Heartland

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