Cry For Dawn - 30/03/2009

Despite my inward feelings that made me hesitate, I knelt down and kissed her forehead while she slept. It was a foolish thing to do, but I knew it would be the last time I ever saw her. Even if my goal is achieved, I realise that many years will pass before she would forgive me. I brushed her hair softly with my fingertips, and she sighed in her sleep, perhaps sensing somehow the future that awaited her.

The small dagger shined in the candlelight, lighting up the room in strange geometry, as I dipped the blade into the liquid. I uttered the words. “Clavia. Astrata. Baal.” I repeated them slightly louder, then traced the blade across her skin, almost lovingly. A frown passed over her previously angelic features, and the slight marks I had made inscribed sigils on her, to please those I seek to beg from. Blood started to well and pool, and smoke slightly – the poison on the dagger doing it's work. I lent over her stomach, and drank steadily. A moan passed her lips, she arched her back, and any doubts I had were dispelled.

The candles in the room went out one at a time by an unseen hand. The woman froze, her face contorted in agony now, not ecstasy, and I am reminded of the fine line between the two. Her skin grew taut on her body, and she seemed to age before my eyes. Dark hair turned grey, eyes became sunken, and her nails grew brittle and fell away. She spoke then, in a voice that man was not meant to hear.

“You are in the presence of Prince Orobas, commander of twenty of Hell's legions, and speaker of truth. You shall not be deceived in my presence, Magus.”

A thrill ran through my mind at the sound of that last word. Magus. The culmination of ten painstaking years, trawling through decaying grimoires, and studying from insane fools. It took a further five to discover and translate the ritual I had just performed, and I was acting in haste. Fate had sped my hand. The woman spoke again, distracting me from my idle thoughts. “Why do you summon me?”

A fair question in any other circumstances, but in these I grew suspicious. Orobas was supposed to hold all knowledge in his power, and could do naught but speak the truth. At least according to Solomon. Suddenly nauseous, I feel I have been tricked. What if one of the other demons from the Ars Goetia had been summoned? Belial, lord of lies and guilt? Astaroth, prince of accusers and inquisitors, who reigned over Earth during the inquisition? I speak in a voice that does not betray my fear.

“You should know who I am, Orobas. Show me your true form, and tell me all you know of me.”
A child's giggle came from the woman, and she started to dissolve into a vile, black, tendrous smoke. This drifted away, before re solidifying as something much worse. It was not Orobas. I retched as I saw the body of a large wolf materialise, with a tail of some infernal serpent, and the head of a raven. The raven-headed beast smiled, showing canine teeth, and fire danced in it's throat.

“Be careful, Magus.” The demon spoke much more sarcastically now, seemed sure of victory. “You bear no protection from me. These trite tokens mean nothing to me.” he said, surveying the dim room I stood in. “I am Amon. Seventh of seventy-two. Duke of Hades. Allier of foes, procurer of love, and I serve Astaroth in the house of Wormwood.”

Alas! I had heard of this demon. Although he could offer me what I wanted, I had to change my plan of action, otherwise I would be cast down into the abyss, to be tortured mentally in Pandemonium, my pain serving to augment Hell's forces.

“Wise Duke, I am but a humble mortal, who wishes to serve his soul to Hell in exchange for mere words.” I spoke with humility to the beast, who flicked his tail back and forth impatiently. I cajoled, I pleaded, I flattered. Eventually Amon decided that it would grant me my boon, in exchange for my eternal soul. I raised conditions though, so that if at any time I die without gaining my wish, I would be untouchable to Hell, and proceed straight to Purgatory, if not Heaven. I remembered the demon's sarcasm at the word Magus and I knew it thought it was dealing with an amateur. In truth, it was.



I thought back to what made me end up like this : Bargaining everything I ever shall be, all for knowledge. I wasn't always like this. I was happy once.

It seems like forever now, but in truth was no less than twelve years, my 31st birthday. I was married and devoted to Dawn, my beacon in the darkness, her a Beatrice to my Dante.
I was confirmed as bipolar since before we met, but occasionally I would sink under the weight of my depression, and she would be there, keeping us both afloat.

I was unemployed, coasting from one soul-crushing job to another, while she was a professional – a career woman with a bright future. I could never understand what she saw in me, why she put herself through it all. When my depression did attack, even with her help I soon started to need medication.

Desperate for a job, I could not visit a psychiatrist to prescribe me anything to help, so I self-medicated. Starting off with the relatively safe tobacco and alcohol, I soon escalated to stronger drugs.

From cannabis to LSD, the psychotropics were my favourite, and worst. On a typically black and dismal night, I was encased in my room, surrounded in blackness, visualising on the matter of the universe, when I am suddenly assailed by a bright light.

Unknown to me, my darling Dawn had arrived at the time fitting her name, and with her came the sunlight from the door. In my intoxicated state however, she seemed to be my dead father, descended from heaven – calling upon me to do my duty to the Lord, and repent of my wicked ways.

I panicked, and looking frantically around. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand; one of my needles. With a guttural cry, I jumped from the bed at my loved one and plunged the contraption into my wife's throat.

She gagged, grasping her throat, and fell back with a crash amongst my papers. I laughed maniacally, and sat on the floor, rocking backwards and forwards. I was woken upon hearing a few muffled shouts, and then dragged screaming into a van, and then jail. Claiming complete amnesia (a truth) the police informed me that I was found covered in blood, murder weapon in hand, next to my murdered wife.


I was referred to a psychiatric prison and served 9 months, a sure sign of society's ineptitudes. I started to have slight recollections of the night, and from then on I could never sleep, my insomnia guaranteed by my ghastly crime. Knowing my only hope of salvation would be to discover the true message from my father in Heaven, I scoured the world on stolen credit cards, for any tome, grimoire, or item that would help me to commune with those supreme servants of God, angels.

I believed that I must speak to Michael, as he alone could tell me of those on the other side of the veil, servants of his satanic majesty. I walked to a holy place, and inhaled deeply from the mixture I had bought from Marrakesh. I stared at a mural of Michael fighting Beelzebub, sword poised proudly above his head, ready to swipe at the adversary's head. I closed my eyes, and reopened them to a different mural – that of Michael cast down in flames, two demons torturing him endlessly. I interpreted this to mean that the message from Michael concerned Hell, and the false message from my father came from the same place.


I cursed God, and began to study a different path, that of dreaming monsters, biblical blasphemies, and power untold. I grew in power as a magician, progressing through the ranks, from Neophyte, to Ipssisimus. Yet with all my power, I could not determine the point of the message, from Hell or Heaven.

So there we have it. I have given all that I have and ever will be to merely know what my accursed father meant me to know. I select a particularly unkempt prostitute from the streets, and with a flash of money lead her to my apartment.

Surprisingly beautiful once cleaned, despite the needle-marks scouring her body, I spike some wine with all the pills I can find in the house, and watch her drink it. I carve the marks with the dagger as I mentioned previously, and then repeat my story to the Duke, Amon.

After hearing my story, Amon laughs the laugh of razorblades, and stares at me, with hideous equine eyes.

“Very well, Magus, you shall see Hell's message for you.” With that the room dissolves, and I find myself in one of the middle cantos of Hell, where my father is being stung in the eyes by mad hornets, buried up to his torso in leeches. His pains of scream double in intensity as he sees me next to his captor, Amon.

I stare at the Duke, and with a gesture the torture stops, and my father regards me with sorrowful eyes. I question him, and he hacks up blood into the writhing leeches below, and starts to speak.

“My son, it is said in the good book that the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons. This has never been more true. Despite my pure motives, I too fell into the same pit of despair you are now in. We are from a blessed bloodline, with a quest so valuable that we are chosen to do it by God himself. Our thirst for secret knowledge is to aid us, and we gorged too long, too deep. We alchemised a holy quest into a sinful journey. We were swayed by the Earthly delights, and blocked out the heavens. Once I had died in sin, the demonic forces knew that Heaven's last chance rested with you, my son. They tortured me until I agreed to help them, and I gave the message to you. Heaven knew you weren't ready. God knew that some words aren't meant to be heard by humans. But you listened. You should have known that Heaven relies on faith to do it's work. But now it is too late.”

My father paused for breath, and Amon giggled behind me, like a child that has just pulled a leg from spider. The demon clapped it's hands (claws?) and the leeches and hornets resumed their work. The demon spoke again with it's suicide voice,

“The contract is complete. Your soul is ours. The earthly plains will be ours again. Your pain begins.”

Impaled suddenly by a hundred swords, sounds I never thought possible issued from my throat, and the swords began to fly through the air, carrying me with them. I see the world go by faster and faster, and I make out a bejewelled-red sword, eight feet high, easily distinguishable from the desert I am now in and black sky. I am carried above the sword, and somehow even more painfully, the swords are removed.


I fall, dying, and am skewered. My pain turns into something even greater, mixing with fear as I realise the sword is being powered from the desert, and the night sky. I remember there is no day in Hell.


I am crying in the night.

I am crying, and I cry for Dawn.