In retrospect, it is quite obvious that Torak had plans for the future which necessitated both a strong military and a powerful, well-organized Church. At that moment, however, it was only his threat and the cold-eyed stares of the dreaded disciples which whipped the military and the hierarchy into line. Shuddering at the prospect of living in the hideous basin which surrounded the City of Night under the domination of Torak’s Disciples, the military and the priesthood made peace with each other, and the matter ended with their return to their separate enclaves where they could exist in at least semi-autonomy beyond the range of Torak’s direct scrutiny.
This enforced truce freed the commanders of the army to pursue other matters. It had become evident almost as soon as the Angarak migration had reached the continent that there were other inhabitants of Mallorea. The origins of these people are lost in the mists of pre-history, and scriptural references to them are notoriously inexact. The traditional view that the Gods each selected a people and that the unchosen— or Godless—people were then driven out must, in the light of more modern perceptions, be regarded with some scepticism. Whatever their origins, however, three separate and quite distinct races inhabited the Mallorean continent prior to the coming of the Angaraks; the Dalasians of the southwest, the Karands of the north, and the Melcenes in the east. Once Torak’s intervention had established some kind of internal stability in Mallorean society—about nine hundred years after the original Angarak migration—the military at Mal Zeth was forced to focus its attention upon Karanda.
The Karandese were not a wholly unified people, but lived in a loose confederation of seven kingdoms stretching across the northern half of the continent from the Karandese Mountains to the sea lying beyond the mountains of Zamad.74 There is some evidence to suggest that the original home of the Karands lay around the shores of Lake Karand in modern Ganesia. Their expansion over the centuries was largely the result of population pressures and climatic conditions. There is abundant evidence that there had long been periodic glacial incursions reaching down onto the plains of north central Mallorea out of the frigid trough lying between the two ranges of mountains in the far north. Retreating before the encroaching ice, the Karands were pushed into Pallia and Delchin and ultimately into Rengel and what is now the District of Rakuth in eastern Mallorea proper. The last of these glacial ages occurred just prior to the catastrophic events which led to the formation of the Sea of the East. At that time the Barrens of Northern Mallorea were sheathed in ice to a depth of several hundred feet, and glaciers extended a hundred leagues or more south of the present shoreline of Lake Karand. The explosive appearance of the Sea of the East, however, brought an abrupt end to the grip of the glaciers. The flow of warm, moist air off the vast steam cloud which accompanied the volcanic formation of the sea poured up through the natural channel lying between the Dalasian and Karandese ranges and initiated a glacial melt of titanic proportions. The suddenly unlocked waters gouged out the huge valley of the Great River Magan, quite the longest and most majestic river in the world.
The Karands themselves, as is so frequently the case with northern peoples, are a warlike race, and their frequent glacier-compelled migrations left them little time for the establishment of the cultural niceties which characterize the nations of more southerly latitudes. Indeed, it has been said with some accuracy that the Karands habitually hover just on the verge of howling barbarism. Karandese cities are crude by any standards, usually protected by rude log palisades, and the sight of hogs roaming at will through the muddy streets is all too common.
By the beginning of the second millennium, incursions by roving bands of Karandese brigands had become a serious problem along Mallorea’s eastern frontier, and the Angarak army moved out of Mal Zeth to take up positions along the western fringes of the Karandese Kingdom of Pallia. In a quick punitive expedition, the city of Rakand in southwestern Pallia was sacked and burned and the inhabitants taken captive.
It was at this point that one of the most monumental decisions in Angarak history was made. Even as the Grolims prepared for an orgy of human sacrifice, the military commanders paused to take stock of the situation. The Angarak military had no real desire to occupy Pallia. The difficulties of communication over long distances as well as the wide dispersal of their forces which such an occupation would have involved made the whole notion distinctly unattractive. From the point of view of the military it was far better to keep the Pallian Kingdom intact as a subject nation and to exact tribute than to physically occupy a depopulated territory. No one can be sure to whom the solution first occurred, but the military universally approved.
The Grolims were naturally horrified when the suggestion was first presented to them, but the military was adamant. Ultimately, both sides agreed to place the matter in the hands of Torak himself and to be bound by his decision.
The idea which was presented to the Dragon God was that the Pallian captives should be converted to the worship of Torak rather than being summarily butchered. Though the Grolims were smugly convinced that Torak’s devotion was centered upon the Angarak people, certain military commanders had a shrewder conception of the true nature of the Angarak God. Torak, they perceived, was fundamentally a greedy God. He hungered for adoration, and if the case of the Pallian captives—and ultimately of all of Karanda—were presented to him in the light of a manifold increase in the adoration which would be his if he agreed to conversion as opposed to extermination, he could not help but side with the position of the military. Their understanding proved to be correct, and once again the military won out over the shrill protests of the priesthood. It must be conceded, however, that Torak’s motives may have been more complex. There can be no doubt that the Dragon God, even at that early date, was fully aware that ultimately there would be a confrontation with the West. The fact that he almost continually sided with the military in their disputes with the Grolims is mute evidence that the God of Angarak placed supreme importance upon the growing army. If the Karandese could be converted to the Worship of Torak, at one stroke he would nearly double the size of his army and his position in the coming conflict would be all the more secure.
Thus it was that the Mallorean Grolims were given a new
commandment. They were to strive above all else to convert the Godless Karandese to the worship of the God of Angarak. ‘I will have them all,’ Torak told his assembled priests. ‘Any man who liveth in all of boundless Mallorea shall bow down to me, and if any of ye shirk in this stern responsibility, ye shall feel my displeasure most keenly.’ And with that awe-some threat still ringing in their ears, the Grolims went forth to convert the heathen.
The conquest of the seven kingdoms of Karanda absorbed the attention of both the military and the priesthood for several centuries. While the Angarak army, better equipped and better trained, could in all probability have accomplished a purely military victory in a few decades, the necessity of conversion slowed their march to the east to a virtual snail’s pace. The Grolims, moving always in advance of the army, preached at every cross-road and settlement, offering the Karands the care of a loving God if they would but submit. Karandese society, essentially unreligious, took some time to absorb this notion; but ultimately, swayed by Grolim persuasiveness and by the ever-present threat of the Angarak army poised just to the west, resistance crumbled.
The military victory in Karanda proved to be not only over the Karandese but in some measure over the Grolims as well. The army established puppet-governments in each of the seven kingdoms of Karanda and maintained only a token force in each capital. The Grolims, however, were compelled to be widely dispersed in their ecclesiastical duties in the Karandese kingdoms, and the power of the priesthood was greatly diminished.
In the typical Angarak view, the subject kingdoms of Karanda and their inhabitants were never in a position of equality with Angaraks. Both theologically and politically, the Karandese were always considered second-class citizens, and this general conception of them prevailed until the
final ascendancy of the Melcene bureaucracy near the end of the fourth millennium.
The first encounters between the Angaraks and the Melcenes proved to be disastrous. Since the Angarak peoples prior to that time had domesticated only the dog, the sheep, the cow, and the common housecat, their first encounter with mounted forces sent them fleeing in terror. To make matters even more serious, the sophisticated Melcenes utilized the horse not merely as a mount for cavalry troops but also as a means of drawing their war chariots. A Melcene war-chariot, with sickle-like blades attached to its spinning wheels, could quite literally carve avenues through tightly packed foot troops. Moreover, the Melcenes had also succeeded in domesticating the elephant, and the appearance of these vast beasts on the battlefield added to the Angarak rout. Had the Melcenes chosen to exploit their advantage and to pursue the fleeing Angaraks up the broad valley of the Magan, it is entirely possible that the course of history on the Mallorean continent might have been radically different. Unaccountably, however, the Melcene forces stopped their pursuit at the border between Delchin and Rengel, allowing the Angarak army to escape.
The presence of a superior force to the southeast caused general consternation in Mal Zeth. Baffled by the failure of the Melcene Empire to pursue its advantage and more than a little afraid of their eastern neighbors, the Angarak generals made overtures of peace and were astonished when the
Melcenes quickly agreed to normalize relations. Trade agreements were drawn up, and the Angarak traders were urged by the generals to devote all possible effort to the procurement of horses. Once again to the amazement of the generals, the Melcenes were quite willing to trade horses, though the prices were extremely high. The officials of the Empire, however, adamantly refused to even discuss the sale of elephants.
Thwarted in their expansion to the east, the authorities at Mal Zeth turned their attention to the south and to Dalasia. The Dalasians proved to be easy pickings for the more advanced Angaraks. They were simple farmers and herdsmen with little skill for organization and even less for war. The Angaraks simply moved into Dalasia, expanded the somewhat rudimentary cities of the region and established military protectorates. The entire business took less than ten years.
While the military was stunningly successful in the Dalasian protectorates, the Grolim priesthood immediately ran into difficulties. Dalasian society was profoundly mystical, and the most important people in it were the witches (of both genders) and the seers and prophets. Dalasian thought moved in strange, alien directions which the Grolims found difficult to counter. The simple Dalasians rather meekly accepted the forms of Angarak worship—in much the same manner as they scrupulously paid their taxes—but there was, nonetheless, a subtle resistance in their conversion. The power of the witches, seers and prophets remained unbroken, and the Grolims worried continually that the sheep-like behavior of the simple Dalasian peasantry masked something subtly more ominous. It seemed almost as if the Dalasians were amused by the increasingly shrill exhortations of the Grolims and that there lurked somewhere beneath the placid exterior an infinitely more profound and sophisticated religion quite beyond the power of the Grolims to comprehend. Moreover, despite rigorous efforts on the part of the Grolims to locate and destroy them, it appeared that copies of the infamous Mallorean Gospels still circulated in secret among the Dalasians.
Had events given them time, perhaps, the Grolims might ultimately have succeeded in stamping out all traces of the secret Dalasian religion in the protectorates, but it was at about this time that a disaster occurred at Cthol Mishrak which was to change forever the complexion of Angarak life.
Despite the most rigorous security measures imaginable, the legendary Belgarath the Sorcerer, in the company of Cherek Bear-shoulders, King of Aloria, and of Cherek’s three sons, came unobserved to the Holy City of Angarak and stole the Orb of Aldur from the iron tower of Torak in the very center of the City of Night. Although a pursuit was immediately mounted to apprehend the thieves, they were able, through some as yet undiscovered sorcery to utilize the Orb itself to make good their escape.
The anger of the Dragon God of Angarak knew no bounds when it became evident that Belgarath and his accomplices had escaped with the Orb. In an outburst of rage, Torak destroyed Cthol Mishrak and immediately began a series of fundamental changes in the basic structure of the Angarak society which had dwelt in the city and the surrounding countryside. It appears that Torak suffered a peculiar blindness about the nature of human culture. To him people were only people, and he gave no consideration to distinctions of rank. Thus it was that as he ruthlessly divided the citizens of Cthol Mishrak into the three tribes which were to be forcibly migrated to the western continent to establish an Angarak foothold there, he utilized the most obvious distinctions between them as a means of effecting that division.
Unfortunately, the most immediately discernible difference between men is one of class. The cultures which were exported to the west, therefore, were profoundly unnatural cultures, since the division along class lines absolutely disrupted anything resembling normal human society. Even the most cursory familiarity with the dialect which had evolved in Cthol Mishrak reveals the fundamental differences between the three western tribes. In that dialect the word ‘Murgo’ meant nobleman; the word ‘Thull’ meant serf or peasant; and the word ‘Nadrak’ meant tradesman. These, of course, were the names Torak assigned the three tribes before he sent them into the west. To insure their continuing enthusiasm for the tasks he had set them, moreover, he dispatched the Disciple Ctuchik, along with every third Grolim in all of Mallorea to accompany them on their migration. The abrupt decimation of Grolim ranks profoundly disrupted the power of the Church in ancient Mallorea and in the subject kingdoms to the east and marked yet another step toward the secularization of Mallorean society.
The great trek across the land bridge to the western continent cost the western tribes of Angarak nearly a million lives, and the lands which awaited them were profoundly inhospitable. The Murgos (in keeping with their position as the aristocracy) took the lead in the march, and thus it is that their lands are most far removed from the natural causeway formed by the land bridge. The Thulls, still subservient to their former masters, followed closely behind. The Nadraks, on the other hand, seemed quite content to remain as far from Murgo domination as possible. It was, quite naturally, the Nadraks who most quickly adjusted to the new conditions in which they found themselves. A fundamentally middle-class society has little need for serfs and even less for overlords. Thullish society could function, albeit marginally. For the Murgos, however, the new situation was very nearly a disaster. Since they were aristocrats (i.e. the warrior class), their society was organized along military lines with position stemming in large measure from military rank. Moreover, their decisions were frequently based upon military considerations. Thus, their first major stopping point in their migration to the south was at Rak Goska. Rak Goska is admirably situated from a military standpoint. As a location for a functioning city, however, it is a catastrophe. The surrounding territory consists of the bleak, unfarmable wastes of Murgos, and all food, therefore, must be imported. To make matters even worse, Murgos make very poor farmers. At first, the Thulls were more than willing to supply the needs of their former masters, but as time and distance blurred the former ties between the two nations, the Thullish contributions to Murgo well-being diminished to a trickle. The starving Murgos responded with a series of punitive expeditions into Mishrak ac Thull until a stern command from Torak (issued by Ctuchik) halted that practice. The situation of the Murgos was rapidly growing desperate. It was at this point that they first encountered the oily Nyissan slave-traders. Nyissans had long conducted slave-raids into the southern reaches of the continent, which was inhabited by a simple, quite docile race of people apparently somewhat distantly related to the Dalasians of southwest Mallorea. The first purchase of a slave by a Murgo aristocrat forever established the pattern of Murgo society. The information gleaned from the Nyissans made t
hem aware of the lands and peoples lying to the south and they immediately began their conquest of that region as part of their search for an uninterrupted food supply.
Once the Murgos passed the desolate wastes of Goska, they found themselves in a fertile land of lakes, rivers and forests. They also found a ready supply of slaves. The native populations, viewed by the Murgos as little more than animals, were brutally rounded up and herded into huge encampments from which they were parceled out to work the farmlands in the emerging Murgo military districts. In typical Murgo fashion, the regions in the south were organized along military lines, and each district was administered by a general.
A peculiarity of the Murgos has long been a singular lack of any sense of personal possession—particularly when dealing with land. A Murgo simply cannot conceive of the notion of personally owning land. The conquered territories of the south belonged, therefore, to Murgodom in general. A Murgo’s primary loyalty is to his immediate superior, and he does not want to own land, since the responsibility of ownership might divide that loyalty. Thus, Cthol Murgos is divided into military districts administered by army corps. Each corps (and ultimately the corps commander) has a specific geographic region of responsibility. The land is further subdivided into division areas, regimental areas, battalion areas and so on. Individual Murgo soldiers act primarily as overseers and slave-drivers. Murgo population centers thus more closely resemble military encampments than they do cities. Housing is assigned to individual soldiers on the basis of rank. While such a society seems bleak and repugnant to Westerners and Malloreans alike, one must nonetheless admire the Murgo tenacity and sense of self-sacrifice which makes it function.
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 29