Book III: Eden
Chapter 3: The Amulet of Zyphor
In reality I did a bit more to Lilith that just send her off some some miscellaneous abyss where my master might find her without my knowing. Obviously the situation was a bit delicate and required that I think fast. Thankfully I’ve always been good at that.
I needed to get rid of Lilith and also ensure that she couldn’t be discovered/released/cause trouble again without my knowing it first. Since I’d guessed the Mylars were behind her sudden appearance in the first place, I decided to get back at them a bit too. Since those little imps were so keen on sheltering themselves away from the rest of the world I turned the tables on them by doing something I had on my to-do list for a long time – I made their original ice wall impenetrable – from either side – by creating a magical seal on their barrier. Just before locking the Lemurians in, so to speak, I transported Lilith to them too – dropping her right back in the middle of the Crystal Towers of Lemuria. To accomplish all this I had to se one of my secret ‘artifacts’ – in this case the Amulet of Zyphor.
Truth be told I hated to use one of my magic tokens for such an oddball job – especially with Lucifer around, who (I hoped) didn’t know anything about my hidden treasures – but I was in a bit of a lurch. Picture it: there I was on the verge of FINALLY getting a pair of humans to breed – something I’d been waiting countless centuries for – and all of a sudden Lilith threatens to bring all my work crashing down – again.
I’ll admit. I panicked. And Lucifer or El or whatever the hell he wants to be called certainly didn’t help matters (or offer any help!). I was in crisis mode. And I was angry. Basically I grabbed the first thing I thought would help me get rid of Lilith for good (or at least until I was ready to have her back on MY terms) – that something was the Amulet of Zyphor.
A relic from a bygone era – dating back PRIOR to The Firmament – in a time when we gods waged war in the heavens, the Amulet was one of those weapons that not only survived those battles but also got locked within the Dome that Archangel Michael created when he cast Zebub, Lucifer, and the rest of us fallen angels out of Illyria. Whilst Zebub, his son, and most of my lumenarc friends were panicking, I recognized numerous ‘opportunities’ that materials from all that chaos – to include scooping up the Amulet and a few other precious artifacts I knew were worth hanging on to (read: hiding in my secret lairs).
Although the amulet was without form and substance (at least in the way you think of those terms) during our time between the planes whilst the heavenly battles were being fought, when we rebels were locked inside the dome, then it was that the amulet took on a shape from the matter and energy around us in that cosmic soup. I guess I should probably admit that this didn’t happen by itself, and I should probably also admit that I wasn’t actually the first lumenarc to discover the amulet. To clarify, it was my angelic brother Zyphor who should be credited on both accounts.
A ‘lesser’ lumenarc (at least in my opinion), Zyphor was one of our ‘worker’ angels who we used to do jobs that required magic for binding and sealing things – mostly ethereal weapons and such that we used for in our battles. It seems that, like me, during the chaos of Michael locking us inside the Firmament, Zyphor must have kept his head and discovered the amulet. It was Zyphor who gave the amulet its form in The Middle Plane – turning it into an intricately designed medallion made of a mysterious dark multi-metal that shimmered with an echo of a blue light. He’d always loved little ‘projects’ like that.
I didn’t know about any of this at the time and it really wasn’t until after Zebub, Lucifer, and I had started creating the plane-t Terra that I even remembered the amulet. Then it was that Zyphor tried to step up and offer his help – he asked if I would take him to Zebub and Lucifer so he could offer them the amulet’s assistance. Since there were already too many cooks in the cosmic soup I wasn’t about to let Zyphor join us and steal any of my glory, but when he showed me his little trinket I immediately recognized it for what it was. As a result, I quietly took Zyphor aside and got rid of him – oh don’t worry, I didn’t destroy him – I couldn’t risk Zebub noticing the loss of Zyphor’s essence – so instead I trapped Zyphor’s aura within a gem that was floating around in the soup that was becoming Terra – in this case a sapphire.
With Zyphor’s essence in the gem, combined with the amulet’s already strong powers, I knew I had a valuable artifact. So I casually hid it away in a little blob of matter that was itself swept off to the side of all the chaos in a location jokingly referred to as “Azazel’s playpen” by Lucifer and Zebub whilst we three were creating Terra.
As for the power of the Amulet – it had numerous abilities – but one of them, the one that matters for our purposes today, is its ability to manipulate matter. Here I used the amulet in two ways. First I created a planet ringing seal that locked Lemuria away from the rest of the world. That job was surprisingly easy – turns out Zyphor was good for something, eh?
[Interestingly side note – and perhaps another reason why the amulet came to mind at the time – when we gods finished Terra, the blob of matter wherein I’d hidden the amulet way back when eventually became part of the land mass that would later be named ‘Lemuria’ and in fact was directly beneath the location where the Crystal Towers of Lemuria would later be built by the Mylars. Clearly that was far from a coincidence, however I didn’t have time to think through all the consequences – instead choosing to see all the events working out for my benefit].
As for job two – locking up Lilith, whilst Adam and Eve were frozen, and Lucifer distracted, in the wink of an eye I took Lilith to the Crystal Towers of Lemuria.
On the way I cast her mind under an ‘assumption of truce’ spell – if only to keep her quiet during the journey – hey a split second to you can seem like an eternity to me sometimes. We instantly arrived at the amulet’s home – a secret cavern far beneath the crystalline beauty of Lemuria’s towers. I knew that the magical properties of mylar’s temples would enhance the amulet’s power even more, so I activated the amulet again – adding an ancient incantation and pricking Lilith for a bit of her blood to start a spirit fire with. Too late did Lilith realize that I wasn’t there to offer her any truce. Too late did she struggle to escape (not that I would have let her go anyway).
As the shadows rose up around her, the air crackled with energy, and the sapphire in the amulet glowed bright – then it was that a shimmering barrier began to form around Lilith – sealing her within a new barrier of ice – her new prison where she’d be forever kept alive but forever unable to move.
I allowed her but one solace – her screams would also forever be heard in the whispers of the wind that sometimes made their way through the Towers – echoes from the mother of the Children of Mu – the cries of their Goddess. Yet there was no one who could ever answer her.
I know, I know. You’re thinking I put too much stock into the amulet remaining hidden and that I didn’t give Lilith or the Mylars enough credit. After all, I basically locked my prisoner in a cell that had the key to her escape nearby. To that I say – guilty as charged. But I banked on this – that only a deity could activate the amulet. Thus, even if Lilith could reach it or even if her children eventually discovered her prison, my belief was that neither Lilith or her Mylars could DO anything with the amulet, thus my magic seal was safe (or so I believed).
And then there was Lucifer to deal with. Remember, all this had happened in the time between your time – since I couldn’t risk my master knowing about the amulet, that was another reason I had to keep the amulet in Lemuria. When I returned back to the scene of Adam and Eve and saw that Lucifer was still distracted I figured all was well. [What I didn’t know is that Lucifer had always been aware of the amulet and its power. I also didn’t know that Lucifer had his own plans for Lilith and that he viewed her imprisonment as a favor from me to him].
Ignorant of any problems, I turned my attention back to Adam and Eve. It was high time for them to mate and there was no stopping them now!
The Apocrypha of Azazel 