The underground tiered arena of the Great Un-Burning Loom was dropping into heat and spirit disaster.
The five-story bronze engine was shuddering so wildly that three-ton granite blocks were shearing loose from the vaulted ceiling, tumbling seventy feet into the empty pool basin to shatter on the floorboards. From the forty spinning gold-silver metal spindle-columns, thousands of glowing silver-grey threads were whipping through the air like cut spark cables, lashing against the dark rock pillars and igniting showers of violet time sparks.
And in the center of the gimbal cage, the Primary Causal Core had swollen to five yards in width.
The liquid gold-silver metal sphere was no longer boiling liquid silver. It had turned a furious, blazing bright crimson, pulsing with the uneven, tachycardic rhythm of a dying heart. The air pressure inside the chamber was dropping rapidly. That created a heavy local gravity empty pocket that pulled loose tools, discarded scrolls, and broken gear-trains toward the rotating core.
“DO NOT STRIKE THE HOUSING!” Ren Prime roared over the thunder of the pistons.
Lord Ren had already advanced to the base of the Loom, his massive broadsword raised to cleave the main steam intake pipe.
“Stand down, Emperor!” Diplomat Ren shouted, catching Lord Ren’s gauntleted elbow with his cane. “If you sever the high-pressure feed while the gold-silver metal core is high-pressure, the moving recoil will detonate forty million ergs of un-channeled time energy! You’ll not shut down the engine. You’ll trigger an instant, uncontrolled time inward collapse that…
