When I have finished extracting the true metal, the forge is so thick with silver smoke that it is hard to see. My head feels light, my stomach sick. I take a deep breath and my vision goes dull for a moment, before I choke and splutter and spit gray saliva out onto the gray floor.

I measure out the quantities with exactitude, then create the ingots. Four for my breastplate, the same for my backplate, and one each for every other piece of armor. I still have a fair few left: these I will form into wire for chainmail.

True metal chainmail—how hard will this be to make? Will it even accept being pulled through the machine I've bought? I don't see why not, for if I can shape it with a mundane hammer, surely this contraption will suffice too. Yet it's sure to rebel.

Before this challenge, though, I must make the plates. I set my forge up in the familiar manner: smoke coals in the furnace, leather tube leading out the door, mask over my face, and runic ears over my head.

I pick up one of the ingots. Just one tenth true metal, and it glints with life, the same kind of glint one can see looking into an animal's eye, or at the fire-glowing scales of a salamander.

But its beauty is poor compared to the ingots Nthazes is attempting to forge with. The Runethane said that to work undiluted true metal into a weapon can take a hundred years. I still can't quite believe this—surely he has to be exaggerating. If not, Nthazes' attempt is doomed, unless he weakens the ingots or finds some other way to get around the difficulty.

That is his forging though, and this is mine. I begin. The familiar melodies ring in my ears as I begin to beat the first ingot into shape. I'm making a pauldron, smaller than the usual, for it will fit to my shoulder fairly closely.

As always, it's hard work, but hard work I've become used to. The titanium's tricks no longer work on me. I still must be patient, for the metal still goes unpredictably, and coaxing it into the proper shape takes time, yet I'm no longer burdened by worry and lack of confidence. It will bend as I wish. This I know, and the titanium seems to know it too. It gradually accedes to the demands of my hammer.

Then, the next pauldron, and now the shinguards. I continue piece by piece, never stopping for more than a few hours at a time. Or maybe my rests are much longer and shorter. Time has once again become meaningless. Food and ale pile up, too many offerings than my stomach has room for. I only leave for ablutions, which barely register in my memory. Even when Ithis or Hayhek come to deliver reports on the progress of the guild's forging, I am only conscious of what they are saying and what I'm replying in the moment. After they leave, I am back to metal and nothing but metal. All sounds other than the clang of hammer and anvil are forgotten.

Piece by piece the armor comes together. Then, almost shockingly soon, or maybe after a near eternity, it is complete. I examine each piece for flaws. There are none. I quench, perfectly.

One tenth true metal is no challenge for me—at least with plates. Now it is time to make the maille.

Alongside the many heavy ingots and sheets of titanium that I purchased, I've also obtained the sturdiest and finest wire-drawer the shops of Brightdeep had to offer. It's a brutal-looking machine, all hard steel wheels and chains, with a plate of extrusion holes that look somehow tortuous. I'm almost afraid to touch it—how will the true titanium react to this?

Yet it was priced at quantities only the higher degrees of runeknight could ever purchase. Both maker and seller must have been confident that this machine can defeat the materials the strongest runeknights use, even if they are unable to know what materials those truly are.

I start by hammering out one of the ingots into a cylinder, and then I begin to lengthen it, turning it regularly so its cross-section stays as round as possible. My runic ears help me immensely here, for the music of something misshapen is far different to that of geometric perfection—or as close as I can get to perfection, at any rate.

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Longer and longer the metal grows, until it looks more like a snake than an ingot, then a worm. At this point it becomes too long to fit in the furnace. Ordinarily, I'd now let it cool and pull it through the extruder. Yet I remember well that true titanium refuses to bend when cooled, and so I must come up with a better solution.

My solution is to curl it into a tight spiral. Now I can heat it. The coil glows hot. With careful application of hammer and tongs, I straighten out one end then beat the terminus into a slight point. I fit this into the largest hole of the extruder.

I strain to push it through. I exert the full force of my body, pushing using legs and hips and shoulder. I use the strength of all my fingers to keep the metal straight. After what feels like an hour of sweating, puffing, and terrible aches in the very bones of my hand, I get enough through to curl it into a hook, which I then link with the extruder's own.

Now to work the wheel. I go to the opposite end of the machine and begin to turn the mechanism. The metal is gradually pulled through the hole—yet since it's still in a spiral, it contacts the edge of the many-holed plate and grinds against it as it uncurls.

It shouldn't do too much damage, not to such a well-made machine as this. Or at least, this is what I hope.

But soon my fears are proven correct. The true titanium, perhaps sensing that it's being worked by the kind of tool a mere metalworker might use, or perhaps just because of its great heat, starts to scar and melt the machine. This is still fine, I tell myself. I can construct my own plate, and enrune it to resist the heat.

Yet it's not just one part of the machine that's breaking. The cable is fraying, the hook bending. The very cogs of the machine seems to be unable to take the pressure.

It's hopeless. I let go of the wheel and kick the machine hard. I kick it again, harder, and whole thing topples over. I smash it with my hammer, wrench the true titanium out. Having cooled slightly, the metal reflects my face in myriad mocking ways. I scream foul curses at both it and the machine, though mostly at the machine.

Useless! What a waste of my hard-earned gold.

Eventually, after I calm down, I try to come up with some idea of what to do next. Two options come to mind:

The first is to create my own machine and enrune it to resist the heat. Yet that runs into the usual problem—that an enruned tool could affect the power in the craft it's used to make. Perhaps, as many believe, this is just superstition, yet I'm not going to risk it. Not with nearly all my gold spent. Not on true metal.

The second option, and the one that seems more fitting to me as a runeknight, is to somehow make wire without a specialized tool. I'm sure that this can be done, in principle. If I can make a thick cylinder, then why not many minuscule thin ones?

To craft each link of the chainmail individually with nothing but heat, hammer and tongs—who would be that mad? To put such care into each tiny section—how long will this take? But I know instinctively that this will result in better armor than any other method. Surely Runethane Broderick, that other famous traitor, made his own skin-coating chains in the same way. And were able to turn the blows of Thanerzak's axe, forged in dragonfire.

Do I have the time? I don't know when Runethane Halmak will give the order to go down, but I don't think he'll wait for me. Or maybe the darkness will define when we go, with a particularly vicious attack we must respond to. It's impossible to predict.

Yet maybe this task can be done in time. My fingers are fast. They can be blindingly fast when I'm in a trance. Those few who've watched me have been astounded. Maybe it's not me making the actions, or at least not part of me that I'm aware of, but it is my body that's being moved. Physically, I am capable.

I pace around the anvil, on top of which I've laid the spiral of true metal. Even as I walk, I know I'm wasting time. I've already made up my mind—I'm just worried about how much work it's going to mean, and also if I'm up to the task. I'm putting it off out of fear.

This will test my abilities. It seems that the true titanium refuses to be mastered just yet.

I switch the furnace back on and place in the spiral. It glows yellow-white. I draw it out and begin straightening and thinning. I use the smallest hammer I have, a lead-cored thing whose head is no bigger than the tip of my thumb. It's very hard to get in the power I need. I can't use my arm and shoulder to deliver force, and instead must use the flex of my wrist.

Everything goes interminably slowly. The challenge is one of patience as well as skill. My time sense returns, as does frustration. Fool! I should have realized that a machine, no matter how fancy, could be no match for a runeknight's skill with hand, finger, arm and shoulder, eye and ear and touch. Then I wouldn't have wasted so much time, and would be several centimeters further than I am.

But I made the mistake, and then I made the decision—and now I'm buried in my crafting with no way to escape, and the sand of a black timer running unseen below or above.

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