Dr. Styx stood outside time and space. All that was our universe, all that ever was and could ever be for mankind, was a single star at his fingertips. He warmed his wrinkled hands against the small ember as he reflected on what he had done and what he intended to do.

To become this, to do this, required a great deal of planning. He had to act slowly and quietly. He had to keep secrets. Part of it was easy. He was a confidant of ghosts. His fellow members of the Circled Square would never demand that he divulge what all he talked about with di manes. He was able to talk to ghosts about things he never would have with the Circled Square.

He talked to ghosts about how ashamed he was that mankind pitied them and judged them as palimpsests of humans. The ghost was truly the superior being. Man, blind in his ego, had no idea how sand and painful his fleeting existence was compared to the glorious eternity of the ghost.

Ghosts had a purity to their existence man would not and could not understand. What a man was in his dreams they were all the time. They could go anywhere and be anything. Nothing could hold them. Nothing could harm them. They drifted down the currents of the afterlife dividing and growing, dividing and growing, until they became something so vast and complex that man could only interact with

It was as if the purpose of life was to develop the perfection that was the ghost. It was as if life was just a temporary shell for something that was beautiful and forever.

The ghosts in turn shared things with Dr. Styx they never would have shared with any other living being.

They shared with him secrets--including one that very few beings in all existence living or dead knew.

The physical universe was not equal to the waters of death.

The ancients had grasped this fact through intuition and dreams and this was why the Babylonians spoke of a firmament holding back the waters of the sky and the Quechan spoke of twin creator gods rising into the universe from out of water. The entire physical universe was so small compared to the waters of death that it could be fully submerged within it. The universe would be submerged if not for the time walls of the First-to-Dream.

The time walls separated the universe from the waters just as it separated the universe from the astral consciousness and unconsciousness. They were a cosmic levee.

Because the time walls were made of time and time cannot hold a shape forever, it was theorized that one day aeons upon aeons from now Earth and the afterlife would be one and the same.

But why wait? Why prolong a torturous existence?

The ghosts told Dr. Styx that if the cosmic levee was chipped in just the right way from both sides, then...

“Fear death by water,” T.S. Elliot wrote.

The poet was almost right. The 20th century would end in water. But it was not to be feared.

Planning was the easy part. It was even reassuring. When Dr. Styx talked to his ghosts about the plan he was comforted to hear how they pitied the living. They stood on the other side of the levee like angels waiting with open arms for those trapped on Earth. When he gave the word, they would help him do what had to be done. It was easy to plan and easy to do.

But there was a hard part--Spectro. He made it hard by being such a good student. He was always asking questions. How did it feel to have this ghost swim in your veins? What did you dream last night? Do you think this ghost will chose this afterlife or this one? Without intending to, Spectro broached upon his designs. But Spectro was a young man, and he had a young man’s faith in his teachers. He never sensed the truth. Spectro, poor innocent boy, only worried that he wasn’t feeling well. He only worried that he had become emotionally overwhelmed by the complaints of the dead. He would ask “Can I help you Doc? I can handle some of your ghosts if they’re giving you a hard time. You don’t need to take them all on yourself. Let me help you.”

Spectro was a good boy. He would be an even better ghost.

Dr. Styx waded in the waters of death. All the waters of the afterlife pooled around him--the Eternal Nile, the Styx, the Sanzu, and all the rivers and barriers of cultures alien and human, past and present.

His allies on the other side had done their part of the work. Now he would do his.

He placed his hands on the warm star that was all the universe. It’s warmth was dull. That was all it ever was to him, a persistent dullness. It was the light on in the room that wouldn’t let him go peacefully into eternal sleep--an eternal sleep filled with dreams too beautiful for the world.

He pulled.

The star reflected on the dark waters--it was so close now. It’s glow broke and scattered on the rippling skin of the water. All the stars in heaven were just a patch of light against a greater infinity, just a pale white eye with tired eyelids.

His friends appeared.

He had hoped that the army of ghosts he sent to distract them would have delayed them long enough, but here they stood. They had followed him to the no-place outside the universe. Ibis and Jaival and Dubnotal and all the rest stood around him. They had weapons with them--powerful spells and thought-forms that sparkled on the waters and crackled like fire in the void.

Having his friends appear before him with weapons didn’t hurt Dr. Styx. He had anticipated resistance to his plan. His friends, be they human like Dubnotal, immortals like Ibis, or combinations of man and spirit like Jaival, were all alive. And he knew that living things had an instinctual drive to live at all costs.

They would surely thank him later for releasing them all from the malignant trap that was life.

But what did hurt him were their expressions and words. They couldn’t believe he was doing this.They didn’t want to believe he was doing this. They said he had to be possessed, that the ghosts that swam in his blood were controlling him like a puppet.

They begged him to stop. They did not want to hurt him.

And that hurt him. That made him pause.

What did they think he was doing? What did they think it would be like when he pulled down the universe? Did they think it would be like plunging a candle into water? Did they think there would be a whimpering sizzle and trailing wisps of gray smoke that unravel into eternal blackness? That was not how it would be. That was not how it would be at all.

The star he held in his hands was a warm, spiny chrysalis entrapping something that had long outgrown a need for it. He would wash that useless bit of tissue away and let the thing inside shine freely. And it would be so vibrant that what came before it would no longer be properly called life.

That was the way the world would end--and the afterlife would begin.

Then suddenly, from a worldtunnel Dr. Styx did not guard, from a dimension he did not suspect, Spectro emerged and obliterated Dr. Styx’s body and soul without a word.

It was like putting a candle out. He was there, and then he was gone forever.j

Spectro had set a trap against his friend and teacher. To his horror, it became necessary to spring it.

But the world was safe. All it cost was a confused old man’s life.

Spectro refused to cry over that. It was such a small thing to sacrifice compared to the world.

The ghosts that remained after Dr. Styx dissolved explained what had happened. Dr. Styx hadn’t been possessed. Possession would have been too obvious. Instead what happened was that Dr. Styx, feeling overwhelmed by all the ghosts that relied on him for guidance, began to appoint trusted ghosts as “angels” to guide spirits in his name. He dared not ask the Circled Square for help. Many ghosts looked on him as a kind of god. Dr. Styx feared that to ask for help would have destroyed their faith in him.

But he made the mistake of being too trusting. With his attention stretched to the limit treating so many ghosts, he did not vet his angels like he should have. All it took were a couple of angels to take advantage of the trust Dr. Styx placed within them to make him their puppet.

Three angels filled with venomous hatred, contempt, and pity for humanity went to work on his brain. The mundane had always proved a blindspot for thaumaturgists, so they were careful to only work on the physical part of his brain. But it was enough. They flooded his mind with emotions as they whispered in his ear and gradually won him to their plan.

The Circled Square turned the three angels over to Dr. Styx patients, for no one loved the doctor like the lost souls he helped. The ghosts imprisoned the three angels at Dr. Styx’s grave to keep them from endangering humanity ever again but did not harm them. Dr. Styx had taught them to be kind to ghosts, even wicked ones, for ghosts often carry great pain and anguish and adding to that suffering improves nothing.

Later, there was arguing within the Circled Square over whether or not Spectro had acted appropriately. Emotions were high. Dr. Styx was loved by the Circled Square. Many wanted to believe that he could have been talked down. But none could deny that Spectro saved the world. No one knew what would have happened if he hadn’t appeared. But now because of his actions no one had to know.

Even those that thought he acted ruthlessly had to admit that he had acted decisively with a foresight none of the Circled Square had. Maybe he was wrong in thinking that Dr. Styx couldn’t have been talked down. But he wasn’t wrong in planning for him going over the edge.

He had seen something the others had not. And now the Circled Square had an opening for someone that could see things they could not.

His appointment to the trump of the Hanged Man was, to say the least, controversial. It wasn’t a good look in the history books to have it written that the second Hanged Man killed the first. But though Spectro narrowly won the vote, he still won it.

He promised his peers that he would surpass his predecessor. What happened to Dr. Styx would never happen again. As Dr. Styx watched over ghosts, Spectro would watch over the Circled Square and keep everyone safe, sane, and healthy. Someone needed to look at the members of the Circled Square as people and care for them as people. Dr. Styx proved that they had a blindspot when it came to their human vulnerability. He didn’t dare show vulnerability to his ghosts or to his peers and it had destroyed him. Spectro vowed that he would watch the vulnerabilities of the Circled Square.

Spectro proved his worth as the Hanged Man. He kept all 22 members healthy in mind and body and soon the Circled Square wondered how they ever functioned without him. He helped the Tower, a man who fell into our world from a world of endless apocalyptic night named Michael Mirdath, acknowledge and overcome his depression. He helped the Hierophant Randolph Carter lay to rest his prejudice against the Andrianoid “Nexts” that inhabited the Sunda islands. He helped the World, King Justice the First and Last, organize his undersea kingdom Pax. King Justice the First and Last was a ghost who like many ghosts couldn’t remember anything about his life. He was a living blank and the fact distressed him until he had an epiphany--being a living blank meant he could be anything he wanted to be--absolutely anything.

He chose to be a king of ghosts and created an earth-bound afterlife for ghosts--an aquatic kingdom made of coral and shipwrecks he called Pax. He believed that ghosts needed a place where they could set aside reminders of their past and live anew. Pax attracted ghosts from all corners of the globe, but King Justice knew as much about statecraft as he did anything else--very little. It was Spectro who helped get his kingdom organized. He found King Justice tutors in statecraft and oratory, recommended advisors, and helped Pax set up its first embassies around the world. For all he had done for Pax, King Justice named his kingdom’s first library after Spectro.

Spectro remembered all the members’ birthdays, even for those that thought birthdays were too meaningless and mundane.

Spectro got along with everyone, even those that were initially leery about his appointment. The one exception was the Hermit Jaival Anand. Jaival, true to his trump, was the least social of the Circled Square given to roaming the paths between worlds and ignoring mandatory meetings. Spectro kept on him like a parole officer and Jaival did not appreciate being chased. But even Jaival recognized and respected that Spectro had a way with people. His success in monitoring the Circled Square could not be denied.

When political tensions started to heat up around the world, the Circled Square naturally looked to Spectro for a solution.