Into the Silent Planet

by Jeffrey Arp

This is the first story of a new trilogy that I have written. Once this is finished, stay tuned for its sequel, "That Hideous Strength"

"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.

(THE END)

(to be continued in the second story if there's the demand <g>)...

-Midwest

Story copyright 1999 Jeffrey Arp. (jeffwood@teknetwork.com)

individual copyrights of certain armies and trademarks held by Games Workshop. No challenge to these properties is being made by the author.