I. In the beginning

The world begins and ends. Twice. But people just start again once more.

I. In the beginning

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In the beginning, there was darkness. Then the first word was spoken and became light, The First Mei. All words that followed were but shadows in the radiance of The First and never again was It heard in this world. For if The First would be spoken again, all creation would seize and start anew.

To this day, there are those who fear It and those who revere It. And then there are those who would speed its coming. But The First Mei is only ever spoken once, for when It is spoken, it is always the first time.

Our tale begins with a new cycle which is one after innumerable cycles before it. Nobody could count them and nobody will, but we will call it the first cycle.

* * *

He seemed such a small creature seen from above. His high build, broad shoulders and luxurious crimson robes did very little to make him overly noticeable while standing on a building of such magnitude. Raril could hardly suppress a snort of derision as he circled ever closer, ready to land when commanded.

How such a pathetic beast could have the strength to bind him into service, even if it was just temporarily, he simply could not understand. Once the spell was released, he would surely make short work of the flesh dweller. If he could even be bothered.

Raril knew himself to be pure, or at least the next best thing. His entire being was Mei, shaped by a Primary of The First, which made him a creature of divine nature. His had been an easterly wind that pulled at the very skies themselves as they made their rotation and it filled him with a joyous pride.

His time had come and gone and he had slept a short thousand years to awaken to this mayhem. Men had hacked away entire mountains and erected this mountain of their own, made of cold and lifeless stone and iron, held together by enslaved Mei.

The other fleshlings kept on their mindless droning chants while tirelessly pushing rocks up the steep ramps that encircled the artificial mountain. They had given much of their own makeup to the black stone itself and with every word they were becoming less and their looming construction became something more than just a thing.

There was an undeniably sinister quality to it. Raril considered finding one of the Primaries and request an explanation, but he was still bound to serve as a scout for that accursed man thing. Still, he could feel one of the Primaries very close-by and there was anticipation. Strange, hollow and somehow hungry. The great one would make his core right here; the claim was clear and forceful.

Raril looked once again upon the man thing that currently held his Mei by means of fell arts. Proud and arrogant, standing atop a thing of such grandeur, the very pose of a victor. All of his Mei burnt brightly like a great fire. Like coal in a furnace it was consumed just like the Mei of the multitude that labored below.

An easterly wind is no gentle companion and nothing to trifle with. On this day, however, all thoughts of vengeance were suddenly forgotten. For the first time in his long existence, Raril experienced pity. He longed to extinguish the tainted life that now held his own. And he would call it mercy.

* * *

17th of March 2191
New London, Central District

Tara could hardly believe her eyes when she watched the news that morning. This time they had truly done it, real sunlight. The whole district was in an uproar and the global Meta network was flooded with little else than that piece of news.

Hardly a minute passed without one of her friends asking if she "had heard it" or what she "thought about it". After a while she had given it a little more thought and currently had three people in vigorous discussions with three very convincing daemon projections of herself.

She rubbed her temples as she felt the oncoming headache.

"It's good training... training...", she mumbled to herself and continued plodding along the canal boulevard, her favorite place within easy range of her apartment.

They had really done it, she could even see a bit of it from here or so it seemed. The skies had been murky and gray for a century and now they had been breached. Surprisingly, she didn't feel the elation she would have expected for the occasion, just a strange stirring of hope tinged with irony.

It would be many years before the shroud could be removed in its entirety. After all, humankind had had far more than a century to build it and see it grow out of control. They had given an estimate of about eighty years. Then, they assured the Meta network news service nodes, permanent sunlight would be available for all major provinces.

They probably had chosen this day very carefully, after all it was Ascension Day. More precisely, it was the 50th anniversary of that fateful day. Everybody learned about it at school, the expedition into the Caves of Deliverance and how the entire world had changed in a matter of three short years.

Fifty years ago, in 2138, a team of scientists around a brilliant geophysicist named Ivan Radinov discovered large caverns deep beneath the Middle Sea. But instead of finding living space for their wretched band of refugees, they unearthed something far more significant.

The walls of the caverns were laced with a strange mineral compound that created magnetic anomalies similar to ball lightning in the air above the lakes that filled the lower half of the caves. But instead of dispersing within seconds, the anomalies seemed to be stable and even subject to growth and change over extended periods of time. While his colleagues were just fascinated, Radinov understood the true significance of the phenomenon.

The 17th of March 2141 can be called the day mankind once again rose out of the depths of barbarism and despair into a new age of development and progress. This was the day when the first cold fusion plant with a production capacity of over a hundred Gigawatts lit up the skies above a new city.

New London was only a nucleus of a city at that time and covered barely half a square mile of artificial ground. Having been built in the Middle Sea, it was safe from the feared scavenger hordes that plagued the shores of North Africa as well as the harsh climate of Europe.

Cold fusion was not the only discovery Radinov had made in that cave. Everyone who had known him before was quite sure, the man that entered the caverns and the one that left were not quite the same person. After he had brought light and energy back to the world, like a new Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, he suddenly disappeared, leaving behind obscure writings that would probably take mankind another century to decipher.

Radinov had also been the one to begin preparations for what the news feeds now theatrically called the "Dawn of Ages", sunlight for a world in darkness.

"So we left the nuclear age behind and entered the age of wonders it seems. At least for those who can afford it", Tara mumbled to herself.

She had trouble thinking ahead more than a decade or two, not being a very diligent person when it came to saving money. At this rate she would never have enough to keep up rejuvenation treatments. Maybe she would see a full day of light when she was old and withered. Sitting on a hill with the sun rising, then watching it move in the sky all day and settle behind the cityscape in the far west. Then dying as the last ray faded into a pure black night.

That didn't sound so bad. She could save that memory and upload it to the Meta before her last synapses would shut down. Or maybe she could embed it in a PET, a permanent artificial embodiment of her mental self, if she trained really hard. Well, so far she could only do daemons. Nothing as lasting as a true PET.

A cool wind was blowing gently from the east, caressing Tara's neck. Now wasn't the time for thinking about death, no matter how spectacular it might be.

"So you came," she whispered without turning.

A light chuckle seemed to animate the wind which swirled to form the image of something vaguely humanoid.

"Our promises are binding. As is your foolishness it seems."

"I wish to learn more," she murmured.

"You humans always want to learn more. How pitiful that you do not simply know the world for what it is as we do. Maybe then you would have more respect for it."

"I'm willing to trade."

"Don't start again. I told you before that I am not like one of those. I do as I please and I won't soil myself with your pitiful life force. But there is one thing you can do, as usual."

"That song again?"

"Yes. The first one I taught you. I will have you sing it for me once more. How long do you think you can keep it up?"

"I got better. Maybe half an hour. I'm still having trouble with the fifth score though since I can only create three stable daemons of myself."

"It has to do for now. Summon your voices and begin."

When Tara was ready, the song practically burst from her mouth and those of her projections. It felt like running water on slick stones, flowing from puddles into streams and from streams into oceans. Whispering and roaring at the same time. She could see its vivid blue color and smell the freshness of leaves in the wind.

It was a living song, rich and free, without constraints of any kind other than its own nature. A song as animated as it was unchanging and in its center glowed a single vibrant shape. Tara knew this to be Raril's Mei. This was the song of his life, the melody of his task that was also his entire existence.

She knew that by the time she stopped singing, the shape would slip from her mind without trace once more. It was impossible to grasp or even remember, because he would not be tamed or shackled so easily.

Raril was always at his most human-like after the song. He seemed lost in reverie for several minutes, before sighing and turning toward the girl:

"It's good to hear it, even if you cannot sing it perfectly, human. I hope I will hear The First sing my song again one day. I would give everything for that, even my entire existence. But you wouldn't understand and you are impatient for your reward. You humans are nothing if not impatient."

Tara smiled and watched the sky, imagining the sun setting in the west:

"I changed my mind. No need for rewards today. Let's just enjoy the evening breeze."

"Trying to surprise me, aren't you. No matter. Actually, there is a Mei I would quite like to teach you tonight. It is one of the seven-and-one that govern light."

A sudden glare forced Tara to close her eyes, before she blinked them carefully in surprise. The crimson disc of the setting sun was just about visible in the far west. Raril's soft chuckle brushed her neck as he explained with considerable amusement:

"It's not really good for anything. Also, you can only use it during the last hour of daylight and you are the only one who can see the sun. Still, I somehow feel like it is just the thing you wanted."

Tara stared as the last rays of light vanished behind the horizon. The soft red glow remained, burned into her retina for at least another few minutes. She didn't even notice the tears that were running down her cheeks and falling in large drops on her shoes while her hands grasping the railing of the canal walkway were shaking.

"I'll work on that fifth score," she whispered.