The Small Print

2016/04/16

He introduced himself as Emerald, a visitor to the Netherworld. When they shook hand Paris could already see what he was after, what he had done that warrant the trip, and what he would gain–and lose–out of it. His tongue pulsed with excitement, his eyes flared hungrily behind his head. Here was another trophy for his case, twice. Here came another day for the Netherworld.

Many years ago, before he was known with the name he now used, before he’d see the world with magic, Emerald Silverhand made a mistake. He didn’t know it was a mistake, at the time, didn’t think it mattered whether what he did was right or wrong, only that it was the only thing to do. And then there were things he gained, a world he could enter, and there were things that he lost. The more he went on with his new life in the new world, the hazier his memory became of the time before. He could feel the emptiness, a missing piece from his head, from his heart. Something that should be there, but he couldn’t feel anymore. So then he dropped his position at the head of the new world and went searching for his past.

His search led him to this place, this world that was strange and unknown. He held his charms in his hands, remembered all the magic rites by heart, and stepped off the train.

“So you’re looking for something,” the stranger said to him after he shook his hand. “You wouldn’t have come here if there’s nothing to gain. Nobody would come here unless there’s something to gain.” He shook his head, a sort of worry dotted his eyes. “A bit of a shame, that. I never get to show a lot of people the sights.”

Beyond the station it was dark, dark. Nothing but a pitch black darkness that couldn’t be penetrated by any of the lights he had brought. Not magic, not charm, not even technology. But then from the darkness he saw a shape. And the shape writhed and twisted and changed shape. It went closer and closer until someone stepped out of the light and revealed itself to be a man. He had a warm smile and a friendly face and eyes that were bright and curious and hungry. He offered him his hand to shake and introduced himself. He said his name was Paris.

“There’s the clock tower then,” said Paris, pointing to a tower that rose to the dark ceiling above. “No one’s been in there for years, because someone lost the key. Kind of silly, but the clock’s running, and the bats still fly at its stroke of midnight, so nobody minds.” They walked on. “Not a lot of place to stay, I’m afraid. But I can get you some lodgings, perhaps.” He clicked his tongue. “I heard there are some empty rooms in the spider folks’ place. Don’t worry. They’re just bakers.”

The stranger, Paris, he opened Emerald’s eyes to the darkness, revealed to him a bustling city of spires and town houses and buildings made of stone and glass and masonries and every element possible. There were creatures roaming the streets. A nine-legged beast, a man made of stone, a passing wind that could speak. There were noises and chatters and there was even music, a faint pleasant beat that reverberated in all corners of the city.

“Well. There you go,” Paris said, as they left the bakers’ home. “You’ve got a place to stay. Anything else I can help you with?” He looked to the sky, where a pack of gargoyles were giggling over one thing or another. He cracked a smile. “Actually. We’re holding a festival, of sorts, tonight. To celebrate the founding of the city. It’ll be kind of quiet from your end, since it’s held in the third layer of the dark, but I could get you a pass for one night, if you like.”

He had no leads, no idea at all where he was going, what he was going to do. But as he went around the city, he could feel himself getting closer, getting warmer. Whatever it was that he had lost, it was in this city, this world. Perhaps right under his nose, hidden under some strange layer of its universe.

He held the pass that Paris had given him, a pair of glasses made of a gem he had never seen before. It’d help him see the dark, he said, but it’ll crumble in the morning. It’s not meant to be held by human hand for long.

It was the only thing he could think of doing.

Paris rested on his couch, in his home, in the seventh layer of the Netherworld darkness. He glanced six layers up, observing the newcomer, who had just found a tavern playing music that would be familiar to him. He clicked his tongue, already feeling the scent reeling in his mind. He went to a layer above, and called out.

“He really loves you, doesn’t he?” Paris said to the soul that responded to his call. “He threw away everything I gave him to come all the way here, just to find you again.” He sighed, took a sip from his glass. “I might never understand you humans.”

The tavern was warm and pleasant. Over at a corner a spider was playing a song that twirled around his head. He knew he’d heard it before, somewhere, a long time ago before his world changed. He tried to grasp at the memory but it eluded him somehow. The melody rested in his head like something that was there but could not exist there.

The bartender was a warm tender flame. He served him a drink that tasted to him even more familiar than the music. Again the memory taunted him, swerving just outside of his reach. It would be the perfect shape for the hole in his heart, but small, so small. Even if he managed to catch it, which he couldn’t even do, it would only be a small piece to a bigger memory. The thing that he had lost.

He took a taste again from his drink. It reminded him of a home from a long time ago, untouched by magic or darkness. Slowly, before he could realise why, tears rolled down his cheeks.

“You ready to go?” Paris said. He stood on the doorway of the spiders’ home, carrying a package of buttered bread that the spiders have insisted he kept, wearing a sort of leather jacket that Emerald had only seen in the world outside of magic. It looked out of place in a world as strange as the Netherworld and yet it was a perfect look on him. “Well, the festival’s all night. It won’t mind if you need to pick yourself up a bit.”

One moment the streets was empty, not even the ever-present beat that he had heard during the day, but then the wore the gemstone glasses and there were music, more music than he could comprehend. There were people, no, strange creatures dancing in the streets. There were laughters, chatters. There were the sweet smell of candies and cakes and the intoxicating scents of perfumes and wines. He walked around in the dark, breathing all the smell in, tuning himself to all the strange melodies, feasting his eyes on the reigns of the festival.

“That’s the fire ants, fire eaters, fire shooters. Those’re the lurching dancers. Yeah, they don’t have legs, but they’re still the best at what they do. Them’s the fortune tellers. See their eyes? Can see right through you. Don’t go there, they’ll figure out you don’t belong here.” Paris clicked his tongue. His smile unwavering, his eyes bright and hungry, always hungry. “If you need something to bite, the bazaar up ahead has more than spider breads, and – oh, hey Morningstar. How are you? Nah, he’s new. I’m just showing him the sights. – Where was I? Right, ah. We’ve got all sort of exotic foods there, from all over the places that isn’t even the Netherworld. We tend to get some visitors from other worlds during festivals.”

There were so many things to see, to smell, to taste, to hear during the festival. But soon he remembered himself and why he was there. There was a faint melody in his ears, something familiar and long-lost. He tried to follow the sound, through the turns and crooks and the maze of the bazaar. All around him, the music continued, the dancers went by their way, the visitors cheered at all the strange exhibits of the Netherworld, but he kept his focus. The melody stayed true in his ears, no matter how faint it was among all the other beats of the world.

And then he found a corner, an alleyway, a backstage. It was quieter there, the noise of the festival far away. And there he could feel his heart beating, faster and quicker and familiar, as if ready to leap. There was no one there–the tune has vanished from his ears–but his heart beat a tune of both fear and longing. He’d been here, in this same situation before, even though he couldn’t for the life of him recall it.

Behind him, he could hear the devil’s footstep.

Mary looked at the carvings on the cliff with nothing but confusion lining her face. “But what does it mean, brother?”

“It’s a portal!” Her brother called as he ran up to her. He was carrying a bag heavy with gemstones and carved rocks, the only sort of things that he knew to bring. “It’s a portal to the world of magic!”

“You know we don’t believe in magic, James.”

“Yes, that’s what they all said. But that’s just what they want us to think.” He stepped next to his sister and started to rummage through his bag. “But I’ve read things. In the library, at the back, behind the dust. Magic exists, sis. We’re all just being left out.”

Mary shook her head, but even as she did so, her minds reeled back. She’d lived in the village for all fifteen years of her life, and she’d never seen a way out of it. The whole place could sustain itself forever, hidden behind a circle of tall craggy mountains that no one could ever mount. Everyone there lived happily and prosperous, but they never changed, never wondered of what lied outside those natural walls. It was like there was something keeping them in.

From his bag, her brother pulled out a gemstone the size of his palm. A shining clear-cut emerald. “This one, this one I found when the other carving exploded. You remember, don’t you?”

She nodded. She remembered the boiling pot that glowed with all the colours of rainbow. Ruby red and blue sapphire and even crystal white, except for one. “We melted everything. How did you get that?”

“I, I can feel it, sis. The mountains, these walls, the carvings. The runes.” He took a step closer to the wall. “This one’s mine, and I can open the walls.”

Mary took a careful step back. “James. Don’t mess with that. Come back here.”

“No. Look. Don’t you see? They’re, they’re like locked doors.” He put one finger on the runes carved to the cave wall. There was a pulse, faintly visible. “And its key is in another door. You just have to…”

Quickly, before Mary could make a move to respond, her brother pushed the emerald into the wall. The runes pulsed and glowed, the wall rumbled, ever so slightly, and then it stopped.

For a second, the two of them stood there, unblinking. A wind blew, but nothing more.

Suddenly, from behind him, James could hear a chuckle. “You want to open the gate? You’re going to need something more than that.” There was a clicking of teeth, a foot stepping on the ground. “I’m here to help you with that.”

“Where are you going? The festival’s over there, you know. I was just going to show you the elemental-” Paris stopped, as he saw the man turning to him. His eyes were different now, and Paris could hear the feeble beating in his heart.

“Heh.” Paris gave him the greatest, most pleasant, most sinister grin he could muster. “Well, what are you giving me that look for? I’m only here to help. I’m always only here to help.”

The devil.

He knew there was something familiar about him, about this town, about its music and all its festivities. The drink he had was really the one he used to have, the days he could have had here would be the one he must have had. But it was all so disparate, so disorganised. Like broken pieces of a whole.

There was one thing, one very large piece missing from the puzzle. If he could figure it out, then that piece would be able to unify his memories whole. But it hurt his head, his heart, when he try to remember it. He could almost feel himself burning up.

“You don’t look well, really. Do you need some rest? I can help you with that. I can help you with everything.” Paris put his right hand in his pocket, all casual like. His eyes shone. “Do you want to talk?”

No answer. Only heartbeats after heartbeats. Inside, Paris grinned. He whispered to a ghost two layers down in the Netherworld, “Talk to him.”

The man who now call himself Emerald but whom–he started to realise, remember, in bits and pieces that were starting to come together–used to live under the name James, took a step back. He put his left hand in his pocket, started ruffling for a charm or a talisman, anything to protect him from the fear that was starting to creep on him. Fear from the past. Someone he should have listened to, a long time ago.

Instead it was his right hand that found something. Another hand, softly touching his. He glanced, startled, too afraid to make any sudden move. There was nobody there, but in his right hand he found a stone, faded green and no longer shining.

He started to remember.

“My sister,” he said. " I had a sister."

“Yes. Yeah, you do,” the devil said. “You do need that to open the gate. They just can’t let anyone pass through it willy-nilly, right? So they make it sort of a two-factor authentication.”

James stared at the green dusts in his hand. He felt something pulsing in them, he felt the aura surging and flowing and pushing so hard to become a part of him. Behind him Mary was quivering, her fingers clutching tight to his shoulder. But he couldn’t pay her any heed. There were unimaginable powers in his fingertips. “What do I have to do?”

“Well, if you were listening,” the devil glanced at Mary, flashed her a grin, “that should be everything. Just, here.” He held out his hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

“I had a sister.” He looked up. “And you have her. You took her and everything else from my life.”

"Hah. I won’t really say ‘took’. I was buying, and you were selling. It was a fair trade. " Paris’s eye shone. “Unless you have something more to sell?”

Emerald looked down at the dull gem in his hand. It didn’t mean anything anymore, not after the devil had taken the spark out of it and given them all to him. It was just a shiny little rock, a rock that would have meant something if he had listened, if he understood what he had started.

He looked at Paris, and now unlike the first time they met, years ago in a town forgotten by magic, he could feel the hunger in his eyes.

“No. No you can’t have them back,” Paris said, before Emerald could say a word. He already knew everything that he would have said, and knew everything of how he would answer. Humans are strange and he might never understand why they do what they do, but he knew. “Didn’t you read the small print? Doesn’t any of you listen at all? I can’t return what you’ve traded, although,” he clicked his tongue. “If you’re still selling, I’m still buying.”

There was a choice, again. A crossroad. Perhaps the same crossroad he’d met years ago, but this time he listened to the terms. He could see, clearly, what he was dealing with, what he had to give away and what he would get. It was painfully obvious now how it was never meant to be in his favour, and if this was the same crossroad he met at that time he wouldn’t have taken it. But now there was his sister on the other side, and on his side there were only empty hope and borrowed time.

He held out his hand before the devil could take his own out of his pocket.

“That was quick,” said Paris. He chuckled to himself. Here comes another day to the Netherworld, another trophy in his case. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and as it went closer to shake Emerald’s hand, his body merged into the darkness, returned to its roots in the deepest layer of the city, ready to take another soul and expand its foray.

“Welcome to the Netherworld. Enjoy your stay.”

End

Commentaries: I wrote this piece for my writing club’s monthly challenge. The theme was Songfic, stories based on songs, and for this one I went with The Small Print by Muse.

I started this with a neat first-person narrative, watched that crumbled down, and then rewrote it into this… ascynchronic mess. By the point I went back trying to edit it, I had no idea how else to deal with the story, so I’m just going to leave it as is.