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The ending of the Fourth Age was the stroke of finality for Elleys. The ending can be traced back to the beginning, back the law Tell wrote. For if it hadn't been written, it would never have been broken. It can be blamed on how he wrote it, for perhaps it would never have faltered if he'd not made mistake after mistake.
But how can law be written without a mistake? How can anything endure forever?
Most placed the blamed with Herene the traitor. Few understood the blame laid with Janin. The end is typically dated from Tannis' invasion of Yen. But the end began when the land-law began to crumble, and it had been in decay for hundreds of years.
With Janin's sacrifice the title of Prince of Yen passed to his brother, Yancy. Yancy eventually succeeded Rynaud III as King of Yen, and his reign was a peaceful one. He had two sons, Meline and Rynaud. Both sons were married, and their wives expecting when he died. Two days later his older son was killed in a riding accident. The shock of his death sent his wife into premature labor.
Rynaud, now King of Yen, saw a chance to secure the throne for himself and his children. He let it be known that his brother's son had been still born, he had his sister-in-law confined during her illness. His own son was born shortly after, and named Prince of Yen.
King Rynaud IV played his game well. He sent his nephew away to another court, supposedly an orphaned son of a knight in his service. He kept him as hostage for his mother's obedience. Eventually the risk became too much, and he had her banished on trumped up charges.
Alone and half mad she made the treacherous journey on foot across the mountains to the mortal world. Zirg still remembered the world of Elleys, and the now aging heir of King Lemuel welcomed her and brought her to the court of Ramoth-Tamara. There she meets Herene the Traitor, and he pledges to help her. They settle down to wait.
Tannis is the name given to Prince Meline's disinherited son. Unaware of his true parentage he grows up across the sea in the court of King Tarren of Laon; King Rynaud III's third son. Tarren recognizes what everyone else had forgotten, and knows that the child he's been entrusted and threatened with is his brother's child. He waits until Tannis' is twenty, and tells him to go before the Court of the Lord's of Elleys and demand justice, in Tell's name. The land could not endure a usurper on the throne, he said. Not once the truth was known.
Tannis goes and makes his claim, but he is not met with the justice his old fashioned uncle expected. He is met with the world Herene saw, where the law is so twisted no one can recognize truth from folly. He is laughed out of the court. When he demands his throne, he is banished for treason.
Not yet understanding what has happened to the land-law he refuses at first to go west, and chooses north instead. For he wanted to return, he believed something would change. Usurpers had never before ruled, injustice had never before existed, and Janin had believed that the law must be upheld at all costs. He'd learned that belief from Janin's own brother, and holding to it he went into exile in the unexplored north lands.
There he meets the King of the North and his unusual daughter. He stays a year with them, and when he leaves his mind has changed. He goes to the mortal world and seeks the aid of the King of Ramoth-Tamara. In that king's court he finds him mother, and his cousin.
Herene has waited many long years to right the wrong he did his cousin, and he promises Tannis all the aid he could give. His knowledge of the mortal world sped their plans and within a year there was an army ready to march. Herene's wizardry takes them through the mountains where they attack Yen.
Yen had no army. There had been no wars in a thousand years. It burned to the ground, rulers, people, magnificent city, as though it had never been. The Elloi cried out in fear, anger and grief. Standing outside of his city Tannis wondered what he had lost. The land law disintegrated with the pages it was written on, the magic crumbled, and snow came across the mountains.
The war that followed was long and bitter. The Elloi fought for their homes, and their past. The mortals fought as they always had, for conquest, for land, and for power. Their own lands had grown too small, and the chance to move across the mountains was irresistible. It grew increasingly complex as Elleysian kingdoms declared their independence from Yen and fought individually, and as more mortal kingdoms became involved, breaking treaties with Ramoth-Tamara, with Tannis, and with each other. The shaky alliance between Tannis and his mortal sponsors was broken almost at once. He married the daughter of the King of the North, and with her magic she helped him hold what was left of Yen together through the fray.
The was would not end for another hundred years, when his granddaughter, Dahlia, took the throne. It was the first time a woman had ruled. It was the first time there had not been a male heir. All the distant cousins had been killed in battle, or lost in the shattering of law and alliances. Dahlia was her father's only child, and she was born unable to speak. It was she who forged a solid alliance with the heir of Ramoth-Tamara, the most powerful mortal kingdom. There was still enough magic and respect in Elleys that they would not directly fight against Yen. Together the two rules began to subdue those who opposed them, and eventually they brought a semblance of people to both lands. The fifth age opened with the first forgotten, the second abandoned, and the third a mere dream. The fourth age was talked of, sung of, and tales were told to children until they, too, scarcely believed it.
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Floyd was frozen where he stood. He struggled to breathe, but the air smelled of blood and death and guilt. He tried to formulate a name, to ask, but language was meaningless, and words would not come. He tried to scream but the sound got stuck in his heart, shattered into a million pieces, and scattered to the wind.
In a world without superheroes, who will stand against the forces of evil?
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When I feel like I ought to write but I've got writer's block on every project I look at I come in here and pick a topic. I grumble the whole time but once I get started... 
I guess that explains my need to read everything on HW. 