The kingdom of the edge of the world.
That was what the power hungry mortal kingdoms called it. Caught between the north sea and the mountains they were farther away from civilization than any other place on earth. And yet they wielded a strange kind of political power. The gems they mined in the mountains gave them wealth, their cities were built into the rock and nearly impenetrable. Their access to the sea gave them control over trade both by water and going inland. Their past was a long and strange one.
For Layne had once been a kingdom of Elleys.
Their rebellion was not talked of among the Elloi, and by the time of the fourth age it had been all but forgotten. The mountains had moved, and it was excluded, doomed some say, to endless misery, stranded on the rocks at the edge of the sea. And part of it was true. The rulers of Layne where moody and inclined to dark moods. The heirs rarely stayed at home any longer than necessary until the day of their coronation. They were a strange people, but few considered it any more strange than the rest of the border kingdoms.
But they had forgotten, in their rebellion, the binding of the Lords of Elleys to the Kings of Yen, and the binding of their land to the law. Borders change, but bindings don't. The king from whom they rebelled had not released them from their oaths of allegiance, clinging to a stubborn belief that they would return to Elleys. They never did, and the vows were forgotten, until Janin met the heir to Layne.
The heir to Yen recognized in his haunted eyes the sleeping bindings, and Leslie knew without understanding. He was drawn by the name, and by the presence of his liege lord, but modern mindsets had taught him to disregard the old myths and the story Janin told of magic and rebellion seemed ludicrous. The desire for independence at all costs that had driven Layne to rebel had not dimmed any in the hundreds of years since. Leslie scoffed at the idea of mountains moving, and refused to swear allegiance to Yen. Then he died, in an attempt to fulfill a quest.
Some said he died of despair, for the land-law cannot be broken. Some say he killed himself, as other rulers had done. But one way or another, Prince Leslie died, and the heir of Tell who had tried to win him back went home with a heavy heart.
Elleys had forgotten Layne, but Janin dug out the dusty records of the past and brought them to his father. And when he brought a treaty to Zirg he brought one to Layne also and released them from their oath of allegiance, severing them forever from the land of Elleys.
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