Reading Challenge: Disability

The original palace of the Chara was built nearly seven hundred years ago (around 300 years after the giving of the law, as the Emorians date it), under the supervision of the Chara William. In the earliest years of Emor, the Chara and his council lived in a small hall, similar to the Royal Residence of the Kings of Koretia. After a time, though, the Chara and his council fell into a terrible civil war. By the end of this war, the Chara had gained so many followers that a larger building was clearly needed.

The original palace was a one-storey building set atop a high hill, though the hill was lower then. Around it gradually grew the capital of Koretia. This palace was intended only for the Chara, not for his recent enemy, the Great Council of Emor. As part of the peace settlement, however, it was agreed that one-third of the new palace should be given over to the Great Council. Another third was retained by the Chara. The exact purpose of the remaining third is not known for certain, but it appears to have been for rites that have since died out in Emorian culture.

Within two hundred and fifty years, Emor had grown into an empire. With the arrival of a vast bureaucracy to deal with imperial matters, it was clearly time to build a new palace. This palace was built atop the original palace, the old palace being buried under soil that heightened the hill. So well hidden is the original palace that, within a hundred years, many visitors to the new palace were unaware that an older palace still existed under the new one. That remains the case to this day, though the present Emorian government makes no effort to hide the existence of the underground rooms.

The palace that began to be built in 568, under the supervision of the Chara Rowland, was not the vast, sprawling palace of today. It covered only the area that had been taken up by the old palace. This second palace would later be dubbed the East Wing, as the palace expanded.

Like the original palace, it was single-storeyed, but it was as high as a two-storey building. This lent it a majestic appearance. Emor's finest architects were brought in to build the palace, aided by the fledgling engineers who were beginning to transform life in the new empire. Arpesh and Marcadia, close to the mainland, were at that time only just establishing relations with Emor; Arpesh, in a gesture of friendship that it later came to regret bitterly, sent down some of its artists to help with the building. The result was what is widely acknowledged to be the most beautiful building in the world, as well as the largest and most impressive. Only the Daxion palace, a full six storeys high, comes close to rivalling the Chara's palace.

The Chara's palace has vastly expanded in the four centuries since then, but the character of the East Wing has not changed in any substantial manner. It remains in appearance and use as it did in the centuries of the Middle Charas.

[Translator's note: The expansive nature of the Chara's palace becomes apparent in Law-Lover.]