“This is my history of Asulon,” Daniel said proudly.
“You wrote this book?” asked Rachel, very impressed–and only partially because she was in love, for her people held scholars of any type in high regard.
“I have been working on it since I was a lad and made my latest entry just a few days before I met you.” He turned to a page a quarter of the way through the book and, pointing to a spot halfway down, handed the book to Rachel. “The story continues here.”
Rachel nodded. She began to read.
Anak and the House of Asher sealed their agreement. For seven years Anak and the House of Asher fought, and finally subdued, the tribes of Logres. Grateful for Asa’s help, Anak gave to the young man his daughter Sari in marriage. Anak, now king of Logres, had an armada built for the House of Asher’s return to Asulon. The Asherites sailed for Asulon in the spring of the third year of the Reign of King Anak.
It took six weeks for the heavy warships of the armada to reach the coast that, by charts Anak himself made, should be Asulon. The Asherites sailed along a forested coastline for two full days, but saw no inhabitants. On the afternoon of the third day, they came upon the mouth of a great river and turned in to explore. Once on the river, they found a battle being fought. A dozen seagoing, oared longboats, each carrying twenty armed warriors, tried to make the shore, but were repelled by forces from within the forest. Arrows from unseen archers and stones from unseen catapults rained down on the longboats. The longboats divided their attack, some going north and some south to outflank the defenders.
Asa had seen longboats like this before, having fought their like along the coastlines of Logres. Not for carrying cargo or for fighting ship to ship, these boats were built for raiding shoreline villages. With a shallow draft, they could be beached on a riverbank while their crews silently came ashore to steal goods and take captives away to slavery. Asa made a quick decision and ordered an attack on the longboats. The fore and aft decks, and each side of the Asherite ships carried great longbows designed by Anak himself, stronger than any five men could pull, mounted horizontally on a swiveling pedestal and drawn by a winch. These bows shot arrows more like spears in size, designed to be set afire and bring flame to the sails of enemy warships. They would put fist-sized holes in the bottoms of the much smaller longboats, while passing clean through any man unlucky enough to be in the way. The Asherites sank three of the longboats before the rest ran for the sea.
Men emerged from the forest and met with the Asherites. Asa told them the tale of the House of Asher and wonder overcame the men of Asulon. The Asulonians agree to take Asa and his lead ship into the hidden port city of Eboracium.
They tell Asa that, after the Long Winter ended, the people returned north to the place where tradition said their capital of Eboracium lay. There they discovered the remains of their city. Whether intentionally or the result of the Long Winter or some other calamity, the city now resembled no other. They found great walls of broken stone, as wide as they were high, but not one house, shop or palace. The formation of the walls was strange as well. Every wall ran north and south separated by just a few paces, but with hardly a cross tunnel between them. The people dug into the sides of the walls for their homes and cleared the spaces between for their streets. They dug cross tunnels through the walls, though they left the vegetation atop the walls and on their seaward faces, so that the city resembled a forest from afar. They cut only a single entrance giving onto the river, concealed around a bend upstream.
The Asherites sailed into the port of Eboracium with the banner of the lost king, an eagle bearing arrows in one fist and an olive branch in the other, at the mast. The people of Eboracium cheered and led Asa and his men to Aidraugal, their Warlord. Aidraugal, seeing the tokens of Asa’s kingship and, moreover, seeing the great multitude–including his own guards–cheering, decided to welcome Asa.
Asa learned that all the villages and ports along the coast of Asulon had been plagued by the longboat men from the far north, and their ships at sea assaulted by pirates from the south. Asa, eager for a quick foothold in Asulon, told Aidraugal that he would protect Eboracium in exchange for some nearby land on a cliff overlooking the river. Aidraugal agreed, for Asa asked for rocky, steep land, considered worthless for farming. Asa built a fortress there, called Maôz Thabera, ‘The Fortress of the Burning’, for they found evidence on the site of a great fire in ancient times. Asa began the long, slow process of unifying Asulon.
In those days, Asulon was divided among several autonomous city-states, running along the coastlines and rivers, with much wild country in between.
Asa sent messengers to the rulers of the nearest cities to join him in council to choose a king. “We are free men,” they said, “why do we need a king?” Many of the rulers did come, though, for they had heard of the men from across the great sea and the wondrous knowledge they brought with them. Asa must have learned some gift of speech from Anak, for he spoke such fair words of a great vision for Asulon that all the rulers sat in awe. Seeing all that the Asherites could do for them, and weary of the raids of the longboat men and pirates, most of the city rulers agreed to form alliances with Asa. They also agreed to bring together a council to form a central government with one king to lead them in battle. Many, however, did not agree to these things, fearing one all-powerful king. “One great king may do both great good and great evil to all, but many small kings can do only a little good and a little evil to a few” they said.
The people of Asulon, the rulers said, were mostly hunters, farmers and craftsmen, proud men used to ruling themselves. They would not willingly become the subjects of any earthly king. This led Asa to agree to the “Great Compromise” dividing power in Asulon. From that time on, four pillars of equal strength upheld the freedom of the Asulonian people.
The first, the Senate, would write the laws. The second, the king, would carry out the laws made by the Senate and command the army in times of war. The third, the High Court, would interpret each new law based on its compliance with the Elder Laws of Asulon. The fourth pillar, the people of Asulon themselves, proud of spirit, as well as proudly armed, would make a force superior to the small standing army that the king commanded in peacetime. Each held a power that balanced the powers of the others. All four groups were subject to the Elder Laws of Asulon, which the House of Asher had kept as a treasure down through the centuries. In Asulon alone of all lands on the earth, the will of the king was not the absolute power in the land. In Asulon, the ultimate power rested in the Elder Laws.
In the winter of the year that Asa became king, Sari bore him a son. They named him Adom, after the first father of men, for he was the first of the House of Asher born on Asulonian soil in a thousand years. The kingdom now reached from the jungles far to the south to the ice-covered northern wastes, from the Peaceful Sea in the west to the Great Sea in the east. Growing in prosperity, the realm began to sell grain and goods to the traders of Logres.
When Adom reached twenty-one years of age, his father sent him off to study in the court of Anak. There he learned the languages of the Unicorn Kingdoms, the ways of sea and stars, and the methods of war. The latter proved the most to his liking, as he learned all manner of warfare from single combat to the fortification of cities. Anak, taken by his grandson, gave the prince the hand of his youngest daughter, Adelia, in marriage.
Anak told the prince that there would be no madness in the children of such a union, as would be the case in mortal men, as Anak’s descendants carried the pure blood of an angel, and Adelia’s mother was not the mother of Sari. Anak also told Adom that, if he wed Adelia, the children born to them would have life spans twice that of common men. Adom wed Adelia and spent ten years studying at the court of Anak. Then he returned to Asulon with his wife and children, and told his people all Anak had said. And Anak’s word proved to be true. The sons of Adom and Adelia all lived past one hundred and fifty years, their daughters nearer two hundred, while most fully mortal men in Asulon lived less than half that. Ever afterwards, the sons of the House of Asher traveled to the Court of Anak to learn his arts and seek a wife among his many daughters. Anak encouraged this, for it strengthened the bond between the two countries.
The men of the House of Asher began to differ from common men in ways other than length of life. While having the strength of any well-trained man, they possessed the endurance of the sons of Anak, the Anakim, and could fight or run or swim all day without tiring. No disease would harm them; no venom from snake or spider could fell them.
When Adom returned to Asulon, his father, weary of the unending political battles necessary to rule, immediately gave up the throne to his son. Ever since, the kings of Asulon have given up their throne to their sons once they return from their ten years in Logres.
King Adom started the great war college at Caurus, where the sons of the House of Asher study before they travel to Logres. The young men who graduate from Caurus, called paladins or “Peers of the King”, are the guardians of the king, as well as the realm’s military officers and first line of defense in times of war.
Across the sea, Anak begat sons to aid him in his many wars. The sons of Anak are the Anakim, giants among men. They stand nearly as tall as Anak himself and are stronger than any ten men. Anak and his sons succeeded in bringing the kingdoms of the west together to face the threat of the hoards of the east, the Scythian tribes, made up of Gomeria and Togamah and greatest of all, the Magog.
The Magog, of late, had returned to the worship of their god of old, Moloch, and begun to lust after the riches of the west. The worship of Moloch required the people of Magog to surrender all personal property to the “Son of Moloch”, the Emperor of Magog. Even the lives of the people were forfeit. Each spring, before sowing the fields, one child from each town would be thrown alive into the fires of Moloch, then the ashes spread over the fields to bring fertility to the crops.
In those years, only the generalship of Anak held the Magog and other Scythian tribes at bay.
Many centuries passed in the west with little change. Asulon grew in power and wealth, second only to Logres. And still Anak ruled. After one thousand years of his reign passed, he appeared no older in the eyes of the world. But the angel who had witnessed eons pass like changing seasons sensed a difference. Anak had begun to age. He said that the age of man was passing and man would soon have no further use for him. Anak began to turn over more and more control of the realm to his ministers. Then the wives of Anak stopped bearing sons. Asulon surpassed Logres in strength, so that the young, which had been second, carried the old, which had been first. Asulon began to be called “The True West”.
This period of peace and prosperity for Asulon did not last forever, as something changed within the people. Some of the wise later would say that the people of this age fell because times of ease test the heart more truly than times of hardship.
The change became apparent during the rule of King Absalom.
Absalom came to the throne promising to be the most moral of kings, yet became the most evil ruler Asulon had seen. He amassed great wealth by selling trade treaties to foreign kings and promises of title to the wealthy. He did this, not for the good of Asulon, but for his own greed. Though he kept a harem of concubines around him, these did not satisfy him, and no woman that caught his eye was safe from his groping hands.
Many in Asulon did not complain, though, for the wheat still flourished in the fields, the cattle grew fat and the harbors stayed full of trading ships. “Why should we care what the king does to others?” they would say. “Our bellies are full and so are our purses.”
Later, many of the wise speculated on whether a corrupt people led to an evil king or an evil king led to a corrupt people. For, whatever the reason, the Death Cults came to Asulon during those years: the cults of Moloch (which killed any newborn child with a defect), Vanth (which led the old to suicide), and Pan (which led the young to indulge their lusts, spreading pox and plague). Chaos ruled the land, for every man did what was right in his own eyes.
The king allowed all manner of abominations in Asulon, and the realm grew weaker. Droughts came, trade grew thin, croplands lay fallow, men roamed from city to city seeking work. To hold on to his power, Absalom set the people one against the other, poor against rich, young against old, city dwellers against country folk.
A wise man wrote of this time, “The people became weak and fearful of strength, but rather than seek to make the weak strong, they sought to make the strong weak.”
The Magog grew bolder. The lands of Alogna, Sedor, Kyberia, Adanerg, Augaracinia, fell to the Magog while the king of Asulon stood idle. While many–mostly the Molochite Senators who supported him–called Absalom “The Father of Peace” for keeping Asulon out of these wars, many more called him “The Mighty Eunuch” for lacking the courage to use the vast power of the armies of Asulon. The people’s militia grew slothful and ill-equipped. The people divided into those who hated Absalom and his ways, and desired a return to the old ways of Asulon, and those who simply hated Absalom. As the realm waxed worse and worse, more and more people came to pledge themselves to the worship of the Lord God.
A remnant of the Lord’s people remained in the land and they knew that the Lord God would not restrain his anger much longer. Finally, hundreds of thousands of common men and women put on sackcloth and ashes and appeared on the battle plain before Maôz-Thabera. They came not to assault the fortress, but to plead with the king to return to the old laws of the land and to pray for the realm’s repentance.
And they came singing a song of the Lord.
If My people which are called by
My Name shall humble themselves
and pray and seek My face
and turn from their wicked ways
then will I hear from heaven
and will forgive their sins
and will heal their land.
Absalom ignored all manner of warnings and supplications and continued in his evils. Soon painful, leprous sores developed on him. He spent the last months of his life wasting away in pain and then he died.
Absalom died childless, so a new king was sought.
Next in succession was Argeus.
As king, Argeus had all temples of Moloch, Vanth and Pan destroyed and their priests banished. New laws were made that restored the Elder Laws of Asulon.
Soon the realm began to edge back from the precipice Absalom had brought it to. Though the land had not yet returned to its former glory, the people could again hold up their heads. They had a true king.
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