The Mysterious Attendant

Over the following standard days, Chen Xi and his mysterious attendant settled into a new pattern of life within the fortress of the Rock.

They were relocated to quarters near the archives and the Librarium, with their permitted range of movement expanded slightly, though they remained under close surveillance at all times.

Assigned to "accompany" them were Sergeant Camille and two other rotating Inner Circle guards. These warriors were taciturn, like mobile surveillance devices, recording their every move.

Their examination of the archives proceeded under an intensely oppressive atmosphere.

They were not brought into the central archive vaults, but into an auxiliary section known as the Hall of History.

Most of what was stored there consisted of myths and legends from the age of the Caliban Knights, epics praising the heroes of successive Chapters—whose contents had clearly been heavily embellished and abridged—and records concerning Caliban's flora and fauna, as well as its ancient customs.

There was not the slightest trace of records truly concerning the Horus Heresy, the destruction of Caliban, or the ten-thousand-year hunt that followed.

Chen Xi patiently leafed through these seemingly insignificant scrolls and data-slates. His gaze passed over lavish illustrations of knights battling monstrous beasts as he read hymns rich in rhetoric yet empty in substance.

He did not truly expect to find direct answers here. Rather, through the information he was permitted to access, he sought to discern the image the Dark Angels wished to present to the outside world, as well as the outline of the truth they sought to conceal.

From time to time, he would speak quietly with the attendant beside him, pointing out contradictions in certain legends or deliberately blurred points in time within certain accounts.

The cloaked figure mostly listened in silence. Occasionally, she would extend slender, pale fingers to