In Passing
I remember the crossing. When I joined the Circle.
I'm thinking I'm alone, suddenly. The thought implies there were more, or someone at least. But in the emptiness it's just me.
It's always just you. Only one, seated across from the Concierge.
Yes. But the thought comes nonetheless.
Go on.
It's dark. Blackness all around, in a void or somewhere else entirely. I'd know it's the Hotel, but wouldn't fully grasp that until later.
There's no sound, and barely any light with which to see. Just a candle on the table between us. I can't make out his face, just the vague suggestion of angles.
Too many angles, like a skull. His skin is sunken, stretched across his bony visage in a practised smile that unnerves me.
Could you be more specific?
You've met him, you know what I'm talking about. It's creepy.
Creepy, got it.
Are you a psych now?
C'mon Al, just tell me what you remember.
The flickering candle starts to make noise. I can hear the flame, dipping back and forth between us, casting long shadows across the table. He puts his hands out, palms up as they're outstretched to me. I know to take them. It's dream logic. Ideas come to me faster than I can react. I realise that the silence is not from an absence of sound, but a cacophony the likes of which I couldn't comprehend. Drowning everything out with the incessant noise.
I take his hands in mine without a second thought, and something clears. Cuts through the sound. I hear the flame still, like a match being constantly snuffed. A whispering metronome. He smiles and I swear I can even hear the snapping of whatever fibres hold his skull-face tight to its frame.
What did he say?
He just said, can you understand me?
Could you?
Of course, how else would I have known what he said? You know what, don't answer that. He asked if I could understand him, and I said yes. Probably "yeah" if you're looking for specifics. I remember feeling weak. I know I was weak. But I didn't know why.
I try to move, and the pain is incredible. I'm stuck below.
Below what?
The…table? I'm not sure. That's just how I remember it. Like a feeling of suffocating, under a great yet soft weight, like a blanket. I'm being smothered.
His bony fingers tighten around my wrists. He's ice cold, colder than my own skin. I start to feel just how cold I am then. And wet. Like I took a plunge into some great depth.
He pulls me down, across the table, my face falling terrifyingly close to the flame. I remember the heat. It was almost comforting as it cut through the cold, but still my heart was pounding against my chest. I remember worrying my hair was going to catch fire. And then, like something being ripped from me, I feel a sudden weightlessness. My body lifts, by itself.
And the pain stopped?
Yeah. I feel clear again. I can breathe, I can hear, and his voice comes back. He asks, are you still with us, Alice?
Despite the clarity I still can't speak. Or rather maybe I just don't know what to say. Either way, I remember staring slack-jawed at the grinning skeleton. I noticed his suit then, black—but maybe crimson, like dried blood. With thin scarlet stripes, almost cut against the sanguine void of the rest of the fabric. I stare into it, like his body is a portal to somewhere else, a transitory taupe.
He snaps me out of it once more. He says my name again, repeating it. Alice. Alice. Alice.
I'm there, clear, hearing him, smelling something, unsure what. Music comes to my ears. A woman's voice, soft and lulling me elsewhere. Everything threatens to pull my attention apart, and I feel like I'm splitting into a thousand different pieces. But it's clear.
He tells me to focus on the music. I do.
And what was it?
My name. Over and over. Repeated in hushed tones by a woman with a smoky voice.
*Smoky like—
Like she smokes a lot. It was gravelly, deep, stained with whisky.
Not our lovely Consort, then?
Most assuredly not. Even the Concierge was different then. Someone…else. He hadn't been, ah, what is it? Remunerated?
That's the Word.
Well, it wasn't his current incarnation. I know he looks different to everyone, but even apart from that there's been several in his station that I know for a fact were a wholly different entity.
But, as you want to hear—I'm focusing on the music. The distractions fade. The darkness gives way to the Hotel lobby proper. Rows of tables, and booths—we're in the latter. Like a little cubicle. There's definitely others in the room with us, carrying conversations and drinking, laughing. But they're just shades. Like silhouettes, cut from that same darkness that covered everything. Almost like the sound they make is giving them form, and if I focus too hard on any one—the shape grows, into a cloud of darkness that surrounds me again. But now it's clear, quiet, and focused finally.
You must have been confused still.
Oh, I definitely was.
The Concierge slowly unwraps his hands from my wrists. I breathe, heavy. It stings. The only thing I can think to ask comes tumbling from my throat before I can consent to not hold it in.
Who are you? I ask him. He smiles once more, this time it seems genuine. It almost feels comforting, despite everything. He says he's a representative of friendly benefactors.
Wow. What a way to put it.
I ask where I am. He says the Black Moon Hotel and Lounge.
Just like that?
Yeah. I mean, considering what I was seeing, it made sense. At least as much as anything else. Then he's quiet. Doesn't say anything else. Waiting for input from me, like a simple machine. I start to get upset.
Sad, or mad?
The latter. I ask what happened. He says I made a grand exit the spectacle of which would be an event unlike any the City had seen.
Did you know what he meant?
The dream-logic. The ideas. Unbidden thoughts, coming to me. Like I was remembering things I hadn't yet learned. Or relearning things I couldn't recall. Like my own mind was outside the shell of my body.
But when he said the City, did you know what he meant?
I did. I knew the City. It came to me, a sound amidst the others, a constant drone just below the music. I knew the City, and all it encompassed. The blocks. The claves. The people. I saw faces, faces I knew I knew but that I couldn't name. Elements, shards, fragments of events. I could feel the City in my mind, knowing me as I knew it. We shared a common pain. One that had been dulled into internment.
The name rose out of me. Forneus. The City of Doors. Our home. The Only Place. Of course I knew it, for it encircled everything I had ever known.
You getting lost again, Al?
No, I'm good. I'm here. We're talking, Vill—you and I. I'm remembering. It's different for me. You wanted to see into my mind? This is it. Broken. Fragmented. I knew the City enough that it was clear I was no longer there, existentially. I asked him where we were.
You already had, though.
It was a different question. He knew what I meant this time. He did before, too—I just didn't know how to ask right. He told me we were Elsewhere, apart from the City and the Dust. Iod was so far, yet still connected.
And how about that—did you know what Iod was?
No. It didn't come to me clearly. Not like the City. I'd only learn the name of the realm later.
Interesting. Your knowledge of the outside extended only to the City's physical limits, even there? Just like the communion.
I'm glad you're engaged, Vill. The Concierge continued, he said that I had left Iod and departed the City for Elsewhere, on the long journey of the soul.
Again—wow. What a way to put it.
I'm sure he didn't want to shock me, if that were possible to do still. Didn't want to just peal up that I had died, and my spirit was travelling to whatever voided hell awaits us.
I'll correct myself, you both have a way of putting it so bluntly.
I am not a scalpel, you know that.
Yes Al, you're a hammer.
I am a hammer. He said that I had been pulled from a great depth, resuscitated and brought back from the brink by the altruistic Management. He explained that there was a Contract, and I had signed it, made the deal and been brought into the fold. There were Services rendered. And compensation to be paid, in the form of more Services to be performed by me.
Did he explain the Services?
He had the Contract. It was there, on the table. Probably had been the whole time, only I didn't see it until I knew it existed. Or I remembered it, without consciously perceiving anything. Just the knowledge that it had always been right there, suddenly returning from beyond. The dream-logic. I knew what it said on the paper. Words I couldn't understand, but nonetheless knew the meaning of. I was offered something, a gift, a wish, whatever you want to call it. They had pulled my soul from the brink, and offered me anything in return for service.
And what was it that you received? That you felt would be worth the Service?
To forget.
To forget everything. To remove myself entirely from the world-mind.
It's occult business for sure, but they don't take it lightly. And Management doesn't make mistakes.
Right.
They can't, it's not their nature. They know, as you were describing, just like the ideas intrinsic to your memory, no matter how strained it is. They don't just run a toll booth for those making a final exit, they're anglers upon a briny sea of infinite depth. They trawl for those they know will make the deal.
Nobody turns down a Contract.
Nobody. And you could have had anything, yet you chose to willingly remove any trance of memory you had of the time preceding?
I think the Concierge thought it was funny.
That could be why he was smiling.
He—it—hasn't ever since.
I've never seen him smile.
You don't want to. So I see the Contract, finally. My name is signed on the line. I remember holding the quill before that moment. I remember, suddenly, the Words leaving my lips. I know I wished for it. To disconnect from everything. My consent is the only remaining assurance within my mind.
To disconnect, and yet—
And yet I remain. In this half-life. Living apart from everything else, like my own ghost. I haunt the halls of my own mind.
I can't imagine how you live like that.
I—I don't, or do I? Do any of us truly live still?
We certainly can die, still.
Maybe, but for the lot of you—I mean you still go out. You have a home in the City. Doone has an apartment. Elodie has, spines, how many does she have? Far more tangible property than I think even I've set foot upon. I just have my room here.
It's a nice room.
Sure, but, even still—you need Spirits to survive. The hallowlight of the Black Moon. To recharge.
You sound expressed, is this not what you wanted with your wish?
I'm not expressed, Vill. I'm just trying to make a point. I couldn't see any other way for us to be, apart from living here within the Hotel, permanent guests of the Management.
You're lonely.
I won't deny that. You'd know, better than most.
We're getting off track. What do you remember next, after you saw the Contract?
I realised what had happened. I died—or something—and ended up in this lounge afterlife. I was given a mote of possibility, one to do anything with, and I chose to upend everything about myself. I don't know who I was before this place. I only exist here. At least that's how it feels. To me, this place is the Real—and the City is just a dream.
You always say you're backwards, from the rest of us.
Always facing the other way. That's me, forever in passing. The sensations remain more than the tenuous connections. I don't remember a family, if I had one. Friends. Lovers. Enemies. Nothing. But I feel that something was there, now a phantom urging of whatever I removed myself from. There was someone, at least one other person, I think. Someone else who I…had.
Sometimes it cuts me deep, Vill. Sometimes I don't know what's real and what's a dream, or if I'm even really still awake at all. The fear, the paranoia—its constant and dulling. Like the sound, the cacophonous white noise. It's the sense that keeps me moving, keeps me going still. I know what I wanted—to die, to be cut off, yet have something remain. Something keeps me here.
And for keeping you here, what is it?
The sense that I have to do something, but something that I do not know.
Are you afraid it's something you forgot?
It's not, I know that. The absence of memory is different from a formative lack of it. Feels different. There's not a shaped void to fill, rather a scratching feeling that something is yet to come. I search. I look. I Investigate.
I think I see why they pulled you out, then.
Don't you? I have nothing else weighing me down, no baggage, no history, no connections, and an overwhelming desire to seek an answer. I am exactly what they want. I exist only as an Investigator.
You're more than that.
Only superficially. The ideas began to come slower, before finally quieting entirely. The music of the Hotel's Consort had pulled me out of whatever arcane stupor I had been under, as a result of the Concierge ripping my memories from me. He definitely got a kick out of the whole thing. Erasing my memories, entirely. I think that was why he got remunerated and moved out.
If that's even how it works. I'm not pretending like I know the management's ways, let alone the secrets of their parlour tricks.
Regardless, he told me about the Investigators. About what I'd be doing. Uncovering the Truth. Taming beasts. Telling me my skills were required. And the Truth is quite a fangy beast, indeed.
Could you remember your own capabilities?
The training was second nature, muscle memory. I didn't really grasp what he meant at the time, but as soon as I was boots-on-the-ground, my weapon in hand…
Tell me about the weapon.
The gun? He gave it to me. The Concierge, I mean. Said it was a gift.
I didn't realise that.
Yeah. He said it was a tool to suit my unique purposes, the pen with which I would write a new chapter for the Circle. And the City.
He said that last part?
I felt it. As I felt the City, I think a part of it could sense through me. A living node of the urban hive. The weapon's a fetter. I know that for sure now, and I know it's mine. A quill, a gun, whatever it is, they wanted it in my hands.
Do you suspect our benevolent benefactors of some wrongdoing?
I don't even know how I'd quantify that, if I did. Of course they have plans, we are their plans, operating within larger plans. As much an extension of the City as we are the Circle's devilish schemes.
You know they'd loathe the comparison.
I don't care. You're the one asking what I remember, Vill, not them. But, the rest after this you likely know. I got to work. There wasn't much else to do.
Certainly you had hobbies? Indulgences? Desires that you held intrinsically?
You know that, already.
Regardless, I appreciate you answering for me.
Yeah.
How about you? What do you remember, what was it like for your crossing? What did you ask for?
It was standard. As much as any of this could be. Standard by our definition, at least. I remember what happened to me. I remember life before the Circle. I was whole. I remember the pain, the feeling of my body being torn apart. Not too different from what you described I suppose, but at least I know the cause—and I'm sure the similarities end there. Despite my lack of a biological corpus, at least in the way that you have, I still feel the bullets tearing open my flesh, ripping through muscle, breaking my bones. The phantom pain. And yet I know that wasn't what brought me here, to the Circle of the Black Moon.
It's not just death that punches our ticket to entry here. You know, detachment. Doone didn't die. The world abandoned him, like you and I abandoned it. Only mine was certainly more…physical. Permanent.
When they put me in this body, my head upon this—carapace—that was what sent me over the edge. Not the physical death. The biological death. It was the death of my soul. When I saw myself, just a head attached to a writhing mass of artificial limbs, I lost control.
I've heard of the incident. Not public. Just from you, and conversations with the Concierge.
Incident, right. A small note, nothing unique or special. Tens of thousands die every day, hundreds a second—even right now. Nothing was different about mine, save for maybe the explicit depravity of what had been done to me. If you're wondering, it felt good to kill them. Satisfying. I won't deny that. It satiated whatever last hunger I had. I still remember the lights of the lab, glowing like miniature stars. It was so dark, and they were so bright. I felt consumed by it as I lay there in a heap upon the floor, swimming in the entrails of those who put me in this body.
And then I was here. Like you felt, just suddenly…passing. I was seated across from the Concierge, and he told me what had happened. That I had begun my journey to the void, and the Management had pulled me out. Offered me another choice. A chance to do something with myself again. And offered the gift, of course.
The only thing that was in my mind at that point was the sight of my captors. Seeing their faces, the shock as I wrapped my limbs around them, enveloped them like some sort of tide. I remember their eyes bulging as I squeezed the last bit of life from them as if wringing a sodden cloth. Opening them like discarded carton. All I wanted was to enact that same cruelty that had been put on me. And once I had…that was it. Everything in my life, in theirs, led to that one stupid point. And all we did was suffer for it. So, I asked the Concierge if he could undo it.
Could he?
No. But he said he could make it right. They had families, I knew most of them. They had been my colleagues before that point. The biotech labs were a second home to me. All I had I put into research to create these mechanikal prosthesis. The experiments were something I had a hand in, long before I found myself on the receiving end. The wish was for that, an undoing, like what you wished for, only less targeted to my own perceptions. I just wanted it to end without my own stain on it all—I'm sure you know the feeling.
No. That's a level of altruism I can't really comprehend. What I did was for no one but me.
It wasn't out of any good. I had done what I wanted, selfishly, and had wished only for myself.
But they tortured you, killed you really. I think you had justification from that alone. Don't you think they would just do the same to someone else?
In all likelihood, they probably did. But all I could think of at that point was the weight of my own soul. I didn't want to end it with that. Faced with the infinite, I hoped that whatever came after, seeing as how there was an after, would be one of peace. Not damnation.
How exactly did the wish make things right?
That's the selfish part. I can't really tell you. It's part of the deal. You know, rules.
And consequences. Yeah, I know. I won't pry more, then. What's behind us is in the past. I just look forward.
Thank you for talking to me, Alice.
Of course. Not like I have anything better to do. Its, ah, what, team building?
Something like that.
———
Recorded conversation between Investigators Alice Nevermore and Vill Tenser, taken from the archives of the Circle of the Black Moon.