The Hanged Man

by K. D. Edwards

  All six armed guards went down. Lady World sent veins of luminous moss racing along the walls, bathing us in a dull light. Mayan and Brand whisked down the corridor, using weapons from dead guards to take out the survivors.

  “Save one!” Lord Tower barked, just as Mayan cut the throat of the last threat. Mayan looked ahead of him, into whatever room was on the other side of the double doors. He said, “We have one. He’s holding a pretty white wand.”

  I took a second to look back, to see how badly Lord Judgment was hurt. He was propped against the wall, still conscious, a hand pressed over his bleeding shoulder. He saw my look and said, “Get our sigils. Retrieve the control device. Lead your raid, Lord Sun.”

  I straightened and walked down the hallway, stepping over bodies. The remaining eddies of wind magic made my cloak flutter, which I was sure pleased Ciaran.

  The room on the other side was a security center. Large, and filled with banks of monitors and computer stations.

  Sitting in a swivel chair, an ivory wand glowing red in his lap, was Jirvan.

  “If I do anything against the interests of Lord Hanged Man, the device on my neck will release a fast-acting poison,” he said calmly. “I can tell you that much.”

  Others gathered in the room behind me. I expected the Tower to step in, but, when I glanced at him, he only waited. Lady Death caught this and grinned, saying, “I’m not the baby of the family anymore! Very well. Dance for us, Rune.”

  I walked over to Jirvan, pulled up another swivel chair, and sat down. “You have my leave to act within the parameters of the device. Don’t answer any questions, or perform any action, that would cause the poison’s release.”

  Jirvan swallowed. He nodded.

  “I am not blind to the fact that you tried to warn me earlier,” I said. “I do not believe you want to be here. I do not believe you wanted matters to come to this. I know what it’s like to be left with no choices.”

  “Thank you, Lord Sun,” he said.

  “But matters have come to a head. We need the information you can offer. Are you able to tell me anything about the device around your neck?”

  He paused, then shook his head no.

  “Does the torc have more than a single charge?”

  The scarred muscles on Jirvan’s neck twitched. With a scared expression, he closed his eyes and shook his head no. When nothing happened, he sighed, and opened his eyes again.

  “If you were in a position to help us, would you?” I asked. “Are you worth saving, Jirvan?”

  He licked his lips and said, “I walk with a limp, because I use a prosthetic. Imagine, if you will, a man who uses a prosthetic because he had displeased his master. Imagine a master who believes in grotesque responses to displeasure, as a way of making his feelings known, and serving as examples to others. Imagine a man whose leg was removed, and cooked, and served at dinner. Imagine a man who knows the taste of his own burned flesh. Would a man like that want to be saved?”

  “What would happen if we try to retrieve our sigils? They’ll be around here somewhere.”

  “I do believe that would be against my instructions,” Jirvan said.

  I swiveled my chair to face the people behind me. “Lady World, is your Aspect strong enough to slow the spread of poison? Or do you have any nature magic that would help?”

  “Yes. Though I’d want the use of a healing sigil as quickly as possible.”

  “Our sigils?” I asked Lord Judgment, who’d been brought into the room.

  “Past the vault door, there.” He glanced at a heavy metal door in a corner of the room. “I have an override code.”

  “If you use the code—” Jirvan started, but I put a hand on his arm.

  “Do you know the layout of the vault, Lord Judgment? Where our sigils are exactly stored?”

  “Arcana have their own shelf,” Lord Judgment said. His breathing had deepened, nearly to a pant. “The shelf is partitioned with court logos.”

  “Please share the code with Mayan. Brand, be ready, I’ll need my ankh. Lady World, if you’ll be ready, once the poison releases?” I turned back to Jirvan. “This is your only chance.”

  He nodded.

  Sometimes things happen exactly as planned. Sometimes the universe throws you a meaty scrap of good luck. Mayan opened the vault. Brand dove into it. Jirvan stiffened as he made no move to stop us, thus releasing the poison. Lady World’s Aspect flooded the room in healing light. I sat there, enjoying the narcotic warmth of her proximity, as she put her hands on Jirvan and fought the spread of death.

  Brand rushed over to me with my ankh. I closed my fingers around it and released the stored Healing. I put my palm on Jirvan’s scarred cheek and sent hot magic into his body. I felt the corruption of the poison boil and curdle, making Jirvan scream, because nothing about magic was painless, even the helpful kind. When I finally withdrew, I left a hand-shaped sunburn on his skin, but he was alive.

  With shaking fingers, Jirvan undid the clasp on the back of the torc and threw it across the room. He said, “I hope you end him.”

  I leaned toward him, close enough to have him squirm. “Answer every question I ask, perform every order I issue, as quickly and efficiently as you can, to prove you were worth saving. Am I clear?”

  The seneschal nodded.

  “Make the winter banshees stand down.”

  Jirvan picked up the wand, which he’d dropped while being healed. He wrapped his thin fingers around it and began to move his lips silently. After a half minute, he nodded, and handed me the wand. Lady Death neatly inserted herself in front of me and plucked the control device out of my hands.

  “I’ve reversed all earlier commands,” Jirvan said. “The remaining banshees will gather outside the armory, under instructions to hurt no one.”

  “Mayan,” I said, “please go tell Lord Hierophant what’s happened, so that he’s not startled into action when the banshees arrive. Then find Addam? Thank you.”

  Mayan left without objection, passing Lord Judgment on the way, who seemed taken aback by the insight of the instruction. Truth be told, I’m glad it had occurred to me.

  “The banshees,” I said to Jirvan. “They were to delay us from pursuit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he assume we’d pursue?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. He only said that your final accusation damned him, and Lord Judgment or Lord Tower would set people on him immediately. He wouldn’t be allowed to operate without eyes on him.”

  “Is he fleeing the island?”

  “Yes. But . . . there is more. This isn’t the only delaying action.”

  “Tell me,” I said, and I felt my eyes warm, the oldest hint of my Aspect ascending, from the days when my irises would start glowing with a bright amber light.

  I saw that light in Jirvan’s frightened gaze. “He’s retreated to the battleship. It is operational. He will attempt to deactivate some of the city’s safeguards and launch a shore battery. The damage will be considerable, and he’ll flee into the human world in the confusion.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  He did not want to say whatever he was about to say. Ducking his gaze from mine, he whispered, “He went for the children.”

  “What children?” Brand said sharply. When Jirvan hesitated, Brand swooped in, grabbed the man by the jaw, and yanked his face upwards. “What children?”

  “Lord Hanged Man found a flash drive. It showed a recording of a video feed. I’m not entirely sure what was on it, but it made him very keen on securing Annawan and Corbitant Dawncreek.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I saw it there—right in front of me, like a damned flow chart. Addam’s security man handing me the deleted surveillance of the pool at Addam’s condo. Me putting the flash drive in my pocket. It would have been on me as I bounced across rooftops. I’d probably left it right next to the fucking ifrit’s body. It would have shown the crayon gargoyle dancing between Anna and Corbie. It was likely
not even clear which of them had manifested the magic.

  Brand pulled out his phone. After a second he said, “Corinne’s voicemail.”

  “Run, Brand. Get Addam. Tell him to try Diana, or his team, anyone. Go!”

  Brand bolted out the door.

  “We need to move on the battleship,” Judgment said. “Tower, with me. We’ll see if the Hierophant is sensible yet. Lady World?”

  “I have a herd of pegasi nearby,” she said. “We can move quickly.”

  “I’ll wait with Rune,” Lady Death said. “I’ll follow if I can, or assist elsewhere if needed.”

  Lord Judgment came over. He removed his hand from his shoulder injury and clapped a bloodstain on my shoulder. “Apologies for the intervention, Sun. It’s still your raid, but this must be handled.”

  “I need to make sure the children are okay. They’re under my protection.” Worry pounded in staccato with Brand’s footsteps, as I felt him, through our bond, running for Addam.

  “Well met, then, brother.” He looked behind him, at the other Arcana. “Perhaps some of you would find your own sigils, and offer me a Healing spell of my own? I’ve been bloody shot. And let’s get these damn bracelets off too.”

  ENDGAME, PART II

  I was used to causing mayhem and skipping out while the powers-that-be picked up the pieces. It was a modus operandi that worked well for me.

  Now that I was the powers-that-be, I realized how much shit separated the potential momentum of a moment and the actual execution of it.

  Lords Judgment, Tower, and Hierophant left for the battleship along with Lady World. Since I was waiting on word from the hospital, Lady Death and I were delegated oversight of the Convocation. We would need to find a spell-caster strong enough to take temporary ownership of the ivory wand, and give field promotions to fill new, and mortally emptied, leadership gaps in the guarda’s chain of command.

  Fortunately, I looked so hapless at the thought of doing that that Lady Death hurried out to administrate, leaving me to guard Jirvan. Jirvan, exhausted from the painful healing, was sound asleep, which more or less meant I was free to aggressively self-judge.

  “I already messed up,” I murmured.

  “When?” Brand asked. He’d returned a few minutes ago, leaving Addam to contact the hospital, Max to keep ringing Lady Diana’s line, and Quinn to reach Addam’s security team.

  “When the Arcana were all looking at me to question Jirvan,” I said.

  “What else were you supposed to do? It’s your raid. And it’s not the Arcana, it’s the other Arcana. You’re one of them now.”

  “I know, but I promised myself I wouldn’t be like them. You and I are partners. We should have questioned him together. I know I missed some obvious questions.”

  Brand’s face went neutral. “You did a very, very nice job.”

  “What did I miss?” I sighed.

  He kept giving me that blank bodyguard face, which had always been his tell. He knew that, though, and tried to deflect. “I lost my cool when he mentioned the kids, too. It was easy to get distracted.”

  “If you tell me what I missed, I’ll learn from my mistakes.”

  “Okay. Maybe you could have asked whether the Hanged Man had a guard contingent with him when he retreated to the ship. And maybe we could have found out if any of the houses in his court were going to rally to his side. And—and this just occurred to me—I’m not sure how he expects for a gun battery to get past city defenses. He’s got to know something we don’t.”

  I groaned. The last one was a particularly good question.

  “Rune,” Brand said, with an unusually serious look on his face. “We’ll find the kids. This will be over soon. Beat yourself up later. Figure out the weirdness later.” The expression softened, and he bumped my shoulder, this time without leaving a bruise. “We’ll figure it out later, because we are still a we, regardless of your new country club membership.”

  I smiled at him. “And what about you and Mayan?” I marveled. “You were almost, like, chummy.”

  “That’s strange? The Tower looks like he’s halfway done writing the charter for your fucking fan club. Is this what it means to be on the Arcanum? People trying to get along with us?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe? What did you think it would be like?”

  “That they’d throw money and resources at us, then leave us alone to do what we do best. But this is more like . . . teamwork. With other people. I don’t really like other people.”

  “We’re going to have problems with this,” I agreed. “Maybe we should—”

  Addam strode into the room. He had a stricken look on his face that bled bad news.

  “Tell me,” I said immediately.

  “Corinne and the children are missing. Diana has already mounted a search and rescue mission. We have every reason to believe they have been taken.”

  “Why do they believe that?” Brand said.

  “From what Diana has pieced together, Corbie had been off on his own. He must have been taken. There were signs of a . . . struggle. They may have used him as a lure to get Anna and Corinne.”

  “What sort of struggle?” I said.

  Addam looked at me bleakly. “There was blood. And . . . teeth. Children’s teeth. He must have been hit in the face.” Addam saw the expression on my face and crossed to me. “He was likely just struck for compliance. There is not enough blood to signal a more serious injury. We will—”

  I heard this through a dull, rising roar. My Aspect—the divine monster inside me, already fattened with today’s emotion—burst forward.

  I thought of blood and teeth; and a girl with a scarred face; and a dying Companion. I had brought them into this. Used them as bait. Used them as leverage to pry my way into the Hanged Man’s court.

  I may have lost a few seconds. The next thing I knew my chest was burning. Only it was cold, not heat. Lady Death was in front of me, and her palm, brimming with frost magic, was pressed over my shirt. The fabric glittered with rapidly melting, crusty ice.

  “Are you with me, Rune?” she said.

  I blinked away the orange light. The fire died. We were alone in the security room, except for the sleeping Jirvan.

  She bunched her fingers in my shirt and shook me a little. “Listen to me, little brother. I’m going to teach you something I learned the hard way. Are you listening?”

  Licking chapped lips, I closed my eyes and nodded.

  “The fact that you can manifest an Aspect like that—one that has a physical impact on the world, not just a smoke-and-mirror reflection of your court—is a testament of raw power. There are very, very few people in the world who can do that. And the exercise of such a powerful Aspect will determine the type of court you build. If you manifest your Aspect on impulse or emotion, you will be surrounded by impulsive and emotional people. If you use it to cow your enemies, you will be surrounded by people who expect to be ruled by fear or strength, and will in turn rule others beneath them in the same way. But if you exert control—if you govern your Aspect with your will—your court will become an extension of those abilities, and not a reaction to it.”

  I cleared my throat and nodded again.

  “Okay then. We’ve done as much as we can do here,” she said, and brushed snow off my shirtfront. “We should operate as if these children of yours are on the battleship. I have cars waiting outside.”

  “There’s not enough time,” Quinn said from the doorway.

  Lady Death and I turned toward him in unison.

  Quinn flashed a guilty look over his shoulder, and back at me. “There are so few choices left. We can’t reach the Tower—he’s in the clouds—and when they land, they’ll want to sink the ship.”

  The chill that swept through me was warmer than Lady Death’s palm print. Even then, I almost hesitated. We very rarely acknowledged Quinn’s gifts in front of others, no matter his tendency of blurting them out. We definitely didn’t discuss his gift of seeing probabilities. It was a coveted
ability, and would make him a target.

  But there was no time for discretion.

  “Are the kids on the ship?” I asked him.

  Quinn did something that was half-shrug, half-nod. “You scream whenever the ship sinks. So . . . I think so. It’s hard to see the specifics— just like it was before, when Max and I were there last time—there’s strange energy there.”

  Powerful places protected by wards or hauntings had always screwed with Quinn’s ability, even more so since we’d started blunting some of his abilities with medicine. I can’t imagine how the presence of time magic would interact with Quinn’s far-seeing.

  I took a few breaths to calm myself, and quickly pulled apart what Quinn had said. The ship. I needed to keep the ship from sinking. Lord Judgment led the Arcanum. He knew the ship posed a threat to the shore. If I were him, and had to coldly calculate the best odds, I may be tempted to avoid a close-quarter fight—with potentially thousands of lives at stake—by sending the entire battleship to the floor of the ocean.

  “We’ll never get there quick enough driving,” I said, and felt the urgency rising up my throat like a shout. “We need to find the kids before they decide it’s easier to sink the Declaration. We need to get there now.” I looked at Lady Death in desperation. “Please. Do you have any ideas?”

  “Do . . .” She frowned. “Flight? Do you have Flying spells stored?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t have enough for even half of us. There’s . . .” An idea lifted the muscles of her face—the way people did when surprised by a thought. And then frustration drew the muscles down into another frown.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “They are important to you. These children.”

  “They are,” I said.

  She waved her hand, dismissing the nimbus of frost magic, and then rubbed safely at her eyes. A disarmingly normal gesture. “This will be your birthday gift for the next sixty years. There’s a fountain on the roof. Let’s move there. Pick your companions.”

  “I need to come,” Quinn said immediately.

  “Must you?” Addam asked from behind him.