The land of Ravini Gwasdâl, Beyond the Waste Land, was a place of burning heat. And no part of it was hotter than the lair of Kervandwáfi, the great wingworm of the south. For ages he had lain there half asleep, drinking in the rays of the fierce sun to feed his furnace-like entrails. He needed nothing more. Fire was his element, food, and breath.
But suddenly one day he sensed something different from the luxuriant heat. A summons, coming from the Deep, from the womb of the world where he had been formed aeons before by the hands of Makhran. This sensation too, was a pleasure, but an electrifying one. For the first time in centuries, Kervandwáfi stiffened, tensed up, and extended his massive legs, flexing the mighty curved claws. Then he unfolded his huge red wings and clashed them to and fro. The molten energy of his innards began to course through him.
The summons from the Deep came again.
Dûmba dabun dibandu bâbinda
Dabun dibandu bâbinda dûmbâ
Dibandu bâbinda dûmbâ dabun
Bâbinda dûmbâ dabun dibandu
It overwhelmed him, carried him away, intoxicated him. To the North! It said. Seize! Burn! Melt!
Kervandwáfi beat his wings, sending waves of burning heat around him. He opened his mouth, a deep red cavern, and yawned, and a stream of flame yards long leapt forth, withering the stunted desert bushes to ash.
Then he rose into the air, his golden scales gleaming in the hot afternoon sunshine. He circled around his lair twice and then shot like an arrow towards the North. By evening he had left the burning desert and was crossing the Waste Land. Then as night fell he he began flying over the Southern Sea (as the dwellers in Thrâyeldim called it). Folk who were awake in Yivanówa looked up and saw a small golden-red object moving at speed into the north, and wondered.
Dawn was pinkly touching the walls and towers of Tídris as Kervandwáfi came speeding like a flaming arrow up the course of the River Berusilwa. He swooped down on the city. He saw the spacious central place of assembly, and in the midst of it the great stone Kapatingos. Slowing his flight only slightly he stooped on the Stone, and, opening his mouth, swallowed it whole, smashing its supports and scarring the ground all about. The heat from him cracked doors and windows in the streets nearby, and the great beat of his wings echoed in all the city, so that folk rushed out of doors. They cried out in fear as they saw the wingworm’s huge tail disappearing over the roofs of the city, and they blessed themselves that the monster had not stopped to burn them up. But flame was not the fated end of Tídris.
Kervandwáfi sped northward. Soon the dark line of the Berufarána, the Greenmarch that guarded the realm of Dúmiel, came in sight. On a line of low hills stood the great wood of the north, Marlúgat Bróve, whence all the power of the Mother Tree, the Yamurúya, spread through the forest. Again the wingworm swung low, and as he swooped up towards the eaves of the forest, he opened his mouth, this time not to swallow, but to burn. There shot forth from his throat a white-hot flame as long as a chieftain’s hall or a seagoing galleon. The nearest trees exploded into flame and began almost instantly to wither. The raging heat spread rapidly, aided by a southerly breeze.
In vain the stricken trees sent their messages of warning to the Mother Tree, for rapidly the vast blaze spread to the foot of the low hill on which she was rooted. There she had grown and flourished for many centuries. But now the splendid, many-branched, shady growth of hundreds of years was consumed in the tornado of fire that circled around the hill. The wildfire swept on towards the northern reaches of the Greenmarch, as Kervandwáfi drifted, now in leisurely flight, over the forest, fanning the flames with his enormous wings.
The alarm came at once to the Fâdhéri, Guardians of the Greenmarch. They hastened from the great green mound of Lâfallon, from Hrútwikë, and from their other dwellings in the forest. Putting forth all their powers, they strove to slow the spread of the fire. They laboured on through the hot afternoon, and by the day’s end the burning had ceased both to the east and to the west. But a great swathe, a mile wide, had been cut through the heart of the Greenmarch from south to north, and the Mother Tree was no more, and hundreds of other venerable and mighty trees were smouldering ash on the forest floor. Abandoning their labours, the Fâdhéri sat down and wept for the destruction of the beautiful woods.
Kervandwáfi neither knew nor cared. He was now far to the east, making for the lofty mountains where the River Berusilwa took its rise from the everlasting snow and ice on their peaks. High up in this range, the Dagnath Kedimîs, was a great valley, many miles long, filled with ice, deeper than anyone could measure. Kervandwáfi, sailing above this range, was discomfited by the intense cold. He writhed and retched, and opening his mouth for the third time, vomited forth the sacred stone Kapatingos, which was now almost molten from the heat of the wingworm’s belly. The glowing stone plummeted down into the heart of the ancient ice field, and a sheet of steam shot up into the air. A vast fog arose over the mountains, and folk looking from the plains beheld it and wondered what it might portend. It was not long before they learnt the answer.
And now Kervandwáfi changed course. He veered to the north-west, crossing the plains, and making towards the Dagnath Nebren. As the shades of evening gathered, the peak of Hogunoth came in sight. The wingworm hastened towards it. He now needed a place to recover himself and gather again all the heat expended in his great expedition into the Northlands. Full on the peak of Hogunoth he swooped, soaring across the Ruined Ring and straight into the gate of the upper hall, where he touched the ground and stood still for a few moments. Folding his wings, he began to creep down the circular incline of the Round Halls.
Kapgar Kûm was no longer the main stronghold of the Dáyet Ungubith. After the Great Severing, there was no further need for Dreygan’s ancient throne of Fâlagidhron. Prámiz had summoned his dark followers away to his new city of Magéraz Urlan-fen, to watch over the multitudes who were daily being added to its populace. And there too dwelt the Hand of Glory, in its Fane. But he kept a small garrison in Kapgar Kûm to ensure that no second intrusion from the South like the attack of the Great Severing should ever again succeed.
Fortunate it was for these guards that they were all taking their ease near the great upper gates of Kapgar Kûm. As they sat eating and drinking in the First Hall an unearthly sound came to their ears from the upper incline: like some great beast pushing itself down the passages, with breath that surged in and out like a rush of wind. Almost at once they felt a wave of heat flowing round them. Then they beheld a vivid red glow lighting up the walls of the hall. They waited no longer, but ran for their lives out of the upper gates. As they looked back from the top of the Giants’ Road, a huge gout of flame belched from the gateway, setting the gates on fire.
Heedless of them, Kervandwáfi continued on his way down the winding passageway, down and down. The deep caves of Onskabâ were no longer ice-bound, as in the days of Dreygan the Frostgiant, but they were too small for Kervandwáfi. Only Handuvandur, once the lair of Firungwáfi the Coldworm, was great enough for him. Lowering his great head, he smelt his way around the cavern, exploring every corner, mapping the floor in his mind until he found a bed that pleased him; then he lay down and drifted into sleep. And so once more a dragon took up his residence at the base of Hogunoth, summoned from the South by Brandubur, but directed there by no known voice.
The Falakkazri of the guard took to their skulldeer and rode to Magéraz Urlan-fen to report the new resident of the Round Halls. When he heard it, Nagbith laughed. He said:
‘No better guardian could there be! And now, Netárath Ungubith, go forth and find out if you can what destruction the wingworm has wrought in the Southlands.’
And so they went out to see.
