“Ghost,” she whispered into the darkness, “why do they call you such a thing?”

She had crawled, hands to the sandy ground, for what felt like days; the orb of light, silent. She had broken a finger in the dark, yelped in pain as the blood flowed from her splintered nail in that black palace, and the orb had glowed awake. It had waxed and waned in the midnight of the cave with her, occasionally speaking.

“Ghost?” Its light bubbled up in the dark.

“It may be difficult to explain,” mused the ghost. “In a way I am a remnant of an incredible power, but the memory of that power is shattered and fragmented. Without knowledge of the traveler it may be impossible to explain. Maybe you could understand me to be the spirit of hope; I am the echo of a better time, a ghost of a golden age.”

“You were correct, ghost,” she muttered. “You are having some difficulty explaining.”

“If we’re fortunate, you may understand at our destination.” The ghost pulsated for a moment. “Above us! Can you see that glow?”

She had stopped already in the dust to peer at it. High above them, like lights on a tower, were what looked like torches burning in the choking black fog.

She climbed, she did not know how; it was as though the thought of going higher had laid a mountain before her, where before there was only desert plain. She realized, as she clambered up the sloping shale in that obsidian place, that she was nearing some kind of ceiling, veiled in smoke. The torches of light grew brighter as she climbed; she began to realize they were not torches at all, but portals of some kind.

“You’ve found us a way out, it seems,” said the ghost. “Steel yourself.”

She climbed until the nearest portal was just above her: a circular doorway in the sky, glowing like jade above her head. She reached out her hand to touch it. The next moment she was being sucked up through it into the light, and she gasped and gulped in air, as if she’d been under water for hours. She was wading, neck deep in a pool of black oil; she struggled to the edge of it, and dragged herself onto a tile floor.

An emerald glow hung like mist on every angle of the strange bath house. Ornate mosaics were laid on the floor, depicting strange and incomprehensible battles. There was a great eight-armed figure on the ceiling, with seven green eyes that glistened even against the exhilarating glow of the sky.

And the sky itself, as she looked out through the open arches of the bath house walls, was horrifying and beautiful. A massive, dead moon hung above her, its orbit impossible and near, its surface shattered to reveal its effervescent core; and beyond it, giant cathedral vaults hung where the stars should have been, shutting them out.

“Eris?”

The quaking voice made her start, and she wretched around, her legs a horrific anchor, dead pinning her prone where she lay. An alter lay against the far wall of the room; and splayed upon it, strung upside down with spiked chains, was a metallic form.

“Eris, how…I saw you, slain….” As the metal frame spoke, its eyes and throat glowed.

The ghost bubbled. “It’s Eriana. She is nearly gone.”

She crept across the tile, the filmy oil streaking behind her as she crawled and dragged herself to the alter’s feet. She was face to face with the dying creature; as she came close enough, she put a wet hand on its face to comfort it.

“Eris…” the soft voice of a woman, a young woman, was hardly a whisper. “You must flee. Return to Ikora…oh Eris, what have they done to you?”

She was reminded of the Ghost’s warning to not touch her own face; the desire to trace it overwhelmed her, and she reached to it. Her cheeks were soft and wet; as she reached toward her eyes, the horrific realization came to her that the flesh was gone. At the same time she realized a mirror was set above the alter; she gazed into it, and was lost.

“Eris.” The ghost was calm in the storm of her mind.

“My face,” she murmured. The skin above her eyes had been torn from her head; three glowing eyes stared back at her from her bare, cracking skull.

“Eris, you must not succumb. You must stay with me, or others will suffer worse than this.”

She looked down at the broken robot. Its eyes were slowly fading now, and the glow of its throat was spent. “She…knew me as Eris,” she spit out in breaking sobs. “Can you tell me of my fate, ghost?”

“Indeed.” The Ghost was solemn. “I know entirely, who you are.”