The three Guardians flew on autopilot most of the way back to the Reef, sleeping or resting as much as they could. The experience on Io was so deeply personal for each of them that it took a long time to be able to talk about it. When they did talk, it was about other things - how the Tower was faring, how much glimmer they'd made, upgrades for weapons and ghosts.
Nell rode in Kari's ship with Hadrian snuggled in the crook of her arm, wrapped in a corner of her cloak. Every so often she smiled down at him. He emoted a smile back. She slept, awoke, checked him, and slept again. Happiness radiated from him, and it comforted her.
As they neared the Reef, she thought to him, "You're sure cheerful."
"Talking to the Traveler does that," Hadrian replied. "All along, I've thought I was some kind of abomination. But the Traveler didn't care. It called me child of its heart. You have no idea what that means to me."
Nell lifted him and kissed his shell. "I think I do."
He brushed her face with a healing beam, a feather-light touch like a kiss. "My kind, sweet Guardian. Thanks for putting up with me."
She nestled him back in her arms. "My pleasure, Hadrian."
Kari slept a lot, too, with Neko in her lap. He slept there like a cat, his slight weight comforting. Often she would startle awake and one hand would find him. Then she dozed again, reassured that she hadn't lost him, he was still with her.
"The wizards didn't take me," he murmured sleepily to her. "I'm all right. So are you."
"I need you," she whispered. "And I need Jayesh."
Fighting alone, without a team and her husband, had been unexpectedly terrifying. So had the Traveler's words about Jayesh being as important to her as her ghost, and how if he was to develop into the man he was supposed to be, she would have to stop leading him, and let him lead her. This grated against Kari's every instinct as a Guardian and a woman. But at the same time, she desperately wanted Jayesh, wanted his love and presence, wanted his voice and quiet wisdom.
Reconciling the rebellion against his leadership and her hopeless love for him was monstrously difficult. Instead, she slept.
Jayesh, alone in his smaller ship, had nightmares about being Taken. Phoenix kept waking him up, helping him escape for a moment. But Jayesh was so exhausted, he soon slept again, and the nightmares returned.
"I thought you were over this," Phoenix remarked, studying his Guardian after awakening him yet again.
"I thought I was, too," Jayesh muttered. "After last time, when the Maw almost got me, I thought nothing could terrify me like that again. But it almost got my tree and your flower. I keep dreaming I'm back there, and the blight is consuming us, and I can't do anything but watch." He gazed out the windshield at Kari's ship, so near, yet so far away. "I think I'd sleep better if Kari was here."
But she wasn't, so he fought the nightmares all the way back to the Reef.
Madrid's ship was still anchored in its place in the rough, broken asteroid plain of the Tangled Shore. But Madrid, himself, was nowhere to be found. Their ghosts couldn't even detect Rose.
"You don't think he's dead, do you?" Jayesh said over the radio as they rode their sparrows to check in with Spider.
"I don't know," Kari replied. "Spider might know if he is. Or one of the other Guardian teams."
Spider welcomed them back, still sitting in his scrap metal throne as if he had never left. "My friends!" he said, spreading all four arms. "So glad you've returned. You come back stronger and wiser, eh? Ready to fight on?"
"Yes sir," Jayesh said. "We're also looking for Madrid, our Awoken Hunter friend."
"Ah, the one with the pretty ghost," Spider said. "He took the bounty on Mindbender yesterday. Hasn't come back. Bad news, eh? Guardians haven't fared well against Mindbender. Hiraks the Brain, they used to call him. Fallen obsessed with the Hive. Wants his own throne world, eh? What they call an Ascendant. Out there in that crashed tombship from Saturn. No Hive here until then. Hiraks got himself a brood queen, been breeding Fallen Hive. What got him locked up. Foul creature. Killing him is doing the universe a favor, eh?"
All three Guardians twitched. "That ... is one of the sickest things I've ever heard," Kari said. "How do Hive and Fallen interbreed? Aren't they separate species?"
"Probably their foul magic," Spider replied. "Still look like Hive to me. I don't pry into Hive matters. Just want them dead, eh?"
"Right," Jayesh said. "So, why is he called the Mindbender?"
Spider gave a wheezing laugh. "Bends minds, eh? Unravels them. Spins you out across the ascendant planes, puts you back together how he wants you. Bad for Awoken. Not sure if he's managed to do it to a Guardian yet."
Madrid's absence seemed to grow very heavy.
"Why don't you write that bounty down," Jayesh said, "and we'll see how we fare against this Mindbender."
A few minutes later, the two warlocks and hunter were back outside, gazing at Spider's Eliksni as they rebuilt Thieves Landing.
"I thought the Hangman was sick," Nell said. "Why is it that every single one of these Cayde-killers are depraved whack-jobs?"
"There's a reason they were in prison," Kari replied. "Neko, where's this crashed Hive ship?"
Neko displayed a map of the area, highlighting an area sunward, where the remains of a ship lay on top of the Reef, instead of being built into it.
Kari squinted. "Does that look like a piece of the Dreadnaught to anybody else?"
Jayesh and Nell looked.
"Looks awfully complete," Jayesh observed. "Spider called it a tombship."
"What's a Dreadnaught?" Nell asked.
Kari told her the story of the Hive flagship and the horrors it contained during their sparrow ride out to the crash site. By the time the ruins came into sight, Jayesh had grave doubts about whether they could accomplish this mission at all.
The ruined ship had cracked into immense fragments on impact, its towering ribs arching over them against the sky. It was made of black metal overlaid with geometric shapes. Scavengers had torn apart sections and reassembled them into walkways over chasms in the uneven ground.
Another Guardian team battled ahead of them in the distance, leaving behind a trail of dead Hive thralls. Jayesh stopped to examine one. The worm had crawled out of its chest and died, leaving the body a rapidly withering husk stretched over a skeleton.
"Looks pure Hive to me," he remarked, backing away.
"Fallen don't get their second pair of arms until they've ascended ranks," Hadrian said, floating close to Nell's left ear. "In humans, that would count as legal adulthood."
"What you're saying," Kari said, "is that we should check Hive knights and Wizards for extra arms?"
"Those kind are older," Hadrian said. As if suddenly realizing he was the center of attention, he disappeared in a swirl of light particles.
"You know," Kari said, "I don't think I care that much. I want them all dead."
Jayesh's ghost popped into view, his red and yellow shell gleaming brightly. "Hey ... I'm picking up Rose's signal." He spun in a circle, trying to pinpoint it. "Do you guys hear it? I can barely track it."
Neko and Hadrian appeared, too. Their Guardians waited in suspense, watching as their ghosts scanned.
"I can't get a lock," Neko said. "They're either underground or in that ship somewhere."
They all looked at the biggest piece of the ship looming to their right like a great cracked metal building.
"Sure, looks fun in there," Nell said. "Why not?"
"Rose being alive is a good sign," Kari said. "I'll take point. You ghosts lie low."
The three robots vanished. The Guardians lifted their weapons and cautiously approached the ruins.
Disconcertingly, orange lights glowed dimly far back inside. As they picked their way into the most likely-looking entrance, their feet squelched in the Hive filth that filled their lairs - shed carapace, droppings, bones, rotting carcasses, and the occasional larvae. The glow came from a series of crystals where the Hive stored energy - orange, in this case.
Kari didn't look at them. Her previous husband had been drained and his Light captured in a purple crystal for easy Hive consumption. She had shattered his crystal herself. As they crept deeper into the ship, she became hyper aware of Jayesh's position, and a ferocious protectiveness reared its head within her. She'd lost Rem to the Hive, but she wouldn't lose Jay.
Something snarled up ahead, unfolding themselves from the piled filth. Hive thralls ran toward them on all fours, eyeless, their faces nothing but teeth.
Kari blasted three of the aliens, and her teammates shot four more. They pressed on in grim silence, leaving the corpses to join the piles of decay on the floor.
"Rose's signal is getting stronger," Phoenix told them. "We're going the right way."
"This place is gross," Nell muttered. "I know I'm wearing a helmet, but I don't want to open my mouth or I might taste it."
"Don't," Jayesh said. "You're making me gag."
They rounded a corner and almost stepped in a nest of thralls. The aliens leaped up with shrieks and snarls, clawing and biting. The Guardians shot the ones they could and fought the rest hand to hand.
When the last thrall had been destroyed, Nell said, "I've decided that I don't like Hive."
"Join the club," Kari said, pressing on.
"It's a large club," Jayesh added. "All the Guardians are in it."
"Except Toland," Kari said. "Traitor Guardian who didn't quite die and wants his own throne world."
"Why would anyone want this?" Nell said, gesturing at a huge worm slithering through a pile of nameless refuse against the wall.
"As best as I understand," Jayesh said, "it works like this."
More thralls and a Knight attacked them, the Knight swinging a bone sword with a deadly sharp edge.
Jayesh talked and fought at the same time. "The Hive religion is the Sword Logic. Kill and grow stronger. They pass some of the power from every kill higher up the food chain. The guys at the top get all that power. The ascendants and gods and such." He blasted the Knight with a handful of fire and got thrown into the wall for his troubles. "And so," he gasped, "the top guys make ... their own worlds. With no Hive crap in them."
Nell threw a knife that embedded itself in the Knight's neck just as Kari roasted it with lightning. The Knight collapsed with a string of guttural sounds like curses.
"You're telling me," Nell said, retrieving her knife, "that the Hive operate on a pyramid scheme?"
"Yep," Kari said shortly, helping Jayesh to his feet. He held her hand a fraction of a second longer than necessary as they studied each other's faces through their helmet visors.
Are you all right? his expression asked.
Kari nodded and forced a smile.
He patted her shoulder comfortingly and lifted his pulse rifle.
Nell watched them and gave an exaggerated sigh. "You two are so cute."
"What?" Jayesh said, grinning. "You didn't see anything."
"Always looking after each other like that," Nell replied. "Just like a sitcom."
"Hear that, Jayesh?" Kari said. "We're sappy as one of those terrible Golden Age videos."
"Not everything was golden in the Golden Age," Jayesh agreed. "Let's get out of here. Phoenix, you still tracking Rose?"
"She's very close," Phoenix replied. "Down that left-hand tunnel, I think."
With Kari again in the lead, the fireteam followed the signal. As they drew closer, they began to hear snatches of Rose's voice over their radios.
"They can't do this ... get up, get up ... Traveler, send help, I can't ... Madrid! Please don't!"
"Rose?" Kari called. "Madrid? Can you hear us?"
"Kari?" Rose exclaimed. "Did you bring the whole fireteam? Please say you did."
They rounded a corner and entered a huge room with only a little sludge in the corners. The walls were black metal, with pillars cut in harsh geometric lines, stately and imposing. Jayesh had the distinct impression he'd walked into a bank.
A gang of Hive acolytes leaped out from behind the pillars and showered the team with burning plasma bolts. The team scattered for cover, returning fire, the chatter of their weapons echoing off the metal walls in an ear-splitting cacophony.
The acolytes put up a good fight, but eventually the Guardians cleaned them all out. As they emerged from cover, panting and looking for further enemies, Rose said, "Can - can one of you help me?"
They looked around and saw Rose lying on the corner of a pillar buttress ten feet from the ground. Her golden wire shell was crushed out of shape, and her blue eye flickered.
There was no sign of Madrid.
Jayesh leaped and flew through the air in a warlock glide, scooped the ghost up, and floated to the floor. "Rose," he murmured as Kari and Nell gathered around him. "What happened to you?"
"That Mindbender guy," Rose replied. "He started singing one of those awful Hive songs. Not a deathsong. One of the control ones, I think. Madrid couldn't fight it. He lured Madrid through that portal over there. But before Madrid crossed over, he knocked me away. I think it was to save me. But he did it so hard that I hit this pillar. I've been here ever since."
Their three ghosts converged on Rose and poured healing Light into her, mending her core and components. After a moment she floated into the air, a little off balance because of her dented shell.
"Madrid's still alive," she said with conviction. "But the Mindbender is hurting him." She phased from sight, followed by her brother ghosts. "The portal's still open at the far end of the room."
The team crossed the long, narrow room, straining to see through the gloom. At the far end was a dais three steps high. Above it, a black portal shimmered and wavered, creepily similar to the way a Taken moved.
Jayesh halted. "We have to go through that?"
"It's a gate to the Ascendant Realm," Kari said. "Keep your wits about you, you two. This is another dimension, and the beings who live there can change it at any time to suit them. Regular people die and Guardians go mad."
"Is there Light?" Jayesh asked in a small voice.
Kari shook her head. "Only what you take with you."
Jayesh tightened his grip on his rifle.
Nell lifted her hand cannon. "An evil dimension of insanity, check. Madrid's prisoner in there, check. The alien in there killed my Vanguard, check. Let's kill him back."
Without waiting for Kari, Nell leaped up the steps and vanished into the portal. Alarmed, Kari and Jayesh sprang after her.
Reality whooshed around them, dragging at their flesh, as if reluctant to let them through. They landed in a vast space with something like lightning flickering in the distance. The floor underfoot was solid enough, made of what resembled stone blocks slotted together in random geometric shapes. Pillars ringed the space, apparently made to support a roof that didn't exist yet. Black fog drifted across the space, but Jayesh glimpsed a huge throne on the far side. A being was seated on this throne, and a single figure bowed before it, huddled on his knees.
"Madrid," Rose whispered. "What's he done to him?"
Nell sprinted across the throne room-world, pistol held high. Kari and Jayesh followed.
Kari didn't mind what her senses told her were in this throne world. Pillars, floor, fog, lightning, all that existed in reality. It was what her senses weren't telling her that bothered her. The sense of infinity, that if she stepped off this tiny platform, she would fall through nothing until she died of starvation - or something devoured her. The distant not-lightning illuminated constantly changing shapes that she was careful not to look at too closely. In the back of her mind, she worried about how the Ascendant Plane would affect Jayesh.
As they neared the being on the throne, he rose to his feet and extended a hand toward them. He was a sixteen-foot Fallen, but he had clothed himself in Hive chitin until he resembled one of their wizards. His four eyes glowed with malice. Instead of speaking to them, he sang.
His voice was deep and clear, melodic as a bell. The song was in a minor key, tragic and stirring at once.
Kari shouted across it, "Madrid!"
The hunter crouched on the ground, arms wrapped around his helmet, trying to shut out the sound.
But the Mindbender stepped between the Guardians and their companion, hand still upraised. His song took on a commanding tone.
Kari, Jayesh and Nell slowed to a halt. Kari fought to aim her submachine gun at the alien, but her arms wouldn't work. The barrel stayed aimed at the floor as if pulled by a magnet. The music burned into her brain, compelling, all-important.
"Kari, fight it!" Neko cried. "Don't listen!"
Nearby, Jayesh struggled the same way, shaking his head and fighting to raise his rifle. But the Hive magic was too strong, here on the Ascendant Plane, where the Mindbender ruled as a god. Worse, there was no Light to reach for. Only the void of outer darkness.
Nell stood stock still, as if the music had already subdued her. Her pistol and knife dangled at her sides, and she stared at the alien as if hypnotized.
The Mindbender smiled as he sang. He reached into his robe and produced a long, jagged sword of black metal. He focused on Kari and swirled the blade in circles, pointing at her heart.
"Kari, he's summoning me," Neko gasped. "Don't let him, please! Please!"
Kari tried to struggle, tried to resist the song, but her brain was full of it. She couldn't remember how to fight.
A shimmer of blue particles began to swirl at the end of the sword, dragging Neko out of phase. One quick thrust of that blade and he would die ... and then so would Kari.
Suddenly Nell bellowed, "ON TOP OF THE TOWER, ALL COVERED WITH BLOOD, I SHOT ME A FALLEN WITH A FORTY-FOUR SLUG!"
Her voice was so tremendously off-key, the song so irreverent, that the Guardians woke up a little. Kari mentally yanked Neko away from the sword. The blue particles vanished. The Mindbender glared at Nell, increasing his volume. The song beat into Kari's head.
But Nell wasn't finished. "I WENT TO HIS FUNERAL! I WENT TO HIS GRAVE! BUT INSTEAD OF FLOWERS, I THREW A GRENADE!"
And she threw one at the Mindbender.
The alien's song faltered. He leaped to one side, but the grenade caught on the hem of his robe and exploded.
The three Guardians spun away from the explosion, the song driven out of their heads by the concussion. Madrid went tumbling against the foot of the throne, where he slowly sat up, still clutching his head.
The Mindbender struggled to his feet, limping badly, trailing blood and corrupted ether from beneath his robes. Panting, he snarled at his enemies and began a new song - a dragging, forbidding song that seemed to reach inside them and tear at their souls.
"Deathsong!" Phoenix cried. "Don't listen!"
"Hadrian!" Nell yelled, "play Dragonforce!"
The opening strains of Through the Fire and the Flames blasted across their radios at full volume, drowning out the deathsong and all communication.
Kari lifted her submachine gun and blew chunks of chitin armor off the Mindbender, interrupting his singing. He pulled a huge rifle from beneath his robes and returned fire, no longer trying to sing.
Jayesh was laughing, although nobody could hear him over the blast of speed metal. He drew on his new super power, produced a fiery sword from nowhere, and slammed it into the stone floor.
Light exploded into being in that dark place, burning from a wide circle on the ground. The fiery sword blazed in the center like a beacon of life. Long ribbons of Light radiated out from it to empower each Guardian who stepped into the circle.
Jayesh raised his pulse rifle and hammered the Mindbender. The alien hit him with blast after blast from the huge rifle, but each shot dissipated as it reached the warlock, absorbed by the Light sword.
Kari and Nell ran to Madrid, grabbed his arms, and pulled him toward the circle. He stumbled with them, still covering his head, his legs barely able to hold him. Once he crossed into the circle, a beam of Light touched him. He slowly stood up, his strength seeming to return. He turned to face the Mindbender, drew his scout rifle, and aimed carefully at the alien's eyes.
The high-caliber bullet tore through the Mindbender's head in a gust of ether. The alien jerked, the eyes darkening, and collapsed to the floor.
At once, the throne world roared with terrible wind that scrubbed away the stones and pillars, blurring them sideways.
Hadrian shut off the music. "This world is destabilizing! Get to the portal!"
Jayesh's healing circle vanished. They turned to Madrid, reaching out to help, but he waved them off. "I'm fine! Let's go!"
The four ran back across the dissolving pavement toward the black, wavering portal. The ground sucked at their legs like mud, trying to slow them down. More un-light flashed across the sky, illuminating enormous shapes creeping toward them.
They piled through the portal just as the throne world spiraled into the nether with a rending shriek. Something snapped shut behind them - jaws that were not jaws.
Then they were on the other side, back in the wrecked Hive ship, which felt astonishingly safe and normal.
The four stood there, breathing heavily, not speaking. Finally, Nell held up a piece of broken chitin a foot long. "I tried to grab the helmet, but it fell to pieces. This was all I saved."
"It'll work," Madrid said. He slung his scout rifle over one shoulder and summoned Rose. She appeared over his cupped hands and gazed up at him through her dented shell. Madrid ran his fingers over the dent, slowly and regretfully. Then he began bending the wire back in place.
"What happened?" Kari asked him.
"Got me with a damn song," Madrid said. "I had just enough brain left to leave Rose here. Hit her harder than I meant to." His voice dropped. "I'm so sorry."
"It's all right, love," she whispered.
His team watched him repair his ghost, awkwardly wondering what to say.
"What was he doing to you?" Jayesh ventured. "He had you all ... curled up."
"Trying to take over my mind," Madrid said shortly. "Nearly pulled it off, too. I fought him for every inch and he still almost got my spark. If he'd killed Rose like he wanted, I'd have had no defense at all." He spoke to his ghost again. "I felt you fighting for me. Giving me Light. Thank you."
She scanned his face. "I wish I could have done more."
He let her float into the air once more, her wire shell mostly back in shape. He looked at his fireteam. "And thank you for coming back. I honestly didn't think you would." He set off into the Hive ship without another word, and they followed him.