Engines of the Apocalypse

'What are you doing? We already decided there's no way down.'

'I'm not going down,' Slowhand said, pulling Suresight from his back. 'I'm going to end this thing right now.'

Freel stared at the distant figure of the Pale Lord. 'In these conditions? Impossible.'

'Yeah?'

Slowhand notched an arrow and aimed directly at Redigor's forehead, right between the eyes. The shot wasn't impossible, but it was challenging, even for him. There were a number of factors he had to compensate for — the height, the movement of the platform beneath him, the disturbance from the pillar of souls — but doing so was just a matter of patience. Unfortunately, patience wasn't only a virtue, it was time-consuming, and by the time Slowhand had locked his aim, the platform beneath him had begun to move again, rotating about the pillar of souls.

It became suddenly like finding a target through a kaleidoscope.

Slowhand narrowed his eyes, unfazed, and loosed his arrow. The tip raced unerringly towards the Pale Lord and would, a second later, have punched directly into his brain — but the arrow stopped dead in the air, an inch from his face, and dropped to the floor. The Pale Lord looked up, directly at Slowhand, smiled, his mouth widening into a razor-toothed maw.

'We're out of here, now,' Freel said, and pulled Slowhand up by the shoulder. He bundled him across the floating stepping stones.

'Dammit, Freel. I can take another shot.'

'To what end, Slowhand? You saw what happened.'

'I'm quicker than he is — I'll get an arrow through!'

'Really? How exactly? By making it up as you go along?'

'What the hells is that supposed to mean?'

Freel span to face him. 'That sometimes you have to think about things. Maybe if you'd thought about things a bit more at the Crucible you could have avoided a confrontation. And maybe my wife might still be alive.'

Slowhand stared at him. Is this it? He wondered. Is this when it all finally boils over?

'Jenna intended to blow us out of the sky,' he said, more calmly than he felt. 'And without that ship, the k'nid would have obliterated the peninsula.'

'The Faith would have found a way to combat them. I would have found a way.'

'Are you sure about that, Jakub? It was, after all, your wife — my sister — who could have avoided a confrontation. But that doesn't seem to have occurred to you, does it — it never does in the Final Filth.'

Freel's grip tightened about the stock of his whip but he made no move.

'Face it, Jakub. Jenna became a puppet. The Faith's puppet. Your puppet.'

Freel roared, raced at him, and the archer was winded as the enforcer piled into his stomach and threw the two of them back over the floating stones.

Slowhand found himself with his head only yards from the pillar of souls, but his greater concern was Freel's hands, slowly tightening about his throat. For a second the two men stared at each other, faces red and taut with strain, before Slowhand found enough strength to growl, 'Is this it, then? Where you kill me?'

'Kill you?'

'Like on the train? What stopped you, Freel? That DeZantez would be a witness? Or was it just what it felt like — some kind of warning, a game?'

'What the hells are you talking about?'

'The shove in the back? The almost but not quite death on the tracks? The whip?'

Freel's eyes flickered over him, as if suddenly shocked to find someone in such a helpless position beneath him and he snatched his hands away. He rolled onto his back and snorted. 'I guess working together finally got to us both. I wasn't trying to kill you, you fool! That cable you cut came lashing back, almost cut you in half. I was pushing you out of the way.'

'Bullshit.'

'Why on Twilight would I want to kill you? I helped save you from Fitch, remember? Even went so far as to steer him away, told him you were mine.'

'And just why would you do that?'

Fitch laughed, rough and guttural.

'Has it ever occurred to you that we are, in fact, brothers-in-law, you and I? That out of all the people on this godsforsaken world we are the only ones with something unique in common? Someone we loved?'

'Jenna,' Slowhand said. 'No… no, it hadn't.' He shifted uneasily. 'Even so, I find it hard to believe that an agent of the Final Faith would let family get in the way of removing a thorn in their side.'

Freel paused. 'Let me ask you something. Were you to work in a tavern, would that make you a drunk? If you yanked teeth for a living, would you necessarily like causing pain?'

'I've known a few in both cases. What's your point?'

'Simply put? That the job doesn't always make the man.'

'You work for the Filth. You're their chief enforcer, for fark's sake. I'd say that was more vocation than job, Jakub.'

'So much so that I almost never pray.'

'Come on. I'd have thought that was mandatory.'

Freel shrugged. 'Abstinence is a privilege of the position.'

'Wait a minute,' Slowhand said. 'Are you telling me that while you're an agent of the Faith, you're not of the Faith?'

'What can I say? I prefer a choice of Gods myself.'

Slowhand blew out a breath. 'Oh, this day is just full of surprises. Then why, Freel? Why do what you do?'

'Let's just say that certain… factions in Allantia have growing concerns about the Faith's ultimate mission here on the mainland, because Allantia is not so very far away. And that the demise of Konstantin Munch provided them with an opportunity to place one of their own in a position of some seniority — and perhaps influence, if and when needed. Thank you for creating the vacancy, by the way.'

'You're a spy.'

'More of an observer.'

Slowhand said nothing for a second.

'Jenna. Did she know?' He asked at last.

Freel shook his head. 'I couldn't take the chance that she'd reveal what she knew under Fitch's influence. But I like to think that the man she fell in love with was the real me.'

'I always thought…'

'What? That our marriage was a forced one? Decreed by Makennon and orchestrated by Fitch? No, Slowhand, we loved each other. And she, in turn, loved you and me both.'

'Then why in the hells didn't you get her out of there?'

Freel smiled, though it was tinged with sadness. 'I had been making plans for her removal after the Drakengrats. A disappearance — a convenient death — during a mission arranged by me. She would have been free.'

Slowhand looked up at the enforcer.

'Gods, I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. You did what you had to.'

Finally, Slowhand heaved himself to his feet. 'The tension of these last few days. From you. It struck me as pretty genuine.'

'Oh, it was. I didn't know you, archer — as you didn't know me — but I knew your reputation. Since then I've learned more about the man you are. I needed to be sure that this, all of it, including Jenna's death, was more than a game to you.'

'Oh, it's no game,' Slowhand said. 'Not any more.'