[sample; available in full]                              Copyright © 1993 Richard R. Kennedy 

Prologue

Long ago was unrecorded distant land by the sea. Its southern terrain was mostly rolling hills and dales while a smaller section to the north was mountainous. The tallest mountain loomed high above a cliff along the shore. On the other side it faced a vast valley rich with vegetation. At the base of this mountain, the top of which was partially blown off before the dawn of man, there had been built a millennium ago an enormous castle. Behind this fortress — even long before — slanting off and up was a long, twisting narrow passage with steps ascending and then descending into a wide cavern.

 There under poised stalactites high above dozed an ancient, wizened man in a gold and white robe sitting at the edge of a pit raging with fiery lava. On the opposite side, imbedded into the cavern wall was a fossilized tree. Strangely, an offshoot protruded from where its roots once was. An ionic jade-like glow shot up from the lava and shaped a figure of a beautiful dark-haired woman clad in a red and gold linen tunica, laced with a gold belt. She wore a headband of gold with ruby inlay.

The old man stirred, then popped his eyes in disbelief and fright. He raised himself up, then fell to his knees in prayer as the glowing figure ascended rapidly up into the cavern heights and streamed through the volcanic aperture into the night air above the land of Lodeston. 

The same evening far to the south in the flat lands of Quandron a sultry raven haired young woman danced impassionedly but gracefully in the lambent light of a gypsy campfire circled by wagons and—to the vexation of the women present—the men clapped and ogled, some of whom could not control reaching out for her to touch and pinch her flimsily attired, tawny body. She would look askant, smile coquettishly and nimbly swirl off and glide toward the center near the fire. In exhaustion she finally—to the relief of the women—glided over to a young man and fell into his arms.

He carried her off to his hoop cart, covered carelessly with motley cloth, where they engaged in passionate foreplay. As the young man raised himself to spread open her legs, the jade green glow of the north immersed into the girl's body. She sighed and wrapped her legs around the bronze haunches of her mate. 

A golden, diaphanous cloud centrifuged tiny, scowling cherubs above the cart, and then illuminated a gorgeous golden haired woman in an elegant white and gold robe. She extended her arm downward and the greenish yellow glow burned through the covering and restored the image of the dark-haired lady from the cave. The two images, enveloped in white light, rose up high into the black sky while the golden one with a smirk upon her face commented, “I see, Lilith, that you are up to your perverse sense of good as usual.” 

“Humph, usual!” the dark haired lady blurted, “I shouldn't think after a five thousand year respite, that I'm guilty of a repetitious act!...Besides, how dare you accuse me of mischief after what you did!” 

The golden one laughed to the stars and glanced at her cherubs. “Nevertheless, that is the way of the creation now and you must return to your fiery grave.”

A fire bolt launched from her finger and Lilith was jolted and flung, howling all across Quandron, and sucked into the boiling rock of Lodeston. The old man terminated his praying to the howling plunge of Lilith. Beside him stood the stern countenance of the golden haired beauty. He kneeled before her and bowed his head, nervously tugging on his long beard.

Her expression softened with a mild smile as she forewarned him, “Ethan, you must stay alert; the balance of creation hinges on your sounding the alarm when she gets restive. Without the boiling purification and her continuous confinement here, the freedom of the human race will be returned to its spineless origin. It was fortunate that I myself was in Quandron to tend to a precautionary measure—call it intuition.” 

“Ah, yea, Eve, always the cunning one!” 

“And aware,” she added, eying the shoot across the pit. “Keep the axe by your side.” 

Nine months later a baby girl was born. The gypsy woman, holding the child close in her arms, was in awe as she gazed upon the infant shrouded in the mysterious glow of jade.