. I sit down on the steps and sigh deeply—I feel I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Asking about Mathek has proven to be a dead end. Whoever killed him either had some motive other than a grudge, or else kept very quiet about their feelings.

Or, of course, there was never any murderer. That’s always a possibility; in which case in every shadow death could lurk...

I shake my head. No point working myself up while I’ve got forging to do. It’s time to embark upon the delicate business of grafting runes to my finished soles.

With the very last of my honor I requisitioned some fine gold wire and a small box of powdered incandesite, though in all honesty, I don’t think incandesite is quite the right choice for the runes of gripping, grasping, hardness, softness and elasticity the poems I’ve drafted contain: it’s volatile where I need stability. Yet hytrigite is unaffordable, I don't think quizik will have the bond strength necessary for the amount of strain put on the runes as they're rubbed against the stone, and I've never worked with the other reagents available before. So incandesite it is.

I start by measuring out how much wire I can use in each rune. For the script I’m using, as with nearly all scripts, making sure each rune is the same size is important. One of the worst mistakes initiates make is writing their first few runes very large—in the mistaken superstition that bigger means more powerful—then running out of space and making the following ones too small. If you do that, you completely ruin the harmonics.

I’ve never made that mistake and don’t plan to now. I cut out my lengths of wire, longer for the more complex runes, shorter for the simpler, all carefully calculated so that when I bend them into shape each rune will be exactly one point six six centimeters in both height and width. It’s an extremely painstaking process, but my eyes and mind are well-practiced.

Once each is cut, and thirty times twenty lengths of thread-thin gold lie before me, I begin to twist them into shape. Since there are no books of runes here, I go from memory. Strangely I don’t find this to be a disadvantage; I’ve never found myself relying on dictionaries for my runes, even when I was a tenth degree and relying on them was very much expected of me.

No, they come into my head naturally. Once I’ve stared at a rune for a while, working through its pattern and how the various sections of it interact to create its particular meaning and influence its relationship to the other runes of its script, I don’t forget it. Never have. My fingers move almost of their own accord, as if the memories are in them rather than my brain.

I stop and look down at what I’ve twisted into shape, suddenly doubting. Am I sure these are right? Are they as written in the runic dictionaries? Certainly they are functional and legible: each has a meaning determined by its sections and their arrangement.

A ten year old memory resurfaces: of Guildmaster Wharoth confiding in me that my runes were not normal, that they were new, unseen, originally created by my hand. Are these new also? I stare into the twisted shapes of gold, yet can see nothing unique. They are as they are written into my memory.

Jauseth: soften-relax-surrender-to-force.

Hyeoli: bend-and-never-resist-strength-in-flow.

That’s what these runes read, isn’t it? Of course it is. They could mean nothing else, each line, square, bend and circle of them works together to create those meanings. I am a runeknight and thus I understand this.

I shake my head. No. I’ve never created a new rune, no matter what Wharoth and Vanerak had to say. Besides, what does it matter? My runes work, always have. Look at Heartseeker, I remind myself, and I gaze upon its dark blade that sucks the light from the air in a physical manifestation of its hunger to maim.

Metalwork is troublesome, but my runes are never mistaken. There’s no need for me to doubt my fingers.

I continue to work the gold wire until my fingers are trembling and aching. Spots of blood appear under the tips of my fingernails, where occasionally I’ve jabbed myself. There was no pain—I was too focused for pain, and now I’m done. Twenty runic poems lie arrayed on the anvil before me, those praising hardness and grip bent convexly to fit on the wave-peaks, those praising flexibility bent concavely to fit the troughs. I read over them to confirm there are no errors.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There are none, but I don’t allow myself to smile yet. It’s time to graft them to the titanium. I’ve never grafted runes so thinly wrought before, but the process will be no different to how I grafted my very first runes, on that first knife of mine that Wharoth took such a deep interest in, with the incandesite that led me to my first freedom.

Still, this is going to be a delicate operation.

I heat the titanium ever so slightly, brush the underside of my first rune with incandesite, and with a pair of very delicate tweezers, place it in its proper location. The incandesite shimmers slightly as the heat-glow of the titanium suffuses it, softens it to slight stickiness. This keeps it in place as I very carefully brush some more powdered incandesite into the slight gap where some came off when I picked the rune up with my tweezers.

Incandesite fully applied, I do the next rune, making sure it’s exactly the right distance away from the first. Some dwarves like to rely on rulers and other measures for judging this, however I’ve always found they get in the way. Better to rely on your eyes—like Jaemes lectured to me, us dwarves have exceptional close-up vision and steady, coordinated hands.

Mine serve me well. After some period of time that felt quick due to my intense focus, yet was probably anything but, the runes are in place. I heat up a small brand, and one by one, touch it to each of the gold pieces. The brand is white hot—the incandesite must flare into activation an instant before the gold melts and ruins the shape of the rune.

I don’t make this mistake either. Not once. I step back and watch the runes shimmer. Now to test that they work. I pick up the sole, and it bends just the way I wanted it to. A little too much—seems that maybe incandesite was too enthusiastic a choice for this craft.

Still, it’s too early to tell just yet. The true test will come once I fit the rest of the pieces to it. Then we’ll see how much it improves my mobility.

Right now though, I need a break. I sit back down on the steps and notice that my hands are shivering. This is a common condition after too much runework—I’ll have to let them rest for a day at least, and make sure to eat and drink plenty. My head is spinning as well; too much concentration has exhausted my brain. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind, but this is hard with the clang of hammers and occasional snatches of conversation echoing in my runic ears.

Just as I’m about to remove them, I hear the doors to the forges swing open rather more violently than they usually do, and I sense two figures come through them in parallel then stride briskly apart from each other. I don’t need to be able to see the two dwarves to sense the iciness between them, and I think I can guess who they are.

I hurry up the steps to confirm. Yes, it’s Fjalar and Galar, down here for more mad and experimental forging, separately. Fjalar quickly disappears into his forging pit, but Galar is slower. He’s hefting a bundle of titanium poles—I dread to imagine the price he paid for them.

This is an opportunity, I suddenly see. Galar acted awfully friendly with me after my first disastrous hunt, and maybe he’d be willing to talk about Mathek, just so long as I catch him now and don’t interrupt him in the middle of forging. Though I don’t think they really knew each other, there’s still a slight chance he knows something. And I need every chance I can get.

I approach his forging pit just after he enters it.

“Hey,” I call down to him.

He looks up in surprise, then grins. “Ah, Zathar!”

“It’s been a while,” I say.

“A while? That one of those funny words to do with time?”

“Yes. Means we haven’t spoken for... Never mind.”

“Well, whatever. You finally decided I’m worth talking to, eh?”

“I was hoping to ask some questions.”

He grins even wider. “Ask away! I may only be a lowly seventh degree, but that’s because I’m an experimenter. A maverick.”

Ah, he thinks I want to ask for advice on forging. Well, I’ll play along if that’s what he’s keen to talk about, and after that I can steer the conversation to a more useful direction. I descend into his pit.

“You believe in coming up with new techniques, then?” I say.

“Yes. Do you?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever come up with any myself. But I’ll try anything if I think it’ll improve my equipment.”

“Never come up with anything yourself, you say? That spear of yours is awfully interesting.”

I smile. “It’s an effective weapon, yes. Though recently I’ve been thinking its color is a bit unfortunate. It draws odd looks sometimes.”

“Originality always draws odd looks. That’s just a fact of life.”

“What are you planning to make then?” I ask. “If you wouldn’t mind telling me.”

“Well, I can’t give away too many details, you understand.”

“Just an overview is fine.

“It’ll be long. With three points.”

“A trident? I’ve only seen a couple before.”

“Oh. Not as original as I thought, then.”

“Sorry.”

“Never mind. It’s still going to be unique.”

“Light enruned?”

“Yes. Most like maces to put their runes of light on, for a bigger surface area, but surface area isn’t everything.”

“Interesting.”

“I’ll give everything away if I tell you any more, though... Ah, but I’ll give you a clue.” He grins in a conspiratorial fashion. “It’s going to blast the darkness right away. Get the hint?”

“Not quite, I’m afraid. But I look forward to seeing it in action. It looks a bit more interesting than what I’m working on.”

“What’s that then?”

“Just a pair of boots. My first titanium craft, so I’m not trying anything too fancy.”

“Oh, you’re going the wrong way about it. Your first craft with a new material should be as fancy, as crazy, as original as possible.”

“That just means there’s more possibility for things to go wrong,” I point out.

“So? You can always obtain more.”

“Still, shouldn’t you get the basics down first?”

“Not at all. You should always push your limits. You can’t allow yourself to get bogged down in traditional thinking. Especially not right from the start, or it’ll taint the rest of your crafts for dozens to come.”

He makes the word ‘traditional’ sound like a grievous insult. Yet another reason for the rest of the dwarves to get along badly with him—when all your runes and techniques are those passed down from long forgotten ages, tradition becomes sacred.

“I see. Maybe I’ll try something new next time.”

“Yes, you must, if you’re going to be better than the rest.”

“Do you have any advice on making runes for light? I know a few basic ones, of course, but I imagine the ones used down here are a fair bit stronger. I’ve noticed a few scripts I’ve never seen before.”

He laughs. “Can’t, I’m afraid. This’ll be my first time working with them too. All I know for sure is that they’re dangerous. Grafting them is a great risk to your fingers.”

“Yet you’re experimenting all the same?”

“Like I said, I can’t afford to get bogged down in traditional thinking.”

“I admire your courage,” I say approvingly. “And I understand why you might want a powerful weapon, what with... Mathek and all that.”

His face darkens. “Yes. An awful way to go, that was.”

“Did he ever say anything, I don’t know... odd to you, before it happened?”

He shakes his head. “We were never that close.”

“Did anyone else say anything about him?”

He tilts his head slightly. “Why do you ask?”

“Just want to know if there’s any signs, you know, if the darkness starts to target you.”

“I don’t think there are. I think it just comes at you.”

“I see. Just makes it all the more frightening doesn’t it?”

I put a nervous tremor into my voice, but he doesn’t show any sign of sympathy, just continues to look at me with suspicion.

“As a friend,” he says, slowly. “I’ll warn you to be careful. Don’t buy into too much of what the human says.”

“I’m not—”

He holds his hand up to silence me. “I’ve heard you’ve been asking a lot of questions about Mathek. It hasn’t gone unnoticed, and it won’t do you any favors if the others start to lump you and the human together. Even if he does turn out to be right.”

I frown. “You think he might be?”

He hesitates before speaking. “Yes, it’s possible. Like I said, I’m not one for traditional thinking. Still, it’s unlikely. Quite unlikely... But in any case, you shouldn’t go snooping around. For your own safety.”

“I see. I’ll be more careful.”

“Yes, please do. It’d be a shame to lose someone so interesting. Good luck with your forging.”

“You too.”