Page 73 of The Death Wish

The answer was yes, a resounding yes. But he’d not say so.

‘No…I mean, it pinches, quite vigorously. But nothing I cannot handle.’

He hoped. The wildness was living up to his memory of it. Those days in the past–before they had found something of a truce–when it used to batter at the cage he’d forged in his gut, demanding escape.

Pitch exhaled, every bit the expectant mother breathing through her pains. ‘There, see it has passed.’ He plastered on a grin. ‘Perhaps it was too many Brussels sprouts at the last supper.’

Silas gave him an unimpressed look. ‘You refused to eat any.’

‘So I did. Foul things.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps this blasted thing simply knows where we are bound. Perhaps we are closer than it appears. Silas don’t look at me like that. Do you truly think he’d have us brought all this way, only to give me an aneurysm at the very last stage?’

That did not go down well. Horror marked Silas’s face. ‘Christ, Pitch. I have no bloody idea what this blasted angel intends, but do we put such a thing past him?’

He glanced at the water, as though considering throwing them both overboard and making a swim for it.

‘Gods, man. It is fine. I’m fine. Perhaps the simurgh gets sea-sick, I don’t fucking know. But it’s done with now, alright?’

It was so far from done with that Pitch could barely feel his pulse; the beat was so rapid it blurred into one long hum.

They were getting closer. He knew it. The blasted Cultivation certainly knew it.

And he was not ready. He would never be ready for this return. To a place he could barely recall; and wished he could forget.

He glanced ahead at Edward. Thinking of how the ferryman addressed him with such title. The simurgh had shifted then too, when the coin was exchanged. A curious roll of movement unlike any he’d felt before. Not a struggle, not a vie for freedom, as he’d felt just now. He wasn’t sure what to make of that last pain.

But as he stared at the lieutenant, Pitch realised he had missed something equally, if not more, intriguing; the chamber had become a cave once more. One with an open mouth.

Charlie spied it at the exact same time. ‘Look, the way ahead is open. I can see outside.’ He stood up, a hand on Edward’s shoulder for balance, despite the stability of the boat. ‘Are those mountains?’

They bloody well were. Beyond the yawning mouth of their chamber, the sky held hints of dawn’s palette; silver dominated, but with tinges of blue and subtle pink evident. Pitch might have wondered how a whole night had passed, were he not captivated by the rest of the scenery; mountains, indeed. They were snow-capped and sharp-tipped, commandingly high; ringing a vast body of water where islands lay further out. There was no hint of any settlement on the isles, certainly nothing that might be a Sanctuary; their foliage stripped of green by the encroaching winter and left stark and uninviting.

Silas sought to get to his feet. Pitch slapped at his leg. ‘Stay down. Don’t you dare rock this boat.’

‘Do you recognise anything, Pitch? Do you see it? The Sanctuary?’

‘No, I recognise nothing.’ Pitch stifled his bitterness. ‘I was not exactly allowed out for safari. And no, I don’t see the Sanctuary.’

He was not sure if he was relieved, or furious.

‘Charlie, please. Be careful.’ Edward urged the lad to sit down, but Charlie was feverish.

‘No, wait. That land….those peaks. I think I know…’ He cut himself off, with a frustrated cluck of his tongue. ‘No. It can’t be.’

‘Can’t be what, Charlie?’ Silas demanded.

‘Sit down.’ The ferryman spoke for the first time in gods knew how long. ‘Now.’

Charlie sat quickly. Edward turned. Not to the lad, but further on around; to Lucifer who slept on through all. The lieutenant gazed down at the king, and said, so softly it was almost missed. ‘Almost there, Luci.’

When Edward lifted his head Pitch had a moment’s sight of his face; the white gleam of angelfire hinted there in his irises. Pitch flinched.

And in that second it took to do so, the chamber vanished.

Their boat sat out upon the centre of the great lake; where December reminded them all it had arrived, the breeze stirring goosebumps and ruffling the surface of the water.

Silas let loose a sudden cry, his gaze fixed toward’s the boat’s starboard side, his hands braced against the rim, knuckles white.

‘Silas, gods, steady yourself man.’ Pitch grabbed his arm. The ankou’s muscles were tensed.