Lillith

by Kate Gallwey

  The rest of the shore line of the island was made so that no ships could come close enough to land without the ship bottoms being ripped out. The ships in those days were all made of wood. The city itself was designed to make any invaders pay a heavy price for their audacity.

  We had learnt by our mistakes.

  The harbour walls were thirty meters high and had been vitrified, that is the outside stone was super heated with a laser crystal set on a wide beam turning the rock to a smooth black glass that was harder than diamond.

  This was first developed in what is now Scotland where we had huge settlements and forts up and down the coasts of Ireland and England. The walls of these forts were all super heated and traces can be found today if you know what you are looking for. It made them impervious to fire and as hard as diamond. The gates were fired as well; battering rams would need a lot of muscle to get into Atlantis.

  My presence in Atlantis was strong and they carved my face and form on the cliff face looking down over the harbour. The city behind the walls was graded upwards towards my White Tower at the top, each building higher than the one in front all with flat roofs and twisting turning streets that eventually led to the top, was all designed with an invading army in mind. My human friend Drew had designed it in his declining years to take out the maximum of invaders. His experience and intelligence made him a genius in my eyes; he was my wise true friend to the end. There were giant crystal sculptures and artworks decorating the defences and only those of the new Council of Twelve knew of the islands ultimate weapon, the volcano itself.

  We had worked magic with a huge quartz crystal on the volcano to keep it dormant but could set it off with another spell. Within hours the island would be spewing lava and disappear underwater taking all inhabitants and invaders with it.

  We took the Phoenix as our flag and mascot and rose from the ashes of the past, bigger and brighter than before. The flaming bird on a green flag flew on my trading ships around the world and we made our mark. Trading technologies and magical items, bringing back people to study at our schools and universities, it was a good exchange. Spells were placed on the ships captains that only when three crew members came together and said the right words could he or she remember the way to Atlantis.

  For spells were laid on the island itself that made it impossible to find without an invitation, ships that sailed close were just shunted past on the currents and the crew wouldn’t see or hear anything of land.

  We made every safe guard we could think of, knowing that one day it would not be enough and Lucian would find us.

  Ships became powered with crystal technologies and oars became a thing of the past for us. New technologies were being invented every day. I loved studying at the schools every ten years or so just trying to catch up with the new improvements or inventions.

  By the time one hundred years had passed we had surpassed the old Egyptian Mystery Schools. They had been left alone by Babylon since they had sworn fealty to Lucian, but had lost much of its magic and had gone into decline.

  Much of my old empire remained intact but nearly all my temples had all been ripped down and my name had been erased where possible or vilified where it was not by the invaders. I had a quiet presence in what is now call the British Isles and small hidden places in Europe. I was often surprised when I got a call from a new Priest to bless his or her new Temple. Times change and humans loose a lot due to their short lives, but a surprisingly amount of knowledge is passed down.

  Demons remember everything.

  Atlantis rose from the ashes of the old to form a new, much stronger empire that is still around today.

  I needed another home more secret then Atlantis and we found it after a decade of searching. Shambala was found in South America; all of it underground, it is still to this day a thriving network of underground cities. Shambala was the backbone of Atlantis and its name means Golden Hidden Place – all those tales of cites of gold in South America lead to Shambala.

  The best and the brightest came to Shambala and we filled those underground chambers with a light that shall never go out. We invented a spelled crystal that could shine as light or as dim as you need and go on forever or go off with a touch. With this technology we created colossal light shows of breathtaking beauty that still shines into the darkness to this day.

  Atlantis was our mother but Shambala was the daughter that surpasses her mother in every way. The beauty, joy and pleasure in life of the people there to this day make me proud; many there now have blood red hair and carry my bloodline.

  I shared my bed with many of the strongest and best that both cities had to offer. In the modern times many might find it shocking that I initiated virgins into the art of love making. Boys as young as fourteen had their first time in my huge bed. But they were considered men at that age and most found a bride or mate soon after. Monogamy is a natural state with older humans but it never works with the young or if enforced, this modern ‘death do us part’ stuff is just asking for trouble, just as is a celibate priesthood, these things never work in the long run.

  I didn’t sleep most nights and there was no television. Competitions and contests of strength, courage and wit and intelligence, where the winner shared my bed, and I was happy to oblige, with up to four or five young men a night.

  I have a special guard to this day, of one hundred men that call themselves my Pleasure Guard, though Tuvak wouldn’t approve if he knew. They have the task of protecting my body from harm, and pressing themselves as close as they can get to it is the way they go about it.

  They have to pass many rigorous and gruelling tests, including stamina to get into my guard, but they consider it to be a great honour. What is a girl to do with one hundred of the most beautiful men in the world who are dedicated to my body? We don’t play cards, anyway.

  I carried my need for revenge and found I had the strength within to do terrible things that my personal code of honour wrestled with deeply.

  To kill a child, of any race is the most dreadful of crimes. The wasted potential of that lost child is a loss to the light of the Universe, but I am a child of my Creators and found that steel within needed to kill the innocent.

  I captured fourteen Hellion warriors and held them in the lower level pens of Shambala. I bred poisonous snakes and tested them on the captured demons. Most of them died very slowly and in great pain, I did nothing to heal them only watched with ice in my heart.

  With trial and error, I created a snake whose venom kills Hellions with one bite. They could bite three times before their venom sacks are dry and it takes them half a day to replenish them.

  I bred twenty five thousand of them and placed them under a spell that they would sleep in their hibernation cycle until needed.

  I stole others of the demon kind found in the city of Babylon and bred other snakes to kill them as well.

  Do you still think that humans are the only ones capable of such atrocities? Chemical warfare, genetic cleansing, attacking civilians and collateral damage are modern terms for what has been going on for eons, my hands are very dirty.

  I sent spies into Babylon and paid informers to let me know what was going on. Lucian built the army over that two thousand year period to five hundred thousand strong. It was the largest army in the world and they were looking for me.

  Lucian had a large sum of gold offered to anyone who knew where I was and informed him. I liked to appear in crowed market places so that all present could claim the reward.

  I watched him and his followers through a large black mirror, sound could not be heard but I got very good at reading lips. His Demon Empire rose to its height then started to fall when there was no enemy strong enough left for him to fight. Then the infighting and petty politics kicked in and Babylon was weakened by it.

  Having an army of beings that didn’t die of old age gave him an advantage but never again would he catch me in a frontal assault where I didn’t stand a chance.

  One of the Hellions tha
t survived the experiments at Shambala was a priest of the world of Hell. His name was Syion and was bound by my magic but his will was strong, and he remained content and strong in his faith that all was done by the will of Horonaim the name of his world’s spirit.

  A world that had survived my Creators.

  I was curious and questioned him at length but he knew little of the history of his world or his people. We got to know one another during those years of his imprisonment and I learnt much that was good about his people, he requested his freedom.

  I stripped him of all magic power and made him swear to obey the law of Shambala. He was allowed to become part of the society, he even married and to my surprise had four sons and a daughter with his human wife. He proved to be a good and productive member of human society. I now was going to try to wipe his race off the face of this world.

  CHA

  PTER FOURTEEN

  atlantis rises

  Atlantis grew to be the jewel of the human world. Shrouded in secrecy, myth and legends, all that left were spelled not to remember where the island was located, only a handful of ships Captains knew how to find us. It made the myths grow stronger.

  Lucian was left chasing shadows.

  He knew we were at sea somewhere and so he started to build the biggest Navy ever seen on this world. He decimated the great forests for the timber of what today is Syria, turning much of the land into desert. By the time they were ready to sail he had five thousand mighty warships each could carry up to one hundred warriors who manned the oars, which if you do the maths he could put five hundred thousand men on the sea. They were big and slow but were deadly up close and each could deliver five hundred demon warriors on to the shores of Atlantis, if he could find us.

  My fleet was smaller and very fast and got out of the way of Lucian’s great lumbering ships; he rarely could win a the small encounters at sea.

  During this time he found an old Serpent Temple in North Africa where it had been hidden for centuries and tortured an old Priest until he was forced to call me. I arrived to find the old man bleeding to death and his daughter and two granddaughters being raped, one of them was only about eight years old. All other humans else lay hacked to pieces about the temple.

  I blazed killing magic throughout the old temple and killed the four warriors with a blast of Power; they were shredded into little bloody bits, leaving their rape victims untouched. The old Priest was sobbing as he died; that he had failed me and his duty. I smiled at him with love and told him to be at peace, all was how it was meant to be and his family will be safe. I gave him my word. He died in my arms, with a slight smile.

  I healed his family with a touch and transported them to Atlantis; I then stepped out into the sunlight outside the temple and lightly touched the stone doorway.

  There stood Lucian and about fifty of his warriors, swords and bows drawn and spears ready to be thrown at me. I hadn’t seen Lucian since the battlefield of Ishtar where he raped me in front of my people.

  I found in that moment I hated him with a cold vengeance.

  “What do you want?” I asked coldly.

  “You are my wife. You will come to Babylon and serve me as such.” He stated with the same certainty as he might have said that the sun will rise in the morning.

  “When was the wedding? I must have missed it.”

  “You will come to Babylon and we will have one that the world will never forget. I will crown you Queen of the World, and you will always have protection from those who would do you harm.”

  He was genuinely trying to tempt me.

  On a battlefield he is a genius and beings willingly follow him and lay their lives down because he asks, and yet my wants and needs are the biggest mystery to him and he has no idea how I think, it’s quite funny really.

  He is making progress in this area.

  “I thank you for your kind offer, but the only person that I need protection from is you. I am already an Empress and find that that takes too much of my time. Titles are such a burden, don’t you think?” Knowing that he took such pleasure in them. I hope I radiated cool contempt.

  He blinked a few times, and retreated into the threat.

  “I will take all the titles that you have and grind them into the dust if you do not come with me now.”

  I sighed; the conversation was turning into a pissing contest.

  “You will not touch my people again, if you engage in an attack on my people in anyway, Babylon will crumble into the dust. This I promise.”

  I moved forward, though not close enough for him to reach for me, and looked him the eyes “You come at me ever again; you and your people will pay dearly.”

  I was serious, but he didn’t believe me then, he would now.

  I had released the ‘to dust’ spell and a wind spell before I moved so close to Lucian and suddenly the dust blew up and the horses started to rear and pull away. The temple behind me shimmered and then collapsed into a pile of dust and I was gone.

  It was no bluff.

  Lisele was born in Atlantis not long after my last run in with Lucian. She is the same height as me and has the same colour hair, of bright and dark reds of which was rare among humans in those days, her eyes are a bright green. Her parents were high ranking members of the community and she was intelligent and educated to the highest Atlantis standards. But like most human she reached an age that grew restless wanted adventure and to travel the world, so her parents sent her to what is now Ireland where we had many secret strongholds of my people.

  Her ship never got there.

  She told me her story after I found her in Babylon.

  Lisele was washed up, with the remains of her ship and four other crew members on the shores of what is today Southern Spain and was picked up by a Hellion patrol who thought she was me.

  They called Lucian who took one look at her and carried her off to his bedroom at Babylon, leaving her surviving crew members to be tortured and raped to death on the beach by the Demon patrol.

  She was deposited in the royal bedchambers at Babylon and fed and watered occasionally. Lucian took her none to gently the first few times and she made a comment, which surprised him. She is quite fearless. She began to nudge him a bit and make a suggestion or two about technique and what a female actually likes in bed.

  I don’t think any female had actually done this before, or engaged in conversation, they were too afraid of him. He eventually began to take instruction and a conversation began.

  Lisele had the location of Atlantis removed from her when she left. But she didn’t see the harm of telling him about her childhood. I think that she was the first human he got to know and he liked her, for he came back each night for more for many months. When his advisers needed to know the location of Atlantis he thought of her.

  He did ask that she be returned to him unharmed. But they have little respect for humans and no respect for females. They went into her mind like a bull in a china shop, shattering many memories and burning through big chunks of the personality and barriers of spells. Eventually her mind gave up the information of the location of Atlantis. She couldn’t have done it consciously because she had a will of iron. It was because she wouldn’t break or bend to them that the spell of remembrance was shattered, leaving her insane, her mind in tatters, and the path to Atlantis revealed.

  She was left mindless on the streets of Babylon, forgotten by everyone when she got fed upon by a vampyre, still with her strong will for life, refused to die and she was converted into a soulless vampyre rather than die.

  Not long after I found her and brought her back home to Shambala. Lucian now could find Atlantis and his Great Fleet of five thousand warships were launched at Atlantis.

  CHA

  PTER FIFTEEN

  the Dust Of BaBylOn

  Half a million demon warriors set sail towards Atlantis. Under the command of Lucian, Demon Lord of the Earth.

  I had to try, for the sake of the lives that would be lost, to talk to h
im. I wasn’t going to bother pleading for mercy again but I owed myself the excuse that I had done everything possible to prevent this.

  So I found in my dark mirror his Flagship and ‘ported to the bow while he was on deck. I was balanced very precariously on the rail, and had to brace myself because of the wind; I was not going to come within Lucian’s sword length and I needed to work a spell.

  By his side was the tall silver eyed Hellion that had knocked me to the floor in Babylon, he had grown up now, and now had many more muscles on his tall body.

  “Is it possible that you can just turn around and go home without further bloodshed?” I asked as nicely as I could but with an edge to my tone.

  He looked at me fiercely and with a naked kind of hunger, drinking me with his eyes, which I found uncomfortable. Obsession is not very nice.

  “You will be mine and I will spare your humans.” He ground out between clenched teeth.

  “We tried that, but you couldn’t keep your word.” I replied.

  He glared at me and replied, “I will grind your cities into dust, my ships will rule the seas and I will crush your humans and your spirit, you will come to me broken, on your knees and begging.”

  “There really is no negotiation or compromise to this, is there?” I asked.

  “No.” He stated and moved closer as I laid my hand on the wood of the ship. He was too late and I laughed as I leaped into the air and vanished, the spell had been released at my touch and the wood began to crumble to dust. I watched from my mirror as they all had to leap into the sea as everything wooden disintegrated beneath them, it was quite satisfying, watching him get all wet.

  He lost his Flagship that day.

  The spell used was a variation on an old age spell and my Life Essence draining ability, combined it turns stone and wood to dust and could do the same to flesh but that would be very messy. I called the spell ‘To Dust’.