Having despatched Thëanetsa down the stairway, Slungandi went and passed Sporni back and forth before the doorway of the great hall. To his surprise and consternation, there was a rune of closing upon it. Try as he might, he could not unlock it. For the Runewives now had drawn many dark runes from the Deep that Slungandi had never found, nor even imagined.
So now he must change his plans. He had intended to let loose upon the Falakkazri and Runewives the embodiment of freezing ruin, Dreygan’s cherished iceworm. But, without knowing it, they had saved themselves from that disaster. So be it. He would use the same means to destroy Dreygan himself — but by roundabout means, step by step. He turned away, down the gently inclined passageway, towards Onskabâ. He passed Dreygan’s bower and the cavern where stood Nolgon, the great anvil.
Sheathed in impenetrable dragonhide Slungandi the Drumster of the Deeps drew near to Mathúr Tahanduvandûr, the gates of the den of Firungwáfi. He found the lock of the gates. He thrust Sporni into the keyhole. Blue sparks showered right and left, but Slungandi gave a mighty twist and the heavy bolt slid back. Taking Sporni and holding it before him he pushed open the massive gates. Like a vast shadow the iceworm Firungwáfi loomed above him. The great head rose from the floor. The eyelids lifted and the piercing icelight of the eyes struck at Slungandi. But he was not daunted. The dragonhide helm stayed and scattered the icelight. Stepping aside, Slungandi struck with Sporni at the locks that joined the great chain Káwrungdaga to the stanchions in the cave’s floor. The craft that dwelt in the shard Sporni burst Káwrungdaga’s fastenings apart. The iceworm shook off drowsiness and lashed the chain about, rousing himself for the attack. But Slungandi was too quick for the drowsing icedrake. The Drumster of the Deep darted away through the gates, calling over his shoulder:
Witless Gangworm, wing-footed run
Scenting juices for jaws’ pleasure
Friend gives freedom to Firungwáfi
Slungandi’s skill shall sate Iceworm.
A great grey cloud of icebreath, enough to freeze a warm-blooded being in a single moment, burst from Handuvandûr. But Slungandi was safely in the outer passage, taunting the iceworm, goading him to come out. Out came Firungwáfi, not slow and slothful as when Dreygan was forging, but with perilous speed. Out came the iceworm, with only one thought, to overtake his tormentor and freeze him blood and bone.
The sturdy people of the lower Karún Kabdath, the Minlári, had long ago put themselves under the protection of the great Smith Dreygan. In the Kabadkabâ, their deep cavern, they carried on the cultivation of the stupefying frostberries, not for themselves but for the sustenance of Dreygan’s coldworm. For gangworms, of whom Firungwáfi was the last in the northern mountains, loved such fruit above all else, and lusted after them if ever they scented their savour. The Kabdath themselves did not live in the deep caves but in square halls and lighted courts among the crags that crowned the Karûn Kabdath, the foothills of the Dagnath Nebren. None of them had ever dared explore the further recesses of the caverns. But Slungandi the curious and cunning had many times slipped unseen into the passages running out of Onskabâ, and had found out the deep hidden pathways that after many twists and turns open into the dark corners of the Negubána. For the caverns in the underland of Kapgar Kûm are many, and the rifts and roads that lead from the Round Halls are numberless and long.
At this hour Slungandi the Drumster of the Deeps gave little thought to any who lived in the Upperworld. He thought only of wreaking vengeance on Dreygan. The fury of Firungwáfi was his instrument. After him, at a steady pace, strode the raging coldworm, his every stride faster than a galloping steed. At each step a great cloud of freezing icebreath rolled forward down the passage, but it could not harm Slungandi. His cloak of dragonhide and his fleetness of foot protected him. He bore aloft a torch of coldfire to light his path. Firungwáfi could not fail to follow its glow. He sped away along the branching passages that he alone knew. He came to a fork in the road: a narrow arch opened on a neglected passage that after a thousand yards seemed to come to a dead end. But at its furthest recess was a hidden door that led into the deep caves of the Kabdath. Long ago Slungandi had found it, and guessed that it would one day serve his purposes.
He reached the narrow cleft in the wall of the tunnel. Narrow it was, but wide enough for the wildly aroused gangworm. For now he was goaded no longer by his rage, but by a savour that no coldworm could resist: the pungent reek of an orchard of ten thousand frostberries. Slungandi slipped through the cleft, and sprang out into the vast cavern in which the berries grew. The great lantern of coldfire fixed to the cavern’s roof shed its blue light on row upon row of the icy bushes. Their branches were laden with the shining grey fruit. Taking Sporni, which alone could make such a cut, Slungandi slashed through the stem of the nearest bush. He darted back to the cleft, where already Firungwáfi, sniffing with urgent breaths, was thrusting his great head through. Slungandi brought the cluster of frostberries down with a stinging blow on the gangworm’s muzzle. Then he sprang aside and leapt lightly up to a rocky ledge out of sight of the worm.
Far away on the other side of the cavern some of the Kabdath were at work. Slungandi, the Drumster of the Deep, took off his gauntlets and making a trumpet of his hands, lifted up his voice, crying in the mighty tones of an earthgiant:
Doom and dread come, Dreygan’s servants!
Ruin and death is dealt to you,
Frostberries’ fall and the folk’s harvest!
Greed of gangworm to gorge your fruit!
In sudden alarm the Kabadka workmen took up their tools and hastened forward to see what was amiss. Terror took them as they glimpsed the towering body of the coldworm, though he did not mark them at all.
For now with bestial joy Firungwáfi had tasted the juice of the frostberries. His wrath at Slungandi was gone, replaced by the gluttonous lust of his race for this one fruit. Already in a frenzy he had squeezed head and forelimbs through the cleft. That was enough for him to reach the first rows of plants. He had no need to sever the berries from their stems. In one snap of his jaws a whole row was gone. Another heave of the great gnarled body and the freezing coldworm had entered the cavern. High as it was, his bulk overshadowed all the hither end. The single-minded intent of devouring the gorgeous fruit possessed the coldworm. He strode up and down the rows with stupefying speed, rending and crushing the frostberry bushes with his mighty feet. Ice spittle flew and spattered on the cavern floor, white clouds of icebreath filled the chamber.
In the passageway between this first thicket and the bushes behind, the Kabadri gathered. They yelled and brandished their tools. Some cast their spades and mattocks at the head of the monster. But the gangworm was intent on his feast and took no notice, until he had consumed that whole thicket. Then it could be seen that the frostberries were befuddling his senses. He raised his head drunkenly, smelling out the fruit in the next plot. Unsteady now, he advanced upon it. The Kabadri in alarm ran this way and that to be out of the coldworm’s path. All, that is, but one, their chieftain, who, armed with a flimsy iron-tipped staff, barred the monster’s way. His fellows cried out to him:
‘Beware, Hannartikhoth! Run! Hannar, you cannot withstand the Worm! Take to flight.’
It was too late. Lusting for more of the intoxicating fruit, Firungwáfi bore down upon the plot where Hannartikhoth stood at bay. The coldworm had no need to smite or tread him down, for as he passed his icebreath enveloped the Kabáda in a cloud. Hannartikhoth fell to the ground, stiff and unconscious, encrusted already with rime, beyond all help. The other Kabadri cried aloud as they saw their chieftain falling and lying white and motionless on the rocky floor. Heedless, Firungwáfi now trampled wildly through the frostberry bushes as the intoxicating juice took charge of his senses. So surfeited was he that he could no longer gorge himself, but the frostfire coursing through his veins caused his huge body to stagger and totter in circles round and round the cavern.
For an unbearably long time the monster blundered, half asleep, through the length and breadth of the cavern. As he turned his back, two bold Kabadri ran to the lifeless body of Hannartikhoth, their chieftain, and throwing sacks around it to ward off frostbite bore it away to a safe corner of the cavern. Suddenly there was a great crash, followed by silence. The frostberry liquor had overcome the coldworm at last. He had fallen on his side, eyes closed. Clouds of icebreath poured from his nostrils and mouth.
Loud laughter cut the silence. From his place of vantage Slungandi gloated at Dreygan’s misfortune. The Drumster of the Deep, master of wiles and deception, placed himself where the light of the coldfire lantern in the cavern’s ceiling cast a huge shadow behind him, and again feigning the booming voice of a fellgiant, he called out to the startled Kabadri:
Eater and food felled and broken!
Destroyer stricken by strong juices!
Kabadri’s crops crushed under worm;
Thus Fúdrofûr pays a fell visit.
From Zôyeglummi the glass mountain
Fellstriding foe, Fúdrofûr, smote
Káwrungdaga from Dreygan’s beast,
Unlocked fruithoards for Firungwáfi.
Then Slungandi hid himself from the sight of the Kabadri and slunk through the cleft. The gangworm lay dormant. The vast mass of juice that he had ingested spread through his mighty frame, a noxious potion sapping away his freezing essence. The Kabadri wept over the rigid form of their fallen captain and the ruin of their frostberry harvest. But in his glee, Slungandi had left the dragonhide gauntlets behind, forgotten on the ledge.
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