Looking closely at the ground, Rhadamanthys discovered that as the clumps and drifts of snow melted, they deposited more of the fine, powdery dust that already covered the entire planet. He noticed that this dust was rather dull, unlight as it were, compared to those which were already deposited on the surface, presumably, as he noted, from earlier storms such as the one he had just experienced. Before long however, the accustomed glow of the planet began to return to the wide swath of ground that marked the storm's path. It was as if power had been restored to a building, or to an entire Hive, as particle by particle the surface once again became luxuriously wrapped in the mists of light.
Suddenly, off in the distance, lights began to emerge, and like the string of lights they had first witnessed after landing on the Silent Planet, the mysterious dashes of radiance began rushing across the far-off mountain range as water in a glass tube, or a celestial snake slithering across the heavens. Rhadamanthys decided to uncover the source of them, which he presumed to be more of the strange Eldritch creatures that had earlier attacked the Inquisitor, and with a simple flash of his hand boarded the Land Raider as the detachment headed towards the horizon, the metal tracks of Imperial tanks sinking into the soft dust while leaving no visible tracks in their wake.
Rhadamanthys peered over the final ridge of the sinuous track of mountain that stretched from one horizon to another. In the plain beneath rose an astounding sight. It looked like a grail, only it was the size of a small Imperial destroyer or transport craft. The "cup" of the structure, in fact, towered above him and his men, and he estimated the entire structure to perhaps be close to four or five klicks in total length, with what appeared to be additional structure buried into the surface of the planet. Although no doors, vents, or similar devices could be seen, soft ridges two to three times the height of a Marine branched out from the structure's base. They looked like mounds of the strange dust that covered the planet, apparantly raining down from roving storms that crisscrossed the planet, two more of which the Desolation Templars had encountered since the first one, and their general pattern suggested a natural formation, almost as if the structure was a tree spreading roots into the soft dust.
But something within Rhadamanthys felt that they were artificial, and he wondered what purpose they might serve. Looking back at the structure itself, he gazed hard at the brass surface of the "grail," trying to determine what exact purpose it served, and what he could expect to encounter from whatever inhabitants he found inside.
Rhadamanthys surmised that this structure had been the launching point of the Eldar raiders, and in turn readied himself as he would have had he been assaulting an Eldritch defense point or derelict spacecraft in one of many previous meetings with the enigmatic race. It was at that time that the Commander felt a slight sense of unease shiver along the back of his neck. Quickly he turned around, his cold eyes falling upon the sight of a majestic Eldritch warrior and his retinue as they landed softly behind the Desolation Templars' ranks.
His men spun around instantaneously, holding their fire only by recognition that their Commander wished them to. To an outside observer, it would have been incomprehensible as to why the Templars did not cut the aliens down en mass, so swift and subtle was the body language of the Chapter, developed as it was over millenia of complete silence.
The leading Eldar stepped forward, his glow pulsing with a slow, ancient beat, barely visible to human eyes. The encompassing light seemed to shield him from realspace, and his appearance almost seemed to mark him from a different, perhaps higher, plane of existence. He spoke with a voice that was strong, yet not forceful or loud, as brutish humans are wont to do when they feel the need to be heard. To Rhadamanthys, the voice seemed to penetrate the ethereal layer above the Silent Planet, and it travelled as if it floated upon the void in-between them, instead of through commlinks and static-filled channels as the Inquisitor's words had done.
"H'man...Rhadamanthys, what is your purpose upon Istaurash?" Rhadamanthys straightened himself in surprise; not at the alien's knowledge of his name, for he had long known of the Eldritch mind's capability of leaching out such knowledge on its own, but for the name the alien had given to the Silent Planet. "Istaurash," repeated the Commander silently; he wondered what it meant in their silky tongue.
"H'man," repeated the Eldar, his pronunciation giving the word the simulatenous feel of being both a monosyllabic and a polysyllabic word, "you have descended from the inky strands of time that separates worlds. State your purpose for becoming here on Istaurash; state your destiny h'man, so far as you see your own threads of fate unwind from the spool that collects them."
