When the sheikh had finished his story, the demon shook with laughter and granted him a third of his claim on the merchant’s blood.
Then the demon released the merchant and departed. (Thousand and One Nights, 577)
[The Story of the Chief Demon and his wife]
The air around him heated as he traveled through world, and appeared back in his own realm. There, he found his wife, still sobbing on a slab of obsidian. “O Husband!” She cried. “How could you not punish the merchant for his brutal slaughter of our child!” Around her the land was barren except for the small sack of eggs attached to her stomach where their future children lay. In just a few days’ time she would hand them over to him, and he in turn would take them to a field where they would grow and wreak havoc upon the land of men. The demon glared at his wife. Had he not deserved the levity of the stories the merchants told him? Had he not take pleasure in listening to the success of his children and grandchildren ruining the lives of men? For the demon had slaved away centuries carrying their spawn to various ends of the earth and never had he been thanked. The only news he received from his children was in the form of stories relayed to him by mortals.
“Ungrateful wife! You sit here in our kingdom bearing children, watching them take their firsts breaths and never asking what happens after! I should behead you now for such ungrateful accusations! For I am the one that takes them to the mortal realm, that buries their destroyed bodies, that seeks out the news of their success!” With that the chief demon took out his sword and held it over her neck, while she cowered, clutching the eggs closer to her body. She sobbed, “I cannot stop you! But you are foolish to think that I do not care to know the lives of our children! As you follow them in the mortal realm, so do I follow their fallen hearts here in our kingdom! I see them return broken and defeated to flow into the river of souls! I can never speak to them, I can never touch them or comfort them, I can only weep at their deaths!”
The chief demon cared not for her weakness and tears. Better to be alone than to be stuck in a realm with her for the coming centuries. He swung his sword towards her neck, but she moved and produced a jar from under her. The sword struck the jar with such force it should have shattered, but instead the sword and demon clattered into the jar and the wife slammed the lid onto it. She mustered what little strength she had left and made her first venture into the land of mortals. Appearing amid a fine house she saw a servant, cowering and praying in the corner. The demon approached her and croaked out the one name she knew could save her, “Solomon.”
The servant turned around in shock of the name she just heard. The servant dryly whispered, “…Solomon?” and suddenly the rags of servant clothes fell to the floor, lifeless. They could not clothe the black figure of air that has just transformed from person to demon. Solomon regained all memory of his past, from the moment of his birth to the moment he was trapped, enslaved, and bewitched into a female servant girl. Solomon stared in nostalgic awe at the female demon who saved him, “Is that truly you, Mother?”
Rushing to her son’s side, she exclaimed, “Yes, my son who I have not seen in hundreds of years, it is me. I have come to save you. Your father has always been unaware of my sight into the mortal world, but I have been watching. I know what he did to you, and how he has been blaming mortals for your death as an excuse to terrorize and torment them.” Solomon responded in great relief, “You have no idea mother. He is only getting stronger. I have tried to stop him, but I failed and now I am here.” The mother demon responded, “I know, son. He is devouring the souls of innocent mortals for his own gains, and at the cost of his own children’s eternities. This is why I have come into this world with the last bit of power that I have, but first, you have to tell me how he did this to you. Why did he turn you into a female servant girl? Where are your siblings?”
Solomon responded, “Well, it started from the moment he took us from you, and brought us into this world. The underworld connected to this realm is where resides the Maleficent Lucifer. He has become a strong hand in Father’s actions. He would know where my brothers are…”. The mother demon tightly gripped on the container holding her husband, “We do not have much time, Solomon. I can only hold your father in here for so long.”