Lilith’s law is anti-law. Unlike the constipated scriptures to which we’re so accustomed, her words flow through a gospel of impressions — a canticle of shadows that can be deciphered only through experience. No two readers will absorb those teachings the same way, and I doubt that any one reader would see the same meanings in the same passage twice.
The esteemed M. deLaurent (to whom I am indebted for his marvelously inspirational “secret" litany of the Great Dark Father’s laws) spent years searching for the “definitive” words of Caine and his followers, blissfully oblivious to the impossibility of definitive truth. I have done the opposite; my research, while exhaustive (and exhausting!) has concentrated on diverse impressions rather than specific scholarship. Most of my sources are oral rather than written, and have probably seen millennia of reinterpretation. M. deLaurent would doubtless call my methodology sloppy and haphazard, but I have merely followed the way of Lilith. Her garden is a growing, changing thing — not a tablet of stone, but a wild thatch of nettles and fruits.
Where possible, I have endeavored to support the oral lore I have heard with written records. In some places, things are the other way around. The very diversity and antiquity of the Bahari cult (or, more properly, cults) make the compilation of a “definitive” gospel of Lilith an impossible task, even for an immortal. Yet that very diversity supplies the sect with strength and flexibility; while other, more rigid societies rise, fragment and fall by their founders’ words, the Dark Mother demands a few simple things from her devotees: Open your eyes, hold out your arms, and cultivate a garden (both within and without) with the seeds of your experiences. The Oath of Lilith, with which I begin my collection, is the closet thing to a code this society respects.
DeLaurent refers to the elusive “Cycle of Lilith,” of which he was unable to secure anything but the smallest, fleeting glimpse. There’s a reason for this: That document does not exist. What he saw — if indeed his pretty story is anything other than romantic fabrication — was probably either a Bahari fragment, a hoax or a Cainite retelling of the encounter from our sire’s point of view. By my observations, the so-called “Cycle” has, in fact, at least nine different versions; many of these involve four parts — a winter rite, a spring invocation, a summer observance and the autumn ritual which leads to the winter, which in turn begins the Cycle again.
Like the Chronicle of Caine, this account may be taken two ways: as a literal retelling of ancient demigods and their domestic conflicts; or as a symbolic testament of matriarchal cultures harvesting the sea, the womb and the crops until jealous men overthrew them, killed their families and scattered their tribes. Either way, the figure of Lilith stands as an intimidating and inspiring figure. She transcends her role, learns from her torments and rises again, stronger than before but cloaked in shadows and forever sworn to vengeance.
This Cycle is, in some ways, my own invention; the Mother prizes imagination over dogma. In keeping with some Bahari lorekeepers, I have divided these “scriptures” into three books, corresponding to the ancient and nigh-universal trinity of Maid, Mother and Crone, but in a reversed order. The oldest tales are told first, then the middle cycles, then the youngest and most contemporary. Their order reflects the progression of Lilith.
• The Book of the Serpent recounts the young idealism of the Mother, her creation, trials and ascension from prized toy to godhood.
• The Book of the Owl reflects her personal quest and the foundation of Elona, the First Garden of Hope, and D’hainu, the Second Garden of Renewal. This latter garden provides a home for Lilith, her consort Lucifer and their children. When Caine discovers (or is led to) that place, he changes the course of humanity and of all our kind.
• The Book of the Dragon closes the circle by describing the seeding of Ba’hara, the Third Garden of Sorrows. From this place-which-is-no-place, Lilith summons the spirits of tempest and torment and declares a long night of suffering — especially upon the childer of Caine. This night, according to prophecy, shall climax with the Rising of the Tides, during which the current world will perish beneath waves and wind, to be reborn when the next world begins. In between, we see glimpses of Lilith’s helpmates: the Bahari and the three sacred beasts.
The first two Cycles revolve around the Mother and her tribulations; the third begins with her, but from that point on, Lilith becomes an enigma. We have scattered tales of her nocturnal rapaciousness, but those come largely from other, later sources. The Bahari themselves avoid composing “scriptures” of Lilith’s actions after Ba’hara’s seeding. Occasional songs or regional myths speak of what might have occurred, but the formal “gospel” is silent on the nights between the Malediction and the Rising Tides. In this silence, a Ba’ham must draw his own conclusions. Lilith makes no promises, nor does she stand atop a hill and declare her existence or intentions. Once the seeds of Ba’hara are scattered, Lilith sinks into the night — possibly to wait beneath the waves, more likely to pass among us as a mortal, taking deceptive shapes until her endgame comes to fruition.
For Lilith’s plan is an endgame — a showdown with the god who created her, the lover who abandoned her and the ungrateful wretch who rose to immortality by her hand but slew her children out of spite. Lilith’s seeds — the Bahari and their mantras of pain and enlightenment — go forth into the worlds of mortal and spirit, bringing them fruits of temptation, succor and revelation. The world we see about us is the result of that endgame — a gambit Lilith is winning. Jehovah is a cracked statue; Lucifer has devotees, but their insight is obscured, like his bygone love, behind a wall of spite; Caine is vanished and his childer feast on each other in a blind man’s quest for illusory gold.
Can you hear the waves outside your door? I assure you, I can.