Above

Above is the material plane of ordinary mortal existence in the cosmology of the tyrant-philosophers, the human world distinguished by name from the Realms Below-the native domains of demons, fiends, and other supernatural entities. It is not a single location the reader visits as one visits a city or a fortress, but the default ground of physical reality, a gravitational pole from which the infernal territories are exiled and against which all supernatural architecture is measured. Its significance to the series is structural: the entire contract-based system by which demons are manifested, bound, and employed depends on the existence of a plane where such bindings can take purchase, and where the conditions of flesh, steel, and linear time apply. Without Above, the compact is void; without the Realms Below, there is nothing to summon.

Across the two books in which the term appears, Above evolves from a metaphysical abstraction into a site of lived tension. In the first book it functions primarily as the plane upon which Palleseen military compacts bind demonic entities into service, raising the question of whether an institution can reform what its native realm made. In the second, it becomes a membrane under physical strain-a surface stretched, frayed, and liable to tear-embodied in the geography of a single family demesne and in the split constitution of a man who belongs half to one side of the boundary and half to the other. The arc runs from contractual logic to bodily vulnerability: Above begins as the ground on which a contract is written and ends as the skin that might rip.

The Place

Geography & Character

Above is the plane of ordinary mortal existence, the material world of flesh, steel, and linear duration. It has no inherent hospitality to the denizens of the Realms Below: a demon without a valid contract has no purchase there, and the dissolution of a summoning bond ordinarily returns the entity to its own realm - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38. From a demonic perspective, the living world is not a desirable destination but a sentence, a liminal exile enforced by the terms of a binding - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 33. The imps Ib, Pib, Pob, Flob, and Flab find their posting Above a degradation, miserable and resentful, viewing the material plane as punishment rather than privilege - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 33.

The plane is not uniformly stable at its boundaries. The Sable Manor, family demesne of Abellaime, is described as "stretched taut between Above and The Realms Below," its fabric straddling both planes simultaneously, with its binding to the Pandaemonium half-snapped and the tether between material and infernal fraying - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41. This renders portions of Above not solid ground but a membrane under tension, liable to tear where the geography of a demesne and the constitution of its residents keep the boundary permanently stretched - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41.

Who Holds It

Above is the native plane of human civilisation; no single entity governs it in the manner of a demesne lord or a bound territory. Demonic presence there is not natural but contractual: fiends are "manifested" Above by binding compact, and the terms of that compact govern the duration, form, and obligations of their stay - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38. The plane belongs to those who write and enforce the contracts-military hierarchies, conjurers, the Pandaemonium-rather than to any power that claims it as sovereign ground. Ownership of specific parcels at the boundary can shift with the fraying of a binding, as the half-snapped tether at the Sable Manor illustrates - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41.

What Happens Here

Above is the plane where Palleseen military compacts manifest demons into service, raising the question of whether an institution's discipline can reform what the Realms Below made - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38. It is also a site of practical pedagogy: Caeleen learned to fight Above during the period she spent at Devil Jack's side, acquiring martial skills exercised in the flesh-and-steel conditions of the mortal plane - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 39. Most critically, it is the surface where the metaphysical skin of the world is thin: the Sable Manor's fraying binding makes Above a place where the boundary between planes is actively under strain, where a person's constitution can be half in Hell, half Above - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41. The plane stages these events rather than another because its defining property-being the ground where contracts take purchase and where the boundary to the infernal is physically maintained-makes it the only site where the tension between bound and free, human and demon, material and infernal, can be dramatised as a spatial and bodily fact.

History

Days of Shattered Faith

The World Above is the human, material plane, distinguished in the metaphysical vocabulary of the Palleseen military from the Realms Below, the native domains of demons and other entities. A demon's presence in the World Above is not a natural condition but a contractually imposed one: fiends are "manifested" Above by binding compact, and the terms of that compact govern the duration, form, and obligations of their stay - ch 38. The plane itself offers no inherent hospitality to such beings; a demon without a valid contract has no purchase there, and the dissolution of the summoning bond ordinarily returns the entity to its own realm - ch 38.

This contractual logic becomes the focal point of a philosophical meditation in Cohort-Monitor Croskin's chapter, which interrogates what it means for a demon of "malign spite, deception and violence" to be hauled Above by a poorly drafted summoning and then set to wearing a Palleseen uniform, commanding subordinate fiends within a military hierarchy - and whether that enforced structure makes him a soldier or leaves him a brute in borrowed clothes - ch 38. Cohort-Monitor Croskin struggles to speak Pel, the language of the army whose discipline he nonetheless feels a genuine loyalty toward, a tension the chapter treats as inseparable from the question of whether the World Above's institutions can reform what the Realms Below made - ch 38.

The binding that keeps Cohort-Monitor Croskin manifested in the World Above traces to the "inept summoning" and shaking-hand contract of Companion-Invigilator Galversty, the Companion-Invigilator now deceased; the notes record that Galversty's errors in drafting the compact are precisely what sustain Croskin's presence rather than release him - ch 38. The question of whether Croskin persists after Galversty's death is answered directly within the same chapter: the contract, however ineptly composed, did not dissolve with the contractor's passing. "stayed. Bound to the Sway, he said." - the phrasing attributes to Croskin the observation that Galversty's death did not free him, and that he remains obligated - ch 38.

Pretenders to the Throne Of God

Above is the term used in this book for the material world, the plane of ordinary mortal existence, set in opposition to the demonic Realms Below - Hell and its attendant territories. It functions less as a discrete location the reader visits than as a gravitational pole in the cosmology: the direction from which demons are exiled, the ground on which conjurers bind their contracts, and the boundary against which the supernatural architecture of the novel's setting is measured.

The term first appears in conjunction with the five imps - Ib, Pib, Pob, Flob, and Flab - who are in conjurer-contracted servitude and who find their assignment to the material plane a degradation; they are miserable in Hell and resent their posting Above, viewing the living world as a punishment rather than a privilege - ch 33. The usage underscores that Above is not, from a demonic perspective, a desirable destination but a sentence, a liminal exile enforced by the terms of a binding.

Later, the concept appears in relation to combat and training. Caeleen, a demon lover of Devil Jack who remains in Hell while Jack operates in the material world, learned to fight Above during the period she spent at his side - ch 39. The phrasing marks Above as a site of practical pedagogy, a place where a being native to the Realms Below can acquire skills - specifically martial ones - that are exercised in the flesh-and-steel conditions of the mortal plane. Jack, standing on a balcony, senses her presence below him in Hell and addresses her in his thoughts, the spatial metaphor (above/below) made literal by the vertical cosmology the book maintains throughout - ch 39.

The most architecturally explicit use of the term occurs at The Sable Manor, the family demesne of Abellaime. The manor is described as "stretched taut between Above and The Realms Below," a structure whose fabric straddles both planes simultaneously; its binding to the Pandaemonium is half-snapped, the tether between the material and the infernal fraying - ch 41. Abellaime, as last heir of that family, belongs to a demesne that "stretches between Above and Below," making her lineage a living seam in the world's metaphysical skin - ch 41. Devil Jack, her familiar and apprentice, is himself described as "half in Hell, half Above," his body and awareness split across the boundary that the Sable Manor itself embodies - ch 41. In this book, then, Above is not merely the default backdrop of human affairs but a surface under tension, a membrane that the geography of the demesne and the constitution of its residents keep permanently stretched, fraying, and liable to tear.

Relationships

• Devil Jack - Operates in the material world as his primary sphere of action; his constitution is described as "half in Hell, half Above," his body and awareness split across the boundary the Sable Manor embodies - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41. Standing on a balcony, he senses Caeleen's presence below him in Hell and addresses her in his thoughts, the vertical cosmology made literal by his physical position on the mortal plane - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 39.
• Caeleen - A demon who remains in Hell while Jack operates Above; the material plane served as her training ground, the site where she acquired the martial skills she exercises in flesh-and-steel conditions - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 39.
• Abellaime - As last heir of the Sable Manor family, she belongs to a demesne that "stretches between Above and Below," making her lineage a living seam in the world's metaphysical skin - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41.
• Cohort-Monitor Croskin - Bound to the World Above by the inept compact of Companion-Invigilator Galversty; Galversty's death did not release him, and he remains obligated - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38. His persistence Above raises the question of whether the plane's institutions can reform what the Realms Below made - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38.
• Companion-Invigilator Galversty - Deceased contractor whose errors in drafting the summoning compact are precisely what sustain Croskin's presence in the World Above rather than releasing him - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38.
• Ib, Pib, Pob, Flob and Flab - Five imps in conjurer-contracted servitude who find their assignment to the material plane a degradation and a punishment, resenting their posting Above - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 33.

Notable Quotes

"stayed. Bound to the Sway, he said." - Cohort-Monitor Croskin, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 38

"stretched taut between Above and The Realms Below" - Narration describing the Sable Manor, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41

"half in Hell, half Above" - Narration describing Devil Jack's constitution, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 41

Tags

1. material-plane · #cosmology · #beyond-louse-monks