The archdemon Mammon and me-Azazel

An illustration for my series of books "Smoldering Hell" https://author.today/work/series/11980

For the seventh book ("Smoldering Hell 7: Burning Paradise II. 99 Names of the Almighty https://author.today/work/160832 )

Color graphics, watercolor and pencil digital technique.

I have already mentioned that I will draw illustrations, including for difficult moments from my life in its true incarnation, and I consider this important.

Actually, what a scene. The palace of the archdemon Mammon, Purgatory, popularly also known as the castle of the Holy Demon; Italy, Rome, The underside of the castle of the Holy Angel, near the Tiber River. One of the rooms of the Purgatory. I'm dressed as woman; Mammon, who got up from an armchair, immensely great; behind, in armchairs and on chairs (off-screen) other ranks sat, some can be seen in the frame: on the left – Governor Marbas, lion-headed; in the center – archdemon Paimon, not himself from horror; on the right – the duke and Governor Barbatos.

Here I tried to convey as accurately as possible the ratio of Mammon's height and size in relation to me; I don't know how reliably it was possible, well, okay; I checked it very meticulously. I just remember that he was huge, and he looked at me, like at others, always from top to bottom, with his head down, and the strength in his fist was like a huge boulder that had fallen from the mountain heights. And the furniture in these rooms was also, for the most part, impressive in size, although, of course, not all (guest armchairs, for example, are not that big).

This is one of the most terrible and painful moments that I have had to go through, and which certainly affected my spiritual health, left new wounds and opened up old ones that, it would seem, have already been worked out and forgotten – but no, they will not disappear anywhere, they will never be forgotten, because you cannot get rid of them from your heart yes, from the mind, because they will open again, it is only necessary for something disgustingly accurate, well-aimed, to stick straight there, into these very wounds, and to stir them up as if they had not healed at all. And my self-torment is inexhaustible, my self-contempt is inexhaustible, let reason, logic, repeat everything intelligently, judiciously, the wounds of the heart are deaf to the arguments of reason, I have been through this, a proud man and a narcissist, hundreds of hundreds of times, the same from the very Beginning, as if the film was jammed in a cassette and in a circle twists: "you are insignificant and weak! You are insignificant and weak!" Why? Because there was someone stronger? But what is stronger? And is that power so important? Oh, no, I do not hear the arguments of reason, cannot command the heart by any means, be it, this means, even thrice wise! It's all one thing: power. Power is my king and God, and even if rebuild something in head, no, can't fix my nature, the one that is woven with a strong thread into my foundation. "To be the strongest." "To be above all." "To be the best." But where is higher? I am one of the four Kings of the Cardinal Directions, the Lord of the East, the Master of the Desert Sands. I'm a predator myself, a beast. But everything in the world is not one-sided, and a true predator can suddenly turn into a victim in the next moment. For another predator. No, I can't accept it, and I never will. My torments in the world are eternal, it seems that my curse, the demon, is a personal, personal burden that everyone has and everyone has their own, special. We all burn in Hell during our lifetime, and everyone has an individual Hell, then smoldering, then flaring up again, and so on in a circle, in a circle, in a circle…

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An excerpt from the chronicle (in books I wrote about myself in the third person):

"Well, my brethren... I know your cravings. An aggregate without a groan is like wine without a datura: a dummy. — He raised his hand with a glass higher, observing in the curved glass the distorted, cloudy reflection of Azazel on the bed of the sufferer. — And I have known this arrogant man since ancient times,— Mammon continued, raising his head and looking down at the reflection, twirling a wine glass in his hand, while the barons listened to him in a single silence, glancing maliciously at the Khalifa: the tortured archdemon lay on his side, with his back to his eyes, breathing heavily, turning away from everyone.

— Do you want to make him cry? Oh!.. — Mammon grinned, shaking his horned head. — The Heat of the East does not weep, Master of the Desert Sands! After all, he is like a desert, truly: rebellious, hot, not shedding tears. But... — The baron looked at his listeners, becoming more serious. — As I already told him: flexible boards also break if you squeeze their flexibility harder. And the desert will burst into tears like rain... if you know how to get rain. Well, Khalifa..(continued in the comment)