The guards jeered when they saw that there was no more fun to be had. But even this was a comfort to X because it meant that life, such as it was in the Lowlands, would lurch back into motion.
He laid Stan on the ground, and waited for the guards to descend on the terrified new prisoner.
At last, Dervish sliced the air with his long, taloned forefinger and screamed, “SEIZE HIM!”
But something was different.
Something was wrong.
The lord was pointing at him.
The guards raced at X from all sides, like lions on a fallen deer. Their merriment at the river had been a ruse. They had been waiting for the lord’s signal all along.
They stripped X of his purple shirt. He saw it pass through many hands. He saw it fought over, bartered for, and, finally, carried off triumphantly like a newly captured flag.
Dervish instructed the guards to carry X to the tree on the plain. There was some grumbling at this—the men were as small and round as hobbits and unaccustomed to true labor—but they did as they were told.
X did not resist. At least now his punishment had begun, which meant that someday it would end.
It was a long march through foul, humid air. The guards groaned angrily under their burden—why had this traitor’s punishment become their own?—while Dervish strutted in front of them. The guards pinched and poked X as they bore him along. When they saw that the lord not only did not object to X’s mistreatment but rather whooped with pleasure at it, they accidentally dropped him to the ground and dragged him a dozen feet at a time.
The souls in the lowest ring of cells sensed something was afoot. They could see from the tattoos decorating X’s arms and from the bruises on his face that he was a bounty hunter. It was unusual to see one punished—and thrilling. Word was passed up to the top ring of cells and out to the farthest edges. Soon, the great black wall seemed to shake as prisoners hollered in the tongues of a hundred countries and thousands of years. All X heard as he passed was a storm of hate and anger. Occasionally, one voice could be heard above the others: “What the hell have you done, boy?”
Ripper and Banger recognized X as he was carried across the plain. Ripper was so upset she twirled manically in her cell. She wept and spat, and cursed her fingernails for not yet being long enough to tear out. Banger suggested that she take a “chill pill,” which only confused her, and tried to shout down the souls who surrounded them, calling them haters and tools.
The procession finally reached the tree. It was 30 feet tall, ugly and bare and elephant gray. Its trunk consisted of a dozen tortured, intertwining strands. Its mottled branches bent and swerved in every direction, as if in search of something they would never find. Its roots sank into the dirt like veins.
The guards thrust X against the tree and bound him to it, which brought a wave of applause from the cells. The rope sawed at X’s skin, but he knew better than to complain. When the guards had finished, they stepped away and Dervish approached.
“Lovely to have you back among us, X!” he said brightly. “I may call you X, I hope? As all your pretty new friends do?”
The lord circled the tree, testing his men’s work.
“I fear this rope may not serve,” he said. “Be a dear, X, and ask the guards if they might be so kind as to tighten it. I do very much want you to feel its embrace.”
There were four guards, but they looked like a single, multi-headed beast. They were foul and pocked. Their clothes were a bizarre patchwork for, like the lords, they dressed in whatever they could steal from the prisoners. They wore frayed vests, ruffled shirts blackened with dirt, pinstriped pants and jeans, as well as a scarf or two, despite the heat. One of the guards—he was the shortest and stoutest of them, and his nose had been broken so many times it was nearly flat against his face—appeared to be the chief. He wore a white turtleneck and a red tie.
“Guards,” said X, “might you be so kind as to tighten my rope?”
The men laughed, as if he had told a bawdy joke.
“Of course, luv,” the stout one said. “’Twill be an honor!”
The guard fussed with the rope, which, in truth, could hardly be made any tighter. Dervish tested it once more—X’s blood was beginning to leak out from under it—and nodded his approval.
The lord faced the vast wall of souls, who were still shouting oaths at X. He motioned for silence.
“BEHOLD A MAN WHO THINKS HIMSELF BETTER THAN YOU!” he bellowed. “BEHOLD THE BOUNTY HUNTER WHO CALLS HIMSELF X!”
The cells began to rumble once more.
“Perhaps he is THE VERY ONE who ripped you out of your life and ferried you here!” the lord went on, animated by the screams. “Even if he is not, I daresay he would have done it gladly. Now, it seems, our noble bounty hunter has grown BORED of our company. He has attempted to flee—for he has FALLEN IN LOVE! What say you, souls of the Lowlands, shall I let him go?”
Not even Dervish could have predicted the violent gust of profanity that emanated from the cells now.