At last the corridor narrowed and made a sharp turn to the right. It ended in another nexus chamber. In the chamber was a single abomination; it stood before the junction of conduits. It was kin to the one Sanguinius and the herald had fought outside the manufactorum. It was taller, its horns longer, but the muscle-pink of its hide was the same. It carried a staff instead of a sword, and this it held at the vertical. Its other two hands held a book. Sanguinius did not know if it was the same tome or not. He didn’t care. The daemon appeared to want him to care. It held the book open. It held it forwards, arms extended, an invitation Sanguinius would decline.

A nimbus of warp energy surrounded the daemon. It dissipated as the Blood Angels came into view. As the energy vanished, the sounds of the daemon army fell into silence. The illusion of the multitude evaporated.

‘So this is our ambush,’ said Azkaellon. ‘A single foe.’ He sounded very suspicious.

‘Kano?’ Sanguinius asked. He advanced slowly into the chamber. Several hundred yards separated him from the daemon. He saw no other abominations lying in wait.

‘I sense only the one we see,’ the Librarian voxed.

Sanguinius hesitated. The daemon was motionless. It did not attack. It held the book, and that was all. It had lured him here. It must know what he planned to do. It could not think it would be enough to stop the entire company.

His choices were few. He had come to destroy the nexus. That imperative had not changed.

Sanguinius halted less than fifty feet into the chamber. He would not be part of the design being woven. ‘Fire on the nerve cluster from this position,’ Sanguinius commanded. ‘Ignore the daemon.’

The sorcerous light returned, and a sudden nova burst from the book. It shot up and behind the daemon, striking the nexus.

‘Back!’ Sanguinius ordered.

The conduits disintegrated. Coruscating, murderous light burst from them. It formed a contained ball of energy, blinding in intensity, its convulsions scraping at the mind like claws. It fused tighter, drawing in on itself. It imploded, and now, where the junction had been, was a single point of warp light.

Oh, Sanguinius thought, and then the light came for him.

The beam struck him in the eyes.

There was a moment of absolute void and then there was a maelstrom of creation, an uncontrolled explosion of being without form. He dropped down its eye, into dark. He fell through blackness veined with red and green and blue and violet, the colours of ruin entwined and cutting into his mind like wire.