Creation

The Coalescence

Year 404 of the Second Age
"I've just awoken from a deep meditation, the deepest one I've had to date as when I entered, it was the 400th year of this age. During that time, I was spoken to by what I believed to be the Divines. Spoken is an overstatement. It was more akin to a series of images and feelings I've hitherto never experienced nor do I think I will ever be able to experience again. I believe I was shown the creation of our world. Now even as I write these words, I can feel the memories beginning to slip from my consciousness. I can only hope to provide a translation though I will attempt to be direct and as descriptive of the events as I can, but forgive me, please. It was not in language that I beheld these events, it was sparsely with my own senses that I witnessed them. This is all I can hope to provide the wise.

The writings henceforth in this chapter I shall name, The Coalescence."

— from the Codex of Coalescence by Saint Aryabhatta, Saint of Enlightenment

"...Before the world came to be, there was God. I saw not where it came from, only that it wandered through the Void searching for something. The Void was empty. It took what was given to it, and God desired to create, but lacked the necessary ingredients. In the time before, God had attempted to create, but gave its own power to do so, and the Void ate it. God now searched for the right ingredients. It felt pulled to it, and I felt that they had been wandering for vedas¹ before it found the object of its search.

It was like the burning Sun, but in a purer form. It was a spark² in the empty void and its presence was like drinking water after a lengthy fast. God took it and beheld Power, and with this power, God made the world. As God enacted its will on the Spark, fire, rock, water, and air erupted into the Void. God was not prepared, for the elements were unthinking. They sapped the Spark for themselves and at once ejected the energy into the Void. Left on their own they would expend the Spark's power until the Void was barren once more.

God was wise from its past and so shared the Spark with the elements, giving them minds. I will call these elemental minds, the True Natures; beings of True Fire, True Water, True Air, and True Earth. God bestowed upon the Natures their own rings, for with their new minds, they squabbled like siblings. Each ring would house them and grant them reign over a piece of God's creation, and contain the power of the Spark within. They surrounded it, and would always feel its warmth close by.

With the Natures satiated and under God's control, came creation. God funneled power into its own ring. A large ring to surround those of the True Natures. God pulled from the four rings and combined their aspects to form something different, better, whole.

But God was jealous, and protective. It did not know if others of its kind existed. If they did, they would surely come to bask in such awesome Power and sieze the Spark for themselves. So God made a trick. God took the rings on which he made the world and spun them. It spun the rings of the world at a speed unimaginable until they hid the Spark behind the illusion of a sphere. The pull of the Spark was dimmed, but not erased and God saw that it was good."

Something lacked with the world God had made. It was inert and constant, devoid of change. Static. As God looked at its creation, it saw what would always be, and saw that this was faulty. The Void would sap it until there was nothing left. But God could not comprehend the solution to this problem as God was a creature of the Void and knew not else. So God took its mind and split it in two.³ Before me, God became Azurmaan and Emir'Borus.⁴

The two minds of God were like inquisitive students set to a novel task. Time has been referred to thus far in this codex, but one must understand that it was not so. There was no such thing in the Void. All was constant, nonsubstantive, unchanging and uniform. Even now as I try to recall such feelings my mind burns at the attempt. We are beings of time and thus we know of no other state of being. We have Azurmaan to thank for this gift. She took a piece of the Spark and wove a path through the world as one does a needle and casted it into the Void. With her power, she pushed the world rings along the course she had laid for it. However, the Spark was volatile and the path did not stay straight as Azurmaan intended. As the world traversed the path, it bent and twisted it, it was uncertain in what ways the path would be bent. But the Divines saw that the world began to change. It...shifted and moved along the course set by Azurmaan. Such was how Time came to be.

Azurmaan was left weakened by her creation. So much so that she cradled the Spark to keep from dissipating into the Void. Azurmaan bound herself to the world and the Spark, giving her body over to it to form its crust and watch over the course she had set for it. I felt sorrow from Emir'Borus; it was the kind I have not felt since giving up worldly attachments long ago. It assailed me as a monsoon does the trees in storm season. Thus he brought his body to surround Azurmaan and bind them to the world they had created together. Thus the world was finished, the two Divines entwined within, coasting on the streams of time."

1. The Saint used the Chaksee word vedas which does not have a direct translation to today's Aether. It is a word that represents an expansive and indefinite length of time. At the time of the book's translation, the word 'eon' had not been invented yet.
2. The Saint used the Chaksee word shakra. The closest translation in Aether would be 'spark', though the Chaksee and eventually a majority of Sunaharadesh use shakra to mean the soul or life-force within all things.
3. Some say this is where the phrase "two heads are better than one" originated.
4. The suffixes -maan and -pita respectively are Chaksee for mother and father. As the names spread throughout the world, these suffixes were dropped for localized linguistic purposes. Though surprisingly, the names remain recognizable across linguistic barriers. In places of Aether descent, Azura and Boros are the accepted names for the Divines.
5. God
6. see Saint Aryabhatta