I was born quite some time ago, in the winter of the year 974, in the city of Mercinae. At this time the world was a strange place to me, and so I studied at the nearby Academy for a short while, until I had a better idea of my surroundings. At the end of my sojourn at the academy, I then proceeded to join the mages guild, where I have lived ever since.
At the time I was born the land was a much more peaceful place than it seems to me now. My guild was a large guild, and I often saw other mages wandering around. I wasn't particularly interested in fighting this early in my life, and with a strong guild behind me I was not a common target to be attacked.
In the few months after first joining the guild I started developing my skills, and after only a few months, the guildmistress at that time, Bumble, offered me an end to my apprenticeship. This was to be my only meeting with my guildmistress for a long time.
With my apprenticeship ended, I began to notice that the guild was beginning to weaken in power, with more and more guild members vanishing from the land. At this time many of my early friends left and the guild soon became a lonely place. Nathan had taken over as guildmaster, but even he soon vanished and was not seen again for many years.
By the time the mass exodus from the land was finished, the mages guild was left with only 4 active members, myself, Hero, Egwene and Geist. However, this much smaller guild meant I got to know the few remaining members much better than I had ever known members in a large guild. Geist had become guildmaster due to Nathan's absence, and was the first guildmaster I truly got to know, out of the three I had been in the guild under. Even at this time Geist was seen as one of the great fighters of Avalon, and he consented to teach me many of the methods he used in his fights. It was not long before I got my first chance to try out these tactics. The tutor of my guild, Kazayn, had recently given me a quest to slay an evil opponent of greater strength than me, and Geist suggested many opponents I could try facing. I eventually fought a Sorcerer called Unholy, and after a short fight I succeeded in slaying him. Offering his body to Kazayn I was given the honour of the Arch-Mage. It was about this time that I also adopted the suffix I have now been using for nigh on 30 years, that of the Spell-Weaver, in view of my great use of the candescence skills in my early fights.
For quite some time I continued to fight, and my prowess increased with every match. I dispatched many of my peers, but this in many respects chose to be my early undoing. I came to the attention of some of the greater Sorcerers such as Threap, and their guildmaster Arikarr and was slain by both of them. In an enviroment where I was being killed by people many times my size, I soon tired of fighting, and after some discussion with Geist, I chose the path of the pacifist. However, within a year I realised that this path was not the path for me. I found it too difficult to stand by and watch my friends being killed and not being able to raise a finger to help them. So, after only a couple of years of pacifism, I left this path and returned to that of the fighter.
Throughout my life so far I had taken only minimal interest in politics. I had been aided to many ministries but had not considered taking over a ministerial position. This outlook changed however when Ragar was promoted to field marshall, and I was asked to take over his previous ministry of public relations. At this time I began a major shake up of the ministry, setting down exact guidelines for equipping novices, and setting a fixed budget to spend on each new citizen. These same guidelines are roughly followed to this day. Assuming Ragar's former position also led us to become good friends, two young ministers both aiming for higher things. In fact, since that day, our careers have been very similar.
Shortly after my acceptance of a ministerial role in the city, guild issues once again came to the forefront. Geist was no longer able to spare enough time to continue as guildmaster, and so Egwene was now to assume this role. Even now the guild was very small, we had recruited some new members during Geist's guildmastery, but many of these had been lured away to Thakria by the promise of power there. This change of guildmastery however proved to benefit the guild. Egwene's continual interest in young members encouraged many of them to stay in the guild, and it once again grew to one of the larger guilds in Avalon.
Around this time in my life I also began actively seeking a patron. Afer some discussion with many members of my guild, I eventually spoke to the guild patron, Castigere, about joining his order. After a long talk with him about my views on Justice, he accepted me into his order. For a short time, my order was active in the land, with a patron often to be seen watching us from Olympus. This was not to last however, after just a few years in his order Castigere vanished from the land, and has only been seen very rarely in the years since then.
Only a year after this I was pulled further into city politics. One of the current barons of the city was standing down from his post, and, along with Greenleaf, Tyrion and Ragar I questioned him, and began my first election. After almost 5 months of voting, the election was finally announced, and my good friend Ragar had won his own barony. At this time I decided I was probably better suited to a ministry, and decided against further elections. This decision was short lived however, since within a year, Mestopholies questioned Allanon in light of Allanon's absence from the land at that time. A good many of my friends suggested I should run for baron again, and after a short while, I did indeed question, and this time, won an election, and was duly elected as a baron of Mercinae.
Following this major change in my life, I managed to settle down into a nice balance between time spent on my guild, and for my city. This period continued for almost seven years, but then, after much consideration, Egwene decided she would no longer have the time to spare to effectively be a godd guildmistress, and I was asked to take over in that role. So, within a short space of time, I was elected as the guildmaster of a guild I had served for twenty-six years. Thanks to Egwene's long hours put into helping new apprentices, the guild I inherited was much, much larger than the one I had served in for much of my time.
I was given only a short time to get into the role of a guildmaster though, when there was a massive change in the balance of power of the land. Mercinae's long time ally, Parrius, voted into office Zenichiro, an ex-Thakrian prince, who many people within Merciane viewed as an enemy. This fear turned out to be justly placed, after many attempts to sign a peace treaty, even giving up a village we had held for a long time within our influence, Parrius still marched on the city itself. The war was short, due to dissention within the city leading to our army being split and wiped out by Parrian forces, and within a year we were forced to sign a treaty to save us much of Mercinae as possible.
Following our defeat, the prince at that time, Omacron, stood down and allowed Ragar to assume the throne. As is known to happen when a new prince comes into power, there were many ministerial changes, most notably for me, my change to chancellor of Mercinae, a post even more to my liking than that of public relations minister. Although somewhat new to this post, I received a great deal of help from Omacron, who had served as chancellor in the past.
Fifteen years have now passed since that war and it's after effects, and my life has only changed a little. Some of my older friends and enemies have left the land for good, other new friends and enemies have been made. The city I have served for many years has had it's ups and downs, tensions continue to rise with Parrius, the seers guilds of the many cities have had stone wars, but my life itself has continued pretty much unchanged. So, at the age of 62 I remain as a guildmaster, baron and chancellor. What happens next has not yet been seen, but it will perhaps make an interesting story.
Written 11/2/01 by Acaila.
