V2 Chapter 139: An Unexpected Arrival.
Everyone came back to themselves gradually from the white-out.
They looked at Cawl, then at Duvette. Only at this moment did it fully register for everyone present that the fight was over.
The Men of Iron stood in silence.
Their blue eyes had dimmed. Their bodies held the positions they had occupied in the last instant before the white swept through. The iron formations that had been advancing moments ago now seemed as though they had never moved at all, returned entirely to stillness.
After hearing Duvette say "your turn," Cawl said nothing for a moment.
He looked at the man in front of him.
Duvette was braced against the STC's control console, his breathing still heavy at first. But within a few breaths his condition began to stabilise, and the colour returned to his face with considerable speed.
The Major General-Commissar straightened up and looked at Cawl the way he always did.
Cawl had only seen a recovery rate like that in Astartes.
He recorded the anomaly but suppressed the impulse to ask about it immediately. There was something more important in front of him right now.
The question of what to do with this Men of Iron STC.
Cawl's optical sensors swept across the whole hall, across the silent Men of Iron formations, and across the ancient construct from the Age of Darkness that the white light had stripped clean of corruption.
A moment passed. Then he gave his orders.
"Contact the Ark Mechanicus."
"Deploy additional engineering servitors, heavy lift constructs, stasis generators, and containment arrays to the surface."
"The rock cave entrance is to be widened. The canyon is to be levelled."
"I am bringing heavy mechanised constructs into this hall."
The binary commands went out promptly.
The accompanying Mechanicus priests began execution immediately. The Skitarii repositioned their fire coverage. Servo-skulls flew toward the hall entrance, carrying Cawl's instructions outward layer by layer.
Once the orders were away, Cawl walked to stand before Duvette.
The two of them stood together in front of the vast relic of the Age of Darkness.
The fabricator had gone quiet. But its presence still put a weight on everyone in the hall. It stood there in silence, like something waiting for a new owner, or perhaps waiting for a new mistake.
Cawl examined it carefully.
It was a long time before he spoke.
"Duvette Erdmann."
"I cannot guarantee I will be able to fully analyse this construct."
Cawl's voice was even. There was no defeat in it.
"The only thing I can say with certainty is that the time required will be very long."
"Ten years. A hundred years. Either is possible."
His optical sensors moved back to the fabricator.
"This is an artefact of humanity's Age of Darkness. It involves the Men of Iron. It involves Abominable Intelligence. It involves manufacturing protocols and combat logic that have been entirely forgotten. Any hasty judgement will produce catastrophe."
Duvette fell into thought.
Guilliman was still waiting for Cawl to go and wake him.
Duvette had already worked out in his mind that he would arrange for Guilliman to be woken before Abaddon launched the Thirteenth Black Crusade. But if Cawl was held here by the Men of Iron STC for ten years or even a hundred, every timeline he had planned would need to be recalculated from the beginning.
He glanced at the cooldown status of Purification.
The next instant, an entirely internal and entirely unrepeatable string of profanity ran through his mind.
Ten years?
I might as well undo the purification and let myself reactivate it immediately.
At that moment, his tactical display changed.
At the entrance to the passage they had come through, two new yellow markers appeared.
Duvette's head came up sharply.
"Who is there?"
His plasma pistol was already levelled at the passage entrance.
"Come out."
The guards around him reacted without hesitation.
The 112th elite infantry brought their weapons up immediately. The Inquisitorial Storm Troopers locked onto the entrance. The Skitarii weapons produced a low charging sound. The Carpé household guard moved Venus behind them. Werner's smile faded somewhat.
Two figures in dark cloaks emerged slowly from the shadows of the passage.
They stopped at the edge of the hall, then drew their hoods back.
An expression of surprise that had not crossed Duvette's face in some time appeared on it now.
"Eldar!"
"What in the Emperor's name—"
"Aeldari? Eldar?!"
The reactions of those around him came in a rush.
Several Skitarii raised their muzzles. The Storm Troopers were already close to pulling their triggers. The air carried the tension of fire that was about to happen.
Just before the first shot, Duvette raised his hand.
"Wait."
This command did not carry formal authority over everyone present.
The people in the hall came from the 112th Combat Group, the Inquisition, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Carpé family. Not all of them were under Duvette's direct command.
And yet, every one of them obeyed.
Muzzles remained locked on the two Eldar. Every trigger finger stopped.
Uncertain eyes turned toward Duvette.
Even Cawl rotated his optical sensors to look at him.
Duvette narrowed his eyes and looked at the two Eldar.
"Shadowseer Sylandri."
His gaze moved to the other Eldar woman.
"And you. What should I call you now? Corsair queen? Leader of the Ynnari? Yvraine."
Sylandri's face produced a smile that was precisely what she had been expecting.
"As I thought. You perceive the threads of fate."
Duvette did not take the opening she offered. "How did you get in here? And what do you want?"
Sylandri bowed gracefully. "Human defences hold no particular meaning for us."
Her voice was soft and carried the particular quality of Eldar pride.
"We have come to request your assistance, you who are unseen by fate."
"I am asking you to help her walk the path that is meant for her."
Yvraine, hearing this, turned her head. The reluctance on her face was unmistakable.
The look she gave Duvette and the humans around him was not warm. Seeking assistance from these creatures was plainly not something she found agreeable.
Duvette's brow came together. "Say it plainly. I don't follow that."
He paused, then muttered something quieter.
"Going in circles, not making any sense."
Sylandri offered a small smile, entirely unruffled.
She looked at Duvette again.
"I am asking you to help us obtain the Cronesword."
The hall went quiet.
Sylandri's voice remained steady.
"And allow the Lady to walk toward the death she is meant to reach."
Duvette's expression became completely still.
He looked at Sylandri, then at Yvraine.
Sylandri noticed his reaction and the amusement in her eyes became more apparent.
He had understood.
"Why."
Duvette said it flatly.
"Why should I help you."
"You understand the risk in what she is describing."
Werner's gaze moved between Duvette and the two Eldar.
He had clearly followed part of this. He had also registered that the conversation had reached another order of forbidden territory entirely. Cawl held his silence. His optical sensors remained locked on Sylandri, as though he was analysing every syllable she had spoken.
Sylandri bowed once more.
"The ancient Aeldari once existed alongside the most glorious age humanity has ever known."
"We walked into ruin through an error of a magnitude that is difficult to describe, and humanity has walked a similar road."
Her gaze moved to the Men of Iron STC at the centre of the hall, then to the silent Men of Iron formations around it.
"We have seen these constructs before."
"We hold historical records concerning them."
"I can help you understand their silence. Help you read their collective awareness. Help you determine which protocols still lead toward destruction."
Her gaze came back to Duvette.
"This can help you regain mastery over them."
"Or at minimum, help you survive long enough to attempt it."
Cawl finally spoke.
"Aeldari."
His mechanical voice moved through the hall.
"You are proposing a transaction to humanity."
Sylandri looked toward him. Her smile did not change.
"I am proposing a transaction to fate."
She bowed once more, with the same elegance as before, directed at Duvette.
"This is fate's choice. It is also ours."
"What do you say?"
"You who are unseen by fate."