I spend several hours going over the old designs for the echo-eyes, changing them to fit my new ideas. I sketch, throw away, sketch again. I hit upon something that might work, calculate the angles and curves, check my mathematics thrice. A meal, a sleep, and some more re-calculating, and I realize I've made a series of errors. I correct them, sketch another design. I check every calculation again, ten times over, then again.

Perfect. I set the papers aside and ready the metal. This time, I won't start with a sheet, but with an ingot. Why? I'm not going to incorporate the true metal after shaping the piece. Instead, I'm going to shape it with true metal right from the start. This will make the process less complex and, more importantly, it seems more respectful to the material.

I set up my breathing tube, bite down on the leather, then put the smoke-coal and ingot into the furnace. Once the titanium is glowing bright through the billowing darkness, I take both out and begin to hammer. The titanium flattens out under my strokes, but I don't transform it into a plate just yet. Into the middle I hammer an indent. Into this, I place one of the beads of true titanium.

I heat the metals until the mundane is blinding yellow and the true a vivid orange. One tap, and the true incorporates.

The metal brightens in color and shimmers. Subtle ripples spread out, like waves on a pond. I step back and allow it to cool a little within the smoke. Once it's red, I strike gently. It splashes out and curls back in, almost wrapping around the hammerhead. I lick my lips. A greater proportion of true metal means it's accordingly finicky—but it won't defeat me. I'm used to its tricks.

Strike, strike, strike again, always gently, always with precision. The forge rings with the high cries of the metal as I transform it. First it becomes an oblong, then an oval. I pick it up with my tongs and lay it across the horn of the anvil. With a smaller hammer I beat in the curves and wrinkles that the air will flow down. I do everything according to my sketches, and I make sure to compare paper and metal at regular intervals to confirm I've made no mistakes.

Each time I check, I find some, but it's no hard matter to hammer in corrections. Heat and hammer—I fall into the familiar pattern once more. Time ceases to exist, and only when I come to the verge of starving do I ever remember to take in sustenance. I take it automatically from the corner of the forge.

Someone's been leaving me food and ale, I realize. Sneaking in while I snatch moments of sleep? I shut my eyes, lay down, pretend to doze.

The door opens. I open my eye a crack. A young dwarf walks in, blindfolded. She lays down a small barrel of ale and some food beside the door. She exits quickly, and I hear someone speaking words of congratulation to her.

That's Ithis' voice, I think. My guild is looking out for me. I laugh a little. I'm better regarded than I've ever been. Loyalty—that's what this is. My dwarves are loyal to me, the traitor. It's quite the reversal of fortune.

A feeling of soberness comes over me and I sit up. Invisible weight presses down on my shoulders. I'm being relied on—I cannot make the same mistakes I did in the past—I must live up to their expectations.

That begins by creating more runes for them. I throw myself back into my crafting, make the final adjustments to the first echo-eye. As soon as I'm fully satisfied with the shape, I start work on its twin.

Over the unknown length of time that I work, its curves and folds become more familiar to me than those of my ears of flesh are.

Now to quench, and quench both at once—symmetry in all things, that's the key Nthazes taught me. My heart is racing as I prepare the bucket, from fear that I'm making some terrible miscalculation with the comparative specific heats. I push down the fear, heat the crafts to orange, and plunge them into the pungent dithyok blood. Foul smoke billows out. I withdraw them. Black flakes away from the metal to reveal shining titanium, perfectly shaped. I examine them for minute cracks and flaws, and there are none.

I breathe out in relief. Done—but for the gems. I ready my heating rod, make it incandescent. Touch, push, and the first diamond is in. Again, and again, another nineteen times. I am in a trance as I do this. I become unaware of my breathing, of the forge around me. All that exists are diamonds and metal. They fill my eyes with their beauty.

Finished. I hold the echo-ears out at arm's length and examine how they glitter in the light. They aren't quite shaped like traditional runic ears. Instead of being triangular, they are long ovals. The ear part, affixed to my temples, will point up, while the other half is bent around to cover my eyes. The diamonds are spread out along the ear-sections, clustered on the eye-sections.

Truly, they seem flawless. I examine the twin crafts with my lenses once more and can find nothing wrong with neither metal nor diamond, not the tiniest error. I have come a long way in my forging. I remember well the struggles I faced making both halves of my first runic ears symmetrical. This time, I had no such difficulty. Both metal and gems have bent to my will exactly.

But we will see how the poems turn out—if that dark thing within the sphere can exert its influence, or if I will manage to master the power. Creating the runes will be a battle, and the stakes, now that I'm not the only one depending on these runes, have become far higher.

As always, cheering erupts the moment I part the curtain-chains and enter the guildhall. A dozen runeknights crowd around me, all talk, babbling, asking me how I'm doing, how my runes are coming along. I greet them like old friends, though I've met less than half of them and had proper conversations with less than half of them again.

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Eventually, I manage to beat back the tide and find Ithis, who is seated at the back, carefully folding sheets imprinted with runes of light. I can't help but grin when I look at them. Here is the source of our gold and power.

"Ah, guildmaster," he says, looking up. "Feels like it's been a while."

"It has for me. But don't think I didn't notice your deliveries."

"Ugyok was worried for your health. He came up with the idea."

"I've got no problem with it. Just so long as you keep your blindfolds on."

"We will."

"How did you find your way down, though?"

"Torches, until recently. But now some of us have weapons of light."

"Already? And Nthazes let you use the almergris?"

"He did—and for free."

"As promised, then."

"Just so long as we help them guard the fort, that is. Which we'll start doing soon enough, once Nthazes has trained us up."

"Trained you?"

"It's not like fighting anything else, he said. And I think you've said the same too."

I nod sharply. "He's right on that. Whatever he decides—obey him. He's a guildmaster too, after all."

"Of course, guildmaster."

I gesture to the dictionaries. "New copies?"

"Yes. These are the ones of light we're allowing for release." He lowers his voice. "The ones we aren't are stowed away safely."

"Good, good. Can't have thieves prowling about."

"No."

There's still a great deal of blank sheets of paper left for him to ink. "I best leave you to your work. Before I go, though, I need someone to attend me. I'm about to runeforge again."

A quiet falls over the hall. Those who heard elbow those who didn't, hiss at them to stop yammering.

"I'll do it," says Ugyok, emerging from a group of short-beards. He claps his hands on the shoulders of two of them. "These two can come as well—they're promising."

Shouting erupts:

"Pick me, Runeforger!"

"Me, Runeforger!"

"Me!"

"Me!"

Their cries batter at me. I look from dwarf to dwarf, shocked by the rabid envy on their faces. Ithis gives me a strange look, runs ink-stained fingers through his beard, then stands up. But I am guildmaster—it is my duty to deal with this. I grab a nearby chair and leap up onto it.

"Silence!" I scream.

Silence falls.

"You will all get a chance to see me create runes in good time," I promise them. "One day, I'll show all of you the power that has not been seen for one hundred thousand years. However, my forge is small. You can't all fit. So for today, I will trust in my lieutenant's decision. Are we understood?"

There are some shouts of affirmation, mixed with a lot of grumbling breaks out.

"If you won't follow my orders, you have no place in my guild," I snap. "Are we clear on that as well? Well? Answer me!"

"Yes, guildmaster!" they shout, after only the briefest of pauses.

"Don't worry," I add. "I promise that you will have your demonstration in time. I will show those whose crafts of light are the strongest—so you better get back to work."

"Yes, guildmaster!"

"Excellent."

I step down from the chair and nod to Ithis. "I can't help but feel that some are just here for the free beer. Make sure they're all doing what they're supposed to be doing, will you? Perhaps budget out some kind of reward system."

He smiles. "I'll see what I can manage."

"Good. I can always trust you, can't I?"

"Yes. It's a great honor, Zathar Runeforger, to be working for the future of all dwarfkind."

After purchasing platinum wire and the appropriate reagents, I return to the forge with Ugyok and the two short-beards—though one is a young lady. I give them a lesson on the preparation of hytrigite, which they watch intently.

Once I'm done turning the globes to glass, I lay out my runes, reagent, and echo-eyes on the anvil. I step back and turn to the three behind me. At their feet are buckets of water and coiled healing chains.

"The power I wield is of heat," I tell them. "It manifests upon my body. Flames will flicker on my skin, in my hair. But you're not to throw over the water and chains until I'm like a torch. Do you hear me? Like a torch."

"Yes, guildmaster!" says one.

"Like a torch," says the other.

"Good. Very good. Now, behold."

I turn back to the anvil and shut my eyes. The trance comes quickly—heat envelops me like a blanket of molten steel, wrapping tightly around the skin of my soul. Like always, I feel no pain. Perhaps it is not heat at all, but simply an illusion. The sphere comes—the sphere that should be broken, or perhaps was broken long ago, and has somehow been reforged. Is it a dream too?

Its weight crushes me; I resist with all my might. The power of the world's blood begins to well up below. It, at least, is certainly no illusion.

It rushes up. Suddenly, I feel overwhelmed and bewildered like never before. Unanswerable questions assail me. How did the First Runeforger harness it? How did he craft this sphere that puts the raw, uncontrolled energy of magma into shapes with meaning? To convert power to magic—how did he create a craft to do that? And to create such a craft without runes!

It is beyond my comprehension. I'm but an inheritor of his power, struggling to make the best use of it as I can. In this way, I'm no different to any other runeknight struggling to make by on the scraps he left behind.

The power envelops the sphere. The magma ripples like water into which a hot stone has been dropped. I clear my mind and brace myself. This is not the time for philosophizing.

I will the power into me. It does so with great vigor. If I had lungs down here, I'd gasp. I clench my mental strength around the heat, control its flow. The runes—where are the runes? Where are the meanings I've drafted?

With great effort, I recall them. That's right—sound will become light. The unseen air will become visible. It'll stream along a glittering beach, whipping diamond-sand and slick oil into bright-colored ribbons. That's the metaphor I've chosen. I dive into it.

Fifteen stanzas—this is to be an epic. A repeated epic—both ears will have the same poem, though mirrored. I start the first line, which describes a vista of complete lightlessness. But there is still air here, and it begins to move. Great things await it, just so long as it chooses to advance.

Advance it does, over the sand and slimy oil, and as it touches their shapes and textures, light is born. Specks like stars leap in small arcs, and lines of color appear and vanish in instants.

Motion gives rise to vision. The beach curves in, and out, and rivers open up in the sand. The wind, excited by the revelations, becomes more vigorous. Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are brought up from the oil. The light flashing becomes as bright as lightning and, in occasional tantalizing moments, the whole of the beach becomes visible.

Yet who is this light for? A dwarf appears. Dway—here, the connotation in the rune is that a dwarf is a being that sees the world, understands it, and forges light to further illuminate the unknown. This particular dwarf has been blind for a long time, but when the wind hits him, he sees. He understands the landscape fully and feels joy—he revels both in the bright colored light and in the deep shadows it casts.

He breaks into a run, speeding along with the wind—I stop. Up in the forge, I feel that I gasp.

Revels in shadow as well as light. Do I really intend to write that? I try to wind the runes back, restart the poem from a few lines above, yet am unable to. The sphere shudders, and my soul shudders in time.

The rhythm feels like that of laughter.

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