Enormous constructs filled the system, dwarfing the worlds. The vessels of the fleets once again had to fight from being captured by the gravitational pull of the gigantic bodies. The objects were so immense, their shapes extended far beyond the limits of the Episimos System, beyond the range of the scans. They might, Guilliman thought, reach as far as other systems. They might be light years in size.

Objects. Shapes. Constructs. Guilliman hunted for words of greater precision, words that would describe the immensities he saw, and give him a measure of control. The whining, spine-grinding sound made it hard for him to think, but even in silence, language would have failed him. There were no names for these things. The daemon fortress at least had been recognisable. Its obscenity had been in its size. The constructs in the Episimos System were geometry run amok, angles building on and into other angles. On the nearest mass, the side facing the Samothrace was dominated by a formation that seemed to be both an extrusion and a depression. The pounding in Guilliman’s head grew worse when he tried to force sense onto the formation, and he turned away.

‘Analysis,’ he said, maintaining order on the bridge.

‘Warp,’ said Prayto, breathing hard.

‘Granted. But what is the materium correlative? The fortress was stone and brass. The abominations have something we can recognise as flesh. What is this?’

Guilliman spoke with more frustration than he intended. The surfaces appeared to be smooth. The objects were carved from single blocks millions and billions of miles on a side. Colours swam and rippled across them, deep rotten violets and greens. Patterns like the scales of reptiles appeared and disappeared. The constructs had hides, or they were ice, or they were a dream. Lines curved and straightened, a language of monsters preaching its lessons to the materium. The meaning of the lesson crawled inside Guilliman’s chest. He tore his eyes from the flowing runes before he could understand them and be wounded.

He was not sure how many of the constructs there were in the system. A few floated alone in the void, serene in their lonely horror. Others were linked to one another, forming complexes so vast, they extended beyond the range of the scanners.

Even more than the fortress, these monoliths were the death of reason. There was no logic to the structures. Their material was the reification of madness. Their foundation was the bones of the Emperor’s dream.

‘What are they?’ said Drakus Gorod. His question had no expectation of an answer. It was an expression of frustrated anger.

Guilliman gave him an answer all the same. ‘They are the consequences of the loss of this war.’ He wondered if Horus or Lorgar really understood what they had unleashed. Was this what they wanted? They could not rule here. There would be nothing to rule. They would be the slaves of these powers.