Chapter 6: Seth and Norea
While I didn’t yet know about Debor’s rebellion, I was all too happy to continue tormenting Kane. You’ll recall that, under my influence, Kane murdered his brother Abel and then ran off with his sister Aklima – to the great disappointment of his parents Adam and Eve.
I was happy to help him get away from the nest – but I didn’t let him wander too far just yet. I had important work to do with Kane. Oh I allowed him a few brief moments of pleasure with Aklima [she really was a beautiful girl] and so I gave them enough time together for Kane to put a baby in her belly. As you can imagine the pair were overjoyed at their good fortune.
Unfortunately for them, my plan required Kane to continue to know pain and suffering like no one else on Terra. As a result I had to disappoint him — the evil that seeped from Kane’s Mark of Immortality infected Aklima, causing her and her baby to die in childbirth.
Then it was that a disillusioned Kane cursed his father’s god Yahway — which was the very step I needed him to take. My plan was to introduce Kane to a new god – a different persona from his father’s god. One made just for him.
Yet before I could do that, I got thrown a curve ball with Adam’s new offspring. Whilst I was busy molding Kane to my designs, Adam and Eve eventually overcame their remorse and had other children. They were careful to offer special sacrifices at each birth and they dedicated every one of them to Yahway. [Thus confirming my suspicions that humans make the best sheep].
First came Seth, a boy, then Norea, a girl. In all, Adam and Eve had 30 more sons and 30 more daughters.
Yet interestingly enough, try though I might to influence them, because all 60 of these children were born with souls that I had not hand-picked or tortured, I was unable to directly influence any of them to bend to his wishes. Yes, acting as Yahway, I was able to get them to worship the creator god, but frustratingly enough, my efforts to turn them to the dark side were never successful.
Meanwhile, against my wishes, Kane repeatedly tried to get back in the graces of his family, acting remorseful for his actions against Abel and wanting to reconcile with Adam and his new children. Unfortunately for Kane, Adam and his sons continued to reject Kane. [This was due in large part to the fact that I had poisoned their minds against Kane since I continued to disguise myself as Yahway and warned them that if they consorted with the ‘marked’ man, then Kane’s “sin” would darken their souls as well. By this time Adam was scared to death of committing ANY sin – remembering all too well the consequences of his prior ones — so it didn’t take much to keep him on the path I wanted him to be].
All of which meant Kane continued to be shunned.
Although I was frustrated that I wasn’t able to hand-pick the souls which found their way into Adam’s children, rather than get bent out of shape about the situation, I looked upon it as a new challenge. As the wisest lumenarc I knew I could crack this code eventually so I studied Adam and his children — trying to understand the connection between the self-procreated life in their bodies and the Illyrian souls which instantly entered them at the moment of conception.
Wisdom did not come easy to me on this topic and I often took out my anger on Kane [I guess that makes Kane the world’s first whipping boy?]. Thankfully for Kane, he was too valuable for me to destroy, and thankfully for me, I I wasn’t one to just give up when faced with a challenge — I knew that, if I could solve this riddle, it would complete a bridge that would lead to the fulfillment of my own grand plans.
What I didn’t know at the time was that something was brewing within Eve – who proved to be another thorn in my side. Unbeknownst to me, she began to have fragmented memories about her past ordeals with Lilith and Lucifer. Yet rather than fold under those pressures, some hidden strength within Eve apparently began to awaken – it made her more resistant to my subtle influences. Worse yet she began to act as a beacon of hope for her children, instilling in them a sense of purpose and resilience. Here again, had I known there was a problem, I’d have spent more time solving it. As it was, I just assumed Eve was being stubborn and spent my time on easier targets. After all, in my book, she’d already served her purpose and I really didn’t have a lot of plans for her.
Worse yet, I was completely unaware that some magic from within the Garden of Eden was apparently calling to Adam’s children – particularly Seth and Norea. It seems they began to feel a strange pull towards that hidden paradise, sensing its latent power.
It was of course impossible for them to find Eden due to the many wards I’d laid to protect it, but that didn’t stop them from looking for the source of the pull on their souls.
Obviously I wish I’d known about this because I’d have taken further steps to stop them, but alas, even as god is in the dark sometimes.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 