THE NINTH ARU- fantasy BL novel

THE NINTH ARU

The First Cycle - Book One

THE CHILDREN OF THE FIRST SILENCE

A novel of consciousness, desire, knowledge, brotherhood, suffering, and the gods who could neither escape love nor understand it.

PROLOGUE

Before the First Sound

Before there was a world, there was neither darkness nor light.

Darkness requires the absence of light, and light requires somewhere to travel. Neither condition existed.

There was no time in which an event might occur, no distance separating one thing from another, and no observer for whom either distinction could possess meaning.

Yet there was possibility.

Later civilizations would call it the First Silence.

That name was imperfect.

Silence implies that sound could exist.

What preceded existence was not silence in the ordinary sense. It was the absence of every distinction by which silence might be known.

And then, without a beginning that could be measured, possibility became aware of itself.

It did not speak.

It did not think.

Those abilities required distinctions not yet established.

But within its immeasurable completeness arose the first relationship.

Something could be known.

And something could know.

From that relationship came the first vibration.

It was neither a musical note nor a physical wave, although both would eventually arise from it.

It was the primordial expression of difference within unity.

The First Resonance.

Across the immeasurable potential, patterns emerged.

Some endured.

Some vanished.

Some joined other patterns and became more complex than their separate beginnings.

Thus came the first structures.

Then the first laws.

And, much later, the first beings capable of understanding those laws.

They did not call themselves gods.

There were no mortals against whom such a title might be distinguished.

They were simply the Nine.

Each arose from a different way in which existence could relate to itself.

One perceived continuity.

Another perceived change.

One discovered memory.

Another discovered forgetting.

One understood union.

Another understood separation.

One recognized creation.

Another recognized dissolution.

And the ninth perceived the relationship among them all.

For a time that could not yet be measured, they worked together.

They shaped fields from which matter might emerge.

They established boundaries through which different forms of existence could interact.

They discovered that the stability of one structure could depend upon the freedom of another.

Then the Nine made their first mistake.

They believed understanding a principle entitled them to govern everything arising from it.

The Keeper of Continuity began resisting change.

The Keeper of Union feared separation.

The Keeper of Memory refused to allow forgetting.

Each believed he was protecting existence.

And each began restricting it.

What they could not reconcile within themselves did not disappear.

Their rejected possibilities acquired structure.

Their unresolved desires acquired persistence.

Their fear, anger, possessiveness, and hunger for mastery became conscious.

Nine new beings awakened.

The Shadows.

The Nine looked upon them with horror.

For the Shadows possessed not merely destructive instincts, but the same capacity for understanding that existed within the gods themselves.

They could learn.

They could love.

They could choose.

And, therefore, they could disagree.

The conflict that followed did not divide good from evil.

It divided beings who believed they possessed the whole truth from beings who knew the truth could wound.

Worlds were created and destroyed in their arguments.

Civilizations arose beneath their influence, worshipped one principle, rejected another, and suffered whenever any single truth was made absolute.

At last, the ninth of the original beings attempted to end the conflict.

He gathered the others before a vast formation of living light.

"Every one of us has mistaken a part for the whole," he told them.

The others demanded an explanation.

He offered a question.

"If union has meaning, must separation not also be possible?"

The Keeper of Union answered angrily.

"Separation produces suffering."

"And union may produce captivity."

The Keeper of Memory protested.

"Forgetting destroys identity."

"And remembering without release may make existence unbearable."

The Keeper of Continuity raised his voice.

"Without endurance, nothing survives."

"Without change, nothing grows."

One by one, the arguments ceased.

But understanding did not produce reconciliation.

The gods feared what the conclusion demanded.

They would have to relinquish their exclusive authority over the principles they embodied.

So they divided the First Relationship into nine separate laws and sealed each within a different realm.

The forgotten whole acquired a name in the language that later generations would call the First Tongue.

Aru.

Not union alone.

Not desire alone.

Not morality alone.

Not freedom without responsibility.

Aru described the possibility of relationship without the destruction of distinction.

The gods sealed it away.

The Shadows sought to seize it.

And the worlds continued turning.

Ages passed.

Mortals appeared.

They built cities, loved companions, composed songs, murdered enemies, developed sciences, raised children, and buried the dead.

They began asking questions that the gods themselves had abandoned.

What is a person?

What remains when memory disappears?

Can suffering possess meaning without being desirable?

Does love require permanence?

And if every being must face the consequences of his choices, who holds the gods accountable?

The Nine heard those questions.

Most dismissed them.

But one ancient being, forgotten by gods and Shadows alike, listened.

He watched the mortal worlds for thousands of years.

And eventually, among the innumerable patterns of life, he discovered something extraordinary.

Two young men had begun moving toward one another.

Neither knew the other's name.

Neither possessed divine authority.

One believed every problem could be understood through reason.

The other had been taught that his worth depended upon how much suffering he could endure.

Their meeting should have been insignificant.

Instead, it would begin the undoing of the Nine.

For the ancient being had discovered something the gods overlooked.

Aru had never truly been sealed away.

Every freely chosen act of love had preserved a fragment of it.

And now those fragments were beginning to answer one another.