huge chambers. Ulgos attend religious services daily. Work in open
galleries on studies, art-work, crafts, etc.
People are strangely apart from each other.
HOLIDAYS
The Day of Acceptance – The day UL accepted Gorim – the Holiest
Day
The Day of Despair – When Gorim went to Prolgu and cursed his life
The Day of Following – The day the few followed Gorim.
Also some 130 other observances of key dates in the journals of
Gorim
POPULATION
Population – perhaps 750,000 total
NYISSA
,GEOGRAPHY
The kingdom of Nyissa lies on the southern boundary of Tolnedra,
below the River of the Woods. It is bounded on the west by the
waters of the Great Western Sea and on the east by the low range of
mountains which mark the doorstep of the vast, uninhabited
wilderness of western Cthol Murgos. The southern boundaries of the
kingdom are quite indistinct, since there are only trackless jungles in that
quarter. It is the claim of the Nyissan court at Sthiss Tor that Nyissa
has no southern boundary but continues on to the southern edge of
the world, but few take such grandiose claims seriously, since no
kingdom can with any authority claim lands which it cannot occupy.
For the most part, Nyissa is densely forested, enveloped as it were
in a vast, trackless, sub-tropical jungle. The land is marshy and the
soil extremely fertile. Despite this, farming in the land of the snake
people is minimal. The vast effort required to clear and maintain
fields appears to be beyond the capabilities of the somewhat sluggish inhabitants.
The capital at Sthiss Tor would seem to be the only city of any size
in the entire kingdom, although it is difficult to verify this, since the
Nyissans, always secretive, forbid travel by foreigners into the
hinterlands. Casual observation, however, indicates that the bulk of
the citizenry reside in small villages usually located on or near the
major river system of the country, aptly named the River of the
Serpent. No hard evidence exists of any significant mineral deposits
in the kingdom, but again, this is impossible of verification.
Sthiss Tor itself is a large, well-fortified stone city some eighty
leagues up the River of the Serpent. It is considered a hardship post
by members of the Tolnedran diplomatic corps because of the pesti-
the nyissans are similar in stature and complexion to the Tolnedrans
and Arends, and are, therefore, quite obviously members of the
same broad racial group. As observed previously, they are a secretive
,,and somewhat indolent people, difficult to know and even more
difficult to like. Their worship of the Serpent-God, Issa, has led them
,to adopt certain reptilian mannerisms which most outsiders consider
repugnant.
While the nation is referred to as a kingdom in conformity with
the practice in other western countries, this designation is not
precisely accurate, since the ruler of the Nyissans has always been a
queen. The traditional name, Salmissra, appears to have no
particular hereditary significance, and the process by which successors are
‘chosen is a closely guarded secret intimately involved in the
religious life of the Nyissans, since the Queen is also the high priestess
of the national religion.
*Salmissra is modeled in part on Cleopatra, obviously, and Nyissan society is to a degree
Egyptian, though not entirely. In the Belgariad the N’s are incomprehensible
villains, but in the Malloreon Sadi proved to be an important character, as did Zith.
THE PEOPLE
Because of the abundance of strange flora in the Nyissan jungles,
the snake people have developed a vast lore having to do with
herbal compounds and drugs, and it is generally believed, though
probably erroneously, that the entire nation
is addicted to one or the
other of these compounds. The drugs do, however, play a significant
part in Nyissan religious observances. It is also unfortunately true
that one of the sidelines of Nyissan pharmaceutical experiments has
been the development of a vast range of poisons and toxins which
have intruded upon occasion into the politics of Tolnedra. The
removal of a political adversary in Tolnedra has always been too
simple a matter largely because of the lamentable proximity of the
Nyissan border.
Sadly, the basic industry of Nyissa has always been the
slavetrade. The battlefields of the wars and insurrections of the west have
for thousands of years been haunted by Nyissan slavers. They are
indeed sometimes as prevalent as ravens. Although the trade is
generally condemned, captives without the means to afford ransom
all too frequently end up in chains on Nyissan slave ships. The fate
of these unfortunates is unknown, but since the Nyissan slavers
almost invariably pay for their goods and supplies with Angarak
gold (which has a distinctive reddish cast by reason of the iron
deposits in the vicinity of the mines of Gar og Nadrak and Cthol
Murgos), it is generally assumed that the ultimate destinations of the
slaves are the Angarak Kingdoms to the east. One shudders at the
thought of what may happen to them once they fall into the hands of
the Grolim priests in those dark lands.
THE HISTORY OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE
Because of the secretive nature of the Nyissans, attempts to gather
historical data about them are extraordinarily frustrating. Indeed,
beyond a few cursory facts, most of which came to light during the
Alorn invasion of 4002-3, little is ‘actually known about the country’s
history.
Generally it is assumed that the Nyissans were a part of the
vast westward migration which took place during the first
millennium, at which time were also established the kingdoms of Aloria,
Arendia, Maragor and the Empire of Tolnedra.
It is a commonplace to observe that history is a by-product of war,
and with the exception of the Alorn invasion mentioned above and a
legendary conflict between Nyissa and Maragor late in the second
millennium, the Nyissans have had almost no conflicts with the
other kingdoms of the west.
The causes of the Maragor-Nyissa war are shrouded in the mists
of antiquity’ and what few actual records we have of the conflict are
at best fragmentary as a result of the excessive zeal of Tolnedran
soldiery during the extirpation of the Marags in the third
millennium. What remains is a sketchy body of reports, requisitions, diaries
and the like which provide a shadowy outline of the conflict and
little else.
Whatever the unknown cause was, it appears that the Marags
considered themselves the offended side, and the mounting of their
expeditionary force was something in the nature of a holy crusade.
At any rate, during the mid-nineteenth century’ Marag columns
struck down across the northeastern frontier of Nyissa and plunged
toward Sthiss Tor, 250 leagues to the west. Field commanders
reported the existence of broad highways through the jungles and
mighty cities which were besieged and pulled down. While some of
this may be shrugged off as primitive exaggeration, it must be
conceded that there may indeed be some grain of truth in those
reports. Tolnedran expeditions into northern Nyissa following the
Alorn invasion of the fifth millennium noted the existence of vast,
jungle-choked ruins and barely perceptible highways through the
dense growth
*An obvious reference to the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
. Whatever the truth may be, the Marags pressed on,
pausing only to violate Nyissan temples and to perform their own
disgusting rites upon the altars of the Snake God.
At the approach of the Marag columns, Queen Salmissra and her
retinue fled the city of Sthiss Tor and sought refuge in the jungles to
the south. The Marags found that they had conquered an empty city
surrounded by unpeopled fields.
At that time occurred one of the most monstrous incidents in the
history of warfare. After the Marags had occupied the city for
perhaps ten days, the soldiers began to sicken and die in alarming
numbers. The frantic pleas for food sent back to Maragor by field
commanders camped in the midst of a fertile plain burgeoning with
unharvested crops provide poignant substantiation to what had
taken place. Before their evacuation of the city the Nyissans had
systematically poisoned every scrap of edible food in the vicinity of
the capital. They had even, by means known only to them, poisoned
fruits and vegetables while they still hung from trees or nestled in
the fields. Such cattle as were left for the Marags had, with a
technique that staggers the imagination, been poisoned in such a way
that, while the cattle remained healthy, all who ate their flesh died.
A decimated and delirious column of the few pitiful survivors
stumbled out of the jungles and back to Maragor, leaving their trail
littered with the bodies of their dead.
While it is conjecture only, it is fairly safe to assume that the
lessons of the Marag invasion were not lost on the Nyissans. The
highways (if indeed they were highways) provided easy passage
through the jungles for invading troops, so they were permitted to
fall into disuse, and the jungles reclaimed them. Since the Nyissans