"So, Zathar," says Oludek. "You're originally from way up in Hazhakmar, aren't you? The great dragon cavern."

"That's right."

"Is it true you judge time in days and moons and years there? Like the humans do?"

"Yes. There was a great mirror in the center of the cavern. We could see the light reflected by it."

"It didn't burn you?"

"I think the glass was enruned somehow."

"How fascinating."

We left the uppermost reaches of the city just three or so short-hours ago. From there we climbed up three sets of rusted ladders, walking through three fungal forests to get to them. Each has been thicker than the last. The other two guilds split off from us quickly, and so we are on our own, fifty mud and spore smeared runeknights against all the horrors nature can throw at us.

So far, the worst horrors have been the insects. Our lamps are beacons, and the vicious little beasts swarm and crawl so thickly over them that our light is half blotted out. A few have found their way into my helmet and are biting my face. I've long since given up on raising my visor and trying to crush them—that only lets more in.

The smell of the forests is exactly as I remember it: rotten and awful. We squelch into a bog, and it grows worse. Fecal-stinking gas curls around us.

"But of course, all runes are fascinating, don't you agree?" Oludek continues. "Take my own gold, for instance—not that there's much gold about it anymore, with all this mud." He laughs, then stops. "Gold is a grand metal, but weak and heavy. Yet with the right runes, its nobility becomes apparent through new strength as well as its unchanging color. Add some simple words, and its properties are utterly altered."

"A most mysterious phenomenon," I say, guardedly.

"It is now, for us. We're just the remnants, though. Everywhere you go in the underworld, you'll find signs of ancient habitation. I must have been through four times a hundred caverns in my long life, and in nearly every one, there's been some hint that dwarves used to live there. A pile of stone blocks here, a carved portal there, or sometimes a mosaic obscured by thick, hardening quartz sediment, its bright colors rendered pale and weak." He shakes his head. "What must life have been like, nine or ten age-hours ago, far out of even our Runeking's living memory?"

"Only the Runegods can say."

"They won't, though. Won't tell us anything. Won't have anything to do with us mere mortals. Our squabbles are just the squabbles of mites to them, tearing each other apart for scraps of fungus."

We pass under a bough being devoured just so, triple armies of blue, yellow and red savaging the plant's flesh like miners savage stone.

"I don't know much about Runegods."

"Well, that goes without saying. Neither do I. I wish they would tell us, though. About the past, I mean. The distant past. About how those first runes were forged."

He pauses, meaningfully.

"I don't know much about that either."

"Well, of course. Who does? If we had that power again, though! Think of the wonders we could accomplish. We could wipe the trolls out for good, for a start. Dragons too, maybe. Then we could put those miserable humans back in their place as well, into the fields and forests and blasted deserts. Every hill and mountain of the surface was once ours, you know."

"It would certainly be a handy power to have."

"Yes. Don't you feel so limited by the scripts, when you sit down to compose?"

"Usually I lean over the anvil when I'm composing."

He laughs. "Quite. Still, though, isn't it frustrating? Even relatively complete scripts, like the Bezethast Runethane Halmak favors so much, have so much missing. You ever get that sense of irritation when you think of the perfect rhyme, or alliteration, and don't have the rune for it in what you've chosen?"

I nod, pretending to understand. "Of course."

"Part of the reason I brought my guild down here, you know, is because it's relatively unexplored. Well—most places are. But here most of all. There could be artifacts sunk into this bog, ever thought of that? Steel enruned to resist the poison and corrosion, in runes not seen for five age-hours or more."

"An age-hour—we would say fifty thousand years. You know, the dwarves of the deep don't use hours at all." He opens his mouth to reply, but I keep talking. "They don't use anything. They don't have a sense of time, not like we feel it. Can you imagine?"

"Yes, I've heard that too. How long isn't important, though. Or maybe it is—do you think runes lose their potency with the passage of time?"

Back to runes immediately—he has no intention of letting me change the subject.

"Perhaps in ten age-hours hence," he continues, "the runeforgers' power will have run out, and us runeknights will be no more."

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"I hope not."

"I hope not as well. And I don't think they will—we are not limited by the raw power of the runes, but our flexibility in using them." He looks at Life-Ripper again. "You've used the runes you know very well indeed. Would you mind if I were to ask what script you've utilized?"

"Are you not familiar with it?"

"No."

I grind my teeth and consider carefully. It would be so simple to tell a lie, to make up some name and some location, some false history of how it was found and what its properties are. Yet, what will happen when I'm caught out on that lie? Oludek is a stronger runeknight than I am. His golden scales tell a tale of a thousand and a thousand overlapping shields, turning the strikes of his enemies away, and that is only part of it. There are a dozen subtexts to it, hinting at further violence the shield-bearers can cause. His weapon, a sword hidden totally by a sheath of salamander skin, has a core of true metal—I can feel this.

And he's already heard what I said to Runethane Halmak, surely. Maybe he's friends with some of the elders. What would even be the point in lying to him? Yet all the same, something, some deep worry, stops me from giving out my secrets so easily.

"It's from Vanerak's realm," I say.

"Ah, that one. He went down into the magma depths, didn't he? That's what I last heard."

"That's right."

"So, the script is from there? Does it have a name?"

"It is a recently uncovered one, so not yet."

"Interesting. But quite a lot of it has been uncovered, hasn't it? I can tell from the runes' varied shapes, and the way the power flows so smoothly across your equipment. Especially that weapon-breaker. Life-Ripper, right?"

"A fair amount have been uncovered, yes. Some claim it's nearly complete."

"But you think otherwise?"

"I don't know what to think about it."

"You must have some opinion. You were one of the discoverers, no? Surely that's what you spent your time doing down there."

"In a manner of speaking, I'm its discoverer, yes."

"In a manner of speaking?"

He just doesn't let up. He's heard exactly what I told the Runethane, what I claimed in the hall. I'm sure of it. Why am I even attempting to lie about this? Haven't I learned my lesson? Was Vanerak not a harsh enough teacher?

"Well?"

"I'm its forger," I say, loudly, as we finally pull ourselves out of the bog onto some harder earth. "I reached into the blood of the underworld and used its strength to put meaning into symbols, to create new runes."

For a few long minutes, he can say nothing.

"You don't believe me." I shrug. "Well, neither does Runethane Halmak. Believe what you will, though. Disbelieve what you will as well."

"Into the world's blood, you say?" he says, softly.

"That's right. I won't say any more. A hundred have died for this power—my whole guild. Its secrets are mine."

I sense the other runeknights shuffling closer, breaking formation. Guildmaster Oludek ignores them.

"And they'll remain yours for how long?" he asks.

"As long as I see fit."

"This power is yours and yours alone, you mean. To help yourself."

"Yes. To help me, and to help those I can call my friends."

"And do you have many friends?"

"No."

"I imagine it is quite difficult to join their ranks."

"It can be."

The next set of climbing spikes comes into view. They're a rusted, wonky set, all leaning out at wrong angles, and many seem on the verge of crumbling to powder. The ground softens again and our advance slows. Many of the great fungal stalks are leaning nearly to the ground here, as if their roots have been gnawed away, or pushed aside from below.

"I believe you, Zathar," Oludek says. "I truly do. You couldn't have gained so much strength in so little time without some kind of advantage. I'm not like our Runethane—I believe you have these powers."

"Thank you," I say curtly. "That does not make you my friend—Vanerak, the torturer and murderer, also believed in them. They were in fact the driving force behind many of his foul crimes, if not most of them."

"Well, then I can understand your reluctance to teach them." His tone suggests that he does not, really. "But think of this, Zathar. We dwarves are a people on the brink. We found colonies, like Brightdeep, only rarely. More often, colonies are taken from us. Sometimes in dramatic fashion, such as when the black dragon turned two cities to slag with a single breath. But more often than not, our cities simply dwindle away over time, weaken long-hour by long-hour, until one troll raid too many breaks the tunnel-gates. Or else war between Runekings lays waste to them and they are never rebuilt."

"That is sad. But my concern is those around me, not those unfortunates in distant lands."

He does not seem to hear me. "Your power could revive us," he continues. "We could conquer the underworld totally. Not a single cavern would remain for trolls and salamanders to skulk in. We could build a paradise. Nothing would threaten us—nothing. Our decline began with the death of the runeforgers. A new ascension could begin with the awakening of more."

He sounds uncomfortably like Vanerak. "Mine is not a power that can be taught," I say.

"Have you ever tried to teach it?"

"Vanerak tried to learn, and failed."

A sudden chill seizes me, piercing through the cloying, organic warmth. Vanerak thought he was on the verge of something down in the magma seas, didn't he? That's why he was willing to risk me. And now, the First Runeforger's secrets are laid bare to him.

Either Oludek is too deafened by his fantasies to notice my anger or is simply ignoring it. "Just because he failed, doesn't mean others can't succeed. We could all be runeforgers, one hour."

"Those who I choose to tell are welcome to try. If they succeed, I will congratulate them. But I won't tell how I do it to just anyone, honored runeknight. This is my strength, and what runeknight would gift his equipment to another?"

We reach the climbing spikes and halt. He turns to me, eyes flashing in the lantern-light.

"It's not equipment you have, but knowledge! I share my knowledge with those under me. I'm not jealous of the skills I've learned like some are. But my knowledge, compared to yours—"

A roar obliterates his words. An eruption of peat and slime follows it and smashes us from our feet. Our lanterns are buried in the mud and we are plunged into instant darkness. Cloying earth seals my helmet. I thrash, strike it from my breathing slits, roll up, slip and fall, stand again. I yell out a war-cry and thrust Life-Ripper's twin points out before me.

Others of the fifty-strong guild are yelling out too, mostly in panic.

"Stand firm!" Oludek commands. He sounds composed. "Stand firm, my dwarves!"

A light flickers—a runeknight next to me is desperately rubbing the mud from his lantern. Another runeknight screams, points. My eyes widen and my skin prickles with fear. Not twenty yards distant we can see a hulking mound, raised up from the wet earth on six trunk-like legs. Great stalks lie fallen all around—now I see what disturbed the earth we just walked through.

A black rope reaches directly upward from the monster, waving gently.

"Back!" I yell, uselessly.

The rope whips out, a coil from nightmare. It wraps around the runeknight with the lantern. I stab, but the runeknight is already gone, dragged up into the air so fast his armor whistles. He screams. His scream intensifies into a screech of agony as the whipper plunges him into its back-maw.

The screech heightens in pitch. Frantic splashing accompanies it, then both sounds stop.

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