Aristaeus, the daemon

The sensation of a summoning is difficult to describe. It feels like being struck by lightning, being torn asunder and then thrust into a vessel which is never quite large enough to hold you. There is always immense tension as the summoner struggles to contain you, establish mastery, however transient, over your essence. You can always tell how powerful your summoner is in the first few moments as your essence is called into the material realm. I could tell immediately that this one was powerful. Of course he was. It took a highly skilled practitioner to summon a daemon as powerful as myself, let alone successfully enough to not be consumed by my akasha, my essence.

The summoner finished the binding incantations and then wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at me. Daemon eyes gazed back. My akasha was bound to a crystal next to him within the pentagram – a safe, if somewhat dull option – but my humanoid form hovered a couple of metres away. It was not unusual for summoners to successfully bind a daemon and then step outside their summoning pentagon only to be destroyed by the left over energy which whirled in the air, invisible to all except my kind. But this one knew better, alas. He was a dour looking man, but not old. He was not wearing conjurers’ robes, which was a surprise, but instead a black fur-trimmed coat. A trim beard and moustache hinted of bravado and youth, for it was golden, as was his well-kept hair.

“Aristaeus,” he said.

So the man knows my name. Good for him. I considered a daemonic roar, but felt it would not faze one such as him, so I remained silent.

“I am Somerled. You are now mine.”