The Brink of Darkness

by Jeff Giles

  Sylvie pointed to the stone statue screaming in terror.

  “That’s the face of a soul being ripped apart by guilt,” she said. “It’s not the face of a soul being beaten just because some crazed lord finds it amusing. If you have any doubts about what to do with Dervish—or with Zoe and my son, for that matter—think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed Zoe to come here and challenge Dervish. Think about the fact that the Higher Power allowed my son to tear the gold band from Dervish’s neck. You shouldn’t need any more evidence to do what’s right. Remember that the power that rules us is awake—and watching.”

  Sylvie nodded to indicate that she was done. There was a silence, during which X could hear the rivers whisper.

  Then the applause began.

  It started with Regent, Ripper, and Banger, but spread quickly. Soon, Tree and the guards were clapping, too—every one of them but the Cockney.

  X looked to the lords. One or two still appeared unmoved, unsure about what to do with Dervish. How could they be? What would it take?

  When the applause died away, Regent told Dervish he could speak if he liked, but that no one would be disappointed if he chose not to.

  “I shall speak,” said Dervish. “Of course I shall speak.”

  He stood, spreading his feet wide in an attempt to appear commanding.

  “The whore we called Versailles is correct in precisely one regard: I shall not repent, nor beg for mercy,” said Dervish. “Instead, I shall expound upon your idiocy a final time. You think in dispensing with me, you will save the Lowlands? The Lowlands MADE me.”

  He prowled toward the other lords.

  “You thought you had tamed the Countess, yet, according to my spies, she has already unsheathed her knife and begun peeling the skin of a certain Plum.” Dervish turned to X, and waited for the pain to show in his eyes. “And that is AS IT SHOULD BE, you worms. We are here to punish sinners, not grow goddamn DAISIES! Do what you will with me. You have become soft because of these two”—he gestured disgustedly at X and then Zoe—“and I do not fear you.”

  X surveyed the ranks of the lords. Surely they saw Dervish for the cancer that he was? Even the Cockney was frowning now, and fussing with his lamp, as if he’d never been devoted to him. Zoe pulled X closer. He was so tense that he’d dug his fingernails into his hand.

  The lords didn’t gather to debate this time. Regent only had to look them in the eyes to know their thoughts. He lingered a long time, it seemed to X, on the ones who had previously dissented.

  At last Regent turned back to Dervish.

  “It saddens me that you think us soft,” he said. “Perhaps we can persuade you otherwise.”

  He nodded to one of the lords.

  “Take him,” he said.

  The lord lifted Dervish into the air by his neck, like an osprey clutching a fish.

  He flew at the statue of the screaming man, and threw Dervish into its gaping mouth. Dervish tried to scramble out, but before he could the lord made a quick motion, like the tossing of a match.

  The mouth exploded in blue flame. Dervish’s scream was like a twisting screw.

  The lord sealed the statue’s mouth with another gesture.

  Dervish was swallowed whole.

  Once he was gone, the Lowlands themselves seemed to breathe again. X felt as if a siren they’d all gotten used to had suddenly gone quiet. He watched as his friends rushed to one another, as the lords broke into a flurry of talk, as the guards settled the bets they had made by handing over weapons and rings.

  X’s relief at Dervish’s fall was undercut only by the fear that everyone had forgotten about him and Zoe. The lords hadn’t even ruled on what would become of his mother.

  He found Regent in the crowd, and interrupted him a second time. Regent didn’t wait to hear X’s questions. Instead, he gave him a gentle look, and said, “You will have all your answers soon. For now, rejoice. The victory over Dervish is yours more than anyone else’s.”

  “Mine?” said X. “I did nothing.”

  “Why can you never see the good that you do?” said Regent. “Dervish couldn’t bear how much you loved Zoe and your mother when no one had ever loved him. He tried to punish you for it. It became a mania. At last, the other lords—and the Higher Power, even—saw him for the horror that he was and had always been.”

  X thanked Regent, then turned and gazed at his friends wistfully, as if he were on a train and they were disappearing into the distance. He looked at Sylvie, Ripper, Banger, the Ukrainian, Maud. And Zoe, of course. How had he come to care about so many people? Had it all been Zoe’s doing? Had she opened him up in some way—broken down a wall that had been blocking him? No, it wasn’t quite that. She hadn’t broken down the wall—she had coaxed him out from behind it. She had convinced him that there was nothing in his heart to be ashamed of, that it was okay to be seen.

  X watched as Banger greeted the Ukrainian.

  “Dude!” said Banger. Seeing Maud, he added, “Dude and random chick! Whoa—and a cat!”

  Banger was punchy from being in the cell.

  “I’m allergic, actually,” he said. “Wait, are allergies still a thing when you’re dead? They can’t be, right? How could they? Can I pet the little guy?”

  Even this exchange warmed X somehow. He turned again, and saw something that triggered an avalanche of feeling in his chest: Ripper was shyly approaching his mother.

  He hurried forward to introduce them.

  “Ripper, this is—”

  She raised a hand to silence him.

  “I know very well who she is,” she said. “Madam, it is an honor. Truly. I almost feel I should kneel before you.”

  “And I feel like I should kneel before you,” said Sylvie. “You raised my son as if he were your own. I can’t think of a nobler act.”

  “I suppose we could take turns kneeling before each other?” said Ripper.

  Instead, they embraced.

  “That’s an exquisite dress, by the way,” said Sylvie.

  “Thank you so much,” said Ripper. “I stole it.”

  Zoe came to stand by X. She seemed to know what he was feeling as everyone met or reacquainted themselves, as the disparate strands of his life intertwined.

  After a moment, she nudged him.

  Ripper had gone to say hello to the Ukrainian.

  X feared she’d say something tart or dismissive. She had never taken the guard, or his feelings for her, seriously. X wished that he’d had a chance to tell Ripper how nobly the Ukrainian had behaved. In any case, Ripper nodded politely, and even put a hand on the guard’s shoulder to let him know she was glad to see him.

  “Hello, Mr. Guard,” she said.

  “Hello, Reeper,” he said.

  “You have been injured,” she said. She touched his face gently. “I’m very sorry to see it.”

  “Yes, is true,” said the Ukrainian. “Had unpleasant experience while bravely defending X, okay? But in my time of agony, many things are made clearly crystal.”

  The Ukrainian paused to introduce Ripper to Maud, then the guard’s expression turned serious, and he began what sounded like a rehearsed speech.

  “I am loving you many years, Reeper,” he said. “I think you are aware, yes?”

  Ripper’s body sagged so profoundly that the straps of her dress rose off her shoulders.

  “Could we perhaps discuss this later?” she said. “Or not at all? Not at all would suit me very well.”

  “No, now is good,” said the Ukrainian. “Now is important.”

  Maud, looking uncomfortable, tried to move away, but the guard gestured for her to stay, apparently for moral support.

  “I wait long, lonely time for you, Reeper, during which you behave vehement crazy, and sing many things I think are not actual songs,” he said. “I tell you now I am done waiting. My love for you is forever dead.”

  X could see Ripper trying to mask her relief.

  “I understand,” she said. “I have only myself to
blame.”

  “Is correct,” said the Ukrainian. “Now I tell you a second thing, and it may be painful in your ears: I have big new love, and it is Maud.”

  Startled, Maud popped her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Is true, cat person,” said the Ukrainian. “My heart is now in your hands. I promise you it is quite red and large.”

  Just then, Regent called everyone to attention, and a hush fell over the arena.

  “Our business here is not yet ended,” he said.

  He lifted what had been Dervish’s golden band, and broke it in two. To X, it almost seemed like a religious rite. Regent slipped half the band into a pocket in his robe. The other half he held like a gift he was about to bestow.

  “We are in need of a new lord to fill the void that Dervish leaves behind,” he said. “I have nominated someone who has some experience in the field, and her name has been quite well received.”

  He looked to Sylvie.

  “Come forward, if you would, old friend,” he said.

  Sylvie crossed the ground swiftly. X was struck by how fast she had recovered from the cave, how—even in her gingham farm dress and boots—she seemed to throw off light.

  “Here I am, old friend,” she said.

  Regent lifted the fragment of the gold band.

  “We ask you the favor of serving once more,” he said. “Will you do us this honor?”

  “I will,” she said, “if you’ll do something for me in return.”

  Regent smiled fondly.

  “Most people regard it a great privilege to be a lord,” he said.

  “Then you’re welcome to ask most people,” said Sylvie, smiling back. “I, however, am aware that being a lord changes you—and not always for the better—so I’m not going to accept without assurances. Are you ready to hear my terms?”

  “How long have I known you?” said Regent. “I’m perfectly aware of what you want—and I will do it gladly.”

  “I need to hear you promise,” said Sylvie.

  “We shall release Zoe from the Lowlands immediately,” said Regent, “with the obvious admonition that she never speak of anything she witnessed here.”

  Relieved as he was for Zoe, X was alarmed not to have heard his own name. His heart felt like a spinning coin.

  He looked to Sylvie and saw, with relief, that she was still waiting—that she wasn’t yet satisfied.

  Regent continued: “Yes, yes, we shall free your son, too. I believed he is called Xavier? He should never have spent a single hour in the Lowlands. I suspect the Higher Power did not know what to do with a soul so rare.”

  Before X could even process the words, he heard Zoe break into sobs.

  Regent put the gold fragment up to Sylvie’s throat. X watched, transfixed, as it grew around her like a vine and became whole.

  The lords began beating their palms against their legs. It took X a moment to realize it was a kind of applause, and another to realize that it was not just for his mother but for Zoe and him.

  There was still the second fragment of gold in Regent’s pocket.

  Regent removed it, and held it out for all to see.

  “Dervish did us one courtesy in his final diatribe,” he said. “He reminded us that we must remove the Countess from power as well. So it appears we require a second new lord. It must be someone inspiring enough to obliterate the memory of the Countess entirely—to stand for everything she stood against.”

  Sylvie began to interrupt.

  Regent stopped her with another fond look.

  “Fear not, old friend—we are in agreement on this matter as well,” he said.

  Regent searched the crowd with his eyes.

  “Ripper, come forward, if you would.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Once again, X stood staring at the green house with the red metal roof.

  Rufus’s house.

  Zoe had gone in to talk to her mother.

  It was afternoon. Already dark. The lawn was more grass than snow, but sopping wet. The portal that X had smashed into the street for himself and Ripper had been filled. X could see where it used to be because the pavement there was blacker than the road. The sight of it seemed to confirm that he would never return to the Lowlands. The way was lost—and thank god.

  He’d been waiting perhaps 20 minutes. From the house, he had heard crying, shouting. But at least some of the crying had sounded loving. Conciliatory. That gave him hope. He didn’t want to be the cause of even more unhappiness in Zoe’s family. He’d leave if he had to, though he had no idea where he would sleep. Where did people go if they had nowhere to go?

  X wore only a torn shirt, mud-streaked pants, decimated boots. He’d left his overcoat behind in the Lowlands, he couldn’t remember where. But it was all right. At least he had the silver packet with everything but the piece of porcelain, which his mother asked to keep after using it to wound Dervish: the shard held two memories for her now, one layered over the other. X also had the letter that Zoe had written him once. He reached into one pocket and crinkled the foil to reassure himself, then reached into the other to feel the plastic bag that held the letter. They made him feel rooted.

  In the end, it’d been his mother who freed him from the Lowlands, and Regent who freed Zoe. Sylvie had pressed her palm beneath X’s eyes, as was the custom whenever a lord sent a soul to the world. Her hand was cooler than Regent’s had ever been, and the pain that hummed under his skin was nothing compared to the pain of saying good-bye.

  X had peered at his mother in the final seconds, desiring to say a hundred things but powerless to untangle them. After knowing her for an hour, he was losing her. What was it that Zoe said when he told her that loss seemed to be the way of the world? Then I don’t like the way of the world. I’d like to speak to a manager, please. Someday, he’d ask her to explain the thing about the manager.

  X had actually wanted to stay longer in the Lowlands—just long enough to talk to his mother, to hear more of his father’s story. Sylvie had known what he was thinking. She could hear his thoughts, just as he and Zoe could hear each other’s sometimes. She shook her head no. She wanted her son to live, and wouldn’t risk waiting. She told X that she loved him very, very much. And then she gave the world to him—and him to the world. X didn’t ask if she would be able to visit him sometimes, if she’d one day walk with him in the mountains. Sylvie said nothing about it either. Neither pretended to know the future.

  Rufus’s front door creaked open. Jonah rushed down the steps, and ran across the lawn. He hugged X hard around the waist.

  He was crying.

  “You’re staying,” he said.

  “Am I?” said X, his hopes rising.

  “Yes, because I said so.”

  “Ah. Thank you, Jonah. Yet we must respect your mother’s decision, whatever it is. Promise me.”

  “Okay. I mostly promise.”

  “Only mostly?”

  “Yes, but that’s a lot. I was gonna say sorta.”

  Jonah released X from the hug, and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his navy fleece, which was covered with dog fur. A bit of fur stuck to his face. X thought with a pang of Uhura, and wondered if she had survived. He couldn’t bring himself to ask.

  “If my mom won’t let you stay here, you and me can get our own house,” Jonah said. “You can be in charge of cooking, and I can be in charge of answering the door. Those are the only big things.”

  X smiled, and tousled the boy’s hair.

  “Why is everybody always mussing my hair?” said Jonah. “My hair is already mussed.”

  X shook his own mane.

  “Mine, too,” he said. “It’s even more beleaguered than yours, I fear.”

  “That’s okay,” said Jonah. “Our house isn’t going to be a hair-combing house.” He paused. “Zoe says you don’t have magic anymore.”

  “That’s true,” said X. “I am entirely … I confess to not knowing the word. Magic-less? Un-magic?”

  “I think it
’s just regular,” said Jonah.

  “Yes,” said X. “I am just regular now.”

  “Are you sad about it?” said Jonah.

  “No, I like it,” said X. “I feel like my body, my blood, everything, is finally my own. I don’t know if that makes sense?”

  “No, it’s weird.”

  Jonah wiped his eyes on the spot where he’d wiped his nose. Something seemed to occur to him.

  “Hey, guess who did a really big magic trick, actually,” he said. “Wait, you don’t have to guess—it was me.”

  “Indeed?” said X. “Tell me.”

  Jonah flashed a giant grin.

  “I’ll show you,” he said.

  He dashed back up the steps, opened the door, and shouted inside: “Come here. Come on. Here we go. You can do it, girl.”

  Uhura came waddling out.

  She was still underweight and lethargic, but clearly healthier. She recognized X and trudged heroically toward him. He met the dog halfway, and picked her up. Her fur was shining again. She felt … substantial. She licked his neck.

  “Her tongue feels sandy, right?” said Jonah.

  “It does,” said X.

  “I made her better,” said Jonah. “Boom! And guess who’s so happy now?”

  X knew but pretended not to.

  Jonah raced back to the door. Even before he’d opened it all the way, Spock bolted out, and ran circles on the lawn.

  Zoe and her mother stepped outside a few minutes later. The afternoon was transitioning from blue to black. X could see the mountains in the distance, their silhouettes shaggy with trees. Zoe still had a cut on her cheek, as well as light bruises on her cheekbones from when Regent had sent her out of the Lowlands—they were a faint copy of the ones that X had had since he was 16. Zoe walked behind her mom with her eyes cast down. Her mother looked exhausted and frazzled, and like she was trying to suppress her fury.