The Fruit of Knowledge
"Utu!!"
"You don't have to shout — I can hear you just fine. Keep it down before you blow out my eardrums."
"You know the way to the underworld, don't you?"
Utu was the god of the sun, and of law and justice. Each morning he climbed the sky; each evening he sank into the earth, and until dawn returned he served as a judge among the dead.
"And?"
"Then take me to the place where the Tree of Knowledge stands."
"…Out of nowhere?"
It was absurd. Inanna had always been impulsive, but declaring she would march into the underworld on a whim was sudden even for her.
"You come and go from the underworld every day. You must know it better than anyone."
"Well… to a degree, I suppose…"
"You're headed there anyway. Are you going to keep stalling? Or do you want to watch me throw another fit?"
"…Ugh. You lunatic."
Utu was a good brother. He grumbled, but he almost never refused her. This time was no different. At her demand — request would have been too generous a word — he loaded his sister into his chariot and set out for the underworld.
They were twins, so in truth there was no difference in age between them. Yet while Inanna still looked barely free of girlhood, Utu already wore the full stature of a grown man. Dark-skinned, with radiant golden hair and clear eyes, he was a handsome youth of impressive height. Gold ornaments hung from him, and around his neck he wore a pendant that marked the sun; anyone who saw him would have known at once that he was the sun god. The display was not vanity so much as the dignity his station required. He was not especially austere, but among the gods he was notably diligent, and his bearing was meant for the eyes of others. For that reason, people treated Utu as an adult in a way they never did Inanna.
"Inanna, grow up a little. How long are you going to keep acting however you please? You still haven't fully awakened your divinity because you behave like a child."
"I'll handle my own affairs. Stay out of them."
"And why are you looking for the Fruit of Knowledge?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters! Do you have any idea how many monsters and dead roam the underworld? They don't care whether their prey is a god or not."
The underworld was a land of chaos. The regrets and obsessions of the living tangled there and birthed monsters. The dead whose minds had broken envied the immortal and attacked with blind ferocity. Even for gods, the sheer number of the restless dead was a genuine threat.
"All the better. I needed something to take my anger out on."
"At least acknowledge how much trouble I go through for you."
"Fine. Thanks."
"…Honestly."
Utu sighed as they arrived. He should have been earlier; Inanna had delayed him. As they turned toward the Tree of Knowledge, the monsters of the underworld began to show themselves. Most were rotting corpses, but among them moved things far more misshapen and menacing.
"From here on, be careful. If you're not—"
"Out of the way!!"
Inanna leapt from the chariot. In the underworld, even gods could not fly without a special conveyance. That made no difference to her landing. Just as no god ever died from a fall, she touched down without difficulty.
The impact, however, and the tremor that followed, drew every nearby monster's attention.
A low, wet growl rose as the dead and the beasts closed in. Inanna snorted.
"How dare mere corpses!!"
A spear bloomed in her hand. She swung it without restraint, tearing through everything in her path. Each stroke shattered the dead into fragments. Rotting blood and entrails sprayed through the air in a grotesque spectacle.
"You madwoman! If you just charge in like that, they'll surround you!!"
Utu's shout never reached her. She kept slaughtering without mercy.
A deeper roar answered her. After she had cut down nearly a thousand of the dead in moments, stronger things began to appear — colossal monsters stitched together from corpses. By sheer size, Inanna was an insect beside them. Their upper bodies roughly resembled a human's, but no one would have called them human.
"You stink. Shut your mouth."
A thrown spear flew and burst the giant's head. The headless bulk toppled.
From beneath the earth, tentacles large and small erupted and lunged for her.
"Annoying."
She severed the ones that reached for her ankles, then seized one and wrenched it hard. A fern-like hand dragged the creature's buried body up from the depths, and her burning spear punched through its core.
Some of the monsters were smaller but unnervingly fast and agile. They slipped into her blind spots. Without even looking, she thrust her spear and cut them down. A frog-like thing she caught by the tongue and sliced through the throat. A serpent vast enough to swallow a man whole she tore open at the jaw until it split in two. Winged creatures could still fly even here; they darted about like flies and loosed projectiles at her. Dozens of her thrown spears pinned them, and they crumbled to ash. A scorpion-monster whose sting carried deadly venom had its tail cut off and the barb driven back into its own body.
"Ahahahahahaha!!!"
It felt magnificent. When had she last felt this clean? The tightness in her chest broke open all at once. Overthinking had never suited her. Ripping through thousands of monsters, Inanna threw back her head and laughed.
A dragon reduced to bone had its useless wings snapped and its skull crushed. A many-armed horror she personally severed limb by limb. Things that breathed poison she burned, poison and all. Those that tried to hurl boulders she sent the stones back into, crushing them. Insects that summoned cold to freeze her she simply stamped to death.
"Is that all? Insects!!"
As time passed she did not tire — she grew stronger. The spear she swung grew sharper and fiercer with every breath. At last tens of thousands of monsters surged toward her like a tidal wave, ready to swallow her whole, and Inanna only laughed harder. Thousands of spears bloomed around the goddess, wreathed in flame, and shot into the oncoming tide. A rain of fire, searing blasts, and explosions shattered the sea of dead and beasts. The collapse of that vast wave was a wonder in itself.
"Inanna…"
Utu, who had been supporting her from behind with beams of light, found himself simply staring. This was war. Savage fire swallowed the surrounding land. Love and war were her divinity.
Leaving the smoldering ash of the dead behind her, the goddess reached the Tree of Knowledge. On a barren branch without a single leaf hung one fruit that glowed with violet light. Inanna reached out without hesitation and plucked it. She bit into it roughly — and her body began to change.
Her arms and legs lengthened. A pair of breasts swelled full; her waist narrowed; her hips grew taut and firm. The curves of her body became more alluring than anything else, radiating a strange heat. The girlish face matured into a woman's, and it was filled with rapture.
It was the true awakening of her divinity.
"…I think I finally understand."
Inanna spoke — not to anyone else, but to herself.
"What I feel for him. What love is."
The words were not meant for Utu.
"Love was lust. The hunger to devour each other's flesh and leave descendants. Nothing more, nothing less!!"
She turned.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going? At least put something on!"
By the end of the fierce battle, the clothes Inanna had worn were little more than rags, long since torn apart. She stood in her natural state, bare. In that moment she was a beast, a predator.
Inanna had always been a goddess of impulse. Once she decided, she moved without hesitation. She did not look back. She ran, and her speed was enough that even Utu in his solar chariot struggled to keep pace.
"Haa… What in the world is going on…?"
Leaving Utu's bewilderment behind, Inanna arrived before Sunya's house. Or rather, before what had once been his house. It had already collapsed; only traces remained.
"…Lady Inanna?"
Sunya was still there. The usually composed young man looked faintly startled by the sight of Inanna returned so abruptly grown.
"It's late. What brings you—"
"Take off your clothes."
She cut him off.
"…Pardon?"
At the unexpected words, Sunya's face went blank with shock. He was too flustered to manage a proper expression. Inanna paid it no mind.
"I said take them off. Right now."
