II
In the beginning, said the legend that had been passed on from Maker to Mate since time before time, the world was pure Substance, invisible and everlasting, and so immense that no two particles of it touched one another.
But then, even though no one knew how, death was introduced into the world’s sublimity, an evil, brutal force whose purpose was to bring folds of the Original Substance together, contaminating them with visibility, weakness, malice and mortality.
It was then that colours first appeared, ranging from white, the colour closest to the original perfection of existence, to the uncolour of death itself; the darker the hue, the viler its bearer; in the subworlds most akin to the deadly power of touch, of matter befouling matter, the short-lived, suffering mortals, lived in constant darkness.
And since that ancient, violent rupture, only Lurien, the Sphere of Untouch, had retained the lightness of purity, even if the Substance of its dwellers had ultimately been unable to escape the deadliness inherent in the abrasion of the physical world.
We have been blessed with whiteness, the Makers told the young Mates time and again. We are made of Substance and milk, nourishments of spirit and body. To sully ourselves with touch is to spit in the face of life itself, to invite devastation and death.
And still the odious little beasts, left unsupervised but for a moment, would tear off their gloves and grope themselves, each other, anything and everything at hand.