"Mallorean 03 - Demon Lord Of Karanda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

EDDINGS, David - Malloreon - Demon Lord of Karanda.txt
DAVID EDDINGS - DEMON LORD OF KARANDA
Book 2 of the Malloreon
PROLOGUE
Being a brief history of Mallorea and the races that dwell
there.
-Digested from The Chronicles of Angarak
University of Melcene Press
Tradition places the ancestral home of the Angaraks
somewhere off the south coast of present-day Dalasia. Then
Torak, Dragon God of Angarak, used the power of the Stone,
Cthrag Yaska, in what has come to be called "the cracking of
the world." The crust of the earth split, releasing liquid
magma from below and letting the waters of the southern ocean
in to form the Sea of the East.
This cataclysmic process continued for decades before the
world gradually assumed its present form.
As a result of this upheaval, the Alorns and their allies
were forced to retreat into the unexplored reaches of the
western continent, while the Angaraks fled into the wilderness
of Mallorea.
Torak had been maimed and disfigured by the Stone, which
rebelled at the use to which the God put it, and the Grolim
priests were demoralized. Thus leadership fell by default to
the military; by the time the Grolims recovered, the military
had established de facto rule of all Angarak. Lacking their
former preeminence, the priests set up an opposing center of
power at Mal Yaska, near the tip of the Karandese mountain
range.
At this point, Torak roused himself to prevent the
imminent civil war between priesthood and military rule. But
he made no move against the military headquarters at Mal Zeth;
instead, he marched to the extreme northwest of Mallorea
Antiqua with a quarter of the Angarak people to build the Holy
City of Cthol Mishrak. There he remained, so absorbed by
efforts to gain control of Cthrag Yaska that he was oblivious
to the fact that the people had largely turned from their
previous preoccupation with theological matters. Those with
him in Cthol Mishrak were mostly a hysterical fringe of
fanatics under the rigid control of Torak's three disciples,
Zedar, Ctuchik, and Urvon. These three maintained the old
forms in the society of Cthol Mishrak while the rest of
Angarak changed.
When the continuing friction between the Church and
military finally came to Torak's attention, he summoned the
military High Command and the Grolim Hierarchy to Cthol
Mishrak and delivered his commands in terms that brooked no
demur. Exempting only Mal Yaska and Mal Zeth, all towns and
districts were to be ruled jointly by the military and
priesthood. The subdued Hierarchy and High Command immediately