Some say the fate of men is decided before their very beginning…It is the first step of a journey that all must take; An inexhaustible quest to discover one’s self and the purpose of being –the purpose of ever having existed. My quest began long before my birth, in a time at least some still had enough strength to smile and think that what rested so frightfully close would only come to overshadow a glorious past.
It was in the essence of a dying Sun, born from the heat of ages that first blood pored from the ashes of a poisoned mind. The great Eeleger was dead.
So had fatality played its farce; the man who, for decades beyond count, had held together the squalor of the Old World passed into the Unknown, leaving a shattered cluster of nations to moan the shadow of a mighty name.
Eeleger believed a leader must earn power, not be born into it, and his weary mind, drained of life by passing decades and endless toils refused to accept that his time among the living was at an end. Nested together around the dying sovereign, his sons and generals vainly waited for a moment of lucidity to let loose the name of him who would take the horns of power…but in vain. The Gods had embedded Eeleger’s wrinkled lips together and he uttered not a sound until the last of his extinguished soul left, to be carried by his final gasp to the world beyond.
Next would come the hour of redemption for all the sons of man. What was living, perished in shadows, parting the walls of Rubin to bare the fury as a first word of rebellion echoed through thought and air and rock and rooted itself in weak minds, not yet skilled to resist the malice of a human snake.
In his fruitful life, Eeleger had left the world a legacy of sons and an empire that would be soon torn apart by forces freed form foreign law. In lust for power and in war, one will forever fall victim to the unyielding craze for recognition. Power in itself is merely meant to describe all others’ will to bend to the word of one. It cannot exist without those who, in their perverted sense of self, find comfort in letting stronger minded individuals rule over their lives. Titles such as Emperor and King serve no purpose other than to reinforce the belief that some men have, by birth, the favor of being better.
But Eeleger was not one to be swain in his resolve by something as abstract as tradition. He knew that a nation, however dominant, would fall unless ruled by potency and understanding. Long had he challenged his most capable men, and long since had they grown to be above any of their kind in both the field of war and the office of home. Yet in the moment of zenith, when all that had happened since the dawn of mankind mattered not, all faces paled but for that that shun with the sadistic pleasure of having sown the first seeds of quarrel, and all that came to pass will have forever been scarred by the memory of what never happened.
“War!” cried Agermon. ”One’s right cannot be undone by silence. If I am not as worthy as he, be it so…but there is none better or more suited for the task of governance! And hear me Gods, if by war I shall be proven right than by fire and blood this land shall be cleansed of venom!”
So spoke Agermon, son of Eeleger. He would be the first to pin his strike into the side of the Old World. In his mind, his father’s deed left no cause for resolution. The empire would break, if not from inside then macerated by long campaigns. Either way, it would be by his hand.
The Sun that had discarded darkness on all but a few nooks of Rubin had shone for the last time on bloodless ground, and many would find in future years that all that was painless to remember was a distant regret of not having cherished its serene rising on that final day of stillness.
So ended the last chapter of human evolution and began the first of its collapse. Eeleger challenged all and each to battle, with the reward of power.
He had tasted blood, and it was good!