The Hanged Man

by K. D. Edwards

  “More pretty words,” Lord Hanged Man said. “Please do continue. Tell us how weak we are.”

  “That’s just the problem,” I said. I smiled at him, and ignored my heartbeat. I didn’t have the room yet. I had their attention; but I didn’t have them. So I pointed. “That. Right there. That mind-set. It’s not a question of power—it’s a question of adaption. Yes, I have a limited collection of sigils, but I am not weak. I have learned to operate within my restraints. And yes, we live on the sufferance of humanity. Which is why it’s vital we find a way to share the planet with them. Lord Tower and Lord Chariot have found a way. Their economic interests are tied closely to the human world. And they have flourished. Lord Wheel lives in America. Lord Magician operates portals in six out of seven continents. They, too, have flourished. They have adapted. But you have not. You, Lord Hanged Man, jeopardize New Atlantis.”

  “Is this concerning a grievance against the Sun Throne,” Lord Strength asked, “or are you accusing the Hanged Man of larger acts against our interests?”

  “Both. It certainly started as a grievance. One of the most distasteful parts of his character tried to find root in my court.”

  “This is—” Lord Hanged Man started to say.

  “You are a pedophile.”

  I turned to face him, and heard the unrest of the crowd as they reacted to the word. “You interfere with minors. You interfered with one of my retainers, a fifteen-year-old by the name of Layne Dawncreek, and left him dying in a shallow grave. You seek now to marry my seventeen-year-old ward against his wishes.”

  “It is a marital alliance brokered by his grandmother, and there is nothing untoward about that,” Lord Hanged Man said loudly.

  “He is a minor, and you seek to possess him against his wishes. There is everything untoward about that.”

  Across the room, the Priestess shifted in her chair. She was a mother to over three dozen children. In an age of diminishing fertility, her court had always overflowed with offspring.

  “And it’s not enough that you interfered with Layne Dawncreek,” I said. “You decimated his family to obtain him. You left his twelve-year-old sister with hideous facial burns. Harmed a boy who was barely three years old at the time. And you killed the Atlantean scion of a bonded Companion. I have a Companion, Lord Hanged Man. It is one of our most ancient traditions. Do you have any idea what it does to the Companion, when her scion dies? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to Corinne Dawncreek?”

  “It’s a walking death,” someone whispered. The virtual image of Lady Moon, who had married her own Companion, flickered.

  “But, as Lord Strength said, those are just my personal grievances,” I said to the room. “I’m quite capable of handling them on my own. The fact remains that these disgusting acts drew me into the Hanged Man’s orbit, where I learned of the real threat to this city. He has gone unchecked for too long. The punishments he’s faced have been too lax. He has grown indulgent and impulsive, and his sick hobbies will put this entire island at odds with the human world.”

  “And how is that?” the Hanged Man said. “What armies do I have? How, exactly, am I threat to humanity?”

  “There it is again,” I said, with another finger point in his direction. “That utter lack of understanding about how things work in the modern era. You don’t start a war with armies anymore. You start wars with headlines. How do you think the human world will react when they learn of the USS Declaration?”

  “That matter has been addressed,” Lord Judgment said. “Decades ago. He has made reparations.”

  “He hasn’t, because it’s still happening. I’ve been there. I’ve seen that sick playground.”

  “You trespassed,” Lord Hanged Man said bluntly.

  “I did. If I hadn’t, I would never have seen what a threat that ship has become to the autonomy of New Atlantis. If people know what you do on that ship, it would cause global outrage. We would drown in the consequence. America would turn on us. The pacts that gave us this land? Nantucket? Gone. Over. They would turn on us in a heartbeat.”

  “How so?” Lord Wheel asked sharply. He loved America—he’d travelled it for decades. He greatly enjoyed the freedom of his visa.

  “He abases the dead. He has their remains arranged in theater. The trauma done to every soul on that ship has never settled—they are still damaged to this day.” I flicked a look to Lady Death and Lady Priestess, both who had very strong feelings about the well-being of souls. “The entire Arcanum could devote six months to that ship, and we’d barely raise enough Soul Binds to drive half the ghosts to rest. I’m not even sure a Soul Bind would work. He has frozen their grief. He preserves the moment of their death in stasis.”

  I moved on quickly; I’d circle back to it soon enough. “It’s not unlike the abattoir in that skyscraper of yours, Lord Hanged Man. That mushroom farm.”

  “More trespassing,” the Hanged Man said, though his voice was now a soft whisper.

  “More trespassing,” I agreed. “And more headlines. You sell those mushrooms to the city. To the human world. What would happen, if they learned you fertilize the soil with corpses? It’s one step short of cannibalism. It is an atrocity. You preyed on the weaker houses in the city to fuel an atrocity.”

  I turned back to the room while pulling a piece of paper out of my pocket. The one Quinn had given me. I’d asked him to return to the moment on the skyscraper roof, to remember the broken lifelines he’d been forced to see. I read, “Howell. Lambarti. Rusknokov. Quincy, Brushmane, Zimbata, Ionic. Dozens more. Dozens more! Were they all your brides and grooms?” I looked at the Hierophant, the Hermit, and the Fool. They were among the weaker Arcana, more prone to sell distant kin into marriage as a way to shore up their power base. I’d read names from their courts. Lesser houses that had, over the years, permitted marital arrangements with the Gallows.

  “Is this true?” Lord Hierophant said.

  “Zebulon,” the Hermit said. “Cousins of cousins . . . I remember one. He married her.”

  “His brides and grooms always vanish,” I said. “Haven’t you ever wondered where they went?”

  “They are removed from the public eye, safe in the Westlands!” Lord Hanged Man shouted. “How dare you bring my marriages into this! This is not decorum. These are not things we speak of in this room!”

  “That would be a mistake, and I’ll gladly see it put to a vote. Headlines, Lord Hanged Man. You beg for headlines.”

  “I will kill you,” he said. “Raid me. Raid me, Rune Sun. I will kill you.”

  “Will you?” I said. “Or will you just bring me to the point of death, and put my suffering in stasis? You are very good with that blend of stasis and time magic. You like returning to the moments of your depravity again and again.”

  “What is this?” Lord Judgment said sharply. “What did you say?”

  “Do you remember me?” I asked. I walked to the edge of the pedestal. One toe-length away from the Hanged Man’s own circle. “Once, in the past, you saw me on your ship, and tried to pull me through time. As an amusement. Don’t you remember? Like a match flame held behind rice paper.Have you figured out yet that it was me?”

  As surprise and uncertainty flickered across the Hanged Man’s face, Lord Judgment leapt to his feet. “What is this? I will not repeat myself again.”

  I looked at Lord Tower. He regarded this appeal stonily, and said, “This is new information. I learned of it barely a day or so ago. I am investigating it.”

  “What does that mean?” Lord Judgment said. He spun and faced the Hanged Man, and banged the staff of office against the ground. “Have you used time magic?”

  “A parlor trick at most,” Lord Hanged Man insisted.

  “That is a lie,” I said. “The ship is littered with items that retain not only their form prior to the application of stasis magic, but their smells. You can smell the cordite, and burning rubber. Even physical properties like the glow of melting metal. Normal stasis spells do not work like th
at, not unless they’re doctored with other magical disciplines. He’s using time magic, and he is very good at it.”

  “It has harmed no one!” Lord Hanged Man roared.

  “How long?” Lord Judgment said in horror. He looked at the Tower, and something passed between them.

  Judgment looked like he was about to say something else, but stopped himself. Once again, I knew I was missing the real language of the discussion; I was only getting an impression of a larger issue.

  Lord Judgment said, visibly upset, “No. Not here. This discussion will not happen here. We will hear Lord Sun on the matter of a raid tonight. Sunset. We will continue this discussion at sunset in the true Arcanum, where our privacy is assured. All Arcana will be there in person.”

  “This is insane. I require more time to answer these half-truths and misdirections,” Lord Hanged Man protested.

  “You will not get it,” Lord Judgment said. “You will be there, or I will find you myself.”

  “In a room of killers, you would cast stones at me?” the Hanged Man said. The barest hint of a flush rose under his dead-man Aspect. “This hypocrisy will not go unanswered. You . . .” He looked at me. “You actually think you’ll win.”

  All my aces had been played. I didn’t need to circle around my rage anymore—not around my anger at the jeopardy Max had been in; the loss that the Dawncreeks had been exposed to; the deaths of those poor sailors.

  So I said, “Yes. I will win. Because you’re ready to fall. I have as big an ego as the next guy—don’t get me wrong. I’d love to think it all came down to my skill and power—that I forced my way onto your ship, and up to the top of your skyscraper. But the truth is that your defenses are lax. You’ve been allowed to operate unchallenged for so long that you’re not even taking the most basic precautions against intrusion. Defense shields around the ship with an elemental weakness? One ifrit and its pet dinosaur? You’ve grown fat and lazy, like a fly outside the swatting distance of the horse’s tail. Taking you down won’t require a feat of brilliance. It’ll be as easy as sticking out my foot and watching you crash over it as you pace around giving your mastermind oration.”

  I pitched my voice low, for his ears only. “And think on this. I know a lot of prophets. I am hip-fucking-deep in prophecies about my future. Are you? Are there any prophecies about your future?”

  “Oh, child,” he whispered. He got to his feet and went to the edge of his own pedestal, so that barely an arm’s length separated us. “Oh, child,” he repeated. His breath left imaginary traces of death on my skin, like ashes from a house fire.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Take a swing. Take two. It. Won’t. Matter.”

  Judgment slapped his hands together in an angry clap. “Sunset. This meeting is adjourned. Now.”

  “I’ll discuss the logistics with Rune,” Lord Tower said.

  He stood up and brushed his hands along the lap of his trousers.

  “Let’s talk, little brother,” the Tower said.

  He led Ciaran and me through the door we’d entered. Brand and the others were in the hall, and they’d been joined by Mayan. Brand and Mayan were in spitting range of each other, having a low, furious conversation.

  Lord Tower lifted his palm to a blank wall. The marble melted and spiraled into a round opening, showing another room beyond. He stepped over the threshold without seeing that we would follow.

  “You’re not going to keep calling me brother, are you?” I asked, hurrying behind him. “It makes me feel funny.”

  His shoulders squared, but he didn’t reply.

  The new room was a waiting area—strictly utilitarian, but built from the best materials. When we’d all crossed into it, he held up his palm again, and the doorway resealed.

  “Rune,” he said, his voice as blank as I’d ever heard it. “There are certain things you heard in that room that made no sense to you. Certain . . . proper nouns. You will assume it’s not safe to speak of them, until we have a private moment.”

  “But what happened?” Max asked. “Can’t you tell us that?”

  “Oh, he was very dashing,” Ciaran said. “Though he made poor use of the cape.”

  “Did you fight?” Brand said. “Your adrenaline kept spiking. Are you hurt?”

  “That would make you happy?” Mayan asked. “Having your scion fight while you sat outside the door?”

  “I didn’t fucking know!” Brand shouted, and it had the sense of a middle-of-the-argument line. “He walked in there with his own plan!”

  “You should know him well enough to predict these things!” Mayan shouted back.

  “You’re no one to fucking talk. The Tower’s hand is so far up your ass that he probably can draw your knives for you!”

  The Tower—who’d started pouring a finger of amber liquid from a decanter—put down his glass with a single, loud click. “That will be enough.”

  Mayan’s nostrils flared, but he kept his mouth closed.

  “May I expect better of you?” Lord Tower asked, staring at his Companion.

  “Of course, Lord Tower. Apologies.”

  “Then please watch the Hanged Man.”

  Mayan gave a tight bow—barely a nod—as the Tower unsealed the room long enough to let Mayan out.

  The Tower settled his gaze on Brand. “May I expect better of you, as well? We are in a serious moment, Brandon.”

  “Of course it’s serious. You’re not in pajamas, and you put on some fucking shoes.”

  “Oh gods,” I whispered, and smothered my face in my hands. “I need a drink too. Brand? Please?”

  “It’s all right, Rune,” the Tower said. “It couldn’t have been easy for Brand. Mayan doesn’t like to wait outside either. But, Brand, perhaps I should point out that the threat has not ended, which means I require you to do your fucking job.”

  I pried apart my fingers to look, because I’m not sure I’d ever heard the Tower drop an F-bomb.

  That didn’t pass by Brand either. I’m not sure there was even a word for the expression on his face, both alarmed and alarming.

  Addam cleared his throat. “I would like to know what happened, godfather.”

  The Tower continued to stare at Brand, then picked up his drink again. “It was much of what you’d have expected. Rune presented evidence against the Hanged Man. Rune intends to make a bid to form a raiding party.”

  “And will there be one?” Addam asked.

  “In the normal way of things, the Hanged Man would have had a chance to refute the evidence. There are exceptions, of course. The raid that took down Lady Lovers was authorized in absentia. But then again, we had a two-thirds majority. Her presence was never needed. I’m not sure Rune will start with that support.” Lord Tower paused, and nodded at Matthias. “Apologies, if the memories unsettle.”

  “They don’t,” Max said. “My grandmother tried to sell me. What do you mean would have had? Why won’t the Hanged Man defend himself?”

  “Oh, trust me, he will defend himself. But this will not end in a council session. He will retaliate soon.” He poured another drink, and handed it to me.

  I sipped so deeply my jaw clicked. Whiskey. It burned like cheap gasoline for all of three seconds, and warmed to gold and honey. I coughed and said, “Maybe Lord Judgment will issue raid approval in absentia. He can do that. I think he wants to do that. You saw him. He nearly had a heart attack when I mentioned time—”

  And that’s when Lord Tower’s calm pretense evaporated.

  He slammed his drink down and said, “Even the fact you’d say such a thing out loud demonstrates how fantastically unprepared for this you are! I just warned you.”

  “You’re right—fine—but I am not unprepared,” I said angrily. “I’ve trained—”

  “This is not about your talent. It’s not about your brain. It’s not about your capability. It’s about what you do not know. Do you think it’s as simple as Lord Judgment being offended at the use of forbidden magic? Do you think his sense of rules so fragile? Ha
s it occurred to you that there are reasons certain magic has been forbidden? There are doorways which must remain closed. You do not know.”

  In the tension that followed, Quinn said, “Does he need to?”

  “Quinn,” Addam murmured.

  “No, Addam,” Quinn said. “I’m right. Well, I mean, right now this second I’m right. None of this is important now. All that matters now is stopping the Hanged Man. He’s going to try to hurt us. It’s going to happen. I can feel it already happening.”

  “He will try,” the Tower agreed.

  Quinn searched his face for some sort of understanding, then let loose a frustrated sound. “You’re acting like you’re going to make a plan. But everything is screaming. Everyone is screaming. It’s already too late.” Quinn rubbed at his nose. “Now there’s just fighting, and you’re one step behind instead of two steps ahead because you’re focusing on the wrong thing.”

  “Quinn Saint Nicholas,” Lord Tower said in a low voice. “We have had this conversation. Do not spin prophecies around me.”

  “Then don’t spin plans around me,” Quinn said, in the most clear and lucid voice I’d ever heard from him. “There are bigger things at stake than hurt feelings. I don’t see ocean waves the size of skyscrapers around you—I see them around him. Wake up and pay better attention. You’ve waited so long for this moment to arrive—for the beginning to really start—that you don’t realize you’re in peril of driving right through it.”

  He sneezed and blinked. A trickle of blood ran from one nostril.

  He smudged it along the side of his hand, and gave us a worried look. I tried to kill the tension by turning to Lord Tower and saying, “So I suppose this means you’re going to fall in line?”

  Lord Tower gave me a blank look for a moment, and then, thankfully, the corner of his lips twitched. “Little Brother,” he said.

  “You know I had a crush on you when I was younger, right?” I said. “Can you see why that’s creeping me out?”

  Lord Tower’s phone chimed, interrupting us. He pulled it from his breast pocket, read the screen.