Hidden within the Webway, shielded from the physical universe by layer upon layer of dimensional membrane, there was a place that most who knew it existed chose not to name directly.
The Dark City.
The description was insufficient. Commorragh was not a city in any sense that the word had been developed to contain. It was the accumulated territorial ambition of an entire species expressed in architecture, in conquered Webway space, in the annexation of ancient satellite realms and orbital structures that predated the current civilization by ages it had stopped measuring. Countless ports connected to narrow passages connected to hidden conduits that linked space stations, ancient vessels, and captured stellar geography into a single impossible organism. Seen from a favorable angle within the Webway itself, Commorragh looked less like a city and more like an infection in the Webway's arteries: patient, pervasive, and extending tentacles through every accessible passage toward every corner of the physical universe. A Webway gate anywhere in the galaxy was potentially a door to Commorragh's reach.
An old gate, in a peripheral district of Karmor that had not seen recent use, hummed to life.
Two Kabalite agents in an adjacent shadow startled at the sound, turning from whatever they had been doing to look at the gate with the reflexive attention of predators responding to unexpected movement.
"Twist." One of them straightened, wiping something dark from her lip with the back of one hand and retrieving the Splinter rifle from where it had been discarded on the floor beside her. "Has that gate been inactive for years? Why is it activating?"
"Delma, I couldn't tell you." The other one was already on their feet, adjusting their armor. "Wandering Eldar who tripped a beacon, maybe. Or a Kabal team returning from an operation. Either way: could be credit in it for us. Come look."
They moved toward the gate with the cautious ease of creatures who were not accustomed to encountering anything more dangerous than themselves.
At seven meters, a hand came through the gate.
It was armored in iron-gray ceramite, and it was holding two stasis grenades.
The grenades left the hand in separate arcs, bouncing off the floor twice each, and detonated in a silent bloom of frozen light that locked both Kabalite agents in place mid-step.
A figure stepped through the gate.
The power armor was iron-gray, the surfacing fine and well-maintained in the way of someone who had been wearing it for a very long time and had developed strong opinions about its upkeep. A cloak hung from the shoulders: white lining, deep red beneath, the hood drawn back. Two weapons rested in carriers on the power backpack, sword-shaped, one of them producing the faint hum of an active power field.
Lord Cypher walked out of the Webway gate and looked at the frozen Kabalite agents with the expression of someone who had arrived in a complicated situation and was taking a moment to appreciate not being shot at immediately.
"Remarkable." He said it with genuine feeling, as a man who has recently been somewhere considerably worse. "Living creatures with coherent faces. Do you know how long it has been? The Eye of Terror is not a place that encourages the regular sort of encounter. Nothing there thinks in straight lines. If it weren't for the fact that the inner ring's contingent has been pursuing me with particular enthusiasm, I would not have taken the Webway route through here at all."
He drew the power sword from the carrier on his back, unhurried.
"Unfortunately."
The blade found both frozen necks in a single clean motion. He returned it without looking back.
"The main business outside has become considerably messy." He sighed. "What am I even doing here? Well." He set off into Karmor's interior passages at a walk. "The Dark Eldar are about to have a difficult period. Lord Cypher does not choose his timing. His timing chooses him."
The Webway gate in a different district of Karmor opened with a quiet ripple of dimensional displacement.
Twelve Terminators came through first, Lamenters and Carcharodons spreading across the receiving space with immediate practiced efficiency, bolters and assault cannons moving to their sectors before the displacement had finished crackling at the air around their plate. The room was large, stone-floored, the ceiling high enough to accommodate them without difficulty. The décor was Dark Eldar: bone and crystal and the studied aesthetics of a species that had spent its entire history refining cruelty into a formal category.
Nolan stepped through behind the Terminators with Tyberos at his shoulder. The hunting team followed.
Utak had come through last. His expression, suppressed during the days aboard the Gray Shark, had been reassembling itself since the moment the Webway gate had opened: something returning to its resting position, the particular ease of a creature back in an environment its psychology was designed for.
"My Lord Primarch. Welcome to Commorragh." He spread one hand with a host's gesture that landed slightly wrong given the circumstances. "This is my private villa. In Karmor, trespassing on another's territory is considered legal grounds for any response the owner chooses. We will not be disturbed here."
The thermal device embedded in his back sent a faint metallic gleam through the fabric of his shirt where it rested against his spine.
Nolan looked at the room, then at Utak.
"I will remind you once more. If at any point you attempt to deceive us or arrange any kind of interference, the heat of a molten bomb does not distinguish between Dark Eldar and Primarch." He let that sit for a moment. "I want to be certain you understand this before we discuss the next step."
"Lord Primarch, I understand it with perfect clarity. I would not attempt it under ordinary circumstances, and I would certainly not attempt it with a thermal device in my body and a Primarch in the same room." Utak's smile had returned: smooth, practiced, the social tool of something that had lived among apex predators long enough to learn how to produce it on demand. "I beg you to proceed."
"The Archon. Tell me how to reach him."
"Archon Ilu Limnu of the Pierced Rose." Utak's expression shifted, the calculation behind it becoming briefly visible. "He has lived for a time that makes my own years appear as an afternoon. He has exhausted most categories of experience and stimulation available in this city. Very little interests him now. But the Void Stone you are seeking has become one of his greatest prizes: he would not have promoted me to lead a combat team on the strength of that delivery alone otherwise."
He paused.
"There is a safer approach and a riskier one. The safer approach: allow me to present the two mortal specimens to the Archon as a transaction. Their bloodline has specific value to him. In exchange, he provides the Void Stone. I can facilitate the transaction without you needing to appear at all. It is effectively guaranteed to succeed."
He watched Nolan's face.
The expression on it was not readable, exactly, but the quality of the silence that followed was specific.
"That method is not available," Nolan said. The words were flat and final and not particularly loud.
"Ah." Utak recovered smoothly. "Then the riskier approach. The Archon learns that two mortals of this bloodline exist and are accessible. The desire that knowledge produces in someone of his appetites will override his caution, regardless of whether he chooses to act on it or not. He will act on it. We position ourselves around that certainty." He leaned forward slightly, the expression of someone who has found their footing. "He walks into the trap we have set. We take everything we came for. And if I happen to have the Archon neutralized by this process, my position in Karmor becomes considerably more comfortable."
The fire in his eyes when he said Archon neutralized was the first thing about him that had been entirely genuine since he had walked into the hall three days ago.
"Show me the details," Nolan said.
Utak began to speak.