by Jeff Giles
Zoe wished she didn’t have to answer.
“Yeah,” she said. “It has to be. But we’re okay. We’re safe. The Lowlands can’t actually hurt us.”
The statement seemed to trigger something in Val. She got to her feet, refusing Zoe’s help and shouting, “WTF??”—only with the real words and several extra F’s.
“What do you mean, they can’t ‘actually’ hurt us?” she demanded. “We are bleeding actual blood. What the hell is up with you?”
Zoe was about to answer, when she heard footsteps. She took a flashlight from the supplies littering the ground—Dallas, in his optimism, had already written MINGYU on it—and swept the road. She saw nothing. Still, she had the prickly sensation that someone was racing just ahead of the light. Taunting her. She made a faster circle, trying to catch up with them. Nothing. No one. There was a noise near the cliff. She jerked the flashlight back. She saw—
Dervish.
She’d never seen him before, but it had to be him. He was repulsive: fussily perfect white robes, tacky diamond jewelry, sunken cheeks, skin the sickly gray of meat that had been left on the counter for days. Zoe felt only fury when she looked at him. He had persecuted X relentlessly. He’d leveled her family’s house while Jonah, terrified, hid in an empty freezer in the basement.
She told Val to stay where she was. She walked toward him. Whatever part of her brain was supposed to light up when she was in danger had been overtaxed for too long. The bulb had burned out.
“I know who you are,” she said. “And I know you can’t hurt us.”
“Regent divulged that, did he?” said Dervish. “Along with being a traitor, he takes the fun out of nearly EVERYTHING. Yet ask yourself if you are absolutely certain that I won’t kill you anyway, and deal with the consequences later. Do I SEEM predictable?”
He raised a hand and somehow deflected the flashlight beam away from his face, like his palm was a mirror.
“Why are you here?” said Zoe. “What do you want?”
She’d expected him to be furious, but he seemed … amused. Curious. Zoe could tell he was sizing her up, trying to understand how she could have inspired so much rebellion.
“Oh, I want so many things,” said Dervish. “I shall begin with the most pressing: I want you to abandon your search for X’s father.”
“Why?” said Zoe. “Why do you care—except that you’re dead and obviously a dick?”
“How brazen you are!” said Dervish. “What on earth are they teaching girls up here these days?”
He didn’t seem to expect an answer.
“Science,” said Zoe. “Core strength. How to stand up to assholes.”
Dervish smiled. His mouth was practically lipless. It looked like it had been sliced into his face with a knife.
“You amuse me, Zoe Bissell,” he said, “so I shall tell you why I won’t let you find X’s father. It’s because it will jeopardize the secrecy of the Lowlands—and because I am MORTALLY sick of the trouble you cause. Shall I tell you something funny? You have already SEEN X’s father. He stood in the storm begging for assistance. You and your mangy friend sailed past him without a care.”
Zoe flinched: the man by the car.
“No clever reply?” said Dervish. “No riposte? Good. Listen to me, little girl. The more you encourage X, the more I shall make him suffer. It’s simple physics: for every action, a reaction. As Sir Isaac would say, Actioni contrariam … Actually, never mind. You don’t strike me as someone who speaks Latin. I have made my point.”
“X is innocent,” said Zoe.
“I DO NOT CARE,” said Dervish. “The Lowlands aren’t a country estate. If one soul breaks its laws, a thousand others will follow suit. You have given X hope, which anyone can tell you is fatal. Was it you who inspired X’s mad quest to find his mother? Does he believe that if he finds her you will love him more?”
Zoe meant to say nothing.
“He’s doing it for himself,” she said.
“Is he?” said Dervish. “Or is he doing it to impress YOU—to prove that he is worthy, that he is WHOLE? Now I must find him, and punish him just as I punished his mother. I must dump him into a hole inside a hole inside a hole—somewhere the light cannot find. All because you ‘loved’ him.” He waited for a reply, and when Zoe didn’t speak he added, “You were not as fierce an adversary as I had hoped. Go home, Zoe Bissell. You are not needed anymore.”
Val crossed the road to lead Zoe back to the car. Dervish noticed her partially shaved head, and called out, “Was it lice?”
With a bored flick of a finger, he opened a portal to the Lowlands in the cliff. Zoe watched as it turned orange, then red, then orange again.
“Didn’t you ever love anybody?” she said.
Dervish surprised her by answering.
“You expect me to say no,” he said. “Yet I did. Not in the way you think. It ended tragically, as love of every kind always does. Believe this or not, but I am doing you and X a kindness.”
Val tried to steer Zoe away but Zoe wouldn’t turn from Dervish. Couldn’t. The image of X in some hole, lonelier even than before she met him—she couldn’t shake it.
Dervish seemed to know her thoughts.
“What you have done is impressive, in a way,” he said. “You have taken someone whose life was already a misery and made it a hundredfold worse. X sacrificed what little he had for you. Tell me, what did YOU ever sacrifice for him?”
Dervish lit the far side of the road with a sweep of his hand.
The dead mountain lion rose up out of the weeds.
It shook the hail from its coat—it looked as though it were shedding stars—and slunk toward Zoe and Val, the black tip of its tail sweeping the ground.
“I must leave you,” said Dervish, turning to the portal. “My friend here will see to it that you pursue X’s father no further.”
The mountain lion came slowly at first, its back undulating up and down, like its body was made of water.
“Get on my back,” said Val. “Get on my back.”
Zoe looked at her, bewildered.
A half second went by.
“What’s wrong with you!” said Val. “Do it!”
Zoe climbed on her friend’s back, as if she were riding piggyback, and only then did she understand: the way to scare off a predator was to make yourself big, to make yourself loud.
The mountain lion picked up speed. Its eyes shone green.
“Flap your coat!” said Val.
Zoe did as she was told, but even now, she was thinking about X and watching Dervish walk to the swirling hole in the cliff.
She felt herself wave her raincoat like wings. It was like someone else was doing it.
Dervish looked back at them, grinning.
He knew where X’s mother was. He was going to dump X into a hole inside a hole. What had Zoe ever sacrificed?
Val wobbled beneath her. She screamed threats as the mountain lion charged: “GET AWAY! WE’RE NOT DEER! DO WE LOOK LIKE DEER?!”
Zoe heard herself start screaming, too. She didn’t know what words she was using, or if they even were words.
Dervish was almost at the portal.
Val staggered beneath her, losing her balance. She was strong, but not much bigger than Zoe. They fell to the ground just as the mountain lion leaped.
Zoe felt a rush of air. She saw the cat’s claws, the white fur of its belly.
The animal shot over their heads, and disappeared down the road.
Dervish had been bluffing. Zoe knew that now. The ram and the mountain lion had confirmed what Regent had said: the Lowlands could not kill her.
She threw off the helmet and raincoat and gloves.
“I’m going to be okay,” she told Val. “Don’t worry about me.”
“What are you talking about?” said Val.
They were both winded, panting.
“Don’t tell anybody where I am,” said Zoe. “Make something up.”
“What are you talking about?”
said Val. “You’re scaring me.”
Dervish vanished into the hole in the cliff. The portal was orange.
Zoe sprinted across the road. Val shouted something at her, she didn’t know what.
Zoe rushed through the portal after Dervish.
It had just gone red.
Up close, it looked like a ring of fire.
twenty
Her clothes were drenched when she woke. She had no memory of why. A Roman in a belted tunic carried her down a tunnel.
The pain in Zoe’s head was ferocious. An electrical storm. She managed to focus on the Roman: He had big, watery eyes and a cloud of curly black hair. He had to be seven feet tall. His arms were like tree limbs, and he hummed nervously, tunelessly as he walked. When he noticed that Zoe was awake, he caught her eye, then looked away fast, like she was the scary one.
Twenty other guards marched behind them in military formation. Dervish was up ahead, leading the way. Zoe recognized his robe, his lurching walk, his snarled gray-white hair.
The tunnel itself was rough, like animals had burrowed it. It smelled repulsive. At first, Zoe thought that it was body odor—that it was the men—then she realized it was the air itself. Her lungs didn’t want it. She covered her mouth with her arm, and took shallow breaths. The Roman saw her hyperventilating and smiled cautiously. He was trying to be reassuring, but his teeth were gray green, like tiny broken tombstones. She fought down a wave of panic.
When she was in fourth grade, Zoe tried to tunnel through a snowbank in front of her house. She wanted to impress her father, the caver. She wasn’t going to show him her tunnel until it was done. It was a secret. When he saw it, he was going to clap like crazy, and say it was freakin’ amazing. Zoe was in the yard by herself. When she made it to the middle of the snowbank, two things happened, one right after the other. The handle of her blue plastic shovel broke off—and the tunnel came down on top of her. There was a terrifying whump, followed by the scariest silence she’d ever heard. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
That’s what she felt now, that fear exactly.
Her father had been who knows where, but her mom was watching from a window. She flew out of the house without even boots on. She clawed through the snow to get to her. Zoe cried when she felt her mother’s hand on her foot.
But her mother wasn’t coming now.
Noises filled the tunnel as the Roman carried her. Insects, crazed animals, human screams—they all leaked through the walls. Zoe’s body twitched at every sound.
What the hell had she done.
Every time Zoe flinched, the giant held her tighter. Repulsed as she was, she could tell he was trying to be kind.
She remembered leaping into the portal, remembered a free fall into darkness and a violent wind shooting past. She’d braced herself to hit bottom but the bottom kept not coming. Dervish had been falling just below her. He looked up, shocked by the sight of her. He grabbed her, pulled her down, wrapped her in his robes. She fought him, even though he seemed to be trying to protect her, the way X protected her when they zoomed. When she wouldn’t stop resisting, he slid a clammy hand over her eyes—his fingernails were like claws—and she passed out.
Dervish hadn’t looked at her once since she woke. He just stalked down the tunnel, turning back only to bark at his men to keep up. His face was so gaunt that it looked like a skull. He was furious—and that gave Zoe the first stirrings of hope.
He didn’t want her here. She’d surprised him, pushed him off balance. Good. That gave her power.
Something else occurred to her now, something so small and ordinary that it took her a minute to realize its significance: her stomach was growling. She hadn’t eaten since the Cheetos and Funyuns in the gondola. She was hungry. Here in the Lowlands.
Which meant she was alive.
Zoe told herself that the Lowlands were just a massive cave—and that she understood caves. She could do this. She could survive. She’d make friends with the man who was carrying her, if she could. He couldn’t possibly be loyal to Dervish.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
He was shocked that she’d spoken. He closed his eyes, as if praying Dervish hadn’t heard her.
But he had.
The lord spun around and clapped his hands against the Roman’s ears. The man fell forward—it was like a tree coming down—but didn’t drop Zoe, though it meant smashing his elbows against the ground.
“If she can talk,” said Dervish, “she can walk.”
The guard put Zoe down, his ears red from the blow. Zoe tried to apologize with her eyes but he was too skittish to look at her.
Zoe knew Dervish’s rage was a good sign—he was unstable, he’d make mistakes—but now she’d alienated someone who might have helped her. The Roman walked in front of her, and she saw for the first time that he had a pair of iron rods hanging from the belt on his tunic. He rested his hands on them in a way Zoe found touching: it was as if he was playing sheriff and they were his guns.
She knew she shouldn’t whisper anything else.
“I’m sorry,” she told the back of his head.
His shoulders tensed.
But Dervish didn’t turn.
“Do you have a name?” she said.
No response.
“I’m going to call you Tree,” she said.
There was a long pause—but then he nodded, as if he approved.
“Where are we going?” she said.
Tree stiffened again. No answer. She’d pushed her luck.
Tree slid the iron rods from his belt. For a second, Zoe thought he’d hit her with them. Instead, he crossed them behind his back as they walked, as if to say:
X.
Zoe followed Dervish and Tree through a dozen bends in the tunnel, the other guards marching behind. Soon, she lost track of time, like she did when she went caving. An hour slipped by, maybe two. There was no point of reference here, no sun—just torches flashing past every so often like streetlights. Zoe was exhausted. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen. And though she was dying to see X, a heavy feeling had settled into her chest, like her lungs were filling with water.
He’d be furious when he saw her—when he realized that she had endangered herself for him. What could she say in her defense, except that he’d have done the same thing for her? X wouldn’t accept that as an excuse. He didn’t believe his life was worth as much as hers.
There was a fuzzy glow up ahead, like a dandelion puff made of light. Zoe wondered if she was imagining it. But no: the tunnel brought them to a roundish cavern lit by phosphorescent rocks, which were piled like a campfire.
“Rest if you must,” Dervish told his men, then began pacing around the false fire.
The air was clearer here, and a shining curtain of water flowed down the walls. Tree and the others laid down their weapons—a wrench, a whip, a chair leg, a brick—and pressed their foreheads against the wet rock to cool themselves. They seemed to have forgotten Zoe, or at least stopped worrying about her. Where, exactly, could she run to?
She pushed her way between the men, cupped her hands, and collected some water as it ran down the rock. The first handful she dabbed on her face and neck. The second she brought to her lips. Dervish watched as he circled. When Zoe went to drink, she saw him suck in his cheeks to suppress a smile.
“No!” said Tree.
It was the first time she’d heard his voice, which sounded young and frail. Tree came over from where he’d been resting. It was amazing how long it took a person that tall to stand.
“Not safe,” he said, closing a giant hand around hers. “Not for you.”
Zoe let the water spill to the floor, and thanked him with a look.
Dervish exploded.
“YOU!” he shouted at Tree. “How many YEARS have I endured your weakness? Hand me one of your irons.”
Dervish struck Tree across the face so fast that Zoe didn’t even see the blow. Tree staggered back, his hand clasped to his cheek. He sa
t clumsily, drew his knees to his chest, and started to cry.
Dervish turned to Zoe.
“Anyone ELSE you would like to befriend?” he said.
Tree gave Zoe a look that said, Please don’t make this any worse. So she said nothing.
“Tell me, WHY did you follow me here?” Dervish asked her. “Did you imagine that you would rescue X—perhaps by swinging over a pit of fire on a rope?”
Zoe ignored the question. She let a moment go by.
“You said you loved somebody once,” she said. “Who was she?”
“It was not a she,” said Dervish. “It was my son.”
Zoe tried to hide her surprise.
“What was he like?” she said.
She thought maybe she could defuse his anger a little by asking.
Dervish pushed his mousy face closer to hers. She could see tiny white hairs sprouting from the giant pores on his cheek.
“Why do you inquire?” he said. “Does the answer truly interest you? Or do you imagine that talking about my son will awaken some dormant kindness in me, and inspire me to spare your beloved?”
Apparently, she hadn’t been very subtle. She considered her answer.
“Honestly?” she said. “I don’t think you’ve got anything left to awaken.”
Dervish liked this.
“Well said,” he told her.
Some of the fury, the rigidity, seemed to leave his body.
“My son was older than you by perhaps twelve years,” he said. “His name was Pleasant. It sounds like a name from the Lowlands, but it is in fact what we called him. I loved the boy, as I have said and shall never deny. He did not love me. Pleasant suffered from great sea-changes of emotion, which he blamed on me. I tried in every way I could to bring him peace. I raised him in the countryside. I gave him a white stallion. A violin. The whole blue firmament. Yet whenever the storms gathered in his head, everything good and hopeful was swept away, and his hatred for me revived, like a serpent rising out of the sea.”
Dervish turned to his men. The nearest had been listening, which annoyed him. He sent them away with a flick of his eyes.
“One night, during some particularly grievous hours for my son, I made the mistake of leaving him alone,” he went on. “We had a brown-and-white spaniel named Flossie, and I had commissioned a portrait of her for Pleasant. I went to town to receive it. I thought it might elevate his spirits. I was gone perhaps an hour.”