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Facilier awakens with a jolt. He gasps like a drowning man. He presses a hand to his chest, verifying his own solidity, testament to his existence.
His eyes adjust to the darkness. His surroundings are populated with deep walnut furniture and richly red upholstered velvet. The light, shining from wall sconces affixed every meter or so and the occasional candle, cast a warm, gentling light on the edges of everything. Facilier likens it to a restaurant after-hours -- though it resembles no restaurant that Facilier can ever recall having visited.
The place smells faintly of wood polish, of the clean burn of candle wicks and wax. The smell of recently fallen rain drifts in from somewhere, but Facilier can’t say where.
Facilier is sitting in a corner booth without the foggiest clue how he got there.
“Ah, the sleeping beauty has awoken.”
Facilier’s head whips around in search of the voice. There is a bar along the nearby wall, and behind it a white man with short-cropped, wheat-blond hair polishes a sparkling glass without a care in the world.
Before Facilier can muster up a retort to the ‘sleeping beauty’ jibe, the man continues, “How are you feeling?”
It reminds Facilier to take stock of himself. His midriff is exposed to the cool air, but it’s nothing he hasn’t put up with on colder days. No injuries that he can feel seem more severe than usual, and no new ones accompany the old ones. Rather, his body feels like it’s just recovered from the all-over ache of a cold.
Nothing else stands out.
“Right as rain, I suppose,” he says as he slides his legs off the loveseat and stands. Reaching automatically toward his side, he realizes his cane is not with him. Facilier runs a hand through his hair, and stops.
Nor is his hat.
The man behind the bar clears his throat, and when Facilier looks, he’s pointing across the sea of tables and velvet seats toward a door. The hat is hanging on a hook, and the cane is leaning against the wall just beneath it.
“I assure you, I haven’t divested you of any personal possessions.”
“‘Course not,” Facilier says. Yeah right, he thinks privately. He doesn’t check his pockets, but he doesn’t put it past the man to have emptied them. Strangely, he can’t explain why he is so convinced that the man before him can’t be trusted. But with little other than his instincts to go on, Facilier decides to follow them.
“You were asleep for a long time,” the man says. “Clearly you haven’t forgotten your effects. Do you remember anything else?”
Facilier opens his mouth to answer, but he cuts himself off. What had he been doing? Where was this place? How had he gotten here?
“Would you like to play a game while you remember?”
Facilier’s eyes have wandered in the process of racking his mind for the memories. When his gaze tracks back to the man behind the bar, he sees that he has produced a deck of cards from somewhere, shuffling them idly. Intrigued, Facilier sidesteps the tables and chairs between them and approaches the bar.
The man’s fingers are deft around the deck of cards as he bridges and folds and flips. An expert of some kind, though Facilier cannot place him as a magician or a gambler at a glance. The presence of the bartop makes the immediate connection of drinking, gambling, but there’s nothing else to indicate either way which it is.
“What kind of game?” Facilier asks as he watches the man shuffle.
The man hums. At this distance, Facilier can see he has multiple silver ear piercings. “Ever play Tetra Master?” the man asks.
“No,” Facilier says slowly.
The man looks thoughtful. “Hm, no, I don’t suppose you would have.” He gathers the cards back up in one hand and taps his chin thoughtfully with the other. “Triple Triad?”
“Never heard of it.”
The man gives Facilier a measuring look. It makes Facilier feel exposed for some reason -- as if the man is measuring the weight of his soul. The man breaks the tension with a guileless smile. “Ah, no matter. Perhaps a magic trick, first?”
Facilier smiles and takes a seat on a barstool. “Go right ahead,” he invites. This oughta be good.
The man shuffles the cards in a theatrical arc, then lays them out in a tidy array across the bar top. “Pick a card, any card.”
Facilier snorts and rolls his eyes, but he obliges the man and surveys the deck. It looks like the man hasn’t tried to push Facilier toward choosing one card over another, leaving the choice squarely upon Facilier’s shoulders. Facilier selects a card toward the far end.
It is The Hanged Man -- this is a tarot deck, Facilier realizes. A prickle of unease travels up his spine. He looks at the man across the bar top, but that same guileless smile is still in place.
“Keep your card in your mind.” The man gathers up the remainder of the cards and places the deck between them. “Now, cut the deck anywhere you like and place your card there.”
Facilier does. He watches as the man makes a show of shuffling the deck in many grand and exotic methods, until he finally offers the deck to Facilier to shuffle. Facilier reaches forward -- past the proffered deck to the man’s opposite hand, where The Hanged Man is hidden just inside his sleeve.
“Is this your card?” Facilier asks, one fine brow lifted in amusement.
The man turns beet red at having his parlor trick revealed. For a moment, Facilier anticipates the man exploding with anger, though he cannot say why he might expect such a thing. Instead, the man ducks his head, clearly cowed, and begins shuffling the deck hastily as if in need of a distraction. “I see you are familiar with sleight of hand,” the man mumbles.
“Seems that way,” Facilier says, pleased. He cannot even say how he caught the flash of movement, but it was as if he had been waiting for it. In fact, he’s sure he knows a thing or two about card tricks and sleight of hand. He flips the card experimentally between his fingers, and muscle memory guides it into a mesmerizing little series of flips and twists. Facilier wonders what else he knows.
“Something more sophisticated, then,” the man says once he finally recovers, “for a fellow practitioner of the art of the cards.” He holds his hand out, and Facilier returns The Hanged Man to him without a fuss. This time when the man shuffles the cards, there is no denying that they are floating by some unseen force. “How would you like your fortune told?”
A vision passes before Facilier’s eyes. The cards, the cards, the cards will tell… His memories return in a blurring sequence like the cards tumbling between the man’s hands. “I’m afraid my fortune is a bit too messy for polite company,” he says, holding his arms out in charming akimbo. At the edge of his awareness, he feels something tug, and when he tugs back the cards are circling him instead. He folds them into his hands, relishing their conspiratorial little whispers. When he opens his hands they orbit him like planetoids around a star.
The man’s jaw drops. Facilier is surprised too, but he thinks he manages to hide it all right.
“Careful, young man. You’ll catch flies that way.” The cards are obliging enough to continue their merry circling and spiraling without his influence, so he reaches out one long finger to tap the bottom of the man’s chin. The faint rosy hue of the man’s cheeks is not as intense as the red of his earlier shame -- but neither is it any less noticeable to Facilier. “Now,” he continues, “ your fortune, I expect, will be much more interesting.”
The man stiffens, but he makes no move to stop Facilier, who is giddy with invigoration at his own display of power. Facilier collects the cards in his hands and gives them a long hard look, to make sure there are no surprises in the deck. The cards contain likenesses of creatures and locations that he has never seen, but their names are written in legible English, and that’s all Facilier needs to do what he does best.
He fans them out across the bar top.
“Take three.”
The man, all cool composure mere moments ago, hesitates before drawing three cards in his black-gloved hand. Lays them out in a row face-down without looking at them. His eyes are watching Facilier sharply, like he’s measuring an entirely different quality in the man than he was a few minutes ago.
Facilier reveals the first card: The Sun.
“You come from material prosperity,” Facilier says, watching the man’s face to gauge his reaction -- though he gets the sense there’s something different about this reading. Like he can’t possibly get it wrong. Like the cards are on his side. “I suspect you hardly wanted for anything in your youth. Sheltered, too.”
The man meets Facilier’s eyes over the cards with something like desperation in their depths.
Unnerved, Facilier reveals the second card: The Tower reversed.
The man’s breath hitches.
Facilier whistles, low and almost-sympathetic. “Ain’t like that now, though, huh?” The man looks pale -- paler even than his already light complexion seemed it would allow. “Looks like you lost it all. The cards don’t illuminate the details, but I’d peg you for a gambling habit. Am I wrong?” Through his obvious distress, the man gives Facilier a withering look -- but even as he says it Facilier knows it’s wrong. “No, it weren’t through no fault of your own. You couldn’t have stopped it -- maybe you tried, and it’s eating you up that you couldn’t do more.”
The man’s expression tells him he’s right, and while Facilier is confident in his own skills, the conviction of rightness comes even before it’s revealed to him by the man’s face. He wonders where it’s coming from.
“Now you’re trapped by circumstances -- miserable. Disgraced, even.” The man’s jaw tightens at that, but Facilier can tell he’s too interested in the reading to interrupt by objecting to Facilier’s presumptuousness. “Now, for your future…”
The man’s entire body is wound up like a spring.
Facilier is experiencing a little anticipatory thrill, himself.
He reveals the card.
The Lovers are engaged in a tender embrace, and Facilier can’t stop himself from laughing. What a joke for the cards to play! “But don’t worry,” Facilier says, “a pretty little honey will come and sweep you away from all your problems!”
“That is not what that card means,” the man huffs, and with a sweep of his hands the cards fly back into their master’s palm -- revealing that he could have taken them away from Facilier at any time, but had chosen to indulge the impromptu role reversal for some reason.
“No?” Facilier challenges with a grin.
“Not necessarily, ” he amends. “Certainly not in this context.” His expression is sour. Facilier supposes he can stand to ease up on the man.
“Sorry,” Facilier says. The man raises a disbelieving eyebrow, and Facilier holds up his hands to stave off the unspoken accusation. “I didn’t plant it there, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He shrugs. “Probably your cards don’t like me much.”
“I think they like you a little too much,” the man mutters. Facilier gets the sense that the abruptness of the man’s movements is meant to scold the cards. That isn’t any more unusual than the rest of this encounter has been, so Facilier accepts the observation with ease.
“I don’t believe we’ve introduced ourselves,” Facilier says suddenly. He holds out his hand. “And it is a pleasure, Monsieur…?”
The man looks at Facilier’s hand like it’s a diamondback rattlesnake waiting to strike -- then he sighs, sending the cards away in a curious twisting of shadows and taking the offered hand. “Luxord,” he says.
Luxord’s grip is firm, but not crushing. And Facilier doesn’t believe he’s ever touched leather as fine and soft as that of the gloves Luxord wears.
“Facilier,” he replies, and the handshake ends.
“So you do remember.”
Facilier lifts his hand to tip his hat, except he remembers he’s not wearing it, so he turns the movement into a flippant gesture instead. “And I thank you kindly for jogging my memory,” he says. “Now would you do me another kindness, and tell me where we are?”
Luxord looks pensive, as if he’s unsure he wants to divulge that information to Facilier. Well, that’s just fine -- if he isn’t feeling talkative, Facilier can go find out for himself. Luxord must see something of this in Facilier’s expression, because he eventually relents. “Very well.” He walks around the counter to join Facilier on the other side.
Facilier casts a dubious look at Luxord’s getup. He had thought the man was simply wearing a black leather jacket, but the robe trailing down to his leather boots cuts a very different figure.
Well.
Facilier is nothing if not eccentric in his own fashion sensibilities, so he supposes he has little room to judge. Luxord makes for the door, and Facilier trails after him. He doesn’t expect Luxord to offer him his hat and cane and hold the door open for him. It gives him pause, but he accepts his effects and adjusts his hat on his head as he steps out into the night air.
There aren’t any conventional street lights, but neon signs and warmly lit windows illuminate the street nonetheless. Skyscrapers loom higher than any skyscraper Facilier has ever seen, and in greater numbers than Facilier has ever seen in one place. The smell of freshly-fallen rain is stronger out here, but the streets are dry and the sky is still.
The sky -- now that’s a sight to put the rest to shame. It’s the deep dark of the Mississippi River on the night of a new moon. It is a black, velvet expanse --
And high above, the moon is shaped like a heart.
“What in blue blazes--?”
“This,” Luxord says from the doorway, “is The World That Never Was.”
Facilier turns to him and stares.
“You do remember how you got here, don’t you?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Facilier hedges. “Figured I’d be in Hell, though, not...” He falters. What is this place, anyway? Some kind of purgatory? “... Whatever this is.”
Luxord laughs, a low, rich, gentle sound. “It is a matter of perspective, perhaps. But this is not the afterlife.” Luxord steps fully outside and joins him in staring up at the moon -- or whatever its analogue is called in this world. “Your soul could have ended up anywhere. That you ended up here is merely happenstance.”
His soul? “So I am dead,” Facilier says.
“In a manner of speaking,” Luxord says with a half-smile. Facilier raps Luxord’s knee with his cane, and Luxord laughs again, surprised. “How uncharitable of you,” Luxord chides.
“No less uncharitable than all these damn riddles.”
“Of course, you have questions,” Luxord allows. He gestures toward the empty street and its iridescent fixtures. “Would you care to discuss them on a tour of the city?”
Facilier twirls his cane thoughtfully. “I don’t see as I have anything better to do,” he concedes. He points the ball of his cane at Luxord’s smug face in warning. “But no riddles.”
“Monsieur Facilier,” Luxord says, mock-offended. His voice is a smooth timbre that wraps Facilier’s name up in ribbons. Facilier suppresses the urge to shiver. “How else do you propose we address the notion of a riddle such as life, without riddles?”
Facilier swipes his cane out in an imprecise arc, which Luxord evades with an impish grin. Facilier makes no further attempts, using the cane instead for its intended purpose as he walks in step with Luxord. “Think you’re a real card, don’t you?”
“I certainly hope not!”
They might have walked until sunrise -- if such a thing existed in The World That Never Was. Instead Facilier remarks on the strangeness of that, and of his tirelessness, and Luxord begins explaining things in earnest.
Luxord explains the existence of other worlds -- how the links between them were severed long ago. He explains Light, and Dark, and Nothingness -- and the consequential nature of their existence. Facilier takes this with a grain of salt. And anyway, toward the end there he didn’t have much use for a heart. So it isn’t much of a loss if it turns out he doesn’t have one any more.
Facilier, for his part, explains a little about the circumstances that lead up to him appearing in The World That Never Was. He leaves out most of the details, but Luxord respectfully doesn’t pry.
Luxord invites Facilier to join his cult.
Facilier politely declines.
They play an impromptu game of Slapjack beneath a rainbow of neon, which devolves into the pair of them throwing cards at each other when there is a dispute on who won the last round. That, in turn, becomes a magical tug-o’-war when Luxord starts using his powers to throw the cards telekinetically, and Facilier tries to redirect them toward Luxord before they strike, just to see if he can.
He can, as it happens.
Facilier leans up against the glossy metallic wall of a skyscraper. “That’s exhausting,” he says.
“That’s probably because you just got these powers,” Luxord says -- though he is not spared a sheen of exertion from fighting off Facilier’s fledgling psychic attacks. Luxord holds his arms out, and the mess of cards they’ve made flies into the air and vanishes into his sleeves. “If you’re not going to join the Organization, it would be unwise to stick around. I have to be getting back --” Luxord snaps his fingers, and two strange creatures made of pointed edges and loose pink clothing appear on either side of the man--”but my Gamblers can protect you or send me messages on your behalf. When I return I’ll show you how to travel to other worlds.”
“What,” Facilier says, “and miss out on the nightlife here?”
Luxord offers Facilier a half-smile, and he takes a few steps closer. Not so close that Facilier feels boxed in by the man, propped up against the wall as he is.
Facilier appreciates that.
“If you get bored of the nightlife, perhaps a deck of cards will entertain you,” Luxord says as he offers Facilier just that.
Facilier surmises these are just like the rest of Luxord’s cards, and can change into different types of decks on command. “I appreciate the thought,” he says as he accepts them.
Their fingers brush, sending a thrill down Facilier’s spine.
“Consider them a gift,” Luxord says as he takes a step in retreat. “I have plenty where those came from.” He waves a hand, and a whirling pool of darkness opens up a few meters away. He offers Facilier a dramatic bow and a parting half-grin. “Until next time, Monsieur Facilier.”
“Monsieur Luxord,” Facilier says with a half-grin of his own, and he watches as Luxord vanishes into the pool of darkness.
He looks down at the deck and, on a whim, draws the first card from the top.
The Lovers.
Facilier’s face burns as he stares in disbelief at the card. He pockets the deck and pulls the brim of his hat over his eyes. Beneath the neon glow of The World That Never Was, alone save for the swaying Gamblers on either side of him, Facilier mutters, “Cheeky white boy.”
He fiddles with The Lovers card all the way back to the nameless restaurant he’d awoken in, the Gamblers loping dutifully behind him.
Facilier supposes it’s as good a place as any to hunker down.
“No heart,” he says, and he shakes his head and laughs.
He doesn’t buy that for a damn second.