“Come and see: There is a female, a spirit of all spirits, and her name is Lilith, and she was at first with Adam. And in the hour when Adam was created and his body became completed, a thousand spirits from the left [evil] side clung to that body until the Holy One, blessed be He, shouted at them and drove them away. And Adam was lying, a body without a spirit, and his appearance was green, and all those spirits surrounded him. In that hour a cloud descended and pushed away all those spirits. And when Adam stood up, his female was attached to his side. And that Holy Spirit which was in him spread out to this side and that side, and grew here and there, and thus became complete. Thereafter the Holy One, blessed be He, sawed Adam into two, and made the female. And He brought her to Adam in her perfection like a bride to the canopy. When Lilith saw this, she fled. And she is in the cities of the sea, and she is still trying to harm the sons of the world.” — Zohar 3:19 in the Kabala 

     Delphi was such an unashamed travellers’ rip-off I camped in the hills instead. Local shepherds brought me regular food after I killed a few of their fatter sheep in front of them with well-chosen powerful words. Additionally it cleared out most of the other off season pilgrims except for the most absolutely fanatical once word got round. 

     Just lately back from the East I was starting a careful journey around the Aegean and Mediterranean and eventually back to Samaria. So it seemed a natural thing with my newfound powers and knowledge to seek an audience with the personal Earthly representative of the Great Goddess. I had many questions left over from my time abroad and was very impatient. 

     Revelations that I felt had been denied me by the Essenes and Persian Magi and Schamballah. Knew I had a destiny and that they knew also and would not tell me. Tight-lipped enigmatism and speaking in riddles style of theirs maddened me. 

     No real answers from the gods themselves either. So I hoped the Goddess would be more generously forthcoming. Here in Her primary domain where Her voice was clearest and rooted in a long association with Apollo. 

     Sacred since time out of memory was the oracular seat in this place. Although it was decaying slowly now. Delphi had a mysterious history stretching back to a primordial past older than human habitation of Greece itself. 

     Tradition however has long since proved insufficient to keep the supply of visionaries fresh. Oracles have been known to come from as far as the barbarian hinterlands of Hibernia and Caledonia. Even more fabled lands of ice that lay beyond. The Great Goddess casts Her net very widely and trawls a lot of surprising specimens. 

     Also contrary to popular belief was that the Sibyl was always a wise old woman. They looked it by the end. But in fact few lived beyond thirty. 

     Frequent possession by and and induced transmission of the voice of the Goddess was a powerful trauma. Very ruinous to body and spirit. Almost none of them lasted a decade. 

     Oracle of the present was a Teuton of all things. Daughter to some mad Germanic witch woman. She had said at the time the Great Frida told her in a dream to offer her only child to the Mother Goddess at the altar of Delphi itself. 

     Being a barbarian she had naturally assumed this meant a blood sacrifice. When they finally arrived after repeatedly getting lost and mistaken for runaway slaves on the way she had to be physically restrained from putting the little golden haired waif to death. Catastrophically defiling the temple of Apollo, apart from anything else. 

     Tiny creature however almost immediately became possessed by a powerful aspect of the Goddess hanging around. Immediately commanded peace in Her voice. So the priests had to acknowledge the authenticity of the madwoman’s vocal claim. 

     Child was duly given into the care of the incumbent Oracle and her servants. Eventually the girl graduated from her winsome innocence to the full babbling lunacy that I now behold. Kneeling rather uncomfortably in the reeking caverns of prophecy that are the unchallenged and sacrosanct domain of the Oracle herself. 

     What a dismal place. Smoky and mysterious with opiate vapours and the smell of the earth’s roots. Flinty walls entirely scrawled to the high ceiling with the mysterious signs of a thousand lost human and perhaps inhuman languages. 

     Murals and pictograms too, baleful broken pictures and fearful glimpses out of forbidden time. Mighty empires perhaps long past and perhaps long to come. Fitting and forbidding reminders of a sacred wisdom elder than the known universe itself. 

ORACLE: “A man should not have the eyes of a conniving cat Simon Antonius, Magus of Kerioth. You come to me with both pure and impure motives so interweaved with your deviousness that I cannot disentangle them.” 

     I am more shocked she intones the place I least wish to be bound than merely knowing my name. I was prepared for that since it is an easy gift of the Goddess. Associating Kerioth with me as a title though is a thing of the future. I do not like this clear hint of predestination. 

     Or perhaps she speaks of the past. Reminding me of the unwise magical meddlings which led to the Judas debacle. Something I know I still cannot undo with all I have learnt. 

     Both intertwined with each other, maybe. Mysteries of time and fate beyond my understanding. With the Oracle it is impossible to be certain. 

SIMON MAGUS ISCARIOT: “The Great Goddess gave me the eyes of Her most favoured familiar animal, O Sacred Voice. From my very birth to mark me out. That I might see through the darkness like a habitant of the darkness.” 

     That raises a disconcerting squawk of a laugh. Accompanied by a wild shaking of the matted golden mane. Oracle regards me from a deeper darkness. 

     Separated from me she sits across a still, and reputedly bottomless pool. Blackly reflective water without a trace of motion. Elongated bladelike reflections of sharply bright lamp and brazier flames stretch towards me over it like hungrily waiting glowing knives. 

O: “Poor apprentice wizard. How much you have learnt to remain so wilfully blind and ignorant still. Did the Egyptians and Persians and wicked old men of Schamballah and all those others teach you so little respect for the unseen? Did gentle Triskelion not teach you fear of the void? Rightfully forbidden places into which you look so eagerly, incautious of what watches within? And now you risk your immortal soul itself and all its interpolations with Her displeasure careless of the wrath waiting to fall upon you.” 

SMI: “I would risk any displeasure. Face any consequence that I might become Her champion to preserve Her sacred hegemony.” 

O: “Have a care, cat’s-cat’s eyes. You would take on the mantle of protector uninvited? Blasphemy it is even to suggest She is threatened.” 

SMI: “The blasphemy is what I have heard and sensed among the invisible kingdoms. A threat does exist to the Great Goddess whom we both serve. Something new and of great power is at hand. It grows and will tangibly threaten Her in this world. I am told by the invisible voices this threat is of ancient prophecy. One that vies with the power of prophecy in this holiest of holy places. The Goddess has enemies growing in strength. For the love of Her I would devastate their designs and overthrow what they seek to build over Her overthrown temples. Her divine voice alone must command the hearts of humanity for all time and times to come.” 

     Feel myself intensely watched in the portentous endless-seeming silence that follows. Cannot see the Oracle’s eyes. They are hidden the greasy fleece of still-yellow curls here and there glinting with a bright silver thread showing premature old age. 

     Reputedly her eyes are like cold emeralds. Not the merest ripple disturbs the ebon surface of the pool between us. But it seems to me something distantly moves in it I cannot clearly see. 

O: “Fine and fancy words they teach at Alexandria. Well you dissemble, Simon. But the Goddess knows and tastes the poison in your honey.” 

SMI: “She chose me, Sacred Voice. I am consecrated to Her by way of a vision. From my earliest years I have dedicated myself to Her cause.” 

O: “Yet you spurn Her in your dalliances with the dark powers. All those vain little gods. Think you that you could serve the Mother Of All Things when you betrayed your own mother? Consigned her spirit to the fires of the underworld for worldly wealth? And will do more and worse than this? I am the Eye That Sees. I am the Mirror Of Time. Initiated into the secrets of eternity. The sins of tomorrow and yesterday are one to my vision which is Her glance. You profane this wondrous place for the web of infamy you draw along inside with you.” 

     She is rising angrily, dismissing me. But I must have what I came for. 

SMI: “Sacred Voice, hear me. I have seen Delphi a ruin. Broken and empty and left abandoned to the grass and rain. Her altars pitted and smashed by centuries of neglect. Sacrifices disappeared. All the fearful pilgrims and penitents gone. The male principality and its patriarchal adherents now rise against She Who Goes By Many Names. They invoke a powerful god who seeks to conquer and swallow all other gods. Its priests will raise a new edifice in the world and go forth to conquer the world in this god’s name. This will entomb Her incomparable grace and wisdom. They mean to take Her out of our world and lives even as a memory. I will set myself against them and destroy that which seeks to harm Her. But I can do so only with Her blessing. I must act as Her champion with Her words and power to guide me! ” 

     Oracle screams at that. Tears her voluminous hair. Wailing and ululating with an almost inhuman grief that seems to rip the very fabric of the darkness itself open. 

     Carried along with the soul stricken power of it. Startle myself with a howl of dismay that joins her own. We shriek until the caverns of prophecy pulsate evilly with hysterical sibilance. 

     Even as we pause and gutturally trail off in vague unison I know satisfaction that my vision in the wilderness was true. For the Oracle herself has seen it also. With her response she cannot deny it to me in riddles now. 

     A thing of the future that inspires its followers with a new vision of the future. This new impetus would seek to silence the Oracles. Banish the fearsome power of the past. Drive the Great Goddess and Her canon from the life of the world and the learning of civilization. 

     A new thinking. New religion based on it that would flower and grow until it swallowed even the invincible empire of Rome. Found a new age with no place for the old ways. 

     Extinguishing the ancient terrors. Discrediting the elder superstitions which humanity had lived with and respected since the days of scattered starving tribes. Those distant times when first we came to know and love and go in rightful terror of Her. 

SMI: “I have heard that you know the many faces of the Goddess. One of Her most approachable aspects is she who was the first wife of Adam, known to the Hebrew Scriptures as Lilith. The Imperiatrix Abyssa, Queen of the Underworld.” 

     Suddenness of the Oracle’s cynical smile after her wretchedness is disconcerting. 

O: “Many call her Queen Of The Damned. I know and honour Lilith. But only such a man as you would seek to call upon Her through me.” 

     Few rabbis or priests of any religion here or in the East will speak of Lilith. Her legend is too potent and too much a threat to male patriarchal power. Lilith was in fact the first woman. 

     First of all women; not made from a rib of Adam but from identical clay as Adam’s equal. Made at the very same time by God Himself. Lilith from the first refused to take second part to the First Man, infused as she was with the spirit of the Goddess as well. 

     They really don’t like to talk about her because of that part. 

O: “What you ask is an impiety. Truly a blasphemy despite your protestations of loyalty. What sacrifice might you possibly offer?” 

SMI: “The blood of he, whoever he or they might be, who dares to minister against Her rightful power. I will deliver those plotters to betrayal and destruction.” 

     At that she laughs almost diabolically again and almost shakes the chamber down with it but I hear Her approval behind the cackling. 

     Maybe. 

O: “Think you make a carefully earnest promise to some sad and lonely and abandoned faded beauty you can easily forget when you choose? Many extra years lie behind that sweet young face of yours. And they hide nothing of your petty male arrogance and blindness. The Great Goddess is all aspects of Woman. She is every laughing girl child. Every passionate maid. Each knowing mother. All wise crones bent and withered by the bitter experience of disappointment and age. She is every generation of all generations in one. This is all Her. But only the beginning of Her. None may look upon Her full power. Had you chosen any other aspect the request would rightfully and properly be refused. Yet it seems to me you choose among Her guises perhaps more wisely than you know. Lilith alone is poised between the worlds of the living and the dead. Between earth and sky. She has unique influence and relation with powerful sentient forces in each of them in just the way you require. Through her you might presume to call upon the knowledge and abilities you will need. If you truly intend to become Her champion against this threat.” 

     Everything; everything I seek. Don’t spoil it, Simon. 

SMI: “Sacred Voice, I am strong. I see far with the gift of inner vision which has been hard won. With this I have paid a heavy price for it as you have despite my appearance. As you so rightly say I am much older than I seem to be. A gift that was given to me by the secretive Magi who also revere you and the Great Goddess. It is only Her cause that I seek to serve and advance. When I return to my homeland I will soon be rich. I will set watchful eyes looking everywhere for the advent of this new threat to Her great dominion. Nor will I will rest simply upon this. Wherever its adherents and disciples appear I will know and follow them. Frustrating and obstructing their designs will be my main activity. In time I shall discover the root of their new power too. Uncover the origins of that vision of the future guiding them. Whereupon I will devise a way to poison and ruin it. Implementing this plan will be my defence of the Great Goddess for which I appeal to you. I will study and then purloin that power’s vitality and essence from its strongest adherents. Destroy them and the threat that troubles Her and those hierarchies over which She rules.” 

     Again that sardonic laughter. Softer and more knowingly insinuating than before. 

O: “Promises, promises; silver-tongued Simon. Lilith will speak to you. But She alone will choose the manner and vessel and incarnation of the sacrifice She demands. Mark this well in all your dealings and be alert to the signs She will give you.” 

     Now the black bottomless pool’s surface is alive with weaving images. 

O: “You will know soon why She is called Queen Of The Damned.” 

     And now at last it is the unobscured visage of the Medusa I see. Not the popular crude caricature of a writhing coif of serpents framing the predatory face of a jaded harridan. That is but the merest part of the true image. 

     Now I see the whole aspect of the immortal hero-slaughtering Gorgon. Petrifying in a literal sense, as revealed to the initiated and the ancients alone. It was not flesh but spirits the Gorgons turned to stone and kept as calcified trophies. 

     Bright glacid gaze of the original Mother Of Gorgons drills at me through a terrifying chaos of waxing and waning minor spirits. Difficult to see silhouette is attended by a vast aura and enveloping gown emanating from Her. Out of it latent forms too fabulous and fast-changing to describe emerge and uncertainly vanish into the aether. 

     Others seem to approach and be absorbed. Appearing momentarily again as wondrous metamorphoses within the phantasmagoric tumult. Still others detach partially and undergo astonishing transmutations. 

     Then, as though too timid, they return to the etheric imbroglio. All of them female. Beauty and ugliness in utterly indescribable extremes and all are Woman. 

     Lilith looks at me. 

     Lilith looks into me. 

     Goddess. 

     Lilith vanishes in all Her fearsome glory. Gloomy cave looms around me again. All but the merest lineaments are sunken in darkness. 

     Lamps have burnt down during my audience with Lilith. Now only one remains. Casting but a single dull filament of illumination over the very still psychomantium pool. 

     Oracle is nearly invisible. Doubtful shadow upon shadows lurking behind the lamp. Huddled and silent and somehow defeated looking. 

O: “She reveals Herself to few in any guise. Mostly I give pilgrims but riddles. Yet just now I saw you through Her wise eyes as I seldom have for any supplicant. She truly gazed and smiled upon you, Simon. While grieving at your treacherous heart nevertheless.” 

     She stirs slightly, brief silvery glintings that catch and draw my eye. 

SMI: “What is the Oracle privileged to see?” 

     Lamp is burning low now. A slight rustle. See the Oracle has pushed her untidy mane back to reveal a once-pretty face excoriated with too much knowledge. 

     Too deep a gazing into the Abyss. Gift of prophecy and vision outside Time has left her with an ennui not even death can touch. It will follow her soul long after it has gone from this incarnation and haunt her still perhaps in lives to come. 

     Eyes of emerald I was expecting to see are milky cataracts. But she does not move or turn her head timidly and uncertainly like a blind woman. She gazes full on and knowingly at me with an unfathomable expression worthy of Lilith Herself. 

O: “I have seen what you have seen and more, Simon Antonius who will be the infamous companion of wicked emperors. Eventually a consorter with the Prince of the Fallen himself. I have beheld the Goddess in Her full divine infinity. Glimpsed that which no mortal may do and live long. I’ve paid for that as you see with my physical sight. But I have a kind of seeing now which is much greater and more terrible. It tells me more than your vision among those devils whose company you prize so much. You saw truly but only a small portion of that truth which I must now acknowledge. Already the dwellings of the Oracles are dying. Delphi is becoming penurious. It is rapidly forgetting its service of the Goddess. In the end it will go to beggary. Finish without the dignity in which it has lived for so long. Seeds of decay and decadence that you have inferred are visible even now. Rome, the power of this age, does now largely without our guidance. For all its temporal might it is hollow at its core. Rome is fatally enmeshed even now with its own curse of the gods from their betrayal at Carthage which cannot be forgiven. It will have to face the same power that is about to come into the world and the hearts of humanity as the likes of us. Separately we will not be able to resist it. It will grow through the centuries and triumph. We have seen nations and empires and whole civilizations rise and fall from our aeries but we will not finally outlast Rome. Our day is soon done, whatever the power of the Great Goddess or those willing to act in Her name. In only a few short centuries more we will be gone and only a doubtful memory. Her divine light will mostly be gone with us.” 

     No. 

SMI: “No. I have sworn to Her I will not let it happen. You have heard me say this Oracle, and I will not break that resolve while there is breath and power in me.” 

O: “Men are always so resolute and sincere when making a promise to a woman, any woman they want. Even a goddess. But know this Simon the Magus, that the Great Goddess will sacrifice even Herself to punish you when you betray Her.” 

     And the lamp goes out. followed by a silence even more profound even than the darkness. This time it is the Goddess Herself who dismisses me. 

     I hasten from that unfriendly pit of undimensioned blackness into the welcome starry dome of night. A rich unclouded sky is overhanging the temples and environs of Delphi. It should look comforting and permanent but now it seems like a corpse to me. 

     Pale and bloodless and cold. Just before the onset of final dissolution and decomposition. I can almost hear the flies buzzing over the dead meat. 

     As the Oracle foretold. Spirit of Delphi is not yet gone but it is sick. This place is dying even if it will take centuries more for the death. 

     Over the silent scene the Moon hangs. Eye of the Goddess. Even Her light shines on the proud shrines and sanctuaries as though on bleached bones lying in a desert. 

     Bleak grief rises in me. Quickly make my way back to the hills to collect my few things and get myself on my travels again. Before dawn I am away, headed for a port and a ship to take me far from the place of prophecy. 

     Yet the vision of Lilith, of the gaze of the Gorgon and Her many incarnations stay with me night and day. 

     Those final enigmatic words of the Oracle. Clear pronouncement of the future in themselves. Words that torment me with elusive and endless multiplying implications. 

     During my brief communion with Her I even saw that the Goddess had not only many faces and aspects in the universe of spirits but incarnated in flesh too. She walks the world of the gods in many forms. Lives many female lives simultaneously in the mortal material world also. Has done since the beginning of time. 

     Perhaps I will know Her when I see Her. The ship I travel on now is bound for the wealthy port city of Tyre. It is famed for the imperial purple dye of a shellfish native only to that place. An almost entirely autonomous city-state attached nominally to Judea. Exceedingly rare autonomy in these times of increasingly tight imperial political control. 

     Equally unusually it is a city whose allegiance is to the Eastern goddess Astarte. Another goddess who is actually a powerful aspect of the Great Goddess. Long established over Tyre with her cult of fertility and matriarchy. 

     And so I’m told, its ruler is always in need of capable and devious men. Those capable of advancing his ambitious designs. They say he pays well too. 

     I hear the priestesses of Tyre are interesting.

[Edward St. Boniface is Canadian by origin, permanently resident in London UK and writes across various genres from contemporary to fantasy and science fiction. He holds a degree in Screenwriting from the London College of Communications, University of the Arts in London, 2008, and is interested in offbeat scenarios, characters and the outright deranged. Ed always looks for an interesting angle or approach for a story, writes to and believes in the principle of Fun Fiction with meaning underlying. Whatever ideas or plotline he is concocting, it is towards being engrossing and entertaining.]