Tulaytullah

Tulaytullah, the City of Sapphire, was an ancient city-state in the Hypostyle Desert, Great Red Sand, Sumeru. Its prominence in history began with the priest Hermanubis, who established the original Temple of Silence there and led it to become known as a city of wisdom. However, the subsequent wars between city-states and Eremite tribes after the collapse of King Deshret's civilization caused the members of the Temple of Silence to abandon Tulaytullah. With their departure, Tulaytullah was drawn into the violence; though it maintained prominence for some time, it eventually declined like all of the other desert kingdoms.

It was located at what is now the Garden of Endless Pillars.

History

It is said that Tulaytullah arose from Nabu Malikata's tears in the period following the fall of her fellow Angels.^[1][2] By the time of Parvezravan's reign, it was recorded as being a city that paid annual tribute to Gurabad in recognition of its status as King Deshret's primary vassal kingdom.^[3]

After King Deshret's death

Thousands of years ago, forbidden knowledge was inadvertently introduced to King Deshret's civilization, causing his people great suffering; Greater Lord Rukkhadevata expended a great deal of her power to seal it away, and when that proved insufficient, King Deshret ultimately sacrificed himself to save his people.^[4] His civilization subsequently fell and splintered into many smaller, human-led city-states.^[5][6] Among them was Tulaytullah, which became renowned as a city of wisdom^[6] after the Tighnarian priest Hermanubis brought his followers and other Tighnarian priests to the city and established the original Temple of Silence. Thoth refers to this as Hermanubis founding the city, and states that Hermanubis took in "many who had nowhere else to go."^[7] The Temple of Silence retained all the knowledge that survived the fall of King Deshret's civilization, while Hermanubis used his powers to keep the remnants of forbidden knowledge at bay. Over time, the Tighnarians became associated with Tulaytullah and were known as the Tulaytullah Tighnarians,^[1] though they actually originated from a location called Tighnar and had left it to serve Deshret in the desert before his death.^[8]

Even in the tumult that followed the death of King Deshret, Tulaytullah was known as a city of wisdom and prosperity. It was described as having a lattice of shimmering canals, sapphire-domed buildings, and lush emerald gardens filled with Padisarahs and pomegranates.^[1][6]

Cities of the Seven Towers

At some point after King Deshret's death, a man known as Shah Ramshahr reclaimed Gurabad and declared himself "king of kings" over the other desert city-states. He built seven towers in seven areas, each with a "great sage," and the cities around them became known as the Cities of the Seven Towers. Tulaytullah, which was led by King Humayun during that time, was one of the seven cities; it and the other cities were declared to be subordinate to the "king of kings" Ramshahr, with Humayun becoming one of his ministers.^[9]

Retreat of the Tighnarians

Little more than a hundred years after Deshret's death, war engulfed the desert.^[8] The Tighnarians provided guidance which allowed Tulaytullah to avoid conflict for some time, but this did not last. As recorded in the Temple of Silence's history, a certain king of Gurabad laid siege to Tulaytullah, to some success, and demanded that they give up the Temple of Silence to prove his victory. The ruling elite of Tulaytullah colluded with him in order to retain power, depicting the knowledge held by the Temple of Silence as the true cause of corruption and attempting to turn the people against it.^[8]

By this point, Hermanubis had expended his power trying to keep forbidden knowledge at bay. To save the Temple of Silence, he broke his being into many pieces and started a ritual which would bestow his power and knowledge onto his mortal followers. This allowed the Temple of Silence to defeat the invading army, but witnessing this strange power caused the other people of Tulaytullah to fear and shun them. No longer welcome in their own home, the members of the Temple of Silence and the Tulaytullah Tighnarians decided to leave the city for good, choosing to make a new life for themselves in the rainforest. Their departure eventually spelled the city's doom, as its elite warriors were soon overrun and war broke out all over the desert.^[8]

Given the numerous gaps in the desert's recorded history, the identity of the king of Gurabad who attacked Tulaytullah is unconfirmed. However, there is some evidence that indicates the events recorded by the Temple of Silence are from the time of Shah Ramshahr and Humayun, with the fall of Tulaytullah corresponding to an invasion that followed Humayun's death.^{[10][11][Note 1]}

Humayun and the Khagans

After Ramshahr's death, his throne as king of kings initially went to his son Artaxir, but Artaxir soon died and the throne went to Ramshahr's minister Turan, the Khagan of Saleh.^[10] By that time, the nobles of Tullaytullah who had once declared allegiance with Ramshahr broke away from him, including King Humayun. Humayun and the other nobles, seized by ambition, saw an opportunity to seize power; ignoring the previous advice of the Tighnarians, they rebelled,^[11] seemingly claiming that Turan was a traitor and a bandit.^[10] In the end, they were successful: Turan and his three sons were deposed if not killed, while Humayun ascended to the throne of king of kings by marrying Ramshahr's daughter, becoming known as Humayun Gurkan. A few years later, however, Humayun himself was decapitated at the city of Saleh during an event known as the Jinn Uprising.^[10]

Humayun's death was reportedly caused by Makani Khagan, a desert warlord who commanded his legions to invade Tulaytullah soon afterwards. The foreign Khagans easily won due to a lack of defenders in Tulaytullah,^[11] and Makani declared himself king of kings as the "Great Khagan who rules the Seven Realms," with his subsequent reign being self-described as "glorious." However, Makani failed to leave his name behind, supposedly due to Tulaytullahn scribes and poets who appeased him but purposefully left him out of history. The details of Makani's reign all come from Makani himself, who was eventually uplifted for preservation in the Temple of Space.^[12]

In recorded history, the period following Humayun's death is instead described as a time of unrest where many kings rose up but quickly perished. Garshāsp, the ruler of Ay-Khanoum and another of Shah Ramshahr's ministers, is credited as the person who restored peace and gained dominance over the Cities of the Seven Towers, taking the throne as the Khagan of Khagans. However, after some length of time, Garshāsp also died and his capital city burned, with its survivors fleeing to Tullaytullah.^[10]

The specific identities of kings aside, other sources corroborate the conquest of Tulaytullah by foreign Khagans. It is known that the city-state was subsequently exploited by its conquerers, while its own government also complied and gave "unrelentingly harsh" treatment towards its own citizens. During these times, some of these citizens began to reminisce about Humayun's brief rule.^[11]

Saleb Dowleh and Muzaffar

Amidst its occupation by the foreign Khagans, Goudarz, a young noble of Tulaytullah, sought to free his countrymen from the foreign conquerers, viewing the other nobles as complicit. He sought out and obtained "kingly power through cunning" from Thoth, one of King Deshret's Seven Pillars, which enabled him to rise up.^[11][13] The bulk of his subsequent actions are unclear, but his next known act was a victory against "rebels" aligned with the Khagan, who were repelled after three days of fighting due to some sort of mirage. It is also implied that Goudarz's younger brother was aligned with the rebels and fled Gurabad after receiving news of their defeat. Goudarz's victory ended the reign of the "false Khagan," and he eventually left for Gurabad, where he renamed himself Saleb Dowleh and declared himself the new king of kings over the Cities of the Seven Towers.^[10]

Saleb Dowleh made an alliance with the port city of Orghana in Dharma Forest (now known as Port Ormos),^[14] although one of its Deys, Muzaffar, would later turn his back on both sides, killing Saleb Dowleh and his entire bloodline and deciding to permanently reside in the desert instead of returning to Orghana.^[15]

Golden Age and Downfall

While no mention of Tulaytullah is made in relation to Muzaffar's successor, Zumurud, the city is related to the downfall of Zumurud's successor, Badanah, who was at the time the king of Gurabad.^[16] By this point, Tulaytullah had become one of the most prominent city-states of the desert and was ruled by an elite class of nobles and scholars,^[6] with its master being Balash, a competing brother of Badanah. However, the city ultimately came under the dominion of Gurabad, whose king led military campaigns in order to subjugate the other desert cities and kingdoms, enslaving their citizens. Both Tulaytullah and the city-state of Saleh were known to be under Badanah's control at this time.^[17]

To keep Badanah's favor, Tulaytullah's elites paid tribute to him in various ways, such as delivering Makhaira to him as a concubine.^[18] Bearing a grudge against the obese, war-mongering tyrant for his ancestry &mdash which had caused the destruction of her homeland and enslaved her ancestors, the Jinn;^[1] Makhaira conspired with her lover Faramarz, Badanah's son, to assassinate the vassal king. They successfully slew him and passed off his death as an unfortunate hunting accident.^[18][19][20]

A power struggle ensued following Badanah's death, with Makhaira constantly switching allegiances and lovers as the queen regent of Tulaytullah, initially ruling alongside Balash. Faramarz initially took Badanah's throne, but Makhaira and other retainers were the true powers due to Faramarz's youth, and Faramarz was later made to abdicate his throne to Balash. However, Balash was then slain by Goraz, another one of Faramarz's uncles, who exiled Faramarz and took Makhaira as his own wife; when Tulaytullah's nobles rebelled to avenge Balash, Makhaira appeased the rebels by giving them the slain Goraz's head.^[17]

After being exiled and restored to power three times, with various conflicts and power struggles emerging each time, Faramarz finally grew weary of Makhaira's shifting loyalties and assassinated her with a viper's venom. However, with the city-states declining amidst their constant conflicts, a conspiracy between the city dwellers and others reduced to being slave-warriors caused Faramarz to be ousted one final time, after which he was exiled to the rainforest.^[17][19]

Meanwhile, Makhaira's first lover, Xiphos, was the prince of a fallen kingdom who had embarked on a journey to revive his kingdom using the Key of Khaj-Nisut.^[5] Wielding a certain blade indwelt by a Jinni, Xiphos became Tulaytullah's protector, famed as the Blade of Tulaytullah. However, his acclaim earned him enmity from both kings of other cities and the rulers of Tulaytullah themselves. Faramarz, following his final exile from the throne, became a mercenary and accepted blood money to kill Xiphos. The two did battle, with Faramarz emerging victorious and disappearing into the rainforest with the money he had earned. Without Xiphos' protection, Tulaytullah withered away.^[5][6][1]

Legacy

All that remains of Tulaytullah in the present is its garden, which is preserved in the Garden of Endless Pillars.^[21]

Aaru Village was founded by refugees from Tulaytullah and other declining desert kingdoms. One of the leading figures among the refugees was a blind poet from Tulaytullah who was involved with many of the desert's most important figures during Tulaytullah's waning era: he once served as a general under Badanah, helping him conquer other desert kingdoms; he was present during Faramarz's childhood, and Faramarz was the one who blinded him; and he was later responsible for mentoring Xiphos.^[5][20][22]

Other refugees would spread to the four winds across Sumeru, and their descendants survive to the present day. Layla's blue hair and pointed ears mark her lineage as one of those descended from Tulaytullah.^[23]

Among the Eremites, the Shimti tribe traced their ancestry to Tullaytullah. The tribe was massacred around 20 years before the present day by another tribe, the Iab, though it is survived by Nefer, the daughter of the Shimti's last chief Sinuhe.^[24]

Trivia

Etymology

• Tulaytullah is the Arabic name for Toledo, Spain, while it was part of al-Andalus.

Notes

Other Languages

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See Also

• Gurabad
• Port Ormos (Orghana)
• Saleh

References

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