The process is excruciatingly slow. It would be hard enough making regular wire, but the true metal resists my every blow. I feel that it's sensing my desperation, as if it knows how short my time is in comparison with the great difficulty of the task. Each section refuses to become the exact thickness I need it to be—always it's a little too fat or thin. And when it becomes thin, I must fold it over and beat it out once more.

To create each link takes hundreds of taps. But at least I will not have to rivet them together—instead each one is sealed with a simple weld.

My fingers, although they're mostly protected from the savage heat by thin salamander's belly-skin, nevertheless suffer. My flesh feels like it's being cooked from within, and as my fatigue builds, I occasionally tap a fingernail instead of the metal. The leather turns black and my fingers within swell.

A blindfolded guildmember comes in, opens his mouth as if to tell me something. I pull off my mask and bark at him to fetch me several new pairs of gloves. He runs off—whatever he had to say can't have been that important, then.

At some point, I notice that I'm wearing the new gloves. This lapse in memory doesn't disturb me as much as it perhaps ought to, and my focus quickly returns. I've made a small patch of chainmail now, a good ten inches in length and three in width. Ten times this, and the covering for my neck will be complete.

It seems to come together quickly. Am I getting faster, or is my perception of time getting slower? My hands no longer seem to exist, just the burning metal loops they and my hammer and tongs work. Bright rings amidst smoke, and high notes shivering in the air. These are all I see and hear.

"Runeforger," comes a distant voice. "Guildmaster. Guildmaster Zathar!"

I look up from the sheets of chainmail draped over the anvil to the forge's entrance. Hayhek is standing there, concern in his eyes. I blink a few times, then remove my leather mask so I can speak.

"What is it? The darkness?"

"No, guildmaster. Thankfully not."

"Has the Runethane finished his weapon? Are we to descend already?"

"No, guildmaster."

"Then why are you disturbing me?"

A look of annoyance flashes across his face. "Examinations are to be held very soon. Within a couple of hours, in fact. Many of the Runic League are to be tested. In fact, most of them are. As guildmaster, I think it would be best if you—"

"Yes, yes. All right." With great reluctance, I let go of my hammer and tongs, switch off the furnace. "I'm on my way. Just let me get my armor on."

I ought to be nervous, I feel. My Runic League, those dwarves I am most responsible for, are going to take part in the dangerous trials all runeknights must face should they wish to ascend the degrees. Deadly trials, in fact, not just dangerous, even with a deadlier conflict approaching. Especially because there's such a conflict approaching—dwarves who have not faced real threats should not be put into positions where they're responsible for the lives of their comrades. That's the logic all runeknights swear by.

Initiates first: their armor is tested, then the sharpness of their weapons, and then their physical strength and stamina. Finally come the battles, against starved, half-dead dithyoks.

None of the Runic League perish. They excel themselves. So do the tenth degrees, and those of ninth. Up and up the ranks go—and my dwarves' equipment is better by far than the average.

I ought to be proud. I do, partly, but the emotion is as if felt through a haze. Everything feels like it's sensed through a haze, in fact. The taste and smell of the food I'm given is bland. All sound seems muffled, so that I can only barely make out what Ithis and Hayhek and the others are telling me. I reply, but my own words seem distant. Once said, I can hardly remember them.

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One thing, however, does stand out very clearly: the Runethane. He's seated at the opposite side of the black-graveled arena, wearing his armor but with his helmet off, staring down at the struggling runeknights below. Many are from his own guild, yet when victories are won, he barely raises his voice.

His mind is in as much of a haze as mine is. Probably, once all this is over and he's back in the forge, this whole spectacular event—the whole realm seems to be here—will seem like naught but a dream. And not even a particularly lucid dream, but something only half-experienced.

"Our turn now," says Ithis. "Hayhek and I. Are you going to wish us luck?"

"Luck?" The haze clears for a second. "Why? Do you need it? Is your equipment not good enough?"

"A silly question, guildmaster. Of course we need no luck—our use of your runes will prove our worth."

They, and a few other runeknights, are set against a hideous dithyok-relative, four times the size of the usual and with three times as many arms. Despite its blindness, which removes the main advantage they have with their maces of light, they win handily.

The next and final test, a dozen iron trolls, they slay without contest also.

"Third degree now," Ithis says, sometime later. He stinks of blood. "Nearly catching up to you, guildmaster."

"Yes, yes. Indeed."

"Won't you go for first? I think you could manage it."

I blink, vaguely remembering something. "Technically I'm still fourth, you know. I've only ever faced three examinations. That for tenth, that for seventh—which I failed—then that for fourth. Vanerak only said I was second: there was no process about it."

"All the more reason to take the test."

I shake my head. "Not in this armor."

Later, a couple of the Red Anvil elders are hacking apart a whipper-beast with their axes. I don't know how the organizers managed to bring it up, nor how they got the acid out of its back—it looks suspiciously clean and watery in there, and the thing's movements are sluggish.

"If this is meant to be the test for first degree, I've already passed it."

Ithis tilts his head, as if trying to recall the first half of our conversation. I suppose it's been a few hours.

"There'll be more, I think," he says. "This first beast is just for spectacle."

"Hah—more like he just doesn't want to risk his best. Sensible, I suppose. But we'll see."

A massive, marble-white, blind troll is their true challenge. One of the second degrees is flung against the far wall, to lie there unmoving, while his partner eventually manages to remove the monster's head. I don't remember what happens to the injured dwarf, whether he gets revived or dragged off leaving behind a bloody trail—before I know it, I'm back in the forge.

Just as I predicted, the whole event is now no more than a half-remembered dream. It's less solid than the smoke curling around the yellow rings, has less depth to it than the thousand notes echoing around the forge.

The sheets expand and multiply. I link their ends, turning them into bands and bracelets, then weld those to the metal plates. The true titanium resists this final step, becomes unpredictable with the heat, yet more often than not it's only individual rings than get ruined. Only twice do I ruin a plate and have to remake it.

I don't apologize to the metal when this happens. True titanium would only laugh.

Finally, it is done. I set the armor onto a stand and look over it, arms folded. I nod. It is masterful, gleaming with power even without runes. With runes, it will be even better. It'll be the greatest set of equipment I've ever made.

Yet there remain parts that I'm dissatisfied with. I'm sure that if I used a lens a magnitude or two stronger, I'd find that the chainmail's rings are all very slightly different shapes and sizes. That the edges of the plates are not quite straight, and that the curves of the two halves of the breastplate are not quite symmetrical.

If my runic ears were a little stronger, I'd be able to detect these flaws. Maybe Nthazes will be able to see the imperfections. Old jealousy, which I thought I'd gotten rid of, rears up once more. His weapon, pure true metal or at the very least far purer than a mere one part in ten, will put my craft to shame. I'm sure it will. I fully trust that he's capable of such a feat.

But it can't be helped. I can't make this craft any better. Perhaps after the darkness has been destroyed, I'll forge a better pair of runic ears and remake this armor. I push these thoughts away—am I disrespecting my own craft already?

It's more worthy of my runes than any other piece yet. Light and dark runes together, of equal mix, forming a saga whose length will far surpass any other I've composed. It's all in my head, all the themes and concepts and patterns. To bring their power out will require another deepening of my script.

Ideas spring into my head. The skeletal structure of the piece, a dozen versions of which are written into the papers in the forge's corner, starts to solidify. Flesh wraps it. It's coming together.

I step back from the anvil. I don't even bother to ready my wire and reagent. I remember that I need to have someone standing by, yet my skin's already beginning to heat up. This is the time. Inspiration is striking now—besides, when the next dwarves bringing offerings arrive come, they'll sense what's happening even if they can't see it. They'll tell Ithis or Hayhek, and my water will be readied.

Worries fading away like dissipating smoke, I shut my eyes.

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