Locum Ignotum Chapter 7

The local archive was a quiet and unobtrusive place, set well away from the edge of the town's centre. It was a long hall, with a slate roof and plain glass windows. Inside were long lines of shelves, with dusty books set in orderly rows. The entire place was meticulously clean, well swept and the windows gleamed.

Arvael noticed all these details as he stepped through the wooden doors and looked about the deserted space. As usual no one was about, for being the centre of learning of this civilisation he had noticed that few people ever came here. Musings on philosophy and histories of places they would never see held little interest next to the pressing business of growing crops and arranging marriages for the next generation.

Arvael stepped inside, his Mark IV plate humming smoothly as he wandered past rows of books. This small library was a humble affair compared to the great Librarium of his own Chapter but he had found several interesting pieces among the collection. Tomes written during the Great Crusade and even earlier, histories of the Unification Wars, a time the current Imperium held to be proto-mythic. Arvael had taken several of these items back to his ship, for serfs to copy and add to his own Chapter's archives.

He wandered down the centre of the library and soon heard the sound of a brush sweeping. Sure enough he spied Samandriel ahead, cleaning the floor with a stiff brush. It was a humble duty, below an Astartes' dignity but he didn't seem to mind. Somehow Samandriel made everything seem noble, even the humblest of acts. There was a modest wisdom to him, one that gave him grace beyond measure. Arvael had once commented that Samandriel could have won immense glory in war, to which he had smiled and said that he was content with a good book. It was that very indifference to the trappings of majesty that lent him a nobility all its own, one greater than mere acclaim or tokens of triumph could ever bestow.

Arvael coughed discretely and Samandriel replied, "I know you're there, let me finish first. A task half-done is twice the work."

Arvael waited as Samandriel cleaned the aisle and then set his brush aside. Arvael looked at the fair Astartes and then held up a small tome and said, "I came to return your book."

Samandriel took the book and said, "What did you think?"

Arvael replied, "Very revealing, the Unification Wars are a lost age to us. This information will be prized by my Chapter."

Samandriel inspected the spine of the book and commented, "You didn't find it a bit… bombastic?"

Arvael frowned and said, "No, I thought it was very factual."

"Really?" asked Samandriel in surprise, "The critics of my age thought it was pure hyperbole. Tales about armies of darkness and skies splitting, the earth spewing forth monsters and such forth."

Arvael shook his head and said, "Sometimes I forget that you have missed so much, that you have not seen what the Ruinous Powers have done to the galaxy. The things they can do defy belief; nothing in that book surprised me."

Samandriel sighed and said, "That is a sad tale, when Chaos first emerged we were stunned, perhaps if we'd been warned earlier… but no. It wouldn't have made any difference, despite what some say, we could never have been ready for that."

Arvael changed tack and said, "Do you have anything else to read?"

Samandriel eyed him and said, "You should ask the question you really came here to ask."

Arvael paused and then said, "You are perceptive, very well. I have scryed this entire construct and found there is indeed no way out."

Samandriel blinked and commented, "That was fast, it took me a century to come to the same conclusion."

Arvael waved a hand dismissively and said, "The Menhirs, they are the key. The energy matrix they spread is the bedrock of this place but I can't find the font it flows from. I've looked everywhere but the power source eludes me."

Samandriel paused and then probed, "You've looked everywhere?"

Arvael answered, "Yes."

Samandriel was quiet for a long moment, making Arvael nervous and then he said, "Did you look in the pit?"

Arvael froze in shock as he realised that he had not in fact looked down there. That strange crater that they had seen on arrival, ringed by the docking towers. This was bizarre, it should have been an obvious place to look but somehow it had slipped from his mind. That shouldn't be possible, his mental defences were potent but it had still happened. He examined his mind and found no evidence of tampering, no missing memories but somehow the pit had become unimportant to him, not absent merely unnoticeable.

Samandriel nodded and said, "Subtle isn't it, how it just fades from the mind. You don't forget it's there but somehow it never seems significant."

Arvael swallowed and said, "I must explore it immediately."

Samandriel nodded and said, "Of course but I should come with you, I can hasten your learning."

Arvael drew upon his power and it was but a moment's effort to slip free of his corporeal form, to send his vision flying free. Arvael sent his vision floating over the land feeling the presence of Samandriel beside him. He adjusted his perceptions to view Samandriel as a physical presence and he became a shining star, not blinding merely a light in a dark night. In turn Arvael imagined himself as a great bird and his ethereal form changed to match, spreading immaterial wings to soar over the land.

Samandriel's voice came to his mind, "Your skill is advanced, scrying comes easily to you."

Arvael replied telepathically, "I will never get used to how calm the Warp is in this place, so placid and neutral."

Samandriel replied, "I surmise this is the Warp's original state, how it would have existed in the ages before the first primates stood upright on Old Earth."

Arvael queried, "What evidence do you have for that?"

Samandriel answered, "You're about to find out."

Together the pair approached the docking towers, the Thunderchild a nest of glowing motes as the souls within it went to and fro. Below it yawned the great pit, miles wide and impenetrably black, even to incorporeal eyes. Arvael found himself reluctant to go in there, almost like it was forbidden. This wasn't any kind of barrier or ward he recognised, merely a suggestion that whatever was in there would rather be left alone.

Arvael pushed past it and sank down, circling ever lower into the depths. Samandriel followed, his light dimming in the unnatural gloom. Arvael perceived that the walls were lined with glyphs, shimmering with power and he said, "The empathic energy is strong here, these regulate the flow of power."

Samandriel replied, "They do far more than that, they are also ideas given form, philosophical memes and a written language all in one."

Arvael paused and said, "That is impressive."

Samandriel said, "A superior mind can operate on multiple levels, holding conflicting ideas in harmony. Using multiple dimensions to think at a level beyond our primitive understanding."

Arvael didn't like the way he was talking, admiring the Xenos minds that had wrought this place, but he asked, "What do they say?"

Samandriel answered, "They appear to be a record of history, speaking of an age so long ago we can't fathom it. Life was rare in that time and the Warp was calm, a realm of peaceful contemplation and indifferent entities. The glyphs speak of a race arising whom made it their mission to spread life, to seed the galaxy with other forms of intelligence."

Arvael had never heard of such a thing and said, "Who were they?"

Samandriel elaborated, "It's hard to say, their self-identity seems to be bound up with their creations, they only speak of themselves in reference to the races they nurtured. The closest translation I can find is 'First Beings' or 'Earlier Organisms' though I prefer the term 'Old Ones'."

As they sank lower Arvael asked, "What did they want?"

Samandriel explained, "The glyphs recount how the Old Ones spread across the galaxy. Using a combination of quantum beacons and site-to-site teleportation, which they eventually refined into a Webway of interdimensional tunnels. Everywhere they went they encouraged the development of life, seeding new races across the stars. The galaxy teemed with new races and then it all went wrong. The Old Ones met a hostile species, who it is claimed could not die."

Arvael felt the darkness pressing in and hastily guessed, "They went to war."

Samandriel agreed, "The glyphs tell of a war beyond comprehension. The enemy unleashed weapons that could kill stars and technologies so advanced they resembled magic, legions of undying metal men led by terrible Star Gods. The Old Ones responded by forging new, more violent species, creating living psychic doomsday weapons and self-replicating warrior races. Ultimately the war unleashed forces too terrible for the universe to contain, the fabric of reality itself was perverted. The Warp was devastated in the firestorm, changing into a malevolent and hostile realm that harboured an actively malevolent force, a Primordial Annihilator. The War in Heaven: everybody lost."

Arvael felt a terrible pressure building and a looming sense of dread as they descended and he whispered, "There's something down there."

Samandriel ignored him and continued, "Both sides were forced into retreat, the undying enemy sinking into a bitter slumber. The Old Ones however were a dispassionate race at heart and recognised that they had lost, so most of their kind accepted death and lay down to die. The rest fled the galaxy entirely, intending to start again somewhere else. But there was a small dissident faction who disagreed, they wanted to fight on. They believed that in time all other life would be scoured from the stars and they could reclaim all that they had lost. These few isolated a section of their Webway and inside created a refuge to hide from the calamity, a place to ride it out in secrecy until the time was right to emerge."

Arvael felt something stirring in the pit and cried, "Samandriel!"

Far below there was movement, an enormous sense of empathic power washed over them as something immense turned a fragment of awareness towards them. Arvael felt a mind fix him in its gaze, so cold and so alien that he had no common frame of reference to attempt to communicate. It was ancient and vast, eclipsing his understanding in every way. It was as far beyond him as he was beyond a mayfly, pondering notions that could encompass whole worlds and thoughts that would take a dozen lifetimes to complete. It had seen races rise and fall, over and over and it had barely noticed them, humanity was nothing but a brief spark of candlelight in its eyes. It was mighty, it was ageless and it was screaming in agony.

"They're alive," Arvael gasped and then he was retreating as fast as he could. He fled back to his body, flying like a shooting star as he sought the safety of his bones.

Arvael opened his eyes and found he was drenched in sweat, breathing hard as if he had just fought a battle. He gasped in horror and spat, "The Old Ones... they're still here."

Next to him Samandriel awoke, seeming equally weary and said, "Yes, I'm not sure if it is one guardian or some form of group mind but they still exist."

Arvael gasped, "They're in agony…"

Samandriel nodded and said, "The Pain Engine I call it, some form of psychic amplifier. It is the generator of the empathic power that sustains this place, its very heart. As long as the Old Ones remain here this place remains inviolate… you see now why we can't leave."

Arvael gasped, "They could obliterate us all without even noticing, I'm not sure they even comprehend us as anything more than insects."

Samandriel stated, "We dare not interfere with the mechanisms that sustain this place, the loss of even one Menhir might compel the Old Ones to act."

Arvael understood the scale of the threat. If the Old Ones were given cause to stir then there was no telling what might happen. The Imperium could not fight such a foe; there was no possibility of resisting such power. Arvael stated, "I understand now, the Old Ones could obliterate us all without even trying. We're truly stuck here."