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Astaroth’s Wager, Part IV

Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part III.

I hope you can forgive me for not providing a chapter last week. I am thankful that I don’t require planes for transportation. They’re so loud, slow and confining. Anyway—back to business now.

Astaroth directed the driver of her car to take them to Market Street to placate her frustrated companion. She stared at Sitri with a mockingly pleasant smile on her face for the longest time.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Sitri asked.

“Because you’re going to lose,” she answered. “And you know it. You haven’t thought this through at all. I must say, this is your poorest effort in at least five hundred years. You’ve admirably demonstrated that the only hopeless one in this entire affair is you.”

Sitri didn’t suffer insults lightly. He had his steel at the ready, and he drew it from its scabbard with a menacing slowness. He said nothing, but his intentions were clear from his scathing expression.

“You’re not going to attack me,” Astaroth said. “You’re going to do better than this. Going through his life and systematically eliminating the things that are going well for him isn’t the answer. It didn’t work on Job, and it’s not going to work on him.”

Sitri remained silent and ready to attack.

“You want your favorite London property back, and I want that smug little primate to realize that hope is as mortal as he is. Make him suffer, Sitri, or admit defeat now and present me with a wager,” Astaroth said.

“I’ll do fine without my property on Tottenham Court Road. You won it fairly, and I would appreciate the opportunity to win it back fairly in the future. You were right, Svipul. You can’t make a human lose hope in twenty-four hours without resorting to cliché. And you know as well as I do that the Nephil I injured back there is Itzamná’s daughter. He’ll be looking for me. I’ve got bigger problems than this petty little wager,” Sitri said.

Itzamná was a Watcher. He was stationed in Mesoamerica and was spotted by the Mayans. They revered him as one of their gods.

“So you admit defeat?” Astaroth said.

“Yes.”

“What is my wager then?”

“You have a month. Since you set me on this task, you’re now going to deprive that same smug little primate Thomas Carver of all hope—since he seems to be more than just a bee in your bonnet—and you’re going to get rid of Rose Nielsen and Itzamná before they find out what this was all about and come looking for us,” Sitri said. “And I’m going to lay low and let you do all the heavy lifting.”

“And what will I receive upon success? Getting rid of an angel and his Nephil is likely to provoke an angry response from Heaven, and I’ve worked very hard to keep Michael off my back. I don’t want to end up anywhere near the top of his list again,” Astaroth said.

The car went silent while Sitri made his offer telepathically.

Astaroth’s smile was wickedly delicious. She squealed and said, “Are you really prepared to cede that title?”

“If you can actually accomplish it, and get Itzamná out of the picture? Absolutely. You’ll have earned it,” Sitri said. “But I’ll warn you now: you’re going to fail with Thomas Carver.”

“Why are you so confident of that?”

“Because he understands something that you never will, Astaroth,” Sitri said.

Astaroth rolled her eyes.

Sitri demanded, “Do you find the terms of our wager to be fair, Svipul?”

Svipul responded, “A month to get rid of an angel as strong as Itzamná? That’s hardly fair, considering that you fouled up a simple wager, Sitri. You didn’t have to attack a Nephil and bring angels into this. She needs adequate time to put a plan in place. Otherwise, we’re all going to be in for it, and I don’t want Michael or any of the Cherubim or Seraphim on my back, either. Give her at least a year.”

“A year, then,” Sitri agreed. “I’m still going to Market Street, though. I do rather enjoy making Thomas Carver believe that gangsters are after him. He should be back at work by now. Are we agreed to the terms of this wager, Astaroth?”

“Agreed,” Astaroth replied.

Dominus tecum.

On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part V.

November 30, 2010, 06:55
Musical Interlude #1: Inspiration

Nadiel wanted me to send out a whole spray of apologies. As she is posing as a fifteen-year-old Nephil girl, she has discovered the many obligations accompanying that assignment during the third week of November. She promises to provide another chapter in the tale of Astaroth’s Wager next Tuesday, at sunrise local time, per usual, when she won’t be on a plane to visit relatives in California.

She did mention to me, however, that I should share with you one of the musical expressions of her Key in lieu of a tale. A Key within an angel or Nephil is the core of the Grace within his or her soul. It is the prevailing emotional response when s/he’s at rest. Nadiel’s Key is Inspiration, and if you were to transpose that emotion into a pop song, it would probably sound a lot like this.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

♥

November 23, 2010, 06:48
Astaroth’s Wager, Part III

Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part II.

Buena Vista Park, near the Haight, in 1937.

Allow me to clarify before I proceed: as I mentioned before, there are three different kinds of human hybrids. There are Epiklasmons, the feeble Nekudaimon-human hybrids; Anathemas, the children of Apokomistai and humans; and Nephilim, the children of angels and humans. Full humans have no innate means available to them to detect Anathemas and Nephilim because the hybrids look just like normal humans in every respect. The only way that they might be identified is though their superhuman strength and their extended lifespan. I will be happy to tell you more about Anathemas another time, but for now, please be contented with information on Nephilim. Like angels, Nephilim are filled with Grace, though in much smaller quantities, and that Grace is readily detectable to angels, demons and other Nephilim and one very special Anathema. Unless they are untrained in how to control the expression of their Graces, Nephilim are capable of shielding their thoughts from angels, demons and other Nephilim. They aren’t necessarily very common, for many angels have trouble with their fragility and mortality and thus cannot bear to watch their children die, but Nephilim have been a species that has coexisted among humans for many millennia.

But now, please let us return to Thomas Carver. Or rather, Sitri in a Thomas Carver suit.

Adelaide Grayson was an honest and very pretty young woman who lived with her mother and her grandfather at a boarding house that her family ran in the Haight. She was twenty-years-old in the autumn of 1935, when she first made the acquaintance of Thomas Carver. Thomas proposed to her on her twenty-first birthday in March, and they’d had a small wedding planned for September, on their first anniversary.

Sitri showed up at the Grayson’s boarding house looking very much like Thomas Carver but acting nothing like him. He had to make a quick judgment on how to conduct himself to get Adelaide to break off the engagement and never see him again. He considered a number of scenarios—another woman, another man, striking her in front of her grandfather—and he had an idea in mind to accuse her of infidelity in front of her mother when he met up with her. Sitri as Thomas strode into the boarding house, issued an extremely rude statement to the widow Grayson at the front desk, and proceeded to the back of the house, where there Adelaide was hanging out the laundry in the yard. Adelaide, upon first glance, was ready to greet him with a smile and warm salutation when she saw that he who appeared to be her fiancé was in something of a temper. She inquired, “What’s the matter, Tom?”

“You know exactly what the matter is,” Sitri replied.

Adelaide was at a loss for what could be irking Thomas. She floundered to find a response.

Sitri seized upon the silence, “I just met George Olivero.”

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid, Adelaide. He knows you. In fact, he knows you better than I do, you cheap—” Sitri broke off. Something was very wrong. There was a stirring in the boarding house that was extremely unsettling to him. It was the distinct presence of a Nephil, and it approached with great speed.

The Nephil descended the steps to from the back porch to the yard. She stared directly at Sitri and said, “Get away from her.”

Adelaide said, “Rose, if you could please excuse—”

“Who are you?” Rose ignored Adelaide.

Sitri knew that he had been caught out. He debated calling Astaroth, but he knew that she would never let him live it down if he complained about a solitary Nephil complicating his plans. He reasoned that he was strong enough to take on the Nephil if it came to that, so he opted to continue with the ruse. “I’m Thomas Carver. Who do you think you are?”

“You’re not Thomas Carver. Who are you?” Rose demanded. She produced a dagger made of angelic steel. “You know what this is, and you know what it can do to you. Get away from her.”

Adelaide was extremely disturbed by Rose’s behavior and the presence of a weapon. She didn’t understand why Rose, who had been a boarder for more the previous five months, was threatening her fiancé. As far as Adelaide knew, Rose Nielsen had been a courteous and quiet young woman who worked as a stenographer. Adelaide said, “Rose, please. We were just having a—”

Rose interrupted, “What have you done with the real Thomas Carver?”

Sitri appraised the situation and realized that murdering a Nephil in front of Adelaide would better suit his purposes than a feeble accusation of infidelity. He produced a blade made of cursed steel and attacked the Nephil. Rose Nielsen, however, had been trained in martial arts better than Sitri had anticipated. He only succeeded in slashing up her arm with his cursed blade while Adelaide, the widow Grayson, Grayson the eldest and a few of the boarders screamed at the two of them to cease and desist with their violent skirmish.

The false Thomas Carver ran out of the front door of the boarding house. Astaroth and Svipul were waiting in a car outside the boarding house. Astaroth remarked, “That was silly. You were almost bested by a 135-year-old Nephil. I’d be embarrassed for you if I didn’t think it was so funny. I have to wonder if you’re really trying to win this wager.”

Sitri morphed back into a more familiar and comfortable form of an older, wealthy gentleman commanding of respect. He answered, “I still have twenty-two hours. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d appreciate a lift back to Market Street. It’s about time I visit Thomas Carver’s employer.”

Dominus tecum.

On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part IV.

November 16, 2010, 06:41
Astaroth’s Wager, Part II

Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part I.

San Francisco, Bay Bridge, 1935, before it was finished. Lovely, wasn’t it?

Svipul was used to being an adjudicator in Astaroth and Sitri’s wagers. She weighed in, “Astaroth—a task like the one you propose could take a lifetime. Give him at least forty-eight hours to accomplish it.”

Sitri felt that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain with Astaroth’s wager. As he saw things, he would be allowed to propose a new wager to Astaroth within a day’s time, and he already had in mind something to make her suffer long for her prize. He argued, “No—it’s fine, Svipul. I lost my property fair and square, and here I have the chance to get it back as long as I can urge this young man into, what I’m presuming, is death by his own hand. Is that correct?”

“That’s not necessary!” Astaroth replied. “In fact, it would be better if he were to die a natural death when he’s a miserable, bitter, old man whose life has been characterized by one disappointment after another. All you need to do is lift from him that obnoxious sense that there is such a thing as hope.”

“Very well, then. I accept,” Sitri said. He didn’t have much time at all to dwell upon particulars. He raced forward to catch up with Thomas Carver, assuming the form of a large, thuggish man as he weaved his way in and out of the crowd. When he was within a few yards, Sitri lingered behind him to get a closer read of his thoughts. Thomas had been stricken by an impulse to eat, and he stopped at a luncheonette for a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup. Sitri waited until Thomas had been served, and then he entered the luncheonette. The demon didn’t introduce himself or extend any pleasantries to Thomas. He simply sat down opposite Thomas at the young man’s table for two, and he said in his most menacing human tone, “Mr. Lazzeri wants you to know that he’s expecting payment in full by midnight, Mr. Carver.”

Thomas didn’t know how to react to the thug who had just invited himself to his table, and it was puzzling to him that this thug also knew his name. He responded, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Sitri said, “You’re Thomas Carver, yes?”

Thomas replied, “Yes. And you—?”

Sitri interrupted, “The Thomas Carver who lives on Pierce Street?”

Thomas was flabbergasted. Sitri could gauge by his stunted thoughts that he was floundering for an explanation as to why the demon would know where he lived. “Yes, but—”

“The one who plays dice with Mr. Lazzeri and his associates every Tuesday and Friday nights?”

“Plays dice? No, I don’t play—”

“Mr. Lazzeri knows who you are, where you live and just how much you owe him. He also knows about that pretty girl Adelaide Grayson—”

“What?!” Thomas cried. He had no idea how gangsters could know this much about his life.

“Yes, Miss Grayson. Your betrothed. He knows about her. So if you don’t have the seven thousand dollars you owe—”

“Wait! Seven thousand dollars?!” Thomas was the definition of shock. He’d never even made $7,000 in an entire year, and he’d never had anywhere near that amount of cash around to give to dice gangsters. In fact, were you to account for inflation, it would amount to more than $100,000 at present. He lowered his tone and answered, “Mister—”

“Mr. Olivero,” Sitri answered.

“Mr. Olivero, there must be some mistake. I don’t play dice. You must have the wrong man,” Thomas insisted.

“Mr. Lazzeri said you’d say that,” Sitri said, standing up. He took Thomas’s cup of coffee and took a sip. He said, “Good coffee. I’ll see you at midnight. Don’t even think of going to Mr. O’Halloran for protection or trying to weasel your way out of it.”

Sitri turned his back on Thomas and walked out of the luncheonette, delighting in the flood of panicked thoughts that Thomas had spinning in his head. He stepped out into the throng of foot traffic and slowly morphed so that his appearance matched Thomas Carver. He had to look the part, as his next move was to visit Miss Adelaide Grayson.

Dominus tecum.

On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part III.

November 9, 2010, 06:34
Astaroth’s Wager, Part I

The reason humans are such easy prey for all demons is that humans have a wicked disadvantage: language. Language is indeed their greatest asset in every other respect. Through language, humans were able to synthesize and communicate ideas, and everything else that has defined them as the dominant species on this planet came after that. Language itself comes from thought, and thought comes from the soul. (This is where the idea of prayer originated.) Humans can’t hear what transpires on the metaphysical plane, but demons can. Demons know your deepest desires if they are consciously expressed, even within the mind, because they are the truth known by the soul.

Forgive me for citing the previous tale, but I neglected to mention that the grimoire known as the Orrery didn’t always belong to Astaroth. In fact, its original owner was the Apokomistis Sitri. Astaroth only acquired it after she won it from Sitri, and he was forced to tender it or accept the consequences of her wrath.

Astaroth and Sitri weren’t necessarily partners in the sense of the typical demon partnership, but they definitely had an unusual bond. Over the course of two angelic generations—a generation is 2,058 years—they enjoyed a competitive relationship based upon the completion of specific wagers. Sitri issued the first wager, and it went on until he met his demise in 1967 at the hands of a Seraph named Zahar. The form of each wager was, “I’ll give you x-object if you can complete y-task over z-period, and I’ll bet you that you can’t.” Sometimes the objects were actual objects, like the Orrery, or money, and other times it involved the surrender of things like territories or Nekus or human souls. Sometimes the time frame given to accomplish a task took days, but one wager took 417 years to complete (which was rather impressive, considering that she’d had another 97 years to manage it). Astaroth and Sitri operated under the administration of a loose set of rules that evolved over time, the two most important rules being that, one—they had to submit to a third party’s judgment to rule that the wager had been completed successfully, and two—if the task wasn’t completed within the period stated in the initial wager, no gifts were exchanged. Occasionally it was a means for one demon to get the other to take care of dirty laundry, but most of the time they were assigned with a morbid sense of fun in mind.

Market Street, San Francisco, 1936. They were on a stroll here when the wager for Thomas Carver was proposed.

Astaroth, Sitri and the Apokomistis Svipul met up in San Francisco on June 4, 1936. Svipul’s judgment was needed to finalize the completion of the bet—Astaroth had to procure a blood pact for the souls of both a mother and her infant daughter—and she ruled in favor of Astaroth. Sitri reluctantly handed over the deed to a building he owned under an alias in London, and Astaroth suggested that they take a stroll to through the streets to help her decide on a new bet upon which to set Sitri. They hadn’t gotten very far when Astaroth spotted a new target on account of his thoughts: his name was Thomas Carver, aged 23, and as he was passing by the triumvirate of demons out for a walk, he had the misfortune of thinking, There’s always hope.

All three demons heard his thought ring like a galaxy-wide broadcast. Astaroth then turned to Sitri and said, “I’ll give you back this deed to your favorite London property if you can permanently destroy Thomas Carver’s opinion about hope over the next twenty-four hours, because I’m absolutely certain that you can’t.”

Dominus tecum.

On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part II.

November 2, 2010, 07:27
Orders, Part VI and Conclusion

Back to Orders, Part V.

Jiang Xuande didn’t have much time to prepare for the attack that Astaroth had in mind for him, but he did have fair warning that she was coming. She had made an unsuccessful attempt to recall Makeri to her service, and Makeri writhed from the excruciating efforts, issuing a profound number of curses upon the magician’s head.

The magician hadn’t had much time to play with the Orrery and perfect the magics in it, but he got the gist of how to summon his own army. Makeri’s human host went gray with the amount of blood that was necessary to summon forty-nine Nekus, and Jiang Xuande ordered them all to possess the forty-nine generals in command of Duke Xiao’s royal guard. The generals were then ordered to defend Jiang Xuande against the attack from Astaroth’s army.

Astaroth had had a different plan in mind at first, but when she understood what Jiang Xuande was up to, she had to shift things around. She took the shape of Duke Xiao (and left the real Duke incapacitated within his bedroom to flirt with insanity at the sight of his double running about) and commanded his forces to destroy the mutinous attack launched by Jiang Xuande and his own royal guard. She also summoned more than eight thousand Nekus to possess the army, and they were all of them ordered to annihilate everything in sight.

The armies assembled on the battlefield. Each side waited impatiently for the order to attack. In the anticipation, the concentration of dark metaphysical energies within the state of Qin brought that part of the Earth into serious distress. Sunlight bent and scattered, spring turned to bitter winter and life itself began to wither under the oppressive evil.

Michael had made a sweep of the area. He was loathe to destroy the vast number of humans assembled there, but he had to do something to destroy the demons. He determined that both sides were armed with human weapons (it requires an entirely different type of weapon to do harm to an angel), and understanding the risk, he ordered Jophiel, Sidriel, Sabrathon and Kochabiel to the battlefield to dispatch as many demons as possible while he worked on a solution to fix the accumulating metaphysical damage with a few other angels in Heaven. The four angels set out inside the hordes of demons, approaching each Neku with great stealth to destroy them inside their hosts. All of them did their best to leave the humans alive without causing them serious harm.

Astaroth didn’t care to tarry, and she ordered her army to advance against Jiang Xuande’s forces. They charged across the field with a murderous speed, and when she was sure that Jiang Xuande was preoccupied with being outnumbered more than 160 to 1, she went after him to recover the Orrery.

It was in use, just as she had suspected. Jiang Xuande had it engaged to locate Azrael, for he was certain that the Angel of Death was present on the battlefield.

It didn’t take Astaroth much effort to recover the Orrery. Ninalla had been a proud Neku, and she’d neglected to tell Jiang Xuande about the stark differences between Nekus and Apokomistai. Had Astaroth not been so adamant to recover her property, she probably would have made Jiang Xuande’s death a far more painful event, but she ended his life quickly. She had begun the process of claiming the dead magician’s soul for her own before it returned to Earth’s well of souls, but Azrael materialized in the nick of time and took his soul instead.

Astaroth wasn’t about to surrender such a corrupt soul to Azrael. Unlike the thousands of Nekus on the battlefield, Astaroth did have a weapon that could harm an angel. She drew her sword, ready to steal back the soul that she felt was rightfully hers. She struck out at him, but Michael had appeared to intervene. She fell off balance and quickly sheathed her weapon. She knew that she was no match for an Archangel, and so she seized the Orrery and disappeared in tact.

The four angels on the battlefield had destroyed over a thousand Nekus—Jophiel and Sidriel had taken out more than four hundred each. Michael surveyed the situation. He knew that if he left Jophiel and Sidriel in the battle long enough, the rest of the Nekus would either leave the battle or fall, but there were still over six thousand demons in the area. The concentration of six thousand demons in one location was rapidly contaminating the metaphysical fabric of the Earth.

Infantrymen from the Terracotta Army. They were inspired by the soldiers petrified by the heavenly rain.

Michael called the four warriors on the battlefield to him, and with the help of a few angels from the Order of Virtues—Virtues are celestial architects and engineers—they brought a great storm to the sky over the battlefield. It rained a heavy, thick liquid upon the Nekus below, and it slowly transformed the human hosts of the Nekus into clay over the course of half of an hour. The hosts with the Nekus sank into the mud of the battlefield. After the hour had passed, the storm diminished, and every surviving Neku had been trapped inside a dying host, anchored to the Earth.

Azrael collected the essences of the Nekus and spirited them away to a dark corner of the Universe. The balance of the Earth had returned.

Most of the clay soldiers sunk deep into the ground and were forgotten, but a few of them had perished on rock. Over the years, the people of Qin had spun tales about how these soldiers had come to be. A century later, the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang had heard tales of how these clay soldiers had once been spirit warriors, until a great dragon had turned them into clay. He felt that spirit warriors would be exactly what he needed after he had passed on, and he built an army of them—an army of more than eight thousand—in terracotta to guard his tomb, vigilant until the end of the Earth.

This concludes our tale. A happy and safe Halloween to you! Dominus vobiscum.

October 26, 2010, 07:21
Orders, Part V

Back to Orders, Part IV.

The effort to summon Makeri almost bled Jiang Xuande to death. Makeri reported rather reluctantly to the magician and gave him an insouciant and bored greeting.

Makeri hadn’t anticipated that Jiang Xuande had built a trap for him, and Jiang Xuande bound Makeri’s metaphysical essence to the peasant girl, making it impossible for him to escape without fusing his soul to hers. Makeri realized that he was obligated to do Jiang Xuande’s bidding or forfeit his existence as he knew it, and so he had little choice but to help the magician carry out his mad plans until he was released from the cage of the peasant girl’s body.

Jiang Xuande needed the Neku to execute his plan. The first thing he made Makeri do was to provide detailed information about Astaroth’s palace in Persepolis. Jiang Xuande was delighted to learn from Makeri that the palace was, relatively speaking, unoccupied, for Astaroth and her entourage had gone to Egypt on an errand.

One of the more sinister magics that Jiang Xuande had learned from Ninalla was how to separate his own consciousness from his body and, in essence, become something like a Neku himself. It was through this dematerialization that he was able to travel thousands of miles at a great speed (a speed that’s hardly impressive to those of you in the 21st century, but nonetheless impressive for an actual mortal without the aid of a machine) to Astaroth’s palace. Given what he’d learned from both Ninalla and Makeri, he knew exactly what he needed and exactly where to find it, for Jiang Xuande’s intention was to sneak into Astaroth’s palace and steal from her library the most discreet of grimoires. This grimoire was particularly powerful (and is now lost, having been “misplaced” in ab urbe condita 560, or 193 BC), and it was unique, for it was a remarkable source of demonic magical secrets tucked inside a miniature orrery.

An orrery. The Orrery, now lost, was about the size of a grapefruit.

You might ask yourself how an orrery could function as a grimoire, for an orrery is merely a machine meant to represent the movements of the planets in this solar system. In this case, each planet had different meanings assigned to it, and dependent upon the geometric relationships that were created, it was able to harness specific demonic energies that could then be used. As Jiang Xuande was an astronomer, alchemist and magician, Ninalla had told him all about this particular grimoire, known simply as the Orrery, for she felt that he had the specific expertise necessary to make it work if he were ever able to lay his hands upon it.

But knowing what he needed and where it was located was less than half the battle, for Jiang Xuande had to get the Orrery out of the palace, and he couldn’t do it without a physical form. He possessed the body of a young beggar boy (which was a horrible state of existence for both, particularly the boy, if you can imagine such a crime against nature). He then summoned another Neku named Piktaungitok who was associated with neither Astaroth nor Sitri, for he needed her to gather the magics necessary to transport the Orrery back to the state of Qin in China.

Jiang Xuande had envisioned many different scenarios involving the success and the failure of his plan before he had put it in motion, but he found himself pleasantly shocked at how easy it had been for him to thieve from Persia and return to China as the most powerful magician in the world.

And so now we’re at the part where we angels got involved…The angels Sabrathon and Kochabiel had been keeping an eye on Jiang Xuande over the fourteen years that he had been a practicing magician, for they had found his alliance with a demon to be particularly dangerous. His return to the state of Qin with one of Astaroth’s grimoires was particularly worrisome—especially the Orrery—and that was when Sabrathon and Kochabiel contacted the Archangel Michael and explained to him what they had observed.

Michael understood that the situation could feasibly spin out of control—and quickly— so he sent his two best lieutenants, Jophiel and Sidriel, to stand guard with Sabrathon and Kochabiel. Jophiel and Sidriel were ordered to crush anything that could disrupt the balance of the Earth if it arose and bring in further help if necessary.

(A note: I know that when I began my tale, I mentioned that a squadron of the Heavenly Host was sent into battle. I should probably clarify that Jophiel and Sidriel are a squadron by themselves, for the two of them are were some of the most powerful weapons in Heaven. Jophiel is was a Seraph. The Seraphim are were the Order who served as God’s personal guard, and Jophiel is was their general. Sidriel is was a Cherub and always will be a Cherub, in one respect or another. The Cherubim are were the warriors within the Orders, and Sidriel is was one of the Commanders of the Heavenly Host, after Jophiel, Camael and Michael.)

Michael assured Sabrathon and Kochabiel that he would gladly lend his personal assistance and a battalion of the Heavenly Host if the situation escalated into all-out war. Michael also saw Azrael to inform him that a powerful human magician had it out for him. Azrael was rather amused by the notion of a human trying to cause his demise. He pledged to Michael that he would be on hand to make sure that the balance of souls would be preserved on Earth should a battle come to pass, and he went on his way.

And of course, just as one would expect in a situation like this, everything did spin out of control with magnificent speed. Jiang Xuande’s luck seemed to run out on two days after he had returned home. Piktaungitok, the Neku whom he had summoned to help him get the grimoire back to China, had inflicted enough damage on her host for her to die and release her. Jiang Xuande had seen to bind her to the body of her host, but not to the soul. He was about to regret that misstep, for even though her alliegiance was to the Apokomistis Tohil, she ran straight to Astaroth to tell her that the Orrery was in the hands of a mortal.

I will conclude this tale next Tuesday. Dominus tecum.

On to Orders, Part VI.

October 19, 2010, 07:14
Orders, Part IV

Back to Orders, Part III.

Ninalla’s energy had been diminished by the act of childbirth. Possessing the dead Zhou threatened to sap what little energy she had left, and she was painfully aware that she to find a new host at the soonest to replenish her own lifeforce inside a new body. The only body at hand was that of the midwife, and she leapt into the mortal’s body without any hesitation. Her first impulse was to tear the midwife’s body apart from the inside out with her phenomenal rage, but she set her mind on revenge instead. She knew that Azrael had stolen away the life of her human host and, more importantly, her child, and she was going to do everything in her power to destroy him.

Her anger gave her an unanticipated strength, and, soiled as her host’s clothes were from the childbirth, she marched from her home and into Duke Xiao’s palace to find Jiang Xuande, tossing aside every guard along the way who tried to stop her as if they were paper dolls. When she found Jiang Xuande, he was in the Duke’s company. The guards attempted to subdue her, but Ninalla repelled all their attempts and incapacitated everyone in the room except for Duke Xiao and Jiang Xuande. The Duke took his own sword, and he issued an uncertain threat to the demon. Ninalla ignored him, and in a low and cold voice that didn’t belong to the midwife, she said, “Zhao is dead. Our child is dead. I must see Astaroth this instant to seek my vengeance for Azrael’s injustice.”

Ninalla purposefully crushed the midwife’s spine and exited the body, and the mortal woman’s broken body fell stupidly at Duke’s feet.

Now—the Apokomistis Astaroth has a grisly sense of fun. When Ninalla returned to her mistress with her sad tale, Astaroth temporarily feigned interest and promised scores of demons in assistance, only to revoke it moments later while rebuking Ninalla for her lack of service and loyalty over the previous fourteen years. Ninalla was awestruck, but she soon recovered her fury. She raged at her mistress, reviling Astaroth’s callous treatment after more than seventeen centuries of loyal and obedient service.

Unfortunately for Ninalla, her anger had obscured her wiser impulses and made her forget that Astaroth is an extremely impatient demon. It only took a few moments, and after they’d passed, Ninalla was no more.

Back at the court of Duke Xiao, Jiang Xuande publicly mourned his wife and child while secretly waiting for Ninalla’s return. He commandeered a peasant girl for Ninalla to inhabit and made every attempt to summon her, but none of his spells worked very well without Ninalla’s demon blood.

After more than a week, Jiang Xuande had begun to despair for partner’s return. He slashed into the peasant girl’s arm and summoned the Neku Benelaba to him. He ordered Benelaba to help him summon Ninalla to him, but the Neku had other obligations. The Neku was bound in service to Sitri, an Apokomistis who had been working closely with Astaroth at that time on a rather nasty little project (for another time, perhaps). Benelaba informed the magician that Ninalla had been killed by Astaroth thirteen days earlier for her defiance. Jiang Xuande continued to appeal to the Neku for help, but Benelaba refused, citing his allegiance to his master.

However, Benelaba knew that Jiang Xuande’s soul belonged to Astaroth, and he knew that his master’s business partner would want to keep tabs on her investment. Benelaba referred him a Neku in Astaroth’s service who went by the name Makeri, offered an insincere apology, and promptly disappeared.

Nebuchadnezzar II’s Ishtar Gate was inspired by Astaroth’s palace in Persepolis. Astaroth’s palace was destroyed in Alexander the Great’s capture of the city in 330 BC.

Jiang Xuande considered his next move very carefully, for like his dead partner, he wanted revenge for the death of his child. Over the many years he had spent with Ninalla, she had shared with him countless secrets that mortals are forbidden to know about the world of demons, and she shared with him everything she knew about the angels, as well. He knew that if he had to take on the Angel of Death, he would need an army of demons at his disposal. In fact, he knew exactly what he needed.

All the best to you until next Tuesday. Dominus tecum.

On to Orders, Part V.

October 12, 2010, 07:08
Orders, Part III

Back to Orders, Part II.

As you’d expect, Jiang Xuande’s skill at magics improved significantly after he joined forces with Ninalla. In fact, his skill as an alchemist and an astronomer spread throughout the land, and so it was no surprise that Duke Xiao invited him to join his royal court in 361 BC.

If there is one force that is paramount within the Universe, it’s love. It’s the connecting thread within all our Graces. When it comes to love, there’s nothing else in the Universe that is more diverse in form and expression. There’s also nothing stronger. Love makes all the difference.

When Jiang Xuande summoned the demon Ninalla to his side and offered his wife Zhou’s body for her to possess, neither of them had any idea of what was to come. Over the years, a curious thing happened: Jiang Xuande and Ninalla fell in love. It might seem hard to believe, but even demons can feel love. The catch with demons is that most of the time, they don’t know how to express it in a constructive way, and when love is misdirected, it has the ugliest consequences.

I mentioned last week that Jiang Xuande had theorized that a demon’s possession of his wife’s body might alter her ability to bear children, and he was correct. A Nekudaimon possessing a human (or animal) body has a few effects. Its metaphysical energy is able to simultaneously boost and drain the physical lifeforce of its host. A Neku must have a living host in order for it to wield any power, because the bond it makes with the soul of its host is, in part, a source of power. A Neku also halts the aging process of its host and lends its adopted physical form additional brawn and hardiness. However, if a Neku remains within the same mortal body for a while—more than a few days, for example—the host dies almost immediately when the Neku departs, for the Neku will have consumed most, if not all, of the physical energy of the host. Additionally, if the host dies while the Neku is still in it on account of some horrible damage to the body, the Neku has to find a new host in order to manifest. (These rules don’t apply to Apokomistai.)

When Zhou was Zhou and Zhou alone, she could not bear children, but Ninalla possessing Zhou was a different story. (Do note that only an Apokomistis is capable of creating an Anathema. I’d explain, but Estelle has called dibs on this one.) The offspring of a Neku and a mortal creature is called an Epiklasmon, and it’s usually a creature that is weaker than its genetic kin. Their tragedy is that they don’t usually survive very long, which is typically a good thing, for they would live a cursed existence as the children of demons if they could live more than a few days. Still, the creative will that seizes those under love’s spell isn’t enough to deter them from trying to defy the odds.

And so it was that in 355 BC, after thirteen years together, Ninalla was with child. Everyone at the court of Duke Xiao was astonished by the news, for Jiang Xuande and his seemingly-barren wife had been a quiet (but nonetheless feared) couple who appeared resigned to being childless. It was considered a miracle, and Duke Xiao extended the boundaries of the lands of his favorite alchemist and astronomer as a gift for his seeming good fortune.

“The Angel of Death” as depicted in Carlos Schwabe’s The Death of the Grave-Digger. Azrael operates more quickly than humans can fathom. He doesn’t look like this model at all, but he does really like black and green.

But fortune is fickle.

Among the most feared and most misunderstood of angels is the Angel of Death. His name is Azrael, and he was tasked by God to maintain the balance of life and death within the Universe. One of his specific duties was to help the souls of the dead—especially those of children who weren’t strong enough to survive infancy—return to the Earth. He was also tasked with being close at hand to make sure that the soul of a creature that was cursed wouldn’t contaminate the pure waters of Earth’s well of souls.

Jiang Xuande’s misfortune was that Azrael was close at hand when Ninalla gave birth to their Epiklasmon on that bright spring morning. Not long after the poor creature had taken its first and only breath, its heart stopped. Azrael then escorted the dormant soul of Zhou from the plane of the physical into the cavern of the metaphysical, and then he went to an isolated corner of the Universe to contend with the curse that was present in the soul of the dead Epiklasmon.

Azrael is typically too quick for mortal eyes and most Neku senses to catch, but, of course, the exception to the rule came to pass on this occasion. The Angel of Death’s scent had lingered just long enough for the room for Ninalla to gauge what had happened when she realized that the body of her host was no longer ensouled and, consequently, dead.

Until next Tuesday. Dominus tecum.

On to Orders, Part IV.

October 5, 2010, 07:02