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Journeying the following year to Mal Zeth, Kallath brought the
Imperial Melcene army with him as far as the border of Delchin,
where they stood poised. At Mal Zeth, Kallath delivered his
ultimatum to the General Staff. His forces at that time were comprised of
the army of his own district, Rakuth, as well as those of the eastern
principalities in Karanda, where the Angarak military governors
had already sworn allegiances to him. These forces, coupled with
the Melcene Army on the Delchin border, gave Kallath absolute
military supremacy on the continent. His demand to the General Staff
was simple: he was to be appointed
Overgeneral-Commander-inChief of the Armies of Angarak. There were precedents,
certainly. In
the past, an occasional brilliant general had been appointed to that
office, though it was far more common for the General Staff to rule
jointly. Kallath's demand, however, brought something new into the
picture. His position as Emperor of Melcena was hereditary, and he
insisted that the office of Commander-in-Chief of Angarak also be
inheritable. Helplessly, faced with Kallath's overpowering military
forces, the Angarak generals acceded to his demands. Kallath stood
supreme on the continent. He was Emperor of Melcena and
Commander-in-Chief of Angarak.
The integration of Melcena and Angarak which was to form
modern Mallorea was turbulent, but in the end it can be said that
Melcene patience won out over Angarak brutality' Over the years
it became increasingly evident that the Melcene bureaucracy was
infinitely more efficient than Angarak military administration. The
first moves by the bureaucracy had to do with such mundane
matters as standards and currency. From there it was but a short step
to establishment of a continental Bureau of Roads. Within a few
hundred years, the bureaucracy had expanded until it ran virtually
every aspect of the life of the continent. As always, the bureaucracy
gathered up every talented man in every corner of Mallorea,
regardless of his race, and it soon became not at all uncommon for
administrative units to be comprised of Melcenes, Karands, Dalasians and
Angaraks. By 4400 the ascendancy of the bureaucrats was complete.
In the interim, the title'Commander-in-Chief-of-Angarak'had begun
to gradually fall into disuse, in some measure perhaps because
the bureaucracy customarily addressed all communications to 'The
Emperor'. Peculiarly, there appears not to have been a specific point
at which 'The Emperor of Melcene' became the 'Emperor of
Mallorea', and such usage was never formally approved until after
the disastrous adventure in the west which culminated in the Battle
of Vo Mimbre.
The conversion of the Melcenes to the worship of Torak was at
best superficial. The sophisticated Melcenes pragmatically accepted
the forms of Angarak worship out of a sense of political expediency
but the Grolims were unable to command the kind of abject
submission to the Dragon God which had always characterized the
Angarak.
In 4850, however, Torak himself suddenly emerged from his eons
of seclusion. A vast shock ran through all of Mallorea as the living
God of Angarak, his maimed face concealed behind the polished
steel mask, appeared at the gates of Mal Zeth. The Emperor was
disdainfully set aside and Torak once again assumed his full
authority as 'Kal' - King and God. Messengers were immediately sent to
Cthol Murgos, Mishrak ac Thull and Car og Nadrak, and a council
of war was held at Mal Zeth in 4852. The Dalasians, the Karands
and the Melcenes were stunned by the sudden appearance of a
figure they had always thought was purely mythical, and their