Engines of the Apocalypse

ineffectually.

'That old problem again, Fitch?' Slowhand growled. 'You really ought to see a doctor about that.'

The archer moved in and took Fitch by the neck, staring him in the eyes as he tightened his grip.

'Liam, don't kill him,' Kali said.

'What?'

'I'm asking you not to kill him. He has information that I need.'

'What the hells do you mean, he has information that you need?'

Kali hesitated. 'Something… well, I don't know if it's important, but it might be.'

'Oh, really,' Slowhand hissed without loosening his grip. Fitch was struggling, turning blue, his tongue bloating between twisted lips. 'Hooper, this guy was responsible for the death of my sister and in case you hadn't noticed has tried to kill me twice, both times without compunction or hesitation, and frankly I don't want him running around anymore. You tell me — what could be more important than that?'

'I — ' Kali began, and stopped.

She rocked back and forth on her heels, torn. Share this with someone, Gabriella had said. Don't bear it alone. But how could she burden her sometime lover with the knowledge that the world he knew — and all of the beds and women in it — might soon be coming to an end? The answer was, she couldn't — at least until Slowhand, with a sigh, suddenly released his grip on Fitch, dropping his choking victim back into the bottom of the ditch, and turned to face her, more concerned than she had ever seen him.

'Dammit, Hooper, this is about that night at the Flagons, isn't it? The night you stormed out of the party? Because you learned something in the Crucible, didn't you? Something you haven't told anyone?' He took her by the shoulder again, and this time Kali didn't pull away.

She did just the opposite, in fact.

'Kal, what is it?' Slowhand asked, as she sobbed in his arms.

She told him everything. About what the dwelf had said about the coming darkness and about what she had learned about 'the Four' and how she had come to believe they might have a role in preventing it. When she had finished, Slowhand said nothing, his eyes like those of a drowning man. In the end, it was Fitch who broke the silence.

'Everything your girlfriend says is true,' the manipulator admitted, 'and I have the information she needs to make sense of it.'

'Then spill it,' Slowhand said.

Fitch smiled. 'Not here. Hidden. I can tell her how to find it, how to retrieve it, but first you have to get me out of here.'

'No deal.'

Kali looked at Slowhand, hesitant. She knew the decision she was about to make was not going to be popular. 'Deal,' she said. 'Can you help me get him up? We should be near enough to the perimeter now for me to whistle Horse.'

'No,' Slowhand said.

Kali shook her head and clambered into the ditch. 'Fine. I'll do it myself.'

Slowhand held her arm. 'I mean no, he's not coming, Hooper. The bastard stays here, takes his chances.'

'Slowhand, please.'

'No.'

'No?' It was the first time Slowhand had ever openly disagreed with her.

'No, Kal,' Slowhand said more softly. 'Because it strikes me that if it's your destiny to do these things, your destiny to find these things out, then you're going to find them out whichever way things happen. If it's Fitch who's destined to tell you what you need to know then he'll find his way out of this and he'll tell you, but I'll be damned if I'm going to help him do so.'

'What if that's your destiny? To help him?'

Slowhand slapped his forehead in frustration. 'No, Kali. No, I'm not having that. I'll not accept that my every move is predestined.' The archer felt the need to explain further, sought an analogy. 'Look, I believed it was Pontaine's destiny to win the Great War — every one of us did, which is why we fought so hard and for so long — and in the end we did win, spilling the blood of thousands on the Killing Ground. Thousands, Kal — but you know that. The point is the battle was won as a result of thousands of decisions that I and those fighters made each and every second we fought — split second choices to cut or to thrust, parry or raise shield, shoot or hold that made the difference between our lives and our deaths. And all of those decisions were based on what our enemies chose, out of thousands of choices of their own. Just how many choices is that in all, Kal? It was chaos on the Killing Ground, chaos, so can you really tell me that every one of those decisions was predestined?'

'Of course not!' Kali said defensively, aware of the strength of Slowhand's argument. 'But I'm talking about the bigger picture.' She struggled. 'The way it needs all the pieces to fit together… like a jigsaw.'

'Didn't you once tell me that you were crap at jigsaws?' Slowhand said.

Kali stared up at him, tearful, then down at Fitch, torn.

'Hooper,' Slowhand said, 'wars are won as they're meant to be won, through dedication to a cause and a determination to see it through. I know you — you might hate every minute of this, but I also know you will see it through whether you're one of these fabled 'four' or not. And you know why? Because that's who you are, and not because it's your destiny. But if you let Fitch manipulate you like this, you'll be just as much one of his puppets as Jenna was.'

'Will you… see it through with me?'

'I don't know, Kal. I just don't know.'

Kali bit her lip, then nodded. She whistled for Horse and, a few minutes later, the bamfcat appeared. Kali mounted, slapping the thick of his neck hard in thanks for coming to collect her. 'Sorry, Querilous,' she said to the protesting, groaning figure in the ditch, and then, to Slowhand, 'You coming?'

'Give me a second,' Slowhand said, 'I'll catch up.' He watched as Kali nodded once more then walked Horse forward through the forest, and then he turned back to Querilous Fitch.

'Are you going to kill me now, archer?' The manipulator said. He nodded at Suresight. 'I should imagine that would prove difficult, with only one arm.'

Slowhand whipped an arrow from his quiver and held its tip shaking above Querilous Fitch's chest. 'I only need one arm.'

'You really should listen to your girlfriend, you know. It's your destiny.'

Slowhand almost plunged the arrow down right then, but he held it, his unblinking blue eyes looking into Fitch's, through him. Thousands of choices a second, he thought, and through those wars are won. He stood and began to walk away. Whether it was the low, sick cackling from behind him or the sibilant, murmuring, protesting voices in his own head he didn't know, but a moment later he turned, returned to Fitch and, with a shout, rammed the arrow into the manipulator's chest with such force that it pinned him to the ground. Wide eyed, Fitch was so stunned that he couldn't even wail.

'I make my own destiny,' Slowhand said, and followed Kali's trail.

Both Kali and Slowhand wanted to take the journey slowly, and, camping at their leisure, took three days to return to the Flagons. The last thing they expected when they arrived was an invitation to attend a memorial service in Scholten for those who hadn't made it out of the Sardenne. Kali thought for a second that she had, after all, misjudged Makennon — but on closer inspection it turned out that their invitation had been signed by Jakub Freel. At any rate, the service was scheduled for the next day at Midchime and, after both she and Slowhand had been thoroughly polished and preened by Dolorosa — 'you notta go in anything from which your bum sticka out, young lady!' — the two of them set out on Horse, reaching the Vossian seat of power overnight, in four jumps.

They spent the morning in the Gay Goblin, the Kegs O'Kerberos and the Bloody Merry, marking time in the way of those aware that, on a fundamental level, things were moving on. Gradually, eventually, they worked their way towards the