The Hanged Man

by K. D. Edwards

  I stood up and began pacing. “Think of it. This all happened at least twenty years before the Atlantean World War. Atlantis was still a secret. Did you know they had an entire branch of government devoted to keeping the homeland hidden? And I’m not just talking about the illusions that shrouded it from sight—I’m talking about disinformation campaigns, and fucking with people’s memories, and hiding bodies in graves so deep you’d have to crack the planet open to find them again.”

  “He’s right,” Corinne said. “I was there. I remember.”

  “So you’re saying there was a cover-up,” Brand said.

  “I think that’s what we’ll find out.”

  “And that fucking means something,” Brand prompted, now irritably, because this was about politics, and it was one of the few areas where he tended to trail me in putting the pieces together.

  “It does. It corrects a bad assumption I made. I’ve always thought the Hanged Man’s court was reclusive because that was its nature. I thought the Hanged Man had refused to join the modern world—like other Arcana courts that never adapted to the Unsettlement. Right? Sort of the opposite of Arcana like Lord Tower or Lord Chariot, who created empires and fortunes, who embrace the new era. Hell, Lord Chariot is listed on human stock exchanges. But other courts just . . . retreated. I thought the Hanged Man was one of them. But what if it wasn’t his choice?”

  “He retreated as punishment? He was made to retreat?” Addam guessed.

  “I think we’re going to find out that the attack on the Declaration was impulsive. And that he paid a very, very heavy price in the aftermath. I think we’re going to find out that the reason his court is so small and reclusive is because working with the Arcanum to cover up the attacks was insanely costly. That it cost him money. And favors. And freedom. And—”

  “Allies,” Addam whispered. He met my eyes, and understood. He’d grown up with a mother like Lady Justice, after all. “We know that he’s not popular. But this . . . it means he made enemies. It means you may have more allies than you thought.”

  “I can’t take on the Hanged Man alone,” I said. “Not matter how small his court is, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than the people sitting in this room. I need allies.”

  It was at that exact moment that my phone began to make the beeeeeep-beeeeeep-beeeeeep sound of a dump truck backing up.

  I looked at the screen and immediately shot Brand a dirty look, to accuse him of messing with my ringtones again. And he gave Max’s empty chair a defensive look, to accuse him. And I gave him another dirty look, to say that Max had picked up that prank from Brand, so it was still Brand’s fault. And Brand gave me a final look, which was like him shrugging and saying, but admit it, the ringtone fits.

  I answered the phone before it could go to voicemail.

  I said, “Hello, Lord Tower.”

  “I’ve sent a car,” Lord Tower said. “You’ll join me for breakfast.”

  LORD TOWER

  I have no idea how many times Lord Tower has rejuvenated, though I have reason to ballpark his age at well over four centuries.

  As long as I’ve known him, he’s appeared as a man just shy of middle age. He has Spanish features, a swimmer’s build, the hands of a classical pianist. I had a crush on him once, long before I’d been trained to look behind all the masks that a person could or would wear.

  Lord Tower came to power when the Emperor and Empress still ruled the homeland, in the era before the Atlantean World War. He was their spy and interrogator—the spider of a web that stretched between every court and major house. When the war left the homeland a biological wasteland, he’d adapted with an almost ruthless efficiency. He moved his torture tools to the basement; turned his interrogation chamber into a sunroom; and became a business magnate.

  In a city of bull’s-eyes that narrowed, circle by circle by circle, to the true center of power, Lord Tower stood at the heart of the Arcanum, the collective body of ruling Arcana. He was the head of the Dagger Throne, and had been my patron since the fall of my court.

  While I liked to think I’d evened the scales by taking on assignments he trusted no one else with, nothing would erase the fact that, once, I’d woke in a hospital bed, nearly dead from torture, and survived the aftermath only with his protection.

  He’d saved me. He’d saved Brand. He’d given me shelter until I was strong enough to clear my own tiny space in the world.

  I’d spent the last twenty years being careful to never put myself in a position where I’d be set against his wishes. Because the thing about spiders? They hated when anything fucked with their webs.

  * * *

  The limousine hissed over wet, gray-glass streets. The sun was a smudge of rose and indigo on the horizon, filtered through storm clouds.

  Before I left, we’d made quick plans. Addam would coordinate the efforts of the team sweeping the Dawncreek house for wards, traps, or listening devices. Brand would stay with the kids and Corinne at Addam’s condo. We’d all meet there later to discuss our next move.

  Corinne had gone quiet the moment she knew where I was headed. Even more curiously, she’d asked if I was going to meet with Lord Tower and Mayan. Mayan was the Tower’s Companion—though he operated in a much, much different capacity than Brand did with me. Mayan ran the Tower’s massive security enterprise; so the two were rarely joined at the hip. How Corinne knew him, I wasn’t sure.

  The limousine came to a gliding perch by a freshly painted curb. I peeked out the window and saw the awning of a restaurant called Rivers.I’d never eaten there myself. My credit score was too low for the loan I’d need to afford it.

  I got out of the car’s bulletproof backseat, making an effort to sweep my attention in a full 360—not forgetting to look up and down, thank you very much, Brand.

  At this hour, even the early commuters were sparse. One of the nightclubs across the street had just closed, and a rare Assyrian sphinx was sweeping glitter into the gutter, proving yet again that commerce will always trump the gravitas of old mythology.

  Rivers sat on Nazaca Road, which was built over one of the world’s thickest ley lines. The pavement hummed under my feet as I crossed to the restaurant doors, which swept open at my approach.

  My sense of blue-collar superiority lasted about half a second after I walked through the next set of doors.

  I couldn’t help it. It was just that damn interesting.

  Fixed translocation portals were scattered at either end of nine or ten sunken waterways, which crossed a dining room the size of a warehouse. Each canal held water that flowed from portals leading from, and then back into, a famous river from the larger world. Venetian bridges crossed the channels, with translocation plaques providing details on the living geography.

  There were few diners at that hour, and the Tower had a table in the very back. I was led over three bridges, crossing from the blackwater mirror of the Amazon valley’s Rio Negro to the glacier-fed Blue River of Greenland. In a deep Scottish river, the last I crossed, I watched as a coal-black horse raced along the bottom with the arm bones of a skeleton tangled in its mane.

  “Fancy fancy,” I said.

  The Tower looked up from his phone. The surface of it steamed; not from his breath but from whatever wards and spells had been worked into the plastic mold. He disconnected the call and said, “Rune.”

  I sat down and scooted my chair up to the table.

  “Quite an exciting evening you had,” he said, unfolding his napkin.

  “It was,” I agreed, without batting a damn eyelash. “Just out of curiosity, how did I rank on the report this morning? Still at 157, or have I moved up in the rolls?”

  The Tower paused in the act of smoothing the napkin. He smiled. “That was a remarkably well-informed statement.”

  Point to me. Every morning, Lord Tower reviewed a report on the whereabouts of over 150 people in the world whom he had a vested interest in keeping track of. I’d caught Mayan preparing it once.

  “I almost never
get to surprise you,” I said happily.

  “Not often, no—though you didn’t quite stick the landing. If you hadn’t felt the need to show off the exact numbers, I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint when you learned of it. There haven’t been 157 names on that list in over twelve years.”

  He lifted a hand without turning, and a waiter darted in. “Zavier, we’ll have the omelet.”

  “Excellent, Lord Tower. Today’s recipe is—”

  “With the yartsa gunbu. Maybe a little cheese. Chef’s choice. And another pot of this excellent tea, along with some orange Italian sodas.”

  “The . . . yartsa gunbu?” the waiter said, swallowing. “Of course, my lord. Right away, my lord.”

  When he was gone, I pointed. “I saw that look on his face.”

  “It’s a mushroom. Very expensive, but there’s a farm that grows it locally.”

  “I should probably mention up front that Brand asked me to confirm, in writing if possible, that you were picking up the tab.”

  “My treat, of course,” Lord Tower said.

  “Excellent. How does Corinne know Mayan?”

  Lord Tower’s smile didn’t cool—it rarely did, with me—but it sharpened. “Mayan helped train her. Mayan trained many Companions for the Sun Throne—like Brand.”

  “Oh, don’t even let Brand hear you say that. He considers himself fully formed when he started sparring with Mayan.”

  “There’s quite a bit of reciprocity that happens when Companions are trained. It was one of the arrangements I had with your father.”

  “Did you know Kevan Dawncreek?”

  “I did, actually. Not well.”

  “Did you know his son is missing?”

  “Did you know his son was missing before you needed a reason to wedge your way into the Hanged Man’s court?”

  I felt my nostrils flare, but kept my tongue, because he was right. “I know now,” I said.

  “I am aware, and I appreciate how that must weigh on you,” he said, and not insincerely. “But my intent was to point out the real issue at play here. Your ward’s well-being.”

  “Yes.”

  Lord Tower held my stare. If the silence was bait, I didn’t take it. I inhaled, slowly. I smelled food and riverbeds: mud and spice, with the slight aftertaste of human pollution.

  “Have I ever asked you a favor?” Lord Tower said.

  In my head, I imagined Brand saying, Only all the fucking time.

  Lord Tower raised a hand, reading my expression. “No. Not work. Not compensation. A favor, from me.”

  “He wants Matthias,” I said. “Don’t ask me to back down.”

  “There are ways to delay. There are stalling tactics. I will help you myself.”

  “What good will stalling do? Do you honestly think you can change the Hanged Man’s mind? Do you . . . do you even know what he’s done? Did you know about the battleship?” I saw it on his face. “Of course you did.”

  “He has paid for that mistake for decades,” Lord Tower said. “I made sure of it, if that makes you think better of me.”

  “It would if you hadn’t just called what happened a mistake. Have you even been on that ship?”

  “I have not. And it’s not the issue before us. The Hanged Man is being . . . managed,” Lord Tower said. “Within the Arcanum—among those who fight to keep this city from eating its own tail—is a small group concerned about the Hanged Man’s interests. So we harry his businesses. We disrupt his holdings. We keep his attention divided between distractions, to dampen his appetite for worse things. We will corner him into making an unrecoverable error. This will happen.”

  “Max—”

  “Can be protected. The marital pact can be challenged. And the issue of the Hanged Man will resolve itself before the challenge even needs to be addressed.”

  “And Layne Dawncreek?” I asked.

  “Cannot be your concern. You do not have that luxury. You know this. There are real, living, present dangers to people already under your protection, and you risk them if you try to save both young men. I’m sorry, Rune. I know you want otherwise.”

  “I can’t just give up. Not anymore.”

  “You cannot take on the Hanged Man. And you have no reason yet to move against him. No proof to ground your accusation. No protocol to protect yourself against retaliation.”

  “The Dawncreeks were once my people.”

  “And they’re worth risking yourself? And Brand and Max? What about Addam and Quinn, Rune.”

  “That’s a low blow,” I said.

  Two waiters glided to the table, heads lowered. One deposited a basket of fresh, honeyed rolls; the other the tea and flavored soda water. They glided away without waiting for thanks.

  Lord Tower rearranged his cutlery, an oddly fidgety gesture from him. “I remember a day. It was . . . perhaps six months after Quinn was born. Addam appeared at my door with Quinn, wrapped in a blanket, nestled in Addam’s backpack. Quite literally: a backpack. He’d turned it around so that it rested against his chest. He told me that his mother was not arranging a ceremony for Quinn, like she had with Christian, Ella, and himself. He asked me if I would be Quinn’s godfather, as I had been godfather to him.”

  Addam had told me stories before. Not this one, but others. His mother hadn’t been interested in assuming direct oversight of the sickly baby that Quinn had been. Addam had filled the gap from the start, as fantastically unprepared as he’d been at his own young age.

  Lord Tower said, “I have people too.”

  I stared down at the lazy bubbling of my Italian soda, as carbonation flipped the ice cubes in circles.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said.

  Lord Tower gave me a long, pained look. “That’s disappointing.”

  “What if I get more proof? If I find something tangible? I could approach the Arcanum then. I need to move quickly. Layne has been missing too long. The Hanged Man is past the point of protocol with Max—he is actively pursuing him. I need to move quickly.”

  “Wherever Layne Dawncreek is, if he’s even alive, is deep in the Hanged Man’s court. You will trigger consequences by invading it.”

  “I’m not just talking about Layne. There’s more proof than that, isn’t there?”

  “Proof of . . .?”

  I played the one card I had up my sleeve. “Aren’t you concerned that the Hanged Man has been using time magic?”

  The Tower kept his face blank, but the emotion behind it became unsettling and dangerous, like a vague whiff of burning plastic from an electrical outlet.

  “Be very, very careful, Rune,” he whispered.

  “So you really haven’t been on the ship.”

  We locked gazes until my eyes burned. Thankfully, the waiter showed up a minute later with two steaming plates. Fluffy, folded omelets were topped with what appeared to be cheese and worms.

  “Thank you,” I said politely, until they’d withdrawn. Then, “Not even if it was the last plate of food in a zombie apocalypse.”

  The tension frayed, as if I hadn’t just accused an Arcana of forbidden magic. The corners of Lord Tower’s mouth twitched. “Try them.”

  “Those do not look like mushrooms.”

  Lord Tower picked up a fork and turned one of the long, thin, pinkish mushrooms in a circle. “I wasn’t sure I was going to explain what they are. But since you asked . . . Outside the island, in the human world, you would need to farm these at an elevation of over thirty-five hundred feet. Himalayans. Fortunately, there’s a local farm. Owned by Lord Hanged Man, interestingly enough.”

  “The Hanged Man grows mushrooms.”

  “As I’ve said, we’ve pushed him to a rather perilous state of finances. Still, the farm is quite fascinating, for what it’s worth. It feeds some very expensive menus.”

  Lord Tower picked up his knife and said, “Let’s enjoy our meal.”

  * * *

  As I headed out of the restaurant an hour later, my thoughts were spinning. Conversations with Lor
d Tower had a tendency of doing that. Nothing was ever straightforward. He didn’t so much drop breadcrumbs of knowledge as he scattered handfuls of thumbtacks. It was a careful and slow task to pick your way through them, avoiding the sharp bits while at the same time discerning the pattern.

  I know he was telling me things—I just needed to pick apart the warning from the knowledge.

  In the foyer, as I waited for the car to arrive at the curb, I was distracted by my buzzing phone. I looked at the screen and saw Quinn’s name.

  “You never call to say hello,” I answered. “Not even once. What bomb are you about to drop on me?”

  Quinn said, “You should stop by the pool on your way back to the condo.”

  “My earlier question stands.”

  In a quiet voice, he said, “You need to see something I did not see until now. Something I didn’t expect.”

  And damned if those words didn’t send a shiver up my spine.

  You’d think in a building with only six residential units that it’d be difficult to get lost. No so. It took me an embarrassingly long time to find the pool, which turned out to be on the roof and not the basement. That said, in a pinch I could now locate exercise equipment, mops, and underground garages.

  The pool area was in an atrium, thick with warm, chemically clean steam. Huge panes of glass overhead were speckled with raindrops, looking out on a churning gray sky. The pool was Olympic-deep, if not wide. Most of the space was given over to expensive patio furniture.

  Corbie was in the hot tub, hanging to the edge while kicking his feet behind him. He laughed hysterically at something his sister was doing on the wooden planks that surrounded the tub. Max, watching them, blocked my view.

  Quinn was at the door, either having waited for me or because he knew I was about to walk in.

  “When you say unexpected,” I said, “do you mean most of the time it’s unexpected? Sometimes it’s unexpected?”