Nerdanel wrote:I think the timing is problematic with Wayfriend's idea. I think the existence of the Colossus of the Fall implies that the Ravers were in existence well before they started possessing the humans of the southern kingdom.
What a wonderful opportunity for some research, Nerdanel!
First, let's listen to Anele's version of events.
"Then was not the age of men and women in the Land, and neither wood nor stone had any knowledge of them. Rather it was an era of trees, sentient and grand, beloved by mountains, and the One Forest filled all the Land.
"Its vast life spread from the ancient thighs of Melenkurion Skyweir in the west to the restless song of the Sunbirth Sea in the east, from the ice-gnawed wilderness of the Northron Climbs to the high defiance of the Southron Range. Only at the marges of Lifeswallower did the One Forest stand aside, for even in that lovely age evils and darkness seeped from the depths of Gravin Threndor, leaking harm and malevolence into the Great Swamp.
So, before men came, the One Forest was sentient. And the Great Swamp, Lifeswallower, was already polluted. (But is Lifeswallower and Sarangrave the same? I think not. But they seem to be as far as this story goes.)
"Yet in those distant years,' Anele related, "neither men nor women had true ears. When they came to the Land, they came heedless, providing only for themselves. And the malevolence within Lifeswallower had burgeoned, as all darkness must, or be quenched. It had grown great and avid, and its hunger surpassed satiation.
"No tongue can tell of the shock and rue among the trees when human fires and human blades cleared ground for habitation. The mountains know it, and in their hearts they yet protest and grieve, but mortal voice and utterance cannot contain it. A myriad myriad trunks, and a myriad myriad myriad leaves, which had known only themselves in natural growth and decay, and which had therefore never considered wanton pain, then cried out in illimitable dismay-a cry so poignant and prolonged that the deepest core of the peaks might have answered it, were stone itself not also defenseless and unwarded."
Next the humans began to chop down the One Forest, and it cried out in dismay and pain. Lifeswaller, at about the same time, "burgeoned" with "malevolence". However, at this time the malevolence has yet to affect the humans.
"For a time, those who had come to the Land felled trees and charred trunks only because they knew not how else they might achieve space for homes and fields. Thus was their cruelty at first restrained. But their restraint was brutal and brief by the measure of the One Forest's slow sentience. And after those generations, humankind discovered malevolence, or was discovered by it. Then the murder of the trees was transformed from disregard to savagery.
"Hence came Ravers to the Land," the old man rasped bitterly, "for they were the admixture of men and malevolence, an enduring hunger for evil coalesced and concentrated in transient flesh generation after swift generation until they became beings unto themselves-spirits capable of flesh, yet spared the necessities of death and birth. Thus they gained names and definition, three dark souls who knew themselves as they knew the One Forest, and who aspired above all things to trample underfoot its vast and vulnerable sentience.
Next, the malevolence infects the humans, and the rapine of the One Forest became more brutal and hate-filled.
When the hatred intensified enough, the Ravers came into existence - they "gained names and definition".
When he had gripped his knees again, he said, "Still the One Forest could only wail and weep, unable to act in self-defense." Voiceless tears spread anger and sorrow into his torn beard. "Despite its vastness, it, too, lived in ignorance. It knew only itself and pain, and so could not comprehend its own possible strength. Born of Earthpower, sustained by Earthpower, knowing Earthpower, the One Forest could not grasp that Earthpower might have other uses.
"Thus the destruction of the trees grew as the ambitions of humankind and Ravers mounted. And with that bereavement came another loss, inseparable from the first, but more bitter and deadly. In the slaughter of each tree, one small gleam of the Forest's Land-spanning sentience failed, never to be renewed or replaced. Thus the wishes of the Ravers were fulfilled. As the butchery of the trees increased, so the One Forest's knowledge of itself diminished, lapsing toward slumber and extinction.
"That grief was too great to be borne." Anele himself seemed hardly able to contain it. His voice rose to a low cry. "Even mountains could not endure it. Peaks shattered themselves in sorrow and protest. This very cliff split as a heart is torn asunder by rage and loss, and by helplessness."
For a moment, he gaped at the riven walls. Their yearning had come upon him like a geas. They needed his mortal tongue to articulate their interminable rue. Cold exhaled down the rift like a sigh of protest and loss.
"The Earth itself heard that cry. Every knowing ear throughout the Earth heard it. And at last, when much of the Lower Land had been slain of trees, and the devastation of the Upper had truly begun, the cry was answered."
With the Ravers help, the destruction of the Forest advances towards the extinction of its consciousness.
But wait! Notice the distinction here of Lower Land and Upper Land. Is the Lower Land the land beyond Landsdrop? Or is the Lower Land the Land south of Doom's Retreat? I want to say the latter. But, in light of DLB's fine point, it may mean with some significance the former.
"Many centuries after the rising of the Ravers at a time when much of the One Forest's sentience had dwindled to embers, a being such as the trees had never known came among them, singing of life and knowledge, of eldritch power beyond the puissance of any Raver. And singing as well of retribution.
"Why the Elohim came then and not earlier, before so much had been lost, these stones cannot grasp. Yet come she did-or he, for the Elohim are strange, and such distinctions describe them poorly. And with her song, the remaining leagues of the One Forest awoke to power."
So clearly the Appointed Elohim did not arrive until the One Forest was seriously hurting. Notably this is "many centuries after the rising of the Ravers".
"The trees," he told the gathering shadows, "could neither strike nor flee. Their limbs were not formed to wield fire and iron." Findail had said, A tree may know love and feel pain and cry out, but has few means of defense. "Yet even that remnant of wakefulness which remained was vast by mortal measure, and its power was likewise vast. Capable then as well as aware, the One Forest turned its loathing and ire, not against the deaf ignorance of humankind, but rather against the Ravers.
"Nor did the trees count the cost of their new might. The Elohim had sung to them of retribution, and she was more puissant than any Raver. Her nature granted them the power to deny. Therefore they took her and bound her, and with Earthpower set her in bonds of stone at the edge of Landsdrop as a barricade, a forbidding, against the Ravers. And such was the strength of their ramified will that while she lived, while she retained any vestige of herself, moksha, turiya, and samadhi were entirely barred from the Upper Land. No Raver in any form could pass that interdiction to threaten the remnants of the One Forest."
And so the Colossus is formed, and the Ravers are barred from the Upper Land. Notably, not the Lower Land. This points to the Lower Land being the Land below Landsdrop, which means the One Forest used to be on the other side of Landsdrop at the beginning.
Our timeline now looks like this.
1. Glory Days of the One Forest
2. Arrival of humans. The diminishment of the One Forest begins in the Lower Land.
3. Malevolence infects humans. Diminishment intensifies.
4. Ravers appear. The Lower Land is cleared completely, and diminishment begins in the Upper Land.
5. An
Elohim came.
6. The Colossus was formed. The Ravers were repelled from the Upper Land.
In order to tie this in with the Queen and the King, we need to hear Esmer's tale.
"Many tales are told," said Esmer, "some to conceal, some to reveal. Yet it is sooth that long before the Despiser's coming to the littoral of the Land, he had stretched out his hand to awaken the malevolence of Lifeswallower, the Great Swamp, as it lurked in the heart of Sarangrave Flat, for he delights in cruel hungers. And from that malevolence—conjoined with the rapacity of humankind—had emerged the three Ravers, moksha, turiya, and samadhi. By such means was the One Forest decimated, and its long sentience maimed, until an Elohim came to preserve its remnants.
"Awakened to themselves," Esmer explained as though the knowledge grieved him, "the trees created the Forestals to guard them, and bound the Elohim into the Colossus of the Fall as an Interdict against the Ravers, repulsing them from the Upper Land.
Okay, this covers our timeline above.
But note here that the Sarangrave is referred to as part of Lifeswallower, the part where the "malevolence" lurked. So Donaldson has either answered that question, or corrected that discrepency in his earlier tale.
"Later the Despiser established Ridjeck Thome as his seat of power, though he did not then declare himself to human knowledge. There he gathered the Ravers to his service when the Colossus began to wane. And with his guidance, they together, or some among them, began cunningly to twist the hearts of the sovereign and isolate Viles. Forbidden still by the Colossus, the Ravers could not enter the Lost Deep. Instead they met with Viles that roamed east of Landsdrop, exploring the many facets of the Land. With whispers and subtle blandishments, and by slow increments, the Ravers obliquely taught the Viles to loathe their own forms.
Next, Foul creates Ridjeck Thome.
Then, the Colossus begins to wane, but it still forbids the Ravers. At this time, he gathers the Ravers, and starts working on the Viles.
"Being Ravers, the brothers doubtless began by sharing their mistrust and contempt toward the surviving mind of the One Forest, and toward the Forestals. From that beginning, however, the Viles were readily led to despise themselves, for all contempt turns upon the contemptuous, as it must."
"In that same age," he went on, "as the perversion of the Viles progressed, samadhi Raver evaded the Interdict by passing beyond the Southron Range to taint the people who gave birth to Berek Lord-Fatherer. By his influence upon their King, samadhi instigated the war which led Berek through terrible years and cruel bloodshed to his place as the first High Lord in the Land.
So with the Colussus and its Interdict in place, while the Viles were being pervaded and perverted, a Raver now starts working on Berek's King.
"Nonetheless in the time of High Lord Damelon the Interdict endured.
Berek wins the war, becomes the First High Lord, and Damelon the second, while the Interdict still endures.
So our new timeline is as follows.
1. Glory Days of the One Forest
2. Arrival of humans. The diminishment of the One Forest begins in the Lower Land.
3. Malevolence infects humans. Diminishment intensifies.
4. Ravers appear. The Lower Land is cleared completely, and diminishment begins in the Upper Land.
5. An
Elohim came.
6. The Colossus was formed. The Ravers were repelled from the Upper Land.
7. Foul builds Ridjeck Thome and assembles his Ravers.
8. Raverless, humans still destroy the One Forest. The Colossus begins to wane.
9. The Ravers pervert both the Viles and Berek's King.
10. Berek's King is defeated. Berek becomes High Lord.
11. Damelon becomes High Lord after Berek.
12. The Interdict fails, although the Colossus remains.
I think the reason Nerdanel suspected my timeline (which is actually SRD's timeline AFAICT) is that there is some confusion over when the Ravers possessed humans. They did so at two occassions. The first time was before the Colossus, when they possessed people who had migrated to the Land from the South. The second time, they went after the people from the South themselves, including the King.
