The Hanged Man

by K. D. Edwards

  One moment we’d be surrounded by shattered skeletons. The next a bleeding crew member would run screaming by us.

  As we walked through the first series of galleries that preceded some of the berths ahead, time sent us through dinnertime, before the hunt started. Someone—Max, I think—accidentally stepped into the path of a sailor and sent his tray flying. The sailor started swearing, and then time went sluggish, emptying the room and setting a body down in front of us. This new sailor’s blood had painted the walls. He had a letter clasped in his hand written in purple ink, smelling of a woman’s perfume.

  “This is an abomination,” Lady Death said in a grim voice.

  “It’s really bad ahead,” I said. “Or it could be. There’s a room with a movie projector. I think it’s the first time the Hanged Man attacked openly. In the present, it’s just full of bleached bones.”

  “My grandmother wanted me to marry him,” Max said.

  I looked over my shoulder, alarmed by his shocky tone, but of course I couldn’t see him. “Okay, Max?”

  Nothing for a second. Then he blurted, “Sorry, I nodded.” He sounded happy I’d asked though, and stronger for it.

  Time shifted around us, that slow wash of grayish energy. Ahead, I saw the flicker of a movie projector’s light, and heard the crisp dialog of bantering men.

  “We’ll need to hurry,” Quinn said. “The tear we need is ahead.”

  “Stay along the edges of the room,” I said. “On the other side are sleeping berths. If we don’t hit the tear then, keep moving portside. There’s a long corridor that will take us to the medical wing. That’s where this ends.”

  “How do you know?” Brand asked. And then, before I could speak, he clicked his tongue. “Of course that’s where he’s holed up.”

  “And I have a key,” I said with satisfaction. “Grab each other, form a line. I’ll take the rear. Let’s go.”

  I’m not sure what order we were in—I’m not even sure whose hand I was grabbing—but we linked together and hurried into the next compartment. I looked behind me and saw the sailors watching a black-and-white movie, hollering good-naturedly. The very last sight I had of it, a man rose in the front row, blocking the screen. He raised his arms, and what was a uniform was now a black cloak, which unfurled, wider and wider, until it seemed to fill the universe. The last thing I heard was his laugh as the sailors went quiet, knowing, without really knowing, that something awful was happening.

  The hand holding mine tugged hard, jerking me out of the compartment. I felt callouses and impatience. Of course it was Brand.

  Time shifted again as we rushed through the soldiers’ berths. I tried not to look—we were now suddenly later in the narrative. The rusty stains I’d seen before on the mattresses were bright red. A sailor was stretched out on one, his hands pressed over a bleeding gut wound. He turned his head and coughed, and I felt warm drops patter against my hand.

  “There!” Quinn shouted, and the next thing I knew I was passing through a black-and-white world that brightened into what I knew to be the present. My skin prickled and warmed, and faded in reverse, as Lady Death dropped our Invisibility. Lord Tower also disengaged our Silence.

  My shoulder throbbed with the tension I’d been carrying in it. I started to stretch out the kink, when Anna screamed.

  Ahead of me, from an unseen compartment, Corinne Dawn-creek was hurled across the corridor into the opposing bulkhead with a bone-breaking crash. She sank into a heap. Anna shouted again and ran into sight, throwing herself to Corinne’s side.

  “You get the boy, I’ll handle them,” someone ordered from inside the room.

  Lord Tower strode ahead of us. Without a single hitch in his step, he walked up to Anna, turned, and vanished into the compartment where the women had been held. There was a single cry of surprise, and then just the sound of bodies hitting the ground, one after the other.

  I ran up, glanced in long enough to see that four of the Hanged Man’s guards were down, and knelt by Corinne. She was dazed. She had an arm injury, judging from the way she held it; and I didn’t like the knock her head had taken.

  “Heal her,” Anna begged me.

  “I can’t, Anna. We need to get her to the hospital.”

  “Why—why not?” Anna demanded. She reared back as if she wanted to hit me. I noticed that she’d made a knife holster with canvas from an old mattress, and a blade made from a metal bedspring.

  “We can’t heal humans unless they’re bonded to us,” I said.

  “She’s a Companion,” Anna argued.

  “But your dad is gone. Her scion is gone. I’m so sorry. We’ll get her help, we—”

  “Heart,” Corinne gasped.

  I looked down. And just knew. Knew she hadn’t broken her arm after all. She was holding her right side because she was having a heart attack.

  “Been—coming,” she gasped. “For. While.”

  “No. No no no no,” Anna said frantically.

  Corinne grabbed at my sleeve with her left hand. It took two tries to connect. I took the hand in my own and held it. She was in too much pain to speak properly, but she was able to gasp, “Yours. Now. Please.”

  “They,” I said, and forced through hesitation and guilt, because this moment was not about me. I swallowed and said, “They are under my protection.”

  “More,” she said.

  “They will be cared for. They will have a home.”

  “Love!” she panted angrily.

  My eyes burned. “They will be loved. All of them. Anna, Corbie, and Layne will be loved.”

  Corinne turned her head toward Anna with a wince. She moved her left hand to the girl’s face, pushing aside the fall of hair that normally hid her burn scars. She cupped the cheek and whispered, “Love you.”

  Furious tears spilled down Anna’s cheeks. Her mouth was open in a silent, low scream. She shook her head.

  “Love you,” Corinne repeated. “Proud.”

  Anna lowered her face, breathing hard.

  And then her head snapped up. Her irises brightened with amber light. She looked at me, then her eyes tracked left to Brand. She looked at the Tower, and her head jerked to the right, eyes narrowed, following an invisible line. With that quick, bird-like movement—

  and now, here, I hear the sound of massive wings, and know beyond all plausibility that we are not on a ship, but flying through the sky, surrounded by birds made of thunder

  —she looked back at Corinne. She pressed Corinne’s hand against her cheek with one hand, and put her free hand on Corinne’s own cheek.

  The next thing I knew I was flying backwards, buffeted by the release of energy.

  I ended up on the ground with Addam’s arms around me. Everyone else except the Tower had been knocked off balance. He stood in the hatchway and stared at Anna with hungry eyes.

  Anna looked straight at me and said, “Heal her.”

  “I don’t . . . we can’t . . .”

  Brand understood first. “She made Corinne her Companion,” he said in a hushed tone.

  “That’s not possible,” Lady Death said.

  But it was. I knew it. It was. Anna had seen—had traced—the bond between the two Companion pairings before her. Yet another example of the gorgeous metaphor and mimicry I’d seen her capable of. And she glowed. She godsdamn glowed like a lightning bolt amid candle flames. Her Aspect was breathtaking.

  “Addam,” I said quickly. “Addam, I used my Healing spell. You have some. Please!”

  Addam touched one of the platinum discs along his waist. He pushed me aside gently and went to Corinne, placing a hand between her breasts. Corinne moaned as the Healing magic went to work on her failing body. After a second, Addam slapped at another sigil, releasing the power of a second Healing.

  “This is not truth,” Lady Death said in a shaky voice. “That . . . She is a principality, and no child. Who dared rejuvenate a principality to the form of a prepubescent? That is an outrage.”

  “She’s a chi
ld,” I said.

  “She is not, because no child can manifest an Aspect, let alone use the—” Lady Death clamped her mouth shut. She stared at me with angry eyes.

  If I had to guess, I’d say that Anna had manifested this ability no one had seen fit to tell me about.

  “She’s a child,” I repeated. The next words tumbled out—a hurried bid to shield Anna from circling sharks, including the friendly ones. “She is my heir. By my voice and will, I name Annawan Dawncreek my Heir Scion. You promised discretion regarding my court matters, Lady Death, and I will hold you to it.”

  “I’ve lost track of the things I must be discreet about,” Lady Death said, shaking her head disbelievingly.

  I felt a spark of heat in my pocket. I startled, then realized Lord Hierophant and Lady World were attempting to communicate. I pulled the emerald from my pocket, a movement mimicked by Lady Death and Lord Tower, and heard Lord Hierophant speaking. “—slaved the controls to my command. The ship’s batteries shouldn’t fire, unless the Hanged Man fights his way to the controls himself. I’m not putting anything past him, not after what I’ve seen. Have you found him?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes?” Addam said, glancing back at me. He’d pulled his own emerald out of his pocket. Behind him, Anna was hugging Corinne, who was unconscious but breathing evenly.

  “Yes. He’s right ahead of us, in a manner. He’s retreated into a pocket dimension he’s anchored to the ship. And I have the wardstone that will let me in. It’s time to end this.”

  It took little effort to find where the pocket dimension was set. I’d known already it was in the area of the marine compartments and medical suites. It turned out to be attached to a wall in a small, closet-sized darkroom used for ship photography and X-rays. Preserved in a functional state, a machine showed the outline of a human skull with graphic wounds that looked less like fractures than bite marks. I turned my back on it and faced the opposing wall.

  None of us were sure how many people the wardstone key—the one I’d found at the Dawncreeks days ago—would let in. We expected four or maybe five. I stood in front, with Brand grabbing the back of my shirt, Lady Death grabbing the back of his, and Addam grabbing the back of hers. Lord Tower, who’d stepped back for a moment to make a phone call, seemed fairly convinced he could force the door open for anyone else with only minimal delay.

  Max and Quinn would not enter. I’d made them swear to it on their names. By that point, Quinn barely had the stamina to stand. His visions had not come without cost.

  “How many spells can you balance at once?” Lady Death asked me.

  I didn’t want to explain to her that I only had eight sigils, and had already burned through two. “Five or six for now.”

  “Admirable,” she said. “Elemental? Fire and Wind?”

  “Fire and Frost,” I said.

  She tskked. “Overlap. I’ll cover Water and Earth, plus Frost of course. Shields up, Lord Sun. Let’s take him down without all the bad guy soliloquy he seems so fond of.”

  “That’s what I always say!” I said.

  “Rune,” Brand said.

  “Right.” I pulled the bronze wardstone out of my pocket. “Let’s go.”

  “That’s a button,” Brand sighed.

  I looked down at the corduroy button in my hand. The one the dream sprites had given me. “Huh,” I said. “Still just a button.” I pocketed it and pulled out the wardstone.

  I felt the layered release of sigil magic behind me as Lady Death armed herself. My own hands slid from sigil to sigil, releasing four of my last spells: a second Fire, along with Frost, one Shield, and Telekinesis. They were all easy spells to store, and I’d had limited time in the hospital’s public sanctum.

  I kept a final spell, Exodus, as a backup. I wasn’t sure what effect it would have in a pocket dimension.

  With the hilt of my sabre primed for firing, I reached up with the wardstone and walked through the wall.

  Everything went black for a split second. I met resistance—as if a narrow hurricane, the width of a pane of glass, wanted to push me back into reality. I lowered my head into it and bulled forward.

  We broke through into a brightly lit room.

  I immediately slid left. Brand broke through and slid right. I ignored the others coming through—I had Brand, and that had always been enough. Holding my sabre in a two-handed grip, I swept the point in a W, covering potential ceiling-, chest-, and floor-level threats.

  The room was a large circle. It was straight out of an old Arabian story—gauzy silk curtains, people-sized throw pillows, gold tassels and gold filigree and gold incense burners. But interspersed with the decadence were crueler reminders of the dimension’s ownership. Manacles. Leather whips. A simple metal table in the center of the room, sitting in an empty fountain basin. So very utilitarian. Easily cleaned and drained.

  “Shit,” Brand said. “Close quarter combat.”

  “Dust and debris,” I agreed. Damn my sigil guesses. Wind would have been handier.

  Lady Death made a sharp sound, an intake of breath.

  I turned and saw that she stood in front of the portal. She was holding a hand. An actual hand. The neatly severed stump began to bleed.

  “Addam,” I said dumbly. That was Addam’s hand.

  “Focus, Rune, we’re on our own,” Brand said sharply. He had throwing knives and an axe he’d stolen from fallen guarda at the Convocation building; no reliable ranged weapon.

  I wasn’t sure what I was more horrified with. That Brand was the only human in a room of Arcana, or Addam’s injury. Or maybe what horrified me most was the voice whispering in the back of my head, clinically reminding me that Addam had a sigil on him that I very, very much needed.

  “Focus,” Brand repeated.

  “I don’t see him,” Lady Death said.

  “He’s here,” I said. I threw up a full Shield in front of all of us, cutting off our edge of the circle. “Lady Death, Addam’s . . . hand, can you . . .?”

  Ice crept along the fingers of the severed hand, inching across the palm. The fingernails glistened like pearl as Lady Death gently set the preserved hand on the ground to the side of the portal entrance. She straightened, and surveyed the room through fresh eyes, finally raising a finger to point. “Cyrillic magic.”

  I followed the point. On a rounded portion of the wall opposite us, using what may have been a simple black marker, was an intricate square of words. Or, no, not a square. The writing ran at angles, literally a maze. I knew it. The main spell followed a simple line, with appositive phrases branching off to dead ends.

  But there were hollow spaces in the inscribed maze. Unused dead ends. No clear center. The spell was unfinished.

  “You got so close,” I said in a loud, appreciative voice. “Clever idea. Re-anchoring the pocket dimension. Tricky magic. Were you hoping to retreat to your arctic compound?”

  The air in front of the magical graffiti wavered, resolving into Lord Hanged Man. At his feet, bleeding and bruised, was John. Pretty Boy. I’d forgotten about that loose end, too. But I suppose it was symmetry, since he was the reason Lord Hanged Man had set eyes on the battleship in the first place.

  “It’s over,” Lady Death said. “You know that. With the things we’ve seen . . . You must know that the entire Arcanum will turn hand against you. I will give you precisely one chance to yield. One.”

  I bit back a reply, because I hadn’t been prepared to offer even that.

  Lord Hanged Man’s hypothermic features—the Aspect of a dead, frozen man—eased into a smile. The hemp rope he wore around his neck hung free. Sigil, I thought. Mass sigil. I almost turned Lady Death to tell her, but the Hanged Man finally spoke. He said, “You stand on my ground.”

  “This is not a dialog. One chance,” she repeated.

  “If I were you, I’d be more worried about the people you left behind. Even as I speak, my houses rise. They will descend on this ship with fresh force.”

  “No,” Bran
d said. “They won’t. The Companions of Atlantis have a score to settle with you. All of your supporters are penned in by now. I don’t care how fucking fresh they are, they’re not going to last against us.”

  Mayan, I thought.

  The Hanged Man stared at Brand for a very long second, and nodded. He clapped a hand over the hemp rope around his neck and released its spell.

  He spoke a word of necromantic magic so powerful that it raked lines up the flesh on his throat, leaving behind bloodless furrows. The magic flew at my Shield and created shining, translucent fissures. Just as it burst, I saw Brand drop and roll to his left; Lady Death stagger; and then I was entirely lost in the slice across my gut that burned like a guillotine blade.

  I lost my grip on Shield for a moment. Just a single moment. But enough time for Brand to leap up and charge the Hanged Man.

  Nothing had prepared me for that moment—for the sight of my human Companion charging an Arcana.

  And nothing had prepared me for the fact that Brand had obviously spent a great, great deal of time figuring out how he’d survive hand-to-hand combat with a master spell-caster.

  With the one-handed axe, he made a single swipe, cutting open the front of the Hanged Man’s black shirt, and then immediately followed it with a slap. He did this in a blur of metal—a devastating blow followed by a kick at the Hanged Man’s ankle, or a stiff-fingered jab to a joint. None of the weaponless attacks did actual damage—until I realized they weren’t meant to. It took concentration to use magic and access sigils, and Brand was keeping the Hanged Man off-balance with attacks that were almost insults. He played on the Hanged Man’s pride.

  He was buying me time. Lady Death had a massive cut along her arm, bleeding heavily. My gut wound was furiously painful, but at least I wasn’t spilling intestines. I leapt up. The Hanged Man saw me coming, and moved his body behind Brand. It was a gift. I fired seven firebolts into the unblocked wall, bolstering them with my Fire spell. The elaborate Cyrillic magic, so carefully constructed, shriveled into flickers of flame.