Legend of Two Suns

The Forbidden Zone's ur-myth of cosmic duality

This is the account of when all is still silent and placid.
All is silent and calm.
Hushed and empty is the Sky-Void.
Hear, now, the first words, the first speech. There is not yet one person,
One animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, or forest.
All alone the sky exists. The face of the earth has not yet appeared.
Alone lies the Void. There is not yet anything gathered together.
All is at rest. Nothing stirs. There is not yet anything that might exist.
All lies placid and silent in the darkness, in the night.
Then came Mazta's word. Heart of Sky arrived here, saying:
“I behold the Void
I am its sun,
And I am its light.
And I am also its moon when there comes to be one.
So be it, my light is great.”

— Ages of the Sun

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The Legend of Two Suns, the Light Sun of Mazta and the Dark Sun of Ahriman, is a Manichean allegory derived from oral histories passed down from the ahistorical Age of Poisoned Sea and Sky. This Post-Cataclysmic myth allegorizes the darkness of the Long Winter and the subsequent Skybreak as representations of a cosmic struggle fought between rival celestial beings: a god of Light and a god of Darkness. Many Zoner cultures subscribe to similar dualistic myth-traditions, the most notable of these is the Cult of Two Suns, which derives its theology directly from the Legend of Mazta and Ahriman.

Summary

The Legend of Two Suns begins with the Void Before Creation. The empty Void of space without matter or time was a realm without thought or purpose. There were no gods or mortals in this endless emptiness. This state of nothingness was eventually disturbed by the Creation of Being. This miraculous Creation began with the emergence of a Divine Idea that simply thought itself into existence.

This sole idea came to call itself "Mazta" or "Self-Thought." The presence of this first divine thought created contrast with the emptiness of the Void, and the Idea, self-aware, started to create other ideas like itself and began to look upon its creations so that it might behold them and delight in them. Thus the Idea cast visible light into the Void and shapeless matter came to adopt perceptible form and dimension.

What remained of the Void's emptiness gathered in the negative spaces between Mazta's wondrous creations. The concentrated Void continued to gather in Mazta's new world of Matter and Form, but found its nature antithetical to the newly-formed principles of Mazta's generative order of being. Thus a new Divine Idea was born into the universe. The negative factor, older than Mazta, its powers usurped by the Self-Thought presence, imagined itself into being as "Ahriman," the "Empty Word." This darkness came to represent the emptiness displaced by presence, the shadow cast by light, the antithesis of the primal Purpose that willed Mazta into being.

Before long Mazta began to create thinking creatures, possessed of rational minds that reflected the illumination of Mazta's own divine intellect. Recognizing the divinity of light, these human creatures turned to the Sky Throne and beheld Mazta's unconquerable Sun and identified in it the essence of their Creator-God, Mazta Lord of Light. This dawn of humanity marked the dominion of Mazta during the First Age of Creation.

But the folly of humanity brought an end to that age. Ahriman, the negative factor, longed to subvert the power of Mazta and use human beings as instruments in his own destructive purpose, his will to unmake creation. Even time itself, invented to supplement the linear conception of the human mind, was an abomination to Ahriman, who remembered the Void-Space before Creation in which there was no time, no eternity, only the perfect oblivion of absolute stasis. Unbeknownst to Mazta (for light does not intrude upon the void), Ahriman seduced the minds of men to bring about the destructive principle that would unmake the generative power of Mazta's light. He taught men and women to hate, to steal, to destroy, to murder, perverse acts that defied the generative principle of the Creator's Light.

When Mazta beheld the perversion of fallen humanity, he himself sought the unmaking of man and sent fire from heaven to cleanse the earth of humanity's blight. Thus came the Doom of Mazta's Wrath, the Cataclysm remembered in the memories of Story-Keepers. The Lord of Light's Sky Weapons rained heavenly fire upon All-Creation: Mazta's indiscriminate vengeance wrought upon the disobedient human race. By provoking Mazta's anger and goading him into this destructive act, Ahriman had tricked Mazta into defying his own Primal Nature. The Creator had become a Destroyer. Suddenly realizing the folly of what he had done, Mazta wept to see the effects of his terrible vengeance. Shamed by the severity of his unmeasured doom and able to behold it no longer, he turned the warmth of his solar gaze from it. As he looked away, his tears froze and mingled as snow and ice among the ashes of the Scorched Earth.

Ahriman consoled Mazta and told him that the great labour of his Divine Purpose had been too great a burden for him to bear alone. The Dark One offered to manage Creation for Mazta and told the Sun God to dim his divine Light and rest. Mazta, overwhelmed by a self-pitying sorrow, accepted Ahriman's offer and retired behind the moon into a long period of sleep. This allowed the Dark Sun to claim dominion and impose his will upon All-Creation.

Ahriman placed his Dark Sun within the Sky Throne and brought about a new age, the Age of Darkness which some call the Age of Poisoned Sea and Sky. None can know how long the Lord of Light slumbered, for without the light of the sun who can count the passing of years? Under Ahriman's rule, Mazta's Creation was as the primordial void: time was not measured; living things grew ill and deformed into aberration; the creativity and industry of men and women ceased; in every heart reigned a shapeless anarchy that taught men and women to forgot the Light of Reason, and the divine spark of Imagination withered with the fading colours of the world.

When Mazta awoke he saw what Ahriman had wrought and was displeased. He cast out the Dark One and set his own divine light once more within the Sky Throne. But Ahriman lingered; his temporary rule had so changed the realm of Creation that he could not be extracted from it. Ahriman retained rule in the negative spaces, in shadows, even in the dark hearts of humanity. Mazta was forced to share the sky and all beneath it with his dark counterpart, who continues to exert influence in the affairs of men and women even now in the dark spaces of the world where the Doom of Mazta's wrath can never be undone.

Thus stands the Third Age of Creation, the present age in which Mazta and Ahriman wage a never-ending battle for control of Creation and the fate of humanity. In this third age a series of crises, including the Pestilence that destroyed Or-Ad and Ur-Zen, have tested the resolve of men and women. The soothsayers wonder if it will be humanity that eventually decides the ultimate victor in this cosmic struggle between the Two Suns. Though Mazta retains the upper hand, Ahriman remains ready to take his place again and usher in a final age of darkness: a return to the timeless nothingness of the Void.

Historical Basis

This myth allegorizes the Cataclysm and the progress of Post-Cataclysmic history as a contest between contending divinities. The factual particulars of the Cataclysm are unrecorded and unknown, but the mythologizing bent of this narrative is often dismissed by scholars who take a more anthropocentric view of the Cataclysm and insist that human agency, not metaphysical will, was responsible for the fate of the Precursors.

In Two Sun chronicles of the Third Age, known events such as the miraculous interventions of the Visitors are construed as visitations from agents of the gods. These embellished interpretations represent the Visitors as angelic or demonic messengers working the will of their respective divine masters. For example, the Visitors' initiatives to undo the environmental damage caused by the Cataclysm are interpreted in Two Sun lore as attempts to erase the power of Ahriman from Mazta's Creation.

Spread

This myth is well known throughout the Forbidden Zone and its bordering lands. It is also told among the Badlanders of Vrelland and the people of Larada in the western frontier of Merika.

Variations & Mutation

The most conventional version of the tale is that told by the Pachucese, who assert the ascendant right of Mazta to eventually triumph over his dark counterpart. The Cult of Two Suns, however, asserts the perpetual nature of the gods' contest. For the People of Two Suns, the duality of the Third Age must be contested for evermore in order to sustain the very fabric of reality, which thrives on the conflict of its dueling natures.

The Vril telling of the Two Suns legend posits Ahriman as the vanquishing hero destined to return reality to its original Void state. According to the Vril, the power of Mazta, limitless in the First Age, is now limited and rapidly depleting. In order to save themselves from the eventual death of the Light, the Vril embrace the coming Void in the hopes that Ahriman will reward them with a new world of Darkness after Entropy finally consumes Creation.

Cultural Reception

For the People of Two Suns and the Badlanders of Vrelland, the Legend of Two Suns functions as the predominant cultural ur-myth. For other Zoner cultural groups, the legend serves as an important narrative of shared folklore expressing the vital animating duality that defines what it means to live in and around the Forbidden Zone.

In Literature

The Legend of the Two Suns exists in several recensions of various provenance. These variations originate from a common textual origin, The Ages of the Suns, a screen-folded barkpaper codex dating from the fifth century PCE.

In Art

Atop the Solar Pyramid in the City of the Suns, there is a bas-relief mural sculpture depicting the eternal struggle of the dual solar divinities: Mazta and Ahriman. Only high-priests of the Two Suns cult are permitted to gaze upon the mural.

Date of First Recording

The fifth century account of the Legend recounted in The Ages of the Suns most certainly records a much earlier oral storytelling tradition.