Maud laughed affectionately.
“That woman could convince the ocean to part for her,” she said. “Here in the Lowlands, they call her Versailles.”
“Like the palace?” said Plum, sitting up in the bed.
Maud replied without taking her eyes from X, so he’d know that the answer was for him.
“Yes, like the palace,” she said. “Because she’s … Because she’s magnificent.”
Maud told X that his mother was imprisoned in a part of the Lowlands called Where the Rivers End. Regent announced that he would take not just X but Maud and the Ukrainian as well.
X glowed with happiness and hope.
But then Regent pointed over his shoulder.
“However, I cannot take him,” he said.
X felt a hole open in his chest.
Regent was pointing at Plum.
“But he is the gentlest of us all—and brave,” said X. “You cannot mean it.”
“He is a stranger to me, as are the contents of his soul,” said Regent. “If he was damned to this hill, he is guilty of dark doings.”
“Don’t worry about me, X, all right?” said Plum. “Please don’t.”
But as he finished speaking, he burst into sobs.
“Look at me, Regent,” said X. “I will beg you, if he will not. I will promise you anything—just tell me what you require.”
Regent sighed, approached the bed, and placed his hand over Plum’s heart to see what it contained. Plum pressed his palms over his eyes as if he could physically force back the tears.
Half a minute passed—so slowly that X felt as if his body were being raked with a nail.
Regent’s face clouded.
He removed his hand, and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he told Plum.
Before X could respond, Plum stood up from the bed, and fumbled with the buttons of his khaki shirt. His pink, shining belly was exposed, with its long zipper of a scar. For the first time, he seemed ashamed of it.
“Don’t trouble yourself for me, friend,” he told X. “He’s right, I’m afraid. I belong here.”
“You do not,” said X. “I won’t hear it. There is so much that is worthy in you.”
“It means the world that you think so,” said Plum. “But as I’ve told you, it is a reflection of your goodness, not mine.”
He took X’s arm, and led him away from the others.
“It’s time for me to tell you why I was damned,” he said.
“No,” said X. “I know how it shames you.”
“Nevertheless, I must tell you,” said Plum. “Later, when you think of me—if you think of me—I want you to know that there was nothing you could have done to save me. And honestly? If I can’t speak my crimes aloud, then I still haven’t faced them. Do you see?”
“I do,” said X quietly.
“Look away from me, though, would you?” said Plum. “I don’t think I can stand to see your eyes as I tell you.” He sniffled and wiped his nose on his shirt. “Look at our friend the Ukrainian in his tracksuit. See how loyal he looks? Look at Maud. See how brave she is? Good. Now. I was in the military, X. A commander. Hard to believe, I know. I was an abhorrent human being. Filled with sick ideas. I decided to make an example of some prisoners. Truth be told, I wanted to be promoted—to be noticed by my superiors. I had my men line six prisoners up on their knees in a courtyard. Everyone was watching from the windows. I ordered my men to force the prisoners’ mouths open. I ordered them to pour gasoline down their throats …”
“Enough,” said X.
“No,” said Plum, his voice a trembling wire. “Once the gasoline had been forced down their throats, the prisoners thought I was finished with them. Their bodies sagged in relief. But I wasn’t finished with them.”
“Stop,” said X. “You are not that man anymore.”
“I ordered my men to light six matches,” said Plum. “Do you understand where this is going? I dropped the first match into the first man’s mouth myself.” Plum paused. “You may think you’ve heard every kind of scream here in the Lowlands, X. You haven’t.”
Plum drew back a way, and finally looked at X. His eyes were so red it was as if fireworks had gone off inside them. X knew that his own eyes looked much the same.
“I can never repent enough for what I did, though I break my back at it most days,” said Plum. “Let me stay here where I belong, my friend? Let me try to be the lotus flower?”
Regent offered Plum his hand in farewell. It was unusual for a lord to show a soul that kind of respect, and X could see that Plum was moved by the gesture.
Next, Maud hugged Plum, and lifted her cat to his face.
“Vesuvius wants to say good-bye,” she said.
Plum kissed the animal awkwardly on his nose.
“Such a handsome little man,” he said.
When it was time for X to say good-bye, he couldn’t summon any words. He wished Zoe were there to blurt something funny and strange. The story about the prisoners, horrific as it was, had made him pity Plum even more, because he knew how his friend bent under the weight of the guilt. X had known Plum such a short time. Still, he knew he’d miss his warmth, his steadfastness, even the way he hummed sometimes when he meditated. Plum shrugged as if words were beyond him, too. He gave X a brave, almost convincing smile.
“All right?” he said. “All right.”
Regent went to the Countess, and pulled her up from the rubble by the collar of her dress, as a clutch of souls gathered around.
“Listen to every word I say, and do not utter a single one,” he said. “You will never torture another soul on this hill, do you understand?”
“On whose authority dost thou speak?” said the Countess.
“My own,” said Regent. “Yet I see from the way you clutch that gold band that the Higher Power concurs.” He waited to see if the Countess would challenge him again. Her eyes twitched with rage but she just grunted and looked away. “If you do not entirely alter your character, I will come back,” said Regent. “If you behave disagreeably toward that soul there”—he pointed toward Plum—“or those souls there”—he indicated Oedipus and Rex—“I will come back. And I will bring other lords with me, a furious flock of them. We will tear that band from your neck altogether, so that all your powers desert you, and—so help me—we will bestow it upon someone who has heard of honor.”
Regent released the Countess, and she fell back to the ground like an empty dress.
X, Maud, and the Ukrainian followed Regent down the slope. The crowd parted. Some of the souls who’d been lying on the ground stood as they passed—in tribute, it seemed to X.
When their little party had descended a hundred feet, Regent paused, and they all gave the ceiling a last look.
The Countess’s awful face was up there, big as the moon. She looked broken, humiliated. The pimple had returned to the corner of her mouth.
Regent asked a guard for his torch. He took it, and flung it in the air.
X watched the torch fly upward, turning end over end, shedding smoke and wisps of flame. Just as it reached the top of its arc, it grazed the ceiling—and the whole thing ignited at once.
The Countess’s face was lost in a field of fire.
thirteen
At the bottom of the hill lay a snaking wall that kept the prisoners from escaping in the river. Regent slammed it with a fist. A jagged opening appeared. The lord helped X through the wall, telling him to avoid the edges of the hole, which pulsed in a sequence: red, orange, yellow. X emerged near the river. He watched as the others passed through. The opening glowed white, then shrank and vanished, as if it were healing itself.
The riverbank was murky, twilit. The water flowed noisily, foaming where it hit the rocks. Regent pressed a palm to the ground. A corridor of light shot along the bank, showing them the way.
“Will Dervish discover what we have done?” said X. “Will he come after us?”