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be conceded that Tolnedra has benefited tremendously from the
unlikely merging of this strange people and one of our noblest
houses. The Borune Dynasties have been among the most stable and
enlightened in our history)' and Borune Emperors seem possessed of
uncommon good sense. The common people have a saying, 'Blessed
be the name of Nedra that he has given us the Borunes,' which
perhaps sums it up best.
* The emperor who commissioned this study was a member of the Borune family, so
the
scholar who wrote this was evidently trying to ingratiate himself.
One curious characteristic of the House of Borune has been
observed down the centuries. While the male children of the house
show little physical difference from ordinary Tolnedrans, the female
children always differ markedly from the other women of our race.
They are all quite tiny, and their hair is inevitably a deep, flaming
red - a color which poets have rather extravagantly compared to
that of the leaves of the oak tree in autumn. Their complexions are
also significantly fairer than the olive skin of other Tolnedran
women, and in certain light appear to have almost a faint greenish
hue. Borune princesses, delicate and vibrant, may be justly
considered the true jewels of the Empire.
PRE-DYNASTIC HISTORY
As did the other peoples of the west, the Tolnedrans migrated from
the east during the early centuries of the first millennium. They
established themselves on the central plain and began construction
of their first city' Tol Honeth, on the large island in the Nedrane
River. The present glory of Tol Honeth belies the crude log and mud
fortress which first stood on the site. Written records of the
preDynastic era are tantalizingly brief, and few have survived down to
the present. The documents of the FIRST HONETHite DYNASTY,
however, provide us with some insight into what life must have
been like in prehistoric Tolnedra by virtue of those subjects which
were of major concern to our first Emperors. Fire, flood,, pestilence
and civil war appear to have been endemic in those dark early years.
It is perhaps not an exaggeration to state that the Tolnedran
Empire was born out of fire - or at least that it rose from the ashes. All
wooden structures are susceptible to fire, and the city of Tol Honeth
was no exception. Whatever the cause, in the first years of the ninth.
century a great conflagration broke out, and the island city was
consumed from one end to the other. A minor city official, surveying
the damage, concluded that stone does not burn and began the
reconstruction of the city in that material while the embers were still
smoldering. While a gang of wood-cutters may construct a log
palisade in short order, work in stone is a much harder and more
time-consuming enterprise. The vast construction crews who labored
for decades to raise the walls of Tol Honeth provided the core as it
were of the Imperial Legions. The standard ten-man gang used to
transport large single stones became the elemental squad. The ten
gangs of ten - the hundred - who moved the larger stones became
the company, and the ten hundreds - the thousand - who dragged
the vast foundation stones of the walls and wharves of Tol Honeth
became the legions. The co-operative effort and the discipline involved
in the construction of the city welded these work-gangs into the
strong units which responded quite naturally to the commands of the
overseer of the entire construction effort - the above-mentioned