Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

Over the next dozen long-hours, I apply myself fully to the three tasks I've set myself: undoing the harm I caused to the tungsten block, gemcutting, and memorizing the four dozen runic scripts on my bookshelf.

The forge echoes with the dull clang of tungsten as I beat it into shape. Its bright white glow casts vivid shadows from the barred windows onto the guards behind them, who, on the few occasions I spare them a glance, look bored. They want to see me make runes. I will, soon enough, once I'm confident enough with my gemcutting.

I progress fast with that new skill. It's small and tricky work, but that's what I'm good at. Shaping a gem is not so different to shaping a rune—both are things of power and alive in some way. I take to the task naturally.

One by one the rough garnets become good enough, if not for crafts, then at least for some semi-expensive jewelry. I make no major errors. Maybe Vanerak is right: if you can create runic weapons and armor, cutting gems should be no issue at all. This way I'll be able to get the exact shape I desire for my runic ears too. Rather than having to work my poem around the shape of the gems, I can shape the gems to be the perfect fit for my poem.

Hour after hour goes by like fast-flowing water as I chip, cut, sand and polish. Gemcutting, I realize, ought to be as vital a craft to a runeknight as forging is. The hill dwarves covered their armor in gems. They realize this too I'm sure. Gemcutters must turn a very tidy profit in their realm, enough to buy themselves good enough runic armor to leap ahead in the degrees.

Back to the tungsten. I hammer away. Whoever told me working tungsten was beating it into submission was incorrect. It's the same as hyrtrigite—it won't abide weakness. The harder I beat it, the more respect I show it. I am telling it that I believe in its strength. And if I believe in it, it will believe in me.

All metaphor, of course. It's not alive—I can't sense the secret of true metal, that strange solid power that Vanerak and his first degrees' armor exudes.

What goes into the palace-foundry, but not out? Metal does.

The riddle distracts me sometimes when I'm deep in my dictionaries. I can still find no answer—and I won't get it from these books.

It's been a long while since I sat down and actually tried to memorize a script. It shames me to admit it, but when composing past poems I've often had a dictionary on hand for reference, for when I forget the rune for a certain word, or what connotations and secondary meaning a rune I've just written also carries.

A runeknight should carry all that information in his mind and in his mind alone. You can't create art if you have to keep stopping to flick through the pages of your dictionary. You need to be aware of connotations and secondary meanings as you write, in the moment, or the metaphors won't flow.

But it's damn hard work. I write each rune and its meanings down fifty times and fifty times again. Then when I test myself a few pages later, I'll find I've forgotten how to write one, or five. The process is like walking up a hill of ice. Just when I think I've advanced, I realize I've actually slid back fifty yards.

Back to the tungsten and gems, to give my mind a break. I fold the tungsten over for the hundredth time. I beat hard. Hammer-stroke by hammer-stroke it flattens out. The white light that shines out from it becomes pure, almost like the sun's light. It overwhelms even the beauty of the daycrystals embedded in the ceiling. I even out the edges a little and step back.

“Well?” I say to Nazak. “Will you admit that I've done a good job?”

“You have repaired the insult,” he says, begrudgingly. “But our Runethane wants his runes sooner rather than later. He is getting impatient.”

“He will have them very soon.”

I pick out two garnets of roughly equal color. I spend an hour examining both thoroughly. I draw their shape and shade in their imperfections onto a blank sheet of paper. I lodge them into the vise next to each other. Onto the diagram of each I overlay a pattern of facets, and I draw an unfolding of the facets below with exact measurements noted down.

Then, very carefully, taking a minute to line up each blow, I chip them into size and rough shape. Dull shards glitter on the darkness of the floor. These aren't waste—they're like the limestone shell, the grit, or dirt that must be taken away to reveal the gems' true beauty. While metal can always be melted down and reforged, gemstone cannot, and thus I am insulting nothing.

I take out a tiny saw. It's one I ordered specially, smaller than any for cutting metal. The blade is but the length of my finger. It is of course diamond edged, and the edge is formed from one diamond, formed somehow into peaked waves as razor sharp as the teeth of deepwater amphidons. It cost as much as any other diamond of such quality and beauty would—and I have been provided with it for free.

It slices through the garnet as if the stone is soft as steak. Each stroke I measure carefully with both eye and measuring ruler, which is also the best gold can buy, an ancient piece from Allabrast, calibrated without error against the official notches.

Slice by slow slice I facet the two gems. They become twins. I can feel the life in them set loose by my shaping. Once the facets are cut, I sand down the few rough angles. This takes less than a short-hour. I worry that I'm not taking enough time while I do it, but when I finish and take a good look at them under the light of the daycrystals, my worry vanishes.

If only a poor worksdwarf blames his tools, what does that make a dwarf who thanks them? My saw made the cutting almost easy.

I turn the garnets over a few more times. Maybe I'm praising myself too much. These are not the most powerful or heaviest gemstones, and the cut I've chosen is only a simple brilliant octagon. Maybe I should have gone with something more complex, since one of the themes of my poem is to be the complexity of the information brought to the mountain's peak, and a tricky series of short stanzas across many facets would have achieved a certain poetic reflection between theme and structure.

I'm no master gemcutter, that's for sure. But they're good enough, and I don't want to keep Vanerak waiting too long. On my next session I solder them into the ears with a titanium-silver alloy. I chime the crafts just to make sure they're still symmetrical. There's a slight discordancy—one gem is a little squint. I melt the solder with a rod of bright tungsten and adjust. I chime again. It's fine.

I'm ready to enrune. From my storage I bring out a coil of palladium wire. I unwind a little and examine it closely. It's not quite as high quality as that I got from the hill dwarves, with very little of the softness and feeling of life that material had, but it's still very pure. I unroll my paper with the draft of the poem on it. I read over, make some adjustments, and stretch out my fingers.

“Stop!” says Nazak.

I jump—I'd forgotten about my watchers' presence.

“Are you about to enrune?” he asks.

“I am.”

“You should have warned us beforehand. Our Runethane will wish to watch himself.”

I can't help but scowl. “You never told me this.”

“It should be obvious.”

“You said you were going to take extensive notes for him. That implies he isn't going to watch himself.”

“No, but since this is the first time, he will appreciate it if given the opportunity. Perhaps he will be angry if he is not.”

“Perhaps he will be angry if I am delayed.”

“That is my business, not yours. I will make the judgement—stop your hand while I have a message sent.”

He orders one of the guards to go and find him. I sit down on the floor. My irritation slowly gives way to fear. What if I can't explain the process to him properly after I write? Already he suspects I'm hiding something. I'm sure he does. Just a single wrong word from me and I condemn Guthah and Pellas to painful deaths, right after I made a new promise to them.

I can't sit down any longer—end up pacing around the forge. Vanerak is on his way. He could walk in at any second. He will drop everything to come and see this.

He has. The door opens and through he walks. The daycrystals are like nine spots of fire on his mirror-mask. They seem to shiver a little.

“Greetings, Zathar Runeforger.”

I bow. “Greetings, my Runethane.”

“I hear that you are about to create runes for the first time in my realm.”

“That is correct, my Runethane. I am sorry that I did not notify you of my intentions.”

“I accept the apology.” He positions himself on the other side of the anvil. “I see that on the paper there are nothing but old runes.”

“Yes. New ones never come onto simple paper. I must have metal in my hands.”

“Indeed, you have told me this before. It is interesting to see it for myself. I am greatly looking forward to seeing the whole process.”

“Today I plan to do things my old way, where I make the runes I've set into a poem more suited to that poem through certain alterations.”

“That will suffice for now.”

“Thank you, my Runethane.”

He leans forward. I sense that his gaze is cast upon my hands, which are already clutching a length of palladium wire and a set of clippers.

“Begin, Zathar Runeforger.”