"Inquisitor, will you now inform us of our mission?"
Theokkos' gaze fell upon the Marine Commander standing next to him in
the control bridge of the Astartes battle-cruiser *Abomination of
Desolation*. The Imperial warship had been loaned to the Inquisitor by the
Desolation Templars, along with three full companies of the Chapter's finest
warriors. The Marine Commander of this detachment was none other than the
Chapter Master himself, Dadhikras Rhadamanthys, and he stood next to the
Inquisitor, his eyes seeming to inhale every ounce of air between them as
they stared coldly at Theokkos.
Theokkos felt his pulse quicken; he was not comfortable or trusting in
these Marines. Scanning their history records, he had uncovered mutations
in their gene-seed which proved unsettling to him. Their occulobe implants,
designed to heighten perception and sharpen eyesight, also produced a
mysterious black film over the eyes, resulting in cold, alien ovals of pitch
black, from which no light fell upon, nor reflected off of. When a
Desolation Templar was unhelmeted, as Master Rhadamanthys was currently,
their inhuman eyes seemed to track you from any angle, from any position,
from any distance. To the Inquisitor, the effects of the mutation were
undeniably foul, for he could not look into their eyes and judge whether or
not these men were righteous or fallen. Furthermore, he suspected that they
preferred it this way, and perhaps had somehow engineered the mutation on
purpose.
But what discomforted him even more was the mutation of their
multi-lung. The organ's connection to the trachea had formed into a bizarre
mutation, almost remeniscent of a tree's roots anchored into the ground,
that crawled up and down the windpipe before settling in as its growth
slowed and then halted. No purpose was discernible in the mutated tissue
save one: whenever a Desolation Templar spoke, the organ would begin to
slowly restrict, resulting in a sensation of pain that seemed to
simultaneously burn away and tear up the Marine's throat. While no physical
damage was caused, the effect was undeniable. The result of the mutation,
so far as Theokkos could distill, was an unnatural silence that permeated
the entire Chapter. While Theokkos knew Marines to be short of words,
saving long speeches for moments of glory or desperation on the battlefield,
the Desolation Templars had taken this behavior to a disquieting extreme.
Part of the initiation ritual of a Desolation Templar was a partial oath of
silence, whereby the Marine honored the Chapter's genetic mutation by
avoiding speech unless it was deemed necessary.
And the only time a Templar deemed it necessary was on the field of
battle, where short vocal commands were spoken, almost whispered, as the
Chapter silently engaged the enemy. Vocalization of extraneous thoughts,
personal feelings, or any similar speech that did not directly concern
itself with the Chapter's survival was shunned. The oath was known as "the
Ban," and because of it, most communication between Templars consisted
primarily of hand signals and body language, silently given between the
Master and his Lieutenants, the Lieutenant and his Captains, a Captain and
his Sergeants, and between a Sergeant and his men. Theokkos did not know if
punishment was ever needed to enforce "the Ban," but the Master's cold,
implacable stare, similar to every one of his Marines', gave him the
impression that in all likelihood that the answer was no.
Theokkos caught himself as his mind dove into the million suspicions he
held against the Chapter, and returned his attention towards the Marine
Commander standing next to him. Rhadamanthys, like Theokkos, was encased
within an ancient suit of Terminator Armour. It was the colour of a rich
purple: darker, almost blackened, when shadows fell upon it, more etiolated
when rays of light were cast upon it. The Templar symbol of a red
hemisphere, with a metallic cross inlaid across it, glowed vibrantly in the
light of the control bridge.
Theokkos decided that he would trust the Commander and his men for now,
and that it was time that Rhadamanthys and his warriors knew their mission.
Looking at the galactic positioning chart, Theokkos ordered the *Abomination
of Desolation* to drop from the warp immediately. He knew that the
navigators would wonder why he was ordering this so far into empty space,
away from any nearby system, but they obeyed without question, and as creaks
and groans ran across the battle-cruiser's immense frame, Theokkos turned
fully towards the Commander, the heavy silence of the bridge scattering like
mist as the Inquisitor gave voice to his commands.
"Rhadamanthys, do you see the lumenescent star that hangs in the sea of
black ahead us, shining more brightly than any other in our view?" The
Inquisitor was irritated to see that the Commander either did not believe,
or did not hold interest, in the Inquisitor's question, and kept his black
stare fully on Theokkos as he continued on which his carefully prepared
words.
"Rhadamanthys, what you see...what is out there, ahead of us, is no
star. Neither is it an outpost, or a derelict ship. No, what is before us
is a planet." Theokkos noticed movement as navigators and even some of the
Templars, surprised by the Inquisitor's proclamation of a planet where no
sun existed for thousands of light years away, looked upon the bridge's main
viewscreen, staring intently at the bright point, still a long distance
away, that easily outshone all else on the screen. Yet again, however, the
Marine Commander showed no interest, and continued looking directly at the
Inquisitor before him.
"This heavenly body has been designated the Silent Planet. It has been
immersed within the Warp for an untold number of millenia, and the Emperor
has charged us personally with the task of cleansing any alien, or daemon,
which we find upon this planet, and thereby return it into control of the
Imperium. And while for now only the Silent Planet is visible, the Adepts
of Terra believe that shortly the rest of whatever planetary system or
systems that were once here will return as well.
"To us shall go the glory, and the honour, of giving back unto the
Emperor what is rightfully His." The Inquisitor watched as Rhadamanthys
finally turned towards the viewscreen, and looked upon the fixed light with
his expressionless eyes. He turned back towards the Inquisitor, and
remained silent as Theokkos continued on.
"The Imperium believes that ancient STC machines could remain dormant
upon the planet's surface, but because of the far distance involved, any
ship from Mars would take centuries to navigate through the region's Warp
storms, and the long distance between Mars and the outer realms of the
Eastern Fringe that we currently find ourselves upon. It is the grace of
the Emperor that your Chapter is located so close nearby, and that I
happened to be involved in..."Imperial matters"...in this sector. It will
be a few more hours before we are close enough to deploy the Thunderhawks
and cargoships, perhaps less so as I have plotted our interception head-on,
for the planet itself is moving on a slow but steady path towards the
galactic core. In that time, Lord Rhadamanthys, I would make sure that your
men are ready for their duty. I do not want any mistakes, and I shall have
none, agreed?"
Theokkos imbellished his final words with a false bravado. While he did
not fear the mission, he felt a growing sense of unease towards it, and the
Silent Planet itself. He questioned why a planet would simply be vomited
forth into realspace, and if so why its sibling planets and their star did
not do so as well. He prayed upon the Emperor not only for protection
against whatever the Silent Planet might prove to contain, but also for
protection from the Desolation Templars that he commanded. Theokkos
resolved that once the mission was completed, he would file a suggestion for
Imperial cleansing of the Chapter, and perhaps even full purging.
Theokkos remembered the ancient words well: "defile the Mutant, for
that is his fate," and he planned to uphold them as law.
************
Rhadamanthys felt the weight of the Thunderhawk settle into the soil of
the strange world he and his men had been sent forth to subdue. He had told
his men to be ready for any possibility, less out of concern for the Silent
Planet but of the Inquisitor himself. Rhadamanthys did not care much for
the Inquisitor. To the Marine Commander, the Inquisitor's belief in the
Emperor seemed to be more of a child's fairy tale than of the true worship
demanded of so fine a warrior as the Emperor had been. Rhadamanthys, like
all Desolation Templars, meditated daily on the beneficience of the Emperor,
and of their roles as his Angels of Death. And it was a strong faith that
to him did not reflect in the shallow eyes of the Inquisitor.
As the ramp lowered and locked into place, Rhadamanthys and his command
squad walked down from the cargo bay, and stepped out onto the dusty surface
of the planet, the rest of the Templar detachment following in successive
waves as the Chapter's Thunderhawks touched down behind his own.
Rhadamanthys' black eyes scanned the horizon, and all the land that
stretched before him, and he found himself awed at what was laid out before
him.
As far as he could see, they had landed in the center of a vast plain.
The surface seemed to roll gently across his field of view, but he could not
tell for sure. When he allowed his gaze to fall upon the surface, his eyes
picked out gentle valleys and soft hills, yet when he focused his gaze onto
an individual feature, it seemed to slowly melt away into the endless sea of
gray. Likewise, Rhadamanthys could actually make out two distinct shades of
gray, one slightly lighter, almost blending into white, and one slightly
darker, almost drowning into black, yet simultaneously he could not grasp
onto either color separately. Instead he could only hold in his eyes the
blended gray that seemed to have been dusted onto the planet as a light
snowfall covers a prairie or farmland.
As Rhadamanthys' eyes began adjusting to the planet surface, he realized
for the first time that a soft glow enveloped it. While reminiscent of how
a dead moon reflected the light of its sun, it occurred to Rhadamanthys that
this was not the case, as the planet had no such star to account for the
glow, and that the stars of the sky were too far removed to account for it
either. Indeed, it seemed to the Commander that the light came from the
Silent Planet itself. Not as light is emitted from a candle's flame, but as
water is emitted from a benevolent raincloud. It was as if the Silent
Planet was "raining" light, not downwards from a cloud, but upwards, from
the surface itself, in a soft mist that seemed to float motionlessly on it.
Rhadamanthys felt every sensation fire within his formless pupils, as never
before had he experienced such an occurrence.
It was then that Rhadamanthys made a second, more startling discovery.
Glancing at the monitor display inside his helmet, which tracked and
regulated his suit of Terminator Armour, it was with surprise that
Rhadamanthys found that the suit's ventilation system had switched to normal
operations. Expecting a dead world whose atmosphere had dissolved long ago
into the cold vacuum of space, Rhadamanthys had set the Terminator Suit's
ventilation system for self-sustained operation, its intricate machines
keeping the trapped air inside the armour well oxygenated and temperate for
the Chapter Master.
Instead of running on self-sustained operations, however, Rhadamanthys
found his suit to be running under normal conditions, venting waste air
through the ducts in the suit's back while drawing in fresh air from the
helmet's "gills." The Commander realized that the suit's sensor array, upon
detecting the favourable make-up of what appeared to be an atmosphere, had
automatically switched to the more efficient normal operating mode. For a
moment Rhadamanthys felt a twinge of panic shiver through him, but he soon
realized that it was the truth, that the Silent Planet indeed had an
atmosphere breathable to humans.
Rhadamanthys looked back upon his men, and followed their gaze upwards
into the heavens, and back down upon the soft glow of the surface, which
seemed to form a billowy luminescence which blanketed the Silent Planet in a
peaceful radiance. No atmosphere of any kind could be detected by eyesight,
nor measured by any other device then the enviromental sensors of their
armour, and yet it flowed around them, and allowed them to breathe it in.
Following the lead of some of his men, Rhadamanthys proceeded to remove his
helmet in awe of the situation. It was as if they were inhaling the
ephemereal substance of ghosts, something that they knew to exist, yet were
incapable of proving it. They could not see, taste, touch, nor feel the
Silent Planet's atmosphere, but could only stand and consume the sterile
oxygen as it filled their bio-engineered lungs with every breath.
Rhadamanthys happened to glance to his right when the Inquisitor's
frantic yelling caught his eye. The Commander felt a slight disturbance,
then a growing discomfort and confusion, not knowing what the cause was
until he realized that while he could *see* the Inquisitor yelling at him,
he could not *hear* him. Keying his suit's commlink, and motioning for the
Inquisitor to do the same, Rhadamanthys finally heard the Inquisitor's
distressed commentary on the entire situation as it bled directly into his
mind from where the commlink was directly connected to his temporal lobe.
Theokkos' words were a disorienting experience, as Rhadamanthys only heard
them via the commlink, while his highly-attuned ears picked up nothing but
the impenetrable silence of the void.
"Rhadamanthys, do you hear me? What is going on here? Why have your
men removed their helmets? This is no time for gawking at the heavens!
There is no time to waste..."
The commlink went dead as Theokkos realized that the Commander was not
looking at him, but far past him, as were the other Desolation Templars.
The Inquisitor turned around, cursing the blasphemous atmosphere of the
planet, an atmosphere which was undetectable to all but the suits of
Terminator and power armour whose enviromental sensors had quietly detected
it, an atmosphere which allowed no soundwave to travel through it, an
environment which...
Theokkos' eyes fell upon the distant horizon. He was surprised to
notice just how far he could see, as the luminous surface of the planet
surprisingly did not obscure the view as one would have expected it. On the
horizon ahead of him, Theokkos could make out the forms of mountains,
serrated like a crude sword or barbaric knife, set against the pitch black
of the void. And near the peaks of the distant mountains, Theokkos, and the
Desolation Templars escorting him, could make out strange lights as they
sailed across, seeming to almost bounce from peak to peak as they crossed
the horizon right to left.
To Theokkos, they reminded him of the tracers used in Imperial defense
guns. It was difficult to keep track, but Theokkos determined that there
was roughly a dozen or so of these lights, each a thin wafer horizontal with
the surface. The lights were ordered in a single line, and seemed to follow
each other in a loose formation across the mountains. The leading light, if
one could call it that, which gave off a slightly thicker coat of light than
the others, seemed to randomly change speeds, increasing, then decreasing,
in an endless repetition, while the following lights responded in a similar
fashion.
Standing back to soak it all in, Theokkos could not help but think he
was seeing a sort of celestial serpent as it slithered across the distant
horizon. Taken in all at once, the combined motion of the lights was very
serpentine, as if the leading light was a head, and the rest of the lights,
still in a single line behind the leading one, were slithering behind, as a
serpent's body does on terrestrial ground.
As Theokkos continued to gaze, he was also reminded of watching water
rush back and forth in a horizontal glass tube, as the liquid would quickly
flow into a single mass of water at the low end of the tube, and then with a
slight tilt, the water would stretch out as it flowed for the now lower end.
In the same way, the leading light would slow down over one of the bigger
mountain peaks, allowing the trailing lights to close in with it before
increasing its velocity, and thereby stretching the dozen or so lights back
out into a long thin line before slowing down again, and repeating the
process.
Theokkos realized that quite some time had been wasted in quiet
observance of the phenomena, and that although the distant lights seemed to
be traveling at an overall high rate of speed, it had actually taken them
quite some time to cross the width of the horizon before finally
disappearing behind a far-off outcropping of gigantic rock that seemed to be
a feature separate from the distant mountain range. The Inquisitor motioned
for the Astartes to put on their helmets, and follow him forward as he led
them into the Silent Planet, going towards a stretch of land on the horizon
that was nestled between two distant outcroppings of rock which were similar
in appearance to the one that the lights had disappeared behind, but were
situated in the opposite direction. Theokkos was beginning to hate the
planet, which to him seemed almost maliciously alive, as if it were some
gigantic beast set upon devouring them all in the end.
But he didn't vocalize this thought, for he did not want to lose any
authority he held over the Desolation Templars following behind him. He had
become quite certain that he was a trapped on a deathworld with Marines on
the verge of debasing themselves into the foul creatures of Chaos at any
moment, but he would be damned to let them gain any sort of advantage from
knowing his suspicions.
As he followed the Inquisitor's methodical path towards the distant
horizon, Rhadamanthys formed a silent question in his mind over whether or
not the Inquisitor knew what the lights were, but he decided to stay quiet
for now, and see what Theokkos was hiding about the true nature of the
Silent Planet, or if Theokkos even knew *anything* at all about the strange
world they now found themselves moving ever deeper into.
The Imperial detachment had been travelling for quite some time when the
Inquisitor ordered the detachment to halt. Rhadamanthys thought to himself
that they had made good time, yet was taken aback by how far they still had
to go before reaching the rock outcroppings, which were still a good hundred
klicks or so off in the distance. The armoured column was stretched out
beneath the still heavens that were draped above the Silent Planet, and as
far as Rhadamanthys could discern, there was no day or night on the planet,
only an eternity of the soft glowing mist that covered the entire surface.
The Inquisitor was standing in front of his personal Chimera carrier
when he motioned for Rhadamanthys to approach. The Marine Commander looked
upon the Guard vehicle with disdain, and wondered just how afraid of the
planet Theokkos was. When he reached the Inquisitor, Theokkos was gazing
almost absent-mindedly at the horizon, where the inky black of the void met
the luminous surface of the Silent Planet itself, with no cushioning
boundary in between, save for the soft glow which seemed to hang
motionlessly, as if the planet had formed clouds of light and then froze
them into a misty layer covering its surface. The light was not blinding,
nor even a nuisance, but it still possessed a quality, a degree, of
luminescence that neither men had ever witnessed before.
Rhadamanthys turned away from the Inquisitor, settling his deep black
eyes towards the northern-most outcropping of the two eastern formations
that they were driving towards. He let his gaze gently follow the cragged
peaks of the outcropping. No longer did the Commander attempt to force the
planet's features into focused view; instead, he simply allowed them to
cast their image directly into his eyes. He had begun to contemplate on the
source or the nature of the lights that they had seen earlier when similar
lights started to appear once again, rising from the northern outcropping
like aboreal puffs of smoke. He watched them drift aimlessly for seconds
before they started heading towards the Marines' location. They did not
seem in a hurry, and their speed seemed no faster than that of the previous
lights they had encountered, but their deliberate interception course was
undeniable; they were coming to greet the intruders, the Marines.
Rhadamanthys turned back towards Theokkos just as the Inquisitor's eyes
fell upon him. It was obvious that he too had seen the lights, as did the
rest of the Desolation Templars. Rhadamanthys watched silently as he waited
for the Inquisitor to decide upon a course of action, but all Theokkos could
do was watch the lights as they closed in. Rhadamanthys' left hand flexed
twice in a rather subdued manner, and as one the advance elements of the
Desolation Angels, including Rhadamanthys himself, began to slowly step
backwards from the lights, and also from the oblivious Inquisitor, who was
too lost in thought over what the lights could be to notice that he was
slowly being deserted.
Suddenly, the lights slowed down and began hovering close to the ground.
Only one of the lights, the lead one, continued forward, not stopping until
it reached a small outcropping no larger than a Shadowsword. It was now
only four or five klicks away, and through its silvery halo of light,
Theokkos could make out smooth lines and curves of an alien vessel he was
quite sure no human had ever seen before. But it was hard to discern the
exact shape, as the vessel cast a light about it in the similar way that the
Silent Planet itself did. There was no direct source for this light either,
it was as if the alien ship was draped in blanket of pure light, seemingly
built instead of created, such was the subtlety of its design.
Then, to the Inquisitor's astonishment, handfuls of smaller lights
departed this ship and continued forward towards him. He wondered if it was
possible that the planet's original human settlers lived, if humans who had
built the STCs themselves could still be found living within the Imperium of
Man. Theokkos' heart soared at the implications of this thought, and his
mind fortified itself to glean all the knowledge possible from these humans
for the Imperium, whilst at the same time bestowing upon them knowledge of
the Emperor himself, and also of the Machine God whose constructs he felt
close to reclaiming for his people.
As the lights closed, indefinite shapes became defined, and he realized
that the shapes enveloped by the lights were actually living beings. They
seemed to be propelling themselves forward with some sort of propulsion
device, which Theokkos found wildly unfamiliar. The light itself seemed to
be the means of propulsion itself, and while the light enveloped all of the
beings, it was the most concentrated in the area directly behind their
backs, where it gently pulsated, almost waved, as the branch of trees
shudder softly in a light breeze, or blades of grass fan under a wave of
air, or...or...
Wings. Theokkos' mind became as sharp as the most pointed spear or
sword as his thoughts and observations coalesced into realization. Wings.
Insectiod wings. Almost dragonfly in appearance. Transparent dragonfly
wings that pulsated from within the ghostly light that encompassed their
bearers. He noticed the sleek designs of their armour, the gentle shapes
that seemed to blend endlessly into their halos of light that ringed their
bodies. He wondered...he looked again, focusing...he knew...
Eldar.
It was undeniable. The beings approaching him were members of the
decadent Eldar race. Theokkos' blood boiled as his previously felt awe
turned to lustful rage, curses against the foul aliens escaping under his
breathe. He activated his commlink, and ordered the Templars to open fire
on the hated aliens as he himself grabbed for his stormbolter. As he began
to raise the ancient weapon he noticed the incoming Eldar readying what he
took to be whatever passed for a boltgun in the decadent Eldritch army, and
he then noticed that none of the Templars had answered his command to
attack. Although he was not surprised to hear no vocal confirmation, he had
yet to see any weapon discharges. Turning to chastise the Marines for their
slowness, which he saw as undoubted further proof of their unstable genetic
degeneraton, he gazed in horror as the Templars began to vanish as
specially-built vents on their armour began pumping out blackish-gray smoke,
and small detonations thrown onto the surface began kicking up clouds of
dust that covered the surface of the Silent Planet.
Looking back in acute horror, Theokkos saw the incoming beams of energy
slice towards him from the flying Eldar, whose reflective glow and dragonfly
wings gave them the deceptive appearance of mythological fairies or spirits.
And as the Inquisitor stood frozen in place, his mind reeling from the
events that had just occurred, the Marines of the Desolation Templars began
withdrawing into the growing dust storm that they had created, infra-red
sensors and pulse-detectors searching for any sign of the Eldar advancing
into the storm...
An eternity passed as the Templar waited for the dust cloud to die down.
It finally did so, the particles of dust and smoke seeming to dissolve into
the luxurious glow that bathed the entire surface of the Silent Planet.
The Eldar had long disappeared, as had Inquisitor Theokkos.
Rhadamanthys felt uneasy about the prospect of not knowing where the
Inquisitor was, and did not know if Theokkos was still living, or if the
mystical Eldar had sent his soul to the Emperor during their attack.
Rhadamanthys looked back upon the visions of the Eldar as they had been
descending towards the Inquisitor. He remembered the ethereal prescence
they cast, as if they were hollow, without form, as if they were mere
spectres in the physical realm. Looking across the luminescent surface of
the planet, Rhadamanthys realized that perhaps they were no longer in the
physical realm of material at all. He could still see the specks of light
marking the distant stars, and the inky blackness of the void betrayed no
sign of violence and bloodshed as did the haunting skies of the Immaterium,
where a man could look above and watch the heavens writhe in torturous
beauty, as individual souls were melted into a few drops of metallic rain,
or alternatively stretched thin across the hemispheres until they hung like
rays of dead light impaled by the cunning fingers of indescribable
warp-beasts. In the worlds of Chaos, the leaden depths of the Warp sank
onto the worlds with an oppressive weight, daemonic creatures and
pitifully-trapped souls pushing themselves through the iron bars of reality
and physical matter as they attempted to invade our realm, the Materium of
Man.
The Silent Planet, however, was no such Daemon World. It rolled across
the heavens as the most polished diamond slides across velvet, or the frail
words of a dying poet caresses his tongue as they are borne upon the wind.
The Void seemed to reach down and touch the very surface itself, yet the
planet was as distinct and separate as any the Commander had ever seen. The
cloud of light that enveloped the planet like a mist was both a veil that
hid it from the sea of life that surrounded it, and also itself the planet's
reality. Rhadamanthys found it hard to grasp in detail, with his enhanced
but still human mind, what his eyes absorbed and lost themselves in. To
Rhadamanthys it was as if a new perception had arose. The features of the
surface imbedded themselves into him as if slivers of the dense rock had
been shoved into his eyes and through the optic nerves. Everything was
simple and complex, empty yet heavy, substance and mist. It was as if myth
had overflowed the natural order and had willed itself into a heavenly body
of spirits and dust. He could feel the intelligence of the planet drift
through and around him, as a fire gives off pillars of smoke colour men an
ashen hue if they allow themselves to drown in it.
The Silent Planet was an intoxicant, and Rhadamanthys would have stayed
within the whirlpool of experiences that siphoned at his mind when a
sinister cloud of metallic white came into view, plowing forward from the
horizon at an incredible rate, heading straight towards the Marines.
The storm was upon them immediately. The Templars could feel biting
winds of inhuman coldness hammer against their armour. The world went white
and then faded away as what appeared to be snow fell upon them in driving
downfalls that whipped against their bodies like innumerable serpents
crawling over a dead corpse. To Rhadamanthys, and to his fellow Marines,
the world was still quiet despite the unyielding violence which the storm
unleashed upon them. The purple skin of their armour was barely visible,
and Rhadamanthys could see only the rarest glimmer of the Templars closest
to them, even those whom he knew he could touch if he only raised his hand
towards them.
Soon the storm abated, or more specifically it abruptly stopped as the
trailing end of it passed over them. They turned in astonishment to watch
the storm continue its trek across the wide expanses of the Silent Planet.
Looking around, Rhadamanthys discovered that the drifts of snow, some nearly
as high as the knee-joints of his Terminator Armour, were already beginning
to melt, and the drifts began sinking as the water evaporated into the Void,
which seemed to the Commander to have been brushed aside by the storm as if
it were a drapery, or a curtain, and was now rushing back in to reclaim its
old form.
Looking closely at the ground, Rhadamanthys discovered that as the
clumps and drifts of snow melted, they deposited more of the fine, powdery
dust that already covered the entire planet. He noticed that this dust was
rather dull, unlight as it were, compared to those which were already
deposited on the surface, presumably, as he noted, from earlier storms such
as the one he had just experienced. Before long however, the accustomed
glow of the planet began to return to the wide swath of ground that marked
the storm's path. It was as if power had been restored to a building, or to
an entire Hive, as particle by particle the surface once again became
luxuriously wrapped in the mists of light.
Suddenly, off in the distance, lights began to emerge, and like the
string of lights they had first witnessed after landing on the Silent
Planet, the mysterious dashes of radiance began rushing across the far-off
mountain range as water in a glass tube, or a celestial snake slithering
across the heavens. Rhadamanthys decided to uncover the source of them,
which he presumed to be more of the strange Eldritch creatures that had
earlier attacked the Inquisitor, and with a simple flash of his hand boarded
the Land Raider as the detachment headed towards the horizon, the metal
tracks of Imperial tanks sinking into the soft dust while leaving no visible
tracks in their wake.
Rhadamanthys peered over the final ridge of the sinuous track of
mountain that stretched from one horizon to another. In the plain beneath
rose an astounding sight. It looked like a grail, only it was the size of a
small Imperial destroyer or transport craft. The "cup" of the structure, in
fact, towered above him and his men, and he estimated the entire structure
to perhaps be close to four or five klicks in total length, with what
appeared to be additional structure buried into the surface of the planet.
Although no doors, vents, or similar devices could be seen, soft ridges two
to three times the height of a Marine branched out from the structure's
base. They looked like mounds of the strange dust that covered the planet,
apparantly raining down from roving storms that crisscrossed the planet, two
more of which the Desolation Templars had encountered since the first one,
and their general pattern suggested a natural formation, almost as if the
structure was a tree spreading roots into the soft dust.
But something within Rhadamanthys felt that they were artificial, and he
wondered what purpose they might serve. Looking back at the structure
itself, he gazed hard at the brass surface of the "grail," trying to
determine what exact purpose it served, and what he could expect to
encounter from whatever inhabitants he found inside.
Rhadamanthys surmised that this structure had been the launching point
of the Eldar raiders, and in turn readied himself as he would have had he
been assaulting an Eldritch defense point or derelict spacecraft in one of
many previous meetings with the enigmatic race. It was at that time that
the Commander felt a slight sense of unease shiver along the back of his
neck. Quickly he turned around, his cold eyes falling upon the sight of a
majestic Eldritch warrior and his retinue as they landed softly behind the
Desolation Templars' ranks.
His men spun around instantaneously, holding their fire only by
recognition that their Commander wished them to. To an outside observer, it
would have been incomprehensible as to why the Templars did not cut the
aliens down en mass, so swift and subtle was the body language of the
Chapter, developed as it was over millenia of complete silence.
The leading Eldar stepped forward, his glow pulsing with a slow, ancient
beat, barely visible to human eyes. The encompassing light seemed to shield
him from realspace, and his appearance almost seemed to mark him from a
different, perhaps higher, plane of existence. He spoke with a voice that
was strong, yet not forceful or loud, as brutish humans are wont to do when
they feel the need to be heard. To Rhadamanthys, the voice seemed to
penetrate the ethereal layer above the Silent Planet, and it travelled as if
it floated upon the void in-between them, instead of through commlinks and
static-filled channels as the Inquisitor's words had done.
"H'man...Rhadamanthys, what is your purpose upon Istaurash?"
Rhadamanthys straightened himself in surprise; not at the alien's knowledge
of his name, for he had long known of the Eldritch mind's capability of
leaching out such knowledge on its own, but for the name the alien had given
to the Silent Planet. 'Istaurash,' repeated the Commander silently; he
wondered what it meant in their silky tongue.
"H'man," repeated the Eldar, his pronunciation giving the word the
simulatenous feel of being both a monosyllabic and a polysyllabic word, "you
have descended from the inky strands of time that separates worlds. State
your purpose for becoming here on Istaurash; state your destiny h'man, so
far as you see your own threads of fate unwind from the spool that collects
them."
The face of the Eldar speaking these words betrayed a slight sense of
amused superiority, as it accepted as fact the pretense that the barbarous
creatures before him were having difficulty understanding. But beneath that
mask was a deeper sense of wondering; the Eldar could not help but look
long at the strange eyes of these men; they looked like coals of Immaterium
set amidst mortal flesh. Knowing the growing danger that faced his people,
the Eldar felt he had no choice but to accept the Marines as allies against
the struggle that was to come, and decided to delve more deeply into their
primitive minds what it was they had put themselves into.
"H'man, I am...my name, that is, is 'Desagulier.' And this, my friend,
is Istaurash, which the tongues of your race would lash out as 'The Silent
Planet' in translation. In many ways, this was once a planet, but it is no
longer such. However, we plan to divorce and cleanse it of its past, so
that once again our race knows firsthand what our heritage once was, before
the Change...the Fall...before your kind took up and overcame our glory in
those days so long ago."
"We have given siege, should it be ours to claim? Tell us our Fate,
Eldar." Rhadamanthys' voice stood on the precipice of belief and denial, of
honeyed venom and stark acceptance. Desagulier's mind was picqued by the
Commander's response, which showed neither rage nor incomprehension, yet
gave no concrete sign of where he and his race stood before the Farseer's
statements. His mind cast a shadow upon the streams of time, and like an
experienced hunter he ensnared the path needed to ensure that the h'mans
understood fully the Silent Planet, and its import.
"Rhadamanthys, perhaps you know not of our race's past, but your
Inquisitor did. He knew of our Great Fall, and the loss of our Maiden
Worlds."
"Slaanesh. Chaos. I know, I under...stand."
"You are allowed to believe so h'man, but in truth you are still frozen
upon the precipice of knowledge and ignorance.
"Rhadamanthys, the Silent Planet Istaurash is one of our Maiden Worlds.
We have abducted it from what you call the Eye of Terror, the Womb of Chaos.
We have returned it to realspace, so that the Eldar of now and the future
shall look with their own eyes upon a world that helped give birth to our
ancient kin, and us as well.
"It is hard to read your mind, h'man, and I cannot see how hardened your
heart is against this truth. But whatever it may stand, you must know that
our victory is not yet complete. At the northernmost stretches of Istaurash
lies its largest mountain. It is known to us as Warnesheth, which in your
struggling tongue is called 'Cold Mountain.'
"Within Cold Mountain is a lair of beasts beyond all that have been
encountered. They are remnants of what your kin call Hive Behemoth, a
sliver of the Great Devourer cast adrift as your kin began to lay waste to
the Tyranid armies of those times.
"But they have been made Un-Tyranic by the corruption of Warpspace, and
the wicked energies of Slaanesh, *our* Devourer, and his eternal kin, the
Dark Gods of Chaos.
"If we are to succeed in eradicating the Fallen Devourer, as it is now
the Consumer of both of our kind, then we most form an alliance. We alone
have fought, and failed, to tame Cold Mountain. Alone, the h'mans of your
army would face a similar fate. Only together do we stave annihilation and
eradicate the Great Darkness of Warnesheth. Do you allow such a
possibility, or doom us both to the insatiable hunger of the Fallen Devourer
and its countless servants?"
Rhadamanthys stared at the Farseer and its kin as he echoed the Eldar's
arguments in his head. He did not know of Tyranids ever becoming corrupt at
the fell hands of Chaos, but he did not question the Warp's ability to do
so. Still, it was the singular point of the mission where he longed for
Inquisitor Theokkos' prescence. As much as the Inquisitor was to be
distrusted, he still knew about such alien biologies and occurrences.
In the end, Rhadamanthys decided to support the Eldar of Istaurash, the
Silent Planet. He did not say so, but Desagulier knew as much from the
passionless eyes of the Commander, the formless depths of which gave forth
the unspoken affirmation of the two completely alien armies combining
against what the Farseer had deemed the "Fallen Devourer."
Rhadamanthys did not hesitate in believing a great horror was about to
unfold; he prayed to the Emperor that the Desolation Templars were allowed
to eliminate as much of the aberrations as possible before their own hunger
faded from the realm of Materium, and returned to the all-consuming vastness
of the Great Emperor himself.
The din of war would delve them deeper into the Silent Planet, and by
the Emperor's Grace they would ascend or descend upon the shedding of a
million mortal wounds.
************
In a million instances holes burned through the heavenly roof that
separates the Realm of Materium from the Realm of Immaterium, and the Sea of
Chaos poured through towards the density of material sensed by the onrushing
souls, who dimly knew it as the Eternal Planet, Istaurekk.
A great plane of energy bisected an equal plane of physicality, and in
this melding awoke the Fallen Devourer.
As a great dragon wakes from archaic sleep, so to did the Fallen
Devourer shift and stir as its Great Hunger flooded to every cell of its
body.
It was within its tomb, the Cold Mountain, and as sentience flooded into
its vast mind, so to did gnawing hunger awaken innumerable eyes in the
chilled darkness.
Far off the Fleshlings advanced, and the Hive Mind penetrated the thick
rock of Cold Mountain with murderous thoughts of blood and flesh.
Chitin unfurled, and scythe-like claws gained their edge. Hunger loomed
within their eyes, and screamed with their stomachs.
The Fleshlings began their descent. All hope would be lost.
End.
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