Sailing around the bottom of the continent, other explorers headed north, reaching the eastern side of the Mashambani-m’ti, where they received a warm welcome from the local Bashombe, who had heard of them long before they had arrived.
Further northward, the explorers found an escarpment that formed a great plateau called the Gundagumu, a beautiful land of meadows, lakes, rivers, valleys, forest, and rolling hills. This fruitful territory supported a number of kingdoms and city-states that were constantly at war with each other over land and resources. Prominent kingdoms included Chiminuhwa, Vengaye, Mbiri, Inyangana, and Kadishwene. They all welcomed contact with the Matile.
The Matile learned that the dwellers of the Gundugumu were called the Changami. In appearance, the Changami were an odd amalgam, combining the large stature of the Thabas, the features of the Matile, and the golden-brown skin coloring of the Kwa’manga.
In the Changami, with their warring kingdoms and rapidly developing civilization, the Matile were reminded of themselves as they had been before Dardar Issuri had unified their region. Were the kingdoms of the Gundugumu to become similarly united, they could one day pose a threat to the Matile Mala Empire.
The Degen Jassi of the time contemplated a war of conquest, but dismissed the idea. With the aid of ashuma, the Matile would have won such a war in the end. But the cost of maintaining direct dominance over the Gundugumu would have offset the benefits of the victory.
Instead, the Matile chose a subtler method of control. They encouraged the rivalries among the Changami kingdoms, playing one side against the other to ensure that they would never coalesce into an empire. The strategy proved successful; the kingdoms’ strife intensified even as the Matile influence grew stronger.
This was the Matile Mala Empire at its peak. With the exceptions of the Mbali-pana plains, and the desert to the south, Matile control had spread throughout Abengoni. And Matile ships plied the seas of the rest of the world, establishing trade that further enriched the Empire. Not only did they sail west to the lands of the Fidi; they also ventured to the east, where they discovered Itsekiri, a sister continent of dark-skinned people; a land of deserts dotted with oases and pierced by mountains. The people of Itsekiri were not seafarers, but they welcomed trade and other contact with the Matile.
As time passed, however, the Matiles’ golden age began to show inevitable signs of tarnish. And it was the Uloans who lit the spark that eventually set a mighty Empire ablaze.
The rulers of the islands grew restless within the Empire, and their discontent provided fertile ground for the intrigues of one of the Jagasti – Legaba, God of the Underworld. Long-shunned by worshippers of the other Jagasti, and even by those gods and goddesses themselves, Legaba took full advantage of the islanders’ resentment of rule from afar.
Kyroun saw Legaba as a shadow whispering into the ear of an island Jass who sat on a throne flanked by plants that moved in the absence of wind ....
Encouraged by Legaba and his minions from the underground, the Uloans proclaimed their independence from the Matile Empire. The Emperor of the time, Dardar Tesfaru, could not allow such secession to stand. If the islands succeeded in breaking away from the Empire, what would prevent other regions from doing the same?
Thus began the Storm Wars, a conflict that intensified from one generation to the next. The Uloan sorcerers’ ashuma matched that of the mainlanders, and huge battles unleashed awesome destruction on land and sea. The Jagasti themselves joined the fray, seeking to destroy the outcast Legaba, whose very existence had become an affront to them.
In the final, apocalyptic battle, the sorcerers’ ashuma careened out of their control, and even the control of the Jagasti. On the mainland, entire cities were incinerated in blazes of eldritch fire. And the Uloan islands were ravaged, nearly half their land-mass swallowed by the sea.
Yet for all the destruction the war wrought on the lands of the Matile and Uloans alike, it was the sea that suffered the worst cataclysm. There, the runaway ashuma had thrust the elements of wind and water into an eternal war of their own, a conflict that created incessant storms off the northern rim of Abengoni. Those storms effectively isolated the sea-bound continent from the rest of the world.
The major battles between the Matile and the Uloans ended then; not through any definitive victory or defeat for either side, but because both were too devastated to fight any longer. Their civilization lay in ruins, and the number of dead was beyond counting. Yet the enmity between the rivals remained even as they set about the grim task of salvaging of lands from which even the Jagasti had retreated.
However, the misfortune of the Matile was not yet done. In the aftermath of the Storm Wars, the enslaved Thabas threw off their yokes and rose up against their weakened masters. Their blood-soaked, vengeful revolt came close to wiping out the Matile who had managed to survive the wars.
The Thabas who lived in the cities returned to their ancestral hills, where they joined their long-lost tribesmen in the eradication of all Matile outposts in their country. Especially vicious was the revolt in the mines, which were destroyed with the former overlords trapped inside. The Thabas despised diamonds and gold, and the mines they once worked were sealed and cursed by the newly empowered inyangas.
Over the ensuing years, the Thabas raided what was left of Matile Mala with impunity, taking cattle and women as they please. They also hunted the game animals that roamed through the rubble of deserted Matile cities. The old days of Matile domination became a bitter memory to the Thabas, and their frequent raids and skirmishes were a way of obliterating that memory in blood.
Much of the landscape of the former Matile Empire had been permanently altered by the rampant ashuma. As time passed, the lands to the east
