I feel sure that this is how she meant for me to use the gifted coins: to turn them to wire and create runes from them. For me to make new runes from her realm's best metal would honor her deeply—both she and I know this.

To turn them into wire, though, is going to be a tricky task. When I made the rings for my chainmail, each wire had to be the exact same length. Yet runes vary in the amount of wire required for each one, and sometimes that wire has to be in very small lengths indeed, or rather long ones. I need a proper coil to be able to do the task.

I decide on a somewhat unorthodox method of creation. Using a piece of left-over tungsten, I create a small jug with a narrow-ended spout. With platinum—I have a little extra—I create a poem of just one stanza, describing a thin, cool river running evenly down the mountainside. The runes are of Volot script, that which best describes the outside world. I don't go into my trance—there's no need.

Into the jug I pour some of the molten gold, brightly glorious to look at. Then I pour the gold slowly onto the anvil in a long stream, very straight and thin.

After it cools, I have a thick, somewhat uneven length of wire. Now for some repairs. I shake my head at my foolishness for destroying the wire-making machine. Just because it couldn't stand the true titanium doesn't make it completely useless. Luckily, I didn't smash it apart so thoroughly. A few cogs need to be straightened out, and the hole-board repaired, and now it's ready to use.

I fix the rough wire to the hook and begin to turn the wheel. The crude line becomes brilliant thread. It's still a little too thick though; I extrude it two more sizes down. Now it's almost like hair. One more size—it breaks halfway, yet this is no serious issue. It's still long enough that I can call it a coil.

Now to repeat the process with the rest of the gold. Melt, pour, and then the exhausting extrusion. Compared to how working the true titanium was, it's not so hard. My arms get tired, but at no point do I grow frustrated, or feel like I've broken off more than I can forge.

Perhaps I wouldn't feel the same way if I were using true gold, yet there's no way I could afford the quantities of that most precious metal. Besides, although mundane, the gifted gold is extraordinarily pure. I doubt if one part in ten thousand is a foreign metal. The titanium will not be shamed by it.

Just only one more thing to prepare before I start enruning: mixing the reagents. I grind up the incandesite powder in a mortar until it's as fine as dust, then sprinkle it over the waxy almergris, which I then gently knead, my hands growing uncomfortably warm as the incandesite incorporates.

Once the yellowy substance has become orange, I lay it aside and purify some hytrigite. I set the glassy sheets next to the case and the coils of gold. In front of these, I lay the haft and head of my weapon.

I finalize the plan for the poem—though it's not really final, since I am going to have to create and alter many runes to get the precise runic flow I need. I then order the next runeknight who comes with food to bring down Lekudr and some other trusted runeknights.

As I wait for them, I pace around the forge, worrying. My stomach feels like it's filled with lead, and though the furnace is off, I am sweating badly. The feeling that the sphere was holding back last time haunts me. It's going to sabotage me, isn't it? It's going to try and take over and twist my craft.

"You called, runeforger?" someone says.

I turn quickly to the door. It's just the dwarves I asked to be brought down—no one else. Ugyok is leading them; it's he who just spoke.

"Yes," I say. "You've got the water and healing chains?" The ten enter the forge and show me. "Good, good." I nod. "I'm about to attempt something very difficult."

Twenty curious eyes rake my strangely shaped blade and the strangely discolored almergris. They go wide.

"I've calculated everything very precisely," I tell them. "Even so, I can't shake the feeling that things might go wrong. Nevertheless, you mustn't stop me too early. Have faith in my strength. Only douse me if I'm in true danger."

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"So, once the fire catches?" Ugyok asks.

"A little after. When I'm burning like a torch—no, even after that. When I collapse."

"Are you absolutely certain?" Ugyok says nervously. "I've seen dwarves burn to death standing, you know. And I'm sure your flames grow even hotter than salamanders' do."

I think for a moment. "You know the danger of fire better than I. You used to battle salamanders on every job, no? I'll trust your judgment, Ugyok."

He bows. "Very well, runeforger. At my command we'll throw over the water. I'll try not to be too hasty—but I won't let you stand and die either."

"Good. Very good." I look at Lekudr. "Have you made your weapon of light yet?"

"It is nearly complete. Instructor Hayhek tells me it is nearly sixth-degree in quality."

"Excellent. I hope my efforts this hour will inspire you to make it even greater. I hope they'll inspire all of you. After this is over, I'll be ready to face the darkness with you. Look forward to that. And understand that the fierceness of the tribulation I am about to undergo is but a pale reflection of what the darkness will bring against us."

I step back. I shut my eyes, stretch my arms out—magma engulfs me.

At once, I can feel that something is different. The heat is far more intense than usual, especially that radiating from below. There's a sense of weight around me too, as if the pressure is so crushing that it's affecting me despite my lack of physical form. I'm deeper in the magma sea than usual—if this place truly is the magma sea.

The sphere comes like an onrushing blind-boar—no, that is not quite right—it's a tumbling boulder—no; it is like a dragon, all weight and power and terrible flame. It's shaking with rage, though I can think of no reason why it would be angry at me. But there is no reasoning with it, nor with whatever resides inside. I brace myself as power from deep below wells up.

The sphere thrusts it through me like a lance. The impact knocks me down deeper into the magmatic inferno. I struggle to resist as the heat begins to overpower me, knocking my thoughts askew with pain.

I try to recover. I need to focus on the poem—there are a thousand small details that need to be worked out. I struggle to think and shape. The beam of power grows in intensity.

The poem talks of angles, a cave of precisely aligned mirrors where light is mustering to destroy a vast and artificial night above. The angles described in the poem are the same as those I carefully hammered into the double-blade, and thus the flow must be mathematically perfect; at the same time, every rune must rhyme and alliterate correctly.

I consider one word, another, a different one. I create one rune, then another.

The sphere shakes. If there was sound here, it would be screaming. The effect is much the same, though—to shatter my concentration. A dark rune slips through my grasp to become something darker. All of a sudden, the next lines are already going through my mind. How does the sphere know them? Is it truly part of me, what's in there? Am I not in the magma seas at all, but doing battle inside my own skull?

I yell—soundlessly, wordlessly—in abject frustration. Another line has slipped through my grasp and been changed to the sphere's designs. I wrest back control, confirm the next line, this one describing the increasing light. The next, to wrap around and go along the back edge of the glaive's head, describes the dark lurking outside, conscious of the hidden light's intent to blaze out and sever it.

Halfway through, this one slips from my grasp too. The power blazes too hot for me to focus as it changes in some unknowable way. There won't be any altering it later, either—I can tell that in the distance my hands are working the wire into runes, laying them on the weapon, and grafting them one by one.

What must Ugyok and the others be thinking as they watch the dark power flash? Do they guess that it's not their guildmaster in control? And if they don't, what must they think of me, writing such dark things so quickly and exactly?

Distracted again—another line has gone. I focus, trying to ignore the blazing heat. The next few lines come out as planned. One is of light, the other of dark. The one after is to be light as well, but a spear-thrust of power whites out my thought. I am only just aware of the runes twisting in ways too fast for me to make out.

I must regain control. I grip like my life depends on it—as it does, and more lives besides. I remember what's meant to come ahead and create new runes to set the ground for those stanzas, the ones at the thin part of the glaive that will describe how the light bursts out to slash and blaze.

The sphere shakes violently. Its surface seems to distort, like it's about to crack open. I yell out in fear. Within I sense the shadow: there are not three this time, but only one, a malevolent core of cruel thoughts.

It's not a shadow like that below, though. This is dwarven power.

I wrest back control. I don't know how the lines have been changed, but can guess they're too far altered for my plans to be of much use anymore. So I go by instinct, skimming along the edge of unconsciousness as I twist the runes. Hope is all I have—this has all gone wrong, yet maybe it can still be salvaged.

I have to hope, even as the sphere shudders and distorts once again. Heat blazes through me—all goes blank and I lose control of the final stanzas of the poem.

I yell in anger and pain. My body is burning as bad as it ever has. It's over now, this disaster. All I can do now is escape. I reach for the ruby, the coolness amidst the heat. I grasp hold of it.

Yet the cold remains deep within it. Nothing comes out. No healing power flows forth as I burn.

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