Heartland-The Second Book of the Codex of Souls (45 page)

The Valet of Cups was an awakening. Crowley's card was feminine—the Princess of Cups—and she was the genesis of an Idea. The wellspring of the Imagination. She was—

Devorah.

In Nicols' last reading, the Princess of Cups had been a librarian figure. A woman who had given us guidance. The Chorus had tweaked her spirit, awakening the imagination in her, and she had become a rhapsodomancer—an interpreter of events filtered through a linguistic proxy. Devorah had found her voice in Milton's
Paradise Lost,
and she couldn't undo the damage I had done to her psyche.

What is done is done.

That was a debt I would have to pay someday, and the Valet of Cups was a reminder. Reversed, he was the closing of the springs. The shuttering of the mind. Water, buried beneath the earth, not yet allowed to bubble forth. Instead of being the awakening of the spirit to its higher calling, he was the loss of illumination. He was the soul, trapped in the flesh, bound to stay in this world a bit longer.

I had come back from the sky after all the souls had been freed in Portland. I had come back, because I hadn't earned the right to go on. Too much blood on my hands. Too much that I had to atone for.

But it hadn't been Death. Or the Tower. Or the Nine of Swords. It was the Valet of Cups. The postponed awakening.
Show me the way to the Crown.

Les Filles de Mnémosyne.
The daughters forever caged by the Watchers. If they were the wellsprings of the imagination—the Muses who gave us all our creative ideas—then what did it say about all of us that they were trapped in the Archives?

Show me the way . . .

Above the Valet was the Hanged Man, who, in being reversed, was the only figure that appeared to be standing right side up. He was the Fisher King, and I had seen him in Nicols' reading too. He had been in the same place in the spread—the position over the card that represented the querent. He was the Heavenly influence, that which floated above. In being inverted, he was the antithesis of transformation. He was a magus caught by indecision—caught by too many choices, too many paths. Crushed by too much knowledge, he could not act. He was, indeed, trapped. His foot was caught in a loop of his own mental peregrinations, and he could not move. His hands were bound behind him, further symbolism of his failure to contain his wisdom (unlike the Magician card, a figure whose hands were free to indicate both Heaven and Earth). He hung over my head like the sword that hung over Damocles.

It had been hanging there a long time, hadn't it? Ever since the duel on the bridge. Antoine and I had fought over Marielle, and I had fled Paris, and the threat of discovery had been a persistent fear ever since. Stay hidden, and keep the deception alive. Don't let them find you; don't let them hunt you.

The Ten of Cups signified a fulfilled life, one filled with the contentment of family. In Crowley's deck, it was the Tree of the Sephiroth, the ten spheres of Life. Reversed, it was ten cups all spilling their wine. Noblet's wine was dark red, and it didn't take much to read the card as signifying the loss of life. All that blood, spilling out of all those chalices. Positioned behind the Valet, the Ten was all the history I had been fleeing. All that blood.

Below the Valet was the Knight of Cups, the physical manifestation of the mystical element arrayed above. In Crowley, he was an enigma. An individual who wore a mask and whose motives could never be ascertained. He was aloof, dangerous, and volatile. In another time, I would have liked to have drawn this card. He was the wolf, hidden among the sheep. The Noblet Knight carried the Grail and his expression was filled with sympathy and understanding. He was an insightful companion, an empathetic reader. One who intuitively understood the suffering of others.

Reversed, he was a buffoon. A man who was unaware that the contents of his cup were spilling out, splashing all over his clothes, his horse, and the ground. His expression became one of confusion, of chaotic frustration. The reversed Knight does not know why the ones he loves have hurt him so. He can't figure where all the blood is coming from.
What have I done wrong?
he asks, and no one will tell him.

The last card, in front of the Valet, was the Emperor. He stands outdoors, one leg crossed behind the other, leaning against a shield with an eagle symbol. He holds a scepter of office, topped with a globe and a cross. Though his beard is long and white, there is nothing about his countenance that suggests infirmity or dotage. He was the Hierarch, the leader of men and the keeper of knowledge. In Crowley, he sits on a throne, and his leg is crossed in the exact same triangular pose as the Hanged Man. They are not too different, these two men, though one is the king in power, and the other is the king in transition.

It happens every year. The old vegetable rituals. One king is buried, another is born.
The king is dead; long live the king.

But my Emperor was reversed, because the office would never be mine.

By the time I discovered a locked door, I had the reading all figured out.

For the first time in a week—in a long time—I knew myself. I knew what my role was. I wasn't supposed to become the new Hierarch, nor was I just a tool. I was my own man. Neither angel nor agent. The reading showed me fear, the sort the fortune teller in Eliot's old poem held in a handful of dust.

Eliot cited Jessie Weston's book as an influence on
The Waste Land,
and her book,
From Ritual to Romance,
had offered an initiation into the Western mysteries via the Arthurian romances—the stories of Gawain, Lancelot, and Parzival. I saw the connections now; I understood the rituals Vivienne had enacted and which I had been completely oblivious to. No wonder she sacrificed me; I had let her down. I was not the knight she had expected.

There were too many reversals, though. Too many deviations, variations brought about by the flood of noise of our twenty-first-century lives. Too much chaos brought about by the passions of the body which we confused as being passions of the spirit. This was why Philippe used the old deck: it was pure.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

The dust comes upon us when there is no water, when we have lost ourselves in a desert of our own creation. Jesus wandered in the wilderness for forty days, according to the stories, where he was tempted by the Devil. All the temptations pursuant to the flesh. Not the Will. Not the spark. The Devil showed Jesus the desiccated flesh of the world, all the grains of sand running through his fingers, and said: This is all that you are, and all that you will be; why will you not take water from me and make clay from this dust?

I am not a Creator, Jesus said to the Devil. I am a Witness to creation.

The Chorus, emboldened by my focus, sparked through the lock of the door, and it swung open with a groan of ancient hinges. The spark of light fell into the room beyond, revealing the detritus of forgotten maintenance equipment.

A subbasement of Tour Montparnasse.

I gave the Chorus a new directive, and they flew out of my head, silver streamers penetrating the walls.
Find a working elevator.

I needed to go back to the Archives.

I pushed the zero on the elevator keypad, and kept pushing it until the internal speaker in the car crackled to life.

"Why are you here?" Vivienne asked.

The same question again. The ritual started anew.

I held up the Hanged Man card so that the security camera could see it.

She didn't answer, but the light turned green on the keypad and the elevator started to ascend.

I reviewed the five cards as the elevator ascended, going over the interpretation one last time. Making sure I was ready to accept it. The Chorus started to boil in my head, the spirits of the Architects growing agitated as they became aware of my decision. I held them all down with a clamp of my Will. I had controlled worse in my head for a lot longer. They were smarter than me, assuredly, but I was their master now. They bound themselves to me with their choice, and now they would be bound by mine.

They had thought I would have been more malleable, more pliable, especially after losing the
Qliphotic
influence. I would have been bereft of purpose, of direction. I would have been eager to be given new orders. I should have been an easy tool to manipulate.

The elevator sang its arrival.

The wall of the Archives was translucent, shot through with silver threads, and beyond the barrier, Vivienne and Nuriye waited. Behind them, hidden in the shadows like the faded drawings on old temple walls, were other figures, the other archivists. The other daughters. My heart ran a little faster at the sight of them. They knew something was going to happen; they were hanging on the cusp of possibility. Like Crowley's Moon. That moment prior to transformation. All is possible; nothing is true. What comes next is not preordained, not scripted, not anticipated. What happens is the result of what is said and done in the next few moments.

You See it, Michael, it becomes so; that is the key to the ego of the Moon.

I approached the border between the external world and the
secretum sanctorum
of the Archives. I approached the threshold that separated the Grail Castle from the mundane world, that separated the daughters of Mnemosyne from the sons of Light.

"The Hanged Man," I said, showing them the card. "He's the Fisher King. The wounded magus who is the representative of the Land. Is that his role?"

After a moment of silence, Vivienne responded. "He is the spirit of the Land." Her voice carried the gravitas of ritual.

What happens next is all that mattered. What will be done will be done.

Juggling the cards, I showed her the Emperor. "And his role?"

"He is the guardian of the Land."

"They are the same, aren't they? Right now, it is the Hanged Man who is waiting to be recognized. He cannot become the Emperor until he is healed. That's what the Grail is for, isn't it? Every year, the Hierarch must renew his promise to the Land with the Grail. Every year, during the winter, he becomes the Hanged Man, and on the first day of spring, he is resurrected and reborn as the Emperor."

She nodded.

I dropped those cards, and held up the Knight of Cups. After a second, I reversed him. "You let me fall, because I didn't understand my role." When she didn't say anything, I shrugged. "It's all right. I get it. We're all trapped in our own cycles." Nuriye stirred at my words, glancing at Vivienne.

"Does she know?" I asked.

"Do I know what?" Nuriye inquired.

"The price exacted from your sister for your freedom." I paused. "Or is that a
promise
of freedom?" She didn't answer. "It hasn't happened yet, has it?" I asked. "You still need to be good in order to get your reward, don't you? Which one is it? Husserl or Antoine?"

Vivienne laughed. "You still don't understand, do you?"

I glanced at the Knight. "I guess I don't." I dropped him, and showed her the Ten of Cups. "Family," I said, and her face hardened.

Then again, maybe I do.

I dropped the Ten, and watched it flutter to the floor. I had one card left. One intuitive leap to make.

"I want to make a deal," I said.

"A deal?" Vivienne was incredulous. This wasn't part of the ritual. "What do you have to offer? It's over, M. Markham. The Crown has been given and received."

I glanced at the other women watching. "Has it?" I asked. The Chorus touched the ley and rebounded from the throbbing tension in the etheric channel. Blockage. The whole world outside was waiting, still caught on the cusp between night and day.

Antoine and I hadn't gotten the Spear until after dawn, and as a result, the Coronation hadn't happened. Nor had Antoine been able to accomplish it with the Grail after I had gotten it from Vivienne. We were all still waiting for the right time. The right moment.

"They're still waiting," I said. "Still waiting for dawn. That sounds to me like there is still time. Time enough to hear what I have to offer."

She scoffed. "You have nothing to offer. The outcome of the Coronation has already been Seen. What can you do to change that?"

"That's a very good question," I said. "I seem to remember you saying how you hated unanswerable questions. This time, though, I do know the answer to your question. In fact, let's not bother with that one, since I know the answer. Let's ask a different one instead." I nodded at the others. "Do you speak for all of them, when I ask you, Chief Librarian of the Imprisoned Sisters, would you rather wait until dawn to find out if the promises made to you are going to be kept, or would you rather make your own choice? Would you rather find your own path to freedom?"

Her mouth opened and closed several times before words came out. "You're a lunatic," she said. "Your mind has been shattered. You have lost too much blood, and don't have enough sense to die."

"Probably," I said as I held up the last card. "But I've got one card left."

"The Valet of Cups? What can that possibly signify?"

I spelled it out for her. "I have the spirit of the Hierarch in my head. A lot of his arcane knowledge, too. I was supposed to pass on what is in my head to whoever was Crowned. You can have all of it instead, in exchange for some assistance."

Vivienne was too stunned to say anything, and I heard a buzz of voices from the other sisters. Before Vivienne could tell them to be quiet, or even find her voice to admonish them, Nuriye spoke the all-important words. The ones that told me the answer to my question.

"What sort of assistance?"

"I need to crash the party. Before dawn."

"That answer is a non-answer. You must offer us some specifics if we are to properly judge the value of what you offer."

I went down the list. "I need a flight circle. From the roof of this building. Targeted to the roof wherever they are doing the ceremony." I laughed. "I only made Journeyman, remember. I don't even know where the ritual takes place."

"Sacré-Cœur," Nuriye said. "On the hill."