-1Johannes Grey

LTWR 100

Prof. Carmody

11/03/2009

Ambrosia

“And sacrifice unto Apexa that which cannot be named, and he will replenish your land for eternity”- Sureh-sa 3, p.6

Hunulu stood at the base of the great mountain Yeapna, determined to begin what would surely be a treacherous climb to the top. He was prepared to reach the summit of the mountain, anticipating his journey to meet Apexa, the god of the Sky Kingdom. As he stood at the base of Yeapna, he wished in his heart for only one thing; that Apexa would accept his offering of three olive branches from the Holy Oleaceae, and he would be granted access to the Kingdom where his brave ancestors before him surely resided. All the Ereh people looked upon Hunulu, as they counted on him to rescue them from the drought that had gorged their land. And as Hunulu scaled the great mountain with his eyes, he felt a great sense of peace wash over him, engulfing him like a warm current. He was ready, and he began the trek up Yeapna.

*******

The people of Ereh were a decent, hard-working community that survived prosperously off of the fruits and animals of the Rinne peninsula, a grand piece of land. They named themselves “Ereh” after the numerous water springs of the same name, which rang down the many canyon sides and valley peaks along the Atlantic. “Ereh”, which meant “Always faithful” in their ancient tongue, was how the people thought of themselves in relation to the great god Apexa, god of the Sky Kingdom.

Apexa (“Benevolent holiness”), as the holy texts of the Sureh-sa had depicted him, was a powerful god who lived at the summit of the Yeapna mountain. He saw all, and he gave all, and no other god but him was to be worshipped, so said the scriptures. The Ereh worshipped the god Apexa everyday at the Central Temple, which was located in the heart of the Rinne peninsula. The Sureh-sa dictated that Apexa, for all the land and prosperity that he had given to the Ereh people, required that a special sacrifice be offered unto him in order for him to be properly nourished. The bravest warrior of every generation must deliver the sacrifice to him at the top of Yeapna, and in return for this offering, Apexa would continue to bless the land of the Ereh people with all the plentiful crops and animals that they had become accustomed to enjoying.

There was however, a problem. While the Sureh-sa dictated how to sacrifice offerings to Apexa, it did not state exactly what to sacrifice. In the third passage of the holy text, the Sureh-sa stated that the proper nourishment for Apexa “cannot be named”; this was so, as is stated in later chapters of the text, because Apexa did not have the power to express to humankind what would aptly satisfy his needs. Only one thing could truly satisfy the god, but that one thing was unknown to the Ereh.

For every sacrifice, it was the duty of the warrior making the offering to choose what to render unto Apexa. Only the heart of the bravest warrior knew exactly what to bring the god, and once he attained the offering, he was not to tell any of the people of the land. The Sureh-sa stated that in addition to continued prosperity for the Ereh, once the proper sacrifice had been offered to him, that is, in the hands of the brave warrior delivering the offering, the great Apexa would also grant the warrior access to the Sky Kingdom, where all the other brave warriors before him lived in eternal glory.

If the offering was not truly sufficient for Apexa, the Sureh-sa stated, it would be no matter. Apexa would still accept the offering, and grant the Ereh bountiful crops, as well as plenty of animals for eating. The brave warrior, however, would be sent back down the Yeapna, as he would not be granted access to the Sky Kingdom. This was considered to be of the utmost shame amongst the Ereh, and any warrior sent back down from Apexa shall be cast out as a leper, so stated the Sureh-sa. The warrior, since he was the one choosing the offering, must therefore be extremely cunning in deciding what to bring to the god, for his social status depended on it, and the Ereh were a very prideful people indeed when it came to matters of social hierarchy. In all the generations that the Ereh people had been offering sacrifices to Apexa, not one warrior had ever been sent down.

*******

“…for you will know when to offer your sacrifice unto the god of the Sky Kingdom; when your land is barren, and not one drop of nourishment will spring forth from the springs of the Ereh. Your warrior shall arise, at that time.”- Sureh-sa 9, p. 17

The holy texts of the Sureh-sa stated in the ninth passage that the people of Ereh would know exactly when they should prepare for a sacrifice for Apexa. The time would be apparent, as the waterfalls and springs of the Ereh would be unyielding; the normally plentiful crops would be scanty; and the numerous animals that grazed the plains along the Rinne peninsula would become sparse.

As the thirtieth generation of the Ereh people came to a close, these signals of the time of sacrifice had come to pass. And before long, the animals--sheep, chickens, cattle, fox and more-- began to disappear one by one. And the fruit of the land--gooseberries, apples, tomatoes and more-- soon vanished from the landscape as well, bunch by bunch. The waters that once raged through the canyons and valleys was reduced to a trickle, and no one in the land knew how such a thing could be possible; that is, until they saw the Hoarders.

The Hoarders, named so for their insatiable appetite, were the most feared beasts in the land. Usually arriving in a pair--sometimes three, depending on how many crops and animals flourished in that time--these shimmering black beasts would consume nearly every iota of vegetation in the land. After they ate all the fruits and vegetables, the animals of the land would usually starve to death, and their kin would soon follow suit. Whatever animals were left would be eaten by the Hoarders, who could usually consume any other beast whole. To swallow all those solids down, the Hoarders would usually drink hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every week, causing drought in the land. Every generation of Ereh had the Hoarders; some say Apexa himself sent them to the earth as a sign of his own appetite growing, an opinion which wasn’t necessarily rejected by the holy texts of the Sureh-sa (but it wasn’t supported either--the Hoarders weren’t mentioned at all). But still, the Ereh knew that every time the beasts appeared--beasts that had the heads of fierce lions, and the bodies of mammoths--that the time for sacrifice was near; their ancestors before had passed on this information to them in the oral tradition, and the Ereh had great respect for what their ancestors told them.

The oral tradition of the ancestors had also passed on another crucial bit of information to their offspring; the way to kill the Hoarders. As the legend went, only the bravest warrior in the land could kill a Hoarder. And once that warrior arose to the challenge, the scriptures of the Sureh-sa would be verified, in accordance to what was stated in the ninth chapter. The warrior that killed the Hoarders would be the same brave soul that needed to make the offering to Apexa.

*******

Hunulu had always been a fearless individual. When he was five years old, he wrestled with lions that tried to eat the children of the Ereh people, and never lost a match; when he was a mere ten, he slaughtered sixty-seven buffalo with one spear, in order to feed his entire village for a few days; and by the ripe age of twenty-five, Hunulu had used his bare fingers to pierce the skin of the Great Whale, which provided nourishment for the entire Ereh people for two weeks. Throughout his life, Hunulu’s great strentgh had always been called upon by his people in their time of need. And when the Hoarders struck, Hunulu was the first person they called on to defeat the vicious beasts.

*******

Hunulu set out to destroy the Hoarders on a clear, sunny day. It had been about three years since they first struck, and the wealth of goods that the Ereh once possessed was dwindling down to cipher. If Hunulu didn’t strike soon, there would be no more people to save, for they would all be dead from starvation.

As he breezed through the barren land, Hunulu thought of the way his life had been entirely consumed with fighting. From his birth, when his mother laboriously bore his brawny physique--and nearly died in the process-- it seemed he was destined to conquer all that set forth in his path. But he didn’t choose this destiny; the people of the Ereh did. Hunulu, though truly a warrior at heart, never once offered to display his considerable strength. He didn’t want to be famed, or even noticed; he just wanted to live a normal life, away from the limelight of the masses. As a boy, he was put in dangerous situations by his parents and the elders of the Ereh, just to see if their suspicions could be confirmed and Hunulu would arise from the pit unscathed, in victory. Too cowardly to fight on their own, and indeed, too weak, the Ereh people became dependant on Hunulu to rescue them from their woes, whenever they needed tending. After awhile, Hunulu became used to this dependency, and accepted his fate as the hero of the Ereh people. And he battled valiantly, whatever conflict came his way. And in his heart, he hoped that one day his fighting would come to cease, and he would he battle no more; he assumed that this day would come at the footsteps of Apexa, the god of the Sky Kingdom, who would surely grant him access to the Kingdom, just as he was surely to be the warrior picked by the Ereh people to embark on the journey to deliver the offering.

As Hunulu was briefly comforted by the thought of such a day, a shrill noise sprung from behind some bushes at the crest of one of the Rinne mountains on the peninsula. Hoarders.

Hunulu felt a surge of adrenaline rush through his veins as he instantly became more aware of his surroundings. There was one, thought Hunulu, but where was the other? Hunulu knew there were only two Hoarders in this age, rather than three; the crops and animals hadn’t been as plentiful as the ones their ancestors described before, and this led the Ereh people to believe that Apexa wasn’t as pleased with this generation as the previous one, for whatever reason. In any case, Hunulu was glad he didn’t need to fight more than two Hoarders, for any other beast in the land paled in comparison to the aggression of the great Hoarders.

Hunulu quietly tip-toed away from the bush where the first Hoarder was, and set to go search for the location of the other Hoarder. As he backtracked, he stepped on what felt like the stock of an oak tree, with a wilt of mold on it; Hunulu glanced upon the thick stock, only to notice it was moving at the extremities, where the roots would be. But instead of roots, large obsidian-colored hooves wriggled as Hunulu realized he had stepped on the foot of the second Hoarder.

Slightly aghast, the brave warrior instantly jumped off the hoof before the beast could strike him. The action caused by this narrow escape alerted the other Hoarder, and by the time Hunulu landed on his feet, he realized he was now directly in between the two beasts, arguably the most disadvantageous position to be for someone hunting any animal. But Hunulu never once lost his calm; and as the second beast ran towards him, hell-bent on ramming and crushing him against the body of its partner, Hunulu sprang thirty feet in the air, forcing the second Hoarder to ram and crush the torso of the first. As bluish-black blood spewed from the dying first Hoarder--who was much too slow to escape the rush of its partner--soft whimpers could be heard from both of the beasts; the injured one, for the pain was great, and the inflictor for the woe it had brought upon its only mate in the world. But the mourning for the dead didn’t last long, and soon the second Hoarder set vengeful eyes upon Hunulu, who had already landed on the ground.

Hunulu knew at once that he needed to prove to the Ereh that he had been the one to kill both of the Hoarders, in order to have cemented his place as the bravest warrior; so he rationed that if he could show the people that he could kill one, they would believe he killed the other. Hunulu decided that he would bait the second Hoarder back to the Central Temple, where he would slay the beast in the eyes of the public. As the Hoarder charged aggressively towards Hunulu, the brave warrior led the chase back into the heart of the Rinne peninsula.

*******

Through the barren land, around hazardous mountains, and along the peninsula coast the Hoarder chased Hunulu. And on the last mile to the Central Temple, there were several points where the Hoarder nearly grabbed hold of the lightning-quick warriors leg, sometimes an arm. At times, Hunulu didn’t know whether the harsh wind on his back was coming from the sky itself, or from the musty breath flowing from the Hoarder’s mouth.

Just before the Hunulu turned the last corner of the village leading directly to the Central Temple, he was tripped by the great beast. The Hoarder let out a scream so piercing, the entire village came out to see what all the noise was about. As the crowds gathered, Hunulu sprung to his feet and lunged at the monstrosity, gouging out the eyes of the Hoarder and ripping its gargantuan teeth from its mouth. Hunulu then used the teeth to stab the beast repeatedly; in the head, the neck, back, and legs. By the time Hunulu was finished, there were more holes in the beast than not, and the shrill screams that filled the village were no more. The crowds cheered and praised the god Apexa for allowing Hunulu to defeat the Hoarders, as Hunulu told the crowd he had slain the other Hoarder out in the barren plains. Chants filled the air, and choruses rang for hours, all honoring the good name of Hunulu.

“Praise be to Apexa, god who sees all,

For he ushered in peace, allowing the Hoarders to fall;

And praise the bravest of all Hunulu, who destroyed the great beasts;

We shall soon celebrate, with a bountiful feast!”

The Ereh people, after much celebration, began to congregate around Hunulu, whose head was now almost as big as the Hoarder he had just slain. They told him that his work wasn’t done. Now that he had slain the Hoarders, no more fruits or animals would be killed. But the drought brought about by the beasts, since they had consumed nearly all the Ereh waters, was still very present, and it was time for Hunulu to fulfill the prophecy in the holy texts of the Sureh-sa; it was time for him to offer a sacrifice to Apexa, in exchange for the prosperity of the land the Ereh.

*******

“And when the void of Apexa is filled, he will shower the people of Ereh with prosperity, and he will see to it that they enjoy another generation of bounty before the drought recurs.” Sureh-sa 16, p. 26

Two weeks had passed since Hunulu had slain the great Hoarder in the presence of the Ereh. On the morning of what would be his last day on the Rinne peninsula, he left his home, said his goodbyes to his family, and headed to the Central Temple; very early, to ensure he would be alone. When he arrived, Hunulu paced to the easternmost point of the Temple, where the Holy Oleaceae resided. Renowned for their supernatural healing powers, the olive branches from these trees were sacred; only the High Priest of the land could touch them, and even he never touched them for fear of what the holy texts of the Sureh-sa stated about the holy tree;

“Render the Oleaceae unto only the most poor;

If not, their woes will increase four-score.”-Sureh-sa 13, p. 19

This passage was enough to scare even the holiest man in the land, but not Hunulu. He quietly ripped three branches from the tree, and placed the branches in his satchel, which he would bring with him on the journey to meet Apexa. Hunulu knew that such an offering would surely please the god of the Sky Kingdom, and he believed this was because the healing powers of the Oleaceae would surely bring eternal nourishment to Apexa. Its healing powers were so strong, that once eaten, the taker would never go hungry again. What a gift for a god! Hunulu thought. Surely he would be granted access to the Kingdom, where he would dwell for the rest of his days.

*******

Now he was ready.

As the enormous crowd of the people of Ereh followed him through the barren plains, across the Rinne peninsula in shallow waters, and all the way to the Yeapna mountain, Hunulu began to feel a sense of calm. He never looked back at his family, his friends, or any of the other Ereh. He knew that they couldn’t provide him with the happiness that would result from being taken into the Sky Kingdom. Only there could he find solace; only there could he join the ranks of the many others before him; only there, at the summit of Yeapna, would he find his peace.

*******

The trek was treacherous.

Hunulu had heard many rumors of what it would be like to climb up the massive Yeapna, which elevated about sixty-thousand feet above sea level. An almost vertical climb for the first ten-thousand feet, Hunulu scaled the mountainside with the agility of a feline, and though he embarked upon the journey just after sunrise, by high noon he was nearly halfway to the top. And he was picking up speed.

He passed the time with thoughts of what it would be like when he reached the summit, when he actually met Apexa. The scriptures say he has an especially luminous face, thought Hunulu. How it will shine on me when he sees my offering!

By mid-afternoon, Hunulu was closing in, only about twenty miles from the top. His hands were chafed, and jagged rocks on the Yeapna had ripped most of his clothing off. His thoughts kept him going, however. The hands of Apexa are so pure and clean; he will use them to rejuvenate by deteriorated body before I enter the Kingdom.

The last few miles of the climb were the most painful for Hunulu. He reached the top with nearly every bone in his body either broken or cracked. As he reached over the edge, he had just enough strength in his battered fingers to pull up his crippled body onto the base of the summit. It was now nighttime.

*******

Hunulu waited patiently for the god of the Sky Kingdom to approach him. And he didn’t have to wait long; as he lay there, cringing in pain, the dark sky formed a cone-ish mass which touched down on the summit, directly beside Hunulu. Thunderous roars emanated from all corners of the earth as Apexa appeared in a rounded formation in front of Hunulu.

The god of the Sureh-sa was nowhere to be found. There was no illuminating face, or pure body parts; in fact, there was hardly anything recognizable as a body at all. Just one, huge mass of darkness.

Hunulu cried out to the god in vain: “Apexa, god that sees all, god that guides entry into the Sky Kingdom, is that you?”

The dark mass responded. “It is I.”

Hunulu shook as the voice belted from the dark mass. He didn’t understand what this creature was, but it surely wasn’t the same one that the holy texts of the Sureh-sa praised about. But nonetheless, here he was on the summit of Yeapna, and there was no god but Apexa, so he was going to offer his sacrifice to this “Apexa” anyway. What other being could this be?

“I have brought you three branches from a most delicious tree, and I ask that in return, you grant prosperity for the people of Ereh by ending the drought they are suffering.”

The dark mass smiled. “It is done.”

Then, the god reached out with a hand that looked like a viscous, tar-like black liquid, and ripped the branches from Hunulu’s feeble hands. Apexa devoured the branches instantaneously, forcing them into the merciless void that was his mouth.

The brave warrior shrieked from the pain in his ears, as Apexa chewed the branches so loudly shock waves were sent throughout the sky. And as Apexa chewed, the saliva from his void spewed out like a geyser; soon, the water from his mouth fell on the entire Ereh land, so much so that all the waters were restored and the drought was no more. Thousands of miles below, the Ereh people cheered and praised the god of the Sky Kingdom, as well as the brave warrior who had made their woes disappear for so long. Hunulu now prepared to ask Apexa for one more favor.

“Great god Apexa, now that I have brought you nourishment, and that you have granted my people the nourishment they needed for the land to prosper, I ask you for one more thing; that you may grant me access into the Sky Kingdom, where I can dwell with my ancestors and find true peace.”

At this query, Apexa, the god of the Sky Kingdom, laughed so mightily that the whole earth began to quiver and quake. Then, without hesitation, Apexa scooped up the crippled warrior and bit his head off first, to ignore the cries of the helpless Hunulu. After the beheading, Apexa began to gnaw off the sordid flesh off of Hunulu’s neck and shoulders down to his toes, peeling the skin off with his teeth as strings of celery from the stalk. The headless, skinless Hunulu now looked quite appealing to Apexa, who devoured him all at once. And the juices from Hunulu’s body splurged from the mountaintops, raining down on the Ereh people as they cheered and jumped for joy.

*******

A few hours passed, and Apexa began to have a stomach ache. He had never had this problem before when he devoured the brave warriors, and he wondered what could have gone wrong. And as he vomited out one of the branches of the Holy Oleaceae tree, Apexa realized what he had consumed, and vomited and vomited some more to get the other two branches out. But they would not come out; they had already begun to root and grow in his stomach, and there was no going back for Apexa. Instead, he continued to vomit all the contents of his stomach for all eternity. And as he did, all the mangled parts of the brave soldiers he had devoured for so many generations emitted from his void; and he spewed them into the earth below, into the dirt. And their remains are everywhere today, in every place.