Atlas Infernal

The Atlas Infernal is an ancient Imperial tome dating from before the Horus Heresy. It is an organic, adaptive map of the Webway and also a psionically-negative (blank) item that radiates null Pariah energy when opened.

Ownership
Sometime after the Horus Heresy the volume was taken by Harlequins and was deposited in the Black Library's Wraith Tower where it was considered perhaps its most dangerous (to the Eldar) item. Millenia later, in late M41, it came to the possession of Inquisitor Czevak, its current owner.

Description
It is a bulky but extremely lightweight volume with covers made of burnished, golden, astonishingly resilient metal with a strange sheen. They are engraved with ornate illustrations and markings in High Gothic, honoring the Terran Unification Wars. The book is held together by 3 clasps of the same metal and its spine houses an elaborate pumping mechanism that sighs rhytmically as it feeds oxygen to its pages.

However instead of pages there is a stacked panel of golden frames, each of which is supporting a piece of Pariah flesh stretched to transparency. The flesh is alive thanks to the oxygen fed by the pumping mechanism. Its visible arteries, capillaries and veins are a representation of the Webway. By some unknown process, they can reconfigure to show the "reader" routes to desired destinations. The skin itself can change flesh tone depending on conditions likely to exist in the route.

Because of its null properties, the book radiates discomfort even to non-psykers. It disrupts any nearby psychic field and can be deadly to psychic entities (it has claimed several Eldar lives). Paradoxically, the book's adaptable-mapping ability indicates some sort of telesthesiac or telepathic ability which would ordinarily imply that it is also psychically active. Even Czevak, with his superior intelligence and vast knowledge could not explain this.

History
Czevak had read extensively about lost or forbidden human history while at the Black Library. He knew that for centuries before the Heresy, an army of specialist Mechanicus Adepts (Magi Ethericus and their Artisans Empyr) were building the Emperor's most secret and vital project: the Imperial Webway. They were protected by companies of Custodians, and while building the transdimentional tunnels, both were warded by the presence of squads of Sisters of Silence.

Primarch Magnus's catastrophic visit to the Imperial Palace in M31 as the Heresy was taking form, caused irreparable damage to the project and destroyed the force's way back to Terra. Their only way out was through the hostile and uncharted Eldar tunnel network. The humans constructed an Atlas of their wandering, naming it Atlas Infernal. The Mechanicus crafted the pumping mechanism and used donated plate armour of Custodians to create the covers and interior frames. One or more Sister of Silence presumably willingly sacrificed herself to build the flesh pages. The Magi Ethericus, by some unknown process, then bestowed the "pages" with adaptive ability.

After taken by the Harlequins, the book remained in the black Library for millenia, but it was never opened by the Eldar because of its dangerous nature to psychic beings. In late M41 the Guardian-Scribe Adara-Ke gave the Atlas to Czevak so that he could escape the Library, and also committed suicide opening it. Czevak used it to escape, and has since frequently utilized it to traverse the galaxy, evade pursuers and thwart opponents, especially his prime enemy, the Chaos Sorcerer Ahzek Ahriman. Ahriman actively seeks the book, though it is unclear how he hopes to deal with its Untouchable properties. Czevak also used the volume to resist a pursuing Harlequin troupe, which was seeking both the book and his death, killing a Shadowseer with it, and injuring others.