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 awesome 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,
none-theless, 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
D I i g s y 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
Bearshoulders, 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