Deal With The Devil

The canal is glass-still, swaths of mist lingering on the surface. Reflections of street lamps and dark windows are perfect as a second world built beneath the surface of the water.

Then it ripples. The reflections waver, shudder as the ripples grow. The barge approaches from around the corner, almost silently, with the slow confidence of an island.

It is hung with heavy curtains, deep purple and lined with silver in the moonlight. It’s own ghostly lanterns have cascades of crystals catching the light and sparkling like teardrops, and its railing, the statue at the bow, are all gilded with deep, rich gold.

The barge floats dreamily down the canal, huge and looming, a gilded shadow.

The barge is a nightly occurrence, a shadow that few see, for they are asleep and even those awake and wandering the streets, careful not to fall in the canal, do not notice it.

The barge makes its journey not at midnight, but at three hours past, the dream heavy hour.

Its only passenger stands at the bow, like a gondolier, yet he does not steer. This vessel needs now wheel or oars.

The dew-cold wind in the winter whips his cloak to the north in a canopy of black silk. There is an oncoming storm, and he does not mind, he has collected more than his usual share of dreams, and they sit in a pile bound in pearly covers, behind the curtains.

With one final backward glance at the empty windows, the Dream Thief disappears into the curtained room aboard the barge.

Within the purple enclosure, the space is more modest than the rest of the opulent barge. Lit with candles in lanterns with rainbow coloured glass, it is a kaleidoscope of diamond shaped light over piles of books and curiosities.  There are discarded wine glasses, and tea cups for the more frequent colder nights, and some dream catchers lying in heaps of beads and feathers and string, collecting dust.

There is a carpet from Tabriz, one collected in a market, for the Dream Thief can never move very far from his territory, and on it is a small pillar, with curling metal at the top giving way to an instrument that most people would mistake for a clock upon first glance.

Yet the clock does not count hours of the day and night, but hours according to sleep, when dreams are heavy. It measures the dreams in the atmosphere, like a compass. The Thief hardly uses it; dream laden nooks of the city are familiar to him, and only when he has finished perusing the busiest streets does he turn to the compass, to point him in the direction of further dreams, should he need them.

Tonight he hopes to escape the worst of the storm, and the barge speeds through the water in his haste to avoid the increasing wind and the rain beginning to patter on the barge’s deck.

The barge rocks gently on the waves; the Thief once had a hard time keeping his balance, now he merely sways.

The storm-tossed weeds and resonated foliage have gathered in green and brown knots on the edges of cobblestone streets, smelling earthen and marine.

The barge rounds another corner, turning into a canal inky with shadows, save for the bridge lit by street lamps some ways away.

The bridge, coupled with the darkness, provides ample cover as the barge turns, swinging the stern forward as it comes parallel with the bridge. Beneath the stone there is a world of shadow, bleeding into the niches of the stone arch, reaching for the barge like long fingers.

The darkness welcomes the barge like a mother welcoming a soldier home. It is soft and dark, and the thief processes fearlessly through, though the sky and the water disappears, and he can no longer tell where he is. He is suspended in the abyss.

There is a rustle, like the pages of a book. The glint of a lantern in the distance, and slowly the cavern comes into view, growing from a photograph to diorama.

The barge advances slowly, swaying as it perches beside the dock, warm and opulent in the returned lantern light.

He glances at the sky, pitch black and star bane, through the window, thoughtfully. A forked tongue of lightning cracks the sky in half and an electric tang fills the air.

The thief is undisturbed, though he guesses, correctly, that his presence has been detected, but in his habitual meditation, he sits undisturbed, watching the storm as it increases in intensity.

Other persons, unaware of his heavy thoughts, of the deepness of his pensiveness, have no care for disturbing him.

The brush of fabric against paper rouses him. The thief rouses from his thoughts like a fish to the surface of the ocean. The sound of a toppling tower of books draws him to his feet, his eyes to his visitor.

A gentleman, clad in a black suit and a matching black mask, stands near the desk, in a space unoccupied by artifacts or disorganized dreams. He smiles wolfishly, and with slight apology in his countenance, though he stands tall and straight.

“I’m sorry for interrupting. Please, finish the thought, if you feel so inclined.”

The thief does not return to his place. He has gone startlingly white and holds his hand behind his back to disguise its shaking.

“No?” The masked gentleman looks genuinely surprised. “Well, then come here. I have things to discuss with you and I prefer not to do it at such a distance. Let’s get to it, directly. No dancing around the subject.”

The thief approaches cautiously, with the weariness of one dreading punishment. He gives the masked gentleman a wide berth as he reaches his table, stepping over books and pausing to retrieve some fallen dreams already withering in the damp.

“You aren’t going to invite me to sit down?” the gentleman says, once the thief stands across from him, regarding him silently.

“Why are you here?” the thief demands.

“Well, certainly not to reminisce about our school days.” The gentleman gestures to the chairs at the desk, raising his brows.

The thief regards the man wearily before retrieving a velvet-lined seat and placing it across the table. He is careful to keep the chair, then the table, between them as he retreats again.

“I here to collect my debt,” the gentleman says as he brushes off the armchair and takes a seat.

The thief raises his eyebrows. “What debt is that?” he asks.

“Don’t be tiresome, Orpheus. If you truly have forgotten then you are more senile than I had thought,” the masked gentleman says. He sits erectly, as though he cannot bear touching the chair.

The gentleman smiles, though the expression is too wolfish to be friendly. “I would wager that you thought you could hide yourself from me down here, didn’t you? When the thief does not reply he continues on as thought he did not pause. “It is impressive; who would expect a thief to live in a subterranean library? Who would even consider the possibility of the existence of such a library? But then again, you are no ordinary thief.”

The thief does not move, but narrows his eyes as the gentleman gazes at the book-lined wall of the cavern.

“Well, you have been busy. You are very skilled. I saw much of your performance tonight. I am impressed, if dismayed.”

“By what?”

“That the gift of your education is for the purpose of this barbaric trade. Petty thievery and piracy.” He pauses to look slyly at the thief before inquiring, “How many dreams have you collected?”

His companion shrugs, though the gesture is one of forced nonchalance.

“I have never stopped to count,” he answers.

“How many of these are your daughter’s dreams, I wonder,” the gentleman says.

“None,” the thief says, firmly. “I have given my daughter the choice to keep her dreams to herself.”

The gentleman folds his hands on his lap and regards his companion with disconcertingly light grey eyes. “It is a shame the other dreamers do not have the same luxury.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes going back and forth between the man before him and the volumes strewn across the cavern. “How can you be sure? I would have thought that after so much time and with such an immense collection, you would not be able to distinguish their original owners.”

“I have not forgotten our bargain,” Orpheus replies, returning to the greater of two evils.. “I have simply chosen not to address the issue. You cannot have meant it seriously, at the time.”

“I was, and I believe you were too. You seemed incredibly willing to promise me anything in exchange for my teachings, for your late paramour. My condolences about her. I would have written you at the time, but I was preoccupied.”

What small glimmer of hope the thief had been holding that the gentleman before him had forgotten their contract is crushed by his first statement.

“You love it, don’t you?” the masked gentleman asks. He does not wait for his companion’s reply. “Don’t deny it. You look at those books like a dragon does his gold.”

“What is it you want of me?” he asks.

The gentleman smiles. “Your daughter, of course. Your first-born child. Your only born child, now.”

The conviction of the statement hits Orpheus with devastating force. “She is not part of this. Name another price. She is too much.”

“Too much for what?” the gentleman asks. His eyes sharpen, light grey and piercing as knives. “You occluded my process for years, spouting this and that about your intentions to do good with my teachings. While I taught those who have made more of themselves, you begged me for my help. And when I gave you the tools to create this – this,” he sweeps an arm around the cavern. “This empire, you procured the heart of a woman. Well, we made a bargain and I have come to collect.”

“She is the most precious thing to me,” the thief says.

“That is precisely why I want her,” the masked gentleman replies. “Should you wish to keep your treasures, you should not be so careless with them.”

“Name another price, anything else. Why should my daughter be so important to you?”

The masked gentlemen runs a finger along the embossed book spines, shaking it free when it catches in ribbon bookmarks or on fraying covers and tears.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do with her, yet,” the gentleman continues, adding another spoonful or sugar and stirring while he elaborates. “Perhaps I will teach her my trade, and she could assist me. Perhaps I will teach her some simple tricks and she can amuse me. Perhaps she has her own talents,” he adds, eyeing the thief and grinning with satisfaction.

“I want what we originally put forth. You should not have offered me something you could not bear to part with. But you paid with your daughter and the contract is binding. As you well know,” he adds, glancing at the books on the shelves, one book in particular, inconspicuously wedged between dreams and gryphons and masquerades, one of the few academic volumes he has hidden in plain sight among his volumes of dreams.

“Your daughter is somewhat of a raving beauty, but even that does not compare to the ephemeral light of a soul. You may keep her. If you pay me in three other souls.”

“Three is too high a price,” the thief says. “My daughter is one soul, why now should I give you five?”

“I want our original price, threefold, for my generosity in amending our contract.”

“And where am I to get three souls?”

The gentleman waves his arms around them. “Perhaps you should consult your books. Three vibrant dreamers. Three vibrant dreams. And you have three days in which to collect them. Otherwise, it is your daughter I will be keeping.”

As the gentleman stands, a sudden cold overtakes the thief. Though he cannot be certain if it is the effect of his companion, or something else and much more leaden settling on his shoulders.

“It was, as always, a pleasure to see you, Orpheus,” the gentleman says, holding out his hand.

“I cannot imagine a time when I shall sincerely return the sentiment,” the thief says, and does not move to take the gentleman’s hand.

After a moment the gentleman lowers his hand, giving a small shrug before turning down a rocky, shaded passage.

“I’ll show myself out, shall I?” he calls out behind him as he leaves.

When he is sure the masked gentleman is gone and it is only his own breathing and his voice that echoes softly in the cavern, the thief mutters a simple, declarative, “Fuck.”

Isabel’s father sits in quiet despondency, eyes fixed on a dying oil lamp perched on the corner of his table, no doubt where he has elbowed it absentmindedly while reading the book in front of him. But he seems to have no interest in the book; he does not even glance at the contents of its pages, but keeps his dark eyes on the lamp. He shifts slightly in his seat, his gaze unwavering, and the lamp begins to tilt. She leaps forward to catch it and rights it several inches from the table’s corner.

“Father?” she says.

Her father does not respond, he watches the space previously occupied by the lamp. The light is dying and the shadows in his face make him appear older than he is, though he has never disclosed his true age to her and she often cannot guess beyond a five year age range.

“Father?” she says again.

Her father seems to waken. His eyes move first, sliding from the lamp and coming to rest on her face. Slowly he sits up. He looks at her as though he has never seen her before.

“An old colleague of mine came to visit today,” her father says.

She barely conceals her surprise. It is rare her father has visitors. “And?”

“And he reminded me of where I come from. Of our school days, and what he taught me, and what he gave me in exchange.”

“What are you talking about?” Isabel asks, peering down at him with concern.

“I loved your mother desperately, when we met. I was more than tempted to give anything to that man in exchange for that talent of tracking and containing dreams. To bind something so free and unreliable in paper. To know what she dreamed, what she desired, and be able to give it to her. I did not think that later it would be a problem. I did not dream that it would involve you.”

“You… made a promise to someone, in exchange for your abilities?” Isabel attempts to clarify her father’s words. He is always articulate and confident in his words and she finds his sudden hesitancy disquieting. “To whom did you make this promise?”

“He is not the devil exactly; he is more accurately called the devil’s shadow.”

Isabel pulls away from her father, bending down to look him in the eye. “The devil? You made a deal with the devil?”

“We had neither the means to go to the market, or to trade once we arrived. So we brought the market to our dorm, to our rooms and to our cards table. We gambled tricks and manipulations for abilities, which most people would now mistakenly call magic. It was not some great ceremony. The devil’s shadow is not one for ceremony. But we have a contract, and my signature is on it. Regrettably. I do deeply regret it, Isabel.”

Isabel looks at him with concern. “Whatever it is, I will help you,” she promises.

Her father raises his head to meet her eyes, and takes a deep breath to steady his next words.

Text by Lucie MacAulay