Zavala was in no condition to undertake a dangerous journey into the Witness's stronghold. He could barely walk in his heavy armor, his Titan strength diminished to that of a mere man. He was also pathetically hungry, no longer sustained by the Light. He removed some of his armor and ate and drank in brooding silence.
Jayesh felt desperately sorry for him, but didn't know what to say or do. His own Light seemed even more precious now, the voice of his Ghost the dearest music. He kept remembering things Targe had said, the way he'd gone after the veiled statues and demanded answers, his utter bravery in his search for his Guardian. Even at the last, his bleeding Light had begun to damage the Witness.
The monolithic tower loomed over them as they rested, a towering edifice of smooth black stone, made of the same mind-stuff as the pyramid ships. Darkness breathed from it. Jayesh didn't like to look at it for long. Besides bringing blackness crowding the corners of his vision, it sent fresh pain shooting through his chest. That black tower was a spear driven deep into the Traveler's heart, sinking ever deeper and putting out more and more roots. The Traveler's pain was constant, now. He could shut it out sometimes, but it always returned.
"Traveler," he whispered in his heart. "We've come to the very foot of the Witness's stronghold, but Commander Zavala has lost his Light. We are weakened."
A vision of the white bird struggling beneath a net of corruption flashed through his consciousness. He felt the bird's panic, its fouled wings, the weight and stickiness of the corruption that held it. This vision was followed by another. The Traveler's avatar gripped by many hands, its face covered. Only one eye looked out at Jayesh now, and that eye was full of tears. The message was clear, though no words had been spoken. Save me from the Witness's clutch.
Pain flashed through Jayesh's chest, from his sternum and through his heart. He gasped and clutched his chest. As the pain subsided, he looked up to see everyone watching him.
"The Witness is torturing the Traveler," Jayesh panted. "It's worse and worse. The Traveler's almost completely overcome." He met Zavala's gaze. The Commander gazed at him without expression.
Crow, however, jumped to his feet. "We've waited around long enough. The Witness is right there, let's go kill it."
Jayesh stood, too. "It won't be that easy, but I agree. We have to do something."
Zavala rose, too, Ikora and Cayde with him. "I must come with you."
"But sir, you don't have your Light," Jayesh protested.
Zavala lifted his rifle from its strap over his shoulder. "But I still have my gun." He turned to the others. "I alone saw the ritual place where the Witness was created. I believe I can find it again. But I cannot lead the fight against the enemy. I will bring up the rear."
Cayde held up a hand for a high five. "I don't feel so bad anymore! Hey, Lightless buddy!"
Zavala looked at his hand and did not return the high five.
Cayde lowered his hand. "I know. It's no laughing matter."
"We are mortalized and yet dare to risk the heart of Darkness," said Zavala gravely. "We may all lose our final lives in this attempt. You and I are Lightless. Jayesh's Ghost is damaged. Crow and Ikora need a Titan to shield them, and yet I cannot."
"Oh, right," said Jayesh. He slid the Aegis shield off his arm. It was so small when turned off that he forgot he was wearing it most of the time. He handed it to Zavala. "It's not much, but it is a shield. The Traveler gave them to us when we arrived."
Zavala inspected the shield with a breath of his old energy. "An Aegis shield! Similar to the Vex tech we discovered within the Vault of Glass, but of a different design. Notice the sphere on the front instead of the Vex symbols."
"I noticed that, too," said Ikora. "The Traveler took this knowledge its Guardians had gained and created them specifically for us."
Zavala slid his arm through the strap and worked the controls to flick the energy shield on and off, familiarizing himself with it. The sight cheered Jayesh. He had been able to give his Commander a little hope again.
In his head, Phoenix said softly, "But we need that shield, too."
"Zavala needs it more," Jayesh thought. "He has no Light and no defenses. Besides, my Light is Prismatic now. I can do the different kinds of Titan shields whenever I want."
"We're going into a Lightless place," Phoenix replied. "There might not be any Light left for shields."
"It'll be fine," Jayesh reassured him. "How are you holding up?"
Phoenix was silent for a moment, then said, "I have to live up to Targe's example. He loved Zavala so much that he fought the Witness for him, and even harmed it. His death saved Zavala from assimilation. How can I do any less?" After a second he asked, "Jay, can you do this?"
"I have to," Jayesh replied. "I can't even add the cliche 'or die trying' because I'm not allowed to fail. If I fail, it's the end of everything."
"Right," Phoenix said with a sigh.
Jayesh ventured, "Why don't you come out so I can look at you? I noticed Crow has some Ghost repair resin in his supply box."
"I'm fine, Jay." Phoenix sounded evasive. "I'm right here with you."
"If you die, Phoenix …"
"I'm not going to die, Jay. I'm going to see this through, same as you. There's no alternative."
Jayesh sighed and looked around. The other Guardians had recognized the glassy look of someone who was talking to their Ghost and had left him alone. Ikora and Crow had had their Ghosts pack away the makeshift camp. Everyone was now reloading weapons. Ikora had her Ghost synthesize bullets for Zavala, who poured them into an ammo pouch on his belt. She did the same for Cayde, who reloaded the Ace of Spades and spun the cylinder with relish. Crow had plenty of ammo for Hawkmoon, but took a moment to lovingly polish away a speck of dust from the gleaming barrel.
Jayesh drew Lumina and checked it. His Light continuously flowed into the ammunition, empowering it to harm enemies or heal allies. He hadn't had to heal anyone with it yet, and he was afraid to try it on Zavala or Cayde.
"Phoenix," he thought, "this is a job for Sturm and Drang."
Lumina vanished from his hand as Phoenix stored it. Into his hands the Ghost transmatted a silver hand cannon and a golden pistol. When used together, they generated an Arc Light field that empowered the ammo to ridiculous levels. Jayesh had defeated a Cabal champion in a one on one duel with them. Other Guardians favored other weapons, but this was his particular standby.
Nearby, Crow transmatted out the huge, ugly machine gun Xenophage. He opened the feed tray and looked at the insect in amber inside. "Omar, we're going up against the biggest of the big bads. The Witness, the embodiment of Darkness. Think you're up to the challenge?"
"If anyone can hurt that bastard, I will," said Omar. "My Light goes into every shot. Just point me at him when the time comes."
Crow grinned and snapped the tray shut. "I'm ready now."
"Good," said Zavala. "Do we know the way in?"
"There's one of those crappy staircases leading up to the tower," said Cayde. "Been looking at it. I think there's an entrance there."
"Crow, take point," said Zavala. He turned to Jayesh. "I know you washed out of Titan training. But your Light is the strongest now. You must become our Titan. Accompany Crow."
Jayesh's heart leaped with irrational joy at this. Failing Titan training had been one of his deep regrets for years, because he had disappointed his Commander and himself. He snapped to a crisp salute. "Yes sir!"
The team set out up the staircase, letting Zavala set the pace. Zavala at first moved stiffly and had trouble balancing in his armor, but as they climbed, his movements grew easier. Ikora kept touching him with a glowing hand, giving him small infusions of Light. It could not replace what he had lost, but it would make weaning off of it an easier process.
They reached the top of the staircase and stepped onto a wide, glassy-smooth obsidian ledge. A square doorway awaited them a little further on. Crow ventured a few paces inside, then returned, beckoning. "It's a maze in there, but I think we can figure it out. Plenty of Dread, too. Go quietly."
They entered the black tower and descended a winding staircase. They entered a strange area with black pyramidal architecture, harsh, heavy pillars, severe, angular engravings, and occasional artifacts like jars that were attached to the floor. But mingled with this were unformed blocks in flat colors like orange or green, as if the Witness had used the Light to rapidly build a structure even as the Light resisted. The team wound their way around and between these blocks, and found a pack of Dread waiting for them.
Zavala and Cayde fell back to sniper positions, climbing on top of the blocks for a better vantage point. Ikora ran support, while Jayesh ran out in front and threw down Titan barriers to give himself and Crow shelter. They exchanged fire with a lot of weavers using strand, and a set of attendants who flung stasis ice. The winged Grim flew over the barriers, screeching, and met Crow's knife. Jayesh snapped his fingers and burned the rest to ash with Solar Light.
The fight ended quickly, but it had served to draw the Witness's attention once more. A hissing of whispers surrounded them. The multi-layered voice murmured into their minds, "Your search for purpose continues. Once more, it leads you to us. What is it you seek? Your endless pursuit of us yields you nothing."
Jayesh jerked his head at his team in silence and they moved on. Again, Crow led the way, peering around corners and over unformed blocks, while Jayesh followed him, his guns in both hands. Behind them came Ikora, Zavala, and Cayde, all moving together.
Jayesh heard a click on his helmet radio, signaling that someone wanted to speak to him on a private channel. He accepted the message. "Hello?"
"Khatri," came Zavala's voice. "I was powerless when I stood before the Witness in that … place. I had neither Light nor Darkness there. However, you already possess mastery over both Light and Dark. I believe you could pass into the same sorts of Darkness monoliths without harm."
"I don't," Jayesh replied in a low voice. "The Traveler made me Prismatic, which is different. All powers come from the Light. The Darkness can only twist good things into evil things. It creates nothing."
"Yes," said Zavala. "My point is, Khatri, you may have to enter that Darkness space to attack the Witness directly. You are inside its mind there. Be brave as you go. No one else can enter it in safety, for none of us are Prismatic."
There was a brief silence as Jayesh processed this. He had a huge aversion to jumping into that liquid corruption. It was too easy to imagine taking the place of the white hawk, struggling and drowning. But he saw the sense of Zavala's words, even though he knew he would pay a price.
"Sir," he said in a low voice, "have you considered learning stasis? Eris Morn–"
"This is not the time," Zavala interrupted with a growl. "Focus on the mission."
"Yes sir," Jayesh said, cowed.
They found a doorway that narrowed to a cave through dripping stone, then changed to become a hallway through an Earth-made spaceship. Then it became a pyramid interior again, but this time filled with the creeping, poisonous blue fungus that accompanied great amounts of Darkness. It clustered in the corners in great puffy cushions. It sent up long tendrils with glowing spores on the ends in waving blankets like reeds.
"The air is toxic here," Phoenix told everyone. "Retreat. We can't go this way."
"No, it's all right," said Crow. "I saw Egregore on the infested Leviathan ship. Quick, come touch these growths on the wall. They'll coat you with spores that neutralize the poison."
Thus followed a strange journey through a series of increasingly toxic rooms, searching for particular growths that would protect them for a short time. It was particularly hard on Zavala and Cayde, who kept their helmets on with filters going full blast.
As they waded through the grasping, poisonous growths, heaviness began to weigh on Jayesh's spirit. The Darkness was thick here, rotten and stale, far too foul to exist inside the Traveler's heart. He promised himself that he would come back after this was over and burn this whole area clean.
The Witness's whispers crawled into his ears.
"You persist. You wish to aid your Traveler with reckless abandon. To spread the futile poison of life. Chaos disguised as freedom. We deny this pain. Let us enlighten you."
Jayesh had no breath with which to answer. He ducked through curtains of waving black Egregore that twinkled with sickly blue lights, racing along after Crow, who had a talent for finding the quickest way through the growths.
Then, somehow, Jayesh was alone. He made a wrong turn, followed the wrong passage, or was confused by hanging mats of fungus. "Fireteam, I've lost contact," he said.
"It's all right," Crow replied over the radio. "This tower isn't actually that big. Keep moving east as much as possible and I'm sure these passages join up again."
The hallway Jayesh had entered ran south, but turned east at the far end, so he followed it and felt a little better. Here the Egregore thinned out, too, and the air improved. The Darkness weighed less on him and his spirit lightened. Then he arrived at a gateway of black glass. It stood open. Warily he stepped through, weapons at the ready.
Inside the terrain changed to another cave, but the walls were made of giant Ghosts. Like the artistic faces sculpted into the walls in Crow's temptation cave, this one had five or six sculptures of Ghosts, each taller than Jayesh, melded together in aesthetically pleasing ways, the geometry of their shells interlocking to create patterns. But all of them had glowing red eyes that stared at Jayesh, hateful and unblinking.
"Forsake the architect of your enslavement," the Witness whispered as Jayesh wound his way among the sculptures. "Cast aside your squandered loyalties. You are no longer a pawn of the Light. Be free."
"I had this same conversation with an ahamkara once," Jayesh replied. "He said I was a slave to the Light as Taken were slaves to Darkness. So I asked the Traveler. It replied that slavery and service are not the same thing. One is based in fear. The other is based in love. I serve the Light in gratitude because it loved me enough to resurrect me, even though I'd been dead for such a long time." He laid a hand on one of the stone Ghost's red eyes. At his touch, the red light turned blue. "Do you not understand love, Witness?"
The Witness was silent.
Jayesh emerged from the passage into another room of black stone and pyramid architecture. It was dark and cold, but it was clean of Egregore, so Jayesh welcomed it. Even when a pack of Dread showed up and pinned him in a doorway for a while, he fought them cheerfully. Being reminded of the Traveler's love for him had reawakened his fire and his loyalty, and he fought the Witness's servants with his whole being.
Afterwards, when he had a chance to explore, he found his way blocked by a shimmering resonance field, and had to hunt for Darkness sigils to open it.
As he was doing this, the Witness whispered, "The sword logic teaches that what cannot be destroyed will surpass infinity. The Hive were lost to this childish game. Too obsessed with the violence of the first knife to see the final carving. Are you not also a prisoner of this eternal chase?"
"I don't fight for the fun of it," said Jayesh, locating a sigil hidden in the shadow of a pillar. "I fight to protect my home. But you don't understand the concept of home anymore than you understand love, do you? We're talking at cross-purposes."
"Home is the feeble idea of a young species," the Witness's voices whispered. "There is no true home."
"Maybe not now," said Jayesh. "Someday the Light will remake the universe without Darkness, and it will be beautiful and wonderful beyond imagining. That is my true home. I'm always looking forward to it. Your Final Shape is a small, twisted version of that."
"The Final Shape brings purpose," the Witness whispered. "All life frozen together in eternal beauty. No more chaos or suffering."
Jayesh lowered the resonance field at last and entered another pyramid room. The first thing he saw was a finalized animal in stone. It could have been a horse, perhaps a sort of centaur creature native to the Witness's home world. But it was sculpted out of greenish-white stone, its head twisted back over its shoulders in a scream of eternal agony.
"Your cruelty is unmatched, Witness," said Jayesh, laying a hand on the statue's shoulder. "Set this creature free."
"It already is," said the Witness. "Free of struggle. Free of pain. Free of confusion. It has found its purpose. You have no purpose, Jayesh Khatri, except to kill what your superiors tell you to kill."
A few paces further on, Jayesh came upon a sculpture of the old Vanguard war table. Around it stood Zavala, Ikora, and Cayde with their Ghosts, as they used to in the old Tower North, before the Red War had destroyed it. All of them gleamed in black stone, not a single dust mote to mar the art.
"This is new," Phoenix muttered in his mind. He was as small as he could make himself, his immaterial particles hidden deep within Jayesh's sheltering Light. "This sculpture was made within the last hour."
"Flattering," Jayesh thought dryly. "It's making art just for me. I should hang it on my refrigerator."
The Witness's whispers held a tone of pitying condescension. "These meager pawns you allow to lead you…their strength pales in comparison with your own. They hold you back from all you could become."
"You don't understand the concept of service, do you?" Jayesh replied. "I've grown strong to better serve my people. I hope I grow stronger yet, so I can defeat cosmic threats like you."
He left the table behind and descended a set of stairs, emerging in the open air on the outside of the tower. Here the Darkness storm had drifted away, and Light shone brightly on the black, glassy surface of the tower. Plants and ferns grew in the cracks, as if the Light had pushed back, spreading life, warning the Witness that soon it's monolith would only be a ruin.
As Jayesh stood there, getting his bearings, his fireteam emerged from another passage lower down. They waved to each other, then began climbing up to Jayesh's level.
"We caught the tail end of that," Cayde remarked. "The line was dead for a while, then we heard you talking to it. Sounds like the Witness thinks you're hot stuff."
"It offered me the same temptations," Zavala said.
"Me too," said Crow. "It was very flattering. It offered me the Awoken throne, a kingdom of my own, and my sister's love. What it doesn't understand is that I don't need all that. My purpose is so much higher and better now. It was tempting Uldren, not Crow."
As they joined Jayesh on his ledge, Cayde turned to Crow. "Okay, I have to ask. My last words to you were, 'How's your sister?' You never answered the question."
Crow laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "Well…"
At that moment, a new voice broke in over their comms. Mara Sov's imposing voice replied, "On her way with the HELM."
Instantly they all turned and scanned the sky, but no ships were in sight. The monolith blocked their view to the west.
"Mara!" Crow exclaimed. "How?"
"You're in danger, brother," said Mara Sov. "I found a way to open the portal at last, but you stand upon the Witness's doorstep. Begin your run and we will offer all the support we can."
Grinning, Crow turned to his team. "Backup just arrived."
"Good," said Zavala. "We are near the ritual chamber. I can sense it."
They found another doorway higher up and further along the tower's surface. They entered it and found themselves in a room piled nearly to the ceiling with treasure. Blocks of soft Cabal gold littered the floor. It lay piled in corners, it overflowed out of chests. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds glittered from every direction.
"Accept all that you are owed," the Witness whispered. "Never go hungry again. Wear the best gear and own the best weapons. Never again worry about finances."
Jayesh kicked a chunk of gold out of his way. "Sure, let's all stand around as statues surrounded by treasure forever. A lot of good that does anybody. Come on, team."
As they pressed onward into a hallway, leaving the treasure behind, Jayesh noticed Ikora watching him and tilted his head questioningly.
"It's after you, now," she said in a low voice. "You're strong, Jayesh, but it will find your weakness eventually. It's probing you, discovering your innermost desires. When it discovers what you want, you must continue to resist."
Jayesh nodded. "It hasn't offered anything the Winnower hasn't already tried."
"The Witness is different," Ikora replied. "Already its million souls are at work, discovering how to break you. You must not be separated from us again."
Jayesh nodded. Though he tried to hide it, the Witness's remark about his finances ate at him. He had spent his first year or so as a Guardian nearly too broke to feed himself, owing to having to retrain as a warlock and earning nothing for the duration. He had been stingy with money ever since, afraid of letting his family suffer the way he had. The Witness had rooted out this fear and offered him financial security. The temptation hit too close to his heart.
"We are near the ritual site," said Zavala suddenly. "I can feel it. Just down this last hallway, I think. Go carefully."
Crow and Jayesh crept ahead, straining their senses. Something very Dark lay ahead, Jayesh could tell. As they moved toward it, blackness filled the corners of his mind and vision. He mentally centered himself in the Light, reaching for Phoenix. His Ghost was ready with more Light, strengthening him from within.
They reached the end of the hallway and stopped in dismay.
Instead of the ritual site, they had come upon what was obviously Jayesh's last temptation. A stone statue of Jayesh himself stood on a plinth of black stone. He stood with one arm uplifted, feathery wings springing from his shoulders like an angel in a church. Above his hand floated a stone globe of Earth. Around him bowed other statues of men, women, children, and Guardians.
"Jayesh Khatri," said the voices of the Witness. "We judged humanity before you made your greatness known. Your worth. Your might. See the future we could grant you. Yourself lifted to even greater heights. Earth spared the Final Shape. Yes, we would make an exception on your behalf. Join us, not as the Collective, but as a Disciple. Transfer your misguided loyalty from the Traveler to us. In return, we will give you your world. You, it's protector. Your enemies, halted by the Final Shape. Peace from war. Yourself adored and loved by all. The hero who saved your world, blazing brighter than the sun forever."
Jayesh stared at that statue in silence, but his heart beat painfully. The Witness had figured out his heart's desires at last and offered them to him, laid out in stone. In an instant his mind raced through the possibilities of humanity's enemies turned to stone, silenced forever. The Hive on the moon? Gone. The Vex? Frozen with their homeworld. The Fallen of the enemy houses? Reduced to sculpture. The enemy Cabal factions? Frozen. Humanity could rebuild, spread from the Last City, retake their old lands. All of it under his own benevolent guidance.
But a lie lay behind this offer, a hidden sting waiting for his answer. He knew too well the actual price of becoming one of the Witness's Disciples. It was the same requirement that Emperor Calus of the Cabal had for becoming one of his Shadows. He cleared his throat, which had developed a lump for some reason. His voice slightly raspy, he said, "But to become a Disciple, I must slay every member of my own race until I am the last."
"But before that, you would have saved them," the Witness whispered. "Their lives are in your hands to do with as you please. Give them a golden age of peace and prosperity before paying the price of your Discipleship."
Horror bled through Jayesh's being like ink through water. He seemed to see it laid out before him, beautiful cities and gardens, Earth restored and at peace … and then the Last Knife was placed in his hand. He set out against his own people, striking them down without regret, without thought, without partiality. Blood covered the Earth like a sea. Innocent blood stained him from head to foot, dripping from the blade in his hand. At the last, he stood alone, the Earth empty, at the Witness's side, the last human among the other Disciples, each the last of their kind. Trophies of Darkness, their souls long dead.
He emerged from this vision of horror and death to find his team gathered around him. Everyone had put their arms around him and he hadn't even noticed. He stood at the center of a little knot, almost crushed, and yet it was immensely comforting.
"You're not alone this time," Crow whispered.
"We're here, we've got you," said Ikora.
"Whatever that bastard offers you, it's a lie," said Cayde.
"Be strong, Guardian," said Zavala. "See the truth, not the deception."
Jayesh leaned on them and saw the temptation for what it was. He drew himself back from those visions, from the horror of the offer it gave and the price it demanded. In his mind he reached for Phoenix, and found his Ghost bright and close.
"It awaits your answer," Zavala said.
"I have one," Jayesh whispered.
The group withdrew a little, giving him space to make his decision, but keeping their hands on his back and shoulders. Jayesh faced the statue and drew a deep breath.
"Witness, you've offered me everything I desire. Yet your price is too steep. What does it benefit me to gain the whole world and forfeit my soul?"
"You choose the Final Shape, then," the Witness whispered.
As Jayesh tried to formulate a response, Phoenix spoke suddenly. "Targe was right."
"Silence, you insolent speck," the Witness hissed, suddenly cold and venomous.
But Phoenix pressed on. "You're terrified. Of us. Of what we've become in the Light. You wouldn't offer to make him a Disciple and spare Earth unless you were desperate to stop us. You haven't been able to stop us so far, not with temptation, not by mortalizing us, not by discouragement or misdirection. Now a Prismatic Guardian stands upon your doorstep and you still haven't been able to stop him. When you cut out your dissenting members, you also cut out loyalty and wisdom. All you left yourself was cunning and lies, but the Light lays all that bare. In the Light, you are revealed to be weak and pathetic."
A short, heavy silence surrounded them. The team gripped their weapons, knowing that the reply, when it came, would be deadly.
The Witness's whispers surrounded them, hissing with cold anger and hate. "You seek the place where we destroyed ourselves? Come and be destroyed!"
The statue of Jayesh fell to dust and blew away. The whole room peeled aside, pyramid splinters folding and rearranging themselves, revealing an amphitheater of the white stone they had seen in the Witness's memory. They had been standing in the ritual site the whole time, as if the Witness had baited Jayesh into it in order to end him there.
On the steps of the amphitheater were veiled statues. They stood in groups of three, two each embedded in a freestanding wall fragment, with the third cut out of the wall and standing a little in front of it. Pictures of the dissenters, as if the Witness was telling them that one in three of its billions had been removed.
In the center of the amphitheater the Witness took shape, forming itself out of smoke and pyramid fragments. Behind it stood a monolith of rippling black corruption, like the one Zavala had entered. The Witness and the monolith were akin, somehow. The Witness itself was tall and thin, thirty or forty feet high, with a slender body and arms wrapped in gleaming black pyramid-stuff that rippled when it moved. Above the blackness stared its dead eyes from a white, corpse-like face. Faces smoked from its head, faces grimacing or screaming or snarling. The Witness's Collective was angry.
The team barely had time to see the Witness before it called for the Dread. An army of its demons appeared and all became chaos. The Grim hunted them from the air, weavers and Subjugators hunted them from the ground, and a Tormentor appeared and went after them with its black scythe.
In addition, the Witness lifted its arms, blurred as if a billion arms trailed after, and touched the sky. The sky cracked, then shattered. The Witness caught the shards, glittering with reality, and flicked them at the Guardians, casually, easily, like a man flicking peanut shells. It obviously was not bothering to exert even a fraction of its strength.
"Jayesh!" Zavala yelled. The Guardians were sheltering behind the veiled statues from the blasts and spells of their enemies. "You must enter the monolith behind the Witness! But stay alive, understand?"
Jayesh nodded. "Distract it!"
Ikora leaped out of hiding and flung a Nova Bomb at the Witness. The Witness flinched to one side, and the ball of purple energy struck the opposite side of the amphitheater, vaporizing the Tormentor and a good number of lesser Dread.
As this was going on, Jayesh circled behind the Witness at a run and leaped into the rippling corruption.
Silence fell. Utter darkness. Jayesh stood in a place where the air was dead and stale, cold as ice, but dry as bone dust. He held out his hands and touched stone things around him. He jerked his hands away with a shudder. Then he drew upon his Light, wreathing himself in Prismatic color.
The Darkness receded a bit. Jayesh saw that he had entered a place full of veiled statues. They clustered here and there, hundreds, thousands of them, like toys arranged by a careless child. But in their midst was a thing that was not a veiled statue. Jayesh cried out and ran to it.
It was the Traveler gripped in the Witness's hands. The hands had become cold black stone, and not a single fraction of the Traveler remained visible. It was simply a man-shape covered in layers of knuckles and fingers and claws. Jayesh tugged at the hands, but they could not be moved. He tried calling for his fire sword, but it could not come to him in that place. In desperation, Jayesh drew Lumina.
Lumina had once been an average hand cannon called the Rose. But an evil man had adorned it with Hive bone that drank the Light of Guardians, rendering them unable to be resurrected. Upon his death, this Thorn had been locked away, until after a time it came to Jayesh. He had burned away the Hive bone with his Light, then he and Kari had rebuilt it together a piece at a time. She had sculpted the flower petals along the barrel, and he had charged it with Light, bringing it to life. Its bullets had been charging off his Light the entire time he had carried it inside the Traveler and now contained as much power as a Guardian's supercharge.
Jayesh aimed this weapon of Light at the remains of the Traveler and began firing.
Lumina was so linked to Jayesh's Light that it never harmed anyone he loved. If he meant to heal them, the gun obeyed. When he turned his own Light upon the being he loved the most, it struck with a potent combination of damage and healing.
The first bullet cracked and destroyed dozens of hands. The second destroyed more. The face of the Traveler's avatar appeared, the eyes closed, apparently lifeless. Jayesh kept firing, down the center of the chest and across one arm. Light splashed across the avatar, soaking into him. Hands shattered and fell to dust. But the magazine was empty and no more charged ammo remained. Stone hands still gripped one arm and both legs. The Traveler lay still, eyes closed, unresponsive.
Jayesh sprang to the Traveler, touching the cold face, brushing away stone fragments. "Traveler! Please don't be dead! You have to fight! Please!"
No response.
Deadly terror gripped Jayesh's heart. He recklessly drew on his Light and threw down three healing rifts on top of each other, pouring multiplied Light into the Traveler. He seized its one free hand and rubbed it, trying to bring back the warmth. "Come on, Traveler! If I still have my Light, then you do, too!"
All around, the veiled statues seemed to watch this in silence. Almost they seemed to draw closer, the dissenters, the outcasts, still in the Witness's mind but closed off from the fellowship of the Collective. Had they been able to reach out to the Light, to the love of a Guardian fighting to save a divine life, they would have. But they were bound, chained in Darkness until their punishment should be decided.
The Traveler drew a breath. It inhaled in and in and in, breathing in not just air, but Jayesh's faith. The healing rifts sank into the Traveler and vanished. Jayesh, himself, began to shine with white Light.
The Traveler opened his eyes and smiled. They glowed with the same brightness. "Guardian Jayesh. You sought me in my distress, as I cried to the Light for mercy."
"I'm here, Traveler," Jayesh said, kneeling at its feet. "Tell me what to do."
"Reach out, Jayesh Khatri."
Jayesh rose to his feet and reached toward the Traveler. The Traveler's free hand met his halfway, and in it was a sword.
Jayesh took it in wonder. It was a sword of Light, sharper than steel, so bright that it made his hand glow.
"Strike the blows I cannot," said the Traveler.
Jayesh understood. He swung the sword and brought it down on the stone hands still holding the Traveler. They shattered like glass, crumbling to nothing, unable to stand before Light wielded by a faithful Guardian. In a moment the Traveler was free. He rose to his feet shakily, regaining his strength, but as he turned to Jayesh, he still had the black spike through his heart.
"Shall I strike that, too?" Jayesh asked.
"Nay," the Traveler replied. "This is the Witness's doing and it has bound its lifeforce into it. You must destroy the Witness first." He gestured to the silent statues around them. "Dissenters, what say you?"
The black statues seemed to draw closer about them.
"In Darkness we saw ourselves as both victims and perpetrators," moaned a statue. "Condemned to fade in Light once our deeds were known."
"We saw the true purpose of the universe," whispered another. "Multifaceted and various, wonderful destiny, redemption offered freely."
"We hated it," whimpered another. "The Gardener taught us of the Light and its blessings, but also its cost. Of drawing near the Creator, the Comforter, the Helpmeet, and swearing our fealty. We rejected such purpose."
"We sought other purpose and found none," whispered another. "We aimed to become that purpose."
"We destroyed ourselves," wept another. "That we might grow powerful enough to destroy all in denial of the true destiny. We would seek the Gardener who had so wounded our pride and made it the instrument of our triumph."
"And yet," whispered another. "And yet we knew the truth. No matter how we denied it or twisted it or buried it. The Traveler manifested our memories before our eyes, magnifying our guilt. The tighter we clutched, the harder it fought."
"We are undone," whimpered another. "We know our blood guilt. We seek other paths, so we are cut from the collective lest we weaken the whole."
"We who seek forgiveness are worse than dead," wept another.
"We are shaped into prisons," murmured another. "Chained in Darkness, yet we teach in a small way where we can. Powers of the mind and of ice. Small weapons to use against us. It is not enough."
"Your blade will end us," sobbed another. "Free to face our sentence before the Light, as is our fate."
"The Light is merciful to the penitent," moaned another. "Perhaps it will show us that mercy. We want to take that chance."
"Destroy us," whispered the multitude. "Destroy us. Destroy us. Break our bonds. Destroy us."
Jayesh looked to the Traveler for confirmation.
The avatar smiled. "Devotion, my Guardian. Bravery. Sacrifice. Death. That is the Guardian's creed, yet I would add another. Righteousness. Being in right standing with the Light and allowing nothing to stain your soul. These people of the Witness, long dead but not departed, chained to this reality by their own choice. My rebellious children who chose their own destruction rather than my blessing. Do as they ask. It is a mercy."
Jayesh swung that glorious sword, stars of Light streaming from the blade. It struck a statue and shattered it into dust. It sighed as the soul within it was released from its bonds. He struck another, and another, smashing them to dust, releasing each trapped soul.
He had only broken a handful when the Witness roared. The blank Darkness around them suddenly seethed with red.
"We cut you out!" the Witness shrieked. "How dare you call to the Light!"
Jayesh was ripped from the Withess's mind space so violently that his body and Light splintered under the force of it. For an instant he thought he was some of the shards of sky the Witness had shattered. Then he was lying on the white marble of the amphitheater at the Witness's feet. It glared down at him with its huge eyes of Darkness.
"You feeble worm," it hissed. "You dead thing. Your very flesh is only knit together from Light, weak Light, helpless Light. We will snuff it out."
The Witness raised its arms and more arms fanned out from them. Hundreds, thousands, billions, stacked together like cards in a deck. The white amphitheater began to blacken. Yet among the smoking faces that arose from the Withess's head was a streak of orange resonance. It was wounded.
"Jayesh, get out of there!" someone yelled.
Jayesh rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. Blood smeared the pavement where he had been. It stained his combat robes and pants, dripping to the ground. He couldn't even tell where it was coming from. He staggered away from the Witness and gained the meager shelter of one of the freestanding walls with the veiled statues. Behind it was a crack in the floor with Light streaming through. He stood over it, drawing it in, gathering his strength.
"Jayesh, run!" yelled Crow. He was there, in Jayesh's face, shaking him. He shoved his own Aegis shield onto Jayesh's arm. "Get out on the far side of the tower, first left then a straight shot down the hallway! We'll try to draw its attention!"
Shards of reality sliced into the stone around them, some shattering, others standing in the stone like knife blades, showing glimpses of skies and hills. Jayesh raised his shield and blocked another. The Witness was conjuring a storm, ripping reality apart in its rage, trying to shred the Guardians in the chaos.
"Go!" Jayesh yelled, pushing Crow away. "Get Cayde and Zavala out!"
Crow gave him a last anguished look and sprinted away, weaving between the flying glass shards with his customary grace.
Jayesh set out at a walk because he couldn't run, his shield before his face.
Crow, Ikora, Zavala, and Cayde raced down the main passage, hoping to escape on the west side of the monolith, toward their allies. They shouted insults as they ran and flung around their Light powers, making themselves a target. The Witness reached after them with giant hands of glossy black pyramid-stuff. One groped for Zavala, tripping him with a finger. Ikora brought down both hands blazing with Void Light. The hand flinched and whipped away. She helped Zavala to his feet and they ran on.
Jayesh reached the side passage and turned left, leaving a trail of blood. Shards of sky struck his shield and glanced off, battering his arm. He saw shards of trees, and mountains, and the Traveler's beautiful landscapes, all torn to fragments and spinning through space.
"Jay," groaned Phoenix. "We're both hurt."
"Hang in there, little light," Jayesh panted. "I'll get us out of here."
A giant black hand reached for him. Jayesh still gripped the sword of Light in his other hand. He swung it at the hand and sliced off two fingers. It withdrew with a shriek like metal grinding on metal.
"I see the exit!" Cayde shouted, pointing at a light in the distance. "Hurry!"
More hands were reaching for the fleeing Guardians, hands emerging from the Darkness or forming out of the whirling shards. One grabbed Ikora and would have dragged her away, but Crow wrapped himself in fire and summoned a blazing axe of an Iron Lord. He cleaved the hand from the wrist. It instantly fell to dust, releasing its victim. Crow helped Ikora to her feet and they ran on.
Jayesh walked on, through a hallway that seemed miles long. Now he was climbing stairs of half-imagined blocks that threatened to give way beneath every step. The blade in the Traveler's heart had pierced his own, he was sure. His life blood was spilling out and he couldn't stop it.
"Devotion," he panted in time with his steps. "Bravery. Sacrifice. Death. Righteousness."
He felt Phoenix feebly trying to heal him from phase. Some of the bleeding slowed and Jayesh's head cleared a little. He tried to move faster.
"Jay," Phoenix said, "this tower is coming apart. You have to run."
Jayesh tried to run and could not. His body wouldn't obey him. It took all his strength to walk and hold up that shield against the constant rain of shards.
Cayde reached the outer doorway first and shot several Dread who were trying to trip them up. Behind them black hands continued to reach after them, faster and faster with the Witness's rage. Zavala, Ikora, and Crow ran for their lives and gained the doorway. They leaped from the black tower and were caught by a transmat by a Vanguard ship. The fleet were circling the tower, seeking them.
Jayesh reached the outer doorway, where a narrow balcony jutted out over nothing. He must jump and glide to safety … but his strength had bled away. He fell on his face, his shield beneath him, sword still clutched in his hand.
A huge black hand of the Witness emerged from the tower, groping for him, ready to drag him back into the Darkness for endless torment. But the Vanguard Coalition spotted him and transmatted him aboard the HELM under the very fingertips of the Witness.