Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Praise
PREFACE: THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF BELGARATH THE SORCERER
INTRODUCTION
I - THE HOLY BOOKS
THE BOOK OF ALORN - Of the Beginnings
THE BOOK OF TORAK
TESTAMENT OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE
HYMN TO CHALDAN
THE LAMENT OF MARA
THE PROVERBS OF NEDRA
THE SERMON OF ALDUR - Unto his Disciples
THE BOOK OF ULGO
II - THE HISTORIES
At Tol Honeth 5368
GENERAL BACKGROUND AND GEOGRAPHY
THE EMPIRE OF TOLNEDRA
GEOGRAPHY
THE PEOPLE
PRE-DYNASTIC HISTORY
THE FIRST VORDUVIAN DYNASTY 1373–1692 (319 years, 16 Emperors)
THE SECOND HONETHITE DYNASTY 1692–2112 (420 years, 19 Emperors)
THE SECOND VORDUVIAN DYNASTY 2112–2537 (425 years, 20 Emperors)
THE FIRST BORUNE DYNASTY 2537–3155 (618 years, 24 Emperors)
THE THIRD HONETHITE DYNASTY 3155–3497 (342 years, 17 Emperors)
THE SECOND BORUNE DYNASTY 3497–3761 (264 years, 12 Emperors)
THE FIRST HORBITE DYNASTY 3761–3911 (150 years, 6 Emperors)
THE FIRST RANITE DYNASTY 3911–4001 (90 years, 7 Emperors)
THE THIRD VORDUVIAN DYNASTY 4001–4133 (132 years, 3 Emperors)
THE SECOND HORBITE DYNASTY 4133–4483 (350 years, 16 Emperors)
THE SECOND RANITE DYNASTY 4483–4742 (259 years, 17 Emperors)
THE THIRD BORUNE DYNASTY 4742 to date (626 years, 23 Emperors)
UNIVERSAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
Tolnedra
COINAGE
COSTUME
POPULATIONS
MAJOR HOLIDAYS
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
Appendix on Maragor
GEOGRAPHY
THE PEOPLE
HISTORY
COINAGE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
THE CANNIBALISM
MANNERS
THE ALORN KINGDOMS
The Isle of the Winds
Riva
Cherek
Cherek
Drasnia
Drasnia
Algaria
Appendix on the Vale of Aldur
Algaria
HOLIDAYS
SENDARIA
GEOGRAPHY
THE PEOPLE
THE HISTORY OF SENDARIA
Sendaria
COINAGE
COSTUME
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANK
MODES OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
POPULATION
ARENDIA
GEOGRAPHY
THE PEOPLE
THE HISTORY OF ARENDIA
Arendia
COINAGE
COSTUME
COMMERCE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
ULGOLAND
GEOGRAPHY
THE ULGOS
THE HISTORY OF THE ULGOS
Ulgoland
COINAGE
COSTUME
COMMERCE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANK
MODES OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS
POPULATION
NYISSA
GEOGRAPHY
THE PEOPLE
THE HISTORY OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE
Nyissa
COINAGE
COSTUME
COMMERCE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANK
MODES OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
POPULATION
THE ANGARAK KINGDOMS
GEOGRAPHY
Gar Og Nadrak
Mishrak Ac Thull
Cthol Murgos
THE PEOPLE
THE HISTORY OF THE ANGARAKS
Gar Og Nadrak
COINAGE
COSTUME
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANK
MODES OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS
POPULATION
Mishrak Ac Thull
COINAGE
COSTUME
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANK
MODE OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
HOLIDAYS AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
POPULATION
Cthol Murgos
COINAGE
COSTUME
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
RANKS
MODES OF ADDRESS
HOLIDAYS AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
POPULATION
Mallorea
COINAGE
COSTUME
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
NOBILITY
MODE OF ADDRESS
MANNERS
COMMERCE
HOLIDAYS AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
POPULATION
The Grolims
WEALTH
COSTUME
ORGANIZATION
RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
THE SACRIFICE
RANK
PHYSICAL
POPULATION
III - THE BATTLE OF VO MIMBRE
BOOK SEVEN THE BATTLE BEFORE VO MIMBRE
AND BEHOLD:
AFTERWORD
INTERMISSION
IV - PRELIMINARY STUDIES FOR THE MALLOREON
A CURSORY HISTORY OF THE ANGARAK KINGDOMS - Prepared by the History Department of the University of Melcene
V - THE MALLOREAN GOSPELS
THE BOOK OF AGES
THE BOOK OF FATES
THE BOOK OF TASKS
THE BOOK OF GENERATIONS
THE BOOK OF VISIONS
VI - A SUMMARY OF CURRENT EVENTS
From the Personal Journal of King Anheg of Cherek
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Anheg
By David Eddings
AFTERWARD
Visit www.delreybooks.com— the portal to all the information and resources available from Del Rey Online.
Copyright Page
More Praise for The Rivan Codex
“[The Rivan Codex] presents a variety of well-crafted pseudobiblia, such as Belgarath’s autobiography and many of the Holy Books. It goes on to the historical, economic, and ethnographic background of the major nations of the sagas. There are many other pieces that reflect well on the Eddingses’ world-building skills—as if the novels themselves had not already demonstrated their craft. . . . It is also of some scholarly interest in revealing the roots of one of the founding megasagas in modern English-language fantasy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Spellbinding—all of it: the various characters’ own summaries of their worlds and problems, the maps, the other illustrations . . . and the Eddingses’ frequent quips and comments. . . . Delightful reading for any fantasy fan.”
—Booklist
By David Eddings
Published by Del Rey Books:
THE BELG
ARIAD
Book One: Pawn of Prophecy
Book Two: Queen of Sorcery
Book Three: Magician’s Gambit
Book Four: Castle of Wizardry
Book Five: Enchanters’ End Game
Book Six: Belgarath the Sorcerer
THE MALLOREON
Book One: Guardians of the West
Book Two: King of the Murgos
Book Three: Demon Lord of Karanda
Book Four: Sorceress of Darshiva
Book Five: The Seeress of Kell
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne
Book Two: The Ruby Knight
Book Three: The Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire
Book Two: The Shining Ones
Book Three: The Hidden City
THE REDEMPTION OF ALTHALUS
THE RIVAN CODEX
HIGH HUNT
THE LOSERS
Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.
For Malcolm, Jane, Joy, Geoff, and the rest of the bunch.
It’s always a genuine pleasure to work with you.
With all our thanks.
DAVID & LEIGH
FIRST MAP OF A PLACE THAT NEVER WAS
INTRODUCTION
My decision to publish this volume was made in part because of a goodly number of flattering letters I’ve received over the past several years. Some of these letters have come from students at various levels, and to make matters worse, I’ve also received letters from teachers who inform me that they’re actually encouraging this sort of thing. Aren’t they aware that they’re supposed to wait until I’m safely in the ground before they do this?
The students, naturally, ask questions. The teachers hint around the edges of an invitation to stop by and address the class. I’m very flattered, as I mentioned, but I don’t write—or grade—term papers any more, and I don’t travel. To put it idiomatically, ‘I ain’t going no place; I been where I’m going.’
Then there are those other letters, the ones which rather bashfully confide an intention to ‘try writing fantasy myself’. I don’t worry too much about those correspondents. They’ll get over that notion rather quickly once they discover what’s involved. I’m sure that most of them will eventually decide to take up something simpler—brain surgery or rocket science, perhaps.
I’d more or less decided to just file those letters and keep my mouth shut. A prolonged silence might be the best way to encourage a passing fancy to do just that—pass.
Then I recalled a conversation I had with Lester del Rey on one occasion. When I’d first submitted my proposal for the Belgariad, I’d expected the usual leisurely reaction-time, but Lester responded with what I felt to be unseemly haste. He wanted to see this thing—now, but I wasn’t ready to let him see it—now. I was in revision of what I thought would be Book I, and since I was still doing honest work in those days, my time was somewhat curtailed. I wanted to keep him interested, however, so I sent him my ‘Preliminary Studies’ instead—‘So that you’ll have the necessary background material.’ Lester later told me that while he was reading those studies, he kept telling himself, ‘There’s no way we can publish this stuff,’ but then he admitted, ‘but I kept reading.’ We were fairly far along in the Belgariad when he made this confession, and he went on to say, ‘Maybe when we’ve got the whole story finished, we might want to think about releasing those studies.’
Eventually, the two ideas clicked together. I had people out there asking questions, and I had the answers readily at hand since nobody in his right mind takes on a multi-book project without some fairly extensive preparation. My Preliminary Studies were right there taking up space, I’d just finished a five-book contract, and I had nothing else currently on the fire. All this thing needed was a brief introduction and some footnotes, and we were off to press. (Just in passing I should advise you that my definition of ‘brief’ and yours might differ just a bit. It takes me a hundred pages just to clear my throat. Had you noticed that? I thought you might have.)
Please bear in mind the fact that these studies are almost twenty years old, and there are going to be gaps. There are places where some great leaps occurred, frequently flowing out of the point of my pen during that actual writing, and I wasn’t keeping a diary to report these bursts of inspired creativity. I’ll candidly admit that probably no more than half of these ‘strokes of genius’ actually worked. Some of them would have been disastrous. Fortunately, my collaborator was there to catch those blunders. Trial and error enters into any form of invention, I suppose. This book may help others to avoid some of the missteps we made along the way, and it may give the student of our genre some insights into the creative process—something on the order of ‘connect wire A to wire B. Warning! Do not connect wire A to wire C, because that will cause the whole thing to blow up in your face.’
Now that I’ve explained what I’m up to here, let’s get the lecture out of the way. (Did you really think I’d let you get away without one?)
After I graduated from the US Army in 1956, one of my veteran’s benefits was the now famous GI Bill. My government had decided to pay me to go to graduate school. I worked for a year to save up enough for some incidentals (food, clothing, and shelter) and then enrolled in the graduate school of the University of Washington in Seattle. (A good day in Seattle is a day when it isn’t raining up.) My area of concentration was supposed to be modern American fiction (Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck), but I had those Ph.D exams lurking out in the future, so I knew that I’d better spend some time with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton as well. Once I’d mastered Middle English, I fell in love with Chaucer and somewhat by extension with Sir Thomas Malory.
Since what is called ‘Epic Fantasy’ in the contemporary world descends in an almost direct line from medieval romance, my studies of Chaucer and Malory gave me a running head start in the field. ‘Medieval Romance’ had a long and honorable history, stretching from about the eleventh century to the sixteenth, when Don Quixote finally put it to sleep. It was a genre that spoke of the dark ages in glowing terms, elevating a number of truly barbaric people to near sainthood. The group that is of most interest to the English-speaking world, of course, is King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. There may or may not have been a real King Arthur, but that’s beside the point. We should never permit historical reality to get in the way of a good story, should we?
Since the issue’s come up, though, let’s take a look at someone who was historically verifiable and who had a great deal of impact on the fledgling genre in its earliest of days. The lady in question was the infamous Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Eleanor was related to five (count ’em) different kings (or pseudo-kings) during the twelfth century. Her father was the Duke of Aquitaine (now known as Gascony) and, since he controlled more land than the King of France, he routinely signed official documents as ‘the King of Aquitaine’. In 1137, Louis of France arranged a marriage between his son, Prince Louis and ‘princess’ Eleanor. Eleanor wasn’t a good wife, since she had what’s politely known as a ‘roving eye’. Evidently, it was more than her eye that roved. Her husband, who soon became Louis VII of France, was a pious man, and his wandering wife not only failed to produce an heir to his throne, but also became notorious as an adulteress. He finally managed to have their marriage annulled in 1152, and two months later Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, who incidentally also happened to be King Henry II of England. Eleanor, as it turned out, was not barren, and she bore Henry several sons. Aside from that, Henry and Eleanor didn’t really get along together, so he took the easy way out and locked her up to keep her out of his hair. After he died, Eleanor stirred up trouble between her sons, Richard the Lionhearted and John the Incompetent, both of whom became kings of England. They al
so locked Mother away to keep her out of mischief.
Thus, Eleanor spent a lot of her time locked up. Embroidery didn’t thrill her too much, so she read books. Books were very expensive in the twelfth century because they had to be copied by hand, but Eleanor didn’t care. She had money, if not freedom, so she could afford to pay assorted indigents with literary pretensions to write the kind of books she liked. Given Eleanor’s background it’s understandable that she liked books about kings, knights in shining armor, pretty young fellows who played the lute and sang of love with throbbing emotion, and fair damsels cruelly imprisoned in towers. Her literary tastes gave rise to troubadour poetry, the courtly love tradition, and whole libraries of interminable French romances that concentrated heavily on ‘The Matter of Britain’ (King Arthur et al) and ‘The Matter of France’ (Charlemagne and Co.).
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 1
