Lillith

by Kate Gallwey

  I so loved him but he didn’t understand that this can never be my home and I think so differently to the people of Hell there can be no future for us. Time has proved me wrong but we have both changed since then.

  I completed all the levels of the Redbridge School and was making plans to be returned to Demos.

  Solarr came to me and wanted to buy me from Torek and I told him he was a fool. He went to his father and had the same conversation. He eventually was making plans to abduct me and head to the Southern Plains. This would have outlawed him and ruined all his chances in this world. It would also have torn him away from his family. I would not let this happen. I asked to see Herschel and told her of his plans and put it to her that I should be sent slightly early back to Demos and Solarr could be sent on patrol with his warriors or sent hunting for game or something. She agreed with me and it was arranged.

  Solarr came to bid me goodbye for a few days, and I kissed him fondly and told him I would see him later. I did but it was much later.

  I returned to Demos with little fanfare, the group of Redbridge warriors delivered me to the gates in one piece and much more able to deal with Torek and his crew.

  I serviced Torek nightly and sang and danced for him when called upon but refused to scream, beg or make a sound when tortured. I had Torek’s respect and he showed it by not killing me. I watched when he kept torturing and killing all those young females and buried my rage deep.

  Torek respected strength and females were lower than pond life and Demos Keep often dumped out the bodies of females of all ages every morning and the small bundles made me choke up inside, there was larger male bodies thrown out too. This didn’t happen at Redbridge, or if it did, not to this extent. I hated this world and Demos with a vengeance.

  I was going to get off this world but first I was going to destroy Torek.

  I had crept into the library at Demos one night and had found whole scrolls of Gate magic and had pieced together the co-ordinates to Earth, the dial code if you like. I went into the Dimensional Gate Room and found I could now read the patterns of runes on the floor and I activated them and traced the path to Earth but found that the connection was blocked at this time, I got the ‘please try later’ tone. I was lucky that no one heard or felt my magic being used. But soon I was going home. So I set to planning and plotting in the time I had left.

  I was sent to the Barracks for a while and stole jars of oil, hay, wood and other burnable stuff that I could find in and around as many of the barrack buildings as I could get to. I sealed off many of the unused doors and windows with a little bit of fire magic that expanded the doors and windows in their frames, making them impossible to open.

  Timing is everything in this game, as is keeping ones nerve.

  I found a small sharp knife and cancelled it in my hair; I have a lot of hair and created a new style of bundling my hair at the nape of my neck to hide the knife. It was amusing to find that other Ladies of the Keep copying my hairstyle.

  Females are not allowed to carry weapons and the penalties are severe.

  When the way was cleared to Earth I found I wanted vengeance more that I wanted to go home, so with the path before me open, I turned from my freedom and went back to the feasting in the main hall where I was requested to dance and perform for my masters. For two nights I watched and waited.

  When Torek summoned me back to his bed again; I set everything into motion, casting a spell of total calmness and clarity of thought over myself and started with Killing the Devil himself.

  I bathed him then showed him a fierce passion that he had never seen from me before, I totally ensorcelled him with my body and he was befuddled and just lay back and let me take over, this had never happened before for he was usually a control freak in the bedroom.

  Before long I was sitting astride him, with him deep within me and I took the sharp knife from my hair and slit his throat from ear to ear, as deeply as the knife would go.

  His blood burnt me as it gushed from his body, drenching me in my revenge. He gargled and died with a curious smile on his face as he realised what I had done. I moved off him still feeling very calm and walked to his wash room and plunged myself into his cold bath, removing his blood from my body and hair. I dried my hair roughly with his towel and bundled the knife back in place then I walked past the guards at his door and shut the door behind me. I made a ‘shushing’ motion as if they must be quiet for their Lord was asleep, and then walked away.

  I left my crime scene and went down to the ‘Horse Leavings’ Barracks where I had been ‘entertaining’ the animals within for the past few months. I went as to talk to the Guard on duty and slipped my hand behind him and pushed my sharp knife just behind his ear and angled it up towards his brain dodging the flow of blood, the little knife got stuck in his thick skull and he fell with out making a noise and I rolled his body into the shadows.

  In the Barracks they were all fast asleep and I closed the doors and then sealed them from outside and stood in the courtyard, I called fire to every window and door and felt the explosions as the little jars of oil I had placed by each bed detonate, turning the buildings holding many of the warriors of the Keep into flaming torches.

  Yes, I killed all the females in there as well, but many of them had lost all spirit and personality years ago. This is no excuse for mass murder but it is what I told myself at the time, the guilt would come later.

  I blended in with the gathering crowds in the courtyard and disappeared into the corridors and to escape the horde of warriors trying to put the fire out. I opened an unguarded door just off from the courtyard and found Lady Channok, Lord Torek’s First Lady Wife, enthusiastically ‘entertaining’ one of Torek’s chief advisers and commanders, Lord Demrock. She was on top of him and making a lot of noise, so I think she was there by choice.

  This would mean both of their deaths if caught, for Torek was very possessive about his wives.

  They stopped their frantic movements and stared at me horrified. I smiled and bowed my head and opened the door again and left before they could untangle themselves and stop me.

  It was a night full of surprises. Now I had to get off this stinking rock.

  CHA

  PTER SIX

  esCaPing & fOrgetting

  The Dimensional Gate Room was deserted as everyone had gone out to watch the fire in the Courtyard. I quickly swept the patterns clear and prayed to the World Spirit to ignite the power within the runes. They burst into light and I stood in the centre of a magic circle once again. I could feel the pulls and tugs of the tides of power and magic, my senses opened up again and I could see the runes of power take on a life of their own and float around me.

  It was like coming home and I danced the combination for Earth. The Dimensional Door opened up and I stepped through…..unto the midnight drenched French fields of the middle of 12 Century AD.

  The strength and power of my body returned with a rush that swept away all magic of calmness and clarity and I rolled into a tiny ball and wept. Sometime later as the weeping ebbed I twisted off my slave collar and crunched it into dust.

  I felt numb and disorientated and when the sun came up, I was found by some human women who were all dressed in long black robes. They took me in to their austere and bleak home and bathed me and clothed me and then let me sleep. They tried to feed me and I was relieved to refuse.

  I learnt I was in a Monastery for the Brides of Christ, when I asked who was Christ they got a bit upset with me and asked that I leave. I did, thanking them for their hospitality.

  I was filled with guilt and remorse about what I had done and how I had killed in cold blood and wandered about the hills feeling lost and alone. I wanted Solarr with a longing and a passion that it was hard to find a space in my own head.

  I had once again achieved my goal but once again I was left to pick up the pieces of my sanity. When I started mixing Seth and Solarr in my grieving I pulled myself up short. I was not going down that path again, I kne
w where it leads.

  So that night I weaved a spell on my own mind and put most of my memories of the recent events of Hell in a sealed box in my mind that meant I forgot Solarr and Redbridge and my love for him, all my raw memories of being forced and tortured and killing Torek all went into this box, and only if the need was great was it to be opened again. When the sun came up the next morning I felt clear and able to function again forgetting Solarr, Torek and everything about Hell except the fact I had been there.

  Clarity returned, as did sanity.

  I called Lisele and she answered at once, teleporting to my location. Hugging me and weeping over my return and she helped me back to Shambala.

  I stayed in the city of Shambala for many years, learning about the changes that had happened in the world. How the humans had bred and spread across Europe, Asia and most of Africa and of the faiths and religions that had arisen to explain the presence of Demons.

  Lucian was still in his crumbling castle on a stretch of land that is surrounded on three sides by the sea, very close to where Gibraltar is today, some demons lived with him but many had become extinct or had left to find other worlds to make their homes on. Quite a disturbing amount of Demons had found home among the unknowing humans, blending in either by magic, shape changing or by disguises. Many had found mates and had children with humans, adding their genes to the human gene pool. Who was I to judge, I had done the same?

  I also found distant descendants of mine living in Shambala with lots of red hair and green eyes with gifts in magic and highly fertile. It made me glad that I have a blood link with humanity, humans are my children in more ways than one and also that parts of my husband and son remain.

  The world had changed in the three thousand years I had been away but so had I.

  Of the many traditions of Shambala, the one of my Pleasure Guard still remained and for the first time ever I was not interested, I just wanted to be left alone. They found this very disturbing and I grew tired of them trying to tempt me. I started to see humans grow old in front of me again and after fifty years or so I had had enough and I left to my Island Paradise in the Pacific.

  It still remained as a dormant volcano and the spells keeping my home from deterioration were still working. I felt immediately at home and I strung a new hammock over the front porch and took in the spectacular beauty of the waterfalls and the powder white fine sand beach and soaked up the sunshine and felt at peace again, at least for a short while, then I got restless and wondered what to do next with my life.

  I made myself a sailboat and sailed to the Chinese mainland and shape changed myself into a young human man. I was seeking training and knowledge in the arts and went walking far into the mountains where I found a deep richness of knowledge and wisdom and found myself spending over a hundred years training as a human warrior there. The skills of these humans are lost to this modern age and I found a beauty and an inner peace in many of the temples dedicated to the many forms of war, battle, writing, healing and magic.

  Disguised as a human man I learnt many ways on how to kill with my bare hands and how to shape my energies or chi as the humans call it, into a force of power. I could already heal with a touch but I learnt how to regrow severed limbs and how to heal the spirit and soul better. Learning to use my voice as a manipulating killing tool and how to wield a staff and bow with much more deadly accuracy.

  I could do most of it before but this took my knowledge and skills to new heights. I learnt how to make a bow or sling out of almost nothing and how to do what it called today ‘street fighting’, where everything around you can become a weapon, this came in very useful when the world went to war with me.

  When I finally ‘graduated’ to the sword I was taught how to first craft a sword. They taught blacksmithing 101 and after ten years of study and apprenticeship I learnt how to fold the molten metal over and over until it could cut stone. With spells and magic woven into the very fabric of the metal itself you could forge a blade that could cut through anything. I summoned my own blue green sword that I had created when I had been made and melted it down and reforged a new stronger blade. It felt like I was remaking my own soul. I used my own blood in the folding and crafted myself anew.

  War came to the Kingdoms and much that was, was swept away with human bloodshed and fire and a new Empire was forged that covered much of the country. I hate when humans battle each other, I don’t know what side I should be on and end up standing and watching and picking up the casualties afterwards. I know it is an important evolutionary step but I did not enjoy the united China so I walked west and found myself on the same path I had walked an eon early.

  I travelled north and crossed into what is now Mongolia and then after months of walking arrived on the slops of the Steppes and found numerous towns and villages filled with red haired, green eyed men and women. All had lots of babies and starting producing them very young. They had various degrees of magic but most strongly telepathy and telekinetics. I stayed for a while and helped teach a few strongly gifted children learn to control and use their gifts, but resisted getting involved there too long and left.

  I crossed into Europe and entered into the political cesspit of 14th Century Europe. I will avoid mentioning countries or the political systems involved but I was sickened by the waste of human lives. All across Europe was the same. The inner cities had huge slums filled with mostly women and children wasting the potential of each life in a desperate struggle for survival.

  The Ruling Elite was shaping a narrow minded, back stabbing corrupt religious and political system that sickened me but every where I looked there was people dying so I started the underground welfare movement that still exists today and called it the Sisterhood.

  CHA

  PTER SEVEN

  the sisterhOOD

  The Sisterhood started in Russia, in the lovely city of St Petersburg. I found the suffering and death of the poor children in the slums distressing so I first created a refuge for food and healing. This helped me understand the reasons for the large gaps between the poor and the rich, the rich needed the poor to fight in their many wars and the slums were their natural recruiting ground, if you want out of the situation you were born into then ‘join the army and see the world’ this to is very true today.

  I helped heal, feed and educate a whole generation of children from the poorest of backgrounds and the people that came from here spread to nearby towns and cities by marrying into more middle class families and passing on what they know and raising their children to do the same.

  It was the women that I taught simple magic to, to blend in, to read thoughts, to heal and to move small things with their minds. This group was even more secret than the Sisterhood and they were called the Watchers and they learnt magic. Mostly simple things that helped them rise above the stations that they were born into.

  Many learnt fine skills that they could marry into the wealthiest of families where they became a source of money and information for the Sisterhood.

  The Ruling Elite were soon fully penetrated and many atrocities were prevented. They were found to be at the core a demon race of lizards that could access the fourth dimension and shape change I mentioned them before. They fed off the negative emotions of all others and bred cross breeds with the humans, they also created much of the banking and monetary systems that are around the world today causing chaos and misery for all.

  The Sisterhood improved the lives of countless women and opened many places of refuge and hospitals right across Europe. We also started an information network that eventually spread across the World.

  I got Shambala and Lisele involved as she could teleport and they taught the Watchers larger magicks to those that had the gift. Most humans have it somewhere in their heritage more these days with Demons adding the extra chromosome to the human mix, there are very few ‘pure’ humans nowadays.

  When wars broke out we provided safe passage for women and children out of the area and set up hospitals facilit
ies for the wounded.

  It felt good to help these people and I worked my way across Europe setting it up. I was doing something positive and it took management and concentration to get it all set up. This took about three hundred years or so.

  I stopped for a while in gay Paris; it was full of life and parties for those that could afford it. There were large poverty stricken slum areas surrounding the city so that there was plenty of work for me, but I took time to relax and party for a while.

  I established a human identity as a wealthy heiress, the Lady Lillith of Royan, and since I was rich and single I was invited to party with the aristocracy of the time.

  The parties were full of laughter and wit, negotiations of trade and information were carried out in every room, people were bought and sold, and souls were mortgaged and lost. Sex and gambling amidst poetry and plays, some of these parties went on for days. Demons were also available in the background adding exotic drugs and magic into the mix.

  It was at one of these parties that I was wearing a beautiful green silk dress with white lace when I looked across the hall filled with dancing humans into Lucian’s rich blue eyes.

  I went cold and then felt very warm, I didn’t feel fear of him and after all this time even the deep hatred I felt for him had gone. I was still pissed though, and I defiantly did not want him to hurt me again and felt very wary of him as he moved through the dancers in my direction.

  He stood in front of me and bowed in a human courtier fashion and asked in perfect French if I would dance with him, he held out his hand with the palm up.

  Instinct said to back off and run, and there was along rude pause as I looked at him but it was curiosity that led me to take his hand and allowed him to sweep me on to the dance floor and lead me in a waltz with style and grace. He had been practicing and now was an excellent dancer. His hand stayed very lightly on my waist and I rested one hand on his shoulder and the other was held by him loosely in his other hand almost as if he was worried about crowding me and sending me into flight.