What runes can elevate a tool for breaking stone into a weapon to pierce enruned steel? This is the question that I now ponder. The poem on my helmet used a metaphor of stone and water, yet I daren't include the runes for stone in the poems of this weapon.
So what should I do? I consider several ideas for themes: I could not use a metaphor at all, and simply write about metal piercing metal—yet I am good with metaphor. I could choose a metaphor about destroying something similar to rock, like ice or bone or wood. No, that is straying close to danger. I could do a military metaphor—yet that would mean writing something very complex.
I decide to start on poems for all three of these ideas. Line after line I scribble down. I try out every script I have memory of. Most of the poems don't come together—the idea dies after only a couple lines, either for reasons of theme and art, or for more exact and mathematical issues of runic flow.
The ideas that do come together are those based on the last option I considered: a military metaphor. This is a war-pick after all—how better to elevate a tool to a weapon than by discussing battle directly? I glance at the sand-timers, and see that I've spent a little over one and a half short-hours. I'd like to spend more time trying out different ideas, find the perfect solution, but since I lost so much time on the haft, I cannot.
A military metaphor it shall be.
I go deeper into my idea. How many stanzas will I need? How many lines for each? Should they be arrayed like an army, or is that too un-subtle an idea? And then there are the runic flow calculations.
Enruning is not a simple matter of creating a piece of pretty literature. If that were the case, the greatest dwarvish playwrights would also be the greatest runeknights. No, it is more complex. Each rune creates and can transfer a certain amount of power. The runes must be ordered in such a way that this power can flow freely—or at least, that is the basic explanation initiates are given. In reality, it must flow in specific patterns that correspond to both the over-arching theme of the poem and the physical shape of the craft.
For weapons, usually the power must flow to the edge or along it. In the case of my pick, the power must flow toward the point.
So, I concentrate hard. I decide on the framework of the poem: it will be the tale of a mighty army of the strongest dwarves to ever exist, each equipped in the greatest armor that has yet been seen, holding tower shields to make a wall of enruned steel. Against them is arrayed a wedge of miners, rebels, who have in their hands pickaxes they have crafted themselves in secret.
The miners sweep down through the cavern. The shield-bearers brace themselves. Each has greaves that grant him great stability, rooting the army to the stone—no, I slash out those lines with vengeance. Too un-subtle, and I cannot use the runes for rock.
The foes lock their shields into a wall. The cavern thunders with the charge of the miner-runeknights. I pause. This seems somehow blasphemous—but it works too well to reject, and besides, though every dwarf who is not a miner sees them as inferior, runes hold no such bias.
The cavern thunders with their charge. Stalactites crack and plummet from the ceiling—no, no, no! More rock, and the whole idea of my poem is that all the force will be concentrated into a single point—the point of my war-pick—the same war-pick wielded by the miner-runeknight-champion at the tip of the charge.
Self-reference: a difficult technique to get right. It can play havoc with the runic flow, as the power coils, loops and eddies. Yet I am clever, and more than that, I can do what other dwarves cannot. I can alter the very runes.
Not on purpose yet. But I will trust in my abilities. When the time comes to twist the wire into shape, the runes will shape themselves so that their power flows perfectly.
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The miner-runeknights crash through the shield-wall as if it were naught but air. Air is the opposite of stone: I don't explicitly state this but the artistic flair of the implication makes my poem that much stronger.
I stand up, nearly knocking over Judge Caletek, who has been steadily creeping closer to me. His eyes as they read over my poem are devoid of emotion. Judge Daztat would have shown disgust, I'm sure.
“I am ready to order the rest of my materials,” I tell him.
“Go ahead.”
“I need ten feet of redcap-gold wire, of this series seven alloy here, gauge two hundred fifty. And ten grams of incandesite, grain size six.”
He calculates. “That will use up all your remaining budget for the task.”
“I know.”
“Very well.”
He relays my order accurately. I sit back down at my writing desk, fingers shaking, curling, tapping of their own accord. My powers are burning to be released. Once again I see visions of the fires below the magma sea, of primal energies flaring up and twisting into the forms of runes.
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Barahtan pours the final layer of metal into the mold. With unerring precision he lays the runes into the glowing liquid, and completes the final stanza of the poem. It tells the tale of a mighty fortress with ten walls, each thicker and stronger than the last.
He steps back and grins. He can tell that the piece is strong. As close to perfection as someone of his skill can manage. The metal feels more solid than any he's yet worked with. Once it has been shaped into a greave, annealed, and a final poem grafted to it, it will be a craft to surpass anything he's yet made.
It will not be impermeable. No armor is such. Yet he's convinced that there's no way the traitor's pick will so much as scratch its surface.
He hopes that once it's upon the wall of the guildhall, no one will care for the tale of how he beat Zathar in this terribly mismatched contest. Any dwarf with sense will praise it for the brilliance of its construction, not for whom it defeated. That's where he will gain his honor.
He shakes his head. The craft isn't yet done. He's gotten this far in the alloying process with prior crafts, then had them fail spectacularly. Irritated at himself for letting dreams of glory intrude on his concentration, he gets back to work.
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The gold wire arrives and I begin to shape it. My fingers work so fast they become a blur, amidst which the runes seem to shape themselves, wire snakes twisting and writhing and contorting. Their reddish sheen is like that of blood, or hot poison. They disturb me—yet I know I must not constrain my powers.
Strange runes appear, only tangentially related to the script I decided on. They are bent and spiked, eager to draw blood from me. Several times they do, pricking my soft fingertips or jabbing underneath my fingernails. This hurts yet I am deep in my trance now and cannot stop.
The poem takes form upon the anvil. The charge of the miners becomes far more brutal than I envisioned. Picks pierce shield, armor, skin, flesh, hearts. The cavern becomes slick with gore. Bodies are trampled underfoot; the miners' unstoppable charge pulps them. The enemy scatters and flees, and the miners pay them no mind. They continue forward to the now undefended city to pillage, murder, and destroy.
I shape the final line and fall backward—no, I am thrown backward. I hit the sand spread-eagled and lie there breathing heavily. The crystal lights high up are shimmering like the surface stars are said to. There is a crashing in my ears: the crowd is not sure what to make of my dramatic performance.
My runes! I let my power flow unchecked; what kind of power have I imbued my craft with? I leap up and bend over the anvil. I read the poem arrayed there.
The violence is almost sickening. Yet there does not appear to be any major thematic change. It is about piercing and nothing more. Its essence remains as planned. And no matter how the tale of blood makes my stomach churn, there's no turning back here in the arena.
Now to graft it. The incandesite flashes fiercer than ever before. Each touch of heat bathes me in crimson, as if I am one of the dwarves in my poem, as if I am the champion of the miners striking the first killing blow. I hear gasps from the crowd. I do not look at them—cannot spare the attention even if I wanted to—but I think the light is so intense it bathes them in bloody red also.
The urge to destroy rises in me. I want to strike already! Strike through the metal Barahtan has prepared for me, and claim victory in this part of the contest, even the score. A part of me is within the poem: I am charging headlong toward victory.
And now it is done, grafted, complete. The point of the pick gleams wickedly. There is a glow about it, though not one of dark light like Heartseeker—this glow is something that you feel.
The crowd is now silent. They can tell that my craft is a masterful one. A decent forging has been elevated by a poem of power very few runeknights could hope to match in genius.
Yet a pick must be swung, and for me to do that the haft must be completed also.