Peter Metcalfe:
>I am quite disappointed that my statements about the dangers of
>treating the Lunars as a monolithic entity are not getting through.
While the Lunar internal struggles are an issue I couldn't agree more upon with Peter, Martin's points are valid as soon as "the Lunars" is modified into "a group among the Lunars".
To wit: Euglyptus of the Assiday family of Raibanth is the Provincial field general from 1602 to 1613. Under his aegis "Lunar gentlemen" scoured the Holy Country for descendants of Sartar to kill. Under his aegis Pavis was taken and the Dorasor branch of Sartar's descendants was offed. Then he suffers a surfeit of sugared eel in 1613, and into the vacuum leaps Fazzur, brother-in-law of Phargentes' grandson. Fazzur deals with the rebellion without drawing upon the resources of the Empire, and for this alone the bureaucracy will have favoured him for the post of governor-general. Tatius the Bright, apparently notorious for drawing vast funds from the Empire, has lost his puppet, and cannot handle the strings on this new big man.
Fazzur has holed up the rebels at Larnste's Table and learns about Temertain's impending arrival. Fearing that an able heir of Sartar would be able to gather another host and lift his "siege", catching him between hammer and anvil, decides to parley. With the right amount of cajoling and threat (removing Hofstaring Treeleaper in the bargain) he gets Kallyr's host to disband, and the leaders to accept exile. While there are Lunar magicians at his command at Larnste's table who do his bidding, apparently Tatius disapproves.
Even more so when a good portion of the exiles turns up with Temertain and thereby demands (and has to be given) amnesty (under the condition that they remain in Temertain's entourage).
Somebody among the Lunars is miffed. It might have been Tatius against the wish of Fazzur, it might have been Fazzur and Tatius working together but each for their own agenda, or it might have been Fazzur alone, but at the next Storm Bull high holy day Chaos spews forth, and but for the interception of Estal Donge Temertain would have been killed along with the amnestied exiles. Bringing forth chaos clearly is the work of the Lunar field magicians. Having Estal Donge there to rescue Temertain is a Tarshite plot. Quite possibly having to rescue Temertain wasn't in the script Estal had received, or had been added last minute.
(As to friends of Argrath who might have been aided by Estal, this would have been an obvious opportunity. We have no information who else escaped alive because of Estal's action.)
After this episode, the official Lunar line apparently is that Temertain is firmly on Estal's leash, and that to assassinate him would damage the Lunar occupation government. We know of no further attempts, and rumors about repeated resurrections are without any substance... ;-)
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