Prámiz came to Ombros from the North-west, triumphantly bearing the crock of starfire. Groiznath returned from his unsuccessful attempt to find the great cleft in the earth, surly and ill-tempered. Prámiz ridiculed his brother for his failure, boasting of his own success. In retaliation, Groiznath mocked his brother for the searing of his scalp and the disfigurement of his looks. Their father was compelled to intervene to prevent them from coming to blows.
That night, while Melyúnas and Prámiz slept, Groiznath stole some of the starfire to make lamps for his expedition. For starfire burns long and is not quenched by water. Groiznath departed and once more began to search for the deep gorge and the secret river.
When Prámiz awoke to find his brother gone, he suspected that he had purloined part of his stock of starfire. And indeed, but half a mudrîn remained in the crock. And now Melyúnas demanded a third of it, which Prámiz was unwilling to grant, save that he feared the power of his father.
Then Melyúnas commanded Prámiz to go to the Forest of Nanôr and there contrive a hiding place for the remaining portion of starfire. For, said he,
‘The Hyilavúna will seek to recover it. Make a pit where it may lie hid, and disguise the place. The place should be near to Fef Heigum, the high place in the forest where the powers of the Deep are strong. Then you shall reveal the hiding place to your dame, Murnag ta-Valka, and to her alone. She may partake of the starfire, and those of the Valkari whom she deems worthy, that they may obtain doyetheregus, and become like us.’
So Prámiz arose and took the starfire and went in secret to Nanôr. He came to Fef Heigum and sat down upon it and drew upon the powers of the Deep. Then he crossed the River Haldossilu by the ford and came to a clearing. He began to dig. He dug for a long time. It was hard work, and the pit remained shallow. He sat down under a tree to rest.
Then a voice behind him said:
To dig a pit is a day’s labour
For the land’s servant; for a lord, longer!
But the thunder-maker has thews greater
And can labour long; so lend that spade!
Prámiz jumped up and drew his sword, replying:
Are you spy, or thief, my spade seizing,
Or gold-seeker: state then your fee!
And your name confess, or feel this blade!
The stranger merely turned his back and began to dig at a prodigious rate. Between spadefuls he called out:
‘Gwasdalyága’ I go by on earth.
If I wade in water I walk otherwise.
While Prámiz stood uncertain whether to slay this mysterious intruder, the pit rapidly became deeper. Being relieved of the onerous task, he shrewdly decided to allow Gwasdalyága to go on with it, and slay him afterwards. The stranger worked without stopping, his long, powerful arms shovelling out the earth until he had formed a pit in which he could stand with his head below the level of the ground.
While Prámiz still wondered, the stranger took stones and built firm sides to the pit. Then, as if from nowhere, he brought long poles, the trunks of young trees that he must have cut in the forest, and formed a roof to the pit. He contrived a trapdoor to one side by which the pit could be entered. And finally he covered the pit with earth and turves so that it could not be seen. Standing on the far side from Prámiz, he said:
Here shall stay starfire in store safely!
This place be named to no man living,
But the witch woman shall weave her spells
In smoky house with smooth boarding,
And outer fence, Imbrig by name,
And gate Thúrbal to guard from robbers
And Sinkarad strong, the subtle latchtree.
Then Gwasdalyága will gain his price.
Before Prámiz could make a move, the stranger had vanished into the forest again. Prámiz was perplexed: how had the stranger known about the starfire? What was the meaning of his foretellings, if such they were? And could he be relied on to keep the place secret? He knew not the answers to these questions. All he could do was to fulfil the remainder of Melyúnas’s charge to him.
On the following day he went to Valkamet and brought his mother, Murnag ta-Valka, to visit the hiding place of the starfire. She desired greatly to use it to acquire doyetheregus. They descended together into the secret pit. It was not dark, for the starfire glowed brightly within the crock.
Then Prámiz raised up the crock, and Murnag, in her eagerness to receive the gift of endless life, seized it from him, lifted the lid, and looked into it. A blinding beam of light from the starfire burst from the crock and entered into her through her eyes.
Then Murnag cried aloud in joy and said:
I have gained life and length of days
My flesh feels it, and fresh my soul!
Then she cried aloud again, this time in pain, and said:
My sight is lost, O loyal son!
My eyes blasted to blind darkness!
O theft leading to thoughtless fault!
How now to pave the path of Night?
Then, as the pain lessened, but her eyes remained dim, and scarcely able to make things out, she sat long in thought.
O loyal son, your love is strong,
So grant the wish of woeful mother.
Bring skilled Velgri from Valkamet,
And bid them build above this vault
A goodly house, with grooved timber
And high-pitched roof, raised with shingles,
And girt with wall, guarded by gate
And locking latchtree, which may learn to warn.
Then slay the slaves, to save secrecy!
This dark chamber shall be the Deep’s stronghold.
Darksight shall act in eyes’ default.
And so Prámiz did. He brought skilled craftsmen of the Velgrath Valkari and set them to work. They cut wood of the trees of Nanôr and made a stout palisade. Within it, over the hidden pit, they built a house of fine timber. Murnag compelled them to journey far into the forest to fell gurnal wood to make the gate, for that was of a special kind that could bear a rune of guarding, opening, and closing. Meanwhile, she sent Prámiz again to Valkamet to fetch an enchanted latchtree which she had long ago bespoken from the smiths of Hlund. Then she called the house Imbrig, and the gate Thúrbal, and the latchtree Sinkarad, just as Gwasdalyága had foretold. And when all was done, she established the house as her new home, making sure to keep the crock of starfire safe in the pit beneath the house. With her staff Gonnlar, and her gift of darksight, she was well able to manage the house and travel back and forth to Valkamet whenever she wished.
It vexed Prámiz that the starfire, or what little remained after Melyúnas his father and Groiznath his brother had appropriated a great portion of it, should remain in Murnag his mother’s possession. So he resolved to take advantage of her near-blindness. He went down into the cellar and scooped up some of the precious substance into a metal casket that he placed in a bag at his back. And Murnag perceived his trick through her gift of darksight, but she said nothing. Then Prámiz set off to escort the craftsmen on their way back to Valkamet. He drew his sword, for he told them,
‘There are wicked wood demons about.’
His true intention, however, was to slay them all before they came near to Valkamet.
But the gurnal from which the gates were fashioned is a tree set apart to the Entellári. The Fâdhéri, the wild Entellári of the woods of the Berufarána, discovered that Hyûvandri had come into the forest and felled and stolen their trees. They took counsel together to catch and punish whoever had commanded this violation. Even as Prámiz prepared to slay the workmen, a great company of Fâdhéri gathered silently in the shadows behind, before, and beside him. Before he could utter a word, they had hooded and bound him, placing a cloth about his mouth. And at that moment the thin metal casket, heated intensely by the starfire within, burnt its way through the bag at his back and dropped to the ground.
Seeing this, the Fâdhéri cried in anger:
‘The thief of starfire! We have the thief of starfire! Let us send him to King Olverúno, for justice to be done.’
Quickly and skilfully they gathered up the starfire into a crock and bore it with them as evidence of the crime.
Then they hustled Prámiz for many weary miles through the forests and wild lands of the Greenmarch, a journey of many days, till the party reached the far eastern sea. There they handed him over to the mariners of the Silúna, who conveyed him to Ailindâl, and to the court of King Olverúno. And when he had been tried, he was imprisoned on the top of Mount Thorodas. And there he stayed for the whole of the Age, till the Lord of Ombros his father arose from bondage again.
The poor workmen, terrified by both Prámiz and the Fâdhéri, wandered lost in the dark woods of Nanôr, until others of the Fâdhéri took pity on them and opened unseen paths by which they found their way back to Valkamet. But they said nothing to anyone about what they had seen and done.
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