Page 58 of The Simurgh

Silas crossed the threshold.

The air inside the church was oddly damp, like the building was surrounded by marshland and not the open countryside. Dust danced on the air, whipped into something of a frenzy with his dramatic entrance.

An altar sat beneath a stained-glass window that reached from floor to ceiling. A gentler scene of the Virgin Mary in a flower-rife gully, with a lamb at her feet and squirrels and bluebirds perched on the trunk of the fallen oak she was seated on. A small stream flowed nearby, curving through pebbled ground, the roots of nearby trees hanging like snakes down the bank behind the Virgin. There was a den there in the bank too, a darker section in the brown glass. That of a badger, or a fox. Silas steered his thoughts away from kitsune. Thoughts of Mr Ahari, and Ernest Weatherby, were not pleasant.

His eyes moved to the altar where cobwebs clung to two gold candlestick holders, devoid of candles, with wax staining the yellowing altar cloth beneath them. A silver chalice was there too, as though service had been suspended halfway through.

‘Now what?’

The ring tightened again. A clench vicious enough to have Silas cursing.

‘I need more than this. Guide me to him, damn you. I need direction.’

Something poked at the long drape of the altar cloth near the floor. Heart in his mouth, Silas grabbed at it, and pulled the material clear. The chalice and candlesticks went flying, clattering against the stone flooring.

Silas stared down at the pure horror show beneath the marble altar.

A foot. Burned to a horrific crisp. The hint of black boots still caught at the ankle. Bile marched to the back of Silas’s throat. He fell to his knees, the ring so tight about his finger that he doubted his bones could take much more punishment.

Charred bodies, two at least, so far as he could determine, with a chance there was a third, but who could say for certain with the way the limbs tangled and fused? Awful, melted, ruined figures that looked terribly like they may have melted into one another from the intensity of the heat. There should have been some odour, some gut-wrenching stench, but there was nothing.

‘Silas?’

Silas hurtled to his feet, but he already recognised who spoke to him.

‘Bess? What are you doing here?’

Old Bess stood, or rather leaned, against the doorway off to the left of the altar, a receptacle for the priest perhaps. He wore a blush-pink cape. The hood was thrown back, but the trim of white fur was so thick that it formed a makeshift ruff around the back of his neck. The master of Harvington Hall was deathly pale.

‘Me? What the devil are you doing here?’ Bess scanned him up and down, one hand lifting as though considering conducting a hands-on search, but they did not seem keen to let go of the doorframe. ‘How are you even on your feet, dear fellow?’

‘What are you talking about? What is all this? Where is Pitch?’

‘Is he not with you? Why the blazes would he be here?’ Old Bess appeared as confused as Silas felt. ‘Luc…Reginald told me that neither one of you were fit to be out of your bed, the pair of you had been set upon, Sybilla almost killed…that you were all in York…Mr Ahari said it was so as well.’

‘We are not all in York, Bess.’ Silas’s anger must have been tangible, for Old Bess took a step back. ‘They have him, Iblis and the Morrigan have Pitch. How could you not know this?’

‘Till a few hours ago I was with Tilly…and her mothers, keeping them safe as you asked me. Then Mr Ahari summoned me, said I was to come at once, but that was all. The usual cloak-and-dagger instruction I get from the Order. Blast it, Silas why would they keep it from me that Tobias is here? Are you certain? Were you not attacked by the Wild Hunt, the both of you?’

‘Yes, yes. But I escaped and Pitch did not. Where has Lucifer gone?’ Silas glanced around the interior of the church, shrugging into the strange pressure of the place. ‘And how far ahead of me is he?’

‘He’s gone through the gateway…an hour, perhaps an hour and a half ago.’

Lalassu had made wondrous time. The King had been hours ahead of them, but without one of the Lady’s mounts.

Bess rubbed at the back of his head, mussing up already-messy curls. He truly did look as though he’d rolled out of bed and run here. ‘How did you come here? They said Lalassu was turned to stone, or was that a lie, too?’

‘Well she was, yes, but…never mind all that now. She is well. Bess, wherever Lucifer has gone, I need to follow. Tell me where this gateway leads.’

The man’s eyes were bloodshot, duller than they should be.

‘Into the hill…into the cockaigne.’

‘The what?’

What Silas wouldn’t have done to have Pitch here, making lewd and uncalled for comments on the word.

‘Pendle Hill is what the fae call a cockaigne. Think of them as the summer palaces of royalty, a place to indulge themselves away from the confines of the courts. Fae nobles have always built them outside of the Faelands, where they can indulge their fetish for the purebreds. Many a human has forgotten themselves in a cockaigne, and probably just as well. They serve the fae in all ways there when they’re under the influence.’