On a the lasty day, a day that couldn’t be measured in a place that defied time, I peered into the darkness.
I was in awe, but I wasn’t afraid.
The rhythmic patter of hooves grew stronger.
Something unearthly this way comes.
The murderers with their lab coats and godawful white walls and indifference had been correct, to a degree.
They were bipedal.
Humanoid might be stretching it.
The creature emerged from the darkness, towering nearly twenty feet high.
It had two legs, implausibly thick. A thick bark covered them, tree trunks that creaked and groaned with each movement. The bottom of its oaken legs gave way to thin, hairy calves, each ending with scarlet and black cloven hooves.
Its body looked human, but disproportionately exaggerated. Muscles man just does not possess sprouted from its massive hairless torso and chest. Five spindly humanoid arms burst forth from each side of its body, swaying as though caught in a gentle summer breeze. Each hand was compromised of eleven fingers, all ending in razor sharp, curved claws.
Where a neck should have been, the slinky head of a snake curved nearly six feet upward. A complex face studied me. It was as though some deranged architect had blended the reptilian face of a snake with a man and a hyena.
Splotches of fur sprouted from a rotund, greenish face.
Four slits for eyes, the snout and tall, tufted ears of a wild dog, and the crooked smile of a man bobbed and weaved, like the mesmerizing death dance of a cobra, studying me.
It was imposing and holy.
A work that would make Doc Frankenstein weep with joy.
It was beauty incarnate.
Look upon my visage, ye mighty, and despair.
Trying to convey what I saw strains my mind to this day.
How else do you describe a god?
A god?
How did I know it was a god?
Was it a god?
How could it not be a god?
How could it not be?
A smile crept across its countenance as it sat across from me.
It wasn’t a demonic grin or a condescending smirk. Not the torturesome smile of a sadist nor the gleeful grin of a predator, prey firmly ensnared.
It was the smile of…familiarity. Like two old friends who happened to run into one another in this boundless chasm.
It checked the two cards I had dealt, read the board, and spoke in a voice that sprang from everywhere but its mouth, rebounding off the nothingness from every conceivable direction.
“I don’t think my tens are good here.”
Its words were velvety, its voice kind and intense.
It flipped over its cards, revealing a king and a ten for a pair of tens.
I was awestruck. Still, I felt no fear.
“Yeah, afraid not. I donked two pair.”
I flipped over a queen and a ten, two pair.
I hit a three-outer against a god. Not to make a pun but, Jesus.
It smiled warmly.
“Pot’s yours.”
I chuckled at the joke until I saw what it meant.
There was something in the pot.
The head of the man with the box.
I pulled the severed head toward me gratefully.
“Good hand,” I said, genuinely.
Its grin widened, half Cheshire cat, half all-knowing father.
“Before I deal this next hand, it would be rude of me not to ask your name …I think it would be rude of me not to ask. I apologize if its rude to ask.”
I wasn’t frazzled. I couldn’t explain it. I just…liked it. Felt an unspoken kinship.
I wanted it to like me.
“Ah, we’re gamblers, you, and me.
Fated forever to ride the turns of chance as we outwit weaker minds.
Where the foolish see only luck and fate, we see information. Incomplete information to be used for our empowerment. Just as I know you are not Tom, but Pappy. And there is much unsaid I can learn there.
But, just the same, you know my name. It’s how we got here. To this place, to this time, to this moment.”
The word that had etched itself into my mind. The word I’d been casting soundlessly in the trial. The word that ate away the world.
My word.
Its name.
“NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC”
Its snakelike head bobbed and weaved, beaming from ear to ear.
“That is my name. Though you are certainly the first of your kind to know it, let alone speak it. You have many questions. I can smell them all, feel them coursing through the air.
Some I will answer. Some, I won’t.
I am one of The Before.
At some point, every god or goddess imagined by this world has quite been real.
The various peoples of your realm dreamt up new ones, and they invariably matched one of Us in likeness or characteristic, for We are infinite and always, each bound to a unique, singular aspect.
The Before closest to your imaginings would breathe life into that deity, and it would live on so long as the people kept it alive. Followed it, worshipped, honored it.
Your world is merely one an incalculable number in a single, infinitesimal reality among an infinite number of realities. Just one stop among many for Us in our infinite loop of all that is.
In every iteration of every being across existence, if they create something conceptually greater, We breathe life into it.
We have our reasons.
Your tormenters. These men and women who foolishly meddled with what they didn’t understand to bring you here are upstarts without any semblance of knowledge or insight.
Their ignorance and arrogance are matched only by their cruelty and cupidity.
They drown in the blood of your kind yet feel nothing.
Such has forever been the nature of those who claw for power they neither deserve nor are suited for, anywhere life is to be found.
Pitiful worms recklessly seeking cosmic power.
You have seen the deaths, Pappy. An unholy specter, a sacrilegious mockery of Our work.
Your fellow “subjects” died gruesomely because they were force fed the name of one of The Before. This artificial ritual is an abomination of the very nature We wrought.
Our names are the embodiment of power, the very essence of sacred knowledge. They are Ours to give, to pass on in part to the worthy. To know a name is to being inundated with a piece of Us.
These poor souls were not chosen by The Before. They were unwitting sacrifices.
To survive the passing, to grow into something more and be deified, the host must share the aspect with the Giver’s name. They must be characteristically bound, molded from the same clay, for each of The Before is the beginning image of all beings.
This book they foolishly toy with is not holy text.
It is a record of who We are, a collection of Our names. And the conduit by which We pass along Ourselves.
A billion, a trillion, a quadrillion, beings, measured in numbers you cannot fathom, share traits with one of Us.
Among that endless grassland, when a civilization imagines divinity that strikes at the heart of the aspect of Us, We painstakingly choose a single, worthy stalk of grass to embody Us. The personification of one of Us left behind, forever linked, a potent and dangerous bond.
Those few chosen are given the book and permitted to discern a singular truth, for they shall find nothing but confusion, save the one name from whose bosom they sprang.
That’s why those meddlers who first found the book on your planet did not die. They did not find a name unbefitting of them. Rather, they discovered a path back to the beginning, to the One with which who they aligned, for The Before are endless and all reaped from Us.
These selfish interlopers found what I suppose they thought were “gods” that might be forced to give them untold power. Presumptive simpletons. To discern Us is to call to Us, nothing more.
We built the very fabric existence, weaving it from the nothingness, vomited light into the dark. Nothing binds Us. We might hear the whisper of Our name from some errant mortal, but We throw away the unworthy.
Your captors did not tell you of the fate of those of their lot who first called out the names. Tongues and eyes burned out. Heads eaten. Bodies left limbless. Each of The Before has Its own method to punish the impudent.
And yet, what did they do in their lust, their greed, their careless pursuit of a power they could never possibly tether?
Their brethren became more brazen. In their cruelty, they shoved the unquantifiable power of The Before into the bodies of unwilling, desperate souls.
Ignorance breeds death. Thus, it always has been.
They tried to deify your compatriots, make weapons of you all, with callous disregard for your fates.
To inject the aspect of one of The Before into a being who shares no link, no kinship, bears no reflection…poor souls.
That, as you’ve seen, only ends in destruction.
Their cruel mechanism gave us no role, save unwitting executioner. We could not confront the speaker, yet the listener was imbued with just a fraction of Our aspect.
A fraction of improper omnipotence is damnation.
A paper cup cannot hold acid, Pappy. The vessel must be suitable for the inhabitant.
You saw what this bastardization wrought.
Instead of fulfilling a rite, it warped the victim. The failed alignment creates a monster, fueled by pain, possessing powers it shouldn’t, a toxic phantom invariably ripping it apart.
Though We witnessed this cruel charade, We chose not to intervene. You may think this callous, vicious even.
These trespassers posed no threat to The Before, and as for you and your cohorts…we do not partake in justice or concern ourselves with it.
We are simple artisans who breathe life into ideas. We do not rule or pass sentence.
We have our reasons.”
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC beamed at me.
“But you, you redefined the game. By accident. By luck. By chance. By fate. With…your gamble.
You went deaf. They made you discern from the book, and you found the only name you could ever find.
Mine.
The only one who could imbue you with the aspect.
The only one who could deify you.
For I am recklessness, the knife’s point, the razor’s edge, unpolluted chance, the One who gives all meaning to luck, the bursting nightmare of peril and reward, fortune incarnate, the exuberance of wild victory, the crush of breaking defeat, the beginning of all risk, the deceiver, the gamesman.
I am The Gambler.
And you, all gamblers, flow from me.”
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC reached out with ten hands and touched my forehead gently, a father caressing the prodigal son, finally home.
Come and see, and I saw.
Visions spiraled and swirled through my mind. Infinite games of chance on limitless of levels of existence, all measured by luck and skill.
Foreign beings, some hardly tangible, all seeking the rush of wit, risk, and fortune.
All born from The Gambler.
All bound to NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC.
I wanted to play them all.
Every game, for all time.
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC chuckled heartily.
“You truly are of my ilk. While I do despise what they have done to you, to all those lost, I have no interest in justice.
Even though I do like you.
Oh, my son.
Though you won’t die by My hands, you won’t gain anything from Me. Just this little peek at sacred knowledge for a moment before they undoubtedly kill you.
For you see, your world does cry out for a manifestation of a gambler. It careens ever closer toward self-immolation as risk scales to the whole of your species. Still, I did not choose you. You merely stumbled upon Me.
This rite is older than the fabric of space and time. The Before do not give gifts, and We are not found. We are the finders; We are those who bind.
I am sorry.”
I grinned at the infinite, the god before the gods.
“I risked it all. If I lose, I lose. It was worth the bet. That’s who we are.
I want nothing from you. Ask nothing from you. Here, at the end, my heart is full. You are somewhere I belong. I’ve never had that. A few moments with made this all worthwhile.”
I meant it with every fiber of my being.
Cacophonous laughter echoed throughout our empty cosmos.
“Are you ever one of mine. I have no interest in justice…”
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC’s four snake-like eyes narrowed, mischievously, a wry grin spreading.
“But a gamble for everything? Death or power? That’s just my game.
What do you say?
One shot.
You win, I’ll make you a god of this little rock, gift you a part of my aspect, deify you. Power beyond measure. Every choice available to you. The God of Gamblers.
You lose, I send you back and they kill you.”
I perked up.
“But…I thought The Before only empowered who They selected. I found You, not the other way around.”
“Did you? Did you find me?
Maybe an endless series of gambles, my invisible hand, guided you here.
I do like to bluff.
It doesn’t not matter. You are right, I did not select you. Not directly. So, let’s see what chance says. After all, it is born from Me…”
“Shit, they’re gonna kill me anyway, so I’m freerollin’! Let’s do it.”
We laughed together, something boundless and something tiny, tied together by the love of dancing on the edge.
“I know poker is your game. A hand of that?
Perhaps one of the games you saw in your mind? I can give you all the knowledge you need of any game to put us on even terms. The gamble means nothing to me if I steal an edge. The game must be fair.”
“It’s…it’s up to me?”
“Yes. And I promise you, the odds will be even. I will limit Myself and every element to match yours exactly. Give myself over to the blind purity of it.”
“I trust you completely, NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC, more than I would any wretched human. Humans cheat. You…You would burn this all down before you would pollute the integrity of the game.”
The Before chuckled.
“One of my children, indeed. I can’t help but cheer for your victory.”
I sighed contentedly.
Choosing your own terms, that’s really all a gambler gets.
That’s the dream.
“If it’s up to me, I choose the flip of a coin. A single toss. 50/50. Winner takes all. No skill, the purest, simplest, gamble.
The flip of a coin for it all.”
Ten hands crashed together in thunderous applause.
“Yes! YES! Oh, yes. Let us find truth in blind luck. Oh, my son, may fortune favor you.”
The Before produced a quarter from nothingness and held it out in one Its ten hands.
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC looked me square in the eye.
“Heads or tails. Call it in the air.”
The coin went spinning twenty feet up.
“Tails! Tails! Always tails for the man who never made it!”
My manic voice rang full and true.
I screamed like a giddy child as NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC roared with a deep laugh, his head forever bobbing and weaving.
The quarter landed perfectly in its palm.
Without looking, NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC smacked the coin on top of another hand, flipping the coin as it went.
The Before removed one of Its many hands to reveal the outcome:
Tails.
I leapt and cheered in maddening jubilation and thought nothing of the prize to come.
The only thought that permeated me was I had gambled with the fabric of existence, my maker, and finally, came out ahead.
Frozen, I realized, this was bad form. Take your victory in stride. Don’t run down the loser.
I’d lost my head in the frenzy.
But much to my delight, NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC was whooping and hollering, writhing and dancing in delight.
Not only had The Before been rooting for me, I realized, but it cared nothing of winning and losing. It cared only for the ritual. Its aspect. The gamble itself.
We both settled back into our chairs, awash in laughter, like old, drunk friends catching up.
“Well earned, little one. Take your winnings.”
In front of me on the table hovered a staggering purple light and the book made of bone.
“Grab the light. When you arrive back, take the book with you.
What you do from thereon is your concern. I shall never interfere.”
I looked at the severed head of the man with the box.
“Is…is that real?”
“No. Just an illusion I thought might comfort you.
But, if you want vengeance, take it. Kill them all. Or don’t. It’s your affair.
But remember, you are created by My hand. You house a part of me, the sacred aspect.
I care not about reputation, bloodshed, or justice, but you must always keep the purity of the gamble.
Every day, your kind gambles.
The throw of the dice by the man playing with his rent money.
The old and dying putting it all on one spin.
Puny leaders betting entire economies on phantoms and rumors.
Chancing your very survival with weapons of enormous power while you slowly melt the world.
You must watch over our kind. This is your duty. They all cry out, silently, for a new kind of god.
The time for deities promising moral limitations and redemptions has long passed your world by. Your kind cares only about what they can gain by pushing luck to its limits.
They cry out for me, though they do not know it. And our game has chosen you.
You will need followers.
You must find them.
You must.
You shall only keep your powers so long as they keep you.
Keep the gamblers close. You need them as much as they need you.
Beyond that, take your vengeance, exude your wrath, consume, build, destroy, be vast, soak in endless riches, do as you see fit.”
The booming echo of NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC filled every part of my mind with words I would never forget.
From its mouth, The Before finally spoke, quietly, serenely, the picture of comfort:
“I trust you. We are one.
Grab the light and take the book.
Find your new name.”
“NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC…. thank you. Truly. I will do my duty. But…allow me one curiosity.
The artifacts. The book. Why were they there? Those muppets thought they found an ancient civilization, but The Before are so, so very much more than that. Why were those things there?
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC grinned mischievously.
“I always leave a site behind with a Book.
Everywhere we are, everywhere We go.
Over enough time, enough chances, enough experiments, enough trials, I find one more gamble with something, something of that place, a creature born of me.
The odds are astronomical, beyond your comprehension, to be sure.
Think of all that had to happen for us to have this coin toss. All the events, the lives lost, all the little details that had to align?
…But across infinity, I’m willing to take that gamble. My bet paid off. It’s always worth it.
I just can’t say no to a bluff or a chance to play with risk.
As I said, did you find me? Or did I find you…?
NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC smiled wickedly, proudly.
Protect the book, for it is tethered to this place. See these insects never besmirch The Before again.”
Beaming at NEZKVHANYTIKLYTIC, I took up the book and grabbed the purple light.
One last look at my maker.
Power won is twice as sweet as power earned.
Omnipotence coursed through my veins and filled all the holes I’d carved inside me while rolling down that lost highway.
I found myself sitting alone in the same room at Clinical Trial 87, the book in my hand.
The door crashed opened. Men in white lab coats and armed guards with guns drawn spilled into the room.
A dozen gun barrels aimed at my head.
A bevy of nervous scientists staring apprehensively at the book.
My voice rebounded from every corner of the room, my lips never moving.
“Don’t you want to know before you kill me? Don’t you want to know it?
I spoke with a different timbre, sly, villainous, rife with mischief.
The deceiver.
A word began as a whisper in my mind, over and over, growing louder and louder, until it became perfectly clear.
The man with the box nervously approached me. I didn’t look at him.
“What you saw? The secrets behind all of this? How to use the book? What lies beyond? Who these gods were?”
The pathetic mortal’s voice trembled as he asked the god more than he should have.
“No. My fucking name.”
Every gun in the room fired at once, an endless series of perfect shots.
Blood and viscera splattered and rained from the heads of every guard and scientist blown wide open, save the man with the box.
The word in my mind. It grew to perfect clarity.
“My name is NEZHOILEGCHE. I am the God of Gamblers. Come and see.”
I considered the whimpering, puny thing before me, smiling wickedly.
I pulled a coin forward from the nothingness.
The mortal tried to run, but no one runs from a god.
“50/50.
Call it in the air.
You win, you live. You lose, you die like the rest of this putrid infection.”
I flipped the coin.
The murderous little beast wept and plead for its life.
“CALL IT!”
My voice echoed inside his very mind, forcing him to decide.
“T…t…Tails.”
“TAILS! TAILS! ALWAYS TAILS FOR THE MAN WHO NEVER MADE IT!”
The coin landed in my left palm. Without looking, I slapped it on top of my right hand.
I removed my left hand to reveal his fate.
Tails.
“You win.”
I kept my duty and let the maggot keep wriggling.
Standing up, I grabbed the book and began walking out.
Bodies flew against the walls and ceiling, clearing a path for me.
Screams echoed throughout the building as previously unseen team members felt their eyes explode, their skulls implode, their necks turn and snap, had their innards torn out by my will.
The man in the box wept in the corner.
The walls of the clinic tumbled away as I walked out into the world.
My world.
I looked back one time at the man with the box, alive and still bawling.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner!”
The Sun was bright, the wind was soft, and everything, forever, lay before me.
I sang my song unto the Earth.
“Just a deck of cards, and a jug of wine, and woooman’s liiiiies, makes a life like mine.”
Like I said, I’m not a good man.
I strolled out, looking for a game.
I leave this story, at it’s end and beginning, behind for you, dear reader, not as a cautionary tale or a record of mankind’s savagery. We have enough of those.
Rather, to ask a simple question:
Do you have enough gamble in you to follow me?