“Danger,” said the sign, babbling simultaneously in four languages. It was an old plastic thing from the early days of mediatronic advertising, and showed an animated man wearing a helmet. The self-clean had failed: a muddy swipe grimed the placard.

Lully looked uneasy. “Should we be here?” The ruinous factory with its looming silos and crumbling brickwork suggested a haunted place, but the only movement came from whirling tribes of seabirds. Glass was everywhere, scattered or piled; shadows were dark and fuzzy in the sunset.

Danel toed the sign. “Yes. All the best eidolons are from places like this. My only worry is if someone’s already here.”

Lully took in the tumbledown façade of the nanotube compositing plant. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Danel stooped to remove the hardhat from a recumbent skeleton. He dusted it with his sleeve, discarded the skull, gave it to Lully. “Better?”

“No.”

Neither saw the armored tentacle slink lazily from the gloom in careful pursuit of their footfalls.