The magical force barrier that sealed all of the tunnels against intruders into the sub-levels of Scholten Cathedral closed off the tunnel, its surface rippling gently. The only things capable of passage through its lethal charge were the trains, their front carriages embedded with crystals that momentarily nullified its destructive effects. Given time, Fitch might have been able to use his own sorcerous powers to break the barrier down, but time was something he no longer had. The psychic manipulator weaved left and right, as if trying to find some alternative escape route, but unless the first train in who-knew-how-long came through the shield in the next few seconds, there was no way out.
Fitch turned to stand against Slowhand, his brow darkening and hands dancing in an attempt to weave threads. Slowhand gave him no chance, rapidly loosing two arrows that nicked the tops of Fitch's hands and drew blood, breaking his concentration. Fitch tried again and Slowhand loosed more arrows, deepening the same wounds. The archer's message was clear: he was in absolute control. Any of his arrows could be solidly embedded in Fitch's forehead in an instant, if he so wished.
That, though, would be far too quick.
Slowhand didn't want it to be quick.
The archer sighed and closed on the man responsible for Jenna's death, Suresight now slung casually by his side. As he came, Fitch fell to his knees, tearing away parts of his robe to wrap around his bloodied hands. He stared up at his nemesis, trying and failing to disguise the fearful bobbing of his adam's apple, and was wise enough not to raise his hands again. He studied Slowhand intently, working out his identity through the smears of camouflage the archer still wore.
"The brother," he said, with disdain. "So it was you all this time."
"The brother," Slowhand confirmed. "But isn't that a redundant term?"
Fitch smiled coldly. "From what I've heard, she died at your order, not mine."
Slowhand paused. For Fitch to know that meant there had to have been a survivor of the Makennon and he'd thought all hands had gone down in the battle with the airship above the Crucible. Not that a survivor was necessarily a bad thing. News of the Faith's comprehensive defeat might very well serve to deter them from taking to the skies again anytime soon. In any case, it didn't alter the facts — Jenna would not have even been aboard the Makennon when it crashed in flames, were it not for Querilous Fitch meddling with her very being.
Speaking of which, the bastard was trying it with him, right now.
Slowhand recognised the slight dip of the head and pulsing of the temples that signified Fitch was trying to influence his actions as they spoke, but he wasn't going to be turning his bow on himself today, thank you very much. He tutted and raised Suresight, aiming an arrow directly at the manipulator's head.
"Don't try it, stick-insect. If I feel the slightest scratching in my mind…"
Fitch capitulated but, Slowhand got the impression, not wholly because of the warning he had just received. The man seemed confused, troubled somehow, as if he had been trying to gather the mental reserves to pull off his insidious little trick but had, for some reason, failed.
"Maybe you should try to talk me round, instead," Slowhand suggested. "Though I can't really guarantee that will work."
Fitch glared up at him, but there was an element of desperation in his gaze.
"There's something…" he began, then shook his head, unable to grasp what. His mind was, in any case, on other matters. "So what happens now, brother? Do you plan to execute me in cold blood?"
"Actually it's running a little hot at the moment. But yes, that's the plan."
Fitch began to laugh, softly at first, but then with a volume Slowhand knew was designed to unnerve him. It was exactly the type of tactic he'd have expected — mind games of a more prosaic nature than Fitch usually played, but mind-games nonetheless. And he knew what they were about. Fitch didn't believe that Slowhand had it in him. He saw him as one of the good guys who, when it came to it, wouldn't actually murder someone in revenge.
Fitch didn't know Slowhand at all. Didn't know what had made him not really care.
Slowhand drew the bow tauter still, pressing Fitch's head down with the tip of his arrow. The creaking of the weapon was the only sound in the silent tunnel.
"Say goodbye, Querilous Fitch."
The psychic manipulator began to tremble beneath him, waiting for the arrow that, in all likelihood, he would never feel. And in the eternity that he seemed to wait he became aware that Slowhand could play mind games, too.
"What are you waiting for?" He hissed. "Do it!"
"Get up," Slowhand said.
"What?"
"On your feet, you bastard. Move away from the shield."
Fitch sneered. "What is this, some kind of trick?"
"No trick. Do it."
Dazed and pained, Fitch regarded him with confusion. But Slowhand's attention was fixed above him. Because what had stayed his delivery of the fatal arrow hadn't been sadism on his part. As he'd been about to loose his killing shot something had drawn his gaze. Something beyond the energy barrier.
A horde of people — hundreds of them — were approaching. And each and every one of them appeared to the archer to be dead.
He plucked Fitch up and span him around. "You wanna tell me who they are?"
Fitch gasped, actually staggered back. The apparently dead things, meanwhile, walked into the barrier in a single mass, recoiling from its charge in waves, but otherwise unharmed.
"I think they want to come in," Slowhand said. "Fitch, are these things your doing?"
"No," Fitch said quietly.
From his expression, though, he clearly recognised what he was seeing, and his face was as white as those beyond the barrier. Even when he'd been facing death Slowhand wasn't sure he had looked so afraid.
"So," Fitch continued, "the First Enemy moves at last."
"The First Enemy?"
"We have to get out of here," Fitch declared, pushing past him. "Now."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, tiger," Slowhand persisted, grabbing him by the arm. "Whatever these things are, we're safe behind the barrier, right?"
"It was designed to be impenetrable."
"Then why are you so afraid?"
It was Fitch's turn to rail on Slowhand. "Because the barrier is shutting down."
"What?" Slowhand said, and saw that what Fitch said was true.
The Final Faith's shield was flickering on and off, as if something was interfering with the magic that made it whole. He stared at the figures pushing against it.
"Are they doing this?" He asked. "The First Enemy?"
Despite his evident fear, Fitch began to chuckle. "They are not the First Enemy, archer. They are only his representatives here."
"Fitch, what in the pits of Kerberos is go — "
Slowhand didn't finish his question. The barrier had vanished completely. His nose wrinkled as it was flooded with the stale air of the long unused tunnel, but it was nothing compared to the stench of those who approached them now.
Slowhand could see that his first impression of their health hadn't been entirely accurate, but neither had it been wide of the mark. Grey of flesh and white of eye, with chests that barely rose with breath, they were alive, but not in any usual sense of the term. They seemed suspended, somehow, between life and death, and had an odour about them that reminded him of an outbreak of the tic. An odour that came when bodies ceased to function properly, when things were fundamentally wrong inside. The odd thing was, none of the people seemed wounded or showed any obvious illness. It seemed to Slowhand to be more of a spiritual thing.