The decrees Runethane Yurok’s chamberlain announces are strict. Clearly moving about in pairs provided no protection, so now it's prohibited to travel in groups of fewer than four. We are forbidden from accessing our rooms, for the Runethane thinks it probable that the next killing will be of a dwarf sleeping alone. I can see the logic here—though the storerooms are wide and cluttered, and thus easy to spring an ambush in, a sleeping dwarf also makes for a tempting target. Yet I feel being forced to take our rest in the now crowded meal hall will worsen our morale and make us fatigued as well as fearful.

Only in the forges are we allowed time to ourselves, and even those are changed. From the honeycomb tombs of dwarves lost in ages past, ancient weapons enruned with light are brought forth and hung from the walls. Just touching such revered crafts seems like sacrilege to me, but the chamberlain justifies their use by saying the ancestors would not mind, had they understood the terrible danger we were in.

It still feels like sacrilege, barely one step away from actually wielding them—desecration of the dead. I’m not the only dwarf unhappy about it either. My ears pick up many grumbles each time I lie down to sleep amidst the rows of blankets and chests now cluttering the meal hall. And occasionally the discussions veer past the realms of mere grumbling and into more serious territory.

“It’s wrong,” someone whispers.

“An insult to the dead. It’ll bring worse curses on us! And Yalthaz’s mace did nothing anyhow.”

“We can’t know that for sure,” points out a third. “Maybe he managed to strike a blow to it before he fell.”

“Speculation.”

“A blow to it, or a blow to him?” asks a fourth voice, so low I can barely make out the words.

“You shouldn’t speak like that,” another warns.

“There was no sign of any shadows when we searched.”

“Be quiet! There’s no dwarf who would do such a thing.”

“There have been thousands of wars between dwarves.”

“This isn’t a war.”

“It is... Between dwarf and darkness.”

“What are you saying? That one of us is fighting for it?”

“I’m not saying anything. Just that we should keep in mind the possibility. Be on our guard.”

“So you are saying something, then.”

“...yes, maybe I am.”

“Silence!” hisses the first voice. “If the Runethane knew we were talking about this... And we’re not alone in here!”

“Maybe it’s best that others hear us. Maybe we should all—”

“Just shut up!”

They cease their discussion, but I have no doubt many more like it are going on out of my earshot. Dwarf now suspects dwarf, the harmony of the fort is crumbling, and while this is partly a positive development—I’m now totally convinced the killer was one of us, though I can’t work out his motive—the atmosphere is oppressive and my worry that I’m first on the list of suspects has grown stronger.

We need to find this killer, and fast, which means I need to talk to Jaemes. Since he was moved into the meal hall with us and parted from the silence which he needs to work, he’s been looking thoroughly downcast. His mood does not seem to improve when I approach him:

“Good morning,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “Or maybe good afternoon, or good evening.”

“Very droll, Zathar.”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk since... You know.”

“We’ve had plenty of chances; you just haven’t taken them.”

“Sorry about that,” I say, lowering my voice. “It’s just that, with suspicions flying around... Ah, that’s no excuse. I’m sorry, I should talk to you more often.”

“No, no,” he says sarcastically, “I wouldn’t want to put you in harm’s way by interacting with you too much.”

“I believe you, you know,” I whisper.

There’s a loudish debate about fire runes going on nearby which I hope conceals our conversation.

He raises a thin eyebrow. “Do you now?”

“I always half-believed you, and now I truly do. There’s no doubt in my mind that the killer is a dwarf. And I’m not the only one who thinks that, if you listen carefully.”

“Yes, I hear a lot of foolish superstitions and unfounded accusations flying around. Several pointed at me.”

“I’m not making any unfounded accusations. The only accusation I plan to make is toward the killer, and it will be founded on something solid.”

He raises an thin eyebrow. “Is that so?’

“It is.” I lower my voice even further. “I’m taking your theory more seriously than you know. After Mathek’s death, I decided to ask around. I talked to some of those close to him, to see if there was anyone with a grudge.”

“Was there?”

“There were no obvious suspects,” I admit. “But that doesn’t mean I learned nothing...”

The conversation near us dies down slightly.

“We should talk somewhere more private. In the forges, with my friend who’s been helping me also. I’ll come to you when I’m ready. I need your ideas, Jaemes. I’m sure you have more than what you told the Runethane.”

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“Oh, I have plenty: I told him those too. He wasn’t very happy to hear them.”

“I’ll be happy to hear them. Or interested, is maybe a better way of putting it.”

Jaemes frowns. “I have been forbidden from discussing such things, Zathar. By Runethane Yurok, personally, with the threat of great punishment should I disobey.”

“I see.”

“If I were to do this, I would be putting myself at great risk. It would put you and your friend at great risk also.”

“I know.”

“Are you still willing?”

“I am not a coward. And we’re at more risk if we sit around doing nothing.”

He nods. “I am of the same mind. The next time you and your friend are available, we shall talk.”

“Excellent. And by the way, how many days have passed since my arrival here? Are you still keeping count?”

“Judging from my last count, I believe you have been here nearly nine months.”

“It doesn’t seem as important as it used to.”

“The threat of death does have a way of pushing other concerns aside, doesn’t it?”

“Very true,” I agree.

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

It ends up being a while before I’m able to catch Nthazes. With the guard at the Shaft increased even further, and regular checkpoints being set up throughout the tunnels, he and his mace are in high demand. A few days pass before I finally manage to snatch a few moments of his time and whisper my plan to talk things over in the forges with Jaemes. He apologizes, says he has to get back to the Shaft right now, but promises to come back afterwards.

I suspect afterwards will be in quite a while. I worry that it may be never, that he's decided to give up on our investigations, but, well, whatever the case, all I have to do for now is wait in the meal hall. I borrow some more of Jaemes’ paper and work on constructing the poems for my amulet. Now that I’ve decided on the gemstones and their cut, I have an idea of what shape the lines will fit to, and stanzas begin to take shape in my mind. Deciding on the exact words is still tricky, though. Because the poems have to wrap around each gem, they have to make sense, both literally and in terms of runic flow, from whichever point you start reading them. This is easy to do with some runic scripts, but difficult with the one I believe is most suited to my mind, body and soul.

I’ve nearly filled up my last paper with tightly spiraled scribbles when Nthazes approaches me. The light shining from his mace makes my eyes water.

“Is Jaemes ready?” he asks.

“I’ll wake him up.”

“Okay. I’ll ask around and see who’s willing to head down with us.”

I wake Jaemes from his slumber at the other side of the hall, while Nthazes manages to find a trio of dwarves also preparing for an excursion to the forges. They give Jaemes and me some funny looks, but we make our way to the blindingly lit and stiflingly hot forging pits without incident.

Nthazes makes a show of bringing materials into a forging pit two places away from mine, but soon after joins me and Jaemes in mine. His expression is one of grim determination.

“I didn't think you’d be so keen to join us,” I whisper. “I thought you’d gone off our investigations.”

“I had,” he admits, also in a low whisper. “But Yalthaz’s death got me doubting again. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight, not with mace in hand. I heard him almost get taken by the darkness once, engulfed in silence, but he fought his way out from the brink of death.” He shakes his head. “The killer wasn’t the darkness. If it had been, Yalthaz would have noticed its silence before he even walked in the doorway. No, whatever killed him, he wasn’t expecting it.”

Jaemes nods. “I told the Runethane the same thing. He wouldn’t believe me.”

“He’s... A stubborn one,” Nthazes says.

“He never seemed that way,” I say, “From what you both told me about him before, about him being keen for experiments, new ideas and all that.”

“He’s only keen on those when things are relatively peaceful,” says Nthazes.

“Yes,” Jaemes agrees. “There’d been no incursions for a good while when he agreed to have me come down. He started to sour after a couple big ones. And he stopped leaving his hall too.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Scared,” Jaemes says derisively.

Nthazes looks uncomfortable.

“You know it’s true. He’s a...”

“You should be careful about how you speak,” Nthazes warns. “The hammering won’t cover all our words.”

“A coward?” I whisper.

Nthazes looks even more uncomfortable. “He’s stood against the darkness many times.”

“Not for a long time,” Jaemes says. “And if you want proof he’s gone scared, just look at his smoke.”

“What is it?”

“Liquid darkness,” Nthazes tells me, confirming my earlier suspicions. “Burned from a very rare type of coal. He believes that if he fills his hall with artificial darkness, the real darkness can never enter.”

“Can’t it?”

“Who knows?” says Jaemes. “But we’re not here to talk about Runethane Yurok, and the longer we waste, the more suspicion we draw.”

I nod. “You’re right. Let’s get to the point: we need to work out how to catch the killer. I think the first thing we need to do is draw up a list of ideas for what evidence we’re looking for.”

“Yes. We must be methodical,” Jaemes agrees.

“I’m at a loss, though. Nthazes?”

“We should hear what Jaemes has to say.”

“Do you have any ideas about what we should look for?” I ask him.

“Not yet. But I have reconstructed how the second murders happened. Here’s what I told the Runethane...”

He tells us how he believes the killer sprang on Yalthaz first, taking him by surprise, then when Danak came over, got him through the leg.

“That’s another point,” Nthazes says. “The darkness doesn’t break armor: it seeps through, and not at any one point. You feel the cold take hold of you evenly.”

“Why couldn’t the killer have gone back to drain Yalthaz more completely, though?” I ask.

“My guess is he heard voices and decided not to push his luck,” says Jaemes. “That, or his weapon only allows him to strike once. Or maybe he’d just taken all the blood he needed.”

Nthazes frowns. “The weapon is key. It has to be unique, very distinctive. If we find it, that’s all the evidence we need for the Runethane to believe us. He’ll have to believe us once he reads its runes—whatever they are, they’ll be twisted.”

“Everywhere was searched,” I say. “He must have hidden it well.”

“He’ll be carrying it,” says Jaemes. “He wouldn’t risk leaving it in his room or in the forges. It’ll be under his armor.”

“How are we going to get at it then? We can’t strip-search every dwarf in the fort. And no one removes their armor anymore, apart from in the toilets. Even then, only the bottom half.”

Nthazes laughs, the first time I’ve heard him laugh in ages. “Yes, we can’t exactly ambush our comrades in the latrines, can we?” His expression becomes grim once more. “No, we’ll have to determine some suspects first. Then keep a close eye on them, see if they’re acting strangely.”

“Start with those who found the two bodies,” Jaemes says.

“Why?” I ask, confused. “Didn't you say that the killer ran when he heard them coming?”

“Oh, I think he ran, but not very far. The storerooms only have one exit each, do they not? I think he joined the discoverers a few seconds after they entered. After all, a single dwarf caught in the corridor outside would have been a little suspicious, don’t you think? In the panic, no one would've noticed him slipping into the group.”

“I see,” Nthazes says. “That’s very clever.”

“Of you and the killer both, Jaemes,” I say. “All right then, it’s decided. We question the dwarves who found Yalthaz and Danak, and if any of them raise our suspicions, we'll work out some way to search them.”

“Be very careful about it,” Jaemes warns. “Very careful indeed.”

There’s fear in his eyes. His latest discussion with the Runethane must have gone very badly indeed.

"I want to investigate Galar and his brother too," I add.

"They're cranks, but I don't think they're killers," says Nthazes.

"Galar warned me to stop asking around," I say. "I feel that's fairly suspicious, even if he doesn't seem the killing type."

"I see. Fair enough. We'll add them to the list."