David Eddings - Malloreon 3 Demon Lord of Karanda

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DAVID EDDINGS - DEMON LORD OF KARANDA

Book 2 of the Malloreon

PROLOGUE

Being a brief history of Mallorea and the races that dwell

there.

-Digested from The Chronicles of Angarak

University of Melcene Press

Tradition places the ancestral home of the Angaraks

somewhere off the south coast of present-day Dalasia. Then

Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, used the power of the Stone,

Cthrag Yaska, in what has come to be called "the cracking of

the world." The crust of the earth split, releasing liquid

magma from below and letting the waters of the southern ocean

in to form the Sea of the East.

This cataclysmic process continued for decades before the

world gradually assumed its present form.

As a result of this upheaval, the Alorns and their allies

were forced to retreat into the unexplored reaches of the

western continent, while the Angaraks fled into the wilderness

of Mallorea.

Torak had been maimed and disfigured by the Stone, which

rebelled at the use to which the God put it, and the Grolim

priests were demoralized. Thus leadership fell by default to

the military; by the time the Grolims recovered, the military

had established de facto rule of all Angarak. Lacking their

former preeminence, the priests set up an opposing center of

power at Mal Yaska, near the tip of the Karandese mountain

range.At this point, Torak roused himself to prevent the

imminent civil war between priesthood and military rule. But

he made no move against the military headquarters at Mal Zeth;

instead, he marched to the extreme northwest of Mallorea

Antiqua with a quarter of the Angarak people to build the Holy

City of Cthol Mishrak. There he remained, so absorbed by

efforts to gain control of Cthrag Yaska that he was oblivious

to the fact that the people had largely turned from their

previous preoccupation with theological matters. Those with

him in Cthol Mishrak were mostly a hysterical fringe of

fanatics under the rigid control of Torak's three disciples,

Zedar, Ctuchik, and Urvon. These three maintained the old

forms in the society of Cthol Mishrak while the rest of

Angarak changed.

When the continuing friction between the Church and

military finally came to Torak's attention, he summoned the

military High Command and the Grolim Hierarchy to Cthol

Mishrak and delivered his commands in terms that brooked no

demur. Exempting only Mal Yaska and Mal Zeth, all towns and

districts were to be ruled jointly by the military and

priesthood. The subdued Hierarchy and High Command immediately

settled their differences and returned to their separate

enclaves. This enforced truce freed the generals to turn their

attention to the other peoples living in Mallorea.

The origins of these people are lost in myth, but three

races had predated the Angaraks on the continent: the

Dalasians of the southwest; the Karands of the north; and the

Melcenes of the East. It was to the Karands the military

turned its efforts.

The Karands were a warlike race with little patience for

cultural niceties. They lived in crude cities where hogs

roamed freely in the muddy streets. Traditionally, they were

related to the Morindim of the far north of Gar og Nadrak.

Both races were given to the practice of demon worship.

At the beginning of the second millennium, roving bands of

Karandese brigands had become a serious problem along the

eastern frontier, and the Angarak army now moved out of Mal

Zeth to the western fringes of the Karandese Kingdom of

Pallia. The city of Rakand in southwestern Pallia was sacked

and burned, and the inhabitants were taken captives.

At this point, one of the greatest decisions of Angarak

history was made. While the Grolims prepared for an orgy of

human sacrifice, the generals paused. They had no desire to

occupy Pallia, and the difficulties of long-distance

communication made the notion unattractive. To the generals,

it seemed far better to keep Pallia as a subject kingdom and

exact tribute, rather than to occupy a depopulated territory.

The Grolims were outraged, but the generals were adamant.

Ultimately, both sides agreed to take the matter before Torak

for his decision.

Not surprisingly, Torak agreed with the High Command; if

the Karands could be converted, he would nearly double the

congregation of his Church as well as the size of his army for

any future confrontation with the Kings of the West. "Any man

who liveth in boundless Mallorea shall bow down and worship

me," he told his reluctant missionaries. And to insure their

zeal, he sent Urvon to Mal Yaska to oversee the conversion of

the Karands.

There Urvon established himself as temporal head of the

Mallorean Church in pomp and luxury hitherto unknown to the

ascetic Grolims.

The army moved against Katakor, Jenno, and Delchin, as

well as Pallia. But the missionaries fared poorly as the

Karandese magicians conjured up hordes of demons to defend

their society. Urvon finally journeyed to Cthol Mishrak to

consult with Torak. It is not clear what Torak did, but the

Karandese magicians soon discovered that the spells previously

used to control the demons were no longer effective. Any

magician could now reach into the realms of darkness only at

the peril of life and soul. The conquest of the Karands

absorbed the attention of both military and priesthood for the

next several centuries, but ultimately the resistance

collapsed and Karanda became a subject nation, its peoples

generally looked upon as inferiors.

When the army advanced down the Great River Magan against

the Melcene Empire, however, it met a sophisticated and

technologically superior people. In several disastrous

battles, in which Melcene war chariots and elephant cavalry

destroyed whole battalions, the Angaraks abandoned their

efforts. The Angarak generals made overtures of peace. To

their astonishment, the Melcenes quickly agreed to normalize

relations and offered to trade horses, which the Angaraks

previously lacked. They refused, however, even to discuss the

sale of elephants.

The army then turned to Dalasia, which proved to be an

easy conquest. The Dalasians were simple farmers and herdsmen

with little skill for war. The Angaraks moved into Dalasia and

established military protectorates during the next ten years.

The priesthood seemed at first equally successful. The

Dalasians meekly accepted the forms of Angarak worship. But

they were a mystical people, and the Grolims soon discovered

that the power of the witches, seers, and prophets remained

unbroken. Moreover, copies of the infamous Mallorean Gospels

still circulated in secret among the Dalasians.

In time, the Grolims might have succeeded in stamping out

the secret Dalasian religion. But then a disaster occurred

that was to change forever the complexion of Angarak life.

Somehow, the legendary sorcerer Belgarath, accompanied by

three Alorns, succeeded in evading all the security measures

and came unobserved at night to steal Cthrag Yaska from the

iron tower of Torak in the center of Cthol Mishrak. Although

pursued, they managed to escape with the stolen Stone to the

West. In furious rage, Torak destroyed his city. Then he ordered

that the Murgos, Thulls, and Nadraks be sent to the western

borders of the Sea of the East. More than a million lives were

lost in the crossing of the northern land bridge, and the

society and culture of the Angaraks took long to recover.

Following the dispersal and the destruction of Cthol

Mishrak, Torak became almost inaccessible, concentrating

totally on various schemes to thwart the growing power of the

Kingdoms of the West. The God's neglect gave the military time

to exploit fully its now virtually total control of Mallorea

and the subject kingdoms.

For many centuries, the uneasy peace between Angaraks and

Melcenes continued, broken occasionally only by little wars in

which both sides avoided committing their full forces. The two

nations eventually established the practice of each sending

children of the leaders to be raised by leaders of the other

side. This led to a fuller understanding by both, as well as

to the growth of a body of cosmopolitan youths that eventually

became the norm for the ruling class of the Mallorean Empire.

One such youth was Kallath, the son of a high-ranking

Angarak general. Brought up in Melcene, he returned to Mal

Zeth to become the youngest man ever to be elevated to the

General Staff Returning to Melcene, he married the daughter of

the Melcene Emperor and managed to have himself declared

Emperor following the old man's death in 3830. Then, using the

Melcene army as a threat, he managed to get himself declared

hereditary Commander in Chief of the Angaraks.

The integration of Melcene and Angarak was turbulent. But

in time, the Melcene patience won out over Angarak brutality.

Unlike other peoples, the Melcenes were ruled by a

bureaucracy. And in the end, that bureaucracy proved far more

efficient than the Angarak military administration, By 4400,

the ascendancy of the bureaucracy was complete. By that time,

also, the title of Commander in Chief had been forgotten and

the ruler of both peoples was simply the Emperor of Mallorea.

To the sophisticated Melcenes, the worship of Torak

remained largely superficial. They accepted the forms out of

expediency, but the Grolims were never able to command the

abject submission to the Dragon God that had characterized the

Angaraks.

Then in 4850, Torak suddenly emerged from his eons of

seclusion to appear before the gates of Mal Zeth.

Wearing a steel mask to conceal his maimed face, he set

aside the Emperor and declared himself Kal Torak, King and

God. He immediately began mustering an enormous force to crush

the Kingdoms of the West and bring all the world under his

domination.

The mobilization that followed virtually stripped Mallorea

of able-bodied males. The Angaraks and Karands were marched

north to the land bridge, crossing to northernmost Gar og

Nadrak, and the Dalasians and Melcenes moved to where fleets

had been constructed to ferry them across the Sea of the East

to southern Cthol Murgos. The northern Malloreans joined with

the Nadraks, Thulls, and northern Murgos to strike toward the

Kingdoms of Drasnia and Algaria. The

second group of Malloreans joined with the southern Murgos and

were to march northwesterly. Torak meant to crush the West

between the two huge armies.

The southern forces, however, were caught in a freak storm

that swept off the Western Sea in the spring of 4875 and that

buried them alive in the worst blizzard of recorded history.

When it finally abated, the column was mired in fourteen-foot

snowdrifts that persisted until early summer. No theory has

yet been able to explain this storm, which was clearly not of

natural origin. Whatever the cause, the southern army

perished. The few survivors who struggled back to the East

told tales of horror that were truly unthinkable.

The northern force was also beset by various disasters,

but eventually laid siege to Vo Mimbre, where they were

completely routed by the combined armies of the West.

And there Torak was struck down by the power of Cthrag

Yaska (there called the Orb of Aldur) and lay in a coma that

was to last centuries, though his body was rescued and taken

to a secret hiding place by his disciple Zedar.

In the years following these catastrophes, Mallorean

society began to fracture back into its original components of

Melcene, Karanda, Dalasia, and the lands of the Angaraks. The

Empire was saved only by the emergence of Korzeth as Emperor.

Korzeth was only fourteen when he seized the throne from

his aged father. Deceived by his youth, the separatist regions

began to declare independence of the imperial throne. Korzeth

moved decisively to stem the revolution. He spent the rest of

his life on horseback in one of the greatest bloodbaths of

history, but when he was done, he delivered a strong and

united Mallorea to his successors. Henceforth, the descendants

of Korzeth ruled in total and unquestioned power from Mal

Zeth. This continued until the present Emperor, Zakath, ascended

the throne. For a time, he gave promise of being an

enlightened ruler of Mallorea and the western kingdoms of the

Angaraks. But soon there were signs of trouble.

The Murgos were ruled by Taur Urgas, and it was evident

that he was both mad and unscrupulously ambitious. He

instigated some plot against the young Emperor. It has never

been established clearly what form his scheming took. But

Zakath discovered that Taur Urgas was behind it and vowed

vengeance. This took the form of a bitter war in which Zakath

began a campaign to destroy the mad ruler utterly.

It was in the middle of this struggle that the West

struck. While the Kings of the West sent an army against the

East, Belgarion, the young Overlord of the West and descendant

of Belgarath the Sorcerer, advanced on foot across the north

and across the land bridge into Mallorea. He was accompanied

by Belgarath and a Drasnian and he bore the ancient Sword of

Riva, on the pommel of which was Cthrag Yaska, the Orb of

Aldur. His purpose was to slay Torak, apparently in response

to some prophecy known in the West.

Torak had been emerging from his long coma in the ruins of

his ancient city of Cthol Mishrak. Now he roused himself to

meet the challenger. But in the confrontation, Belgarion

overcame the God and slew him with the Sword, leaving the

priesthood of Mallorea in chaos and confusion.

PART ONE - RAK HAGGA

CHAPTER ONE

The first snow of the season settled white and quiet

through the breathless air onto the decks of their ship. It

was a wet snow with large, heavy flakes that piled up on the

lines and rigging, turning the tarred ropes into thick, white

cables. The sea was black, and the swells rose and fell

without sound. From the stem came the slow, measured beat of a

muffled drum that set the stroke for the Mallorean oarsmen.

The sifting flakes settled on the shoulders of the sailors and

in the folds of their scarlet cloaks as they pulled steadily

through the snowy morning. Their breath steamed in the chill

dampness as they bent and straightened in unison to the beat

of the drum.

Garion and Silk stood at the rail with their cloaks pulled

tightly around them, staring somberly out through the filmy

snowfall.

"Miserable morning," the rat-faced little Drasnian noted,

distastefully brushing snow from his shoulders.

Garion grunted sourly.

"You're in a cheerful humor today."

"I don't really have all that much to smile about, Silk."

Garion went back to glowering out at the gloomy

black-and-white morning.

Belgarath the Sorcerer came out of the aft cabin, squinted

up into the thickly settling snow, and raised the hood of his

stout old cloak. Then he came forward along the slippery deck

to join them at the rail.

Silk glanced at the red-cloaked Mallorean soldier who had

unobtrusively come up on deck behind the old man and who now

stood leaning with some show of idleness on the rail several

yards aft. "I see that General Atesca is still concerned about

your well-being," he said, pointing at the man who had dogged

Belgarath's steps since they had sailed out of the harbor at

Rak Verkat.

Belgarath threw a quick disgusted glance in the soldier's

direction. "Stupidity," he said shortly. "Where does he think

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DAVIDEDDINGS-DEMONLORDOFKARANDABook2oftheMalloreonPROLOGUEBeingabriefhistoryofMalloreaandtheracesthatdwellthere.-DigestedfromTheChroniclesofAngarakUniversityofMelcenePressTraditionplacestheancestralhomeoftheAngarakssomewhereoffthesouthcoastofpresent-dayDalasia.ThenTorak,DragonGodofAngarak,usedthepow...

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David Eddings - Malloreon 3 Demon Lord of Karanda

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