Fragment: Long Shadows I
Jun. 14th, 2018 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rekindledtitanFollowing the 'In Cinders' post, Blaze was briefly diverted and wound up running into Steve Rogers prior to this post.
Zavala was in another debriefing when they landed, which left Blaze waiting her turn outside. She took the chance to interrogate the young cryptarch tending one of the Tower’s libraries.
“How can your archives have nothing on them?” Blaze glared at the unfortunate human, leaning on his desk. Sunlight streamed through the skylights above, warm on the back of her head. Warm sun and sounds muffled by of wall upon wall of books- “You know we’re talking about an entire order of Titans? You cryptarchs collect every pointless detail about our history, how could you just leave out-”
Something soft hit her shoulder and started to flop off before her fist closed on it: a half-folded swath of faded yellow cloth. Blaze’s head snapped around to find the source and found Ulysses shrugging at her.
“Oops. Bad throw,” he said brightly. “I forget to aim over the pauldrons.”
“Ulysses? I didn’t know you were back.” Jarred from her irritation, it took her a second to add gruffly, “Good to see you in one piece.”
“I found you a present.” He gestured to the cloth in her hand.
She realized what the heft of the material meant before she looked down. It was a Titan’s mark. A very old mark. The cloth was worn and tattered at the edges, but she could feel its strength as she unfurled it. Despite the marks of blood and battle, the fiery emblem leapt up brightly in the sunlight. The outline of a blazing hammer, orange on gold.
“Where the hell did you find this?” she asked softly, unable to quite believe what she was holding. Ghost dropped silently around her shoulder to take a look. How did he get it?
“Oh, around the City. I plumb the infinities of the Vault of Glass to uncover secrets sealed behind locks of chance and time. Pulling the odd antique from the City’s markets isn’t all that hard for me. You seem to know what it is already.”
“I’ve seen one,” she said. “At a Sunbreaker’s side.”
“I’m impressed! Did you speak with them?”
“She never gave me the chance. But you know about them, don’t you?” And Ulysses wasn’t a Titan; less likely for him to feel a personal stake in whatever the old dispute was.
He gave her as much of a smile as an Exo could: a tilt of his head, an amused slant of his bright eyes. He whirled on his heel. “Come talk with me and stop bullying the nice cryptarch. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know.”
“I wasn’t… hnn. Sorry.” Chastened, she looked back at the worried young man, but Ulysses was already sweeping out the doorway in a swish of purple and green robes. She had to stride quickly to keep up, the mark clutched in her fist and Ghost trailing behind her.
“I warn you, this is a bit of a long story, and there’s hardly any punching in it.
“Shut up and talk.”
Ulysses looked over his shoulder at her, brow plates lifted.
“…You know what I mean.”
He laughed at her. And then he talked.
There were Sunbreakers long before there was a Wall. Long before there was a City. They fought their way through the long Dark Age after the Collapse, choosing their own battles, bringing the light of the Solar Forge wherever they saw fit. In time they allied themselves with the City like everyone else, but they were always apart from the other, younger Titan orders. They were independent. Proud. Mercenary, some called them. Wielders of a power few Titans could master.
How do I explain it to you? The Forge is Solar Light. Your Arc is directed fury, the Void unfathomable silence. Both terrible in their way, but containable, if you’re the sort of mind who worries about that. Predictable, controllable, obedient. But Solar Light, that’s raw, unfettered transformation. Vertiginous possibility. The death of the old to forge the new. Some people flinch from that. The Sunbreakers thrived in it.
And then along came Osiris…
“I wondered when we’d get to him,” Blaze muttered with resignation
“You’ve learned something, then. Good.” Ulysses’s tone had turned arch, like an interrupted instructor. “What do you know about him?”
“Not much to find. He was an old Warlock, exiled for causing trouble…”
“‘Some old Warlock.’ Pah. He was the Vanguard Commander. Zavala’s predecessor. Ikora’s mentor!”
“He tried to warn us that an eon-spanning genocidal hive-mind of reality-warping machines had us in their sights. If you were the first one to figure that out, I think it would prey on your mind. But the Speaker wouldn’t hear it. He and the Consensus wanted to go on believing the Vex were a minor threat, nicely sealed away on Venus where they could do no harm. Osiris insisted on speaking about his visions, of a Vault containing multiple realities, a Garden beyond time, a threat to the foundations of our reality. And look at what we’ve learned since then! You’ve walked the Black Garden with me. You’ve looked an oracle in the metaphysical eye. Tell me he wasn’t right. Tell me if you think something like that is ever simply contained.”
She knew this was true. You didn’t contain the Vex. The Vex contained everything else.
“The Consensus’s duty is to deal with any threats to the City. The Speaker must have had some reason…” She looked up at her Ghost as she said it, her voice low and uneasy.
“Of course,” said Ulysses. “He hated the influence Osiris had gained. The sway his so-called ‘heresies’ held in the City. And he feared the way citizens and Guardians alike were looking to Osiris instead of him. So he turned the Consensus against their own Vanguard Commander, and exiled him from the City for good. “
This was too much to swallow in one. The Speaker was a guiding voice to all of them. The man who gathered Guardians and children alike around the fire and told them tales of adventures and heroes past; who spent his days searching for ways to help the Traveler heal, who tended gently to the dead Ghosts they carried home from the wilds. He was distant, yes; extremely mysterious; undeniably unnerving with his blank silver mask. But power-hungry? Petty? Wilfully short-sighted?
“The Sunbreakers, Ulysses.” Her tone was hard. She hadn’t been asking for the rest. “What was their part in this?”
“Osiris had made a contract with them on the city’s behalf. When Zavala took over, good soldier that he is, he wanted the Sunbreakers to abandon that oath. He thought they’d fall in line and pledge their loyalty to the Consensus like all the other orders.
“I’m guessing they refused.”
“I think after the way Osiris was treated they were feeling especially uncooperative. There were bitter arguments with Zavala. They left, and he allowed the Consensus to expunge their legacy from the city they’d fought and died for. Not the most honorable response, I think.
“Good luck,” said Ulysses, his Ghost staring at her unreadably.
She reported to the Hall of Guardians, the Tower’s great council room, and met Zavala at the top of the long table. His fellow Vanguards were currently absent; only the resident Frames and a handful of civilian techs manned the consoles around the far walls. They went over Ghost’s report concerning the fight on Venus, at least until Blaze’s refusal to withdraw came up.
“Why did you order me back?” she asked bluntly. “I wasn’t going to turn away from a Guardian in need.”
“Do you think that Sunbreaker needed your help?” Zavala raised his eyebrows. “As I recall, you were taken out of the fight as soon as the gate’s true defenders appeared.”
“Maybe she didn’t need my help, then. That doesn’t explain why you didn’t want me to give it.”
“I wanted you to hold back and observe. I’ve had another Guardian make contact since, and they seem-”
“You sent someone else?” After all the time she’d sent searching for them? Sparks crawled from her gauntlets to the helm in her hands. ”Why?”
“Because you are a good Striker, but you are not a diplomat,” Zavala replied calmly, unfazed by her glare. “And because approaching them had to be done with care. You don’t understand how delicate this matter is, Blaze.”
“I know you and the Sunbreakers fell out over Osiris. I know there’s bad blood between them and the City. But why should that bar me from talking to them?” The questions were bursting from her now. “What’s so dangerous about these people that we can’t even make contact? Are we still scared of Osiris’s prophecies about the Vex? We already know he was right!”
“That is not the issue-“
“Isn’t it, sir? I know the Speaker worked pretty damned hard to purge his ideas.”
“Guardian.” The Commander’s voice came down like a gavel, echoed by a thousand faint memories. She pulled herself to attention without thinking. He gave her an iron look. “I cannot answer for the Speaker. My concern is Osiris’s effect on the people around him.”
“What effect?” She thought of what Ulysses had told her. Of how many tales the Nexus had told her, of authorities who feared a threat to themselves.
“Come with me.” Zavala went over to the great window that stretched floor to ceiling on the outer side of the hall. It looked out into the mountains, down the narrow pass toward the Twilight Gap. She’d come up that path in Kaolin’s shadow, years ago. Above them on either side loomed great gun batteries, silently aimed at the sky. It was a long moment before he spoke.
“Look around you, Titan. This Tower, this City. The Wall that guards our people from the dark. Do you know where they came from? In the Dark Age before the City, there were no laws, no codes to protect the innocent. There were no Guardians. Only warlords pitting their Light-bearing followers against one another. The Traveler’s chosen were nothing more than thugs who taking whatever they wanted. The Iron Lords changed that. They united us in service to a greater cause, and together we built a city for all of us to call home. Younger Guardians sometimes do not understand how fragile this dream of ours can be. As Vanguard Commander my one overriding duty is to keep that precious dream alive for humanity. Osiris did not grasp that.
“He was… a clever, commanding man, and a powerful Warlock, consumed with his visions of the Vex danger. But when the Consensus balked at his obsessions he turned the people of the City against them. He drew together those who were impatient, lost, rebellious. He fed their discontent against the consensus. To them his teachings became holy revelations, his warnings were prophecies of doom. When the Speaker criticized their ‘great one’, they deemed the Speaker a heretic.
“The rest of us saw Guardians turned against one another. We saw one man amassing blind devotion from a legion of followers who half-understood his words, a new prophet-king in the making. The return of an age we had worked for centuries to rise above.”
“He was right about the Vex though. Even if he was a troublemaker, we can’t afford to shut our eyes against what’s out there.” She was more dubious now, though. Maybe that was what Osiris thought he had to do, to be heard, but this all sounded incredibly dangerous.
“There is a difference between warning the Vanguard and stoking the people’s fears. But it wasn’t just about his difficult ideas or his unacceptable methods. An eccentric Warlock is nothing unusual. Osiris was our Vanguard Commander, and the City could not give up everything to follow him in his crusade. We had a duty to the refugees seeking shelter in our walls, the sanctuary we had sworn to provide. This city was – and is - the last safe place on Earth. One final chance for humanity. Not something we could tear apart for the sake of one man’s pride.”
“You really believe he was that dangerous, commander?”
“This happened shortly before the Faction Wars broke out. The danger was real, Blaze. Osiris was too arrogant to care about the divisions he was breeding. He claimed he had no love for the cult he gathered, but he did little to dissuade them and abandoned his post at the Tower completely. He left his responsibilities to Ikora, without handing over his authority. If all he cared about was his research, then he should have stepped down. But just as he denied authority over his followers, he reaped the benefits of his position without acknowledging the responsibilities.”
That sent an odd jolt through Blaze, although she couldn’t place why. There was too much to absorb here. She turned his words over, thinking out loud. “Ulysses didn’t mention any of this, but- even if he was a terrible commander, sir, burning books and erasing records still smells like cowardice. What kind of future are we building if it can’t survive an argument?”
“I would usually agree. But what Osiris ignited was not a reasoned and thoughtful debate. It was fanaticism and blind hysteria.
“Erasing his allies with prejudice sounds kinda hysterical to me, too. Did the Sunbreakers deserve that?”
“The Sunbreakers…” He sighed. “They were old-school Light-bearers, ferocious and unforgiving in battle. They fought on their terms and maintained their own loyalties. Where they found opposition they seared a path through it… without regard for those who would be left in their wake. In Osiris they found a cause they were all too eager to embrace, and a leader willing to allow them a freedom I would not. I could not.”
“I never met a Titan who’d abandon their oaths, either.”
“An oath to one man! An exile from the City he abandoned.” Zavala shook his head, and the severity in his voice eased even as his frown deepened. “In hindsight, I was… naïve to think it would be so simple. But I took my place on the Vanguard after Osiris’s departure, just after the Fallen had almost broken us at Twilight Gap. We had Fallen terrorists slipping inside the City to bomb our homes, Lysander and his Concordat stirring dissent. We needed unity to survive.”
“At any cost?” Ghost asked. Blaze looked up at him for a moment, troubled.
“I understand why Osiris and his writings were banished, then. I don’t agree, but I think I understand. And I understand why the Sunbreakers had to follow. But purging them from the records? Commander, they fought and died for this city too. Even if they chose to leave, we shouldn’t forget their deeds. They’re still Guardians, like us. Or not like us. It doesn’t matter. They fought the Darkness with us. They deserve to be remembered.” Like Steve, driven out and hunted by his own brother in arms. It’s not right. “And the Sunbreaker on Venus seemed friendly enough. Why else would she give me a helmet like this?” She lifted it in emphasis.
Zavala studied her face with an odd expression. “…I believe that was intended as a bribe, Blaze.”
“What?”
“We aren’t the only ones who can use rewards as encouragement. Since they left us, the Sunbreakers have often tried to recruit Guardians away from the City. They have always called to the bold, the impatient. The… young.”
“Well, if they took all the ones who’d be bribed maybe it wasn’t such a loss,” Blaze growled. The more it sank in the more insulted she felt.
“You know,” cut in a new voice, “that’s an honorable sentiment. But if we kicked out every Guardian who’ll do what they’re told for a new pair of shiny pants, well, then Zavala would be left up here all by himself. I bet he’d cry.”
She spun to see the Hunter Vanguard at her side just as Zavala warned, ”Cayde.”
“Zavala. Buddy.” Cayde-6 shrugged innocently. “I just came to let you know the last reports from the Reef are in. I didn’t know this was a Titan family argument.”
“Thank you, Cayde.”
“Sooo…. I’ll just come back later. Oh, and if you two get in a fight, just try and aim the crossfire-“ he pointed- “right through my terminal. I’d appreciate it.”
Zavala sighed as his colleague’s steps receded. Blaze was already distracted by her thoughts.
“It’s about control, then?” she asked unhappily. “You figured if I spoke to the Sunbreakers I’d be too likely to see things their way.”
“If you share their potential, then I am certain you can. I have known you since the day you reached the Tower, Blaze. You took up your role as a Guardian without hesitation. Never once have I seen you falter in your dedication to the City. But your zeal and trust in others are exactly the qualities the Sunbreakers would try to take advantage of. You’ve always been able to trust in other Guardians, and you’re quick to form judgments and loyalties. That may be valuable in a new-born Guardian, but you’re no longer a novice. I need you to learn a measure of reserve. You’re entrusted with keeping watch over the Nexus, and we cannot afford for Osiris to acquire access to that. After all this time, there’s no telling what his goals are.”
She hadn’t considered how the Nexus would factor into it. She frowned, and Ghost spoke up.
“Perhaps so,” Zavala said slowly. “Looking back on it, all these years… we were all much younger, Blaze. I was not the Guardian I am now. I’m certain of one thing. The City has been diminished by the rift between us. After all this time, I believe we need the Hammer of Sol to stand with us again. The Light has called you on that path, but you must not forget your duty. The Sunbreakers are strong-willed, aggressive and unyielding. It you want to speak with them, you’d better make sure you’re ready for them.”
Blaze pondered. It may not matter. I may not last long enough to be any kind of Sunbreaker. But if the only thing I ever accomplish is bringing back their Light, won’t that be something worth having lived for?
“Whatever else,” she said, “they should be honored properly inside our walls.”
“I will consider it.”
She lifted the helm in her hands, looking at her reflection in the mirrored faceplate with discomfort. “The Sunbreaker I fought with… whatever her objective was, I don’t think she’s an enemy of ours. But I don’t intend to abandon the City, Commander. No more than I could walk away from that fight. My purpose is here. My loyalties are here.” I belong nowhere else. She looked up at him. “If I go to the Forge, will I find them there?”
“I believe so.”
“Would you advise me to, sir?”
He was silent for a moment. “I would. But if you succeed in kindling that fire, Titan, there is only one thing I ask you to do.”
“Sir?”
“Bring it home.”
“Titan,” Shaxx called out as she left. Blaze turned, and the Crucible master beckoned her over with a jerk of his one-horned helm. His command centre took up one side of the antechamber to the Vanguards’ hall, a nest of weapon racks and viewscreens and couches. Close to, she had to tilt her head back to meet the bigger Titan’s gaze. Or… where his gaze probably was, behind his blank helm.
“Lord Shaxx?”
“So, you’re chasing the Sunbreakers’ Forge now.”
“How did you know?” Shaxx and Zavala hadn’t been on close terms in years …
“Maybe I’m a Warlock, Blaze-37.” He sounded amused, but then nodded at the helm she was carrying. “Liu Feng, am I right? The Sunbreaker who gave you that.”
Blaze lifted it so he could take a look. “She didn’t give her name, sir.”
“I know her work.” He took the helm to examine it, running mailed fingers over the graceful lines as he studied it front and back.
“Did you know the Sunbreakers?” Blaze asked, watching him.
“I fought with them. Shoulder to shoulder atop the Wall at Twilight Gap. They were practically outcast even then, but they stood with us anyway.” There was something strange in his voice. Regret, she thought.
Ghost ventured,
“It wasn’t banishment.” Shaxx looked up, and Ghost jumped back a little. “It was a row. Yeah, I spoke my piece to Zavala. Made no difference once he got into it with Ouros and Lilavati. Things were said. Well, shouted. And melted. Mostly shouted.”
“What kind of things?”
“Zavala said that if they couldn’t put their responsibility to the city first, they had no place on the Wall. They said the city didn’t deserve defending.”
Even three hundred years distant, Blaze and her Ghost winced.
“I’m… guessing there wasn’t much civil discussion after that.”
“What was left to say?” He seemed to be measuring her when he looked up. “If you’re going to try and follow their path, I hope you’re ready. I’ve known three others who went searching for the Forge. None returned. Either they succeeded, or they’re dead.”
“What can you tell me about it?” she asked. “I think I’ve seen… well, glimpsed the Forge. But I- hnn. I want to understand, sir.”
“The Forge is unforgiving. It’s both a test and the answer. You have to give yourself to the fire and yet master it. You think you can do that? Do I make it sound easy? The Forge has spat out older and wiser Titans than you. It demands something neither the Arc nor the Void do. Zavala could never handle it. Too rigid. Then there are others – men like Lysander – who’d bend and warp in the heat of that power.” He leaned closer as he handed back the helm. “Before you step in front of that Forge, ask yourself: are you strong enough to be stripped down to your very core and remain true to your purpose?”
Wipe away the rest, and purpose is all that’s left.
“There’s only one way to know,” she said.
“Good. It’s been three hundred years since the Sunbreakers saw what we were made of. Do my Crucible proud. Prove to the Sunbreakers that our Light burns fiercer than ever.” She saluted and turned, only for him to call her again. “And hey, Titan. When you see Liu Feng, say hello for me.”
Zavala was in another debriefing when they landed, which left Blaze waiting her turn outside. She took the chance to interrogate the young cryptarch tending one of the Tower’s libraries.
“How can your archives have nothing on them?” Blaze glared at the unfortunate human, leaning on his desk. Sunlight streamed through the skylights above, warm on the back of her head. Warm sun and sounds muffled by of wall upon wall of books- “You know we’re talking about an entire order of Titans? You cryptarchs collect every pointless detail about our history, how could you just leave out-”
Something soft hit her shoulder and started to flop off before her fist closed on it: a half-folded swath of faded yellow cloth. Blaze’s head snapped around to find the source and found Ulysses shrugging at her.
“Oops. Bad throw,” he said brightly. “I forget to aim over the pauldrons.”
“Ulysses? I didn’t know you were back.” Jarred from her irritation, it took her a second to add gruffly, “Good to see you in one piece.”
“I found you a present.” He gestured to the cloth in her hand.
She realized what the heft of the material meant before she looked down. It was a Titan’s mark. A very old mark. The cloth was worn and tattered at the edges, but she could feel its strength as she unfurled it. Despite the marks of blood and battle, the fiery emblem leapt up brightly in the sunlight. The outline of a blazing hammer, orange on gold.
“Where the hell did you find this?” she asked softly, unable to quite believe what she was holding. Ghost dropped silently around her shoulder to take a look. How did he get it?
“Oh, around the City. I plumb the infinities of the Vault of Glass to uncover secrets sealed behind locks of chance and time. Pulling the odd antique from the City’s markets isn’t all that hard for me. You seem to know what it is already.”
“I’ve seen one,” she said. “At a Sunbreaker’s side.”
“I’m impressed! Did you speak with them?”
“She never gave me the chance. But you know about them, don’t you?” And Ulysses wasn’t a Titan; less likely for him to feel a personal stake in whatever the old dispute was.
He gave her as much of a smile as an Exo could: a tilt of his head, an amused slant of his bright eyes. He whirled on his heel. “Come talk with me and stop bullying the nice cryptarch. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know.”
“I wasn’t… hnn. Sorry.” Chastened, she looked back at the worried young man, but Ulysses was already sweeping out the doorway in a swish of purple and green robes. She had to stride quickly to keep up, the mark clutched in her fist and Ghost trailing behind her.
“I warn you, this is a bit of a long story, and there’s hardly any punching in it.
“Shut up and talk.”
Ulysses looked over his shoulder at her, brow plates lifted.
“…You know what I mean.”
He laughed at her. And then he talked.
There were Sunbreakers long before there was a Wall. Long before there was a City. They fought their way through the long Dark Age after the Collapse, choosing their own battles, bringing the light of the Solar Forge wherever they saw fit. In time they allied themselves with the City like everyone else, but they were always apart from the other, younger Titan orders. They were independent. Proud. Mercenary, some called them. Wielders of a power few Titans could master.
How do I explain it to you? The Forge is Solar Light. Your Arc is directed fury, the Void unfathomable silence. Both terrible in their way, but containable, if you’re the sort of mind who worries about that. Predictable, controllable, obedient. But Solar Light, that’s raw, unfettered transformation. Vertiginous possibility. The death of the old to forge the new. Some people flinch from that. The Sunbreakers thrived in it.
And then along came Osiris…
“I wondered when we’d get to him,” Blaze muttered with resignation
“You’ve learned something, then. Good.” Ulysses’s tone had turned arch, like an interrupted instructor. “What do you know about him?”
“Not much to find. He was an old Warlock, exiled for causing trouble…”
“‘Some old Warlock.’ Pah. He was the Vanguard Commander. Zavala’s predecessor. Ikora’s mentor!”
”They say he became dangerously obsessed with the Vex.”“He tried to warn us that an eon-spanning genocidal hive-mind of reality-warping machines had us in their sights. If you were the first one to figure that out, I think it would prey on your mind. But the Speaker wouldn’t hear it. He and the Consensus wanted to go on believing the Vex were a minor threat, nicely sealed away on Venus where they could do no harm. Osiris insisted on speaking about his visions, of a Vault containing multiple realities, a Garden beyond time, a threat to the foundations of our reality. And look at what we’ve learned since then! You’ve walked the Black Garden with me. You’ve looked an oracle in the metaphysical eye. Tell me he wasn’t right. Tell me if you think something like that is ever simply contained.”
She knew this was true. You didn’t contain the Vex. The Vex contained everything else.
“The Consensus’s duty is to deal with any threats to the City. The Speaker must have had some reason…” She looked up at her Ghost as she said it, her voice low and uneasy.
“Of course,” said Ulysses. “He hated the influence Osiris had gained. The sway his so-called ‘heresies’ held in the City. And he feared the way citizens and Guardians alike were looking to Osiris instead of him. So he turned the Consensus against their own Vanguard Commander, and exiled him from the City for good. “
This was too much to swallow in one. The Speaker was a guiding voice to all of them. The man who gathered Guardians and children alike around the fire and told them tales of adventures and heroes past; who spent his days searching for ways to help the Traveler heal, who tended gently to the dead Ghosts they carried home from the wilds. He was distant, yes; extremely mysterious; undeniably unnerving with his blank silver mask. But power-hungry? Petty? Wilfully short-sighted?
“The Sunbreakers, Ulysses.” Her tone was hard. She hadn’t been asking for the rest. “What was their part in this?”
“Osiris had made a contract with them on the city’s behalf. When Zavala took over, good soldier that he is, he wanted the Sunbreakers to abandon that oath. He thought they’d fall in line and pledge their loyalty to the Consensus like all the other orders.
“I’m guessing they refused.”
“I think after the way Osiris was treated they were feeling especially uncooperative. There were bitter arguments with Zavala. They left, and he allowed the Consensus to expunge their legacy from the city they’d fought and died for. Not the most honorable response, I think.
”Blaze, we’re being called to report. Zavala’s ready for us.”“Good luck,” said Ulysses, his Ghost staring at her unreadably.
She reported to the Hall of Guardians, the Tower’s great council room, and met Zavala at the top of the long table. His fellow Vanguards were currently absent; only the resident Frames and a handful of civilian techs manned the consoles around the far walls. They went over Ghost’s report concerning the fight on Venus, at least until Blaze’s refusal to withdraw came up.
“Why did you order me back?” she asked bluntly. “I wasn’t going to turn away from a Guardian in need.”
“Do you think that Sunbreaker needed your help?” Zavala raised his eyebrows. “As I recall, you were taken out of the fight as soon as the gate’s true defenders appeared.”
”Ouch.”“Maybe she didn’t need my help, then. That doesn’t explain why you didn’t want me to give it.”
“I wanted you to hold back and observe. I’ve had another Guardian make contact since, and they seem-”
“You sent someone else?” After all the time she’d sent searching for them? Sparks crawled from her gauntlets to the helm in her hands. ”Why?”
“Because you are a good Striker, but you are not a diplomat,” Zavala replied calmly, unfazed by her glare. “And because approaching them had to be done with care. You don’t understand how delicate this matter is, Blaze.”
“I know you and the Sunbreakers fell out over Osiris. I know there’s bad blood between them and the City. But why should that bar me from talking to them?” The questions were bursting from her now. “What’s so dangerous about these people that we can’t even make contact? Are we still scared of Osiris’s prophecies about the Vex? We already know he was right!”
“That is not the issue-“
“Isn’t it, sir? I know the Speaker worked pretty damned hard to purge his ideas.”
“Guardian.” The Commander’s voice came down like a gavel, echoed by a thousand faint memories. She pulled herself to attention without thinking. He gave her an iron look. “I cannot answer for the Speaker. My concern is Osiris’s effect on the people around him.”
“What effect?” She thought of what Ulysses had told her. Of how many tales the Nexus had told her, of authorities who feared a threat to themselves.
“Come with me.” Zavala went over to the great window that stretched floor to ceiling on the outer side of the hall. It looked out into the mountains, down the narrow pass toward the Twilight Gap. She’d come up that path in Kaolin’s shadow, years ago. Above them on either side loomed great gun batteries, silently aimed at the sky. It was a long moment before he spoke.
“Look around you, Titan. This Tower, this City. The Wall that guards our people from the dark. Do you know where they came from? In the Dark Age before the City, there were no laws, no codes to protect the innocent. There were no Guardians. Only warlords pitting their Light-bearing followers against one another. The Traveler’s chosen were nothing more than thugs who taking whatever they wanted. The Iron Lords changed that. They united us in service to a greater cause, and together we built a city for all of us to call home. Younger Guardians sometimes do not understand how fragile this dream of ours can be. As Vanguard Commander my one overriding duty is to keep that precious dream alive for humanity. Osiris did not grasp that.
“He was… a clever, commanding man, and a powerful Warlock, consumed with his visions of the Vex danger. But when the Consensus balked at his obsessions he turned the people of the City against them. He drew together those who were impatient, lost, rebellious. He fed their discontent against the consensus. To them his teachings became holy revelations, his warnings were prophecies of doom. When the Speaker criticized their ‘great one’, they deemed the Speaker a heretic.
“The rest of us saw Guardians turned against one another. We saw one man amassing blind devotion from a legion of followers who half-understood his words, a new prophet-king in the making. The return of an age we had worked for centuries to rise above.”
“He was right about the Vex though. Even if he was a troublemaker, we can’t afford to shut our eyes against what’s out there.” She was more dubious now, though. Maybe that was what Osiris thought he had to do, to be heard, but this all sounded incredibly dangerous.
“There is a difference between warning the Vanguard and stoking the people’s fears. But it wasn’t just about his difficult ideas or his unacceptable methods. An eccentric Warlock is nothing unusual. Osiris was our Vanguard Commander, and the City could not give up everything to follow him in his crusade. We had a duty to the refugees seeking shelter in our walls, the sanctuary we had sworn to provide. This city was – and is - the last safe place on Earth. One final chance for humanity. Not something we could tear apart for the sake of one man’s pride.”
“You really believe he was that dangerous, commander?”
“This happened shortly before the Faction Wars broke out. The danger was real, Blaze. Osiris was too arrogant to care about the divisions he was breeding. He claimed he had no love for the cult he gathered, but he did little to dissuade them and abandoned his post at the Tower completely. He left his responsibilities to Ikora, without handing over his authority. If all he cared about was his research, then he should have stepped down. But just as he denied authority over his followers, he reaped the benefits of his position without acknowledging the responsibilities.”
That sent an odd jolt through Blaze, although she couldn’t place why. There was too much to absorb here. She turned his words over, thinking out loud. “Ulysses didn’t mention any of this, but- even if he was a terrible commander, sir, burning books and erasing records still smells like cowardice. What kind of future are we building if it can’t survive an argument?”
“I would usually agree. But what Osiris ignited was not a reasoned and thoughtful debate. It was fanaticism and blind hysteria.
“Erasing his allies with prejudice sounds kinda hysterical to me, too. Did the Sunbreakers deserve that?”
“The Sunbreakers…” He sighed. “They were old-school Light-bearers, ferocious and unforgiving in battle. They fought on their terms and maintained their own loyalties. Where they found opposition they seared a path through it… without regard for those who would be left in their wake. In Osiris they found a cause they were all too eager to embrace, and a leader willing to allow them a freedom I would not. I could not.”
“I never met a Titan who’d abandon their oaths, either.”
“An oath to one man! An exile from the City he abandoned.” Zavala shook his head, and the severity in his voice eased even as his frown deepened. “In hindsight, I was… naïve to think it would be so simple. But I took my place on the Vanguard after Osiris’s departure, just after the Fallen had almost broken us at Twilight Gap. We had Fallen terrorists slipping inside the City to bomb our homes, Lysander and his Concordat stirring dissent. We needed unity to survive.”
“At any cost?” Ghost asked. Blaze looked up at him for a moment, troubled.
“I understand why Osiris and his writings were banished, then. I don’t agree, but I think I understand. And I understand why the Sunbreakers had to follow. But purging them from the records? Commander, they fought and died for this city too. Even if they chose to leave, we shouldn’t forget their deeds. They’re still Guardians, like us. Or not like us. It doesn’t matter. They fought the Darkness with us. They deserve to be remembered.” Like Steve, driven out and hunted by his own brother in arms. It’s not right. “And the Sunbreaker on Venus seemed friendly enough. Why else would she give me a helmet like this?” She lifted it in emphasis.
Zavala studied her face with an odd expression. “…I believe that was intended as a bribe, Blaze.”
“What?”
“We aren’t the only ones who can use rewards as encouragement. Since they left us, the Sunbreakers have often tried to recruit Guardians away from the City. They have always called to the bold, the impatient. The… young.”
“Well, if they took all the ones who’d be bribed maybe it wasn’t such a loss,” Blaze growled. The more it sank in the more insulted she felt.
“You know,” cut in a new voice, “that’s an honorable sentiment. But if we kicked out every Guardian who’ll do what they’re told for a new pair of shiny pants, well, then Zavala would be left up here all by himself. I bet he’d cry.”
She spun to see the Hunter Vanguard at her side just as Zavala warned, ”Cayde.”
“Zavala. Buddy.” Cayde-6 shrugged innocently. “I just came to let you know the last reports from the Reef are in. I didn’t know this was a Titan family argument.”
”How long has he been standing there?” Ghost whispered.“Thank you, Cayde.”
“Sooo…. I’ll just come back later. Oh, and if you two get in a fight, just try and aim the crossfire-“ he pointed- “right through my terminal. I’d appreciate it.”
Zavala sighed as his colleague’s steps receded. Blaze was already distracted by her thoughts.
“It’s about control, then?” she asked unhappily. “You figured if I spoke to the Sunbreakers I’d be too likely to see things their way.”
“If you share their potential, then I am certain you can. I have known you since the day you reached the Tower, Blaze. You took up your role as a Guardian without hesitation. Never once have I seen you falter in your dedication to the City. But your zeal and trust in others are exactly the qualities the Sunbreakers would try to take advantage of. You’ve always been able to trust in other Guardians, and you’re quick to form judgments and loyalties. That may be valuable in a new-born Guardian, but you’re no longer a novice. I need you to learn a measure of reserve. You’re entrusted with keeping watch over the Nexus, and we cannot afford for Osiris to acquire access to that. After all this time, there’s no telling what his goals are.”
She hadn’t considered how the Nexus would factor into it. She frowned, and Ghost spoke up.
”Maybe the Sunbreakers just need our help more than they want to admit, too. It’s not just Fallen pirates and Vex constructs out there any more. I mean, who knows how hard the Taken invasion hit them?”“Perhaps so,” Zavala said slowly. “Looking back on it, all these years… we were all much younger, Blaze. I was not the Guardian I am now. I’m certain of one thing. The City has been diminished by the rift between us. After all this time, I believe we need the Hammer of Sol to stand with us again. The Light has called you on that path, but you must not forget your duty. The Sunbreakers are strong-willed, aggressive and unyielding. It you want to speak with them, you’d better make sure you’re ready for them.”
Blaze pondered. It may not matter. I may not last long enough to be any kind of Sunbreaker. But if the only thing I ever accomplish is bringing back their Light, won’t that be something worth having lived for?
“Whatever else,” she said, “they should be honored properly inside our walls.”
“I will consider it.”
She lifted the helm in her hands, looking at her reflection in the mirrored faceplate with discomfort. “The Sunbreaker I fought with… whatever her objective was, I don’t think she’s an enemy of ours. But I don’t intend to abandon the City, Commander. No more than I could walk away from that fight. My purpose is here. My loyalties are here.” I belong nowhere else. She looked up at him. “If I go to the Forge, will I find them there?”
“I believe so.”
“Would you advise me to, sir?”
He was silent for a moment. “I would. But if you succeed in kindling that fire, Titan, there is only one thing I ask you to do.”
“Sir?”
“Bring it home.”
“Titan,” Shaxx called out as she left. Blaze turned, and the Crucible master beckoned her over with a jerk of his one-horned helm. His command centre took up one side of the antechamber to the Vanguards’ hall, a nest of weapon racks and viewscreens and couches. Close to, she had to tilt her head back to meet the bigger Titan’s gaze. Or… where his gaze probably was, behind his blank helm.
“Lord Shaxx?”
“So, you’re chasing the Sunbreakers’ Forge now.”
“How did you know?” Shaxx and Zavala hadn’t been on close terms in years …
“Maybe I’m a Warlock, Blaze-37.” He sounded amused, but then nodded at the helm she was carrying. “Liu Feng, am I right? The Sunbreaker who gave you that.”
Blaze lifted it so he could take a look. “She didn’t give her name, sir.”
“I know her work.” He took the helm to examine it, running mailed fingers over the graceful lines as he studied it front and back.
“Did you know the Sunbreakers?” Blaze asked, watching him.
“I fought with them. Shoulder to shoulder atop the Wall at Twilight Gap. They were practically outcast even then, but they stood with us anyway.” There was something strange in his voice. Regret, she thought.
Ghost ventured,
“You don’t sound as if you agreed with their banishment…”“It wasn’t banishment.” Shaxx looked up, and Ghost jumped back a little. “It was a row. Yeah, I spoke my piece to Zavala. Made no difference once he got into it with Ouros and Lilavati. Things were said. Well, shouted. And melted. Mostly shouted.”
“What kind of things?”
“Zavala said that if they couldn’t put their responsibility to the city first, they had no place on the Wall. They said the city didn’t deserve defending.”
Even three hundred years distant, Blaze and her Ghost winced.
“I’m… guessing there wasn’t much civil discussion after that.”
“What was left to say?” He seemed to be measuring her when he looked up. “If you’re going to try and follow their path, I hope you’re ready. I’ve known three others who went searching for the Forge. None returned. Either they succeeded, or they’re dead.”
“What can you tell me about it?” she asked. “I think I’ve seen… well, glimpsed the Forge. But I- hnn. I want to understand, sir.”
“The Forge is unforgiving. It’s both a test and the answer. You have to give yourself to the fire and yet master it. You think you can do that? Do I make it sound easy? The Forge has spat out older and wiser Titans than you. It demands something neither the Arc nor the Void do. Zavala could never handle it. Too rigid. Then there are others – men like Lysander – who’d bend and warp in the heat of that power.” He leaned closer as he handed back the helm. “Before you step in front of that Forge, ask yourself: are you strong enough to be stripped down to your very core and remain true to your purpose?”
Wipe away the rest, and purpose is all that’s left.
“There’s only one way to know,” she said.
“Good. It’s been three hundred years since the Sunbreakers saw what we were made of. Do my Crucible proud. Prove to the Sunbreakers that our Light burns fiercer than ever.” She saluted and turned, only for him to call her again. “And hey, Titan. When you see Liu Feng, say hello for me.”
