There was a frantic minute in the dark, as Isaac felt his way at speed along the broken floor of the tunnel. The skin on his hands and knees was flayed by stone.

Light glimmered ahead of him, around a corner and he sped up. He cried out in pain and astonishment as his palms slapped down onto a patch of smooth, scorching metal. He hesitated, groped around him with his ragged sleeve over his hand. The wall and floor and ceiling was plated with a buffed surface of what, in the faint light, looked like a band of pressed steel four feet wide. His face creased in incomprehension. He braced himself, then slid quickly over the metal, hot as a kettle on a fire, trying to keep his skin from its surface.

He breathed out so fast and hard he moaned. He hauled himself through the exit, collapsing across the floor in the dark room where Yagharek waited.

Isaac passed out for three or four seconds. He came to with Yagharek crying out to him, dancing from foot to foot. The garuda was tense but focused. He was utterly controlled.

“Wake,” spat Yagharek. “Wake.” He was shaking Isaac by his collar. Isaac opened his eyes wide. The shadows that caked Yagharek’s face were ebbing away, he realized. Tansell’s hex must be wearing off.

“You are alive,” said Yagharek. His voice was curt, pared down and bare of emotion. He spoke to save time and effort, to conserve himself. “As I waited, through the window came the blunt snout then the body of a slake-moth. I turned and watched through these mirrors. It was racing, confused. I was ready with my whip and I hit backwards at it, stinging it across its skin, making it shriek. I thought that would mean my death, but the thing raced past me and the ape-construct into the hole, folding its wings away into an impossible space. It ignored me. It looked behind it as if it were chased. I felt a rucking motion in space following it, something moving below the skin of the world, disappearing into the tunnel after the slake-moth. I sent the monkey-thing after it. I heard a crumpling sound, the whiplash of straining metal. I do not know what happened.”

“The godsdamn Weaver melted the construct . . .” he said, his voice shaking. “Gods only fucking know why.” He stood quickly.

“Where is Shadrach?” said Yagharek.

“He got fucking taken, didn’t he? He got fucking drunk up!” Isaac scrambled to the window and leaned out, looking out at the torchlit streets. He heard the heavy, ponderous sound of cactacae running. As torches were carried along surrounding alleys, the shadows slid and shifted like oil in water. Isaac turned back to face Yagharek.