The runes on my helm will be forged from palladium and grafted with hytrigite and jasperite. My poems need the coolness and stability these materials will offer—I still worry how almergris is going to react with the true titanium. I'll try it for my weapon, but not for defense.

I make a quick trip up to the guildhouse for my cut of whatever proceeds have come in—Hayhek, scribbling on some indecipherable legal paperwork, informs me that I am two hundred and sixty five golden wheels richer. Then I'm off to buy metal and reagent.

It all passes in a blur. I'm back in the forge, suddenly, wire and reagent and craft on the anvil before me. Alae watches from the doorway as I prepare the hytrigite. After it's ready, I turn to her.

"Planning to dash out if things get dangerous?" I ask dryly. "Stand closer, next to the bucket and chains."

She takes a reluctant step forward. "I've seen magic go wrong many times."

"In your Hyvaen university?"

"Yes."

"Jaemes never spoke of anything like that."

"He did not involve himself in magic. He thought it was too dangerous."

"And then he came down here."

She smiles, revealing yellowing teeth. "He could be contradictory."

"Just like us. But you're distracting me. Stay silent, and if I start to burn like a torch, throw over the water and chains."

"Like a torch?"

"Yes. It doesn't matter in which order, just throw them over me. Now, stay silent! I must think."

She nods. I turn back to my craft and take up a sheaf of paper. I forget the witch's presence, forget her promises of knowledge and focus fully on what I am to write. This is to be the first of a series of poems—I must consider carefully.

Reflection and deflection. That's to be the theme. Like light is reflected from a mirror, force shall be reflected from my helm. It's to be purely defensive—sensory augmentation will be provided by my seeing-ears, once I make them.

The main difficulty will be avoiding the themes, and thus runes, that I wrote on my knife. I need to expand the script as much as possible.

I step away from the anvil and shut my eyes. I will the magma to pour around me—it does so immediately. Once again, I float in familiar heat. The sphere appears before me, heavy, its presence like something eternal and immovable. Its pressure pushes at me. I will myself to remain firm and do not allow it to crush me.

It can be such a hostile power, sometimes. Will Alae help to explain why?

I can't waste time thinking about her—I must focus on the runes. My poem will be a long one of ten stanzas spanning from the back of the helm to the base of the visor. They'll be in five sets of two, and the stanzas in each set shall face away from each other—reflect each other. The theme will be apparent from their very structure.

Threat will meet defense and be driven back. Each couplet will be a different metaphor, and through this I will make a great range of runes for my guild to use.

I start work on the first, which will go at the back of my helm. I summon an image to my mind of a sword clashing against polished armor. The armor has been ground on the finest of sandpapers, cleaned with the most pristine of cloths. It's an impossible alloy of diamond and silver, and to look upon it is not only to look upon your image, but to see your image enhanced, made better and cleaner.

Light comes upon it as a sword forged from a blinding beam.

The first stanza describes the metaphors, then the reflecting one describes the weapon being driven back. The wielder curses—it's a hideous, lumpish creature of darkness, described with no-light runes that are circles with strange and irregular gaps.

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The next three couplets follow the same pattern. The second tells of a mace, its head a ball of golden light, bouncing off a frozen lake whose bed is smooth magnetite. The third tells of a lance of sunlight reflecting off a pool of still water. The fourth describes a hail of glittering arrows rebounding from a shield of purest titanium.

Each stanza is long and difficult to compose. To make so many new runes in one session—halfway through the third couplet, I begin to fear I've heated more iron than I can forge. The runes for 'reflect', 'rebound', and various kinds of shiny metals are easy enough to create, but how can I relate a lakebed to light? How about arrows, handles, air and sounds? I try my best, racking my mind for appropriate connotations, yet I fear these runes are not strong enough. They seem feebler than their equivalents in the First Runeforger's scripts.

What were his scripts based around, anyway? And why make so many? If I do not gain the answer to this, I do not think I will ever equal his power.

The sheer number of complete runes should make up for any shortcomings, however. And those directly related to light are truly powerful—more powerful than those the First Runeforger created. I don't think it's arrogant to acknowledge this.

After I finish the fourth couplet, ending on a line about how the glittering arrows sail back up toward their dark wielder, illuminating him, I attempt to rest. I've exerted myself a great deal, and the sphere is driving a terrible amount of power through me. I am overheating and must cool. The magma around me is white-hot, thrashing like a pack of salamanders.

I struggle to reduce the flow and give myself a reprieve, but the heat refuses to diminish. How it burns! I feel like I've been impaled on an enemy's spear—and no matter how strongly I attempt to push it out, he keeps on pushing it forward. My consciousness is starting to fade a little, in and out, like I'm half in a dream. In the forge, I must look like a fever victim. Flames are surely starting to flicker on my skin and in my beard.

The only way out is forward. I must push along the spear to wrestle with the wielder in deadly combat. I cannot retreat—only advance.

The final couplets shall discuss the conclusion to the duel. It's not a battle between metaphors but between the very elements themselves—brilliance and reflectivity. The dark wielder hurls a pure beam of white incandescence. It hits the very essence of mirror, the concept itself of throwing back light.

Of course, light cannot destroy a mirror. Perhaps in a physical sense, it could—I can imagine a lance of sunlight hot enough to melt glass and silver. But when it comes to concepts, the definition of a mirror is something that throws back light. In this world I've created for my poem, defense will always win.

The beam turns back on itself and flies at the one who cast it. In the very last line of the poem, I give an implication that it harms the dark foe, but I make sure to keep things vague. The power of my poem is defense. I am not trying to do anything so fancy as make the blows of the enemy break his own bones. It would take a very particular kind of craft to do that—and in my opinion, armor should be focused on defense. Just a tiny hint of an implication that the armor's strength troubles and impedes my opponent is enough.

I've written the last rune! I don't realize this until a few moments after, for my mind is boiling in my skull. The magma is turning dark, then bright, then dark again. My skin must be aflame. I'm certain of this.

I direct my will upward and reach for the coolness of the ruby. At the same time, I'm trying to force the power, stronger than ever, to die away.

I can't reach! I will my hand, or whatever part of me is reaching upward, to stretch to the speck of healing cool, but no matter how hard I try, I fail.

What is the witch doing? Am I not burning like a torch yet? If I am, and she has not yet thrown over the chains—has she betrayed me? After all her father did for us? After all we did for him, she's betraying me? Was her descent to the fort some trick of the human mages to—

Chains batter my head and shoulders, drop down around me. Freezing water turns fire to hissing smoke. The weight of both impacts presses me down to the stones. My knees hit first, then I fall forward and dash my head on the edge of the anvil. Pain clangs through my skull. I slump onto my side.

Bony fingers grasp my shoulder then suddenly come away. I hear a gasp of shock, and strange words.

"I'm fine," I croak. "Leave me be. My ruby..."

Waves of cool are rippling outward from my chest along my skin. They cross each other, rebound, shimmer. The burning pain gradually fades—though the smell of singed hair remains strong. I look down and see a few tongues of flame still dancing in my beard. I extinguish them with my palms, which stings only a little.

I stay still, breathing heavily, for a few minutes more.

"You are alive," the witch says quietly.

"Yes," I rasp. "You may not believe it, but I have suffered worse than this in the magma seas before. This time was not so bad." I cough up black slime. A sour, smokey taste fills my mouth. "I doubted you down there. I was wrong to do so. I apologize."

"I will not hold it against you. But, the magma seas? You spoke of them before, almost as if you journeyed there."

"I have, and do, in many ways. I'll tell you later. As promised. Before then—my craft. I must see my craft."

I grasp the edge of the anvil and strain to pull myself up.

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