It was in this atmosphere of partisanship that Iam first rose to power as the leader of the interventionist faction. Iam's mother, the sorceress Isdanor, had always remained loyal to the Theocracy, and she instilled in her son a desire to see the return of the Old Order. As a child, Iam had been sent to be educated in Quintillica, where Isdanor had committed him to the care of the Steward Varus, who had occupied the Theocratic power base of that city and was struggling to master its secrets. Trained in the use of the forbidden magics of the Theocracy by both Varus and Isdanor, Iam affected a sincere belief in the Council's aims while secretly plotting its downfall. He found allies among the Vestran Stewards, a number of whom had converted to Love and Reason more out of fear than conviction and now yearned for a return of the Theocracy.
In the year 51, Iam's interventionist party rose to ascendance over the "Ventrian Question," the most serious debate to divide the Council since its founding. The people of Ventria, the lands between the swamps of Orsa and the Rhythnorian mountains, had developed a regional identity soon after the Fall and formed a loose confederation of villages sworn to aid the others in times of need. This confederation had no strong organization, though, and the Ventrian people, particularly those of the lands beneath the citadel itself, retained strong ties to Vestra. In 48, a delegation of Ventrians appealed to Vestra for aid against the Astian hill tribes, who were making incursions into the fertile An River Valley. In spite of the Council's policy of non-intervention, this request had a particular emotional appeal for the Stewards of the Council: the Ventrians, living in the very shadow of Vestra, had a long-standing relationship with the citadel itself; to the Stewards, they were "our people" in a way that the Tyrrians could never be, and many on the Council felt that this relationship warranted a special exception to the general policy.
The plight of the Ventrians turned the tide of political power on the Vestran Council. In 51, the council voted to aid the Ventrians by helping them to build a fortification along their border, from which they might be more able to protect themselves from future incursions. The Ventrian Wall was completed late in 53: snaking along a series of natural outcroppings of stone, it stretched from the coast in Abrisia all the way to the Astian hills, crossing the River An by means of massive arched bridges.
There was no doubt in the minds of the Ventrians that such a structure could only have been created by magic, but they didn't care. Recognizing Iam as the architect of both the Council vote and the structure itself, late in 53 a delegation of Ventrian elders delivered to him personally a formal declaration of gratitude and indebtedness, one which promised that his act of generosity to the people would be remembered "even beyond death." It was this declaration which Iam, with his theocratic training, was able to translate into a powerful ritual, binding the wills of the people of Ventria to his own, an unholy contract later known as the "Pact of Ventria." For the next thirty years, the Ventrian people, both the living and the dead, were to be Iam's to command.
Now assured of a vast army to back up his magical powers, Iam made his move. In 54, he fabricated a conspiracy against the Council in which both of his parents were implicated; the Council found them guilty and imprisoned them within Vestra. Iam was acclaimed his father's successor to the position of First Speaker. In this role, he continued the witch-hunt, and over the next two years gradually purged the Council of all those who opposed him. By 56, he ruled over a much smaller Council, composed only of those Stewards who shared his theocratic designs. Late in 56, allied with Varus of Quintillica, aided by his mother Isdanor, and backed by an enormous army of living and undead Ventrians, Iam began his conquest of Tympania.
