Tag: Sitri

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 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

Tag: Sitri

Astaroth’s Wager, Part I

Orders, Part V

Orders, Part IV