Watching the psyker dissolve into a mound of fine ash, Axion rotated his mechanical chassis to face Guilliman.
"First, I must breach the Webway, Guilliman. Securing the Emperor's personal journals is the prerequisite for the activation of our new protocol."
Guilliman carefully folded the discarded robes and held them with solemn reverence.
"To tear open the Webway requires the aid of the Aeldari. It may be necessary to seek out one of their factions and broker a trade."
Axion shook his head.
"The husk on the throne. I detected Webway energy signatures within that chamber. Entry should be possible there."
Guilliman shook his head in immediate, visceral alarm. He knew exactly what Axion was suggesting. The Emperor sat upon the Golden Throne specifically to seal the catastrophic breach in the Webway located directly beneath Him. To enter through that gate would require the Emperor to abdicate the Throne, an act that would result in His final death.
After Guilliman explained the reality of the Emperor's internment, Axion did not press the matter. While he could not reconcile the Emperor's state, a paradoxical existence as a living corpse, he harbored no desire to inadvertently slay a Creator-entity, however complex its current composition might be.
As for the Webway, a detour was of no consequence. If necessary, Axion would fill every fractured segment of the galactic labyrinth with his own mechanical frames.
From the data harvested thus far, it was clear that the passing millennia had eroded the Aeldari just as surely as they had humanity. In the era of the Federation, the Aeldari had been shielded by belief-entities known as 'gods,' manifesting a vast array of supernatural capabilities. Now, that paradigm had shifted. Were the Aeldari still at the zenith of their power, they, not humanity, would be the hegemons of the galaxy.
The Federation had conducted exhaustive evaluations of Aeldari strength. Their methods of warfare, bizarre and logically opaque even to the Creators, had been a source of deep frustration. Specifically, their precognitive abilities had forced the Federation's Iron Men to expend vast amounts of resources; the xenos always seemed capable of pinpointing and striking at the precise moment of structural weakness.
On the open battlefield, however, the Aeldari were ephemeral. The Federation's primary combatants were not humans, but the Cybernetic Legions of the Iron Men. Even if a legion was shattered, the Aeldari would eventually be driven back. The wreckage would be reclaimed, smelted, and reforged to return to the front.
The Aeldari had no such luxury. Even the most marginal loss contributed to their irreversible demographic decay. As the intensity of the conflict escalated, the Aeldari, unable to sustain the attrition, had eventually opted for a peace treaty with the Creators. Since then, the relationship between the Federation and the Aeldari had been one of stable, if friction-filled, peace.
Regarding the modern Aeldari, Axion was certain they no longer possessed the capacity to endure a war of attrition against the Iron Men.
While Guilliman began contemplating how to contact Yvraine to secure a Webway gate, Axion was already filtering local space for the nearest Craftworld.
Segmentum Solar was the Imperial heartland; the Aeldari would never linger there. In Segmentum Pacificus, the Tyranids had only just been repelled, and the xenos' movements remained obscured. Segmentum Tempestus was a quagmire of Aeldari corsair activity, with lightning raids followed by total disappearance into the void.
Only one Craftworld appeared consistently in the Imperial records for Segmentum Obscurus: Alaitoc.
Numerous Imperial fleets had engagement records with Alaitoc; its operational theatre was relatively defined. Intelligence further suggested this Craftworld was locked in a protracted conflict with another xenos power, the Necrons under Imotekh the Stormlord.
Axion recalled his previous visit to the Adeptus Administratum archives. Information he had then deemed tertiary had not been fully archived, only indexed. It was time to return.
"I must return to the archives to track the Aeldari's movements, Guilliman."
Guilliman did not object. "I will accompany you. But once we have what we need, you must depart Holy Terra."
Axion offered no rebuttal. He stowed the key into the compartment that had previously held the Aeldari spirit stone and followed the Primarch toward the nearest exit.
The Custodians watched the silver reaper depart with Guilliman, a collective shadow of relief passing through their ranks. They had no desire to repeat the day's humiliations.
In the wake of the breach, a massive contingent of Imperial Fists was mobilized for a project dubbed the Terra Defense Augmentation Initiative. The Custodes even summoned Tech-Priests from the Iron Hands and Dominus-class overseers from the Legio Cybernetica as consultants.
However, after Trajann Valoris, swallowing his pride, showed the consultants the pict-thief footage of the machine dismantling forty Custodians, himself, and a Dreadnought, the room fell into a tomb-like silence.
The final consensus: If the enemy possessed even a small force of such caliber, conventional defense upgrades were futile. The only viable strategy was to rig the Palace with a world-ending tectonic charge to erase the intruder along with Terra itself, should the need arise.
…
Returning to the archives, Axion pushed open the heavy doors with practiced ease. But a scent, unnatural and sharp, clung to the stale air.
"Blood?"
Axion's environmental sensors easily isolated the anomaly. Guilliman, entering a step behind him, identified the copper tang instantly, mingled with the reek of sulfur and charred meat.
A detail Guilliman had previously overlooked suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind: a mortal clerk of the Administratum had spoken the name of a Warp-entity without hesitation.
"Cursed be their souls," Guilliman hissed. "From this day forth, no Imperial servant, not even the Ecclesiarchy, is permitted to wear hooded cowls!"
The clerk's face had seemed normal, but the shadows of the hood could have hidden any number of taints.
The two raced into the subterranean levels. The stench grew suffocating. Profane runes were carved into the masonry and floors, wet with fresh gore. The stacks of scrolls Axion had previously perused were soaked through; a small cairn of skulls sat atop a heap of parchment, surrounded by headless corpses.
Whirrr-clack.
The sound of mechanical servos echoed. The Logis Guilliman had encountered previously stepped out, staring in feigned surprise at Axion. The cog-and-skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus upon his robes had been defaced into the sigil of the Dark Mechanicum.
"An unforeseen variable."
"Roar! Priest, what are you prattling about!"
A gutteral howl erupted from a side passage as a twisted silhouette emerged. The creature was semi-daemonic, wielding a jagged, barbed blade. Bony protrusions tore through its flesh and robes alike. Guilliman recognized the creature's core, it was the clerk.
A long, bifurcated tongue flicked from a maw of needle-teeth, dripping with sulfuric bile.
The Dark Tech-Priest suddenly lunged toward the daemon, snatching an ornate, strange amulet from its neck before attempting to bolt into the depths of the archive.
Axion was faster.
While the "Red-Robes" of the Imperium were currently protected by the protocol, heretics were fair game. With a flash of his golden blade, the priest was hewn into four pieces.
Axion caught the amulet before it hit the floor, but the artifact abruptly shattered. A geyser of blue energy erupted toward the ceiling, accompanied by a mocking, discordant laugh that vanished into the air.
As Axion turned to look at Guilliman, the Primarch was holding the daemon's severed head, staring at the dissipating blue light with a face of grim recognition.
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