One of the many random items Phoenix carried in his databanks was a baseball. Jayesh requested it, and he and Crow took turns knocking it back and forth with their Aegis shields. The shield created a burst of force when the forcefield appeared, so with a little practice, they soon had the baseball sailing across the valley floor.
After a while, Ikora's Ghost hailed them. "Ikora is asking for you. I believe the storm clouds have passed."
"Thank you, Ophiuchus," said Phoenix. "Guys, it's okay to go back now."
Crow and Jayesh cautiously made their way back to camp. There they found Ikora studying Cayde thoughtfully. Cayde stood with his arms out while Ikora's Ghost flew around him, scanning him, much as Phoenix had done the first time.
"Hey guys," said Cayde as they approached. "Good news, she decided not to kill me a second time." His eyes narrowed. "Her hair is the same and she doesn't wear makeup."
"What?" Ikora looked up, startled. "What did you tell him about me?"
"Nothing whatsoever," said Crow, transmitting in two more folding chairs. He sat down with a sigh. Jayesh sat beside him and they both kicked back, trying not to look guilty.
Ikora rolled her eyes and returned to studying Cayde. "Your readings imply that you're made entirely of Light. What happened? After you died your final death?"
"Well," said Cayde, "there was no more fear. No pain. I left that behind with my body. It was just … Light. And the Traveler was there for a while, and I wasn't scared. Then I was in this other place, and it was so … peaceful. I was at rest. Everyone was."
"And Sundance?"
"Oh, she was there, too, shining just as bright. But words don't really do it justice. Seems wrong to talk about it."
"And when you returned?"
"Something dragged me out. Not sure what it was. Spooky."
Ikora stood lost in thought for a while. Cayde sat down and watched her, then threw a dirty look at Crow and Jayesh. "An Afro? Really?"
Ikora slowly turned her head and looked at them. Then she sighed. "Hunters." She sat down in the fourth chair. "Well, Cayde, you're a mystery."
"Next you'll say the Traveler brought me back for a reason," he said.
"It did," said Ikora. "Or something did. What that reason is, I can't fathom." She turned her chair a little to address them all. "While communing with the Traveler, it gave me a wider view of the Witness and its plans." She spread her hands and created a Light construct of the Traveler, a white globe with cracks across the underside. "The Witness brought Darkness into the Traveler. Everything you see here inside it is a physical manifestation of a thought made real by the Light. Your thoughts. Mine. The Witness's." She spun the globe and caused darkness to creep across it. "It plans to weaponize the Light, reshaping reality outside the Traveler into a perfect stillness. A great suffering. Never changing, never dying. Imagine your greatest triumph …or your most profound regret… immortalized as part of a universe where nothing exists except by the Witness's consent." She waved away the hologram of the Traveler and instead conjured up an image of a Titan in armor. That Titan slid apart into slices, converted to one of the Witness's dreadful statues. "It chooses what your eternity will be and imprisons you safely inside it. This is its promised salvation. This is the final shape. The Witness sees itself as the god it wishes the Traveler was. And although the Traveler resists the Witness's corruption…it and everything we know will eventually succumb." She drew a circle in midair, showing a Traveler completely covered by Darkness. In front of it she sketched Zavala, standing as he always did, gazing up at the Traveler. "I always warned Zavala not to put all his faith in the Traveler, to save some for the rest of us. But maybe faith in the Traveler is exactly what we need. If Light is powerful enough to destroy the universe… then Light is powerful enough to destroy the Witness."
"It handled Ghaul and the cage pretty easily," said Jayesh.
"That was outside of it," said Ikora. "This is inside, and it will be more difficult."
"What do you mean, the god it wishes the Traveler was?" Crow asked. "The Traveler's not actually a god, is it?"
"It's a paracausal being," said Ikora. "It's an order greater than humans, but less than a god, I believe. On level with the Great Worms or a Hive God. However, it's the only one we've ever met that brings the Light instead of Darkness, that grants life and healing instead of death and corruption."
"It's a servant of a higher power," Jayesh said. "It told me when I climbed into it last time."
"Yes," said Ikora. "As such, it can be torn and harmed in a way a true God could not. The Witness hates it with a hatred colder than Stasis ice. Not only does it wish the final shape upon the universe, it does this out of its hatred for the Light and for the higher power it serves. One cannot harm a God, but one can harm that God's creation. In so doing, you break that God's heart. We've seen this play out millions of times throughout human history, where an oppressor takes the family of his enemies captive to force them to bow the knee. This is no different."
Jayesh clenched his fists. "We share the Traveler's Light, too. We're just as paracausal as it is. So we're a match for the Witness, if we can figure out how to get to it."
"Yes, we need to strategize," said Ikora. "We need Zavala. Have you found him?"
"Not yet," said Cayde. "But the Traveler knows. All we have to do is ask that bird and I think it would take us to him." He pointed at the white hawk, which was perched in the tree above them, watching them.
Jayesh rose to his feet and faced the bird. "Traveler," he said formally, "could you please show us the way to wherever Zavala is? We need him in order to fight the Witness at our full strength."
The hawk gave a shrill cry and flew off, up the valley. Everyone rose to their feet and followed it.
The hawk led them up the valley and around the corrupted Tree of Silver Wings. Beyond it, more blighted roots had killed the grass and trees, leaving a stark area of rocks and dry, dead plants. The hawk led them to the foot of a cliff and vanished. Set into the side of the cliff was a circular sigil that obviously represented the Traveler. It was a series of concentric circles with arrows flowing outward, indicating the movement of Light. But beneath it, a few feet from the ground, floated a Darkness glyph. It was an angular diamond-shape of blackest stone, and a burning orange light flowed around it.
Ikora examined it without touching it. "The resonance aura is a trigger. When someone touches this glyph, the Witness will know and likely send its forces."
"So what's this do?" Crow asked, gesturing to the symbol of the Traveler.
Ikora gazed up at it for a long moment. Jayesh waited, gladness filling his heart that she was there. Ikora was far older and wiser than him, and had studied the Traveler for longer than Jayesh had been alive, before or after his resurrection. If anyone could make sense of the strangeness around them, it would be Ikora Rey.
At last she said, "There is an interaction here. Dark and Light. I believe if we destroy the Witness's forces with Light, the truth of this sigil and glyph may appear."
Jayesh and Crow exchanged grins and activated their Aegis shields. "Bring it on," said Jayesh.
Ikora turned to Cayde. "Take cover. You're mortal now."
"Tell me something I don't know," Cayde said. "Anybody got a sniper rifle I could borrow?"
Crow transmatted in his and tossed it to him. Cayde caught it and hustled toward a dead tree with gnarled, twisted branches. He climbed into it and settled himself in a sheltered nook among the branches.
"What is it with Hunters and sniping from trees?" Jayesh asked.
Crow shrugged. "You see any better vantage points around here?"
Ikora transmatted in an auto rifle of her own. "Are we ready?" When her team nodded, she laid her hand on the black glyph. Her eyes began to burn orange.
At once the light around them dimmed, a heavy shadow of Darkness falling across the land. In flickers of dim orange the Dread appeared, first a number of bat-winged Grim, then several Weavers, then a group of creatures they'd never seen before, equipped with spiked shields on each arm.
The weavers immediately caught Jayesh and Crow with green Strand and yanked them across the valley. The new aliens met them halfway with killing blows from those spiked shields. Or they would have if the Guardians had not been equipped with Aegis shields. They blocked the blows and cut their way out of the strings holding them. They opened fire on the new aliens, only to see the middles of each torso blow out. A burning orange insect thing exploded from the middle of each alien and flew at the Guardians. The insects struck their Aegis shields and exploded like grenades, blasting Crow and Jayesh in opposite directions.
Crow landed in a roll and flipped back onto his feet in half a second. Jayesh collided with a weaver and they went down together in a struggling, screeching pile. Jayesh finally leaped clear with his Light, his robes torn, shaking off bits of strand.
Ikora watched all this, her eyes burning. Now she simply strode into the fight, shooting down Dread with a single bullet through every head. When a tall, bent-legged Subjugator stepped out from behind a rock, she conjured a ball of Void Light and blasted the alien to fragments. Then she stood for a long moment, gazing into the smoke where the alien had been.
Crow, Jayesh, and Cayde all watched her nervously.
"What's she doing?" Crow whispered.
"She's glyph-touched," Jayesh said. "This kind of thing happened to me on Europa. She's temporarily empowered by Darkness … so … psychic powers, I guess."
Cayde called, "Ikora, what do you see?"
"Many things," Ikora replied. She returned to the glyph and sigil, her team watching her carefully. She first manipulated the glyph, spinning it about and rearranging its many stacked segments. Then she touched the Traveler's sigil, moving its symbols about. Both objects flashed. The glyph faded and disappeared. The Traveler sigil slid upward, revealing a huge stone gate behind it. This gate rumbled open. Behind it were huge stone hands–many, many hands, all upraised in frozen supplication. These slowly sank away into the floor and walls until even the fingertips vanished. An open passage led away into the mountain.
"Do we want to go in there?" Jayesh said after a long moment of silence.
Ikora seemed to awaken from a trance. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve. "Of course. This is where the Traveler led us." She strode into the passage. The others followed her, guns drawn.
Cayde descended his tree and jogged to catch up with them. "Hey Ikora, quick question. Did Zavala have anything nice to say about me at my funeral? He always gave really good eulogies."
"No, not a word," said Ikora.
"Seriously?"Cayde said, disappointed.
"I mean he wasn't there," said Ikora. "He wouldn't come out of his office."
"I remember that," said Jayesh quietly. "It was awful. Those first few days after you died, the whole Tower was quiet. But it was a bad quiet. Everyone was angry. It seethed under the surface and you knew the Guardians were going to blow up all at once. And they did."
Crow gulped.
Jayesh patted his shoulder. "Do you see why I wanted to give Uldren justice? Nobody else was going to."
Crow said nothing for a moment. "It's just … imagining it. The Tower gone silent, Zavala locked in his office. I was the cause of that grief."
The Witness's whispers surrounded them like an evil breeze. "Not grief. Shame."
"Oh no, not you again," Jayesh muttered under his breath.
The passage abruptly darkened, the blighted roots lacing across the walls and ceiling. They rounded a bend and came upon a small room nearly filled with coils of roots. Buried among them was a stone sculpture of Zavala's head, tilted back like a drowning man's. The roots were up to his neck.
"You look to your commander for leadership," the Witness whispered with many voices. "But he is made fragile by his doubts. Push him to fight the inevitable… and he will break. Let us lift the weight of suffering from his shoulders."
"Weird storytime," Jayesh whispered to Crow. Both of them snickered. The levity seemed to bring the Witness's whispers hissing all around them. It was as if the millions of minds that composed the Witness hated being mocked.
Ikora said nothing. She simply strode past the sculpture and down another passage. Here the stone gave way to simple blocks in basic colors, as if the Witness had barely finished shaping this area. A few grimacing faces stared from the walls, but even those were jumbled, without their usual artistic arrangements.
"The Witness is distracted," Jayesh whispered. "Look at how thrown together this place is. What happened to rattle it so badly?"
"Zavala is resisting," Crow murmured. "The same way I did."
"Sure, but your weird storytime wasn't so unfinished-looking."
They entered another cave. This one featured a row of tombstones. One of the graves was fresher than the others and draped in a blanket.
"Now that's cruel," Jayesh said.
Crow gazed at it blankly. "What's it supposed to be?"
"Have you ever heard the stories of Zavala's wife and son?"
Crow's lips formed a silent O.
The Witness's myriad voices spoke in an emotionless chorus. "Zavala cultivates a life in the shape of loss. Costs rendered in service to your Traveler. His reward is silence. His god has nothing to give."
"The Traveler gave us our Ghosts," Jayesh retorted. "Even when it doesn't speak to us directly, our Ghost is always there."
"Jayesh," said Ikora with a warning note. She shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips. Jayesh fell silent, his cheeks a dull red.
They pressed onward through another passage that was even less finished than the last. The flat colored blocks that composed it weren't even arranged properly, so they had to squeeze through narrow gaps or crawl through low spaces.
"If this is the Witness's thoughts, it's really distracted now," Crow observed. "What is it about Zavala?"
"It fears his faith," Ikora said simply.
They entered a third room. Here was a dreadful diorama of a stone Zavala standing behind a desk cluttered with papers and books, his gun pointed at his own Ghost. All of them stopped and stared at it in shocked silence.
The Witness whispered, "When the Fallen took his son's life, the Traveler would not return it. But we can. With its Light, we can do anything. And we ask for nothing in return."
A new voice spoke across their radios, a real, masculine voice and not a psychic whisper. But it was not Zavala.
"He said no."
"At last, his Ghost speaks," the Witness whispered.
"Targe?" Ikora said.
"You need to leave," Targe told her. "It's not safe."
They hurried on through a tunnel that rapidly returned to being made of stone and not half-formed thoughts.
"Anybody want to fill me in?" Crow said in a low voice. "What happened to his wife and son?"
"The Fallen got the kid," said Cayde. "He was going to kill his own Ghost out of grief and his wife stopped him. He eventually outlived her and buried her, too. She's who taught him to knit."
"I'd heard he had a family once," Crow said, "but I didn't know the specifics."
They emerged from the cave and found themselves in a green valley between two mountain ridges. A river flowed down the middle, bright and shimmering. Near it was a log cabin with a thatched roof, not unlike the ones in the villages around the Farm. But from the chimney smoked the same horrible images that emerged from the top of the Witness's head: smoke that billowed and formed the shape of faces within it. It gave the cabin, and indeed the whole valley, a sense of impending doom.
As they took this in, a swarm of Fallen emerged from a gully and charged at the house. But they were cut down by rifle shots. Zavala was holed up between a couple of rocks so nothing could flank him, and looked as if he'd been there for some time. The bodies of aliens littered the grass and the nearby farmland, all fading and transparent like the illusions they were.
"This is where he lived with his wife and son, wasn't it?" Ikora breathed.
Targe said, "We were defending it from the Fallen. The Witness wants to wear him down to nothing, but he's still standing strong – too stubborn to retreat."
Across the valley, an orange ripple of thought-resonance shaped a new enemy, something huge. As they watched, a flash of Light hardened it into one of the armored two-legged walkers the Fallen used. It was called a brig and Guardians hated them.
"Cayde," Ikora said, "hang back."
"Geez, being mortal sucks," Cayde complained. "I'll just babysit Crow's sniper rifle from here."
Crow bumped fists with him, then turned to Jayesh. "What heavy weapon are you carrying?"
"Wave frame grenade launcher," said Jayesh. "I don't even have to aim it, just don't stand in front of me."
Crow laughed. "Right, right. I've seen those kind in action."
"What's your heavy?" Jayesh asked.
Crow held out both hands. Glint transmatted in a huge, ugly machine gun with a heavily scratched housing and barrel. A chunk of amber with a preserved insect was wedged behind the belt feed tray.
"Xenophage," said Crow. "Silvan let me borrow it."
Here inside the Traveler, the machine gun shimmered with Light. A bit of orange resonance swirled around the insect, which contained the soul and Light of a dead Guardian, murdered and preserved by the Hive as an obscene battery. But Omar Agah, the Guardian in question, could communicate telepathically, and had begged to be made into a gun so he could take revenge on the Hive. He also had a crush on Silvan.
"Hey there, Guardians," came Omar's voice clearly to all of them. "Just Crow again today? Dammit. Tell me we're killing something ugly."
"Fallen Brig," Crow replied, aiming the gun across the valley at the towering robot. "Also we're inside the Traveler, so your Light may be enhanced."
"Have I died and gone to heaven?" Omar gasped. "This is inside the Traveler? It's just like I imagined! There's Cayde, even! Hey Cayde!"
"Omar?" Cayde said in disbelief. "What're you doing in a gun? I thought you died on the Moon."
"Long story, brother," Omar replied. "Remember Silvan? She found me and built me into this gun. Aim me at that brig and I'll give it so many holes you'll be able to use it as a cheese grater."
Crow hurried down the hill toward a large rock, where he would have cover but also a good view of the whole valley. Ikora lifted her rifle and hurried to join Zavala. Jayesh leaped into the air and flew to the roof of the farmhouse.
"Guardians!" Zavala called in greeting. "Help me defend my homestead. They will not defile my son's grave."
Hundreds more Fallen appeared, crafted out of Dark and Light together. Zavala and Ikora's rifles spoke and aliens fell left and right. Jayesh fired his grenade launcher. It struck the ground and a wave of fire blasted across the ground for fifty feet, incinerating everything in its path.
The Fallen screeched and hissed, just as if they were real, and ran on all fours to take cover behind any object they could find. The brig stomped toward the farm, shaking the ground with its advance. It swept Jayesh with a tag laser, sending him leaping from the farmhouse and running for his life as it pelted him with rockets.
Crow rested Xenophage on top of his rock and let it swing freely. It searched with its Light and locked on to the brig, freezing in place. "Fire," said Omar, and Crow squeezed the trigger.
Omar's Light gathered together all the bullets it would have fired in the next few seconds and launched them in a temporally compressed pellet instead. The first shot tore a hole straight through the brig the size of a man's fist. The second punctured the pilot's seat, as did the third. The brig shuddered, but turned and aimed it's tag laser at Crow.
Crow swore and darted out of hiding as the brig launched several rockets. They shot skyward, curved in an arc, and came down with enough force to crack the boulder he'd been sheltering behind.
Jayesh, meanwhile, had circled to flank and now sent a blast from his grenade launcher under the brig's feet. The brig staggered and a siren of distress began to cry from it. Immediately the hiding aliens leaped out and tried to swarm the Guardians, attacking indiscriminately. Jayesh and Crow ran to each other and activated their Aegis shields, protecting each other's flanks and firing in opposite directions. In addition, whenever the Fallen got too close, Jayesh threw out bursts of fire and lightning, frying their enemies to crisps.
"Take out the brig!" Jayesh exclaimed. "I'll cover you!" He dropped his gun and summoned a glowing purple Titan shield to his right arm. He angled his Aegis shields and Titan shield in a clamshell behind them and to their sides, leaving only a narrow opening in front of them. Crow knelt and steadied Xenophage. The machine gun acquired its target, and as the brig stamped toward them, punched hole after hole through its cockpit and engines.
The brig halted to fire more rockets at them, and Xenophage hit one just as it launched. The brig exploded in a hot fireball. Jayesh switched his Titan shield to a Ward of Dawn bubble in the instant before the rockets fell on their heads. The impacts drove him to the ground and made the Ward ring like a gong.
The attacking Fallen evaporated back into the resonance that had formed them. The evil smoke from the farmhouse chimney dissipated into nothing. Silence fell, broken only by birdsong from the trees across the river.
Crow had Glint store Xenophage, then helped Jayesh to his feet. "Are you all right? That was incredible."
"Just a little rattled," Jayesh panted, staggering upright. "The rockets on the shield shook every bone in my body."
"You see why only Titans make them," Crow said, helping him along toward Zavala and Ikora's hiding place. "Takes a lot more strength than warlocks generally have."
"I'm not used to standing still and taking hits," Jayesh confessed. "I make a lousy Titan."
They arrived at the rocks which Zavala had protected with a Light barricade. As they approached, he lowered it. The ground rippled with the Light of Ikora's healing rift. Jayesh sank down and sat in it with a groan of relief.
Zavala stood in silence, surveying the farmstead, the smoldering remains of the brig, the fading bodies of the Fallen attackers. He was a tall Awoken man with glowing blue eyes, dressed in heavy silver armor with the Titan and Vanguard logos painted in red across the shoulders and breastplate. Weariness made his face sag, and his eyes were sunken in their sockets. Behind him, between the rocks, was a simple wooden grave marker, where his son had been laid to rest.
"How long have you been out here?" Crow asked him.
"Since I arrived in the Traveler," said Zavala. "Many hours. I'm not sure how time passes in this place."
Crow glanced at the sky, which rippled with Light. However, it was beginning to turn orange and pink, as if night was approaching. "Looks like it's going to get dark soon. We'll set up camp somewhere safer."
"You go," Zavala said. "I want to say goodbye." He walked toward the farmhouse, accompanied only by Ikora.
Crow helped Jayesh to his feet. "Come on, Titan. Let's find Cayde."
They made camp at the far end of the valley, in a spot where their backs were protected by a line of rocks and their left flank was a cliff overlooking more of the landscape. Crow built a fire as night closed in: a blue-purple twilight that never really reached full darkness. The three of them dipped into the supplies as they waited for Ikora and Zavala to come back. Crow produced a bottle with a glowing blue liquid inside and a label in Eliksni.
"What is that?* said Jayesh, staring at it.
"Juice of Seven," said Crow. "Ether-based liquor. It's safe for humans, want some?"
"Uh." Jayesh watched the blue lights swirl through the liquid like lightning through thunderclouds. "I think I'll pass."
"I'll try it," Cayde said, pulling a cup out of the supply chest. "Haven't had Juice of Seven in years."
He and Crow poured themselves glasses and sipped it with much spluttering and grimacing. "See, Jayesh, it's good stuff," Crow said hoarsely. "Try a little."
Jayesh grinned and shook his head.
Footsteps on grass heralded the approach of their companions. Zavala and Ikora approached out of the night, both of them looking weary. Cayde rose to his feet and waited.
Zavala spotted him and his strides slowed. He looked at Ikora for confirmation that this was real, then turned back to Cayde. "I don't know how you're here," he said. Then he grabbed Cayde in a bone-crushing hug.
"Nice to see you too, big guy," Cayde grunted. Zavala released him and stood with his hands on his shoulders, studying Cayde's face. Cayde gazed back.
"You look like hell," Cayde remarked. "We've got the good stuff over here. Take a load off."
Zavala didn't reply, but a smile touched his face for the first time. He took a seat in a folding chair that squeaked in protest under his weight. Ikora sat beside him. Cayde handed out ration packs and offered drinks. Ikora refused, but Zavala slammed back two shots of Juice of Seven. He seemed to relax a bit after that, and ate two ration packs back to back.
Once they finished their meal, the alcohol's effects began to appear. Zavala began to talk.
"Safiyah and I found Hakim as a very small child whose family had been killed by Fallen. We adopted him and raised him as our own. He always wanted to be a Guardian. He hung on my stories of battle, always wanted more. When he was a young man, the Fallen raided our settlement. House of Devils. Their custom was to leave no one alive, but they hadn't counted on meeting a Guardian. I dispatched them, but Hakim thought to fight them as I did and took many serious wounds. He died in my arms." He paused, staring into the fire, reliving those memories. The others waited, also watching the fire.
"I begged the Traveler to bring him back," said Zavala. "But no Ghosts came. The Light was silent. In my grief I threatened Targe, but Safiyah intervened. 'He is not your enemy,' she said. 'The Light is not your enemy.'" He heaved a sigh that seemed to come from deep inside him. "After that, we got news that the Iron Lords were seeking to build a city beneath the Traveler, so we moved there with the others. I buried Safi years later." He hesitated, then said, "The Witness … made a statue of her in the farmhouse. Offered me a chance to be with her and Hakim forever. But I … I said no. Too many people need me. But someday, perhaps soon." He lifted a hand, as if touching the fingertips of an invisible woman. "But when I touched the statue, I saw a vision. A veiled statue lay behind it, and it whispered. I knew then that my choice was right." He held out his cup to Crow. Crow poured him more glowing liquor, and Zavala drank the whole thing at once.
"I fear the same thing happening to me," Jayesh said in a low voice. "My farmstead isn't much different from yours, Zavala. The Fallen aren't as bad as they were, but House Salvation is trying to be. We count every day lived in peace as a blessing. I have three children and only one of them is a Guardian. I … I worry…"
"So you should," said Zavala.
"My wife and I have one," said Crow, his voice slightly slurred. "And she's … she's perfect. But she's not immortal, and someday I'll outlive her. Light, Zavala. How did you do it?"
"Faith," said Zavala, although his voice was hollow. "Faith in the Light that I'll see them again someday."
Cayde spoke up for the first time. "Losing people is part of life. Our lives are short. Look at me."
Everyone did.
"I mean, not like that," Cayde said, and sighed. "Look, I was dead. Mourned. At peace. Now somehow I'm back. Opening old wounds, rubbing them with salt. But I can't live forever. You have to let go sometime. And I know that's the hardest thing of all."
Zavala rose to his feet without a word and walked off to stand at the edge of the overlook. Ikora followed him.
Jayesh picked up a glass and held it out. Crow poured him a shot and the warlock sipped it.
"What's the matter?" Cayde said wryly. "All the cheer and fun getting to you?"
Jayesh made a face and held up the glass to watch the liquid glow. Then he drank it off in one shot and coughed violently. When he could speak again, he said, "Seemed like taking the edge off might not be such a bad idea." He gestured to Phoenix, who transmatted him a blanket. Jayesh rolled himself in it with his back to the fire and went to sleep. After a few minutes, Crow did the same.
Cayde waited until Zavala and Ikora returned, which wasn't for another hour. Then all of them stretched out around the fire and slept heavily. Their Ghosts stood watch, and observed the twilight night slowly shifting back toward golden daylight.
"Targe," Glint said softly, "is Zavala … all right?"
"I don't know," Targe replied in a low voice. "The Darkness has rattled him badly. He expected the Traveler to speak to him, the way it does the warlocks, and it hasn't. He mistook the Witness for the Traveler at first."
All the Ghosts shuddered.
"Why doesn't it speak to him?" Ophiuchus asked. "The Light knows he's been faithful."
"It has," said Targe sadly. "But for Zavala, it speaks in the voices of its Guardians, and he doesn't notice. He waits for a sign. A miracle. Yet he misses the ones right under his nose."
"But hasn't the Traveler given him signs?" said Phoenix. "What about when it struck down Ghaul? And fought the pyramid fleet?"
"Those weren't enough," Targe said. "He wants a relationship. The way Jayesh has. You know, Phoenix, your Guardian's career has been the hardest on him? Jayesh walks with the Traveler, and Zavala craves that same intimacy."
"Why doesn't it give it to him?" Glint asked.
"I told you," Targe said. "It deals with him through its other Guardians. Through Crow's intervention to save him from assassination. Through Ikora's steadfastness. Always it surrounds him with those people he most needs. But he demands signs. Spectacular signs and wonders to hang his hopes on. He wants the Traveler to come at his call the way his Light powers do. And … and because he demands only the most showy of responses, he misses the quiet moments. When the Light touches his heart, or prods him to do what's right. And because he's not getting what he expects, his faith wavers."
The Ghosts were silent for a long moment, watching the camp and their surroundings. But the night was quiet and peaceful. Crickets sang and fireflies painted their neon patterns against the darkness.
"How is there any peace left within the Traveler?" Ophiuchus murmured. "The Witness struggles for mastery. Two great powers locked in conflict. We should see a barren wasteland, not a paradise."
"I think," said Targe, "it's because we've come. Also the Light is more resilient than the Witness understands."
"It's because the Traveler does not stand alone," Phoenix said.
The other Ghosts looked at him in his fatally cracked shell. Phoenix met their gazes without flinching. "The Traveler is only a servant of the Light, remember? The Witness may seek to use it, but it cannot snuff it out. We've come to bring justice. To save the suffering, to crush the oppressor, to stop the spilling of innocent blood. It may take our lives to do it, but what is that compared to the matchless glory that awaits us?"
"Phoenix," Glint whispered. "I agree with you, but … your core is cracked."
Phoenix drew his shell more tightly around himself. "That's not important right now. Targe, your Guardian is hurting. What can we do to help?"
"Nothing much, I'm afraid," Targe said, looking at Zavala's armored form beside the fire. "Defending his farm shook him badly. Time will tell how he handles it."