Untangling Dead Hand Rule: setting the scene for the endgame
Attacked by vampires. Drowning in a market terminal. Tortured by a psychic attack. Imprisoned in skazzerai iron chains. These are just a few of our characters’ fates at the climax of Dead Hand Rule. But what is actually going on? Is there somebody pulling the strings?
As with all Craft Sequence stories, at about three quarters through Dead Hand Rule the shit hits the fan. I’ve likened this to reaching the peak of the Gladstone rollercoaster, about to hurtle down at lightning speeds; I’m now playing around with a title like the Gladstone Maximum. Suggestions welcome.
The Gladstone Maximum of Dead Hand Rule is particularly complex, with different plans and agendas clashing, POVs jumping, and multiple ends of the world approaching fast. Whilst it is gripping and satisfying on first read, there is so much happening that I, at least, was left with a few questions about exactly what was going on and who was behind particular actions.
There is, in fact, SO much going on (you do not want to know the truly obscene word count of my notes) that this will be broken into a couple of different essays.
This essay is going to focus on scene setting. We will investigate a couple of different characters’ plans (evil and otherwise), and look at the relevance of the Hidden Schools and the Argent Library for these plans.
Major spoilers for Dead Hand Rule, do I really need to say it??
Quick reminder about Dead Hand Rule so far
First, here’s a very quick summary of what’s been going on in the book so far.
The powers that be of the Domain have gathered in Alt Coulumb for a conclave to figure out what should be done about the Dawn and skazzerai threats
The Hidden Schools floats above the city as a protected location for the conference
As one might expect, the powerful folks are unwilling to give up any personal advantage to ally with former enemies
A piece of skazzerai metal, provided to Tara Abernathy by Eberhardt Jax, ate Madeline Ramp and went on a rampage around the Hidden Schools
Through his Eagle Knight scars, Caleb Altemoc was the only person able to take down the Ramp!skazzerai
Kai Pohala has the ghost of Grimwald in her head, and he’s trying to take over her body
Mal Kekapania is being held prisoner in the Hidden Schools, and Dawn wants to get her back
Izza Jalai sneaked into the city and has been meeting the powerful and the lowly in secret
Tara, unsurprisingly, thinks everything is her fault and she must be willing to do anything to defeat Dawn and save the world
Again, only the things relevant to the Gladstone Maximum - so no Donnie or Gav, apologies.
Now, we’ll take a look at a few plans going into the Conclave. I’m only going to look at those relevant to the final fight - so, no Iskari trying to get Kavekana or Ambassador Sun wanting to flay Caleb.
Dawn’s plan
Let’s start with Dawn, as her plan is relatively straightforward: rescue Mal.
Of course, it ends up being more complicated than that, but at the heart of Dawn’s plan in this particular book is rescuing Mal. Everything else is secondary. Mal is being held in the Hidden Schools, so Dawn needs to get into the Hidden Schools. If Mal was held in 667 Sansilva, that’s where Dawn would be.
Using some unknown magic, Dawn seemed to sort of unravel herself and her army, and lost some of her own memories in the process (Temoc does not seem to have this issue). She comes back to herself on a train going into Alt Coulumb, and has the plan written out in her own hand. Let’s break it down a little (the actual steps, not any wildcards thrown her way).
Dawn and Sybil will enter Alt Coulumb and go undercover in plain sight as a tourist girl (and her invisible snake). She will wait, and hide, until her armies begin attacking the Hidden Schools. At this point, she will call the Schools and attempt to enter as a student.
Temoc and the army will cover her, as they have no idea how long the entrance exams will take her. So whilst Dawn is battling through the Labyrinth, Temoc begins his assault. As the most infamous figure, he will draw fire (particularly from the King in Red), whilst the Arsenals will sneak in through any gaps in the defenses provided by the attack. They will disable the security mechanism that provides a magical rainbow barrier around the Schools, allowing more fighting.
Once Dawn gets through the exams, she will follow the remaining thread in her soul to wherever Mal is being kept, and rescue her. Dawn explicitly says in her POV pages that she is NOT currently after the Argent Library or the crystal that connects all the markets and Courts of Craft. She is only after Mal.
“She followed the pull, afraid she knew where it would lead. It brought her to the broad bone steps that led to the sixfold tower of the Argent Library.
She had not wanted this. Her plan had been simple. Draw attention. Scare people. While they’re scared, get Mal. She’d said that to Sybil over and over again. We’re not ready for the library, not yet. It’s Mal I’m here for. I won’t let them have her. I won’t let them use her. She’s been used too often.
But now her trail led right inside.
To enter was to jump to the final round. To skip the many-stages plan of eating exchanges and economies to shore her up for the final attempt. The longer she spent in there, the more the Craft would bind to her—or bind her, digest her, make her its puppet as surely as Denovo with his knives had sought to. ”
Of course, we know the plan doesn’t quite go that smoothly, but that’s for later.
Who else has a plan going in? Well, the person who arranged for Mal to be placed in the Hidden Schools after all. Strange place, really. As Caleb points out, she’s defended but still weirdly accessible for such a high profile prisoner.
Almost like she was put there are a lure for Dawn.
We know none of our main characters put her there for that reason, as we are in their heads too often. Arguably the King in Red might have done it, but we get confirmation a little later that he did not.
No. It was Eberhardt Jax.
Jax’s plan
Our wayward Craft!Elon Musk is playing his own game behind the scenes. His plan is rather more complicated and Craft-y, so we’ll look at it in more detail than Dawn’s plan.
First of all, some context. Jax has been aware of the skazzerai for quite some time, and has been conducting experiments on (seemingly) inert skazzerai metal left over from the last time they came to the Domain. He gives Tara a piece early in the book, which then wakes up, eats Madeline Ramp, and runs rampant around the Hidden Schools before Caleb is able to stop it. Jax is also behind the strange grey men that we saw in Wicked Problems - I theorised this last year, and it’s confirmed in DHR. He was behind the grey men and Clarity taking down Saint Tiffany, the Grimwald, and the Serpents - the defenders of the Domain who may be able to stop his plan.
Jax also appears to have done some kind of self-modification with skazzerai metal. When he strips off his shirt (trying to come for Caleb’s schtick?) we see:
“His shirt hung open to reveal a burning glyph-engine, girded now with a mesh of black wire to create a hollow space around his heart.”
Sure, that’s not confirmed to be skazzerai metal, but as that’s often described as black iron I’m inferring it.
All of this metal is clearly not fully inert, but is somewhat dormant compared to the full scale skazzerai we see at the end of the book. Jax is able to assert some level of control over it - though whether that is because the metal is choosing to cooperate rather than because of his genuine control is somewhat up for debate.
Jax has had these weird bits of skazzerai metal for several years, but they haven’t been, in his word, functional - and then the spirecliffs disaster happened. He wanted it, but couldn’t get it himself with all sorts of stakeholders and enemies involved, so he hired an old contractor to steal it for him: Mal Kekapania. Dawn got there first, so Mal kidnapped Dawn, and Jax sent a grey man to try to kill Mal and take Dawn. That failed in Wicked Problems, so Jax had to pivot.
But what does he want with Dawn?
Like many tech billionaire bros we could mention, thinks he is the only person smart and focused enough to save the world. He wants to consume the proto-skazzerai that is Dawn-and-Sybil, then call down the fully grown skazzerai that’s en route to the Domain, and fight it. He appears to think he can win that battle. In his own villain monologue, we read:
“But why? If you want to beat the skazzerai—” Fuck. “You don’t want to beat them. You want to join them.”
“Not exactly. I want to consume the juvenile skazzerai and become its heart, its motivating intelligence—join it with my fortunes and understanding. That way, when the old monsters in the sky show up, they won’t face some random kid. They will face a united world.”
“Under your control.”
“Better mine than most of those idiots—I’m sorry, most of our esteemed colleagues out there. I’m not a tyrant, a sadist, an ideologue. What I am, is right.” He shrugged. “It’s nice to talk about this, really. We faced two obstacles. First, the skazzerai threat. Second, defense mechanisms that would ultimately reinforce the status quo. The Serpents, certainly, and the Iskari, and other safeguards the Grimwald had attempted to erect: relics of the old world which would rise against me in my moment of success. I could not allow that. Think of it as anaesthetising a patient to stop her thrashing about.”
Kai was part of this plan, if he could convince her to join him. He is aware that she is the heir to Grimwald Holdings, and suspected the ghost of Grimwald was in her mind. Earlier in Dead Hand Rule he made a business proposition that we now know would involve her attacking Dawn through the markets.
“I want to subsume Grimwald Holdings into Altus. … You would remain on board as a consultant, concerned with trading around the Dawn matter.”
“Can you do that?”
“With sufficient capital reserves and a good credit rating, I’ve found that one can do rather what one likes.” He steepled his fingers. “You have the Grimwald ghost inside you.”
…
“My analysts have not been able to map Grimwald Holdings in its entirety. Perhaps you would care to, as a favour—no? Ah, well. So far, we have been able to determine that the Grimwald had an extremely diversified portfolio of divine holdings—some of which, we think, predate most currently constituted pantheons. As a result they are insulated from Dawn’s corruption effect.”
/I told you so/
Jax continued, “The girl casts a shadow on the market. Or: her physical form is a shadow cast by the market phenomenon that constitutes her actual body. The market is where we must fight her. You mentioned our acquisition of Ajaian debt. On our own, at the right moment, we have enough to stun her, briefly—but it would leave Altus vulnerable to reprisal. Not so, were we allied to Grimwald Holdings. Particularly if Grimwald Holdings were well directed. And no one knows the secrets of the market so well as a priestess of Kavekana.”
“I see.”
“With your skills, my reach, and the Grimwald’s defensive position, we might be able to defeat the girl altogether. And once we have her, well. The sky’s the limit.”
Kai, not being an idiot, rebuffs him. She might not be aware of his full villain plan, but she knows he’s suspicious and shouldn’t be trusted.
The Vampires’ plan (kinda)
The third, related, plan we should be aware of is Clarity and the vampires. We don’t see much from them for most of the book, but they are crucial to the Gladstone Maximum. As we saw in Wicked Problems, the vampires were in league with the grey men to attack the aforementioned ‘defense mechanisms’. This means in league with Jax. He thinks he is in control of them, but as Tara scornfully points out, that is arrogant bullshit.
“And how to the vampires fit in?”
“Clarity and her brood? The Undying Legions? They’re deeply deranged religious zealots with a grudge against the Grimwald and the Iskari and the Serpents and just about everything else that happened to stand in my way. Strange bedfellows. I showed them our work on the skazzerai iron and they all but named me God. Useful, really.”
…
She gathered all her scorn, and laughed.
“Is there something…funny about all this, Ms Abernathy?”
“You,” she said. “You’re not right, Jax. You’re not even particularly clever. Or else you’d see that you’re being used.”
…
“Used? Me? Really.”
“By Clarity.”
“I assure you,” Jax said, “I am the driving partner in that particular business relationship.”
“You’re arrogant enough to believe it, too. On the one side, a millennia-old cult in the service of powers that have been eating planets since prehistory. On the other, the visionary genius of Eberhardt Jax.”
“Precisely.” But he sounded shaken. “They barely understand the surface world. They cower in the depths and sing hymns and wait for the end times. When I showed them the first pieces of cultured skazzerai, they all but proclaimed me God’s messenger.”
“Of course they did. I bet they gave you a lot of help, too. They probably let you think it was all your idea.”
No answer.
“Meanwhile, look what you’ve done for them. The Serpents wounded. The Grimwald dead. The Iskari in turmoil. Gods and Craftsmen at one another’s throats. Allies turned against allies, and one by one our defenses ripped away, just in time for the endless night.”
So, if they are not working to Jax’s own ends - and I believe Tara is correct here - what are they after?
We don’t have a great deal of detail (and remember to read my essay about Craft vampires for more pre-Dead Hand Rule info), but we know this:
They are at least semi-aligned with Jax, insofar as they want the Domain defenseless and the skazzerai to arrive
Clarity refers to Caleb as “a beautiful grail” “a cup of life” and “preparer of the way”
They’re a religious cult of some description, who have spent millennia under the sea
Whilst the vampiric curse shows up on its own every few centuries, there was a vampire cult that took over Craft!Rome
The official world timeline found in the German editions of the books (translated here) describes the “rise of the Immortal Faith” around 492 years before the common era, and the fall of the Telomeri Empire (aka Craft!Rome) as year 0 of the common era - near enough 1500 years ago, making the Immortal faith approx 2000 years old
A prophet of some sort of this religion was The Stoneworker, burned at the stake; the ash of his body caught in the throat of legionnaires, who became the Undying Legions, cast into the deep “dreaming apocalyptic dreams”
Their plan therefore seems to be the end of the world, an apocalypse leaving only the undead behind. What precisely that has to do with the skazzerai (other than them bringing the end of the world), or how Caleb will act as a grail, are as yet uncertain.
Why the Hidden Schools?
The Gladstone Maximum takes place at the Hidden Schools (no relation). But why?
Well, for Dawn the location is irrelevant. She is attacking the Hidden Schools because that’s where Mal is. She does plan to attack it later in her grand mission to take over the world, but not yet.
Why would she attack the Schools? Because they house the Argent Library.
We knew very little about the Hidden Schools prior to the Craft Wars books, but I became suspicious a while ago at the sudden references to ‘the Argent Library’ and its importance. This Library had never been mentioned before. Gladstone is excellent at hints and foreshadowing, so it made sense to me that this sudden new location was being set up as integral for a later plot.
I discussed it a little in my predictions essay last year; Tara discusses the Argent Library with Dawn in Dead Hand Rule, first giving us insight into how glyphs work in the Craft, and then the Library’s importance to the modern world:
“[Glyphs] reference long-form agreements on file in the Argent Library at the Hidden Schools.”
“Eventually you’d have to reckon with the Courts of Craft, lay siege to the Argent Library, which binds all lesser archives, rewrite the foundations of Craft.”
The importance of the Argent Library is clear: it is something of a keystone to the Craft itself, and connects the different archives and markets around the Domain. In the post-God Wars world, every polity is interconnected no matter whether it is founded in the Craft or Applied Theology - we saw this play out in our previous Alt Coulumb books.
Wicked Problems clarified the matter:
“She is small now. If she should grow, encompass the globe, capture the markets and the Courts of Craft and the Argent Library itself, then we would exist inside her. Our minds, our dreams would shape themselves to hers. Our souls would become her instruments. We might not even know.”
Ah. That sounds very not good for anyone who wants to continue thinking for themselves.
Jax has, we can infer, persuaded the other Conclave delegates to hold Mal in the Hidden Schools in order to lure Dawn into the Argent Library. And, once he gets her there (spoiler? But if you didn’t know that you absolutely should not be reading this essay), he plans to “consume” her, become the proto-skazzerai’s “heart” and create a “united world.”
He’s clearly going to use the Library to do that, right?
BUT, that’s for a later essay. Which brings us to end of this one.
Next time, we’ll take a look at what actually happens, and start to untangle the threads of Dead Hand Rule’s ending. Let me leave you with this prescient quote from Elayne Kevarian:
“There are many powers at work which might benefit from Ms Pohala’s disappearance. And, perhaps, from your own continued animosity toward Dawn.”
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