They fell into a half-lit void. The air rushed past them so fiercely that it obliterated all sound. X was accustomed to it, but he knew Stan would feel a crushing pressure on his eyeballs, a hammering in his ears. He saw Stan panic and resist the fall. He watched as Stan clawed at the air with his hands, as if he could climb back to the surface. As if there was a surface. The wind thrashed them in every direction.
X fell faster than Stan. He had tucked himself into a ball, like a diver. When he saw Stan struggling, he unfurled his body, reached up, and grabbed ahold of Stan’s ankle to steady him. Stan kicked ferociously, but gave up after one last pathetic spasm. X suspected his senses were so overwhelmed that they had stopped functioning. Stan let his arms drift over his head. He let X drag him down.
After they had fallen for a time, Stan recovered some of his equilibrium. X knew what would happen next. He could predict it almost to the second: Stan would be hit with a sadness so severe it was nearly blinding. Regret, remorse, and rage would overtake him, as they overtook all new souls. It was always at this moment that they realized they were not traveling down a holy tunnel toward a shimmering light but rather falling down a shaft to oblivion.
Stan began crying again, right on schedule. X was grateful that he couldn’t hear it this time. Just the distorted, wailing look on Stan’s face was enough to turn his stomach. All freshly plucked souls wept—never for their victims, only for themselves—and X found the self-pity galling. They all believed they were innocent, no matter what they had done. As the wind howled around them, Stan cried voluminously. His tears flew upward, like bubbles.
The air grew cold. It was the breath of the river rising up to greet them. The journey, X knew, was nearly over.
He looked down and saw the river that cut through his hive in the Lowlands. It was just a pale thread at first, but it came at them fast. There were only 1,000 feet left to fall. Then 500. Stan must have seen the roiling current, too. He shut his eyes, filled his cheeks with air, and clutched his nose like a child jumping into a pool. X closed his own eyes and pictured Zoe’s face, soft and welcoming. He promised himself again that he would return to her, that he would take that face carefully in his hands—that he would say, I forgot my coat.
The water hit them like a wall.
The river in the Lowlands raged as always, but X reached the banks with ease, even without the powers he enjoyed in the Overworld. He had delivered Stan so the Trembling had vanished. Along with his powers went his pain. For a brief time, his body would feel relieved and renewed.
Behind him, Stan screamed at the arctic cold of the current. He scrambled for the banks, but the river kept sucking him under. A handful of guards crowded the water’s edge, laughing at him. When Stan finally made it to the riverside, his lungs were heaving. He bent over and vomited water (and ice cream) into the dirt. A guard approached him with a kindly expression, picked him up—and threw him back in.
The others roared with delight. Stan began to make for the other side of the river, but there were guards waiting there, too.
X sat in the dirt and waited for someone to bring him a blanket and a wedge of bread, as they always did when he returned with a soul. He noticed, with a shiver of dread, that Dervish stood preening nearby. X wished again that it was Regent instead.
He drew in a deep breath and steeled himself for a confrontation. He would be humble, hang his head, beg forgiveness a hundred times. He would endure whatever humiliation Dervish could devise. Sooner or later, his crime would be forgotten—carried away as if by the river. He would be sent back to the Overworld to collect the next soul, and he would steal away to see Zoe. An hour with her would sustain him for a year.
But Dervish did not so much as glance in X’s direction. He clapped when Stan stumbled. He whistled and hooted when the current dragged his big, fuzzy head under the water. Dervish was draped in gaudy necklaces and bracelets, all of them stolen from the souls of the Lowlands. The jewelry shimmered and clattered as he hopped around.
“Well done, guardsmen!” he shouted. “Well done!”
X stared openly at Dervish now, anxious for his punishment to begin. He knew the lord would still be boiling with rage. Yet the creature continued to ignore him. X had not expected this reception and it worried him.
The light had left his body now. The reality of the Lowlands—the way it sucked all the hope and happiness out of you, the way it stank like the mouth of some enormous beast—flooded into him instead. His anxiety deepened. Still no blanket. Still no bread.
X stood and waded into the river.
Stan continued to battle the current. He was red-faced and panting, wailing about the cramps in his legs. X grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him over his shoulder yet again. Even without supernatural powers, he had no trouble lifting a knot of wire like Stan.
He carried him to the side of the river.
“Thank you, superfreak,” said Stan, shouting to be heard over the rushing water. “I don’t like anyone here so far.”