The Lowlands river was so cold it stole his breath.
X plummeted to the bottom, and felt the rocks shifting beneath his boots before he could fight his way up. Now that he had returned, his fever was gone, but his powers were, too. Finally, he reached the surface. Ripper bobbed just ahead, the skirt of her dress spread on the water like a parachute. She turned to make sure X was all right. He was 20 years old, and still she watched over him as if his safety meant more than her own.
A rowdy crowd had assembled onshore to greet them. Guards and lords stood shoulder to shoulder, their clothes a riot of mismatched garments from across the centuries. Virtually everyone stole from the weak—Regent was the only exception that X knew of—and you could always identify the lords because they wore the grandest clothes. Of course, they had wide gold bands around their necks, too. No one claimed to have actually seen the Higher Power that ruled over even them, but it observed the lords from some remote place, and controlled them when necessary. The lords’ gold bands were not just symbols of power, but hands around their throats.
X scanned the banks for Regent, as he worked to stay afloat. The lord looked stern and regal in his royal blue robes. His chin was high, his dark, muscular arms strained against his sleeves. X looked for some sign that Regent remembered the promise he’d made to introduce him to the mysterious person who knew where his mother was being held. But Dervish stood too close to Regent for any understanding to pass between them.
No matter how often X saw Dervish, the lord was always more vile than he remembered. He had splotchy gray skin, tiny yellow teeth, and white whiskers that sprouted randomly on his chin like weeds in a field.
Ripper swam for shore, and tried to clamber out of the water. X followed. He knew that Ripper would be dealt with harshly, and wanted to help her if he could. Ripper had made a spectacle of herself in the Overworld. Even the fact that she’d acquired a new dress would be considered insolence—which, in truth, it was.
A flat-nosed Cockney guard kicked Ripper back into the water. X held her above the current until she recovered. They floated in the river, gripping each other’s arms, like they were dancing. Ripper looked small in the water. Her hair was in clumps, her shoulders curved against the cold.
“I fear for you,” X told her.
“Try not to,” she said. “There’s only one thing these animals could do that would break my heart.”
X waited for Ripper to name it. Instead, she gave him a searching look, as if she were trying to memorize him the way he had tried to memorize Zoe.
Suddenly, X had an intense, bodily memory of being ten years old. He remembered Regent bringing him to Ripper’s cell for his first bounty-hunting lesson. He remembered reaching out to Ripper, and waiting to see if she would take his hand. Eventually she did. She even gave his palm a squeeze. How reassuring that tiny bit of contact had been! Ripper had sunk to her knees so X wouldn’t be frightened. She’d peered into his eyes just as she was peering into them now. He didn’t know then that she was grieving over the loss of her children, but he remembered how kind she was. He even remembered the first words she directed to him: “I am in need of a stupendous friend. Are you in need of a friend—and are you stupendous?”
Dervish’s jagged voice cut into X’s memory.
“Take a last look at each other,” he called from the riverbank. “Your conspiracies are ended.”
Dervish shoved the Cockney into the water, and the guard pulled Ripper downriver. X saw no panic in her eyes, just resignation and grief. Being separated from him forever: this was the thing she had feared. The last thing Ripper shouted to him was, “Remember what you are worth, stupendous friend!”
Devastated and cold, and exhausted from treading water, X clutched a rock embedded in the riverbank. He looked to Regent again, but saw no sign that the lord remembered their conversation. Dervish drew even closer to Regent, not trusting either of them.
When X started climbing out of the river, Regent shook his head no. He called to the Russian guard, who stood nearby wearing a cherry-red tracksuit and sunglasses, and wielding a metal baseball bat.
“Take him to the hill,” he said. “You know the place. Take him nowhere else, no matter how he begs.”
The Russian sighed, wanting no part in X’s punishment. Still, he slid his sunglasses into a pocket, and dove into the water.
X was stunned.
“Have you forgotten, Regent?” he said. “Can it be?”
Dervish crouched, his eyes narrowing.
“Has he forgotten WHAT, exactly?” he said. “Enlighten me.”
Before X could answer, Regent lowered himself as well, his blue robe falling around him.
“I have done all I can for you,” he said. He met X’s eyes. “I have given you all I can.”
The Russian grabbed X by the collar of his coat, and muttered something in his native tongue. Spokushki, it sounded like.
He brought the bat down on X’s head, and the river took them away.
Just when X couldn’t bear the frigid water another minute, the Russian led him out of the river and into a confusing warren of tunnels. They dripped as they walked, leaving a trail of squiggles and dots. The Russian had had a limp as long as X had known him. He dragged his left foot—the edge of his sneaker had been ground down to almost nothing—but never seemed to tire. X was nauseated from the blow to his head. He struggled to keep up.
“There was no need to strike me,” he said. “I did not resist.”
“Was anger, if you want true fact,” said the Russian. “Because of you, I lose my Reeper! You know how I luff my Reeper. Now my heart is leaking sack, like bag of take-out food.”
“I’m sorry,” said X. “Truly.”
The Russian, who was two strides ahead, looked back at X to gauge whether he was sincere.
“I am accepting apology,” he said. “Again we are friends.”
X finally caught up to him. The tunnel was just wide enough for them to walk abreast.
“Regent spoke of ‘the hill,’ ” he said. “I do not know it.”
“Is new home for you,” said the guard. “Is fairyland palace full with pillows and clouds.”
“What if I asked you to release me right here and now so that I could search out my mother?” said X. “That is what Regent promised me—and you have just declared us friends.”
“We are friends,” said the Russian. “But we are not best friends.”
They came to a dank cavern. Like most of the Lowlands, it was hacked crudely out of black rock. Torches sat high on the walls, their flames sputtering but never going out. At the far end of the chamber, there was an immense, medieval-looking door crisscrossed with iron.
The Russian gave X bread from a pack on his belt. It was soaked from the river, and heavy as a sponge. X ate some so as not to appear ungrateful. Eating always reminded him that he wasn’t like anyone else in the Lowlands—that, as Zoe had said, he was needy and vulnerable. That he was alive.
“Are you known by any name besides ‘the Russian’?” said X. “I should have inquired years ago.”
“Thank you asking,” said the guard. “True fact is am not Russian, okay? Am from Oo-kra-EEN.” Seeing X’s blank look, the guard added, “Ukraine. Yes? Okay? I try to explain this to Reeper but, of course, she is always pretending to be lunatic-type. When I tell her, she sing something about canary.”
“And how did your foot come to be twisted?” said X.
“Is nothing, is defect of birth,” said the Russian. “I overcome. I achieve master’s degree at University of Kiev, and also lucrative life of crimes.”
The guard’s eyes went to the door. He listened for footsteps.
“Whom do we await?” said X.
The Russian hesitated.
“Terrible creature,” he said. “I lie little bit about fairyland palace, okay? This place you go is not good. I think you don’t like.”
“Tell me what you know,” said X. “Hold nothing back. The hill can be no worse than the hole where I’ve dwelt these past twenty years.”
“Oh, very much it can,” said the guard. “You have seen just tiny, country-club part of Lowlands in your little life, okay? We are now in kind of Wild West. Is full with most serious, prodigious criminals. Genocidal maniacs and so forth. There are no cells—just bodies everywhere like worms. There is only one lord, but she is nastiest type of person. She punishes souls however she pleases, and no one says, ‘Hey, what are you doing? You must stop!’ She is called ‘the Countess.’ ”
The Russian listened again for noises, afraid of being overheard.
“When I was boy, my babushka tell me I will go to hell if I do this, if I do that,” he said. “She even has painting of hell hanging over expensive stereo system. I look at painting very often as boy because it contains many naked people. This new home you have? Sorry to say, but it is like painting. I will not step foot myself. When Countess comes for you, I run very fast away.”
Before X could reply, they heard footsteps beyond the door. The door groaned open, and a wedge of light widened across the floor.
Two men entered. They were almost absurdly muscled—and naked except for a just barely sufficient bit of animal hide at their waists. They had olive skin, curly hair, beards.
Greeks, thought X. Boxers.
They were indistinguishable. Their hands were wrapped in leather, which was spotty with blood.
The Russian acknowledged the boxers nervously. They ignored him, and stationed themselves like granite columns on either side of the door. Soon, X heard the rustling of fabric, the clicking of shoes. The Countess was coming. The boxers drew themselves up taller. They were enormous, but appeared frightened now.
The Countess swept into the chamber. She wore a burgundy velvet gown with a high white collar and a skirt that looked like an upended tulip. Her energy transformed the room. It was furious and sour, and seemed to take up physical space.
She inspected X carefully.
The Countess had an explosion of frizzy red hair, streaked here and there with gray; a small, sweaty nose; and protruding eyes that gave her a look of perpetual outrage. Her hands were raked with scratches.
She addressed the Russian, all the while scowling at X and picking at an inflamed pimple at the corner of her mouth.
“Who dost thou dangle before the Countess?”
X had never encountered a person who talked about herself as if she were someone else.
“He is good guy,” said the Russian. “I can verify. Will not ruffle you.”
“It shall be his undoing if he does,” said the Countess. She continued scrutinizing X. “The Countess demands obeisance. Anyone who will not kneel is put to fire and sword. Some believe that the Countess is cruel—that her mind is disordered.” She addressed the boxers: “Such things are whispered, are they not? Answer on it!”
The men shook their heads no.
“Liars,” said the woman. “Cowards.” She turned back to X. “These men are called Oedipus and Rex. Do not bother addressing them—they are too dumb to pile stones. The Countess found it necessary to bite one of them here”—she pointed to an oval wound on one boxer’s side—“to tell them apart.”
She jabbed the wound with the same sharp fingernail she’d used on her pimple. The boxer convulsed with pain, his torso twisting like a rope.
The Russian began to edge out of the chamber.
“Thou art too eager to depart,” the Countess told him.
She hoisted the guard by his tracksuit as if he were made of straw, and heaved him at the door. Then she recommenced scratching her pimple, as if nothing had happened. She scanned the length of X’s body. Her eyes felt like insects on his skin.
She noticed that his right hand was closed.
“What dost thou conceal?” she said.
X hesitated, which caused the Countess’s eyes to bulge even farther from their sockets.
“Unclench thy hand,” she demanded, “else the Countess shall paint a pretty picture with thy blood.”
He opened his fingers, knowing everything was about to change.
On his palm lay a crust of bread.
“Wherefore would a dead man EAT?” said the Countess.
Though X had told his story many times, it still shamed him. He had to push the words out.
“I was born in the Lowlands. I am twenty years old. My name is X.”
The Countess nodded, as if this was all ordinary, though she was obviously vibrating with rage. She leaned over the Russian, who was still in a heap on the floor.
“Thou shalt be our guest for eternity, too,” she said. “The Countess shall not have her OWN men scurrying around the Lowlands in search of food. Thou mayest leave the hill only when this man is a hair’s breadth from starvation. Tarry longer than necessary, and the Countess shall hunt thee down and—instead of bread—feed him thy liver.”
The black flies of her eyes settled on X again.
“X, is it?” she said.
“Yes.”
She reared back, and smashed his face with her forehead.
The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was, “Thou ART NOT special, and thou hast NO NAME.”