The next day I woke bright and early, put on some of my nicer clothes, a blue paisley sun dress with purple and teal accents. I skipped the makeup, probably would be till my face completely healed up, and took my pills with a glass of water that was beside my bed. I went to the kitchen to grab a bite of something, and then headed downstairs. Right as I was about to unlock the door I heard a loud knock on the other side. It caused me to jump out of my skin. I guess Jasper wasn’t the only one to be a little paranoid. I quickly unlocked the door and opened it wide once I saw who was on the other side.
Deb was here and she brought many friends with her, elders from her village and other strong men as well. They were here to help me with the giant cannibal demons that stalked the town at night. I held the door open as they all piled in the lobby. When she saw my face she looked sorrowful, but instead of commenting on it, she quickly introduced me to every person, one at a time, for which once again I was grateful for her kindness and consideration towards me. Then she finally got to the last person. He was a tall man, middle aged with long black hair set in two braids along his shoulders, a few silver strands mixed in, and beautiful ruddy tan skin that had seen much sun in his lifetime. He seemed kind and jovial but serious when needed. Deb introduced him as one of the wisest elders, Nathaniel Elu. He held his hand out to me and I took it, we shook hands and he said,
“I’m happy to finally meet you Autumn, though I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“I’m pleased to meet you as well, I know I’ve asked you here on a dangerous mission, but I can’t tell you how happy I am to see all of you.” I said gesturing to the others in the room. “I hope you can enjoy your stay here at the hotel despite the task at hand and I look forward to being able to call you all friends.”
Once all the pleasantries were out of the way, I was able to check them into the hotel and led them all to their rooms to get comfortable. Once they had gotten settled we planned on meeting in the sitting room to discuss things. While waiting I made sure everything looked comfortable and cozy for each of them, and I ran up to the kitchen to grab a few finger foods and beverages out of our magical fridge. I took them downstairs and placed the various finger sandwiches, fruits and veggie platters on the coffee table in the center of the room and the various utensils and plates as well. Before long they came down one or a few at a time. Once they were all gathered in the room and we enjoyed the food and light chatter as we ate. I enjoyed the company for what seemed like the first time in a long time. I looked forward to rebuilding the town so hopefully I could gather many to the hotel just like they were now. After the food ran low and the talk died down we got down to business.
The first act of business was for me to tell my story, and explain all that I knew of the creatures. It was agreed based on my account as well as the various accounts in the binders from a number of the older caretakers that we were in fact talking about the same creature. They found it strange that they only revealed themselves once they knew a person’s name, and that they hid in the shadows, but they were able to agree that names were powerful and had some sort of hold on these creatures. We also discussed that we would have to use names against the creatures in some way. That was when Nathaniel asked me a question.
“What are all the names you’re known as Autumn?” He asked.
“My full name is Autumn Kathrine Winters, when I was young my parents nicknamed me Katie and it stuck. Most everyone called me Katie when I was young; as I got older I went by Autumn. From time to time they’d call me Katiebug, but that’s because in the summer of 1996, when I was four, I loved catching lady bugs and letting them crawl on my arms. Other than that I can’t think of any other names I’m known by.” I told him getting a little more settled in my chair.
“Always keep this information to yourself. I fear that even though we are dealing with the giant cannibal demons we are also dealing with the nameless ones as well.” He said taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Who are the nameless ones?” I asked my curiosity now awakened.
“The nameless ones are evil spirits that walk the earth where a lot of bloodshed and curses are often given. They are the ones that you hear speaking in the different voices of your loved ones and friends. They tend to stay hidden, even in the dark they often don’t like being seen, until they are ready to take your soul into the depths of the spirit realm. They are known by many tribes and peoples and they have many names besides what we call them. Like the giant cannibal demons you spoke of, they can shape shift into various forms. Once they have you, they take your soul of course but they also take other parts of you, and use them to take a physical form. I think your townspeople got the two confused long ago and melded them into one entity.” Nathanial said as he looked at all of us in the room.
“So if there are two different evil spirits, how do we get rid of them? Is there a way to make them go away and never come back? Can they be killed?” I asked now on the edge of my seat wanting to know more.
“The nameless ones can be driven away, but there always stands a chance they can come back, but I don’t think there is a way to outright kill them. The giant cannibals though, they can be killed, it is just a matter of how. In order for you to understand what you are up against I have to tell you the story of how the first one died at the hands of the twin war gods long ago.” He replied.
The story of Atahsaia, The Cannibal Demon was told to me as follows:
Long ago, when the forefathers of the tribe lived in The Town of the Cliffs, there also lived two fair maidens, who were sisters and daughters of the master chief of the tribe. One sunny morning, the two sisters were talking, and the eldest sister said to the other,
“What say you, the morning is bright and the water is warm. Let us go down to the water to wash our clothes to be made as new for the dance later on.”
The younger sister said to the elder “ Ah yes, But in these days they say the shadows of the rocks and even the sage bushes lodge unspeakable things, causing those who walk there to breathe hard with fear and terror.”
“Nonsense!” The elder sister exclaimed. “Younger sisters are always as timid as younger brothers are ill tempered.”
“Then as you say elder sister,” The younger one replied, “I will not quarrel with you, but I fear to go.”
“Hush then younger sister.” The elder said. “Come along then.”
They then gathered their cotton mantles and other clothes into bundles, and taking a bag of yucca root, or soap weed as it is also called, and started down together onto the steep, crooked path to where the water was at the foot of the great mesa.
Now, far above the town, among the rocks of reddish gray and yellow, red in the form of a boulder-like mountain that appears to look like a frozen sandbank, there was a deep and dark cave. If you have never seen it, to this day it is called the Cave of Atahsaia! There, in the times I speak of, lived Atahsaia himself. Oh what an ugly demon was he! His body was as large as an elks, and his breast was shaggy with hair liken to stiff porcupine quills. His legs and arms were long and muscular, covered with speckled scales both black and white. The hair on his head as coarse and ruffled as a buffalo’s mane. His eyes were big and glaring, so much so that they nearly popped from his head like skinned onions. His mouoth stretched from on cheek to the other and his mouth filled with crooked fangs, yellowed just as thrown away deer bones. His lips were red and puffy as peppers. And his face was wrinkled and rough as an expanse of burned buckskin.
That was who Atahsaia, who in the elder days devoured men and women alike for his meat, and the children of men as a sweetbread. His weapons were terrible to behold. His fingernails were as long as the claws of a bear. In his left hand he held a bow made of the sapling of a mountain oak, with two arrows already drawn for use. And he was never seen without his great flint knife, twice as long as a man’s leg and just as broad, he held this in his right hand and poked his hair back with, so his fore-locks were ever covered with the blood of those he slaughtered. He wore over his shoulder whole skins of mountain lion and bear, held together with buttons made of wood.
Though Atahsaia was ugly, he could not speak without chattering his teeth, or laugh without howling like a wolf, he was a very polite demon, but like many ugly and polite people of this world, he was also a great liar. He woke that morning and stuck his head out of his cave just as the two maidens went down to the waters. He saw them while he looked, and he laughed. Then he muttered as he gazed at them and saw how young and beautiful they were.
“Good lunch! Two for a munch!” and he howled his war cry, “Hoooothlaia!” till Teshaminkia, the echo god, shouted it to the fair maidens.
“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, as she clutched the arm of her elder sister. “Listen!”
“Hoooothlaia” roared the demon once more, and again Teshaminkia.
“Oh!Oh! Elder sister, what did I tell you? Why did we come out today!” Said the younger sister.
They both ran away, and then they stopped to listen. When heard nothing more, they returned to the water and set about washing their clothes on flat stones. But Atahsaia grabbed up his weapons, and began to climb down the mountainside, laughing as he went.
“Good lunch! Two for a munch!”
Around the corner of the great mesa, on the high shelves that stands The Town of the Cliffs, are two high towering buttes called Twin Mountian. Far up on the top of this mountain there dwelt Ahaiyuta and Matsailema. If you don’t know who those two were, I will tell you! They were the twin children of the Sun-father and the Mother Waters of the world. Before men were born into the light of the world, the Sun made love to the Waters of the world, and under his warm. Bright glances, there were hatched out of a foam-cup on the face of the Great Ocean, which then covered the earth. Two wonderful boys, whom men afterward named The Beloved Two who Fell.
The Sun dried away the waters from the earth and these two then delivered men forth from the bowels of our Earth Mother, and guided them eastward toward the home of their father, the Sun. The time came when alas, war and many strange beings arose to destroy the children of the earth. And then the eight Stern Beings changed the hearts of the twins to the medicine of war. Thenceforth they were known as Ahaiyuta and Matsailema, (Our Beloved, the Terrible Two, and the Boy-gods of War).
Even though they changed, they still guarded our forefathers and guided them to the Middle of the World, where we now live. Gifted with hearts of the medicine of war, and with wisdom almost as great as the Sun-father’s, they became the invincible guardians of the Corn-people of Earth, and with the rainbow for their weapons and thunderbolts for their arrows. They were swift arrows, lightning shafts pointed with turquoise. The twins were the greatest warriors of all in the days of yore.
When at last they had conquered most of the enemies of men, they taught to a few of their chosen followers the songs, prayers, and orders of a society of warriors who should be called their children. The Priests of the Bow, they were called, and selecting from among them the two wisest, and breathed into their nostrils (as they have breathed into the noses of their successors). Since then we make anew the semblance of their being and place them each year at “mid sun” on the top of the Mountain of Thunder, and on top of the Mountain of the Beloved, that they may know we remember them and that they may guard the Land of our People from sunrise to sunset and cut off the pathways of the enemy.
Well, Ahaiyuta who is called the elder brother, and Matsailema who is called the younger, were living on the top of Twin Mountain with their old grandmother.
The elder brother said to the younger on this same morning, “Brother, let us go out and hunt. It is a fine day, what say you?”
“My face is in front of me,” said the younger, “and under roof is no place for men” he said as he put on his helmet of elk hide and took a quiver of mountain lion skin from an antler near the ladder.
“Where are you two boys going now?” shrieked the grandmother through a trap door from below. “Don’t you ever intend to stop making me worry by going abroad when even the spaces breed fear like thick war?”
“Oh grandmother,” They chuckled as they tightened their bows and straightened their arrows before the fire,” Never mind us we are only going out to hunt!” Before the old woman could climb the ladder to stop them, they were skipping merrily down the rocks towards the cliffs below.
Suddenly the younger brother stopped. “Ah, listen brother! It is the cry of Atahsaia and the old demon is surely abroad and to cause tears.”
“Yes,” replied the elder brother, “it is Atahsaia, and we must stop him! Come on, come on quickly!’
“Hold on brother, hold! Stiffen your feet right here with patience. He is after the two maidens of the Town of the Cliffs. I saw them going to the spring as I came down. This day he must die. Is your face to the front?” Said the younger to the elder.
“It is; come on.” Replied the elder brother as he started forward.
“Stiffen your feet with patience I say,” Again exclaimed the younger brother. “Know you that the old demon comes up the pathway below here? He will not hurt them until he gets them home. You know him to be a great liar, and a great flatterer, that is the way the old beast catches people. If we wait here, surely we will see them come up.”
So after quarrelling a little, the elder brother consented to sit on a rock that overlooked the pathway and was within bow shot of the ancient demon’s cave. Now, while the girls we washing their clothes, Atahsaia ran as fast as his old joints would allow, until the two girls heard his muttering and rattling weapons.
“Something is coming sister!” cried the younger.
Both ran away towards the rocks to hide once more, but they were too late. The old demon strode around by another way and suddenly, at a turn, came face to face with them, glaring as he ever did with his bloodshot eyes and waving his great serrated flint knife. But as he neared them, he lowered the knife and smiled. He straightened himself up and approached the frightened ones as gently as a young man would.
The poor younger sister clung to the arm of the elder one, and sank moaning by her side, for the smile of the demon was as fearful as the scowl of a triumphant enemy, or the laugh of a rattlesnake when he hears any old man tell a lie and thinks he will poison him for it.
“Why do you run and why do you weep so?” Asked the ancient demon. “I know you. I am ugly and old, my fair maidens, but I am your grandfather and mean you no harm at all. I frightened you only because I felt certain you would run away from me if possible.”
“Ah,” faltered the elder sister, quickly getting over her fright. “We did not know you and were frightened by you. Come younger sister, come,” She told the younger. “Brighten your eyes and thoughts, for our grandfather will not hurt us. Don’t you see?”
But the younger sister only shook her head and cried. Then the demon got angry. “What are you sobbing about?” He roared, raising his knife and sweeping it wildly throughout the air. “Do you see this knife? This day I will cut off the light of your life with it if you do not quiet your whimpers!”
“Get up, oh do get up younger sister!” Said the elder sister, now frightened again herself. “Surely he will not cut us off just now if we obey him, and it is not well that even for a short time the light of life shine through fear and sadness than be cut off altogether? For who knows where the trails that lead through the darkness of the night of death?”
So you know, in the speech of the rulers of the world of our ancients, a man’s light was cut off when his life was taken, and when he died he came to the dividing place of life. The elder sister tried to rally the younger and rose to her feet, but still she trembled in fear.
“Now my beautiful maidens, my own granddaughters even,” Said the old demon once more, gently at first, “I am most glad I found you. How good are the gods! For I am a poor, lonely old man. All my people are gone.”He sighed like the hiss of a wildcat.”Yonder above is my home.” He said pointing over his shoulder. “As I am a great hunter, plenty of venison is baking in my rear room and more sweet bread than I can eat. Lo! It makes me homesick to eat alone and when I saw you and saw how pretty and gentle you were, I thought that it might be you would throw the light of your favor upon me and go up to my home to share of my abundance and drink from my vessels. Besides, I am so old that only now and again I can get a full jar of water up to my home. So I came as fast as I could to ask you to return and eat with me.”
Reassured by his kind speech, the elder sister quickly said. “Of course we will go with our grandfather, and if that is all he may want of us, we can soon fill his water jars, can’t we sister?
“You are a good girl,” Said the old demon to the one that had spoken, then glaring at the younger sister. “Bring that fool along with you and come up. She will not come by herself, she has more bashfulness than sense, and less sense than my knife, because that makes the world more wise by killing off fools.”
He led the way and the elder sister followed, dragging along the shrinking younger sister. The old demon kept talking in a loud voice as they went up the pathway, telling all sorts of entertaining stories, until as they neared the rocks where Ahaiyuta and Matsailema were waiting, the two heard him and said to one another.
“Ah, they come!”
Then the elder brother jumped up and began to tighten his bow, but the younger brother muttered, “Sit down, won’t you, you fool! Atahsaia’s ears are like bat ears only bigger. Wait now, til I say ready. You know he will not hurt the girls till he gets them out from his house. Look over there in front of his hole. Do you see the flat place that leads along to that deep chasm beyond?”
“Yes.” Replied the elder brother. “But what of that?”
“There he cuts the throats of his captives and casts their bones and heads into the depths of the chasm! Do you see the notch in the rock? That is where he lets their blood flow down, and for that reason no one ever discovers his tracks. Now, stiffen your feet with patience, I say to you, and we will see what to do when the time comes.”
Again they sat and waited. As the old demon and the two girls passed along below, the elder brother again started and would have shot had not the younger brother held him back.
“You fool of an elder brother, though not wiser, no! Do you not know that your arrow is lightning and will kill the maidens as well as the demon?”
Finally the demon reached the entrance of his cave and going in, asked the girls to follow him, laying out two slabs for them to sit on.
“Now sit, my pretty girls, and I will get something for you to eat soon. You must be hungry.”
Going to the rear of the cave, he broke open a stone oven, and the steam which arose, was certainly delicious and meaty. Soon he brought out two great bowls, big enough to feed a whole dance. One of the bowls contained meat, the other a mess resembling sweetbread pudding.
“Now let us eat!” Said the demon creature sitting himself opposite the maidens and at once diving his horny fingers and scaly hand half up to the wrist in the meat broth. The elder sister began to take bits of the food to eat it, when the younger made a motion to her, and showed her with terror the bones of a little hand. The sweetbread was the flesh and bones of little children. Then the two maidens only pretended to eat. Taking the food out and throwing it down by the side of the bowls.
“Why do you not eat?” The demon demanded while he crammed a huge mouthful of the meat, bones and all, into his wide mouth.
“We are eating,” Said one of the girls.
“Then why do you throw my food away?” the demon said.
“We are only throwing away the bones.” The girl answered.
“Well the bones are the better part,” Retorted the demon taking another huge bite, by way of example, big enough to make a grown man’s meal. “Oh yes!” He added, “I forgot that you had baby teeth.”
After the meal was finished, the old demon said, “Let us go out and sit down in the sun on my terrace. Perhaps, my beautiful maidens, you will comb an old man’s hair, for I have no one left to help me now.” He sighed pretending to be quite sad.
So in showing the girls where to sit down, without waiting for their assent he settled himself in front of them and leaned his head back to have it combed. The two girls dared not disobey, and now and then pulled at a long, coarse hair and snapped their fingers close to his scalp, which so deceived the old demon that he grunted with satisfaction every time. At last their knees were so tiered by his weight upon them that they said they were done, and the demon rising, pretended to be greatly pleased and thanked them over and over again. Then he told them to sit down in front of him and he would comb their hair as they had combed his, but not to mind if he hurt them a little because his fingers were old and stiff. The two maidens again dared not to disobey and sat down as he had told them. Uh! How the old beast grinned and glared and breathed softly between his teeth.
The two brothers had watched everything, the elder getting up every now and again and the younger remaining quiet. Suddenly, the elder sprang up. He caught the shield the Sun father had given him, the shield which though made only of nets and knotted cords, would ward off the weapons of the warrior and magic of a wizard alike. Holding it aloft, he cried to his brother,
“Stand ready, the time has come! If I miss him, pierce him with your arrow! Now, then….”
He hurled the shield through the air. Swiftly as a hawk and noiselessly as an owl, it sailed across the sky straight over the heads of the maidens and settled between them and the demons face. The Shield was invisible, and the old demon knew not that it was there. He leaned over as if to examine the maiden’s heads. He opened his great mouth, and bending ever nearer, made a vicious bite at the elder one.
“Ai. Ai! My poor little sister alas! With which both instantly fell sobbing and moaning, and crouched expecting to be immediately destroyed.
But the demons teeth caught in the meshes of the invisible shield and howling with vexation, he began to struggle to free himself of the shield. Ahaiyuta drew a shaft to the point and let it fly. With thunder that rent the rocks and a rush of strong wind, the shaft sailed therough the air and buried itself in the demons shoulders, piercing him through ere the thunder had half done pealing. Swift then as a mountain sheep were the bounding light steps of the twin brothers, who, leaping to the shelf rock drew their war clubs and soon softened the hard skull of the demon. The younger sister was unharmed aside of the fright, but the elder sister lay were she sat, insensible.
“Hold!” Cried Matsailema, “She was to blame but then” as he scooped up the maiden in his strong arms. He laid her apart from the others and breathing into her nostrils, revived her soon to wisdom.
“This day have we, through the powers, seen for our father an enemy of our children men? A beast that caused unto fatherless children, unto menless women, and unto womanless men (Who thus became though his evil will), tears and sad thoughts, has this day been looked upon the Two and laid low. May the favors of the gods thus meet us ever.” Thus said the two brothers as they stood over the gasping and struggling but dying old demon.
As they closed their little prayer, the maidens who now first saw whom they had to thank for their saving, where overwhelmed with happiness, yet also shame. They exclaimed in response to the prayer,
“May they, indeed, thus meet you and ourselves!” Then they breathed upon their hands.
The two brothers now turned to the sisters. “Look ye upon the last enemy of men, whom this day we have had of the powers given us to destroy. Whom this day the father of all, or father the Sun, has looked upon, whose light of life this day our weapons cut off. Whose path of life this day our father has divided. Not ourselves but our father has done this deed through us. Haste to your home in The Town of Cliffs, and tell your father these things, and tell him that he must assemble his priests and teach them these our words, for we divide our paths of life henceforth from one another and from the paths of men, no more to mingle save in spirit with the children of men. We shall depart for our everlasting home in the mountains, the one Mountain of Thunder, the other the Mount of the Beloved, to guard from the sunrise to the sunset the lands of the Corn priests of Earth, that the foolish among men break not into the Middle Country of Earth and lay it waste. Yet shall we require of our children the plumes therein we dress our thoughts, and the forms of our being, wherewith men may renew us each year at “Mid Sun” Henceforth two stars at morning and evening will be seen, the one going before and the other following, the Sun father, the one Ahaiyuta and his herald the other, Matsailema, his guardian. Warriors of both and fathers of men. May the trail of life be finished ere divided! Go ye, joyfully henceforth!”
The two maidens breathed for the hands of the Twins, and with bowed heads and a prayer of thanks, started down the pathway towards their home in the Town of Cliffs. When they came to their home, the old father asked from whence they came. They told the story of their adventure and repeated the words of the Beloved. The old man bowed his head and made a prayer of thanks, and cast abroad on the winds white meal of the seeds of the earth, the shells from the Great Waters of the World, the pollen of the beautiful flowers, and the paints of war.
“It is well!” He said. “Four days hence I will assemble my warriors, and we will cut the plume sticks, paint and feather them, and place them on the high mountains, that through their knowledge and power of medicine, our Beloved Two Warriors may take them unto themselves.”
This was most of the story as was told to me. The ending of the story basically went on to say how the twin brothers went on to destroy the corpse of the giant demon, and they hurled his decapitated head into the sky where it was made into a great red star, called the Great Lying Star. They also cast the demon’s entrails from one end of the earth two the other making the Milky Way. The twins then gave their grandmother a great scare with the remains of the demon, which they skinned, and she grew angry and left them. From that day henceforth the brothers became great stars of the morning and evening, traveling behind and in front of the Sun father himself, their spirits hovering forever above their shrines on the two mountains guiding and protecting the warriors of their people and their lands. As time moved on from the elder days, the shrines were not tended to as they should have, and they were forgotten almost entirely by the people.
According to Nathaniel, the only way he thought we could kill the giant cannibal demons that now walked the land was to give offerings to the Twin brothers upon their mountains, and in doing so may cause them to lend their aid once more to us in our pursuit to kill the other demons that were now inhabiting the land. These demons were similar to the one of old, where they came from no one knew, but these cloaked themselves in shadow, shape shifting when it suited them, and names ruled them.
We them devised a plan for the elders and the strong men that had come to the hotel, to go to the great mountains, and give offerings and prayers to the Twin gods at mid day, in hopes they would be able to help us deliver the town from the demons and the other evil entities. They also planned to bless the land and the hotel, the heart of the town so they called it, to ward off the evil spirits to hopefully never return. In the meanwhile I was to wait at the hotel, and keep a safe hold upon the hotel, locking the doors and warding off the spirits where I could with herbs to protect myself and Deb meanwhile as we awaited the men’s return. We then parted ways to do our respective tasks. That afternoon, around mid day, there was a rumbling felt throughout the town, liken to a great earthquake. Deb and I looked at each other in fear, wondering what was to come………
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