Eris Morn only had two nightmares attending her when they climbed the hill to the Cryptoglyph. As they approached, Eris looked up from a stack of tattered papers covered in handwriting. "Toland's journal," she said, lifting the papers. "He embraced the song of the Deathsingers to transcend this plane. His death was not my fault." She looked at the two remaining nightmares. "Perhaps none of it was my fault."

"Can you enchant your own gear against the nightmares?" Jayesh asked.

Eris gazed at him a moment, her three eyes studying him from behind her mask. "I have considered it, but … I believe that seeking resolution for each specter is proving more effective." She carefully laid the pages aside. "However, you must have protection to fight effectively. Your helmet, warlock."

The essence Eris drew from Jayesh's nightmare door was dark red, like old blood. "Fear," Eris said, gathering it into the basin. "Much fear. You have experienced horrors recently."

"Yes, ma'am," said Jayesh. "My family was attacked. In the Tower."

Eris drew a breath through her teeth. "Your fear is understandable. Yet, one cannot live under such a shadow without becoming crippled. Such fear will fester into paranoia. Cast it out, warlock. Replace it with love. Be free."

When Jayesh put his helmet on, he stood straighter than he had since he'd arrived on the moon.

Madrid stepped forward and offered his helmet. "I'm not sure I have a nightmare anymore. I haven't seen any following me around."

Eris looked at him closely, then scanned the area. "Is that yours?"

Madrid didn't look and didn't answer. The nightmare resembling Jayesh had vanished. In its place, another had crept along behind him for some time, the one that Madrid refused to acknowledge. It had the exact shape of Prince Uldren, complete with a bullet hole in its forehead.

"Bring it close," Eris said.

Madrid didn't move.

Eris blinked at him. "I cannot harvest its essence if you do not face it."

Slowly, Madrid turned his head and glanced at the nightmare out of the corner of one eye. He jerked his head at it. The nightmare drifted forward, trailing black smoke, its face stretching in a ghastly grin.

"Your hand struck down the Awoken Prince?" said Eris. When Madrid didn't answer, Eris muttered, "Fascinating." She raised her hands and muttered an incantation, drawing the black smoke off the nightmare. She gathered it into the basin and swirled it around. "Guilt," she murmured. "Devouring, poisonous guilt. Oh my, Guardian. This will destroy you if you do not address it."

"Just … enchant the helmet and get it over with," said Madrid.

Eris's three eyes studied his face for a long moment. Her face held a strange expression-partly of apprehension, partly of compassion. She turned her attention to infusing the essence into the helmet, but her chanting voice was low and thoughtful. The blackness shrank together and flowed into the helmet's plating, leaving behind a sheen of green light that slowly faded. Eris handed it to Madrid. "That will protect your mind from unwanted invasion. But you must guard your heart. Deal with the root cause of your nightmare in order to banish it."

Madrid walked away before she finished speaking.

"I'm so sorry," Silvan said, horribly embarrassed. "He's-he's got some issues."

"His problem is not with me," said Eris. "Nor mine with him. Help him talk about it, warlock. He must admit that a problem exists before a solution can be found."

Silvan nodded and sighed.

Jayesh stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Ms. Morn?"

Eris turned to him. "Yes?"

"The Hive are amassing under cover of the night shadow," said Jayesh, pointing at the horizon. "They'll be here in another day. I also suspect that Zulmak and Hashladun will make a reappearance then, too."

"Yes," said Eris pensively. She gazed at the darkening horizon, then turned toward the Scarlet Keep in the distance. "I feel Hashladun's hate. But it is also … abstracted. She is focused. Preparing a ritual, perhaps."

"Yes," Jayesh said. "So, I wanted to ask your advice about a plan of attack."

"Speak, then," said Eris, gazing at him.

Jayesh glanced at Silvan, then pointed at the keep. "I want to blow it up."

"The keep?" Silvan said incredulously. "Or just the army?"

"If we bring the building down," said Jayesh, "it will kill everything inside. I'm gambling that even Zulmak can't handle a whole castle falling on him. We could also kill the entire Scarlet Hive leadership in one blow. The army out there would have no one to lead them. I think they would scatter."

"You think big," said Eris. "I appreciate a Guardian who thinks beyond the sights of his rifle. But how will you do it?"

"That's the weak point in the plan," Jayesh confessed, looking down. "It's a big place. If we could get our hands on a couple thousand pounds of explosives, we could do it, no problem. But I don't know how to get any."

Silvan's Ghost, Bramble, appeared in a flash of blue Light. "I know how we could do it. But it would be very risky."

Everyone looked at the Ghost in his purple shell.

"I'm a fighting Ghost," Bramble explained. "I can pilot any piece of machinery our enemies have ever built. I spent centuries studying. To my never-ending disgust, that includes the biomachinery the Hive use."

"What biomachinery?" Silvan asked.

"You think the piles of crap everywhere are just litter?" Bramble said. "They decompose their own droppings and corpses to produce organic compounds and gasses that they use for energy and food. You've seen those orange crystals they store energy in. They're always in those piles of crap. If you can collect, oh, a thousand pounds of crystals, I and the other Ghosts can break them down and convert them into explosive compounds. But we don't have a lot of time. Night is coming. And night on the moon lasts for weeks."

Silvan stared at her Ghost in a sudden surge of hope and pride. "You could really do that?"

He turned to her, spinning his shell fiercely. "Remember Twilight Gap? I've gotten better since then. But we need lots of crystals, plus time to convert them, plus time to plant the bombs. It will take all the Guardians on the moon to pull this off."

"Right," said Jayesh. "Eris, any thoughts?"

Eris favored him with a rare smile. "I will continue to enchant gear for everyone. The Hive must not read your intent."

"Right." Jayesh summoned Phoenix. "Send a message to every Ghost here. Tell them the plan and what we need to do."

"Right," said Phoenix. He turned to Bramble. "Teach me, sensei!"

"Explosives manufacturing class, 101," Bramble replied. "Be there or be square!"

Word quickly spread among the Guardians on the moon. First to approach was Madrid, who had been standing a few yards off, surveying the shadows in the distance. Now he walked up with a grin. "We're taking down the keep? I like it. What's the plan?"

"Collect materials, first," said Silvan, watching other Guardians headed toward them. "Hold on, I need to explain to everyone."

Jin showed up next in his battered armor, carrying a tire on one shoulder. He dropped it and casually caught it as it bounced. "This your plan, Silvan?"

"His," Silvan said, nodding at Jayesh. Jayesh was pretending to be very busy reading his Ghost's holographic interface.

"Whoever's it is, I like it," said the Titan. "Just enough crazy to keep it intriguing." Jin clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Let's go harvest Hive crap."

Other Guardians approached with questions and cheers. Several of them had Ghosts who knew how to synthesize explosives. Soon everyone had found their teams or joined existing ones. The Guardians scattered toward the entrances of the underground Hive dens or the Hellmouth, shouting challenges to each other.

"Let's get going," Silvan said to her team.

They exchanged fistbumps, then mounted their sparrows and took off toward the Temple of Crota.

"Madrid, love," said Rose in the Hunter's head.

It was a quiet moment between fights in the shadows of the underground temple. The other Ghosts were busy breaking down and storing orange crystals from a pile of Hive refuse. Rose was the only one still hidden. Phoenix had transmitted his entire payload to her, so she was keeping it safe for him. Rose hated showing herself, anyway.

Madrid was standing guard, watching out one doorway as Jin covered the other. Hive screeched in the distance, but the other Guardian teams were keeping them distracted. Rose took the opportunity to speak to her Guardian.

"Yes, Rose?" Madrid thought.

Rose hesitated. "I've been thinking. About that nightmare."

"Yes?" Madrid's mental voice chilled.

Rose had to go about this topic carefully, indeed. Their agreement had always been to never, ever bring up Uldren.

"Well … I don't understand why he's a nightmare. We saw him. I thought you had made peace with it."

Madrid's automatic hostility abated a little. She felt him thinking about it in the privacy of his mind, where she didn't go.

"Lots of reasons, love," he thought at last. "You saw the essence."

"Guilt?"

"Yes."

Rose waited in silence, giving him room to speak.

"I'm not sorry I killed him," Madrid thought at last. "I suppose there could have been a better place and time. But he was a twisted bastard who needed to go down."

Rose felt his conviction on this point. Uldren had killed so many of his own people for no discernible reason. He'd been a madman.

"Why the guilt, then?" Rose asked.

Madrid showed her a series of snapshots from his memory. Newly resurrected Uldren teaching Jayesh to dance. Gazing around the Dreaming City with wonder in his eyes. Watching him step through a portal into the Ascendant Realm. And the last memory, itself tinged in nightmare red. This was the source of the guilt and the nightmare. Rose felt the weight of it, the dragging self-condemnation in Madrid's heart.

"That's why," she said wonderingly. "That's why the nightmare was Jayesh and Uldren."

"Yes," Madrid thought, locking it away in the depths of his mind again. "Because of me, horrible things happened. And I … could only stand by and do nothing, because of my sentence."

"You can make amends now," Rose whispered. "Jayesh is here. And Uldren is alive."

"Nobody knows where he is."

"I could find him," Rose replied. "I know his Ghost."

"Later," Madrid thought. "If we survive this crazy attempt to smash a building. I don't even have a ship anymore. It's not easy to track someone across the system with no transport."

A couple of Hive acolytes rounded the corner and spotted Madrid. A short firefight ensued. Once the aliens were dead, Madrid added, "We'll talk about this some other time, Rose. I promise."

Rose assented with a small glow of happiness. Her Guardian seldom promised anything, because he always kept his word. Maybe they could resolve this and lay the nightmare to rest.

The team finished harvesting crystals and moved on, hunting for that tell-tale orange glow. Other Guardians sent messages by their Ghosts, relaying how much crystal they had gathered and where they were working. Madrid stood guard as his team searched and collected. But his eyes ached and burned, and his limbs felt slow and heavy. His sniper rifle was a burden on his shoulder or in the crook of his arm. How many days and nights had he been awake? He'd had one short nap after the Hellmouth, and that was all. The nightmare did not permit him to rest.

He didn't acknowledge it, but the Nightmare Uldren Sov weighed on his mind. Perversely, it was Uldren as he'd looked after resurrection, still with a bullet hole in his forehead. His guilt made out that he'd killed the Guardian as well as the madman.

He didn't think about it. He intentionally held that single NO as a shield in his mind, preventing the nightmare from whispering to him. But the guilt was fossilized inside him, exposed by the pyramid.

A cheer rang across the Ghost network. The Guardians had collected enough crystal and other sediments. Everyone returned to the camp to dump their collections and begin building explosives. With a couple hundred Guardians working together, the job had been accomplished in less than two hours.

As the team headed for the surface, Madrid noticed Silvan walking with her head down and arms crossed, as if favoring a wound. He touched her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Silvan shook her head. "Hashladun is hammering me. Trying to find out what we're doing." Her voice was quiet, strained. "My defenses aren't great right now. I'm afraid I'm leaking thoughts."

"Focus on something stupid and let her see that," said Madrid. "Tell her about clothes. Not even armor. Just clothes and shoes and hair styles."

Silvan's helmet turned toward him, managing to look accusing. "Clothing styles aren't stupid!"

"They are to the Hive. Load her up."

Silvan bowed her head again. As they stepped into the sun's slanted sunlight, Silvan said, "It's funny. The more I send her images of beautiful things, the angrier Hashladun gets. It's like … she wants to be beautiful and she can't."

"Battle of ladies' vanity?" Jin said, walking behind them with Jayesh. "Sounds vicious. Next thing you know, the Hive will declare war on fashion."

Silvan laughed. As they summoned their sparrows, she added, "That did it. Hashladun is so disgusted, she stopped attacking me. But now my head hurts."

"Healing for you, then," Jayesh said, drawing Lumina. He fired a ball of Light at Silvan. She flinched as it burst across her shoulders, then sighed and tilted her head back. "That feels so good. One more time?"

Jayesh blasted her again, then holstered his gun. "How do you feel?"

"Headache's almost gone," Silvan said, mounting her sparrow. "It freaks me out to see you just casually aim at me like that."

"It does everybody," said Jayesh. "Right after I built it, I ran with an unfamiliar fireteam. I healed one guy and he turned around and shot me dead. Not my proudest moment."

The team laughed about this all the way back to camp. There, Silvan let Bramble take over.

"All right!" the Ghost exclaimed, opening and closing his shell as if flexing his muscles. "Jayesh, may I borrow your tarp? Thanks. Silvan, spread it out, and everyone, dump the Hive crystal here. That's the way. Who picked up the barnacle crust? Over here, perfect. Now, I know somebody found wormspore. You there, you have it? Put it here, carefully. Ghosts, gather around. Here's the instructions for fabrication."

Dozens of Ghosts flocked to the piles of materials. They all examined a blueprint Bramble projected, then set about transmatting materials into their cores. Their Guardians watched, warily.

Silvan sat on a rock, pulled off her helmet, and rubbed her temples. Madrid sat beside her, and Jayesh sat on her other side. Silvan felt surrounded and very safe all of a sudden. She sighed and relaxed, closing her silver eyes.

"Hey, Jay," said Madrid.

"Yeah?" said Jayesh.

"How long did it take to train as a Sunsinger?"

Silvan opened her eyes and looked at her friends. Madrid had an intent expression.

Jayesh looked surprised. "Oh, a couple of months. It took a while to recover from losing my Dawnblade like that."

Madrid nodded, as if this was perfectly reasonable. But behind him, the nightmare of Uldren Sov lifted its head with a jerk and drifted closer. Silvan extended her mind to Madrid, trying to read him. To her surprise, his mind was open, almost unguarded. Talking to Jayesh about this was important, somehow.

She turned her head and sensed Jayesh, too. He was easy to read: genuine, friendly, eager to help. But he was guarded, too, curled inward ever so slightly. He didn't like talking about this. Or maybe he simply didn't want to tell Madrid about it.

"You seem adept at it, now," Madrid said. "I didn't know you could sing."

"Neither did I," Jayesh admitted. "A friend tutored me. I've been learning to play guitar, too."

"No kidding?" said Madrid, arching an eyebrow. "I guess the Sunsinger thing changed everything."

"I guess it did," said Jayesh. He looked down. Silvan sensed him closing himself off, for some reason. But Madrid stayed open. Neither of them said anything, though. Curiosity began to get the better of her.

Silvan asked, "How did you lose your Dawnblade, anyway? All I ever heard was that there was an accident in the Ascendant Realm."

Jayesh nodded. Outwardly, his expression didn't change. But inside, he recoiled in a burst of pain and horror. For a second, a gaping wound appeared inside him, leaking blood and Light, a wound he hadn't protected because he hadn't expected the question. He withdrew into himself like a turtle into an iron shell, clamping the doors shut. It was so sudden and visceral, so unexpected, that Silvan gasped. Hot tears stung her eyes.

"You know what, I don't want to know," she said, jumping to her feet. "I'm sorry, Jayesh." She hurried away across the camp, leaving Jayesh and Madrid staring after her. She hid behind a rock outcropping and mopped her face, allowing herself the luxury of a sob.

Bramble noticed. He left the crowd of Ghosts and Guardians and joined Silvan in her hiding place. "What happened?" he asked gently, flying close to her left cheek. "Why are you crying, star-child?"

"I was probing Madrid and Jayesh," she whispered. "They were having a weird conversation. Then I asked a question and Jayesh just … closed down. He's bleeding inside, Bramble. It was like a scream went off inside him. I shouldn't have asked. I wish I hadn't."

"What in the world did you ask him?" Bramble said.

Silvan gulped, remembering the sense of his agony. "I asked what happened to his Dawnblade."

Bramble's pupil shrank to a pinprick. "Why would you ask that? Don't you know what happened?"

"No, I don't."

"You don't?" Bramble shook his head. "Silvan, it was eaten out of him by undead Riven. All us Ghosts know. His Ghost has threatened every other Ghost and Guardian with death and dismemberment if we bring it up."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she cried in a whisper. "I'd never have asked! Light and Darkness, Bram!"

"I thought you knew!" Bramble exclaimed. "You're such a fangirl, I thought you knew all about him and what he did."

"I knew he saved those Corsairs from the time loop," Silvan sobbed into the sleeve of her robe. "I knew he changed disciplines afterward, but I just thought-I just thought he was awesome like that. Riven-Riven really-I didn't know she could-I thought she was dead!"

"Ahamkara don't really die," Bramble said. He sighed. "What am I going to do with you, Silv? Here we're on the edge of a really big battle and you have to go do this. Stop trying to read people."

"It's a bad habit," she said, wiping her eyes over and over. "I'll never be able to look him in the face again."

"There's a shock," said Madrid, very dryly. He'd walked up, unnoticed, and stood leaning his elbow against the rock Silvan sheltered behind.

Silvan jumped. "Madrid! How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," said the Hunter. "Look, it's all right. Jayesh said he didn't mind you asking. He'll tell you the story, if you want to hear it."

"Oh no, I couldn't," Silvan exclaimed, aghast. "I felt him, Madrid. He's all hurt inside. I couldn't bear to listen to him tell it and-and feel that inside him."

"And you wonder why Hashladun's got your number," said Madrid, rolling his eyes. "Defend your mind, Silvan. Once we set foot in the keep, they'll be tearing at our minds, trying to drive us off or learn our plans. You've already had beating after beating, and that nightmare isn't helping. When we take off, you stay here and protect Eris Morn."

Silvan drew herself up in indignation. "But I want to help! I-"

"You're tired," Madrid said. "You've done too much. Stay here. You have Xenophage. Omar won't let anything happen to you or Eris."

"What about you?" Silvan said, trying to hide the quiver in her lower lip.

"I'll help plant charges," Madrid said. "That Ghost of yours taught the rest to make the scariest little bombs I've ever seen. Keep an eye on him."

Bramble emoted a smile. "Thank you!"

Silvan took Madrid's hand in both of hers and clung to it for a moment. "Be careful," she said. "Zulmak's in there. Don't blow yourself up by accident."

"My death count stands at eight," said Madrid. He pulled her into a hug. "It won't go any higher. You bought my freedom, and I'm not going to throw it away."

"Good," said Silvan, pulling away. "Take the ice gun. Call it a trial run."

"I will," said Madrid. "Hopefully we'll knock the keep down before nightfall. It's in about eight hours, and that Hive army is creeping in."

Silvan glanced at the horizon, partly hidden behind a hill. "Please hurry. And be careful."

Hashladun stood at the topmost window in the Scarlet Keep, gazing across the moonscape toward the onrushing army of Guardians. They were a ragtag bunch-no strategy, no formation. Some openly rode sparrows toward the gates of the keep. Others darted through the shadows, attempting to stay out of sight. But to Hashladun's eyes, each one of them glowed like a small sun, the Light within them filling their muscles and veins. Light. Necessary. Life-giving to thralls born dead. And burning, hateful brightness that exposed every inch of her hideousness. How she still seethed over the visions the Guardian female had shown her: human females adorning their smooth bodies with draperies of many colors, arranging the fur on their heads into artful patterns. She looked at her scaled, clawed hands. For a Hive Witch, they were aristocratic. But they would never be smooth and beautiful.

So Hashladun would destroy every last human. Especially the females.

She studied the Guardians, counting them, tasting their minds from a distance. About half were female, and few had defenses against her psychic evaluation. Only one male blocked her out completely. He seemed to have no thoughts at all, just a blank mind that nearly slipped by her. Hashladun noted his existence. That was one to watch and kill. But the females must die, first. She'd strip the Light from their bodies, herself.

She reached for Zulmak. She found him deep below the Keep, in the passages leading toward the Pit of Heresy.

"The Lightbearers approach," she told him.

"I will destroy them all," he replied, his thought-voice as heavy as grinding stones. He had been that way ever since his resurrection from beneath a mountain of bodies. He gave credit to the Secret Sister, she who sought to escape the Sword Logic.

Hashladun raised a hand to her chest, where her worm lay. Its hunger was growing. She must kill and feed it upon death, or it would devour her. This was the Sword Logic-survival of the fittest. But long had the Court of Crota wearied of it and sought a better way. They had secretly removed worms from thralls in hidden laboratories, then fed the thralls on Light instead of death. Few survived, but the ones who did instilled her with hope.

The only way to acquire Light was to strip it from a Guardian. And here came Guardians, seeking to end Hashladun and her empire of hatred. She would allow them entrance. Then she would divide them, isolate them, trap them, and drag them into the Pit. None would ever return.