Death, And Therefore Rebirth

Pleasure, And Therefore Pain

"If pleasure is here, then pain ought to be near."

On the third day of Ara, Year 740, Juren's wife (c. 720-752), whose surname was Maren but whose first name was never recorded, gave birth to her late husband's son. The boy was named Ifer, or the Great Darkness, due to both his being born in the middle of the night and the grave mood that consumed Nurea after the death of his father. An eighth deity, Ifer was brought up by his uncle and regent Seret after his mother died. In 810, Ifer seized power from Seret and became the Iren of Nurea.

To a certain extent, Ifer was a bit of a disappointment. Though he, like many Marens, was a talented warrior and had had his natural talent augmented by thousands of hours of practice and training, he was a diplomat at heart and hated the carnage of Iremu. The Nuræan people could not believe that he was the grandson of Amera, their beloved, redheaded Irene who got a thrill out of battle and bloody conquest. Even though he was as skilled a diplomat as he was a warrior, Ifer's peaceful ways were denounced by the Erneldans, who thought that there was no place for them in war, let alone in one that was older than civilization itself. For a while, he was also rumoured to be infertile, which dented his popularity even further.

The rumours were dispelled in 880 when Ifer's wife, Intea Seral (857-920) gave birth to a son. The son was named Lyneu in honour of Intea's late father and younger brother. Instead of being relieved that their patriarch was a fertile man, the Marens actually felt betrayed by the birth. They would have preferred Ifer being sterile to him being the sire of a child who was half Seral. When Lyneu passed away a few weeks later, many of the Marens celebrated instead of mourned. Their behaviour disturbed Intea and Ifer, who were led to believe that one of them had poisoned their son. Five days after Lyneu died, Seret made the situation worse by declaring Ifer too insane to rule a country. Unlike when Ifer was young, however, Seret wasn't a regent: he had actually deposed his nephew and declared himself the Iren of Nurea!

This act had serious consequences. Now in his mid-forties, Seret was sick of Ifer's diplomatic nature and reluctance to take new territory. He personally took land from Lantene, Meran, a revived Irta†, Sarene and Dervi. Only Aralyn, his son's realm, and Arene, his father's homeland, were spared from his sword. He virtually imprisoned Ifer and Intea in their own castle for seven years, and arranged to have the latter murdered--though that didn't work out. Though Nuræans initially shared Seret's frustration, they eventually began to miss Ifer's way of doing things. The Iri and the Iræ who had their realms attacked by Seret retaliated frequently, taking back what was theirs and then some. "We are all alone in the world...[Seret] Maren has obliterated the bonds that Ifer tried so hard to forge. I initially hated Ifer's reluctance to take new land but now I long for his snail's pace again," one Nuræan observed.

In the summer of 887, Intea, who was with child again, managed to contact Avru, Irsate and Tèretia Nirenta. The three came to Ilren, the capital of Nurea where Intea, Ifer and their three children were imprisoned. Intea knew that Seret had disinherited them and their other two siblings after Ifer's birth, and offered them a chance to have revenge on him. What she had in mind was a temporary alliance between Avru, Ifer and her brother. Together, the combined forces of Sarene, Nurea and Meran could kill Seret and put Ifer back on the Nuræan throne. Avru, who spoke for the three, agreed.

On the seventh day of Saret, 887, an army of 120 358 men and women from Sarene, Nurea and Meran that was led by Avru, Ifer and Lyneu Seral III (860-923) attacked the sprawling city of Niden, where Seret was stationed. One witness claimed that the army was "like wild horses galloping on the prairie; they trampled everything in their path, leaving nothing intact." Indeed, Niden, Nurea's third-largest city, became a pile of nothing but ruins and ash in just a few hours. When the army finished its carnage, there wasn't enough of Seret Maren left to fill a wine glass. Avru, Ifer and Lyneu had accomplished all this with only ten thousand casualties.

†From 737 to 740, the exiled descendants of Veldine Irta I had taken advantage of Nurea's chaotic state to rebuild Irta. While doing so, they learned from their ancestors' mistakes, and began to treat men better. Irta was still a woman's world, but men were now recognised as human beings in almost all parts of the country, with the exception of rural Irta. In tiny hamlets where there were too few people living for the government to waste resources on, the old ways still reigned supreme.