Capeworld Comics

 

The Hadean Earth, 4.6 Billion Years Ago

 

The God Sculptors 

 

4.6 billion years ago, Earth was darkness and fire. The black ground cracked and bled oozing light. The dead sky knew not a trace of gentle blue and sparked with electric brambles. Earth fell and rose in the gravity pit of a nuclear furnace. There were no golden sunrises. There were no orange sunsets. The sky was as the ground–darkness and fire.

 

Nothing saw the darkness. Nothing saw the fire. The closest thing to a heartbeat came in the groaning of the tortured earth or the shrieking of the sky.

 

Because there was nothing to see the darkness, and because there was nothing to see the fire, the darkness and fire themselves became able to see.

 

Modern mirabologists call this phenomena malpirgi, a Enochian (the language of the Dyeus culture that would rule the planet before the rise of man as well a the language of the angels) word that means breath of life. When the forces underlying hyperstasis fail to detect a life to empower, sometimes they create a life. 

 

The darkness became the first to see. The darkness as ebon rock pulled itself away from the fires of the earth and stood upon its own insensate substance. The darkness could see, and feel, and think, and wonder. And wonder it did at the sky above and the lights it held in its darkness like gemstones in the black earth. 

 

The darkness wished to see the sky in more ways, and so became many. What was a being became a race, and this race became known as the God Sculptors.

 

They had the eyes of angels and the gait of apes. Their eyes were irregular white crystals that shimmered like ice. Their bodies were obsidian black. Their arms were long and jagged. Their legs were short and stubby. Their bodies were barrel-chested and bulky. Their backs were rounded like beetles. Their hands were fingerless knots–hammers before there were hammers.

 

They were, perhaps, an ugly race. But their hearts were beautiful in their curiosity.

 

The God Sculptors looked up, and their eyes could see far into the dark. They could see beyond light, beyond distance, beyond all the infinities of our universe. They could see the stars and galaxies and filaments. They could see the Estrel roaming nebula in clouds held together by their minds. Their worlds were held together against inanimate darkness by the trust and love they had for one another. They could see the star-swallower vessels of the Chromians holding suns in their mouths and planets in their scales. They could see the Custos, whose joints were stars and whose bones were invisible strands that connected them. The Custos live a slow existence. Planets are born and die in the time it takes for them to make a single motion. The Custos reach for each other, and whether they do so to strike a blow or embrace is a question still answered to this day. The God Sculptors watched the Custos long enough to see them move by the smallest fraction.

 

For some time, they were content to watch. Invincible, they gave no heed to the crashing sky or erupting earth. Lava washed down their backs. Lightning stabbed through them. So long as their eyes were clear, they cared not a little for the world.

 

Their bodies were in the hellish world of the Hadean Aeon. Their souls were in the heavens.

 

Then, one of the God Sculptors decided to do something besides watch. Why he decided to break his vigil, who can say. It is not in the nature of life to do one thing forever.

 

This God Sculptor lifted his fist to the sky and in one motion gave his race its name.

 

He tapped his hammer against the darkness and chipped away what was to reveal the contents of his mind. He sculpted the sky. He added stars and galaxies and filaments. He added lights whose radiance would reach Earth only after the sun was cold and dead. 

 

His race followed his lead, and soon their collective preoccupation was no longer watching but creating. 

 

The God Sculptors enjoyed creation. It gave them things to watch that they had a stake in. But quickly they realized their limitations as creators. They could only create what they knew. They made stars and galaxies because they knew stars and galaxies. They saw a lot of galaxies and stars. But they couldn’t make the precious rarities they sometimes spied upon a mote of matter next to a star. They couldn’t make anything like themselves. It strained their vision just to glimpse at such small creatures.

 

Then around 4.5 billion years ago, the God Sculptors watched with excited curiosity as the Theia impact occurred. They basked in the heat and pressure of a planetoid gouging the surface. It was interesting, but what was born from that heat and pressure was even more so.

 

The Storm Choir

 

The jagged lights that roared in the dead skies of Hadean Earth cut themselves away from the silent darkness. They were living clusters of wings–butterflies without a center mass–flower petals without a stigma. Their wings were the products of electron densities the likes of which those that live below a blue sky would never know. Aeons from their birth, human scientists would see their wings in upper-atmospheric lightning and call them jets and elves and glimpses. 

 

They were light given shapes and forms that stretched for miles.

 

They were the Storm Choir, and they sang with a force that stilled the thunder.

 

At first, the God Sculptors merely tolerated the presence of the Storm Choir. They were interesting, but they were also a distraction from the heavens. Then the Storm Choir revealed that though they couldn’t sculpt reality, they could see it in ways the God Sculptors could not. The eyes of the God Sculptors were awesome in power, but the Storm Choir were living eyes. Their bodies were multifoliate telescopes. They could see the color of the dresses worn by dancers in the whirlpool galaxy. They could see the leaves of the plants that made planet Gigipal green. From the smallest to the largest, the universe was theirs to gaze upon.

 

And what was more, the Storm Choir knew how to put what they saw into words.

 

They sang the song of the universe in the dead skies of Earth, and the God Sculptors listened.

 

The God Sculptors watched the heavens alongside the Storm Choir and from their songs knew it in ways they couldn’t alone. They knew the small, precious things that lived on shadows that vanished against the enormity of the stars they orbited. They knew how they lived and why they lived. They knew they suffered from pain and death and want, and the revelation of how enormous the suffering of small things were to the size of the cosmos was almost enough to make the God Sculptors turn their crystal eyes away from the heavens forever.

 

But the Storm Choir had an idea to bring happiness and joy to the universe, and the God Sculptors had the means to make that idea a reality.

 

The idea was that there should be a third race. The God Sculptors could change reality. The Storm Choir could understand and communicate reality. But there needed to be a race that could experience reality.

 

This third race was hammered into existence around a star in the Fireworks Galaxy. Their planet would come to be called Lor, and they would come to be called Lorian Angels after their bright metal wings .

 

The Lorian Angels did not have eyes like the God Sculptors or Storm Choir. They were made with eyes like that which humans would have in the far future. They saw only what was in front of them, and the stars were left as mysterious points of light in the sky. They would never be entranced by the sky like the Earthling races. They would never stand rooted with their eyes toward heaven. They would see the world around them and live within it. 

 

The Lorian Angels

 

The Angels were born from the blazing lifeblood of their planet just as the God Sculptors were. Their brass bodies congealed in the womb of their homeworld. Then they rose toward the surface with young wings erupting from their backs in crystal sheets. These were gifts from the Storm Choir of themselves. The Storm Choir were living wings. In giving the Lorian Angels wings, the Storm Choir would always be at their back.

 

When Lorians emerged from the ground, they were greeted by smiling faces that washed the caked dirt from their bodies until they shined. They felt cold water against their skin for the first time, and nothing would ever feel exactly like it again. They stretched their wings, which were like rough icicles but would grow to be as intricate as clockwork, and with faltering starts and stops, rose into the air where waiting arms helped them get their footing among the clouds.

 

The childhood and maturation of Lorian Angels was a novelty to the Earthling races. They were formed completely out of the Hadean Earth. They would never change, they would never grow, and they would always be what they always were. But the Earthlings knew of races throughout the universe that did change, and they wanted the Lorians to be like them. They wanted the Lorian Angels to live where they only watched, and so created them to grow.

 

Young Lorians grow on the surface of their world, and occasionally on the surface of other nearby worlds that aren’t too far away to fly to. When they are young, they do not have a desire to travel far from the place of their birth. That comes with age. Young Lorians explore their homeworld with great interest. Nature delights them and they enjoy it whether as inert clouds and rocks or living  plants and animals. They tend to their world as dutiful gardeners. They let birds build nests in the hollows of their wings. They bathe in storm clouds. They are at peace.

 

But in time, they mature, and restlessness takes hold in their heart. They look to the stars and wonder what is out in the universe. When the world becomes too familiar and the stars too welcoming, Lorians become adults and ignite a spark inside themselves that changes them forever.

 

Adult Lorians burn with the intensity of stars. It is no longer safe for them to stay on their homeworld. Their very presence could reduce worlds to plasma. They leave their homeworld to younger Lorians and ascend to the cosmos on wings on fire. They travel the universe with new eyes like their God Sculptor creators seeking beauty, finding beauty, and desiring to copy that beauty with creations of their own.

 

Young Lorians are immortal. Like their Earthling creators, they do not age, and any wound is healed by the dirt of their planet. By growing up, they sacrifice this immortality. They burn with power, and in time that power consumes them leaving only ash behind. 

 

They spend the aeons of their adulthood traveling the universe acquiring knowledge and sharing knowledge. The oldest religion in the universe, the Constellation Mappers, owed a great debt to the Lorians for spreading their faith and chronicling the countless constellations in the universe and the stories behind them.

 

After an aeon of journeying and discovery, adult Lorians find a dead world upon which to end their lives. Then they burn themselves to ash which seeds the world with the potential to create a new Lor and new Lorians. Other adults gather to bid farewell to their friend and to terraform the planet and place upon it plants and animals taken from other worlds to create an environment their children could find joy in.

 

The God Sculptors and the Storm Choir continued their symbiotic union for aeons. The Storm Choir had ideas, they sang these ideas to the God Sculptors, and the God Sculptors made those ideas reality. And together, they saw the Lorian Angels explore the reality they made with eyes full of wonder and were glad.

 

The Earthlings and Lorians Meet

 

One day, after aeons, the Lorian Angels discovered Earth and their creators.

 

They didn’t have eyes like the Earthling races, but they were intelligent. After aeons spent learning the secrets of the universe, they realized that some stars and planets just appeared in the void. It was as if some god somewhere tapped against the void and created them out of nothing. These worlds had a strange sort of radiation that they recognized as occurring in the cores of their homeworlds and in their wings. As they explored the universe, they came into contact with older races–races older than even the Earthlings like the Form Masters. From these races, they learned of other worlds that were created with a similar radiation signature.

 

Then the Lorians used math, the universal language, to determine the approximate location at the center of all these worlds, and curiosity, the universal emotion, to explore that location.

 

The Storm Choir were shocked to look into space one day and see a population of Angels waving at them.

 

The Storm Choir were afraid. They never thought their creations would ever become aware of them. They didn’t think it would be possible. They had no idea what to expect from contact with the Lorians. Would the Lorians hate them? Would they be angry over how they were made? Would they resent their creators for not giving them eyes like they had? Would they resent them for not giving them the power to break reality to their will as the God Sculptors had? Would they resent them for giving them the capacity to age and die?

 

The Storm Choir didn’t know. They feared being hated by the beings they loved most in the universe and so kept their observations of the approaching Lorians to themselves.

 

The coming of the Lorians as, recorded in Dyeus legend goes as follows:

 

The God Sculptors asked the Storm Choir one day, “How are our Angels?”

 

The Storm Choir saw the Angels at the rim of the sky. “They are flying.” The Storm Choir said.

 

The God Sculptors asked the Storm Choir the next day, “How are our Angels?”

 

The Storm Choir saw the shadow of the Angels pass across the stars. “They are flying.” The Storm Choir said.

 

The God Sculptors saw the Angels above them in the clouds the following day and asked the Storm Choir, “How are our Angels?”

 

The Storm Choir, fretfully watching a flock of Angels crossing over the moon, answered “They are flying.”

 

“And they are here.” The God Sculptors added.

 

Much to the relief of the Storm Choir, the Lorian Angels were not upset with their creators. The God Sculptors wondered why they were worried in the first place. The God Sculptors assumed that they were keeping their distance from the Lorians so as to give them space to grow. They wanted them to be children of the universe and not worry about modeling their culture and ways off their creators. They figured that in time and on their own terms, the Lorians would find them and seek them out if they truly wished it. 

 

The God Sculptors were as shocked to learn that the Storm Choir were afraid of the Lorians as the Storm Choir was to learn that the God Sculptors weren’t.

 

It was the first time there had ever been a miscommunication between the two races. They were glad for the experience. It taught each race their character. The God Sculptors realized they were calm and trusting while the Storm Choir realized they were cautious and worrisome.

 

They thought nothing of these differences at the time. They had no reason to be concerned about these differences at the time.

 

The Lorians embraced the God Sculptors, and if they had the ability to cry from their perfect eyes they would have wept for joy at the sensation of being touched by something they had created and watched grow light-years away. The Lorians petted the wings of the Storm Choir and assured them that there were no hard feelings. They liked being Angels and thanked the Earthlings for creating them.

 

The Lorians had a gift for the Earthlings. They had watched their creators for some time and had grown to pity them. They stood in a burning pit of a world and created things they never touched. They had wings that only flew through dead air. They had hands that molded reality light-years away. They saw worlds full of life and only ever interacted with each other.

 

The Lorians told their creators that they had been created to be what they wished they themselves to be. They couldn’t grow, or change, or die, or explore, or go on adventures, and so they made beings that could. With all their power and ability, they couldn’t change themselves and so had to externalize their ideal selves. 

 

The God Sculptors and Storm Choir were surprised by the revelation. They never thought of the Lorians as what they themselves wished to be, and yet it made sense

 

The Lorians had brought their creators a gift that they hoped would help them grow and change. 

 

It’s outside was new compared to what was inside. 

 

What was outside was built from a stone-like substance only a few million years before the Hadean Aeon. What was inside was older than the universe.

 

What was outside was a square box with a circular protrusion at the top. If either of the three primal races assembled on the Hadean Earth that day knew what a coffin was, they would have called it a coffin. What was inside had no form and no shape.

 

What was outside was matter. What was inside was memory.

 

It was a gift that would be known to the Dyeus as the Creche of Hausus.

 

It had been given to the Lorians many aeons ago as a gift. It was once the prized possession of a race of warriors whose culture formed to protect it. They worshipped it for its power and history. They worshipped it because their fathers and fathers before them worshipped it. They worshipped it because it was once a friend to their entire race when they were a race of starving savages huddled in caves.

 

It was once their Prometheus. It was once their King Arthur. It was once their Jesus.

 

Their friend went into the Creche of Hausus to die, and promised one day that he would return from it like a sleeper waking from a dream.

 

The warriors vowed that he would awaken in nothing less than paradise. They would not allow some aliens to drag his sleeping form to some strange world where he would awaken in a nightmare. Throughout their history, they fought other races to keep them away from their homeworld, they fought other races to acquire greater weapons and more power so as to better defend their sleeping savior, and they even fought amongst themselves over disagreements on how best to protect their friend.

 

They created their culture on rivers of blood and mountains of skulls. It was a culture without trust, because trust was a willing vulnerability and there could be no vulnerability in protecting their sleeping god. Their leaders ruled by right of arms and their people were taught obedience was the highest virtue.

They worshiped a crypt. Was it so surprising that they ran their world like a crypt?

 

When Lorian Angels visited them, they could not believe that things so gentle and innocent could exist. They could not believe that there could be beings that only wanted to talk and share knowledge. The warriors attacked and destroyed the visiting angels. When they later learned through deep-space probes what Lorians were, they were ashamed. The universe had produced on a planet countless light-years away a race they thought was impossible. The limitations of their imagination and their trust were laid bare.

 

When other Angels journeyed to their world, the warriors allowed them to view the Creche as penance. It was the highest honor they could give.

 

The Angels knew from stories told to them by the elder races of the universe who their sleeping god was

 

It was Baltim, the great intercessor of the Firsts.

 

Baltim, who in the time-before-time was one of the Firsts and stood outside and above reality.

 

Baltim, who with his kindred joined with the first sapients of the multiverse during the Blue Time when the stars were young to try and create a race undreamt of in Heaven or Earth.

 

Baltim, who stood against the Archons of his race when they separated the Firsts from the first sapients and was punished by being forced to die and forget like the mortals he loved again and again and again.

 

Baltim, who saw his punishment as a blessing and welcomed an existence of endless life.

 

Baltim of many bodies, and races, times, and cultures.

 

Baltim, who the warriors had kept surrounded by weapons. 

 

The warriors wished that the Angels told them lies, but they knew that Lorian Angels do not lie.

 

He was a child of creation itself and they had kept him sealed from creation. He had been so many races and yet they had treated him as if he was meant only to be an ancient patriarch of their race forever.

 

Did Baltim forget to tell their ancestors who he was? His memories were like fragmented dreams. He never remembered all his lives at once. He could have forgotten to tell them.

 

Or did their ancestors ignore what he had told them? Did they turn his resting place into a throne for the most aggressive and ambitious of their race to sit on?

 

The warriors knew which was more likely.

 

Shame was taught to the warrior race that day, but also forgiveness. The Lorians did not hate them–not for their slaying of their kindred and not for their crime against the universe.

 

The warriors wanted to make things right, and so gave their friend to the Lorians, knowing no other race as worthy.

 

And the Lorians gave their friend to the Earthlings, hoping that Baltim would free them from stagnation.

 

The Earthlings gave the Lorians the gift of growth, and the Lorians returned it. 

 

The Earthlings would indeed grow from their gift. The First known as Baltim would be born as a God Sculptor named Perkun, and he would change the Earthlings forever.

 

The Lorians gave the Earthlings one more gift–a simple observation they made glancing at the ground of their planet. They saw something that the Earthlings overlooked with their cosmic vision.

 

They saw bacteria.

 

Life was beginning to grow, and with incredible excitement the Earthlings realized Earth was no longer a dead world.

 

They and their world would change.