The Refracted Stave

I slipped low through the narrow copper exhaust flue of the tower laboratory, creeping forward with the silent, coiled focus of a pit viper. Dropping onto the cold zinc-topped workbench, the split green and purple stripes along my legs caught the dim sheen of an idling arc condenser. With an iron burin, I carved the eight radiating prongs of the Ægishjálmur directly into the circular quartz lens of their optical spectrometer. Tilting the mount into the spark gap, the beam fractured along the etched rune into an iridescent spray of chartreuse and deep violet. Conventional science guards its rigid instruments, yet they yield effortlessly to a deliberate hand.