It is speculated that the Ulgos are the original inhabitants of the continent, although no known document records the first meeting between a civilized man and an Ulgo. It is generally agreed that civilized men migrated to this continent from the east sometime during the first millennium, at which time the original five kingdoms (Aloria, Arendia, Tolnedra, Nyissa and Maragor) were established. It appears that the presence of the Ulgos predates that migration. Their secretive ways, however, makes it impossible to pinpoint specifics.
Because of the inhospitable nature of their country, few travelers entered their land during the first four millennia of the present era. Superstitious tales of hideous monsters who attacked travelers without warning were undoubtedly the result of systematic Ulgo terrorism designed to keep their country inviolate.
In more modern times a limited trade has been established, and following the battle of Vo Mimbre, a road was pushed through to Prolgu.
The first contacts with the Ulgos came about through the efforts of the Tolnedran trade negotiator, Horban, who was the personal representative and cousin of Emperor Ran Horb XVI during the decade of the 4420s. It was Horban who braved the legendary terrors of the Ulgo mountains and made his way to the forbidden city of Prolgu with only a small detachment of cavalry as an escort.
At first the Ulgos not only refused to negotiate but even refused to reveal themselves to him. For eight months he camped inside the walls of what appeared to be an abandoned city. He wandered about the moss-grown streets observing with amazement the incredible antiquity of the place.
Late one afternoon in the fall of 4421, Horban was astounded to find himself quite suddenly surrounded by a group of heavily cloaked and hooded men who took him prisoner and spirited him into a nearby vacant house. He was then taken into a cellar under that house, and a door in the floor was opened to reveal the vast, dimly lighted caverns beneath where the Ulgos reside.
Horban attempted to speak with his captors but without any success. The languages of the west are, of course, all members of the same linguistic family. Thus a Tolnedran may speak with an Alorn or an Arend or a Nyissan without significant difficulty; and, with great patience on each side, may even converse rudimentarily with an Angarak; but the language of the Ulgos is totally alien.
He was placed in a fairly comfortable chamber, given food and drink, and in time was visited by three very old men who attempted to converse with him. When they discovered that he could not understand them, they set about teaching him their language.
After two years of instruction, Horban was taken before the King, who by tradition is named UL-GO or given the title ‘Gorim’, apparently a term of respect.
The conversation between Horban and the Gorim of the Ulgos is remarkable not merely for what it reveals, but also for that it tantalizingly conceals. In his report to the Emperor, Horban provided the following summary:
The Gorim first demanded of the emissary what business he had in the land of the Ulgos and why he had desecrated their holy place at Prolgu.
Horban replied as diplomatically as possible that since the Ulgos chose to live beneath the ground, it was impossible for outsiders to even know that they existed. He described himself as an investigator sent to confirm or disprove persistent rumors about a people living in the mountains.
Then the Gorim asked how Horban had escaped ‘the monsters’, and would not elaborate on his cryptic question when Horban professed ignorance of any such creatures.60
And then, in open violation of the most fundamental tenet of good manners, the Gorim asked Horbin the name of his God. The question was so startling that Horban was able to quote it verbatim.
‘And who is your God?’ the Gorim said, his face stern. ‘Is it he who cracked the world?’
Horban quickly realized that the Ulgos could not be held to an etiquette which had been developed by civilized men to forestall the inevitable wrangling and probable bloodshed which would accompany theological disputation and chose, therefore, not to take offense. He replied, as formally as possible, ‘I have the honor, exalted one, to be a disciple of the Great God Nedra.’
The Gorim nodded. ‘We know of him,’ he said. ‘The eldest save Aldur. A serviceable God, though a bit too stiff and formal for my liking. It is the third God, Torak, the maimed one, who is our enemy. He it was who cracked the earth and unloosed the evil that bestrides the world above. Truly, had you confessed to the worship of Torak, would you have been carried to a pit and cast down into the sea of endless fire that lies infinitely far below.’
A shaken Horban had then inquired of the Gorim how it was that he appeared to have such intimate knowledge of the seven Gods. The response of the Gorim sparked a theological debate which has lasted for over 900 years. He said: ‘We know of the seven Gods because UL has revealed them to us, and UL knows them better than any, since he is older than they.’
This simple statement was, of course, a thunderbolt which galvanized the theologians of all the western nations. They were immediately roused from their involuted efforts to each prove the superiority of his God and plunged into the most significant debate in five millennia. The fundamental question, of course, was: ‘Are there seven Gods as we have always believed or are there eight?’ If there are seven, then the Ulgos in heathen idolatry worship a false God and should be converted or exterminated. If there are eight and this mysterious ‘UL’ is also a God, then has he not been excluded from ceremonial offerings for over 5000 years? and ought we not propitiate him? And if there are eight, might there not be nine—or nine-hundred? Alorn theologians confirmed from their sacred writings that the God of the Angaraks, Torak, indeed did crack the world and that he was maimed. Fascinating as these questions are, it is not our purpose here to expound upon them. It is sufficient to note that the Ulgos are the source of the dispute.
At the conclusion of his discussion with the Gorim, Horban concluded a limited trade agreement which allowed two caravans per year to make the journey to Prolgu and to encamp in the valley beneath the city—a valley known by an Ulgo word which, translated, means ‘where the monsters waited’, a quaint term related to their mythology. At that time, the Gorim stated that those of his people who had the inclination might go there and view the goods of the merchants. When Horban pressed for more frequent caravans or even a permanent commercial community in the valley, the Gorim denied permission, saying, ‘The limitation is for your own protection,’ and refused to elaborate.
For the first hundred years, the trade with the Ulgos was woefully unprofitable. Many times Tolnedran merchants made the long and arduous caravan journey to Prolgu and waited the appointed three weeks without a single customer coming up from the depths of the earth to view their goods. Appeals to the Emperor to dispatch a military expedition to force the Ulgos up out of their caves so that the merchants might tempt them with their goods were largely ineffectual, since there was nothing in the treaty requiring the Ulgos to buy, and the city at Prolgu, situated as it is on the top of a sheer mountain, is perhaps one of the most totally unassailable places in the world. As one Ranite Emperor said, ‘I could pour the wealth and young manhood of the Empire into those barren mountains and gain nothing thereby.’
In time our caravans grew smaller and were frequently unaccompanied by troops, and occasionally they disappeared without a trace. The Ulgos vaguely mentioned ‘monsters’, but refused to elaborate.
During the invasion of the Angaraks in the 4860s and 70s, the Algar cavalry and Drasnian infantry elements which closed in behind the enemy on the way to the battleground before the Arendish city of Vo Mimbre were startled by the sudden emergence from their caverns of thousands of curiously armed Ulgos, all, as usual, hooded and with their faces and eyes veiled against the light.
It is evident that there is some eons-old dispute between the Ulgos and the Angaraks, the origins of which are lost in antiquity. The Algars and Drasnians soon had no difficulty in following the Hordes of Kal-Torak, since the trail was littered with the bodies of the unfort
unates whom the Ulgos systematically ambushed. Because of the sensitivity of their eyes to the light, Ulgos function best at night, and the toll they took of the sleeping Angaraks was ghastly.
At the Battle of Vo Mimbre, the Ulgos participated in the assault upon the Angarak left with the Algars and the Drasnians. When they shed their robes and hoods for battle, they revealed the traditional armor of the Ulgos, a curious leaf-mail, shaped much like the scales of a serpent and overlapping in such fashion that it is virtually impenetrable. The armor is colorfully referred to as ‘dragon-skin’. During the battle, the Ulgos displayed uncommon valor, closing savagely with the much larger Murgo warriors who held the left flank; and after the battle when darkness had fallen, Ulgo warriors roamed the battlefield making certain that no wounded Angarak escaped.
When things had returned somewhat to normal following the war, limited trade was resumed, but the Ulgos have retained their secretive ways.
The current Gorim of the Ulgos appears to be extremely ancient, though the dimness of the light in their caverns makes such fine distinctions difficult. The mode by which the Ulgos choose their Gorim or how far back into the dim reaches of the past the line extends are questions, of course, which are likely never to be answered.
Ulgoland
COINAGE
Ulgos do not use coins, but rather barter for items both useful and ornamental. Ulgo jewelry is so exquisite and so finely wrought that it is nearly priceless in the west. They will also trade in raw gold and silver and in cut and uncut gems.
COSTUME
Standard garments—linen pajama-like affair. Hooded cloaks of the coarse cloth. All dyed quite dark.
Linen—cloth (wild flax gathered near cave-mouths).
A coarse cloth woven from the fiber of a tree bark similarly gathered.
Soft leather—deer-hide taken by nocturnal Ulgo hunters.
Personages wear robes—quite heavy—one solid piece. White.
Armor—overlapping, diamond-shaped steel scales sewn to leather.
Weapon—the knife—designed and perfected by Ulgo craftsmen—quite ornamental with lots of hooks and saw edges. Long ice-pick. Short-handled picks with needle points, etc. Women wear soft robes. Hair is elaborately plaited. Jeweled head-bands.
COMMERCE
Strictly barter in useful goods or in services. Ulgos do have fields, planted and harvested at night. Planted at random so as to be undetectable. They also hunt meat—meat is a rarity in the Ulgo diet. Lots of root vegetables, grains and nuts.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Ulgo society is a theocracy. The Gorim is a Moses figure, a lawgiver and a judge. People divided into tribes. Elders of the tribes advise the Gorim. Scholars study the writings of the original Gorim—a very Jewish society in that respect.
Ordinary people live in chambers cut out of the stone along the various galleries in the vast limestone caves.
Note: The caves of the Ulgos are naturally heated by geothermal forces. Cooking is with small coal fires. Smoke and fumes are carried off in cunningly constructed vents. Light provided by tiny oil lamps or by refracted surface light (through glass prisms).
Ulgo society is totally involved with religion. Much time is taken up with prayer. Prophecy and the casting of Auguries is enormously important. Upon special dates certain special openings with special glass prisms allow the light of certain stars to enter the caverns, colors and shadows are then interpreted. (Ulgos are masters of primitive optics because of their work in glass.)
They also have extensive knowledge of ‘the monsters’ and know how to deal with most of them.
They are not prolific. Many restraints on population. Infant mortality is quite high among them. A static, unmoving society with no real hope of growth. Philosophical, somewhat melancholy. Much emphasis on scholarship, study and attaining holiness or righteousness—a mass effort at attaining sainthood—Essene, possibly. Religious ecstasy or religious excess common. Hermits in the farthest caverns. (Ulgo artifacts are so beautiful because they are the work of zealots.)
The Ulgo Holy Books are the Journals of Gorim kept on his quest in search of the God UL. These rather pedestrian daybooks have been elevated into something mystical. Holiness is often predicated on some new and unusual interpretation of a quite ordinary event. The Book of UL-GO is a much later poetic version of the original Daybooks of Gorim. There have been internecine wars in the caverns of the Ulgos over interpretation of certain obscure and delirious passages from Gorim’s journals. A totally closed and inward-looking society EXCEPT for their universal hatred of Torak, the one whose action condemned them to the caverns.
UL-GO theology is split rather violently. One branch holds that the caves are what UL intended. The others that a deliverer shall come and destroy Torak and the Ulgos will be allowed to return to the surface.
RANK
The Gorim—High priest and King.
Oldmen—Leaders of each tribe.
Tribal Elders—Seven in each tribe. Seven tribes of Ulgos— fairly significant racial differences between them.
The priests of UL—very numerous.
The selection of Gorim, Oldmen and Elders is a process that is part election, part prophecy, part lottery and part gut-feel. The Gorim is not hereditary. No one but an Ulgo can understand the process. Age is very important in the selection.
MODES OF ADDRESS
To the Gorim—‘My Gorim’, ‘Holy One’, rarely, ‘Holy UL-GO’
To the Oldmen—‘Beloved of UL’, ‘Wisdom’
To the Elders—‘Righteousness’, ‘Selected of UL’
To the Priests—‘Master’
To the Scholars—‘Learned One’
To the Commoners—‘ULGORIM John’—meaning approximately ‘Just and righteous in the sight of UL’
MANNERS
Quite formal modes of address. A great deal of formula recitatif and response in conversation. ‘Great is the power of UL’—‘All praise the name of UL’. Entire conversations can consist of stereotyped phrases. Personal chambers are absolutelyprivate. Temples are 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 h
ard evidence exists of any significant mineral deposits in the kingdom, but again, this is impossible to verify.
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 pestilential climate.
THE PEOPLE
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.61
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.
The Rivan Codex: Ancient Texts of THE BELGARIAD and THE MALLOREON (The Belgariad / The Malloreon) Page 21
