A Creation Story

This is a story that could be told by any storykeeper of the land; it is the same in many religions, and the tellings may differ, this, perhaps, is the average, compiling all the most common parts of the tellings together. This makes it the most accurate and least accurate of all such stories, and of course, the story is maddeningly different if one travels to the islands of Arcadia or Varasia, or to the continent of Nazro.

The world's been dragged into the earth-dream and reborn in fire so many times it's beginning to look a lot like a habit. Even before humans set foot on the world, things have been goin' through changes. This's the Fifth Age on the great wheel, as far as humans go. World used to be nothing, just a big ball of rock and lava, floating there in the nothing, but it begins longer ago than that.

There was once a place where everything folded into everything else. Over and under and back again so many times you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began, and a great river flowed through it. There were things that came and drank at the river, painless, powerless, all-powerful things that knew nothing and everything. They, the weak and mighty ones, grew tired of supping from this pointless banquet and decided all the universe should have an order to it, to refine and fix the feast. So they folded the unfolded and unfolded the folded, singing the songs of creation, making a great prism stone to focus the universe. This made a maelstrom, a great and powerful storm, unstoppable in its rage.

The spirits shattered the stone with the song of endings and threw the pieces into the center of the maelstrom they had created, and the storm was calmed. They fled to the center of the storm and found themselves torn into a new world where they knew only what they could know at the time they knew it, instead of all-knowing and knowing nothing. Each knew something different, and they had to tell each other what each knew. They flew about the new world that had been made, with points of light and heat they called stars. They called this the World of Three Ways, and agreed that it had been a good decision to make, for the energy that fell through here and was tempered was the power they had sought.

Around the stars waited stones, and they descended to one such stone and took all the parts they could find from outside and made a great pillar beast. Each of the One Thousand Eternal Things put their faces into it, pressing the mud into their likeness. It did not stir until at last the sun fell, and it broke into One Thousand Foul Things, which slithered and stirred, giving painful birth to all manner of terrors, the One Thousand Thousand, or One Million Terrors, and the Eternal Things went to war against them. They called down fire and lightning and magma, swirling and burning the seas and the depths of the earth until they imprisoned or slew all those Terrors, and this done, they locked away the One Thousand Foul Things deep within a nearby world known as Otherside, each of them fashioning a key with which to keep them away from the world of three ways and its power to shape the outer worlds.

They then turned on one another, each wanting the power of the World of Three Ways, being shredded into uncounted pieces, and the world was made ever more turbulent. Then, something amazing happened. From the stars above came the Mother of All Things, descending out of heaven to kiss the bare and quiet rock with life. The turbulence of the world had attracted her, for she sailed the World of Three Ways seeking life and power, not for herself, but to bring things forth.

She brought forth stromalites and sea orchids and all manner of things, speaking with the earth and coaxing life forms from its turbulent soil. So the soil became calmed the world came to life. Soon, however, she ran out of room to create, still not satisfied. She took the strange pieces she had found and invested them with power, creating the Demons, who would break down her creation, putting away the rest of the pieces.

The demons proved too adept at their task, and so the Mother of All Things got out the pieces again and crafted the Celestines, who would upkeep her creation just enough to temper the forces of the demons. Where the demons were men and women, the celestines were women and men, each of them made out of the opposite of the original piece of the other, so that they would be drawn together and work together as brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and perhaps even lovers.

With that at last done, she saw a tiny bit of the pieces had fallen out of her hands, but she thought nothing of it and set about rolling life into draconian shapes, where the earth dreamed, she followed its ideas, making beasts with scale and claw. She fashioned for them a mind, and set them each to a task. With minds, she hoped they would think and learn and grow, taking after herself, for all parents wish for children who will succeed them.

Her creations, the Dragon Kings, certainly did think and grow, but they did not learn or imagine. They could not dream or work outside of the tasks they were given. Only one or two in any generation could do this, and they were ostracized and killed or eaten by the jungles. The Dragon Kings simply ruled in their great kingdoms and only watched the world, wanting for nothing, searching for nothing, and becoming nothing more than they were. They warred over petty differences, making the things the Mother had set them to make, for they could only make weapons. She gave them the secret of growing crops, and they grew thorns and terrible venoms. She gave them the secrets of life, and they made diseases and poison fungi.

Saddened, the Mother of All Things continued her work, ever more despondent and uncaring even as the Dragon Kings tore at each other's hide, like predator and prey. The animals themselves grew to giants, swarming over the land, consuming and ripping and tearing, washing the earth red. One day, while she wasn't paying attention, the earth made a deal to give them a second chance one day, and thus dreamed that a great stone fell from the sky and destroyed the Dragon Kings and buried their animals beneath dust and rock, dragging them away into the earth-dream. When she saw the land, she wept, and her tears caused the plants to spring forth again.

This time she refused to touch the creations that survived, and the earth dreamed. The earth dreamed of sheep, of furred animals with razor teeth, of rats that swam like snakes and pigs that were terrible and great hunters. It dreamed of hairy, gangly beasts that sought out pacts with nature, and nature agreed, taking away the hair of the gangly beasts and their toes, allowing them to stand tall and giving them small scraps of knowledge by the light of their first fires. They made a pact with fire to always protect them in exchange for fire's ability to consume them when they died, and the first people began to make pacts with the earth to grow their food.

When at last she looked back at the world again, the earth-dream had moved on, and there was an ape that walked and talked and created. It was garbed in skins that were not its own and carried a tooth that was not its own to pierce and rip flesh, or to dig the soil and plant crops. She marveled at this people, and presented herself to them. They recognized her as their grandmother, having been born from the beasts of the earth and having pacts with it instead of having been created from the whole cloth.

Thus being natural, the first people learned from the Mother of All Things how to care for their land and their children. They could dream, create, hope, wish, kill, inflict pain, and yet they could still laugh and love. They were called the Golden People, and they lived in the mystical land of Hajoria, now buried in ice and snow, ruled over by their God-Kings, the first of whom lay with the Mother of All Things before she left the world, her work complete. The people built a great temple to her, and she left behind five great beings, the Servitors of Man, to guide the people in her stead.

Weyven of the mind's bounty, Amemait of the sky's reaches, Mo'omaet of the burning soul, Harrow of the sand's flow, and Jomaig of the deep ocean dreams. These five servitors led humanity to five great aspects of being, teaching them the ways of the world. It was not, however, to be. The first king of humankind, the great lord Ainaku, had made union with the Mother of All Things, and she gave unto him a son, a boy named Raeilesk, who was curious beyond all knowing.

He sought out the edges of the folded worlds and witnessed the tombs of the One Thousand Foul Things at the edges of the world of Otherside and surmised them to be dreaming gods he sought to wake. He stole the One Thousand Keys, but did not make it very far; the Mother of All Things, being wise, had put both demons and celestines in charge of watching those tombs, and they tossed the boy far to the edges of the worlds, where he looked over the sides and saw great and terrible monsters who had come to devour the fraying ends of the World of Three Ways.

He heard a voice call to him, saying that he could hold dominion over all the lands of the earth, if only he would not be ruled by it. He cried out, stating the pacts that had been made with the plants and the animals, and the voice called him young and foolish, and his people silly, miserable, and primitive. The voice told him the people needed guidance, and he foolishly listened to the promises. So his body was taken over by the spirit he met there, the spirit of a being now called the Old God. He raised his arms to the edge of the worlds and made a bridge to the lands beyond, and called a swarm of gods to come with him.

They were beings who feasted on adulation and the power that came with it, devouring their worship like parasites, invading their lives and drawing them away from the earthen pacts, putting their feet down on the soil and commanding it, like a demanding tenant. The earth groaned under their weight and the people cheered them for it. The five servitors wept as the first city fell to the gods. They grew mad, crushing and destroying the idols of the gods, who cast them into the far corners of the earth, encasing them in crystal and stone.

The first city of humankind, now a waste of stone with snow slowly piling up over it, was abandoned by the gods and their servants, growing ever more mindless as they slavishly devoted themselves to one or the other. Each god built a city of his or her own, watching and commanding from their domains. Each of them began to choose humans they cared little for and elevated them to their level, addicts of power and worship, to include them in their political games. This went on for many years until the Old God made an error.

On his world, demons were loathsome and despicable beings, and he could no longer stand to see them in the heavens with the celestines, and so he threw them out. Having jilted the love of every celestine in heaven, he brought their wrath upon himself. Both celestines and demons lashed out, ejecting him from the boy, and they enacted a ritual to cast him out of the World of Every Way, and forever close its borders to him. Enraged, he took with him the source of all gods and sealed them and the celestines that had stayed in those realms in their domains, trapping them beyond their addiction and their power.

They died, and with them died their followers. Their bodies were left to rot in their realms, their powers leaching into the soils of where they lived and their servants and souls becoming twisted and dark reflections of their ideals. Death sealed the door to their realms, so that no souls would be taken there. Those who had not broken their vows with the earth still lived, and the time was short, so the pacts were still strong within them.

The knowledge of the people had gone away, only the lessons of what had gone before. The demons, locked out of their realms, wandered the World of Three Ways until Death took them into her realm. In their wanderings, the people had garnered some of their knowledge, and used it to become powerful off the pain and suffering of their subjects. They rose to prominence and carved up the land. The humans eventually rebelled, slaying these Dark Lords, and Death imprisoned them deep in the Underworlds, but that is another story for another day.

Then the dragons stirred. The great beasts of the past rose up from the chasms below and renewed their pacts with the sky and waters, leaving humankind in the dust. Humanity rebelled from below their feet, and a great war began, lasting many eons, stone and metal against scale and fang. When the dragons set out their plagues, humankind adapted. When they unleashed their vicious warriors, humanity learned new ways of war. With each push, the humans pulled back and rose ever stronger. So the dragons called on their gods.

They were great and terrible beasts, each of them an aspect of the elements of the Dragon Kings: Earth, Fire, Metal, Wood, and Water. They easily tore through the ranks of humanity and humanity cried out the earth to defend them. So another pact was made. A being called Gaia descended from the sky and raised her sword to the dragons. To the surviving beasts of the land she gave sentience and purpose, directing them and the armies of humanity to clash with the reptilian monstrosities, and the day was won at the cost of the soil.

The Gaia took pieces of the Dragon Gods, gathering the people into five groups. She gave one tribe a stone, the second tribe a flame, the third tribe she gave a slice of the ocean, and to the fourth she gave a piece of the sky. To the fifth tribe, she gave a piece of something that was nothing and everything, and they went their ways, each taking a part of the land that remained. They turned to them, using the pieces to make their lands soar and to rule over the people from above.

The people peered through the mists of time, and saw the world coming to an end, a world of destruction and death, where a single figure stood. They willingly stepped down from their thrones and flying islands, taking Gaia's gifts and locking them away instead in statues in the center of their domains. Quietly returning to a life of farms and gentle, rolling hills, they locked away the powers the Gaia had given them, never using them for fear of ending all things. The powers were later stolen, but that is also another story.

So with our land beneath us and our sky above us, we began anew. In time the land grew fruitful, and without our powers, only our pacts with the earth and the sky, we multiplied across the world. We had to be inventive to make war, and soon enough we became genius at it once again. Bow and spear gave way to gun and bomb. Tilling soil gave way to rotary machines and fertilizers. And then we got our power back. The world was crushed under our feet so quickly we weren't sure what had happened. Magic and machine, melded as one, a perfect and solemn whole. That's when we started to fall.

Legend says hopper gave up half its cunning to live in the house of man and woman. Maybe we did that too. It says we could touch the stars with our fingers, not knowing how hot they really were. It says we stood taller than our gods and spirits. Says we broke the pacts we made with the earth, and the earth wasn't happy. It called us home; we looked back and laughed. Then the stone islands fell from the sky and blocked the stars from our grasp, binding us to the land. With all the heavens gone past that ashen cloud even the sun was beyond us, and we began to choke on our own vomit and bile. So in comes the jungle and the ancient forms of the earth, all bark and vine and bone and muscle, wanting to make the pacts again. Part of the deal is that the savage world gets to stick around for a bit, to remind us of the deal.

So maybe we were desperate. Either way, we took it. Now the jungle spreads under our feet and over our heads, and the deal is punctuated and protected by claws like iron hooks and hide like stone bricks, but the sky is clear again. And as long as the sky is clear, we can watch the stars. And watch the stars we must, for we are all on this bubble together, and our universe is full of needles.