The question of trade with the Isle of the Winds, however, was much more difficult to settle. The Chereks continued their blockade of the port of Riva unabated for reasons which are largely unclear. It was generally assumed that the Isle was either a Cherek colony or a Cherek protectorate, but neither assumption now appears to be correct. Though the Rivans are Alorns as are the Chereks, the Drasnians and the Algars, it would appear that they are a separate people independent of Cherek. The blockade, which frustrated generations of Tolnedran and Sendarian merchants seems to have had some religious significance which was incomprehensible to Tolnedran diplomats. Finally, in the Accords of Val Alorn in 3097 as a part of the brilliantly wrought treaty which normalized relations between Cherek and Tolnedra, the blockade was lifted and Tolnedran vessels began to call on the port of Riva.
It had generally been assumed that the Rivans had been a tacit party to the Accords of Val Alorn, but this quickly proved not to be the case. Merchants landed on the rocky strand of that inhospitable isle only to be faced with the grim and unscalable walls of the Fortress of Riva itself. The gates of the fortress remained closed, and the Rivans refused to even acknowledge the presence of the merchants.
It was the last Borune Emperor who mounted the disastrous assault on the city, proving perhaps that even the noblest line deteriorates in time. Five legions were dispatched to Riva to force the gates of the city, and a horde of merchant vessels hovered in the bay, awaiting the opening of the gates. There is, it may be observed at this point, something decidedly unhealthy in the Tolnedran character. While he is normally a solid, sensible man, the average Tolnedran grows positively frantic when his impulse to trade is frustrated. There have been occasions when Imperial forces have been used to open relations with stubborn people, and it has been observed that some merchants, driven beyond sanity by their eagerness to be first, have actually dashed ahead of the forefront of the legions waving their wares and importuning the startled opposing warriors. This impulse—this greed, if you will—is what raised the disaster at Riva to such colossal proportions.
At the first assault of the legions upon the gates of the city, the Rivans emerged and systematically destroyed not only the five legions, but every vessel in the harbor as well. The loss of life and goods was incalculable.
When the news was brought to Ran Borune XXIV in Tol Honeth, the last Borune Emperor, in a fury, prepared to launch the full might of the Empire against the Rivans. He was, however, brought abruptly to his senses by a curtly-worded note from the Cherek ambassador.
‘Majesty,’ it read.
‘Know that Aloria will permit no attack upon Riva. The fleets of Cherek, whose masts rise as thick as the trees of the forest, will fall upon your flotilla, and the legions of Tolnedra will feed the fish from the hook of Arendia to the furthest reaches of the Sea of the Winds. The battalions of Drasnia will march south, crushing all in their paths and lay siege to your cities. The horsemen of Algaria shall sweep across the mountains and shall lay waste your Empire from end to end with fire and sword.
‘Know that in the day that you attack Riva, in that day will the Alorns make war upon you, and you shall surely perish, and your Empire also.’
Shaken by the awful finality of the note, Ran Borune reconsidered. A hasty reading of the document which had laid down the stipulations of the Accords of Val Alorn revealed a clause which had previously seemed mere ritualistic gibberish, but the import of which now became horrifyingly clear. The clause, ‘but Aloria shall maintain Riva and keep it whole’, revealed the fact that the Alorn Kingdoms were bound into a kind of confederation or Over-nation. Thus, a treaty with Cherek was not a treaty with Aloria; and while Cherek had agreed not to make war on Tolnedra, Aloria had made no such promise. With difficulty the legions might successfully pursue war against any one of the Alorn Kingdoms, but if those kingdoms joined together, they would be invincible.
Thus it was that the project of a punitive expedition against the Rivans was quickly dropped.
In time the Rivans relented and permitted the construction of a commercial enclave outside the walls of their city, and, though they grumbled about it, the merchants of the west were forced to be content with that single concession.
Thus the FIRST BORUNE DYNASTY drew to a close. Its accomplishments were literally staggering, and, though it ended on a somewhat humiliating note, it is nonetheless one of the most towering Dynasties in the entire history of the Empire.
THE THIRD HONETHITE DYNASTY 3155–3497 (342 years, 17 Emperors)
The scramble for the Throne at the end of the FIRST BORUNE DYNASTY marked the nadir of Tolnedran politics. Simple bribery was no longer sufficient, and the contending candidates openly purchased the votes of the Council. Further, it is widely suspected (and generally held to be true) that they even stooped to assassination as a means of achieving their goal. The votes in the Council swung back and forth as members whose votes had been purchased by one or the other of the candidates sickened quite suddenly and died for no apparent reason and their replacements were shamelessly bought as soon as they reached Tol Honeth. The introduction of Nyissan poisons into Tolnedran politics was gruesomely evident.
In the end, the Honethites prevailed—not through any particular virtue, but rather because they were the wealthiest family and could afford to buy more votes.
Perhaps the most telling indication of how incompetent the Honethites had become is revealed in the fact that during the entire period of the THIRD HONETHITE DYNASTY there was not one single treaty or agreement with a foreign power to improve the position of the Empire. Indeed, in view of the Northern Accords between Drasnia and Gar og Nadrak which established the North Caravan Route with a virtual Drasnian monopoly at its western terminus, it might be convincingly argued that the position of the Empire actually deteriorated during the reign of the Dynasty.
Instead of devoting themselves to foreign affairs and the improvement of domestic conditions in Tolnedra as had the Borune Emperors, the Honethites instead turned to shamelessly looting the Imperial Treasury and to selling positions of power to the highest bidder.
Abroad, the Arendish Civil War ground on interminably, and negotiations with Drasnia and Algaria proceeded at a snail’s pace, due in large measure to the unbridled greed of a long succession of Honethite Emperors who inevitably sought personal advantage in any treaty proposal.
THE SECOND BORUNE DYNASTY 3497–3761 (264 years, 12 Emperors)
Thus, when Ran Honeth XVII died childless in 3497, the people of Tolnedra turned almost universally to the Borunes. When certain Council members, recalling the vast fortunes which had been made during the unseemly struggle that had accompanied the previous Dynastic turnover, advertised that their votes were for sale, they were promptly mobbed by the citizenry of Tol Honeth itself.
A vast rabble gathered outside the Council chamber and took up a thunderous chant, ‘Bor-une, Bor-une, Bor-une,’ which gave the Council a grim hint as to what would be its fate if any other name were carried to the Temple of Nedra. It was the first time in history that the common people had ever taken an active part in the selection of an Emperor.
True to their reputations, the Borunes immediately set about repairing the damage which had been done by the Honethites. Once again the legions were put to work on roads and walls and upon long-overdue repairs to wharves, jetties and dikes. The usual grumbling came to an abrupt halt when seven legion commanders were summarily executed for refusing to obey direct Imperial orders to move out of their garrisons to the construction camps.
Abroad, the Borunes brought the negotiations with the Drasnians to a speedy conclusion, and the Agreement of Boktor was signed in 3527. Though it did not provide the advantage many had wished, it nonetheless gave Tolnedran Merchants access to the thriving northern trade.
In a move unheard of previously, the Borunes dispatched twenty legions to Sendaria to construct ‘as a gesture of goodwill’ the network of highways which linked Sendar and Camaar with Darine on the northeast coast whi
ch faces on the Gulf of Cherek. This action produced glum faces in Val Alorn, but the King of Cherek (which country nominally held Sendaria at that time) quickly perceived that the improvements in Sendaria would enormously increase the tax-base in that district at no cost to the Cherek treasury. The legion-built highways effectively broke the Cherek monopoly in the transport of goods from Boktor to Camaar. The fact that Cherek vessels were the only ships in the world at that time able to negotiate the savage and treacherous currents of the Cherek Bore was no longer the dominating reality of the northern trade. It was now possible for Sendarian merchantmen to ply the coastal route from Kotu to Darine and then to transship overland to Camaar on the new highway. The increase in trade and the lowering of prices resulting from the development of healthy competition gave an enormous boost to the economies of all nations involved.
THE FIRST HORBITE DYNASTY 3761–3911 (150 years, 6 Emperors)
It is a tribute to the wisdom of the aged Ran Borune XII, the childless last Emperor of the SECOND BORUNE DYNASTY, that the transition of power to the Horbites at the end of his reign was so smooth. Always innovators, the Borunes for the first time took a direct hand in the choosing of their successors. The name of Ran Horb I was carried to the Temple before the old Emperor died. Although once again certain members of the Council bewailed the loss of an opportunity to sell their votes, Ran Borune XII was so beloved by the people that none dared oppose him. Thus, in no small measure, we have the Borunes to thank for perhaps the greatest Emperor Tolnedra has ever had.
While Ran Horb I was surely a competent and vigorous Emperor in the manner of the Borunes, it was his son, Ran Horb II, whose accomplishments stagger the imagination. Because Ran Horb I married late in life, Ran Horb II was a mere seventeen when he ascended the golden Throne. It was widely assumed that his youth would make him easy to beguile by the older and more sophisticated members of the court. Such quickly proved not to be the case. In 3793, the young Emperor concluded the secret Treaty of the Plain with the Mimbrate Arends. Perceiving that the endless Civil War in Arendia had become a hindrance to the development of the west and a disruption of trade and commerce, the Emperor sided with the weaker faction, the Mimbrates, and joined in the final destruction of the Asturian Arends. The Emperor let it be known in Cherek and Algaria that the legions stationed in Sendaria for the maintenance of the highways built there by the Borunes would no longer hinder the movement of raiders upon northern Arendia. Thus, with their forces divided, the Asturians were no match for the assault by the Mimbrate Knights across the southern frontier of Asturia and the diversionary movement of a Tolnedran column along the coast. Then began in Arendia a war of attrition against the Asturians which lasted for almost twenty years.
Meanwhile, Imperial negotiators, urged on by the Emperor, concluded the Algarian agreement with Cho-Dorn the Old, Chief of the Clan-chiefs of the Horse People. The agreement caused a wave of consternation among the merchant princes of Tolnedra, since virtually no trade advantage was gained. Although it was widely denounced in commercial circles, the one concession the Emperor gained which made the treaty perhaps more valuable than any other was permission to construct the Great North Road across Algaria to the southern border of Drasnia. Thus, for the first time, a land route directly to Boktor was possible. The legions were permitted to enter Algaria for the purpose of constructing the road. As the Emperor observed to one grumbling merchant, ‘I would trade off the Horse People—even if they were ten times more numerous—for overland access to Boktor.’ When one balances the volume of trade coming out of the east into Drasnia, one can only agree with the wisdom of our most splendid Emperor.
In 3822, Vo Astur, seat of the Asturian Arendia, fell before the onslaughts of the Mimbrates, and, like Vo Wacune, the city was destroyed. The Mimbrates, however, though they had won the victory and crowned their Duke the first unchallenged King of Arendia, were exhausted by the final struggle. The restrictions imposed by the Emperor in return for Tolnedran assistance in the destruction of the Asturians in many respects made the Arends virtually a subject people. Though it rankled the proud Mimbrates, they were too weak to protest, and the new King had other problems. Though they had been defeated and Vo Astur had been laid waste, there were still Asturian Arends in the north. They retreated into the trackless reaches of the Arendish forest and began the guerilla warfare which was to sap the strength of the Mimbrate Kings for over a thousand years.
Nothing, of course, could have suited Tolnedran purposes better. The open battles and extensive military campaigns which had made travel through Arendia so hazardous were at an end, replaced by the hit and run tactics of the Asturians and the futile expeditions of the Mimbrates into the dark forest in pursuit. The Emperor reached a secret agreement with the Asturians which guaranteed freedom of movement along the Great West Road which the legions were constructing southward through their forest. At the same time, in accordance with the Treaty of Tol Vordue, other legions were constructing the southern leg of the highway north from the River Arend.
Although the Great West Road and the Great North Road were not to be completed for over a century, the concept was now clear. When these colossal projects were finished, it would be possible to travel overland from Tol Honeth to Camaar, from Camaar to Boktor, and—along the North Caravan Routes—from Boktor to Yar Marak and Thull Zelik in the Kingdoms of the Angaraks.
This was the zenith of Tolnedran power. Ran Horb II was quite literally the most powerful man in the world. By Imperial Decree in 3827 he created the Kingdom of Sendaria on the northwest coast. When certain northern merchants protested, he pointed out that it was more efficient and far less costly to allow the Sendars to govern themselves than it was to attempt to administer a country five hundred leagues beyond our northern border. ‘Let the Sendars enjoy the aggravation of administering their own country,’ he said. ‘So long as we have the right trade agreements with them, we will lose little by our generosity.’
In the twilight of his life, Ran Horb II, then well over eighty, concluded the Agreement of Sthiss Tor, formalizing trade relations with Nyissa; and, in one of his most stunning moves, signed the Accords of Rak Goska which established the South Caravan Route through the mountains of Cthol Murgos. It would soon be possible for a man on a good horse to depart from Tol Honeth, ride north to Boktor, cross to the Eastern Sea at Yar Marak, then go south to Rak Goska and cross the mountains to return to Tol Honeth. In his dying words to his son, Ran Horb II said, ‘Keep the roads. So long as the roads are kept, Tolnedra rules the world.’
And so it was. The remainder of the HORBITE DYNASTY was devoted to the completion of the system of highways which was to make Tolnedra supreme in the west. There was little else to be done.
THE FIRST RANITE DYNASTY 3911–4001 (90 years, 7 Emperors)
The ill-fated FIRST RANITE DYNASTY ascended to power following the death of the last Horbite Emperor. The verdict of history is perhaps unkind to these unfortunates. A hereditary ailment in their line struck them down inevitably in their prime. So it was that no one Ranite Emperor lived long enough to achieve anything of any significance. History quite correctly regards the Ranites simply as caretakers.
THE THIRD VORDUVIAN DYNASTY 4001–4133 (132 years, 3 Emperors)
At the turn of the fifth millennium, the Vorduvians once again gained control of the Imperial Throne. Since Tol Vordue is a major sea-port, the Vorduvians have always felt that sea-commerce is much preferable to overland trade, and during the century and more of their reign, the roads of Ran Horb II fell into disrepair, and the power of the Empire declined.
No sooner had the Vorduvians been installed in Tol Honeth than one of the cataclysmic events in the history of the west occurred. The Rivan King, Gorek the Wise, was assassinated at Riva by a contingent of Nyissan merchants acting on the orders of Queen Salmissra of Nyissa. Ran Vordue I stood by helplessly while the world quite literally collapsed around his ears. The horrid suspicion that had hovered in the most secret councils in Tol Honeth since the
days of the last of the Borunes became a dreadful reality—the Alorns joined together to make war. Aloria did, in fact, exist. The campaign of the Alorns against Nyissa was short and savage. Viewing the ugly temper of our northern friends, Ran Vordue wisely chose not to object to the technical violation of Tolnedran territory by the southward-moving columns of Algars and Drasnians nor the presence in our territorial waters of huge fleets of Cherek warships.
When the war was over and Nyissa had for all real purposes ceased to exist, all Tolnedra quite literally held its breath. The temper of the Alorns was ugly, and they had demonstrated a capability for a sustained and coordinated military campaign none had ever suspected. If they had chosen to turn north from ravaged Nyissa, all the might of the Empire would not have been sufficient to stop them. The entire fate of the civilized world hung on the whim of the barbaric Kings of Aloria.
It was with enormous relief that Tolnedra watched the return of the Drasnian and Algarian columns through the mountains toward the Vale of Aldur and the swift passage of the lean, black warships of Cherek northbound along our coast.
In the years following the war of the Alorns upon Nyissa, there was turmoil in the west. The Alorn Kings seemed preoccupied and gathered frequently for council at Riva. Without the firm hands of their kings to control them, the rowdy Alorns frequently violated the provisions of many of their treaties and agreements with Tolnedra. Imperial Ambassadors attempting to protest were frequently ignored or curtly dismissed. The Vorduvian Emperors seemed powerless to regain control of the situation.
THE SECOND HORBITE DYNASTY 4133–4483 (350 years, 16 Emperors)
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 13
