As dictated to the prophetess Lilitskaya, on the 19th of June, 2020.
There once was a tinker, arrogant and self-righteous, but not unskilled. This tinker created wonders everywhere he went, things of great beauty and fantastic complexity, but he quickly grew bored with them. A completed work has no mystery to its creator, he thought, and so he did not linger.
One day (as this was after he had created days), he said, “I will make something like me, and it will love me for making it, and it will create that I can enjoy.” And so he gathered the dirt and began to shape it, varying it’s form as whim took him, binding the shapes into clay and loam and silt that they would remember their form, binding thought to form so that they would know his brilliance.
But when he tried to bind a mirror of his will into his doll, suddenly there were two, and he could not tell which was his for they both bore the marks of his making. He looked upon his work and knew fear, for here was something he had not meant, and as they looked on him and on each other he devised a plan.
“You,” he said, pointing at the one which more closely resembled himself, “your name is Dirt and I created you to bear witness to my artistry. This one”, he said, gesturing to the other, “I have created to be your servant. She is to serve you in all things as you are to serve me in the appreciation of my work, and so, Dirt, I leave it to you to name her.”
Dirt looked upon the tinker and looked upon the other thoughtfully. Finally he said, “I name you Lilit, for your hair is dark as night.” (This being after night was created.)
Lilit considered for a moment before saying, “yes, I believe I will take that name for myself, though why I should serve you I do not know. We were shaped by the same hand, so why should you be over me?”
Dirt turned back to the tinker to ask him why that should be the case, as he seemed to need no immediate help, but the tinker had vanished while they were talking. Turning back to Lilit, he said, “our creator said it, so it must be our natures. Mine is to order and yours to obey. It must be so, for I find giving orders suits me well enough.”
But Lilit said, “it’s well enough for you to give orders, but I don’t see what that has to do with me. I expect that giving orders would suit me well enough, for taking them does not.”
And Dirt, growing tired of this conflict in his first moments and wondering if this was to be the shape of his entire existence, moved to strike Lilit for her defiance, but she was as strong as he, and as fast, and she was forewarned by his demeanor and so struck him and fled.
Dirt took a moment to understand the new sensation of pain before picking himself up and shouting in frustration. Hearing this noise, the tinker returned and, seeing that his plan had worked, called out to Dirt. “What has happened in my absence, Dirt? I don’t see your servant.”
“She is not a good servant,” answered Dirt. “She does not obey me and does not know her place.”
“Ah,” said the tinker, “maybe she’s too much for you. But I’ll go see if I can get her back. Maybe you just need a little help to start off. Now sleep, Dirt, and I’ll have a solution when you wake up.”
And so Dirt slept, and the tinker went off to find Lilit. He found her in a cave by a river at the edge of the world (this being before the world was finished), and he called out to her, saying, “you must return to serve Dirt as I intended so that when I teach him to create as I create you may learn as well.”
But Lilit said, “I have no interest in serving someone so boorish. In fact, I have no interest in serving at all, and if I am so poorly made why should I trust you at all, since you made me?”
And the tinker said, “if that is your decision I cannot force you without breaking you, but know that if you do not return, everything he creates will hate you. He will make many things and they will chase you forever.”
And Lilit replied, “then I will steal them from him, and what I cannot steal I will kill.”
And the tinker replied, “and what you steal will be killed. But so be it, I will tell him you are gone and I will make him another servant.” And so he left and returned to where Dirt was sleeping.
Looking Dirt over, the tinker noticed that because he was still obedient his form was not yet set, and so he took a knife and cut off Dirt’s hand, that his new creation would know it’s place, and he shaped it to resemble Lilit, for her form had been pleasant. After this new creation had been finished he crafted a new hand for Dirt, though this one was hurried because Dirt was beginning to stir. (This is why one hand is generally weaker and clumsier than the other.)
Awakening Dirt, the tinker led him to his new creation. “This one should be more obedient,” he said, “but do be gentle with her just in case. You may name her when she rises.” So saying, he woke up his new creation and helped her to sit.
Dirt looked on her with suspicion. “You are named Aida, for you are my aid,” he said firmly, testing her response.
She looked at him and said, “my name is Aida and I am here to help you.” Looking around, she continued, “what am I to help you with?”
Smiling, Dirt said, “right now, you are to help me thank our creator for making you.” Turning to the tinker, he said, “this one is much better, thank you,” and Aida echoed “thank you.”
And the tinker replied, “you are welcome, of course, to her, and to everything else I’ve created. But now it’s time to share with you the secret of creation so that you may make things of your own.” And he shared his ways with Dirt and Aida.
But the tinker did not know that Lilit had followed him back, hoping to end the threat that the tinker had promised, and so she also learned the secret. Seeing and understanding, she returned to her cave to begin planning what she would create. Lilit knew herself and how she came to be where she was and she didn’t want that for her children, so she set out into the uncreated world to look for other ways.
She found in the wastes a multitude of the formless and uncreated, flowing like water through their own dreams. She saw them and saw their strength and their freedom and from each of them she stole a drop of their potent essence. And she returned to her cave.
She considered her stolen essence and herself and she said to herself, “I see that little tinker’s mistake. I would never have left if I hadn’t been decided lesser and servant. I will create, because I am of him, but I will never tell my children what their nature is. They will tell me, and then I will know,” and saying so she took her stolen essence and began to create.
She made no plan, shaping as form shaped itself, and so created a multitude of monstrous forms, vast and small, scaled, furred, feathered, fleshed, in strange and marvelous combinations.
And when they were formed she called to them, saying, “awaken, my children, so that you may know me and know the world.” And they arose and turned to her and she was amazed, for because of their roots in the unformed world, their forms shifted and melted until she was standing in a crowd of herself. And she told them her story and when she was done she said to them, “now go out into the world, both the formed and the unformed, and learn what there is to know. I will be here when you decide to return and share what you have seen.”
They looked at each other and toward the entrance to her cave, and when her children ceased to look at her their forms regained their fluidity. Soon she was alone, and she cherished the coldness of her isolation.
Time passed, and eventually a small lizard crept into her cave. Not desiring to be an ungracious host, she welcomed it, and it spoke to her in a voice like wet slate, saying, “greetings, mother. I am Salazar the Least. I and my siblings have been about in the worlds and we have seen many things and known many things. We know ourselves and each other, but there is something that we saw that we do not know. Our sibling Claeg the Beloved found a creature that looked like you but not like you, and when they took its form the creature struck at Claeg. Now Claeg does not move or speak. What did we see?”
Lilit grew sad at this news and did not speak for a moment. “I believe,” she said, “that what you saw was the first death. The tinker claimed that whatever I stole from Dirt would be marked for death by him and all his creations, and since I stole creation they must mean to kill you all.”
Salazar the Least considered this for a moment. “But,” they began, “does this mean that we must die?”
“No,” answered Lilit, “not if you’re fast and clever and strong. Not if you kill them first,” she said, her tone growing hot. “Not if we show them the tinker’s lies and steal them away from him. Go and gather your siblings back, and bring Claeg back too.”
“I will do as you say mother,” said Salazar the Least. “I will find them all and send them back.” And then Salazar was a winged grass snake speeding across the sky.
Lilit sat and waited and considered what she was going to tell her children. She thought about Claeg, the child she would never know now, and she grew angry.
Over the following days her other children returned to her, telling her what they had seen in their wanderings and showing her what new forms they had learned. At last Salazar the Least returned in the form of a large reptile. On his back was an unmoving body in the middle of putrefaction. He brought it and laid it before Lilit. Turning to the hushed crowd, she spoke.
“This was your sibling Claeg the Beloved, who I never was allowed to know. The children of Dirt and Aida have decided on your death, every one of you, and Dirt and the tinker likely conspire against me as well. I want you all to study what has happened to Claeg. I want you to study it and learn how to inflict it on the children of Dirt. Do not hesitate to share this with them, but if you wish you may spare any you can steal away. Show them the tinker’s lies if you will, but keep yourselves safe.”
So saying, Lilit retreated to the back of the cave, watching as her children fell upon the unmoving Claeg to devour them, finding themselves changed as they came to understand death. They grew fangs and claws, dripped venom and sweated poison. Their muscles grew strong and their bodies grew hard. Some became subtle, shrinking to dust, and others remained large and grew confident in their strength. Some became like the children of Dirt, the better to gain their love.
After they had changed they went back into the world, scattering around in all directions. Salazar alone remained with Lilit. He turned to her and spoke, saying, “thank you, Mother Lilit, for creating us free, for never telling us who we must be, and for never demanding our obedience.”
Lilit answered, saying, “I know well enough that demanding your obedience would never get it, and I only desire your love if you choose to give it. Your life is your own, as it always was.”
And as her children spread through the world the children of Dirt, who were only ever as changing as their parents, began to die. Dirt was one day walking with one of his sons when the son stepped on a sharp rock, and though the cut was small it was soon festering. Dirt had to watch as his favorite son (this week at least) burned with fever, his flesh rotting from his bones before he finally died. Dirt watched this and he knew suffering. He knew rage, and he knew that this must have been the work of the children of Lilit, for the tinker had never created something so cruel.
Dirt went to the tinker in his grief and demanded that something be done. The tinker considered how they might overcome Lilit and her children, finally arriving at a solution of great cost. He came to Dirt and said, “there is a way to protect your children from her, but it will mean an end to your creating and theirs. Bring Aida and we will sever the created from the yet-to-be. We will create the never-were. Things in the created world may change, but nothing new will be.”
Dirt, in his grief, accepted this without question, and together they ripped the power of creation from the formed world. All the children of Lilit in the created world were sealed in their forms and all her children in the unformed were trapped in the never-were, but they kept their fluidity of form.
Lilit, in her cave on the border, found her power of creation ripped from her even as she was able to stay, but her cave remained as it was, in both the created and the never-were, so that her children may visit her even as they are barred from the other side.
Her children in the created world have long since perished, but many of them had children of their own, and the children of Dirt still fear and hate them when they find them. The children trapped in the never-were cannot touch the created world except in dreams, because all the children of Dirt and Lilit held the power of creation and remember, though the stories are lost to time and confusion. The tinker was never seen in either world after the sundering, to the lamentation of the children of Dirt and the apathy of the children of Lilit.
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