‘I know this is all unfamiliar,’ said Gobleka. He crouched down to peer through the bars. ‘You’re not used to your mind working this way. Don’t fear it. It’s just revelation. True understanding is always terrifying. You’re seeing the way things are. You’ve come home to the place that created us all. It’s been calling to you since before you were born, and you’ve been too scared… too indoctrinated by lies… to answer. You can now. It’s very freeing.’

‘The warp…’ Eisenhorn whispered.

‘That’s right,’ Gobleka smiled. ‘You don’t need to know anything any more. The warp is in you, and it will show you everything. How to live. How to think. How to master this world, and every world. It’ll show you how to work the Loom. It will teach you the language you need. The words that you must speak. Just open your mind and they’ll flow to you.’

Eisenhorn’s lips began to move. No sounds came out. He looked like a child learning to read.

‘Make the Loom turn,’ said Gobleka. ‘Make it spin. I need you to harness its power and extinguish the fire. We must make the Loom safe. That’s our first priority. Secure Keshtre, and save the Loom. Let the words come. It’ll be an easy task for a man like you.’

Eisenhorn’s lips were moving faster. He was starting to murmur. Gobleka heard the first syllables sounding, and it felt like a jolt in his sternum. More, fully formed un-words began to flow from Eisenhorn’s mouth.

Davinch had already backed away to the edge of the gantry and was looking on with great concern. He’d scooped up Gobleka’s suppressed autorifle, and was clutching it tightly. Gobleka rose and retreated too. Eisenhorn was speaking quite clearly now. The un-words were coming out of him fast and precise. Each one stung at Gobleka’s flesh.

He’d never heard the litany of Enuncia vocalised so clearly. The magos had mastered it and harnessed its power, but it had always appeared a struggle for him, a constant effort to maintain mastery. Sark had often stumbled or muttered, his weavings interrupted by inarticulate screams or yelps. Eisenhorn was confident and unhalting. He was almost instantly fluent.

In the cage, Eisenhorn closed his eyes and tilted back his head.

Crusts of rime crackled as they formed around the bars of the psychometric cage. Snakes of green electrical discharge danced around the metal grille of the gantry deck around its base, leaping up to bite at the bars or coil around them like climbing tracedy. One struck upwards and hit a lighting rig, blowing out a set of lamps in a loud burst of sparks.

‘Look at him,’ breathed Davinch over the sound of the un-words and the fizzle of the discharge.