Page 133 of The Death Wish

The simurgh let out a cry, one that made his blood bubble and spit.

With his pulses maddened, and his skin heated through, Vassago jumped from the pliant folds of the Leviathan’s lip, and landed in the shallow, utterly clear waters of Blood Lake. The water was tepid.

Lady Satine and her monster had delivered him to a sandbank, one of firm, though coarse, sand. He kicked off hisone remaining slipper, and his heels sank only a little as he gathered his bearings.

There was little to see but endless stretches of water. Sparkling, like he’d been dumped in an empty paradise. The light was red, but neither the water nor the sky took on the tinge. Both were clear. And so similar to one another with their white hues, above and below reflected like mirror images of one another. It added an oppressive feel to the place; despite its vastness.

Vassago grimaced at the pummelling of deplorable cries. He despised this place. The simurgh’s wings shifted, dancing across his bones, whilst the Seraph-made wound at his back pounded with dull pain. He despised the angels, too.

‘Do you doubt yourself?’ Lady Satine stood framed by the rounded mouth of her beast. Its huge bulk was more evident now through the clarity of the water. Shaped not unlike a whale, but with a fin that reached skyward, tipped with a strange gathering upon its point; as though a great eagle had made its nest there. The Leviathan’s mass was such that no tail end was visible; its green-grey flesh disappearing in the depths. That flesh held an astonishing array of barnacles; some large as anvils, peaked like tiny volcanoes, others smaller, and layered like cold hard roses.

‘No, I do not doubt.’ The Berserker Prince had never dwelt on failure.

‘Good. Then this is the last time we meet. I shall go with the lake into oblivion, when the halo is no more. The djinn will finally be free of this oath.’ She did not hide the swell of longing, of exhausted happiness beneath her words.

‘You and I were not so dissimilar, Satty. The chains that bind us to this lake are only slightly different.’

‘Arrogant youngster.’ Snakes could smile, though not well. Bare gums, dark grey, glistened around sharpened fangs. ‘Mychain held many more centuries in its links than yours, but I am glad were are not so similar there. The waiting would not have suited you at all. Goodbye, Vassago. May your fire burn true.’

The serpent withdrew into her beast, the red light tinging her quartz eyes crimson, visible until the very last, when the Leviathan’s slowly closing mouth finally shut the Lady of the Lake away.

He did not say goodbye, he was tired of farewells.

Bones cracked and snapped as the beast sunk back into deeper waters.

Vassago was alone.

The simurgh shifted, its tail battering his leg bones, suddenly, painfully and rather aptly.

He was not truly alone.

‘All right. Show me the way.’

He took another step, the shoal of bone crushed fine as sand, a natural pumice upon his soles. The water seemed thicker than when he’d taken his first step, dragging harder against his ankle. And the forlorn cries were louder, as though the Leviathan’s massive presence had kept them at bay.

Vassago followed the weight in his legs, the alternating pressure that urged him forward, one step at a time. He followed the simurgh’s instruction, walking on. The water rose slightly, never higher than his knees, lapping at the jagged cuts of his shortened gown. He tore open the bodice, the diamond buttons spilling into the water like stardust, and pulled it off, letting it drift away on the current less liquid. Seraphiel had not bothered with undergarments when he clothed Vassago. There was no underbodice, nor a chemise under his corset. And the corset itself was plain ivory satin with no trimmings, no lace.

All the better to be ruined.

Vassago moved on, his foot catching at larger pieces of bone, his ears reverberating with the calamity of sound that lay uponhim, heavy as a drenched shawl. Now that he stood in the Blight’s birthplace, he did not wonder at how such a force had come to be, but how the sheer pressure of the lake’s dolorous air had not shattered the Seals, and spread its anguish further and wider.

He leaned into the oppression, his breath coming in short bursts, his back aching as Seraphiel’s wound pin-pricked with pain beneath the growing load of Blood Lake’s raucous agonies.

They touched at him like bees testing their stingers, glancing at his skin, seeking the soft places to impale.

Seeking a way in.

Not into his flesh…but into his thoughts.

The onslaught was quick. Stealthy.

And he doubted himself before the next breath.

He dragged his feet, the enormity of the lake all around him, reducing him.

Dampening his rage, raining upon the fire he sought to burn.

‘Fuck off, fuck off.’ He hunched his shoulders, searching for his strength. Finding only misery. Cracking fortitude. Vassago kicked out at the water and its impossible clarity; his own reflection barely flickering on the surface. The water was warmer now; like a bathtub.