Editing Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk (section)

==Additional Background Section 22: The Uncle and The Wandering Knights==

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''I awoke from fitful slumbers in the crystal halls, to find I had written... this. The stylus was in my hand, the nip dipped in my veins. I wrote this is blood, but the interface seems to have transcribed it all the same into the chronicle. Am I writing this chronicle, or is this chronicle writing itself, using me as a puppet? I know not, and dreams of the Draziin-maton still plague my sleep. Will their relentless advance ever cease?
''
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He is no god, but wanders where gods may. He is a hushed whisper amongst bombastic legends; he determined it would be so. If I was not guiding the hand of this scholar, it is likely he would never have mentioned this figure at all. His title was first spoken in the chronicles of the Grey Knights, as a figure playfully referred to by the Apex Twins, who seem to be his allies. There are other accounts, such as the fevered dream-quests of the Fenrisian Priest Karnos; the ‘cousin-father’ who plies the vagrant web, snatching away heroes in their desperate hours of need. He saved the Sisterhood of Elusive Blades from certain destruction by the Bloodtide swarm, as it quenched the Far-Veil system, and drank the entire civilization dry. His minions were key to turning the tide in Vaxenhide, when it looked as if the dark eldar were going to torture and murder the entire populace. 

It was he that crashed the floating basilica of Ceylan into Sirius B, killing a future Tyrant in its infancy. He was the rumored ‘confidant Primus’ of Vulkan’s diligent minion Imogen, who herself gathered information and tried to right the wrongs of the murderous galaxy.

His story and that of the Custodians and Grey knights also seem eternally intertwined across the sporadic, galaxy-spanning narratives of this history. As previously iterated, the Custodians and the Knights followed the Apex Twins into the webway, escaping Titan with the Emperor’s desiccated corpse in tow.

The Apex twins chattered to each other and the Grey Knights with excitable glee. How they knew their way through the webway was unknown, but it is said they followed a ‘trail of psychic breadcrumbs, left by a kindly entity’. The Custodians and Grey Knights would be utterly lost without their guidance, so they allowed themselves to be led.

At one point, the Twins stopped the Knights in their tracks, calling for quiet and a halt. When challenged they simply stated.

“It is not their time yet. Their destiny is the past. We aren’t allowed to fiddle; Uncle would be upset if we did.”

As they said this, the Grey Knights watched the webway thread ahead. An entire army of orks stumbled through the webway, arguing and grunting at each other like beasts, as their trucks belched fumes that fizzled against the webway’s runic defenses.

“Dun’t touch nuffin’, ya hear me?” their commander growled at them. This was the infamous Mad Uruk; the scourge of Armaggedon. Several grey Knights had to be restrained from obliterating the warlord as he passed by. The brawling orks did not notice them, and wandered off into another intersection, and another time. For the labyrinth dimension was a maze of both time and space, which twisted both into unknowable patterns.

Onward they trekked, and it soon seemed that they had left realty forever. Their ancient armor was still in tatters; their swords were broken, their bodies worn and weary, and only their glimmering powers remained undulled over the long millennia. Who would require the aid of these ancient, weary souls, they wondered?

As they wandered, they came across a mysterious figure, armed with twin pistols. He hailed them in the manner of a vassal to a king, with perplexed the Grey Knights. The Apex twins seemed suspicious of the figure, but he was painted in the colors of the Dark Angels, so the loyalists eventually accepted him, and allowed him to travel with them for a while. As they walk, the figure told them tales of what had happened to the universe while they were trapped upon Titan. He spoke in half-truths and with vague answers. Even when asked his name, he replied ‘My name is merely part of the greater cipher he must solve.’

“Uncle’s?” the twins asked expectantly. The figure (we know him as Cypher, so I suppose his cryptic answers bear some truth...) did not reply to them. When they tried to fish the answer from his mind, they were bombarded with further questions. He never resisted their powers (it is unlikely anyone could), but his mind was encoded and locked away in riddles and mysteries. The Twins grew bored of puzzles, and soon turned their attention back to leading the Knights to Uncle. 

Occasionally the group would pass by webway portals, invisible to outside observers. They saw endless wars through hundreds of time periods across many ages. Most were battles between creatures and people the Knights had never seen; never known.

However, at one point, they passed a terrific battle, where they saw their old foes, the Necrons, surrounding and slowly slaughtering a brave band of Space Wolves, led by a screaming giant with a mighty grey bear that dangled from his terminator armor, as he wielded a mighty axe; the famous axe Morkai. The wolves were as battle-weary and worn as the grey Knights it seemed, and the Knight Master demanded they help the wolves. Cypher refused, arguing they were fated to die. The twins petulantly stamped their feet, saying ‘We’ll be late! We want to go home NOW!’; only the formidable psychic powers of the Knights preventing their tantrum from dissolving the bodies of everyone in the tunnel. The Knights refused to leave; they’d not come another step with either marine of alpha plus unless they could help the Wolves.

With a weary sigh, Cypher carved his way into the materium, leading the Space Wolf survivors into the webway too.

The Space Wolves followed Cypher reluctantly, but grew more certain of their course of action once they saw the Grey Knights, who nodded to the Astartes solemnly. Their leader, Grimnar, was not amongst the survivors. Morkai was now wielded by the Long fang known as Brynisson.

Together, the strange band of battered figures moved through the capillaries of the webway like starving pilgrims, following the capering footsteps of the Apex Twins.

The surviving Grey Knights, Custodes and their confused Fenryka allies traveled the webway for many centuries, dialing back the years like an hourglass spinning on its fulcrum, until they reached a chamber, unexpected amidst the strange alien geometries of the labyrinth dimension; a disheveled little chapel, floating slowly through the capillaries of the system. It was filled with all manner of strange scholars; aliens and men, young and old. Some men wore the silvery uniforms of those who came before the first great Strife, while other men looked like horrendously scarred battle veterans clad in converted mining equipment with picks and drills.

Relictors sneered at the passing Grey warriors, but kept their cool as they sharpened blades or read furiously through black tomes. Damned Legionnaires of the Fire Hawks, remained as inscrutable as they were ethereal, shifting in and out of corporeality even as the newcomers observed them. Pre-Unification Thunder Warriors sparred in halls of carved teal and polished ivory. Mechanicus and strange little men in cloaks of white (''near mythical cultists known as ‘scientisks’, if my translations are accurate'') argued furiously behind forcefields, as otherwise the Machine Cultists would kill these Logician-like figures. The chapel was smaller on the inside, but it seemed to branch off into newer chambers, beyond the scope of the outside facade. The planes of the webway intersected to remove chronology, making the realm the one timeless place; the singular spot where all existence span around them like a top. The Custodes and Grey Knights followed them. For once their destiny was unknown to them.

The throne was stacked high with books on all sides, like a monument to literacy. To the right, a tall, perilously slender figure stood, glowering blue orbs shimmering in its head. To the left of the throne, a harlequined man with a weary smile sat pouring over the texts, while a stern old man aimed a short shotgun at the newcomers. Upon the throne itself sat a man; he flickered in an out of existence, as if he were a mere hololithic projection.

“Lord Cypher, what brings you here? You were not part of my design,” the strange apparition on the throne asked gently, like a kindly old man. The Apex Twins rushed to the foot of his throne and sat upon the steps of tomes, looking to the flickering image for approval. He smiled at them and made them chuckle.

Cypher replied with a self-satisfied smile. “A mere quirk of the journey. Your protégés would not come to you if I had not brought these wolves. You owe us a debt, if anything.”

“And where is your sword? The Lion Sword, that was re-forged? The sword you slew the God-Emperor on Terra with?” the figure replied simply. His voice was perfectly charming and utterly harmless.

The Custodians tensed as they heard this. Only the Chief custodian seemed unperturbed by this new knowledge. The Space Wolves and Great Knights were not listening; they could only stare in disbelief at the flickering figure.

Cypher’s smile faded. “Stolen, alas. The Crypteks wield powerful sciences. It could not be avoided. But the sword served its purpose. It has triggered off a course of events that will see the Mirror Devils rise up, the Yngir too. Then, they will destroy each other. The acuity’s visions are flawless in this regard.”

In response, the flickering image simply shook his head disappointingly. “As ever, your visions are narrowed by your ignorance. There are competing prophecies, dueling across the stars now. You have been drawn into the two dazzling tricksters and their games. The two liars have been playing their factions for longer than you know. As apocalyptic as this seems, this is only the beginning. Your master is wrong to assume his role is done now.”

Cypher replied with a curse from old Caliban, before he vanished in a swathe of conjured shadow. 

After several minutes of mute awe, the Knights and the wolves finally found their voices once more.

“What... what are you? Maleficarum? How can you exist?” Brynisson muttered.

The figure spoke softly. “In a sense, I do not exist... yet. But this place; this specific place, permits me to. Honored Grey Knights, you seem concerned?” he gestured with unreal hands towards the Master of the knights, who pulled his helmet free.

“This is impossible! Impossible! What are you?” he hissed angrily.

The figure laughed. “Who and what I am would be exceedingly complicated to explain. But judging from your expressions, you may call me Revelation. Now; I believe I left a box under your care daemonhunters. A great many lives depend upon the information contained within,” the being replied matter-of-factly.
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