Page 154 of The Death Wish

The hydra inclined each of his three heads, his smoothed foreheads speckled with yellow spots. ‘My Lord, I am Forneus. His Royal Highness, Prince Vassago’s valet.’ He smoothed at the matching yellow cords on his coat.

Silas was a comical delight, struck dumb with astonishment, his mouth open wide enough to catch flies. Sweat framed his widened eyes.

‘What the fuck are you doing here, Forneus?’ Pitch pressed Silas’s arm down.

The hydra shifted in obvious discomfort, his multitude of spindly legs tapping at the floor. He continued to preen himself, a habit Pitch knew hid his irritation; he’d always been preening when in Vassago’s presence. But he seemed to have another master now. The tassels of his uniform, the chest plate emblem, were those of Lucifer.

‘Oh dear, I thought you’d already been informed.’ Forneus spoke from his central head, his favourite. ‘The explanation is not for me to give. I am sent here to attend to your needs. Should I have the linen changed? And will you and his lordship be requiring any sustenance? What does a purebred prefer to eat? I’ll have cook arrange something immediately. I suspect you are both quite famished after all of that.’

Silas gaped, a tiny sound of mortification.

‘How long have you been standing there?’ Pitch growled.

‘Well…a little while.’ Forneus bobbed his bald heads in succession. ‘Apologies, but I’m unfamiliar with the extent of humankind’s’ breeding behaviours, so I was unsure when was an appropriate time to enter.’

‘Never. Never is an appropriate time, you silly bastard.’ Pitch took in the room. It was rounded, like the blasted tower in the cockaigne, the stonework unpainted, and the exposed beams overhead the rich hue of mahogany. ‘Oh, gods…’

‘What?’ Silas touched his shoulder. ‘What is it?’

He slipped from the ankou’s touch and drew his legs from beneath the covers. ‘Fuck, fuck. This cannot be.’

Pitch left the bed, rather wet between the legs, and very naked, but he didn’t give a damn. He strode across the room; past a chest of draws, with a water pitcher and wash basin atop, past a wing-back chair with carved trim and silk upholstery, past a side-table with a stack of books and a small ceramic clock. His pace moved a tapestry that hung upon the wall; an embroidery of an English summer garden. But this was not England. And that sun had never shone into this room.

‘Pitch, tell me what is going on,’ Silas said.

Something in his tenor, something fragile, had Pitch glancing back. Silas sat with his fingers pressed to his temples, wincing. The euphoria of fucking was gone, and their unified decision to ignore reality now crashed down around them.

Pitch stared harder at the ankou.

Or rather, the purebred.

Silas’s aura was the barely there grey of humankind; none of the silver ribbons and movement the ankou’s had held.

‘Well?’ Silas pulled a blanket to cover himself and stood up.

‘I don’t know yet.’ Pitch moved to the window, covered over by a velvet blue curtain.

‘Your Highness, is something not to your liking? I can have it changed. I’m sure his majesty would have wanted you to be comfortable here in the tower. May the Celestials bless his divine soul.’ Forneus was solemn and pious, just as he usually was. ‘Strange furnishings here though, I’ll give you that.’

Pitch took hold of the curtain, the hydra’s words like the toll of an unwanted bell. His stomach was tight with nerves. And nothing else.

No stirrings. No wildness.

But then, he’d known that from the moment he awoke. The simurgh was gone.

‘Whose room is this?’ Silas said. ‘Will someone bloody well tell me where we are?’

Pitch pulled back the curtain, revealing clear glass filling an arched and narrow window behind. The view was breathtaking. And it was certainly not Scotland.

‘Oh fuck,’ he breathed. ‘We did not die.’

The bleeding godsdamned obvious was finally said.

Silas came to stand at his side, and he too took in the view; a land of colours and contours he would find utterly foreign. He was the palest Pitch had ever known him. ‘Perhaps…this is the afterlife?’ Silas clearly didn’t believe his own shaky words.

‘No, my dearest. Not even close.’

Silas opened the blanket and drew Pitch into its fold. ‘You know this place.’ Wisely, he did not make it a question.