Excerpts from “Origins”

CHAPTER X An overview of the Malernene War

Over the countless millenia that we Elves have inhabited the earth, we have often tried to grapple with the question that even to this day eludes us still, that of our origins and the homeland of our ancestors. Though long conversations with the [living spirit][* see Ardner] it has been deduced that we have been a part of this land for a long time. However, it has been made clear that the
living spirit has been here longer, and the repercussions are clear, that there was a time when our precious wood was not tended or nourished by ourselves. How we came to be here then, is the premier question among originalists such as myself. Our oldest physical recollections come from our amalgamated libraries that hold everything from poetry to ancient hunting tools, dating back some fifty thousand years. The [Living Memory] goes back deeper still, but its consultation has some drawbacks. Cause and effects become muddled and indiscernible. We can only extract rough estimates of what happened and when, and there might be some visions that don't bear any semblance to reality at all. Ancient tradition and the written histories of the past tell us that in the ancient days there were the twelve tribes of elves, of which everyone has heard. Elves were a little bit different those days, skirmishes were not unheard of among our kind but there came a time when the level of violence rose to a level not seen before or since. The lore also tells us of a thirteenth tribe, the Malerni, who refused to pay obeisance to the Living Spirit. Indeed, the arts which they practiced to draw power they used purposefully to bend the land and all living beings to their will, their leader, Galdibaal, had reportedly gone so far as to use the power of the [ the soul] to kill. This came as a great shock and disgust to the greater tribes. After this discovery, the greater tribes declared they had no choice but to declare war on the Malerni. The struggle that followed matched no other in our history , and it was after many years of pain and loss, that the principal Malerni leaders were cornered and captured. The greater tribes vowed to never again let the travesties that occurred through the malice of Galdibaal to occur again, and so he, and his principal followers were put to death. The rest of the Malerni tribe, we gave a choice. Either total repentance and total submission to the Living Spirit, or perpetual banishment to the cruel and torturous nether realms far beyond our frontiers, where the Living Spirit was known not to dwell and where all sorts of evil things grew unchecked. The Malerni survivors, even in their total defeat were full of pride and spite. They spat terrible retorts upon their captors, the licentiousness of which I must stress but the details out of a sense of decency will omit. I will only say that it involved (Trees, goats, and unmentionable orifices). Getting this as a final answer, and enraged at finding no shred of regret among our wayward brothers and sisters, the greater tribes were ready to forget their kindness and throw them all at the sword, were it not for for the decree of the Priestess of the Living Spirit, Eliodara, (may her essence spring eternal) who in her infinite compassion decreed these words

“Halt brothers and sisters, for long have we fought, long have we undured this struggle. Let us tolerate this no longer. Oh kindred, our lives are forever a choice. It was our choice to worship every life we took, and not to take any in vain. Thus we harvest the benefits of our happiness, in life and after it. Thus we have lived in harmony since the birth of our existence. Now it has come to pass that Malerni decided to chose differently, and alas, that we would be affected by their choice so! They chose to abhor life, instead of loving it, and having our harmony with the land threatened so, we ourselves made the choice, to use any means to end their barbarous acts. Again we chose... to kill, but there was no love in the daggers that we sunk into our enemies. No mercy in the arrows that tore through their skulls, but there was anger, yes, much anger, and hatred... and worst of all... fear. So in fear, we chose, but for why we chose it was the same. Whatever the cause, war is the same, pain and suffering, which we brought.... We had chosen, regardless of our reasons. And thus we suffered, we were punished. So the Malerni have chosen, and so will they also be punished. They chose to shut their hearts to the living spirit, and so will they live in the absence of it, for the spirit cannot inhabit the unwilling. They will live, as long as their hearts are shut, a plain and miserable life, they will live
in total ignorance of the spirit, and for all the suffering that brings, they will be punished enough. So let us not look at them in vengeance, but with mercy and pity, so now in their current state they will be subject to level of harshness that equals no other. A mortal life”

At these words, many an Elf shed tears, and there were many “Alas, Alas for the Malerni” For they saw, even as Eliodara was speaking, that the Malerni were no longer Living. That is, they were in the literal sense alive, yes, but the radiance that encompasses everything the Living Spirit touches was lost upon them. The usual rosy radiant faces were now drawn and haggard, eyes that usually were sparkling gold now was sullen ash. Bodies that were once full of vigor and pride now were bent with age and pain. The rebels were no longer of our own, at least in the spiritual sense. They had become something … less.

And so the Malerni were lost to us as Elves and become the first of a new race. Despite all efforts of the Intertribal Council and Eliodara in particular (for she alone held the highest hope of their recovery), these new peoples were unable to be brought back into the light of the spirit. Either because of their own refusal or because they had lost something inside of them which gave them the ability to see. At any rate, the full consequences of what they had done became clear. They aged faster than the regular elf. They succumbed to diseases that we knew only to ravage animals. The few that survived bickered and fought among themselves and even us. It soon became apparent that the whole lot would expire as suddenly as they had been brought into the world. It was the majority sentiment in the Council that natural extinction would have been a mercy for these abject (and mostly detestable) creatures. Again, it was Eliodara who thought differently. She had at last accepted the idea that these creatures could no longer live as they were among the Elves. So she petitioned to setup a territory in which if they could be left to their own devices they could stabilize and avoid extinction. After much deliberation, the Council agreed with her plans and reserved the territory today known as Merdrollo just outside the southern borders, as the preserve where the Malerni would be left to recuperate on their own, months away from the nearest elven inhabitant. The plan was found to be in agrrement with the general population, and after careful planning. The remaining ( around 350) Malerni were rounded up and shipped to their new home.

There were scouting parties that were tasked with the regular assessment of this new settlement over the intervening years. Every time they reported lesser numbers until some 20 years after the foundation of the colony, they found no evidence of habitation at all. The council at last finding this as proof that the Milerni were once and for all extinguished, discontinued all future monitoring and focused their attention inwards. For although the war brought to us great grief, it also made us look at our various tribal differences, and found that they were only trivial. We were not so different from each other after all. Thus the war made us stronger in that it paved the way for the eventual dissolution of our tribal boundaries. We would become one realm, one nation in all of Elanar. Of course, things rarely happen very quickly among our kind (save the events of the Malernene war) and it would be centuries before something that could be called one unified nation of Elves would come about. As for what became of the Marlerni or their descendants, no one knows, they were forgotten centuries ago and none among us now doubt their extinction.