RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^x$ /x/index.cgi

# attempt that doesn't work
#RewriteRule ^x(.*) /x/index.cgi?url%3d$1

#this works, but doesn't do what I want (if I add . or \., it breaks... "breaks" means 500 error on server)
RewriteRule ^x((/[-\/_&=:;?A-Z0-9a-z]+)*)/?$ /x/index.cgi?url%3d$1



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Try this

Options FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/x/$ /x/index.cgi [NC]
RewriteRule ^/x/(.*?)$ /x/index.cgi?url=$1 [NC,L]