It cannot stand! thought Isaac, giddy. He looked to one side and saw that Lemuel and Derkhan were gaping just as wide, that Yagharek’s eyes were shining with astonishment under his hood. It isn’t solid enough to, it can’t stand, it can only wallow in the muck!

The body of the creature was a tangled, welded lump of congealed circuitry and engineering. All kinds of engines were embedded in that huge trunk. A massive proliferation of wires and tubes of metal and thick rubber spewed from valves and outputs in its body and limbs, snaking off in all directions in the wasteland. The creature reached up with an arm powered by a massive steamhammer piston. Those lights, those eyes, swivelled from the air and looked down on the constructs and the humans below. The lights were streetlamp bulbs, jets powered by huge cylinders of gas visible in the construct’s skull. The grille of a massive air-vent had been riveted to the lower half of its face to mimic the slatted teeth of a skull.

It was a construct, an enormous construct, formed of cast-off pieces and stolen engines. Thrown together and powered without the intervention of human design.

There was the hum of powerful engines as the creature’s neck swivelled and optical lenses swept the illuminated crowd. Springs and strained metal creaked and snapped.

The human worshippers began to chant, softly.

The enormous composite construct seemed to catch sight of Isaac and his companions. It strained its constrained neck out to its limits. The gaslight beams swung down and pinioned the four.

The light did not move. It was completely blinding.

Then, abruptly, it was shut off. From somewhere close by, a thin and tremulous voice sounded.

“Welcome to our meeting, der Grimnebulin, Pigeon, Blueday and Cymek visitor.”

Isaac cast his head around, blinking furiously, his eyes bleached and unseeing.

As the fog of old light cleared from his head, Isaac caught blurred sight of a man stumbling uncertainly towards them on the broken ground. Isaac heard Derkhan breathe in sharply, heard her swear in disgust and fear.

For a moment he was confused, and then as his eyes acclimatized to the moon’s half-hearted glow and he saw the approaching figure clearly for the first time, he emitted a horrified noise at the same moment as Lemuel. Only Yagharek, the desert warrior, was silent.

The man approaching them was nude and horrifically thin. His face was stretched into a permanent wide-eyed aspect of ghastly discomfort. His eyes, his body, jerked and ticced as if his nerves were breaking down. His skin looked necrotic, as if he was submitting to slow gangrene.