The silence that fills the hall is far more pervading than Nightcutter's darkness, more all-encompassing than Nthazes' light. We stare in horror at his eyeless face. I cannot quite believe my own vision, so I blink my eyes shut, but my hearing-sight confirms it: his eyes have been burned away. The guardian of light against darkness is now blind to both. If he could sense Nightcutter's power, that sense is but a dying ember, soon to be utterly gone.

"What happened?" I ask quietly. "The almergris?"

"It was not so sudden," he answers. "I fought in the forge, Zathar, against the true metal you hinted at. I should not have used it—not without knowing its nature, the kind of evil that must be wrought to produce it. I thought that as inheritor of the fort, I had a right to the materials of its Runethanes. I was wrong."

What can I say to this? Should I tell him he had every right to that material, more to it than blind and prideful Yurok did? But he knows better than me. And certainly, I of all dwarves cannot castigate him for dabbling with materials he doesn't understand.

He continues: "It ate at me as I forged. Its sparks dashed at me after every stroke. Shapes of weapons barely imagined slashed at me—always at my eyes. It knew what I was trying to create, what I wished to defend."

I remain speechless. I'd guessed that true metal was capable of such malice but never thought to witness the effects of its violence for myself.

"I persisted, though. Eventually it bent to my will, and the shape of my weapon was complete. I thought I had won, then. That I had finally mastered true metal. So I twisted words from platinum and dabbed them with almergris. But when I struck heat to them, I understood that the metal had plotted my ruin perfectly. My eyelids were but bleeding rags, and after a few flashes, my already diminishing vision was gone."

Never before have I heard my friend sound so bitter. All my jealousy of his skill vanishes—crafting has injured me before, yet never so permanently. My amulet has always guarded me from the worst of it. Pure true metal—I never want to touch it.

"You've made a sacrifice," says the Runethane. "And it is a worthwhile one. Your weapon makes up for the injury tenfold. I'll be honored to march beside you."

Despite his solemnity, the words sound hollow to me. What does he know? He came down here for riches. He may rule this place fairly, yes, but I haven't forgotten why he agreed to rule it in the first place—for gold. How many friends has he lost to the darkness?

Perhaps if he had committed more runeknights to the fort, or had even ordered some of his guild to abandon bronze and join the guardians with their almergris and titanium and scripts of light, my friend would never have been driven to such desperation.

"Thank you, my Runethane," Nthazes says. "You are most welcome."

His reply is automatic. I can tell it has no meaning.

"It is a truly great craft," Runethane Halmak continues. "Truly, it is. Yet its splendor is robbed by that which now stands opposite it. Opposing it. Zathar—what do you have to say for yourself?"

I find myself scowling. Haven't I told him already? Many times?

"I've already said my piece. Darkness is a result of light, light a result of darkness. That's how I see things, and that's how it is on my Nightcutter. Do you doubt its strength?"

"Philosophy aside, it is foolish to concentrate all your power on the attack. That is not how a dwarf fights. Not individually, and neither as an army."

"I know how us dwarves fight. Yet, as Nthazes has pointed out, armor is no use against the darkness in any case."

"Physically speaking, yes. In military terms, the weapons of light also act as armor. They are defense as well as attack, and you have robbed both aspects from them. Do you seek to ruin us?"

He rises angrily, jabs a bronze-clad finger at me.

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"You've turned crafts to fuel! Are our efforts to be nothing but coal? Well?"

I force myself to stay calm. "My guild has accepted what we must do."

"Your guild is but one part of the army. The army which I am commander of. And it is to be an army of light—not darkness."

I open my eyes and see that his face is flushed.

"Let us calm ourselves," says Elanak. It's her own voice now, I think, not that of her father, or guildmaster, or whatever the Runeking really is to her. "Be seated, all of you."

We obey, though Runethane Halmak gives a show of reluctance. The real reason behind his anger isn't my craft, I don't think, nor against any breaking of taboos or interference in his battle-plans. It's simply that his authority in his own realm has been usurped.

"Now, Runethane, and first-degree Dolmak, we would see your creations."

"Of course," says Halmak. "I apologize. I've been remiss. Dolmak, if you would go first?"

"I would be honored to, my Runethane." The elder gives a somewhat forced-looking smile. "We should leave the best until last, eh?"

He tears the cloth from his weapon with a flourish. Beneath is a bronze hammer, glowing brilliantly. He lifts it up, and I'm forced to close my eyes again. It's a better craft than I expected. Much better.

"Well, emissary? What do you think?"

"It is well enough," says Elanak, her tone deepening slightly.

But the glow, visible through my eyelids as a golden tint, is already fading. I open my eyes. Nightcutter's haft is darkening further as the light is drawn into it. The beam, which I dare not look at, is doubtless glowing even brighter in turn.

"Thank you," says Dolmak, but his tone betrays his disappointment and anger. He was expecting more praise, and to have his weapon's splendor dulled by me—the humiliator of his guild—is a further insult.

"Now for yours, Runethane."

Runethane Halmak stands, lifts his weapon. The heavy cloth sways; he tears it away. The glare half-blinds me.

He has also made a hammer, cubic in form, and of course composed of heavy bronze. Upon each side is a dense poem, and these have a kind of thickness to them, as if each is just the first page of a heavy tome.

For all its great metalwork, however, its golden light blooms slowly, so that at first I feel almost embarrassed by the lack of power. Yet the bloom keeps on growing, keeps on brightening, until it's as if he holds the very surface sun aloft.

"Behold my craft," he intones. "The Sunhammer."

I shut my eyes. Through my eyelids I can still see the cubic shape of the hammer, and even make out the tiny runes, nearly readable. They continue to brighten, until they're lines of fire upon the surface of a metal heated to far past its melting point.

And then the metal's brightening ceases, and its color begins to fade.

Nightcutter shivers with glee. I open my eyes a crack and see that its dark runes have become blacker than the black of the very deepest caverns. And they are continuing to darken.

How dark will they get? How much light can they consume? My poem writes in terms of infinities, of course, yet my metal is still mostly mundane, and contains many minute imperfections. It won't go to the ideal. There must be a limit.

It reaches it—light and dark reach an equilibrium. I open my eyes fully. The Runethane's hall is lit brightly, so brightly it hurts a little, yet bathed in the power of three of the most powerful weapons of light ever made, everything should be pure white. Instead, the stones are merely pale gray.

I dare not look at the beam. I know from the tremble of runic power that to even glance at it would burn deeper scars into my eyes than almergris ever could.

"Put your weapon away," Runethane Halmak says coldly. "It is placing us in danger."

My Runethane has ordered me to do something—yet for some reason, my hands do not move.

"I am ordering you, Zathar."

There's no fear in his tone. He doesn't really think Nightcutter is putting us in danger. No. I believe he is simply jealous. Jealous of my runes, of my skill, and of the Runeking's favor. I was wrong before. He's not angry because the Runeking's servant is usurping him. He's angry because I am. He's no different to Brezakh, in that sense. He's better controlled and more honorable, yes, but his private thoughts have turned in the same direction now that he recognizes my power. He knows it's a threat to him, and so lashes out at me.

Just as I did not back down before Brezakh, I won't back down before him either. No matter what his rank is. I fought Vanerak also, did I not? We are as strong as each other, now. Nightcutter proves this.

"I have been ordered by the Runeking himself to show my weapon," I say. "I won't disobey his emissary."

He looks at Elanak furiously—a instinctive response, since he has his eyes shut, seeing only with his small pair of runic ears.

"I have not yet finished comparing," she says. "Wait, Runethane Halmak."

"What is there to compare? Brezakh was right—these are runes to destroy light, not win us the battle. Whether Zathar intends them to be that way or not."

"Wait."

The voice is unmistakably Runeking Ulrike's. The Runethane is silenced. Elanak shifts oddly, and then her arm raises the scepter, up and up, further than her arm should be able to extend, until the Eye is above the center of the table. Power glows from it so that the haft it's secured to seems to vanish, and it's as if the Eye alone is floating there, gazing down. I shrink back into my chair. The black slit-pupil in its center seems to stare at all four weapons at once, drinking in their shapes and metalwork.

Judgment is about to be rendered. On the Runethane, on his elder, on Nthazes—and most of all on me, and my runes of light and dark.

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