But if he managed to cripple and destroy the Loom, what then? They were in extimate space. He’d die along with it. The Cognitae’s precious Gershom facility would be lost, but so would the vital things he had learned from Jaff about the King in Yellow, Sancour and the Angelus Subsector.

A key threat would be stopped, but the greater threat would remain.

Not for the first time, he focused his mind and tried to reach Betancore outside in the Karanines. It was futile. Either the fold in space would not let his messages through, or his abilities were virtually gone. He feared the latter. The pain in his head was intense. He could barely form a thought, let alone try to send it.

So what were his options? He could push on to face Gobleka and Sark. Or he could get out. A word of Enuncia had unfolded reality, bringing him and the group into Keshtre. Surely another word would allow him to step out?

But the Loom would still be running, and Sark and Gobleka would still be alive. And there was no guarantee that if he got out, he could ever get back in again.

By his reckoning, the cage gantry was not far above him. The light was bright up there, a gold amber radiance that turned all the engine mechanisms above him into silhouettes, and all the shadows below him into stark, hard edges.

He had to go on. He wondered if he could. The etheric dissonance field generated by the Loom had increased considerably when the machine started to run at full rate. It was no longer just dulling him and making him sick, it was actively tearing at his psycho-sensitive mind. He thought ruefully about Medea’s last words to him. She’d been right. He should have brought Cherubael, despite all the handling problems that would have caused. He needed something that hit hard, like the monstrous daemonhost. He was alone and woefully weakened.

He got up and began to move again, limping for the next metal stairwell.

The first shots hit the platform deck beside him. Bright las-bolts buckled the grille and punched through it.

Eisenhorn threw himself flat. There was very little cover. He tried to gauge the angle the shots had come from by the holes they had cut in the platform, but his facility for psychometric reading and prediction was as good as gone. The damn Loom. It was neutering his mind.

Another flurry of shots came in. One punched clean through the metal handrail above him. This time, he glimpsed them in the air, glowing bolts, arcing down at him. He had some sense of an angle. He rose on one knee and banged off a series of shots with the heavy Hecuter, spent cases pinging out of the ejector. He saw the shots spark and flash as they struck metalwork above him.