A/N: I changed this chapter quite a bit from the game. In the game, Zavala is shouting at Ikora about going to the darkness, and Ikora is yelling back about how she doesn't know him anymore. It was crazy out of character for Zavala, which was weird, because the whole argument he made was pretty rational. I just ... dialed it back down to how Zavala would actually act.
Jayesh sat in the Light and waited for the Hunters to come back. He still felt the Witness's intrusion into the Traveler like a nail stabbed into his chest, and now he felt his missing wing like a void at his back. Phoenix kept himself concealed, and even if he didn't, Jayesh didn't know if he'd have the nerve to touch him. Not when a careless touch might crack the Ghost's damaged core further. Behind these worries lurked the threat of Zavala communing with the Darkness, of his damaged faith, and what might happen if the Darkness offered him the temptations that it had presented to Jayesh. The Vanguard had always been a bastion that Jayesh leaned on. He could always count on his commanders to be solid and faithful, a bit predictable. Now he felt like the ground had given way beneath him. Cayde-6 was back, but through an ahamkara wish by Crow? Zavala wanted to speak to Darkness? Jayesh barely knew which way was up.
"Traveler," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I don't know what to do or where to turn. We're so afraid … because you are afraid. What more can we do?"
He opened himself to the Light in that particular way inside his mind and heart. Presently, he sensed the Traveler's attention and opened his eyes. The cliff and the Cosmodrome with its swarm of dead cars had vanished. Jayesh now sat on a black marble floor at the Traveler's feet. It was still restrained by the Witness's clutching hands, but the hands now gripped it even tighter. Even its face was covered, now, its mouth held shut. However, one of the Traveler's own hands was free, where the Witness gripped it only by the wrist. This hand opened, palm upward. Jayesh reached up and took it. The Traveler's hand was warm with life, its grip strong. Through that contact, Jayesh's Light fluttered to life within him.
"My Guardian," came the Traveler's thought in his mind, as if conveyed through his Ghost's neural link. "Sing to me."
Jayesh knelt there beside the bound Traveler and began to sing the song of suns and stars. The song began softly inside himself, then rose in intensity and conviction, a hymn to the Light, Jayesh's own song from his soul as a Sunsinger. He sang in Nepali, the language he had spoken before his first death, a language as full of rhythm as a dance.
All over the Traveler the hands began to squirm. They flinched and sought to readjust their grip, the fingers flicking as if ants crawled over them. Jayesh watched and kept singing, waiting for the Witness to figure out what was happening.
When the blow came, it was swift and violent. The Witness's dead squid-eyes stared into Jayesh's for the space of a single thought. Then it flung him away, tumbling end over end until he landed back in the gully. Black roots writhed out of the ground and began to envelop the Light, sealing the rift shut. Jayesh leaped to his feet and scrambled out seconds before the roots engulfed him, too.
Ikora and Zavala were there, although he hadn't heard them approach. They all stared in horror as the black roots sealed the rift shut, burying it in blackness until not a particle of Light could escape.
"What did you do?" Ikora asked.
"I sang to the Traveler," Jayesh said softly.
Ikora turned to him, eyes wide. "You … sang? Your Sunsinger song?"
"Yes. I … I don't know what I did. I'm afraid I made things worse."
"I think you bought us some time," said Ikora. "The Traveler has a breathing space to fight back."
They returned to their camp. Zavala returned to his record-keeping, and Ikora did something similar with her Ghost. Jayesh, however, stretched out in the shade of the cliff and went to sleep. His commanders exchanged glances but said nothing.
There was no sun inside the Traveler, but it seemed to keep a timetable roughly the same as Earth's rotation. The ambient Light around them turned the golden color of afternoon, then the reddish color of sunset. Jayesh woke up and paced around, looking anxiously for the returning Hunters. Zavala and Ikora did, too, trying to watch in every direction. They lit a campfire in the hopes that the light would guide their friends to them.
At last Cayde-6 emerged from the wastes and made his way toward them, walking in a slow, defeated way. Crow was some distance behind him, his gun drawn and looking often over his shoulder. Cayde dragged into camp and sat down without a word. Crow stood watching their back trail for a long time before he, too, returned to camp. He took a seat away from the light of the fire, his back against the cliff's foot. A strange despondency hung over them, especially in the way they stayed away from each other.
"Well?" Zavala said. "Your report, Cayde?"
"Found a crack," said Cayde heavily. "Found three, but only one was still open. The Witness closed up the others with roots."
When he didn't continue, Ikora prompted, "And?"
"And," Cayde repeated. "And …" He straightened. "You know what, I'm hungry. Let's eat first."
This didn't bode well, but Ikora opened the supply chest and passed out packaged meals. Cayde took two, looked at them critically, then made a point of crossing the camp and handing one to Crow, where he sat in the shadows. Neither of them spoke, but Cayde thumped Crow on the shoulder in a friendly way.
They ate their meal in silence, and the suspense grew thicker with each passing minute. Yet no one wanted to be the first to intrude upon whatever had happened. In this strange land of memory made manifest, events could become deeply personal very fast.
Cayde finished his meal and tossed his cardboard tray in the fire. "So!" he said, wiping his hands on his pants. "Found a crack. Crow stood in it first, didn't hear anything. Right?"
Crow nodded. By this time the dim purple night had fallen, and Crow had been reduced to a silhouette with glowing yellow eyes.
"So I stood in it," Cayde said. "And I swear I heard something. A child's voice moaning far away. Crooooooow! Crooooooow! Why did you kill the handsomest hunter on Sol?"
Crow snorted and shook his head. Jayesh smirked. Ikora rolled her eyes, but Zavala didn't twitch. He sat rigid, hands on his knees, staring at Cayde without blinking. "Then?"
"Then." Cayde sobered. "Then it got weird. So I was standing there with Crow, right? The next second, I swear to you I was standing on whiteness. White light all around. My voice echoed. I turned to look around and there was Crow walking away from me. I started to call to him, but he disappeared into the Light. But the Light was kind of … layered. I looked through the layers and he was walking to the Tower railing to look out over the Last City. Glint was with him, landed on his shoulder. Kind of cute, but it looked like they wanted to be alone.
"I pulled back into my layer and I was in a battle. Vex in the Last City. Ikora was fighting, trying to get civilians to safety. And … female Eliksni? It was weird. Anyway, a cyclops blasted Ikora full of holes. Her Ghost popped out and got her back up, then she Nova Bombed that cyclops to hell. Good for you, Ikora." He held out a fist and she bumped it, stiffly, as if unused to such familiarity.
"That really happened," Jayesh blurted. "The Vex got in. We barely stopped them."
"I want to hear this story," said Cayde. "Anyway, I'm the one telling the weird storytime right now. So the Nova Bomb went off in a bright flash. When that faded, I was in a place with a dead body lying in state under a Vanguard flag. Zavala was there. Pretty sure he tucked my hand under the flag. Then I looked up and my Ghost was there, right beside me. Sundance. I told her I didn't remember this. She said, 'Of course not, how could you? You weren't there.' I said, 'Did the Traveler send you to me?' I held out my hand and she snuggled into it, just like she used to. 'I'm the way you remember,' she said. 'Just how you wanted.' Well, I got a little choked up at that point. Took me a minute to say, 'What's the Traveler want, Sundance? How do we help it?' She looked up at me with that adorable little eye of hers. 'Bravery. Devotion. Sacrifice.' I said, 'The Guardian tenets. But you forgot the last one.' She looked up at me like she was about to say something else. But then the Witness butted in. It was right in my face. A bird struggled under black goo. Then I was back in that filthy room in the Prison of Elders, and the Rifleman was drawing a bead on my Ghost. She was injured, struggling to talk. 'Bravery, devotion, sacrifice." Then the bastard shot her before I could even draw my gun."
Cayde drew a deep breath and shuddered. "Woke up after that. Crow was there, and I … I might've … anyway it was getting late and we headed back."
"I'm sorry," Crow whispered from the shadows.
Cayde pointed at him. "Stop apologizing. The Witness used that memory against me to cut off the Traveler's message. This isn't about you."
"But what is it about?" said Zavala. "'Bravery, devotion, sacrifice, death. We already know that. What does the Traveler want us to do?" He turned to Jayesh as if seeking an interpretation.
Jayesh opened both hands. "I had a vision from the Traveler, too. But it can't speak right now. It's held in the Witness's hands and its mouth is sealed shut. Sending your Ghost was a good idea."
"Sure, but what's it mean?" said Cayde.
Ikora lifted a finger. "Look at the visions it showed you. Glint and Crow together. Devotion."
Crow ducked his head, the night concealing his blush.
"Second," said Ikora, holding up another finger, "me fighting the Vex to save innocent lives. My Ghost healing me in battle. Bravery."
"And the third?" said Zavala. "Death."
"No," said Ikora. "Sacrifice. You had lost your friend."
Zavala glared at her. "Why did the Ghost omit Death, then?"
"She's dead," said Cayde, shaking his head. "Maybe it was supposed to be obvious."
"By omitting the word, the Traveler drew attention to it," said Jayesh. "Is it asking us to fight to the death against the Witness?"
"Most likely," said Zavala grimly. "But how are we to do that? What is our next step? The Traveler neglected to mention that."
They all stared into the fire without answers. Jayesh sighed and tossed another stick into the flames.
"We tried the Traveler, and it gave us only riddles," Zavala said. "Now we seek out those veiled statues and see what they have to say."
"More riddles, most likely," said Cayde. "I did spot one back that way, against the Cosmodrome wall. You'll never find it in the dark, though."
Zavala rose to his feet. "Guide me."
"Now?" Cayde rose to his feet in alarm. "We just got back, man."
"Now," said Zavala. "Every wasted moment brings the Final Shape nearer. Unless we want to spend eternity trapped within statues of ourselves, we need a plan, and we need it now."
"Fine, fine." Cayde shrugged. "It's not far. Be back in a jiffy."
Jayesh rose to his feet and followed them without a word. Ikora lifted a hand to stop him, but thought better of it and said nothing.
Jayesh followed Cayde and Zavala across the highway of rusted cars to the Cosmodrome's wall, then along it for a hundred yards until they came to an oddly dark patch. When their Ghosts ignited their headlights, they revealed a veiled statue, but behind it, in the wall, was a perfectly smooth indentation, as if it had been cut out of the concrete. The statue itself was polished black stone, but with streaks of red across it, as if someone had defaced it with paint.
"Well?" Zavala said.
Cayde gestured for him to move closer. "You want to know what it says. You touch it."
Zavala glanced at Jayesh, as if seeking permission.
"I'll touch it with you," Jayesh said. "It can't do anything worse to me than what the Darkness has already done."
Together, the commander and the warlock laid their hands on the bottom of the statue's stone robe.
At once a voice moaned in their minds, a single voice that spoke with great effort. "You cannot … the Witness is … too strong. Give yourself to Darkness. Only there … see the truth."
"Who are you?" Jayesh asked, speaking gently.
"A voice of dissent," the statue groaned. "We are bound … awaiting the final shape."
"Why must we give ourselves to Darkness?"
The statue only moaned and fell silent, as if its feeble strength had failed it.
"Had enough?" said Cayde as Jayesh and Zavala withdrew.
"It's not what I thought," said Jayesh. "Commander?"
"We'll discuss it back at camp," said Zavala.
Back at camp, Zavala repeated the statue's message to Ikora and Crow. They listened in troubled silence.
"I wish I knew what it meant," Jayesh said. "About giving yourself to Darkness. It doesn't sound like the trials I went through to learn stasis."
"Sounds like a one way trip to me," said Crow. "Guardians don't come back from Darkness."
"They do as long as their Ghost is alive," said Zavala.
Everyone looked at him. Zavala sat with his elbows on his knees, hands folded under his chin. In his silvery armor, he looked like a mound of metal sitting there.
"Hear me out," he said. "The Traveler used Crow to represent devotion and Ikora to represent bravery. I was chosen to represent sacrifice. Now we are told to give ourselves to Darkness. I think I'm the one who should go."
Ikora leaped to her feet, fists clenched. "Don't you dare, Zavala! I'm not losing you the way I lost Cayde!"
Zavala met her gaze steadily. "Then explain the message to me."
"I … I can't." Ikora drew a heavy breath. "But you aren't going to just throw yourself to the Witness like a piece of meat to a warbeast."
"Wouldn't it be worth it to learn the truth?" Zavala replied.
Ikora threw her arms wide. "What good would it do us if you never came back? You join the Darkness, you join the Witness, it knows everything you know. We'd be compromised."
"We were compromised the minute Savathun donned Osiris's skin," said Zavala coolly. "The Witness doesn't need my information. It will eliminate humanity without it. But we need information on it, and we won't get it without taking a risk."
Ikora grimaced, as if wanting to argue and holding back tears at the same time. Then she sank into her chair and buried her face in her hands.
Zavala turned to Jayesh, Cayde, and Crow. "Opinions?"
"I should do it," Jayesh said in a low voice. "Of all of us, I'm most familiar with Darkness and how it works."
"You weren't named in the vision," said Zavala.
"Unless he's Death," Cayde said out of the corner of his mouth.
Zavala frowned. "And what am I to do? Stand back and sacrifice yet another friend? I'm sorry, Khatri, but I'm not explaining to your wife and children why you're not coming back."
Jayesh hung his head.
Zavala turned to Crow. "And you?"
"I … I think there has to be another way," Crow replied. "Some third option that isn't sacrifice and isn't Darkness. I just don't know what that is."
Silence fell. Everyone nervously watched Zavala, who gazed into the fire. But after a while, he only straightened and said, "We should get some rest."
Everyone took out their bedrolls and soon were snoring around the fire. Jayesh stayed up to keep watch, since he'd had the most rest that day.
In his head, he thought to Phoenix, "Could you hear that statue talk?"
"Yes, but it was inside your head," said Phoenix. "Like the Witness, but smaller. And not so hostile."
"What's your opinion? Should we trust it?"
Phoenix thought about it. He didn't emerge from phase, and all Jayesh could do was imagine his expression.
At last the Ghost said, "It said give yourself to Darkness, not the Witness. We know that Darkness tends toward the mental and the psychic. Maybe it was advising us to use that aspect of those powers."
"Like what the Traveler taught me about the prismatic ones?" Jayesh said. "There are no powers that belong to the Dark. All good gifts come from the Light."
"Yes, but I still don't know what it means. And I don't think Zavala should sacrifice himself."
"Me neither." Jayesh gazed into the purple gloom and listened to the crickets all around. Fireflies spangled the night like moving stars. No enemies ventured near, and he found it odd. Maybe the Witness just didn't care. Or maybe the Traveler's resistance kept it too occupied.
"I think I know what the third option is," Jayesh thought. He let his Sunsinger song drift through his mind, singing it softly to his Ghost.
He felt Phoenix's Light brighten with happiness. "Your song! It's a rendition of the creation song the Traveler sings to terraform a planet."
"Yes, and the Traveler asked me to sing to it. I think I gave it strength. What if I performed a concert for the Witness?"
"It would seal you inside a veiled statue," Phoenix laughed.
"I don't think it would," Jayesh replied thoughtfully. "This is all part of the Great Debate, remember. It wants us to join it. To prove that our loyalty to the Light is superficial and can be bought and sold. That's what Europa was all about, was trying to get us to switch sides. If the Winnower wanted me so badly, what might the Witness do?"
"I'm not looking forward to our weird storytime," Phoenix said uneasily. "Everybody has had one now except you and Ikora. I'm not sure which of you will be next."
"I do think I should try singing," said Jayesh. "Think of what music does. It's a telepathic resonance all its own. It stirs the heart and emotions. I think, to a telepathic entity like the Witness, it would be incredibly disruptive."
"It's the best idea we have," said Phoenix.
Zavala sat up nearby and checked the time. Then he got up and came to Jayesh. "Get some sleep, Guardian. I'll watch until morning."
"Thanks." Jayesh hesitated. "Sir. I think I should sing my Sunsinger song to the Witness."
Zavala only looked at him. "Get some rest. You're so tired that your thinking is addled."
Feeling like Zavala had slapped him, Jayesh went to his bedroll and fell asleep with his song running through his mind.
The next morning, Zavala was gone. But his Ghost, Targe, remained behind, pacing in midair.
Ikora sat up and noticed at once. "Targe! Where's Zavala?"
"He went for a walk, supposedly," Targe said unhappily. "He told me to look after you all. I think he's going to throw himself to the Darkness."
Ikora cursed and leaped to her feet. Cayde, Crow and Jayesh also dragged themselves out of bed, grumbling.
"I was hoping for a cup of real coffee this morning, too," Cayde complained. "Crow's got some. There just hasn't been time to make any."
"Hot coffee, black as Darkness?" Crow said. "Zavala sure went to find some."
"Don't make jokes," Ikora snapped, throwing camp items into the supply chest. "He's been gone for hours. Anything might have happened to him without his Ghost."
"I have general telemetry on the direction he went," Targe said. "He consulted the map data you gathered yesterday. He was interested in one particular spot near the Witness's tower. Sort of a canyon place where you detected such deep Darkness that you didn't venture near."
"That whole area was eaten up with black roots," Cayde said. "If that's where he's headed, we'll lead you straight there."
"There were a couple of veiled statues in the area," Crow said. "We can ask them for advice."
"Right." Ikora had her Ghost store the camp items, then passed out energy bars for breakfast. "Let's go."
The team plunged into the badlands that the Light and Darkness had formed around the Witness's tower. Within ten minutes Jayesh felt that he was walking in a nightmare. They followed a sort of gully between cliffs, but the cliffs were hands. The further they went, the more they saw chunks of land supported on arms with reaching hands, like strange stone monsters walking on distorted limbs.
"Why hands, though?" Crow said, throwing a rock at one. "It's like the Witness has some creepy fetish. Imagine if it had been feet."
"Feet aren't as scary," said Jayesh. "If all these cliffs had feet, we would laugh at them."
"Hands represent control," said Ikora. "And imprisonment."
"The Traveler is held by many hands," said Jayesh. "Every time I see its avatar, he's held by more and more of them. It looks painful. Yet he still asked me to sing the song of suns and stars. The Witness hated it."
"There's our third option," Crow said, pointing at Jayesh. "Did you hear what he did in the Reef, Ikora? How he had us modifying weapons to play music? He fought a cryptolith with an electric guitar solo."
"If music works for Savathun's death singers, it would work for us," said Ikora. "We just have to save Zavala from himself."
They turned a corner and found a squadron of Dread waiting for them, arrayed in front of a veiled statue.
"Seems the Witness knows our plan," said Ikora as her Ghost transmatted an auto rifle into her hands.
They fought the monsters, which fought back with glee, throwing themselves at the Guardians with no regard for their own safety. This made them easier to kill, but also somewhat disturbing.
"They act like Taken," Jayesh observed. "Just savage rage monsters that go for your face and feel no pain."
"The Witness is driving them to stop us at any cost," said Ikora. "We must be on the right track."
They gathered at the foot of this new statue. As one, they laid their hands on its cold stone. Targe materialized and flew to the statue's head, shining his scan beam on it. "Look me in the eye and tell the truth. Did the Commander come this way?"
They all heard as the being in the statue gasped and struggled against its bonds. Jayesh had a horrible vision of a human-like person grasped in many hands, like the Traveler was.
"Your Commander seeks our Witness," the statue gasped. "But without you, he will be one among its many."
"What the hell does that mean? Targe snapped. "Did you do something to him?"
"Those who have not been culled from the collective will guide him," the statue moaned. "We who have been bound will lead you. You must break through."
"Is that an offer to help?" Targe demanded. "Hello?"
Into all their minds flashed the image of one of the hands with a single pointing finger. It pointed over their shoulders and off to the left, toward a cave mouth in one of the cliffs.
"Oh joy, a cave," said Jayesh. "The worst things always happen to us in caves."
They left the statue and headed for it, Targe flying at Ikora's shoulder, his scans running. As they entered it, a gust of seething wind blasted their faces. A sense of Darkness dimmed their Light, such as they had not felt since entering the Traveler.
"You know that billowing cloud of Darkness around the Witness's tower?" Crow said. "It's being directed at us."
"No storm will hold me back," Ikora growled.
As they hurried along the passage, their Ghosts providing light, Targe said, "We who have been bound. Sounds like prisoners of the Witness. Zavala was right. I hope he's happy."
"It said that Zavala will become one among its many," said Cayde. "Was that a threat or a warning?"
"Pretty sure it was a statement of fact," said Jayesh. "The Witness seems to be a being formed of many, many smaller minds joined together. At this point, I doubt they care what species you are. Joining the collective makes the whole stronger."
They rounded a bend and would have hurried right past another veiled statue in the dimness. But Targe spotted it and veered off to shine his light on it. The team doubled back and touched the stone.
Targe was even more fierce this time. "Your kind are helping us find Zavala. Fine. But it's your fault we're in this mess in the first place. Why did you reach out to him? In a vision, in person? What is he to you?"
This voice was higher, more feminine. "We are many, but our voices are weak. It is too bright here. Give yourself to Darkness. Only there will our voices be heard."
"Giving ourselves to Darkness means death!" Targe shouted at it. "Speak plainly!"
The statue fell silent with a shuddering gasp. But again a vision of a pointing finger flashed through their minds. It indicated further down the tunnel, so they followed it.
The passage grew narrower, zigzagging steeply downward. The walls and floor were rough, as if it had been formed by the earth fracturing, or perhaps the torture of the Traveler had opened gaps. A cold wind began to blow in their faces, and the noise of wind echoed from below.
"Coming up on a cavern," said Crow. "Watch your step."
The tunnel twisted twice more, then opened out into a huge cavern. A black pyramid ship hovered overhead, filling most of the space with its sharp, hard shape. But in its shadow lay ruins, buildings, structures. The Dread walked among them, watching for the coming of the Guardians.
"What is this?" said Jayesh as they took shelter behind a stone wall. He ran his hand along it, tracing the geometric carvings on its surface. "It's like pyramid architecture, but in white stone, not black. It's kind of … beautiful."
"A memory of the Witness's, probably," said Ikora. "The Traveler manifests those, too."
"Interesting that it's buried underground," said Cayde. "Like it's something the Witness wants to forget."
Two of the bat-winged Grim landed on top of the wall and peered down at them. The Guardians shot them and the fight was on.
The whole cavern seemed full of Dread, and all of them swarmed the Guardians with more ferocity than they had yet shown. A desperation seemed to drive them, and even the wounded kept crawling toward the Guardians, gnashing teeth and claws.
The team formed a circle and protected each other's backs. Jayesh used his Prismatic powers to throw up Titan barricades in every direction, which they sheltered behind as the Dread sprang at them or fired energy blasts. In addition, they still carried their Aegis shields, which came in handy for warding off husks that slashed at them with blades in both hands.
The fight ended as suddenly as it had begun, every Dread evaporating back into the resonance that formed it. The Guardians slowly broke their circle, peering about for more enemies waiting in ambush. But Ghost scans showed the cavern was empty.
They knew by now that the pyramid ships were empty inside. Each one contained a museum of stone objects and people, very strange, but unlikely to attack anyone. As everyone else set out to explore the ruins, Jayesh stood gazing up at the ship. As usual, when he looked at one too long, blackness crowded at the edges of his vision, threatening to make him pass out. But he drew on the Traveler's gift of unified powers and pushed it back. A single wing flickered at his back.
"You," he said to it. "Each of the Witness's collective owns a ship, don't you? Each ship is a monument to that mind's memories. That's why the Black Fleet is so huge, yet no one can harm the ships. And why there's no one inside."
"It's guarding these ruins," Crow said, returning to him. "Come look at these, Jay. I think it's what the Witness's civilization used to be before they Darknessed themselves."
Jayesh explored with his friends, marveling at the square buildings, the tapering pillars, the ornate carvings. "It's like ancient Egyptian architecture," Ikora said. "I wonder if their planet was a hot, dry one."
"The Traveler has softened the memory with greenery," said Crow, brushing a hand over a tuft of ferns. "The way it did our Tower."
"I wonder if the Light has compassion on them," said Cayde. "I'm no theologian, but it seems to me that the Traveler pities the Witness, even as it's being tortured."
"The bound beings in the statues are certainly pitiable," said Ikora. "There's another in the center of this village."
Targe had already found it. He floated impatiently at its head, waiting for the team to catch up. As they touched the statue, he muttered, "About time." Turning to the statue, he said, "So, you can only speak to us in Darkness. It's pretty dark here. Even have a pyramid ship standing guard. Talk to me."
The statue gasped like the others and struggled to speak. "We are the shame the Witness could not bear to reckon with, so the first knife cut us out. Exiled until we are deemed worthy. Imprisoned until we can be reintegrated into the final shape."
Targe growled impatiently. "You were once part of the Witness, weren't you? Tell us how to defeat it!"
"We are bound," whispered the statue. "Only in Darkness will you see. Your Commander needs you, little light. You will set us free. You will set us all free." It gasped once more and fell silent.
The team withdrew from the statue, a little shaken. "Why would the Witness imprison its own kind like this?" Crow asked.
Ikora said, "The Witness seeks to control what it can't change, and change what it can't control. That's the purpose of the final shape. Ultimate control over the entire universe. To its Dark-twisted mind, only an eternal living death is suitable for controlling all life."
"It's afraid," said Targe quietly.
Crow gestured at the statue. "Pretty sure it removed all the scared ones."
"These are dissenters," said Targe. "Look at the way the Witness keeps creating half-imagined landscapes. The way its hands bleed into reality. The way it sends its minions to harass and hinder us. The Witness is afraid that it will lose the Great Debate." The Ghost opened his shell and sent out a pulse of Light. "I can't detect the Commander's Light. How close are we to the Darkness patch?"
Crow pulled out Glint and checked his own telemetry. "Uh, we didn't exactly explore this cave, but my best guess is that we're within half a mile of it. See if we can find a passage heading north and west."
They spread out, searching the cavern, and found a passage leading north. They hurried along it, the Ghosts scanning as they went.
The passage wormed its way upward, with several branching paths, until they emerged on the surface again. While they had been underground the Darkness storm had gathered strength. Bitter cold stung their faces and punched through their gear. Darkness swirled in the air like smoke, and wind whipped from every direction, full of voices screaming or whispering or shouting. Jayesh was reminded of the Dreaming City as it was being eaten away by corruption, but this was worse.
"This way!" Cayde shouted over the storm. "Closer to the black tower!"
The team pressed onward, staying close together so as not to lose their bearings. The Ghosts tried to track their progress, but the Darkness storm blinded their scans and stifled their Light.
"I can't track the Commander at all in this murk," Targe muttered.
"He's nearby, I'm sure he is," Phoenix said over the radio. "It's only the storm blocking his signal."
"Maybe," said Targe, sounding peevish. "Zavala, answer your coms right now!" Only silence answered him. "This is the last time I let him walk away from me," Targe growled.
Ahead of them, the rocks and cliffs gave way to more of the flat orange and blue blocks of raw matter that signaled a lapse in the Witness's attention. As they cautiously stepped onto these, the storm parted for a moment. Ahead of them rose crisscrossing paths of blocks clumped together in rough stairs, weaving in every direction, but more or less moving in the direction of the tower. Here and there were chunks of land with trees and grass, as if some of the Traveler's will had leaked through.
"Paracausal mutilations," Jayesh muttered. "Just like in the portal."
"I'm detecting a couple of potential Light spots," said Glint. "One of them might be the Commander."
"Shall we split up?" Ikora asked.
"Not in this storm," said Cayde. "Ghosts, where are the light spots located?"
"Up the trails, there," said Phoenix. "Two are bright and steady, like more rifts into the Traveler. A dimmer one is up on that island with the trees."
"There, that's him," said Targe. "Go! Go! Go!"
The Guardians bounded up the staircases like mountain goats, feeling the floating, half-imagined blocks sinking away under their feet. The storm closed in around them again, blinding them, snatching at cloaks and robes, trying to fling them into the void. Jayesh kept thinking he saw the Witness's dead eyes out there in the swirling dark, or giant hands reaching for him. But when he looked, there was never anything there.
They reached the tiny island and there saw a horrible sight.
Here a tall black monument was built onto the tiny floating piece of land. The surface of the blackness seethed like boiling tar. Zavala stood before it, one hand outstretched to that sticky, gooey dark. The blackness reached back, tiny grasping fingers sticking to his hand.
"Zavala!" Ikora cried, leaping onto the island. "Don't do this!"
Zavala didn't even turn. He simply stepped into the blackness. The tarry blackness flowed over him and he was gone.
Targe shot forward like a little bullet. He launched himself straight into that darkness after his Guardian, a bright little star into the void. The Darkness swallowed him, too.
"No!" screamed Ikora. She bounded forward and reached one arm into the tar up to the shoulder. "I feel him!" she cried. "Help me!"
Cayde, Jayesh, and Crow plunged their arms recklessly into that grasping, sucking slime and felt Zavala's armored shoulders. They grabbed him any way they could, and working together, hauled him backwards out of the sticky, grasping Darkness.
Zavala emerged with a cry. "Targe! No! Not Targe!" He collapsed to his knees outside the blackness and bowed his head.
Ikora, always loyal, reached back into the darkness, but her groping fingers found no trace of the Ghost.
Glint and Phoenix appeared and scanned Zavala. "He's Lightless," Glint said in hushed, shocked tones. "Commander, what happened to Targe?"
Crow had Glint transmat them a couple of chairs and they helped Zavala into one. As they sat down, the Darkness storm died away and the ambient light of day grew around them. It was as if the Witness was satisfied with what it had done to Zavala and was no longer concerned with delaying them.
The team sat around Zavala, their hands on his back and shoulders, offering their support. Jayesh kept looking from Zavala, to that dark monument, and back. He kept expecting Targe to emerge, but changed into something horrible. The monument only waited, inscrutable.
"I gave myself to Darkness," Zavala muttered at last. "Stepped in. Dark room inside. Empty forever. Then a thin glimmer of brightness that was not Light. 'Commander Zavala,' it said to me. 'You come to us for answers.' Then I was standing on a green hill on a lush planet. White cities in the distance. The Traveler overhead. It said, 'We, too, once looked to the silent god for meaning. But all it could offer was more life, void of purpose.' Another mind touched mine with the faintest of glimmers. A single voice, not joined with the collective. 'No! Lies!' this other voice said. 'We rejected it, ran from it.'
"The Witness went on as if it hadn't heard. 'So we sought its opposite.' I saw a million beings in robes joining together, smoke rising from their heads to form a single shape. 'And in it,' the Witness said, 'found means to bring order to an unruly universe.'"
Zavala stopped there, as if gathering his thoughts. Slowly he lifted his head and looked at Jayesh. "What does your Traveler look like? The one you speak to all the time?"
"It's avatar?" said Jayesh in surprise. "To me it appears as a male Guardian, a Hunter, maybe. But I've talked to other people who it appeared to in other forms. It's always something they recognize and relate to."
Zavala nodded, accepting this. "I saw the Traveler standing alone before the robed figures. It looked like one of them, but it was not robed. It wore armor that flashed with Light, and they cringed from it. But it was on trial. They demanded purpose from it. The Traveler replied, 'I am the Gardener, not the Creator. I do not give purpose. You do not bear my image, only my blessing.'
Jayesh made a face between a grin and a grimace and clenched both fists.
"'Your Traveler had no tolerance for such vision', said the Witness. 'And we had no tolerance for its ambivalence.' I saw the Traveler depart from their world as clouds of Darkness overtook the sky. Then I was among the hooded figures, and smoke was pouring from my head, joining in the ritual to create the Witness. I felt nothing, yet I knew that my death approached. The Witness went on, 'We would force purpose from it, driven by a single, immutable will. We culled our fears, our doubts, anything that separated us and clouded our intent.' The robed figures began to drop dead, first a few, then thousands. But one leaned close to me and whispered, 'What was made can be unmade. Find us where we destroyed ourselves.'
"Then all of them were gone and only the Witness was left. It extended a hand and said, 'And now, Commander, we would have you join us.' That's when Targe appeared. He burned like a star in that dark place. He got between me and the Witness and glared up at it. "I see what you are," he snarled. 'What do you see?' the Witness said mockingly. Targe said, 'I see fear.' The Witness snatched him up in a fist and said, 'We have done away with fear. We are not afraid.' It opened its hand and looked at Targe. He was bleeding Light, but he was still defiant. 'Yes. You. Are,' he said. The Witness closed its hand around him again, but Targe's Light burned straight through it, beginning to dissolve it. It clenched down and crushed him, and Targe's Light burst out of him, blowing me backward, out of the vision. Then you hauled me out."
Everyone groaned in anguish and sympathy.
"He saved you," said Crow. "Even at the last."
"He always was braver than me," said Zavala, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Stronger than me, even when I wished he'd leave me to rot in peace." He looked up at Ikora and Cayde, then at Crow and Jayesh. "I was supposed to be the sacrifice. Me. Not Targe."
They sat there together in silence, stunned by the enormity of their Commander losing his Light forever. No one knew what to say, and platitudes seemed so shallow and empty. Jayesh mentally hugged Phoenix and knew that Crow and Ikora probably felt the same about their own Ghosts.
"Thoughts?" Zavala said at last. "I gave myself to Darkness to learn the truth. What did I learn?"
"The Traveler visited the Witness's people," said Jayesh thoughtfully. "And they rejected it. I've never heard of that before. The Hive were deceived by the Great Worms into attacking the Traveler, because there was a giant tidal wave that was going to wipe out their planet. The worms blamed the Traveler for it, but the worms were actually at fault."
"So the Witness's people made themselves into an all-powerful psychic entity," said Ikora. "Interesting that the Witness is a spirit being with a corporeal form. It's solid enough to crush a Ghost. Perhaps its own resonance gives it form."
"They actually put the Traveler on trial," Jayesh went on. "The Traveler implied that it had a disagreement with others, but I thought it meant other Traveler-beings."
"These creatures seemed nearly as powerful as it was," said Zavala. "We cannot rule out alien races far stronger than the human race. For all we know, there are other Travelers moving about other galaxies. There is much we don't know, and will never know." He frowned. "But we don't know how to defeat them, do we?"
"What was made can be unmade," said Ikora thoughtfully. "Find us where we destroyed ourselves. I think that means another buried memory. Somewhere, perhaps within the black tower itself, lies a memory of where the precursors to the Witness abandoned their bodies to take up existence as pure mind."
"Isn't that similar to Gnosticism?" Jayesh asked Ikora. "That assumption that the spirit is perfection and the flesh is imperfect and defiled? That's what the Hive believe. They justify their genocide of other races as 'setting them free'. But the order of creation is flesh first, then spirit. At least, according to the scholars I've read."
Ikora gave him a level look. "You have not forgotten your theology studies I assigned you. Good."
Jayesh grinned sheepishly.
She turned to the others. "Jayesh makes a good point. The Witness is composed of unbodied aliens, aliens that were, perhaps, far stronger than humans. But by taking the Traveler, it has opened the path to its own undoing. The Traveler has been manifesting memories, and one of those memories is of how this alien race became what they are." She lifted her eyes to her team. A light of grief and determination burned within them. "We will not let Zavala and Targe's sacrifice be in vain. We will find this place of ancient ritual and learn how to strike at the Witness."