And Then There Was Gau

Before the Creator, there was chaos and the chaos ruled outside of time and space. When the Creator came into the world, He vanquished the chaos around it. He laid down the framework of the world; time, matter, energy — all eternal and none perishable. After He had laid down the rules of His Creation, He saw that the chaos could not be destroyed either by the virtue of His own design. His grandest plan, that of the Soul which partook of Him, would eventually be consumed by the chaos once more and return to nothing. Thus he took the chaos as His own and created from it a flux, a careful equilibrium between order and disorder, creation and negation, is and not is. Then He went and created the Soul, all of which were part of Him and He gave his body, mind and Soul to the Souls He created entirely. 

In the beginning, all Souls were the same and suspended in the constant flux between being and non-being. As the Soul sunk in the sea of time and matter, it gradually lost energy and became lighter. When light enough, the Soul drifted upwards towards Heaven where it was replenished and became heavy enough once more. Such was the circle of reincarnation; Souls ever moving either down towards the material world or up towards the ethereal world. Amidst this ordered chaos many Souls clashed with one another by chance and, by a process taking aeons, started to physically vie for a better position in the flux. Whether it be to slow the descent or hasten the ascent, more and more Souls became competitive every cycle. 

A very tiny number of Souls found a way to permanently make themselves heavy enough to continue their descent into the material world. Not white, but black and bloated were these heavy Souls — those which consumed other Souls. And by the consumption of another Soul, adding their weight to theirs, they would in time remain in the Material World forever [YHWH]. These super-ordered Souls defied His Creation — containing none of the intended chaos and always existing in a solid state. They are juxtaposed to their opposite, for by the nature of chaos seeking the absence of order, places where the chaos was stronger than elsewhere accrued. 

One heavy Soul stumbled upon a pocket of chaos and mistook it for another Soul to be consumed. Instead, it was consumed by the Chaos. So beginneth the story of Apep, Apophis, Typhon, Vritra, Jörmungandr — the serpent of Chaos we know as Gau Ta Weret, Gau Mephistoles.[1]

• • •

Many million years passed in an unconscious moment before Gau opened his eyes and struck his hand from the soil that covered him. When he broke free from the earth where his tomb once stood, his black glassy eyeballs stung from the sun's stark rays. What was black turned white; the dark and glossy miasma receded behind his eyelids until human irises appeared. The air filled his lungs and the sand of the dune he was buried under pricked hotly against his naked skin. All the memories of his past came back to him now that this body and mind were recomposed. He looked at his hands and realised he had been born a Kuwen. Or rather, a strong Kuwen Soul he had devoured when he was dead proved to be the catalyst for his sudden emergence. Gau knew all about this man. His name was Gau Ta Weret and he died twenty thousand years ago. By now, none of his relatives would be alive and even his very distant relatives would not consider themselves as his family anymore. It was the only true identity Gau could point out that made sense, so from that day onward, his name would be Gau.

He stood up, the remnants of the chaos awakening him coming loose from where he lay and quickly joined with him. Now that he was embodied again, he was also bound by the rules of creation. He was a Kuwen now. He could have been a Shinkamuy as well, but fate (or rather, chaos) had chosen a Kuwen for Gau. It would have to serve him, and so Gau walked. And he walked.

For days, he walked across the desert and saw no one. He remembered the previous Gau died so long ago that even the tomb he was placed in had stopped existing. After the fourth day, he saw a group of trees huddled around an oasis. When he approached, three men and four women were standing around a well, drawing up water from a subterranean stream. 

"Stranger?" one of the men spoke and waved at him.

Gau got the impression the choice of words was as much a greeting to him as to let the others know that a stranger was, indeed, approaching. "My humble respects," Gau said.

The women giggled and shied their eyes away while the men's expressions turned suspicious.

"You're not from here?" the first man asked.

Gau thought for a moment. The words this man spoke sounded very familiar. He knew the language, but twenty thousand years did a lot to the phonology and syntax of any language. He realised that he must sound foreign to them; a country closely related to but distinct from theirs. "Yes, I come from far. I have been travelling."

The man rose an eyebrow. "You're a merchant?"

"Yes, a traveller," Gau said and the thought occurred to him that the word he knew for traveller might mean something slightly different in their minds.

"Were you robbed?" the man asked.

That word hadn't changed. Of course, evil prevails always and remains timeless. He looked down at his bare manhood. "I was robbed," he repeated nearly. 

The man gestured towards his comrades and they approached with a robe for Gau to wear. "Come; the evening will fall soon and it is not safe here. The Horo are more active at night."

"Horo—?" Gau muttered. "Ah, yes."

They took him to a village, a dusty and apparently remote place at the edge of a wide pasture. The plastered, mud-brick houses huddled a central square with a modestly sized raised plateau. Amenities like storage sheds, stables, and pigsties were right among the villagers' own dwellings. On their way there, they came across another small group of people herding goats. They greeted one another and Gau imitated the gesture.

He couldn't quite get to grips with the realities of possessing a material body in a very literal sense, as he kept clenching his wrist to feel what it felt like to have muscles move and joints twist and pivot. He vaguely remembered what it was like being just a speck of a Soul drifting in the flux. Or rather, he couldn't. Not in his present state at least, bound to a human brain with human memory patterns. He only remembered vague impressions of being a Soul spark, at an almost instinctual level of knowledge. It wasn't anything that could be expressed in sights, sounds, tastes or smells for a Soul spark did not have the proper organs (yet) for those senses.

"What is your name, stranger?" the first man who greeted him asked. He told Gau that his name was Erken and he claimed to be of the Kuwense people. They had come from the North to settle here generations ago, as far as he knew they were the first of his people to do so.

Gau knew differently. He told them his name, Gau Ta Weret, and that he too belonged to the Kuwens clan although not from up North.

That drew some initial suspicion. It was a gamble, for Gau did not know what they knew. From his memory, the Kuwen were both in the North, the North-West and around these parts. But those memories were millennia old. 

Erken nodded. "Well, you're lucky we found you! The Horro would have liked a snack. But pray tell, how did you find yourself robbed of your possessions?"

"Just a few bandits," Gau said.

Erken's frown became even deeper. "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand. Everything you say sounds familiar but your words are longer, with less intonation than what I think you're saying."

Gau knew it would take time, a lot of time to adjust to the Material World. 

"Well, can you work?" Erken asked. "If you can work, we'll find a place for you to stay and we'll feed you two good meals a day for it too. The community is always welcoming newcomers, provided they prove themselves helpful and trustworthy."

Gau nodded. Work in exchange for shelter and food. The necessities of a material body, that much was clear. How hard could it be, he thought.

They put him to the fields first, ploughing and then seeding, both done with the help of pairs of oxen. But the animals would not agree with Gau. They'd refuse to pull the plough when Gau was guiding it. Other times the two oxen would get mixed up with one another, wanting to go separate ways. When Gau got slightly frustrated with the animals, a little of his spiritual power seeped past his guard. The animals got frightened and ran, not stopping until they reached the next village — a two-day ride.

Erken shook his head and took Gau away with him into a cypress forest. "Look, there's only four of us and we need to provide firewood for the whole village. The way we manage is by focusing our power on the metal of our axes. That way, a tree can be felled with a single stroke if you're good. You are Kuwense, right?"

Gau beheld the bronze axe and then the tree he was supposed to practice on.

Erken smiled, eyes growing anxiously in anticipation for Gau to exhibit this basic Kuwens skill. But when Gau did, anticipation quickly turned to apprehension. 

The tree died! 

Every time Gau tried to do what Erken wanted, the tree whether little more than a sapling or taller than a temple, withered to dust completely. 

Erken shook his head, again. This time he sighed with it too. "I'm not sure how you do it, but we'll find you something else to do." 

To make things worse, the women attending the spring harvest found the chickpeas had wilted, curiously close to the field where Gau 'worked' the ploughs. 

One evening a few days later, there was a modest feast to celebrate the end of seeding. The village square was adorned with spring flowers and there was a long table and a fireplace. They had slaughtered a pig and it roasted slowly near the fire, it had been spreading its bacon-goodness aroma throughout the hamlet since dawn.

"Gau, summer is approaching which means there is plenty of work ahead of us. We'll have to find you something to do. Is there any skill, anything at all, something that you can do that you're good at?" Erken asked. He sat opposite him, holding a tankard full of foamy ale. 

"I'm not good at making things," Gau admitted. 

"Horro," someone shouted!

"For heaven's sake, now?" Erken hollered and stood up.

"Horro..., why would they come here," Gau asked.

"Yes, they are attracted to Kuwens more than regular people," Erken replied but then tilted his head and shifted his tone to a question. "Where have you been?"

Both men and women of fighting age rushed towards the cry for help coming from one of the sentries. They were five in total, Erken included. This force grew to six when Gau added himself to their ranks. 

The darkness of the fields surrounded them like a wall — pure black until broken by the appearance of red eyes. Red piercing lights from the dimness, staring, advancing. A dozen towering Horro approached, beaks agape for their flesh.

"So many," a man said. "Why are there so many?" 

"We must retreat, scatter into the forest so they'll split up. Then we can take them one or two at a time," Erken said and placed a hand on Gau's shoulder before running off with the rest of them.

But where the rest ran, Gau remained standing. 

"Gau!? What are you doing? We can't fight them head-on, not at this range," Erken shouted.

He had never seen a real Horro before. There were those souls below him in the Material World who had turned black and red and filfthy. They'd linger there in the depth until cleansed and sent upward again. These creatures before Gau right now gave off the same feeling — corrupt, filth, poison. 

"They're poison to us! Run Gau!" Erken tried again before being pulled away by his friends.

He raised his spiritual pressure. I can tell you why there are so many, Erken, Gau thought. They're here because of me. They want me.

Reishi appeared around Gau, travelling towards him where they joined his black Reiatsu. The result was a blue haze speckled with black, like soot spread onto a canvas. "Something I'm good at?" Gau muttered while gazing at the black-speckled blue-glowing Reishi swirling around his hands. The trees wilted, grass bent and shrivelled, and the flyers of the night fell from the sky dead. A crooked smile appeared on Gau's face.

Bewildered, beguiled, beset with hunger, the Horro charged all at once. Even clawing at each other to get to the densely packed Reiatsu snack first they became like a single stampede. At the moment the first nighed to touch Gau with its claw, which meant nearly all of them would presently devour Gau, a black dome erected around them.

Erken and the rest stopped, eyes wide and incredulous at the sight beheld.

The dome burst into smoke and disappeared and the Horro were gone. So too the grass was gone, leaving only a brown and black circle. And then there was Gau.

END

[1] The text seems biographical, if not autobiographical. Although the author includes what we know of YHWH to be correct, there is no consensus on the creation of the world, there being a single entity creator, the chaos the author describes or the soul flux they describe. Much of the beginning of the text is best to be understood in an allegorical way rather than a factual account. For one, how would an autobiographical author know what this soul flux looked like if they were a soul in flux themselves?