Mars Underneath The Sceptre of Eternity

Sceptre of Eternity

King Ergonn, was sitting on the legendary Eagle Throne, which was made up of solid gold and precious colourful jewels. The backrest of the throne resembled a Giant Eagle, looking down and stretching its two wings on both sides forming upward bending tips. The Eagle also had two big polygonal rubies in the place of its eyes. The pedestal of the throne was built in dark red stone collected from the Fire Mountain.

'The Eagle was considered as the most auspicious bird by the Ancient Colonisers and their descendants'; Ergonn's nursemaid once told him that the winged chariots of Ancient Colonisers had symbols of eagles. Those great men rescued the planet's civilisation from the fury of the Fire Mountain and taught them the arts of living; the present civilisation was the blessing of those great people. She had also told him that Ancient Colonizers settled down in the Red Planet and named it Mars; 'gradually they became one of us, our forefathers'. The country's very name Terra-Aquillaan came from the Eagle Symbol on their winged chariots.

Since his childhood, Ergonn liked the songs of swords and spears, not the letters on parchments. Thus, old books and documents hardly fascinated him. However, he liked the stories and folklores told by his nursemaid Rurzda in his early childhood. At that time only, he also realised that no one had any expectation from him; his younger brother Synus was destined to be a great king in the future, but not Ergonn; because he had Dark Blood; the blood of an alien woman, an Earthian invader, so, he was a half-alien or halflen prince.

However, his father had never treated him differently from Synus, but Queen Zealeoness detested him as halflen boy and palace attendants also followed her example. Ergonn had no memory of his Earthian mother who once came to the palace as a spy of the alien invaders and wanted to kill his father, but she seduced the young king Nachoa who was already married to Zealeoness. Though, she became his second queen, but her real identity was revealed much later by Zealeoness. She was dead for a long time and infant Ergonn had no memory of his mother, not even knew her proper name; people in the palace called her Night Queen or Dark Lady; his father said, her name was Vega, but the nursemaid said another name.

With a stolid face, Ergonn touched his golden circlet crown, which had small red stones all around it and a small curvature of an Eagle with wings in the middle of the circlet. The Crown was an integral part of the Imperial regalia of Terra-Aquillaan just like the White Sceptre or the Sceptre of Eternity, which was made up of Argyros metal (a white coloured heavy metal); it looked like a one-foot long rod with a hexagon at its lower end and a triangle at its upper end. No one knew the significance of the hexagon and triangle on the sceptre; it was a gift of the Ancient colonisers to the first Eagle King; just like the Crown and the Throne. It was said that Argyros metal was sacred and unknown to Mars; it came from a pure land of Earth and now it was rare in the Earth itself. The colour white was rarely found on this Red Planet, so, both Old and Neo Martes people considered everything white as heavenly or sacred. They also believed that the Sceptre had supernatural power and that would be revealed only in the hand of a worthy king. Seers had already composed many prophecies regarding that legendary future king 'the King of Mars' with supernatural power and the ability to conquer the entire planet, but Ergonn was not interested in myth, he believed in present only.

Presently, Ergonn was alone with his victory; Warlords and Oligarchs of Terra-Aquillaan had already deserted him and called him usurper king. Though he was habituated to detest and resentful look of his Father's men, but now they hated him more. No one, not even Ergonn thought that he would be able to defeat Synus in a single combat when Synus vowed that if he lost his life in the combat, his half-brother would be the rightful ruler of Terra-Aquillaan and all of his orders would be Decrees.