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EDDINGS, David - Malloreon 4 - Sorceress Of Darshiva.txt
PROLOGUE
Being a Brief History of the Eastern Empire.
Чfrom Emperors of Melcena and Mallorea University of Melcene Press
The origins of the Melcene Empire are forever lost to us. Some legends maintain that
the precursors of the Mel-cenes came in rude canoes out of the vast sea lying east
of the Melcene Islands; others contend that the ancestral Melcene was an offshoot of
that curious culture existing in Dal-asia. Whatever the source, however, Melcena
stands as the oldest civilization on the earth.
Melcena has always been closely allied with the sea, and her original home lay in
the islands off the east coast of the Mallorean continent. The capital at Melcena
was a city of light and culture when Tol Honeth was a rude village and
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2 SORCERESS OP DARSHIVA
Mal Zeth was only a shabby cluster of tents. Only Kell stood in contemplation of the
heavens to rival the ancestral home of the Melcenes.
It was the advent of a catastrophe which caused Melcena to abandon its splendid
isolation. At a time estimated to be five thousand years ago, a disaster occurred
far to the west. The Angaraks and Alorns blame this on a theological dispute between
the Gods. Such explanation is not to be taken seriously, but it does give some
insight into the gropings of primitive minds to explain the forces of nature.
Whatever the source, the cataclysm involved a great split in the protocontinent and
engendered colossal tidal waves. The seas first fell, then rose, and ultimately came
to rest at more or less the present shoreline. For Melcena, this was disastrous.
Fully half the land area of ancient Melcena was lost to the sea. Although the loss
of property was enormous, the bulk of the people were saved. This left a pitifully
overcrowded population clinging to the remnants of their former islands. The capital
at Melcena had been a fair city in the mountains, where affairs could be managed
without the debilitating effects of the climate in the tropical lowlands. Following
the catastrophe, Melcena was a shattered city, destroyed by earthquake and flood,
lying no more than a league from the new coast.
After a period of rebuilding, it became clear that the shrunken homeland could no
longer support the population. Thus the Melcenes turned to the mainland.
Southeastern Mallorea lay closest, a region populated by peoples of their own racial
stock with a compatible, though corrupted, language; to that region the Melcenes
turned their attention. There were five primitive kingdoms in the areaЧGandahar,
Darshiva, Celanta, Peldane, and Rengel. These were quickly overrun by the
technologically superior Melcenes and were absorbed into their growing empire.
The dominating force in the Melcene Empire was the bureaucracy. While there were
drawbacks to a bureaucratic form of government, it provided the advantages of
continuity and a clear-eyed pragmatism more concerned with finding the most
practical way to get the job done than with whim, prejudice, and egocentricity,
which so frequently move other forms of government. Melcene bureaucracy was
DAVID EDDINGS 3
practical almost to a fault. The concept of "an aristocracy of talent" dominated
Melcene thinking. If one bureau ignored a talented individual, another was almost
certain to snap him up.
The various departments of the Melcene government rushed into the newly conquered
mainland provinces to winnow through the population in search of genius. The
conquered peoples were thus absorbed directly into the mainstream of the life of the