The lot of a Ghost was a dangerous one, Vizier reflected. He had searched the system for an age and a half before coming across his Guardian in the Reef. It had been a long, lonely, treacherous search, avoiding the notice of Fallen and Hive and Vex alike, cunning and keen and relentless as they had all been. (The Cabal, by comparison, were easy to avoid.) The Reef had not been welcoming, had really never been welcoming, even after all that his Guardian had done for them. After finding his Guardian, Vizier had been drawn into forbidding places and thrust into deadly situations, but he would never abandon his Guardian.
But Vizier was now having doubts about whether his Guardian would abandon him.
He watched the battle from the safety of decompilation, out of phase with reality, invisible and intangible, but never very far from her as she Blinked about the court, slicing down Hive with a flash of a sword, dancing between purple explosions of flung grenades, guns blazing as she shot down leaping thrall and hissing witches. Wahei Ohr had changed since he'd found her, and the biggest change had come after the Red War, when they'd been lost down in those catacombs.
Vizier's memory of that time was clouded. He felt as though he'd been ... half-compiled, trapped between solidity and ephemera, hanging off of her belt in a little net of woven Awoken fiber. He'd felt like he was sleeping, dreaming, drifting, and what moments he could recall clearly, were nightmarish, filled with shrieking and howling of thrall.
He came back to the here and now as she bore the Exiled Prince to the ground, a sword buried in his chest. The necromancer snarled and reached up with burning claws, but Wahei pinned one down with a boot, catching the other with her hand, Void energies glowing as she drained away the vicious energies that he tried to turn on her. She removed her helmet, glaring through the thin dreadlocks that hung in her face. "Now who is the child reaching toward a flame?"
Nokris snarled again. "You are but one in a chain of failures claimed and sunken." The Prince's eyes studied her as she leaned into the weight of her sword, and then his teeth showed in something like a smile. "Does Xol's clutch hold you now, as it once did me?"
"What use would I have for a faithless worm like the Thousands' Will?" Wahei shook her head. "No worm, no twisted thing from the Deep holds me." Her hand gave a twist, the sword turning in the wound, and Nokris growled in pain.
"An agent of violence," he spat. "What more must you cull?"
"I can think of one thing." She felt the strength in his wrist fade, releasing his claw and letting it fall limp to the ground. "The universe will be a cleaner place without your stain in it." She met his glare with one of her own. "And there will be a little less hatred driving me."
He smiled again at her. "Is malice not enough?"
Vizier felt a coldness radiate from Wahei that had nothing to do with temperature. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at him. "You speak of things you do not understand, o breaker of pacts."
"I know many things," he chuckled. "Why else would the Seeker of Truths welcome me in Her court? She knows the truth none will accept."
Her head tilted slowly, eyes gleaming with a pale light. "What truth is this?"
"Light and Dark are locked blades." Nokris was wheezing now, vainly attempting to lift his arms. "A logic simple and narrow. A bridge with only one path." He lifted his head and smiled one last time. "Cast yourself from it. Break your shackles. Claim your strength." As he sank back, his body breaking to cinders and dust, he hissed, "Life and death are liar's tools. Weave your own lie."
Vizier compiled himself back into solidity over his Guardian's shoulder. She was staring at the place where the necromancer prince's body had lain, her sword still buried in the grave dirt of the Witch's court. He still felt the strange cold fury in her, but it slowly drained away as she holstered her hand cannon. She lifted her gaze and took in the surroundings of the court.
Vizier broke the silence, unable to bear it. "Looks very familiar, doesn't it?"
The Warlock nodded. "Constants and variables. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same,'" she mused. "For all that the Witch Queen sought to grow different from her brother, it seems she has much the same aesthetic likes as him." She pulled her sword from the floor and returned it to its scabbard as she strode across the dirt toward the raised dais and the now-silent portal. Vizier saw her hand drop to the pack on her hip, lifting the flap to reach inside.
"You know that everyone does have a point about that book," Vizier noted, reproachfully. She ignored him as she drew out the black leather-bound book, fingers briefly touching the geometric pattern of triangular shapes scored on its cover. He pressed on, "You know I'll follow you into the Deep Down Deep Dark, but that doesn't mean I don't worry about you."
"I'm fine, Vizier," she said as she crouched, consulting a marked page in the book. She then busied herself using the non-writing end of her stylus to scrawl some signs and sigils in the dirt in front of the portal. "I know you, the team, the Vanguard, and especially the Praxics would like me to see a psychiatrist or therapist, but I do not care to dwell on my experiences in Paris." She paused, lifting her gaze, her deep blue eyes staring into nothing. "I have enough nightmares as it is without having to drag those memories back to the surface."
Vizier made a sighing sound. "I know you're not going to go the route of the Dredgens, but that's no guarantee that you won't go all bibbledy. Remember Cyrell? Not every Guardian who goes bad wields a Thorn." He flitted close and bumped his shell against the shaven side of her head. "I'm with you to the end, Wahei. Just... don't lose sight of the Light, no matter how Dark things get."
She smiled faintly as she flicked her finger off one of his shell's fins. "Thanks, Viz."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Wahei was a Guardian known for her singular focus when in the midst of studying or researching. It had been a point of contention among her fellow Warlocks in her early years, as she drifted from topic to topic, from order to order, learning a little something from each. The Cryptarchs had liked her, though perceived her decision not to remain among them as a loss. For them as well as for her. The Thanatonauts had welcomed her, but simply shrugged when she moved on. The Praxic Order, of course, had been leery of the fact that she did not stay, and she suspected that had prompted an age-old grudge among some of the Order.
But Wahei was never someone who cared much for the opinions of others about herself. She knew herself, knew where the line was with her, and she took care not to step over it. Not unless there had been no choice.
Like under Paris.
Wahei shook the ruminations away and returned her focus to the task at hand. She laid Toland's last compendium down next to her, then drew another object from her pack. It resembled a bird skull, but closer inspection revealed it to be comprised of some waxy substance. Its surface was covered with scrimshaw-like etchings, but several sides of the skull bore more deeply carved runes. Wahei let the Traitor's Die dance between her fingertips a few times, then flicked her thumb under the beak, sending it tumbling into the air, coming down into the circle in front of her.
The Die landed
on its side, one rune facing up, which began to glow with an orange light. Wahei sat back on her knees as she regarded it. Then the Die suddenly turned of its own accord, rolling in place several times, before the other side faced up, the rune there beginning to glow as well. It tumbled again in place, until it stood up on the point of the beak, the underside facing her, its rune glowing. It slowly rotated to face her, the two runes in its eye sockets lighting up.
Vizier eyed it warily. "...it's looking at me, Wahei."
"You're imagining things, Viz." She reached into her pack for her journal. "It's just an object."
The Traitor's Die tumbled about in place again and swiveled slowly until its eyes faced her. Vizier muttered, "I think it can hear you, Wahei."
Wahei opened her mouth to speak, turning to look at her Ghost, but he wasn't there. She turned back, but the runed circle she'd scrawled was gone. The Die was still there, hovering in place. Everything else around her was dark columns extending into the distance, with a faint gleam in the distance, emanating from a tetrahedral shape that hung in the air.
A voice spoke, then. One that she had heard in Dark places, on the shores of the Sea of Screams. "Don't you see?" She spun, looking for the floating wisp of Light, but there was no sign of it. "This is as we once said." It seemed to be coming from the Traitor's Die.
"Toland?" She groped for her journal, but her pack was empty. She looked down, and saw that the compendium and her stylus were missing as well.
When she looked back up, the Die had gone, but there stood a towering shape in the armor of a Titan. Wahei stared at the figure of Sergei Bolvan, a smile on his face, but his eyes shone with the same orange glow the Die's runes had. "In Light," he said, "there is only weakness. Only failure. Only death."
"Bolvan, you lunkhead, what are you doing here?" she whispered, but as she rose to her feet, he had disappeared. She saw him standing farther away, closer to the hovering Pyramid. She walked toward him. "You can't be here, Bolvan. You're dead. RTL."
She lost line of sight as a column passed between them, and then he was gone. But she saw another familiar shape, looking toward the Pyramid, then turning to regard her with an all-too-familiar cold detachment. But the eyes in the figure of Mara Sov shone with the same orange glow. Wahei froze, staring at the not-Queen, who picked up the thread. "But where the Light takes, the Dark gives. No longer will you be a pawn."
"You're not her!" she shouted at the figure, her sword coming free from its scabbard. The blade flashed, but the not-Queen was no longer there. She whirled, but froze as she saw that another shape had appeared closer to the Pyramid.
"No longer will you watch the lives of those you care for be lost," the figure of Cayde-6 drawled, his orange-glowing eyes watching her as he tugged his hood into place above his horn.
Wahei shook her head. "You're-- no... He's gone, too. You're not him. This isn't funny!"
But not-Cayde was gone again, and she saw a different figure standing beneath the Pyramid, her arms spread wide, as if in welcome. She slowly approached the shape, who turned her own head down to regard her in kind. While the other figures had the strange orange glow in their eyes, this one had a pale, cold glow instead.
"Remember," the mirror of herself said, "in Darkness, there is only strength. Only victory. Only life."
She glared at her doppelganger. "You twist the meaning of words to suit your purposes. You speak of these things, but you only want--"
"Strength," the doppelganger repeated. "Those who do not hold their claim to existence do not deserve it. To stake one's claim, one must be strong." The not-her inclined her head, smiling thinly. "Victory. Those who assert their right to existence, continue to exist. This is the only true victory." She brought her hands together, steepling her fingers. "Life. It only holds meaning when one proves one's right to existence."
Wahei's hand went to her hip, but she found her holster empty. "We told you," the not-Wahei's lips twitched in a smile, "you will not need weapons. We are not your enemy."
"You are not our friend, either," she pointed out. "The things you're saying? These are just your opinions, your beliefs. Mine are different."
The not-Wahei nodded with another smile. "Does your Traveler tell you what they believe? Have they given you any guideposts by which to shape your beliefs?"
Wahei frowned. "No," she admitted. "But I do not need to hear from the Traveler to know what I'm doing is right. Protecting my people."
There was the faintest hint of a sneer on the doppelganger's lips. "If your people cannot stand without your help, they do not deserve--"
"Finish that sentence," her voice was flat, but rimed with fury, "and I will find a way to make iota of your being to die screaming."
Wahei's eyes gleamed with a coldness that matched the one in her mirror's own as she added, "I may just do that anyway."
The not-Wahei smiled now, wider, and her eyes shone brightly. "Ah. Such righteousness. You are majestic." She seemed to draw in a breath, savoring it before sighing, "Majestic."
Wahei found her gaze locked with her doppelganger's then, as her Dark twin raised a finger, curling it as if beckoning. "Come and See." And when the mirror spoke next, it was in a voice like multitudes, whispering, "Ancient power awaits you on Europa."
She could not speak, could not move, but with a wave of the other's hand, Wahei found herself flung backward. The world turned inside out around her, before she found herself landing on the soil in the Cradle, looking up at the Darkened shape of the Tree of Silver Wings.
Vizier blinked his optic a few times as he looked around. "Wahei? What ... what just happened? I... lost sight of you, I think...?"
Wahei sat up slowly, feeling the weight of the Umbranomicon in her pack again, and she looked to her Ghost. "We'll talk later." She looked up at the huge bulk of the Pyramid which blotted out the sky. "But I think I know where our next destination will be."
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