The denizens of the land of Quetzacopotl are renowned for their devotion to (and reliance on) a huge being of the vegetable kingdom which has an untranslateable name in the Quetzacpotlian’s own tongue but in the language of their neighbours the Ondulakes is called the Blood Tree.
The Blood Tree is infamous in these regions not for anything integral to its own existence but rather for the bizarre and unholy ministrations performed upon it by the Quetzacopotlians in the name of worship.
These are, not to beat around the bush, the performance of blood sacrifice at the foot of the great tree each day at sunset, the purpose being to keep the tree’s roots continually sated with fresh human blood. It is said that the sacrifice is performed often enough that the bark and branches of the tree are permanently stained pink and its leaves coral red from the pigmentation of its unholy sap.
The daily victim, who is often the perpetrator of some crime against his fellow Quetzacopotlians or some mentally ill social outcast, or else not infrequently a citizen of their neighbours the Ondulakes unfortunate enough to be captured; this unlucky wretch then is dragged to the base of the tree’s great trunk and, amidst subtle and arcane ceremonial movements, is stabbed repeatedly in key points of the body deemed sacred in the Quetzacopotlian mystical system until he bleeds to death upon the soil between the tree’s great, outjutting, tentacular roots.
The reason for this bloody routine, I am assured by a disgusted Ondulake (as you may guess the Ondulakes have no love for their bloodthirsty neighbours) is none other than to preserve the collective consciousness of the Quetzacopotlian people itself who, it is believed, will fall into a permanent and death-like sleep unless the pink hue of the bark is continually maintained.
Now the Ondulakes are a gregarious and unwarlike people who are easy-going and not particularly fanatical in matters of religion. It has long been a source of deep suffering and consternation to them that they should lose so many of their good citizens to the barbaric practices of the Quetzacapotlians. Over the years they have tried many tactics to solve this problem, good-natured diplomacy being not the least among them, but all to know avail.
However it was not until recently, with the capture and subsequent slaughter of a much-loved prince of the Ondulakes, that things really came to a head. Emergency meetings were held, plans were discussed and actions debated until finally the Ondulakes decided that enough was enough and something must be done.
The plan that the Ondulakes came up with was bold and imaginative and centred around the use of a very common fruit in their land known as the Woompit berry.
Now the Woompit berry is an uncommonly delicious and sweet morsel found predominantly in road-side bushes and shaped something like a trumpet but with an angular protruberence where the opening of the trumpet would be and which must be removed before eating. The Woompit Berry is a deep blue, almost violet colour and is known for its excellent use as a pigment.
The plan of the Ondulakes was thus – that a select, brave few, famous for their voracious appetites and the capacity of their bladders, would, without relieving themselves at all, gorge themselves for 24 hours solely on the flesh and juice of the Woompit Berry until they could eat and drink no more, then these elite few would be flown on specially prepared gliders into the heart of the Quetzacapotlian kingdom – the Blood Tree itself.
The plan was carried out to the letter and and under the cover of a moonless night some thirty of these commandos made their silent, bloated way to the foot of the great Blood Tree and, once there, with admirable synchronisation, they unbuckled themselves and with a collective sigh of unmitigated relief, emptied the blue-tinged contents of their bladders into the blood-saturated soil at the tree’s base before escaping back to their homeland.
Now when the dour priests of the Blood Tree woke the next morning ready to perform their dawn rituals upon the Tree, they were struck by two impressions in quick succession, each like a thunderbolt shattering their millenial beliefs. The first was that the Blood Tree was no longer a pink colour but instead a deep, azure blue like a midsummer Quetzacopotlian evening, and the second, following quickly on, that they had not been cast into a never-ending sleep but were in fact still wide awake and quite well.
This you can imagine was quite a shock to the traditonal, grooved minds of the Quetzacopotlians and deemed an unmitigated victory by the Ondulakes.
According to my Ondulake friend it has taken quite some time for the Quetzacopotlians to recover from this juddering shock to their systems but they are beginning to come round and even to learn some Ondulakian good sense. Quite taken with the new hue of their tree, they are, apparently, beginning to trade with the Ondulakes for vast quantities of Woompit berries with which to crush before their great Tree and thus nourish the symbol of their newly peaceful and bloodless religion, while at the same time bringing goodwill and prosperity to both kingdoms.
This good news is only slightly mitigated by rumours of a growing cult within the newly formed priesthood who have developed a new ritual of sustenance which involves force-feeding captured Ondulakes with Woompit berries until their stomachs are full to bursting. The unfortunate victim is then dragged to the base of the Tree where his stomach is cut open with a knife and the holy Woompit juice left to soak into the soil around the great Tree.
Personally though I think these rumours are no more than the ravings of cynics who see only the worst in human nature and have lost their faith in redemption.
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