Legend of the Runeforger: A Dwarven Progression Fantasy

I heat the titanium then get to shaping. The anvil is spotless, without a single speck of rust upon it, so I have no need to mess around with glass-woven sheeting. With practiced care and quickness I bend each triangle concave, then I curl the edges around a little. I let the ears cool and examine to make sure they're symmetric. They aren't, so I tap away until I can see no difference between the two. I then take up the smallest hammer I have and chime each. I can hear a difference.

I work hard to correct it. It's painstaking work, and frustrating, but still it goes a lot better than my attempt with the tungsten. At the very least it's not embarrassing. My watchers look confused, not disgusted or amused. Probably most have never even heard of runic ears before.

Basic shapes done, it's now time to work in the subtle folds and creases which will bring sound toward the harmonizing gems. I do one ear, making sure each fold is smoothly perfect, then use it as a model for the other. Again, they end up not quite symmetrical, so I pass another short-hour fixing this.

I look around. Was it really a short-hour that's just passed, or shorter, or longer? This forge is a timeless place, more so than any forge I've ever been in. But what does it matter how much time has passed? There is no rush—Vanerak is not on the edge of hurting me or my guildmates. He is being patient, and so I must be so too.

For a runeknight, skill is forged in the slow-burning furnace of patience.

So I spend yet more time perfecting the creases of the ears. When finally satisfied that they're as symmetrical as I'll ever get them, I take out my troll-diamonds. They glitter brilliantly under the sun-crystals' light. One might expect diamonds grown from the skin of a troll to be dirty yellow ones, but no, they are pure and clear, of the best quality a gemcutter could ever hope to get his hands on.

I recall that Vanerak does not abide pre-cut gems. Not for his senior runeknights. I don't want to ruin something so noble as a diamond, so I go to my storage chamber and over to the open cases of gemstones. It's strange to see diamonds and rubies glittering in the open without even glass to cover them. I ignore these most precious ones—though what does precious even mean when your resources are unlimited?

For practice I'll try cutting a garnet. Orange-red rather than blood-red, common dwarves call them false rubies, but this is a gross insult. Like all gemstones they are still concentrated power. I take the largest one back to the anvil, figuring it'll be the easiest to work with.

I kneel down and stare into it. Gemcutting. The second most noble form of art, though still quite a bit less noble than forging. Its secrets are passed down from father to son or mother to daughter. The gemcutters' techniques are not taught in guilds—all is kept within the family. Gemcutters' guilds are commercial alliances only, I seem to remember Guthah telling me. I wish I'd asked him more about it.

There's an idea. He must know how to cut gems. He can tell me—yet somehow I doubt Vanerak will grant him permission to come down here and teach me properly. And he wouldn't be able to tell me much more than the basics anyway, since he decided to become a runeknight at an early age and was not much liked by his father for that.

I'll give it a try using only instinct first. Then I'll arrange some way to seek his advice.

I find myself a vise and clamp it to the anvil. Next I pick out a diamond-tipped chisel and lean in close to the garnet. Where to strike? I've heard that a gemcutter might spend months poring over a fine diamond, worrying over where and how to make the first cut. I'm sure they don't spend that long with garnets, but all the same, I must be patient.

This garnet is misshapen, a squashed sphere with protrusion at the top. I should get rid of the protrusion. That's where to start. I line up my chisel so it's pointed at a flaw running through the bulge and into the main part of the gem. I don't know if this is where you're meant to strike, but it seems like the right thing to do.

I commit, strike firmly. The protrusion chips away and flies off into the recesses of the forge. It leaves a clean surface behind, which glints in the crystal light like a dull flame. I smile—this seems a decent enough start. My smile quickly turns into a frown though, because I have no idea where my next strike ought to go.

What shape am I even going to cut it into? I have a vague image in my head of a cube, octagonally faced, with diamonds at the corners. When have I ever seen a gem that shape, though? And how will the shape affect the nature of the runes I carve into it? Nthazes taught me a little about gem shapes and enruning when he taught me how to forge runic ears, but I can barely remember his lessons. I think I barely understood them even at the time.

My mouth curls into a grimace. This garnet is going to end up looking even worse even my sheet of tungsten. I attack it again; there's a clinking sound and a jagged splinter flies off. I chip a few more splinters off. I take it out the vise and hold it up to the light. Well, I've managed to make a portion that's vaguely octagonal. Very vaguely. I put it back in the vise and strike again. Now the octagon is a nonagon.

“Oh, to hell with this!” I snap, and I slam my chisel down on the anvil. “What's wrong with buying gems?” I glare at Nazak. “Well?”

“With enough patience, a runeknight will become better than even a master gemcutter.”

“After a hundred years or so.”

“Or more.”

“In the meantime, what is wrong with buying gems?”

“Nothing at all. There are gemcutters here, you know. Our Runethane has not exiled them from his realm. Nor has he exiled all the metalcrafters.”

“Then I would like to purchase two diamonds, each the exact same size and cut.”

“The exact same size and cut? You would have to commission that job for a considerable fee.”

“Aren't I to have all the resources I desire?”

“Yes. But why are you rushing?” He laughs. “You are to remain here for many centuries. Many millenia, perhaps. For as long as you live. Why are you hurrying? You're a runeknight—have patience. I am three centuries old myself. As old as your guildmaster. I have learned patience. Runethane Vanerak taught me it, and he will teach you it.”

“Our Runethane wants his runes quickly, doesn't he?”

“Well, that is true. But there is no need for you to make these first crafts perfect. Some in the lower degrees think the greatest runeknights spend centuries on a single craft. Some do, of course, on their greatest crafts, but for most of us, most of what we create is based on a dozen lesser creations that came before.”

“So what's your point?”

“Make something decent so we can get our runes. Make something a little better next, so we can get more runes. And so on. I think that arrangement would be to everyone's benefit.”

“This craft won't work at all if the gems are badly cut!”

“So cut them well! It's not so hard. I'm already getting the hang of it. It's not so different to forging. You aim, you strike, you shape. Simple. Now get back to your work!”

I scowl, but he has a point. It isn't so different to shaping metal, just far less forgiving of mistakes. Maybe I should just buy some pre-cut ones—but that feels like admitting defeat. I whisper an apology to the garnet then spend the next short-hour hacking it apart. Flakes like dull sparks glint in the crystal-light before disappearing into the shadows. I am just starting to get a feel for the gem's texture when suddenly there is nothing left of it.

I pull at my beard. Becoming able to cut any kind of gem that'll work will take an age. And become able to forge tungsten properly might as well. I look up at a blank space in the wall, wishing there was a clock so that I knew how much time everything is taking. How long will Vanerak's patience last?

I calm myself and get myself another garnet to practice on. More dull sparks fly. Some of the faces become more or less regular, yet not enough. Surely gemcutters sand their gems into shape, sometimes? Yes, I'm sure they do, and then they polish them. It's not all cutting.

I really do need to talk to Guthah about this.

“How do the miners progress?”

“Quickly, but to no avail.”

“None at all?”

“There have been a few signs, a few hints, but they all led to nowhere.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“How many tunnels are being dug right now?”

“Forty-three, my Runethane.”

“Is that all?”

“Of those being dug right now, yes. There are several hundred more that I have ordered abandoned. They uncovered no artifacts, and no black impervious.”

“Impervious. Is that what the miners call it?”

“Yes. It is all but impervious. We do not know what to make of it. The masons have never studied its like before. They cannot fathom how it was produced.”

Runethane Vanerak is in the caverns above his rapidly-developing city to inspect the upper excavations. It is here that Runeking Ulrike predicts ancient knowledge to be held. He told Vanerak that he had great confidence in this, confidence founded in deep studies of his predecessor's map and certain texts in the library pits. Yet so far there has been nothing. Just this strange black stone that the miners have taken to calling impervious, and uncarved, unlike the shards of it washing up on the magma shore.

“Do not call it by what the miners do. Nothing is impervious.”

“Very well, my Runethane,” says the excavation chief. “I will have the masons come up with a better moniker.”

“You told me before I left that the stone comes in vertical layers, like walls.”

“Yes. Exactly like walls.”

Runethane Vanerak listens to the sharp snapping of stones being broken. Though the two stand at a crossroad fortification far from the tunnel ends, the crack of the picks echoes down clearly through the lightless air.

“If the formations are exactly like walls, then it is probable that they are walls.”

“Yes, my Runethane. I agree that that would be the most obvious explanation. But a wall with no lines between the blocks? It would have to have been cast, yet the stone is unmeltable, as its existence in the magma sea proves. And why go to the bother of making walls just to fill the rooms they create with more solid rock?”

“There was some calamity, of course.”

“Most masons still favor a natural explanation for the layers' shape.”

“That is because it wounds their pride to consider that the ancients could build better walls than them.”

“You are likely right there. Still, it is too great a mystery for my mind, my Runethane.”

“We will solve it. Runeking Ulrike is onto something vitally important. Push your miners harder.”

“We are pushing them as hard as they can take, my Runethane. Several die of exhaustion each long-hour. I do not mean to criticize your command, or impeach upon your authority in any way, shape or form, my Runethane, but if we push them any harder then before long we will have no miners left.”

“I will have more brought down.”

The chief of excavations nods solemnly. “Very well. But I must ask, what is the hurry?”

“The war between Runekings simmers. It is not frozen. And it could come to the boil at any point.”

“Yes, my Runethane. That is just as you say.”

But as Runethane Vanerak walks away, the chief of excavations cannot help but wonder if the promise of great power, of great new runes, has affected him somehow. Until now there was no reason to hurry.

What, exactly, is his master plotting?