CHAPTER 26: THE GHOULS OF THE GROUNDS
(unrevised)
_Within the prison there were torches everywhere, but due to the fact
that no guards appeared to have been stationed inside, all were devoid
of light. Link set flame to each as he encountered them, bringing a
certain hollow life to the place. It felt as sickly as a tomb, and it
had every right to be this way. By Auru's testament it was a prison of
condemned souls. And whether it was his imagination or not ... Link
thought he heard a distant cry of sorrow.
Nevertheless, Link and Midna moved forward in the meager light, wary of the shadowed areas that often crept with collections of tiny black bugs that shrieked at them in hisses. The floor had been laid out in flat tiled stones, but in many large and small areas, the rock had been cracked to reveal deposits of sand. Link avoided these naked spots as best as he could in the fear that any of them were natural quicksand traps.
They moved through a narrow passage, the air musty, hanging with the scent of decay, and as they worked their way into the next room, a pungent wave of death assaulted their nostrils. Link immediately jerked his head away from the scene within, trying to exhale the sharp odor. He balled part of his cloak and used it as a veil between him and the rotting bodies that lay before them.
The bodies had been piled in a corner long ago and had either been forgotten or neglected. The weight of the topmost had buckled over, spilling into the floor, and making the entire room seem to be a display of acrid death. The smell and sight attacked Link's eyes, the stale scent scratching at them. Whatever had happened here, it had not been completely as Auru had said. Perhaps the wickedest of criminal had indeed been sent directly to the netherworld, but what of these bodies? Was this room a deposit for the dead? It seemed unlikely. This room was the only way Link had found that led into the prison, which meant that it would have been the only way to pass in and out of the keep.
It would have been pointless to store dead criminals here ... unless other passages had been a part of the original design and had collapsed in piles of stone over the ages. Something just did not feel right, though. Maybe it was just that Link had never seen so many dead people and in such a way before. But it all seemed ... wrong.
It did not matter right now, however. Link's sole concern for the moment was to locate the Mirror of Twilight, and that meant searching through the entire forsaken fortress that he hoped would not be the end to his life as well.
He motioned to Midna—who clamped her nose tight—and led her through the corpses, avoiding as many of them as was possible. They passed quickly through the door at the other side of the room—only to be greeted by an air of dampened dark and grit. Webs of dust blanketed the surface of the walls and the pillars that lined the grand hallway. In the far half of the rectangular room, a staircase sat, bordered on either side with two large torches. The familiar eagle crest had been stamped onto each of these torches, yet the oddest feature lay in the lights themselves. Radiant flares of sapphire were reflected about the room, the dull shade creating an even more eerie atmosphere that seemed to echo the faint shrieks of death that remained upon the air.
Above this flight of stairs loomed a giant chandelier at the same height as the two balconies at its sides that overlooked the hallway. The metal with which it had been crafted had rusted, and the chains that held it suspended from the ceiling threatened to snap at any moment. Link moved cautiously through the room, vigilant for signs that any part of the structure may topple.
Link led the way up the staircase and through the doorway at the top, and after a narrow passage, he and Midna arrived in an already dimly lit chamber. Its area was small, but the room expanded upward, a colossal statue filling the height at the far wall. Its figure detailed the form of a woman sitting cross-legged, though; her face had been chiseled away through its age. Its upturned hands—resting upon the knees—were the sources of the flickering light. Something that resembled a snake was coiled about the body of the figure. Faded blues and reds suggested that it had been painted once, and Link could only imagine the beauty it had possessed upon the day of its completion.
Yet Link had paused in that moment, awed by the appearance of such craftsmanship in a prison—a tomb. It confused him. Something of such elegance within a chamber of sorrow did not seem to make sense … unless it was the depiction of some netherworld deity. Whether this statue, bearing the power of fire and the lethality of a serpent, was present to ease the prisoners or to cast them into even more distress, Link could not guess.
He peeled his gaze from the figure to search about the room. There was only one offshoot at the left, but just as he approached the passage, he stepped back. Two lines of spikes stretched across the opening, a skeleton resting against several of them, the pikes having speared its chin, chest, and leg. Link moved carefully through the spikes, now realizing that the prison guards must have put traps in place, prepared for any attempt by the inmates to escape. And where there was one trap, there was sure to be a dozen more. He crept through the passage slowly, watching his steps and the walls for any indication of hidden switches.
Several closed cells dotted the length of the corridor on either side. No light existed within the passage, so Link held up his torch to the rooms. Some were empty, yet others held scenes horror, traces of gore remaining as evidence to tragic endings. Both Link and Midna forced back their vomit, trying to breathe in the decayed deaths as little as possible. Link removed his light from the tiny chambers as well as he could, only the front sections visible in the partial light cast upon them.
They finally reached the end of the passage, but the relief seemed only temporary. Link looked into the next room from the doorway. Above hung a chandelier like the one he had seen in the grand entryway, level with a partly demolished balcony. The chains that suspended it were clasped through a loop constructed into the ceiling, the chains each streaming downward, connected to loops built into the walls. However, all but one metal rope had remained attached, causing the chandelier to slope awkwardly.
Three passages broke off from the room, but they had been blocked by collapsed debris. Bones and skulls were scattered across the edges of the room, making a complete body difficult to locate. Link was beginning to realize just why there seemed to be so much dust clogging the air and covering the architecture. Dead flakes of human skin....
Waking Link from his disgusted stare was the creepy feeling that eyes were upon him. His spine tingled. He reached back for his hilt … but something cold and frail brushed across his hand. His eyes wide, Link heaved a deep breath. Everything he had encountered with this tomb had been dead for decades, but—what...?
A shriek echoed behind him, chilling the very air and reverberating against the close walls of the corridor. The shrill sound entered into his ears and seemed to quake within his very soul, freezing his feet to the ground. For only a few seconds, Link could not bring himself to move, even as his brain screamed for him to make some attempt. Midna seemed to have undergone the same state. And it was within those split moments that rough vines enwrapped his wrist.
It was this touch that awoke his senses, and he spun about to guard Midna, but she had relocated to his side, having stumbled to her knees. What lay behind him now…. A face, wrapped in bandage upon filthy bandage, staring down into his eyes only inches away.... Drool and some other fluid dripped from its mouth, raining upon Link's clothes. Its breath trailed into Link's mouth and nostrils, and he was again paralyzed. The absolute fear that reigned within Link's stationary body felt like no other he had ever before experienced ... as if his own death were mirrored into those void yet ruthless eyes that peeked through the dirty wrappings. He realized that its hand was that which had captured his, and life seemed to drain away slowly. It was as if the tattered red cape around its torso were Link's blood, swirling in an ocean of death, consuming his life as it pooled around him.
In that moment a cold so deep enwrapped Link's heart, and the world seemed to recede.
The bandaged creature lunged.
But ... so did Midna.
She crashed into Link with the full force of her strength, knocking him into the side of the corridor. The creature's grasp had remained taut, but Link's eye contact had been severed from the monster's. In that instant warmness returned to Link and his vigor was returned. Before the body could consume him in its stare once more, Link retaliated against its incoming eyes and mouth by slamming his torch into it.
Flame caught its dried rags, devouring it in a blossoming rose of orange. Its shrieks were suffocated by the wall of fire and smoke, as it stumbled blindly away to collapse in the middle of the passage. Link looked to Midna, nodding his thanks, but she glowered at him. "Never look them in the eyes!"
Surprise hit Link as hard as the undead creature had held his wrist. Midna knew what such creatures were … and what they were capable of? And yet ... a memory resurfaced within him of a day long ago. He had been nearly twelve years old when he and Rusl had been within the woods hunting ... the evening when Rusl had spoken of the cruelest of creatures. Undead beings ... soulless beings. There had been many names for them. Ancient races had called them redeads. They had named walking armies of skeletons as stalkin and their formidable leaders as the stalfos. Link had doubted the tales of such hellish creatures, but now ... to have faced the vacant eyes of a redead....
"Uh ... Link?"
He turned about when Midna's voice came crashing through his mind again. The bones within the next room had begun trembling, and—as it clearly appeared—reassembling themselves. Before them, a room of nearly ten stalkin approached them, spears at hand.
Reflexes overtook Link's mind, and he was instantly in motion, calling for Midna to follow. Unable to detour through one of the passages since they had been obstructed, Link yanked out his blade while he sprinted directly into the midst of the stalkin force. He crushed some of their bodies to the floor again, but no strike seemed to keep them down for long. Midna questioned his sanity angrily, but she soon realized that he had not headed into the swarm—he was merely passing through, for the only direct route to the sole chain had been through their groping fingers and prodding spears.
Link did not have to say anything for Midna to understand his intent. As he came to the chain, she clung to his waist, and he smashed his blade into the bottom of the chain, tossing the torch away and seizing the whipping metal. Instantly, their feet left the ground, and they were cast upward as the chandelier fell onto the group of stalkin below, the torch having drenched two of them in flame.
Once Link reached the peak of the chain's upward swing, he released his grip, and he came crashing down to the balcony. Yet, he had not been close enough to land on it, his fingers barely clasping onto its edge. The impact of the stones into his desperate hand seemed to have broken his fingers, pain shooting through his arm. The rip near the middle of his arm began to pound with every heartbeat, the dried blood cracking open and sending a fresh wave of red squeezing out.
Link breathed deep and tossed his sword up onto the platform. He held onto the edge with both hands then, a small relief settling into his right arm. As he began pulling himself upward he could feel the weight that had been Midna lift from him. He saw a trail of bubbling black and red out of the corner of his eye, knowing that she had used her magic to propel her upward. Link heaved himself halfway onto the surface just as Midna landed. He pulled his legs up one at a time, and once he had managed to drag himself fully onto the balcony, he rested as Midna peered through the passage leading from their position.
"This is fantastic. It's pitch black and you tossed away our only light," she sneered.
Grumbling, Link picked himself up, grabbing his sword. "Well, if you preferred that I leave you with our walking skeleton friends, waving spears," —he said, peeking over the edge and then looking to her— "why didn't you just say so?"
Midna growled a response and turned to the darkened corridor.
The joke of a question had been more for Link's own peace of mind. He did not entirely like the idea of moving on without a way of clearly seeing, but he did not exactly fancy spending his time in a dead end pit with the soulless either. Flexing his right hand to work out the pain it had endured, Link led the way into the dark corridor. Now that he realized that beings still roamed the ancient prison, he decided to keep his blade at the ready.
They blindly stumbled through the passage, using the stone walls as their guide. However, Link's hand barely touched the wall—his fingertips tracing its path—for he did not wish to set one of the spike traps that had been the death of the first prisoner they had encountered. Thus, he also stepped lightly, judging the ground before he pushed his full weight down. His eyes could see a vague outline of the walls and floor, but he lent more of his attention to his other senses. The wretched shrieks of long dead victims still cried out. There were whispering voices, too. Some seemed hungry for Link's soul, and others…. It seemed as if they pleaded for him, wanting his presence to banish the insane loneliness and silence that had fallen upon the prison for years.
Link nearly tripped then, stubbing his toes on a raised stone. He felt around the area with his foot, concluding that they had come to a set of stairs. After they had ascended nearly fifty of these stones, Link could see a faint bluish light outlining where the staircase leveled off. They reached the last step, and the room before them spread out in a large circular shape. The walls—dotted with columns—were cracked, sand seeping through at some points, creating strips of intermittent falls that pooled into the depressions of the floor where stone had been stripped away. The construction of the room was symmetrical just as previous rooms, and there were three other exits. The two branching to the sides led deeper into the level they had just entered, yet the third stretched on ahead of them, ascending to another floor.
The blue light, Link noted, came from above. The ceiling was partially open to the night sky, the calming beams of the moon shining down and embracing him. A certain relief encased him in that moment. It was a reminder that this tomb—though at the end of the world—was not all there was in existence. The rays reminded him that there was an outside world to which he would return.
As Link inched further into the room, he noticed strange markings on the floor, radiating outward in circles from the central point of the chamber. He came to the middle, and stared at the carvings out of pure curiosity. Some of the symbols resembled worldly things such as birds or people, and there was a curling mark that appeared like a staff. The other etchings were simple lines either curving or straight or jagged. Perhaps they were characters of an ancient writing, but Link could not discern their meanings. Shrugging, he looked away from the markings, but--
A low grumble shook the pebbles lying across the floor, and Link's footstep halted in midair. A shrill cry pierced his ears, and his head jerked about, looking for any sign of movement.
But he heard the prelude to his death before he caught sight of it. The heavy gust created by the black sword sailing through the air alerted Link, and he dove out of its path before it crashed into his last position. It embedded itself into the stones of the central symbols and rested there for many a long moment, wherein Link picked himself back up and watched the weapon closely for its next attack, his own sword at the ready.
His sight only left the strangely motionless blade to search for Midna. She was no where that he could see. Perhaps she had taken refuge in one of the many shadows splayed across the chamber.
Yet he could not tend to his fear for Midna for too long. The blade began to hum, and red symbols much like those decorating the floor brightened in a dull red across its surface. Link raised his sword to his side, prepared to either attack or defend against any creature that wielded the dark saber. However, the metal rose from the ground without any indication of a master. Nothing gripped its hilt as it was pulled away, but Link did not lend himself to surprise. He had experienced first hand what would happen if he succumbed to the shock of the unnaturalness of this place.
The blade swung through the air at and incredible arch, and Link—having no other way to defend against a sword as long as he was tall—leapt back to allow the engaged column next to him take the brunt of the attack. Debris fell from the pillar, its middle bursting away at the force of the strike. A fit of coughs captured Link's lungs as he tried to free his airway from the rising dust. When he looked up through the cloud, it was to see Midna once more.
Midna hovered near the center of the room, where the sword had returned, dangling the same as she. However, she spread a black magic outward around the saber, enveloping it in beams that soon sparkled with red and green and white. The blade writhed at the touch of the magicks, nearly slamming into the unmoving Midna several times. Something alien tugged at Link's chest each time the sword whirled close to her, but—somehow—it seemed she knew what she was doing despite the great danger she had put herself in.
The magic uncloaked the hidden figure within the shadows, a white hand forming around the hilt of the blade. A voluminous figure appeared from within the dancing lights. A sinister figure. Once ripped from its cryptic darkness, a cry of death itself rained from its body. Billowing robes floated about its frame, hanging loosely upon its skeletal shoulders. Its brightness soon faded, and the morbid black that seemed to infest the worst of evils shrouded the form.
It turned its head to face them. A ghastly face. Its head was shaped like that of a mutated ram, its hornlike appendages curling toward its head in a crescent shape. The triangular head shot outward in a snout like that of a demon serpent. Lethal teeth and fangs hung out of its wide maw when it screeched, saliva dripping from their tips. Its red eyes flashed ominously.
Its hanging, scaly flesh drew back Link's memories of childhood nightmares. The dead flesh of a rotten body, sticking to its bones and withered muscles tightly. Bony fingers laced around the hilt of the blade, and the other set flexed hungrily, its long and curled blackened fingernails crusted over with the sick and blood of prisoners long dead. Either this creature was a lingering soul of the netherworld, or it had dwelled in the chamber for ages, torturing and murdering the souls of the criminals at the will of the guards. Whichever was true it looked as though it had been left alone for some time, starving for the chance to resume its pleasurable killings.
The creature cocked its head, glaring toward Midna, however; when it swung its giant blade toward her, she had disappeared once more into shadows. Enraged, its head jerked toward Link, a low grumble consuming the air as it circled around, sword dangling at its side. Black smoke rose into the air in its wake like a wave of cold death. As the deadly sword and its master approached Link, the curdling mass of fog stretched for him like greedy fingers.
Link had no clue how to fight an undead foe, for how could he kill something that was already supposed to be withered and silent? He moved quickly for an exit, but two skeleton guards rose up quickly, as if they had gathered their pieces from the very walls and floor. Their cranium obviously larger than the stalkin and their bones standing taller, Link realized they were stalfos, the legendary demon leaders. Link stepped back, their swords crossing together to bar his way, and he looked across at the other doorways. Both of them—and the stairway he had used to access the chamber—were now guarded by stalfos couples, barricading him inside.
The Death Sword was upon him again in that moment of fleeting panic. Link barely missed the blade as it crashed down to where he had once stood. He abandoned the option of fighting through the stalfos guards for the fear that if he engaged one they would all be upon him. Such a battle could not be won. But—perhaps if he defeated their apparent commander, they would disintegrate back into the walls from whence they had come.
Link turned on his heel at that thought, the soulless creature still near. Whipping the Master Sword about in a fanciful fashion, Link grinned. He had also forgotten one very simple fact about his new weapon. The benevolence to banish evil, as Zelda had described it. Evil can never bear to touch it. If that were true ... this Death Sword could be vanquished.
Link had concentrated his energies in that moment, blade flashing brightly. Recalling his final lesson with the shade of the former hero, Link empowered his blade with the energy that now coursed through his veins. Once the Death Sword came upon him again, halfway through its attack, Link swiped his blade toward it. A faint red glimmer shot out from the Master Sword and slammed into the creature. The sensation ad stunned it, blade rocking unsteadily before it. Link took advantage of its temporary weakness and dashed for it. Unsure how long it would remain docile, he simply sped by it, casting his blade along its side as he ran. Blackened red clumps of fluid drained from its body, reawakening it to the present circumstance.
Screeching, it whipped its sword about and cast it toward Link's retreating frame. Link rolled out of its path and immediately sprang back up, facing it once again. He resisted the urge to use his shield as an extra defense, for it would slow him down and he doubted that its simple metal would protect him from the cursed foe before him.
Link avoided the Death Sword's attacks as they rained upon him. During his defense he took up every opportunity to stun the creature with a wave of red light, thundering down upon its body in his distinctive manner of slashes and thrusts before it regained its stature. It had been close to cutting Link's flesh several times, once tearing a hole in the skirt of his tunic, but it had not yet been able to draw blood.
After several more minutes of chasing after Link, its several bleeding wounds began to take a toll upon its reactions. Its movements were slowing, but in effect, its attacks were becoming more lethal in its desperate need to see its prey writhing in anguish and death. Link took this to his advantage. He feigned to the left, the Death Sword taking the bait eagerly. Just as Link moved in on its opposite side, the dark blade's weight thundered upon the ground. Realizing Link's deception, however, it slashed out with its bony fingers. Having not expected such an attack, Link barely missed its diseased nails. With no other alternative available, he again switched directions and leapt up onto the dark saber as the creature pulled it from the ground without missing a beat.
He moved swiftly up the blade and hilt, and he ducked when its opposite hand whacked at him, ascending the arm quickly. Though, when it hurled its fingers toward him again, Link was forced to jump off the arm. He had directed his plunge toward its head, roaring mightily as he came down upon its throat. The Master Sword pierced cleanly through the grimy flesh, and blood gurgled from its mouth.
A cloud of black consumed its frame. Link pulled his weapon free and fell to the floor. He shook away the hard landing quickly, afraid that the haze would swallow him as well. Still on his backside, he inched away from the shrieking, flailing figure, scooting back as quickly as his hands and feet would allow. As the darkness devoured the colossal creature, it reeled forward, aiming at Link with a dangerous, pointed hand. However, its fingers found the ground instead, inches away from Link's body.
The darkness pulled at the monster, and its fingernails etched long scratches into the ornate floor. From this, Link realized what had created the markings in the first place. Finally, in an echo as loud as the crash of an ocean tide, the figure burst apart. Black darts were cast about, fluttering wildly, and Link realized that these dark specks were bats. He raised an arm against their beating wings, protecting his face as best he could. Their shattering screeches pounded against the walls as they flew upward, escaping through the opening above.
Link exhaled a relieved breath. As long as he did not encounter another creature as such in the next chambers, he would regain his full strength in no time. Now, however, he had to deal with the stalfos guards. At the memory of them, he sprang to his feet, Master Sword prepared to send more of their soulless bodies to the darkness of the netherworld.
But the corridors were empty.
Thankful but rather confused, Link continued cautiously. Perhaps they had gone, or perhaps they had hidden to ambush him. Whatever the case he could not leave without Midna. He looked about at every shadow, but none seemed to hold the presence of his imp partner. He called out her name with no response.
His heart sank. Had the Death Sword hit her with one of its attacks?
Just then a figure descended from the ceiling's opening. Link assumed a battle stance, but Midna's familiar voice rang out from the shadow. "Well, it looks like that central chamber is just ahead," she pointed to the stairway that pointed upward. "A few more rooms, and I think we'll be there."
Link nodded, but he did not allow his relief to consume him completely. There were still those missing stalfos that he had a feeling he would need to deal with eventually. He started for the steps just as Midna added, "Good job, by the way."
He continued on with a smirk. "Not bad yourself," he returned.
Once they had ascended the darkened stairway, they came to a torch lit room that appeared to have no further paths branching off from it. At first, Link had looked to Midna for confirmation, but she expressed again that the chamber with the spires had been directly in front of them. Shrugging, Link inspected the room closer, finding that this chamber, too, was symmetrical in that there were indentations for three other passages. However, solid stone doors, which blended into the coloring of the wall, blocked each of them. There were no handles, no switches ... no apparent way of opening them.
Link removed one of the torches for better light and swept about the room, searching for anything that might be a clue as to how to gain entrance to the passages. The floor was not partly torn apart as the rest of the rooms. No secret lay there. He looked to the walls then, running his hands across its surface. He hoped that this was not a dead end … hoped that they would not have to return to previous rooms to find another path that circled around to some other entrance to the chamber beyond.
Behind the door would be the Mirror of Twilight. Link could feel it. There had to be a way to--
Was it really that simple?
Link's hand raked over something on the wall near the door he and Midna needed. Sand and dirt covered some kind of circle and rod. He handed the torch to Midna, who poured its light onto the area as Link rubbed his hand over it. Certain that he had stumbled upon the answer, he cleared away the grime, revealing a lever mechanism. There were three notches along the slit that housed the lever other than the niche in which it currently rested. Unsettled at the possibilities of what this switch could do, he argued with himself. It could activate a trap, but it could also open the door in front of them. It was worth the risk.
Holding his breath he moved the lever down one notch. The entire room seemed to rumble as dust around the top and bottom edges of the circular wall spilled out into the room. However, instead of causing some terrible ambush, the door they had come through closed while the door at the east opened up. As the powder settled, Link and Midna wheezing out the coarse grit, Link realized the ingenuity that had gone into constructing this room. There was a drum on the inside of the wall that the switch operated, closing three doors at a time. If Link was correct in his prediction that the Mirror lay beyond this point, this mechanism would have insured the guards that any criminal to be banished to the netherworld could not have escaped their fate by disappearing back into the maze of the grounds.
Link pulled the lever down to the third notch and held his breath as the drum shifted once more, opening the northern door and sealing him and Midna off from a quick retreat. Link regained the torch from Midna, and they peered into the passage that would lead them into the Mirror Chamber. However, the room beyond owned a massive staircase that spiraled about the wall, reminiscent of the one within Hyrule Castle, yet the height of the steps reached far above.
With no other path available to them, Link shrugged and moved into the room to begin the ascent. After nearly a half hour, Link had struggled his way up the steps, not daring a look below. His feet panged in resentment, but no matter their pain, he had to admit that it had been worth the exerting effort. The Mirror would be close at hand now. The last leg of his journey awaited....
At the summit a conduit led into another circular room … but no portal of any kind was visible. Instead, the huge room was filled with the eerie blue torchlight that they had first seen within the tomblike prison, the circumference lined with columns. A deepening sand pit consumed the middle of the chamber. Curious, Link approached the hollow and peered down. At the bottom there lay a prone skeletal structure of a giant beast long dead.
At least it's already dead. Link breathed a sigh of relief. Its hands were five times as large as him, and—if its four long horns were taken out of the calculation—the head appeared to be only slightly smaller than the massive ribcage that lay broken above a spine that also seemed shattered into many pieces. What the creature's lower half looked like, Link would not know, for the sand had blanketed the rest of its bones.
None of it mattered, though, for Link could see that in its state, it would not be like the undead skeletons and redeads that roamed the grounds. This monster had died a very long time ago, and it was no longer a threat to anyone.
Link noticed an opening high above on a second level. A draft eased into the room, and Link realized that the door was open to the outside. This had to be the way into the Mirror Chamber. He took in the room in its entirety, contemplating how he was to reach the doorway.
"You still live...." a strangely pitched voice uttered.
Link tightened his grip upon his sword, searching the room for the source. The voice was too familiar for comfort … that sticky tone of a dark entity.
"No wonder some of this land call you hero."
Link found the voluminous robes of the helmeted figure standing upon the dead creature's head. Zant.
"You," Link's voice trailed away in anger. The memory of how the Twilight King had cursed him resurfaced along with a dose of the agony he had felt during their first encounter.
"A bittersweet reunion, I assure you," the dark voice spat. Then a laugh gurgled from beyond the metallic veil. "I fear this is the last time I will see you alive." He spread his arms wide, calling upon the powers he had been granted. As his bony hands drew closed, a red ball of energy formed between his fingers, darkening outward from the center of the mass. A blade appeared within his hands, symbols upon its blade glowing in a magenta hue just as that of the Death Sword.
With one powerful thrust, Zant embedded the dark blade into the forehead of the skull, and a wave of red twilit etchings swam across its entirety. Just as the symbols faded once more, Zant turned away with a short, low chortle and disappeared in a vapor of black specks. Link and Midna remained silent for a moment, watching the skeleton closely.
The ground began to grumble, the sands shifting, the walls quaking. A frightful scarlet glow infested the hollowed eyes of the skull. They were lifeless sockets no more. The neck arched as all its splintered bones reassembled themselves, and the skull lifted before them, mouth gaping wide with two long fangs and rows of smaller, broken teeth. Its spine cracked loudly as it righted itself, yet it was unable to lift completely from the pit, for the sand had crushed the opposite half of its body.
No matter. It seemed deadly enough. It placed its large hands upon the sand and an impossible low growl sounded. It arched its spine, testing its reacquired flexibility. Link tried to work through to a solution even as skeleton troops clothed in decaying armor began to infest the pit, rising up from the sands. Some also crowded around the room … and there was a noticeable cluster at one end of the room.
Perhaps there's another lever there that operates a way up to the Mirror Chamber, Link thought quickly. Nevertheless, he would need to deal with the Skeleton commander—the Stallord, Link supposed—in order to reduce the troops to the grit that had been there existence. No matter how much he preferred to keep his distance, Link's only option in accomplishing this would be to remove Zant's blade somehow. It was not going to be an easy battle to overcome ... not if he wanted to remain in one piece anyway.
Link tossed away the torch since the blue fires and the rays of the moon were sufficient sources of light and prepared for battle. He stepped lightly along the edge of the pit, learning how the Stallord moved. Though it had already understood Link as its only enemy, it could not reach him. Instead, a bubbling growl emanated from somewhere within its hairy neck, and a spout of violet fog erupted from its giant maw. It bore down instantly upon Link—who veiled his face with his cloak as it clouded in his vicinity. It choked and attacked his eyes and skin. The spew burned him without fire, and Link raced away from its haze, seeking cleaner air.
Just as Link managed to clear most of the dark mist, the wind had already begun to assail it, driving it back, snuffing it out with its purer scent. Coughing out the last of its filthy residue, Link refocused his attention. He had lost Midna in the fog, but as he had learned with their encounter with the Death Sword—and so many other occasions before—she would be able to handle herself. Right now, the best thing for both their sakes would be to deal with the skeletal monster before the wind could no longer combat its bile.
Just as Link tested the sands in the pit with a careful foot—minding that none of the troops nearer him—he learned that his full weight would lead to his imminent death if he remained within its pool too long. It was not exactly quicksand, but its unstable quality did little to ease his mind. How would he even reach Stallord to sever the evil magic from its dead body?
Just then he heard a constant whipping of metal, as if someone were shaking a chain. However, its beats sounded as if they made contact with something. He removed his foot from the sand to look up—and just in time. The source of the strange sound had come from some spinning device sweeping around the circumference of the pit. A rim attached it to a groove in the inside edge. A second rim, set below the first, consisted of a thick, sharp blade that seemed to keep the device in motion, moving it along the circle. Two more—set in place by a pair of stalfos—joined the first.
Link was initially astonished that such mechanisms could be found within the prison, yet as he looked back on everything else they had encountered, these spinners were nothing less that he truly expected. Another obstacle in front of his path.
Or were they obstacles?
Link grinned. The center of the flattened tops did not circulate at their outside counterparts, and they seemed just wide enough for--
Just as another jet of blackened sick shot for him, Link—timing his step correctly—hopped onto a spinner as it passed by. His unexpected weight knocked it free from its cycle, and Link was thankful that latches were apart of its surface design. He linked his fingers around one of these, knees bent. He used the swing of his hips to direct the spinner, and surprisingly it did not sink below the sands. Its tottering movements and wide, arching turns did not take Link long to become accustomed to, but the troops that surrounded Stallord made his maneuvering difficult. He was often forced to ram into them, slashing their zombielike bodies at the knees and rendering them to the sands.
Every time Link lost momentum, he coasted the spinner back up to the edge, slamming the spinner's double rim back into the grooves, the bottom rejuvenating its speed. His newly acquired tactic kept him one step ahead of the troops and Stallord's hands and spray, but this also forced him to think quicker. Improvisation had taken hold of his strategy at the moment, for his only avenue he had thought to pursue had been to reach its head. The only way he could do so was either by ascending its flailing hands or its spine which was well guarded by lines of troops. Yet that alone enticed Link—just as their wall cluster had. If they were protecting something, odds were good that it would serve to Link's advantage.
Again dislodging himself from the edge, he zoomed toward the group around the spine, dodging Stallord's hands and stray troops when necessary. Link went through a rigorous workout in chopping down a few zombie guards at a time, regaining speed, and reentering the field over the course of long minutes before there was finally an opening in their barrier.
Coming in for the last time—he hoped—he avoided the walking dead and the swipes that Stallord made for him, aiming straight through the path in the defenses that he had carved for himself. Tilting his body at the hips, he spun past the last of the guards, arching in to the left to reach the spine. The colossal form intimidated Link for a split moment, considering the climb he would have to survive while it tossed about with him upon its frame.
Regardless, just as Link neared the beast, he pushed off the spinner. He thrust his sword into a vertebra, and disregarded the roar of anger and pain that echoed from Stallord. Link hugged close to the spine, holding fast to his hilt that kept him lodged in place. Once the greater half of the beast's writhing subsided, Link began to ascend its back. After he had gained a firm grip on a crack in a vertebra and two footholds to complement his position, he sheathed his blade and instead drew one of his daggers. He navigated across its bones in this manner until he reached its collar. Here he noticed that its nape was overgrown with matted hair, and he used this fur as a device against it, tugging on its strands to pull himself upward.
Stallord's thrashing grew in ferocity at this point, trying its very best to toss Link from its body, but however much it struggled, it could not shed him free. At last, Link managed to reach the summit of its mane, and he waited until its head was parallel to the floor again before sprinting across its skull. He partly dove for the hilt of Zant's blade just as it reared its head back completely. Link held fast to the weapon as his body dangled toward the ground. The sight of the staring troops below startled him. What if he were to fall into their eyeless grasp?
He shook the though away, and as his body again stood firm upon the wavering head, he jerked at the blade. It had been driven deep into the skull, but Link could not turn back now. This was his only option. He tugged at the sword, sheathing his dagger so that he could attack its evil with both hands, and it started to ease out of its cranium. It seemed to Link that pain should have been impossible to a beast made entirely of bone, but remembering how it had growled at the touch of his blade, he accepted that the removal of Zant's sword was dealing an immeasurable amount of suffering to it—no matter the unnaturalness of it.
Just as Link had managed to wrestle the long blade free, Stallord had reared its head. Without the sword to keep him attached to its head, Link was cast upward. He seemed to hover in midair for a moment, but gravity soon became greedy and stole his body once more, sucking him back toward the distant ground. During his descent the dark blade dissipated into black specks of nothingness. Link could see the troops below withering, disintegrating into the sands, their watery gurgling chilling his spine as equally as the wind slapping at his clothes and body as he fell.
Stallord's red plagued eyes began to drain of color once more, and its bony structure was falling along with Link, its mass carrying it down heavier and dangerously faster. Landing on the sand would be one threat, but now that Link was also faced with helplessly falling where gravity deposited him.... He did not much like the idea of an even harder landing.
Just as its arms crunched into the pit, Link's descent stopped at last. However, his left side had smashed into one of the bones of one of its forearms. An awkward crack sounded and bounced him away from the site, crying out at the shattering pain of the impact. His body finally came to rest a few meters away, face up. Winded and struggling with a smart that he was too dizzy to comprehend, he lay there, sprawled, watching dazedly as Stallord's head came crashing down. He managed to regain half his senses to crawl out from under its dive. Its smaller teeth splintered upon its collision, flying out in all directions.
As the dust settled, Link looked down from the ceiling to see the head only inches away from his diagonal left. Sighing in relief he cast his glance about. All the troops were eliminated, but what of those stalfos he had seen deploying the spinners?
It seemed that in the shuddering end to Stallord, the quake had dislodged the spinners, which had been crushed by the monstrosity. But where were--
"So..." came the clicking voice of Midna. She loomed before his vision just then.
"You—"
"—have managed to get rid of the stalfos while you bested the beast," she giggled. "And once those troops were out of the way, I pulled the switch they were guarding, and poof!" She smirked, as she pointed toward a small spiral staircase made of brittle stones leading up to the opening. "We have our way out! Now, get up, hero."
Had she not seen him fall? His bones were killing him. He could barely move at the moment, every muscle within him still trembling from the pain of the fall. He was not exactly sure if he could get up, and his grimace at an attempt immediately wiped the smirk from Midna's face. "Link? Are you all right?"
"I... don't know," he winced. "Just give me a minute." He closed his eyes, trying to take in the pain and breathe it out again. And though with each exhale, his body seemed to quiet its raging screams, his left wrist pulsed.
He managed to sit up, the ache in his back receding in time, but when he placed his hands on the ground to push himself up, he screamed out. He looked to his immovable left hand and realized—from its awkward position and his inability to move his fingers without sharp pains erupting at the attempts—that it was broken. He bit back another cry of pain, holding his forearm in his opposite hand.
"Link?" Midna's voice was congested with concern.
"It's all right. I'm all right," he assured through gritted teeth. He managed to rise to his feet and readjusted his legs to the idea of standing, leaning against the head of Stallord. "Let's go," he said at last.
When Midna nodded and turned away, however, Link released a wince, moaning silently. He shook back the cloak from his left shoulder to view the source of another wound. A small piece of bone that had cracked away from one of Stallord's teeth had impaled his flesh. Fighting back a squeal of torture, he ripped the fragment away as gently as he could and tossed it to the sands, dripping with blood. Link measured the severity of the injury, and so that Midna could not see how much he had truthfully endured, he jerked his cloak back over it, wrapping it over his left forearm as well as it lay in his palm.
Thus, he trudged on, tailing behind Midna ... uncertain that his true confrontation with the Twilight King would end in his favor now.
Nevertheless, Link and Midna moved forward in the meager light, wary of the shadowed areas that often crept with collections of tiny black bugs that shrieked at them in hisses. The floor had been laid out in flat tiled stones, but in many large and small areas, the rock had been cracked to reveal deposits of sand. Link avoided these naked spots as best as he could in the fear that any of them were natural quicksand traps.
They moved through a narrow passage, the air musty, hanging with the scent of decay, and as they worked their way into the next room, a pungent wave of death assaulted their nostrils. Link immediately jerked his head away from the scene within, trying to exhale the sharp odor. He balled part of his cloak and used it as a veil between him and the rotting bodies that lay before them.
The bodies had been piled in a corner long ago and had either been forgotten or neglected. The weight of the topmost had buckled over, spilling into the floor, and making the entire room seem to be a display of acrid death. The smell and sight attacked Link's eyes, the stale scent scratching at them. Whatever had happened here, it had not been completely as Auru had said. Perhaps the wickedest of criminal had indeed been sent directly to the netherworld, but what of these bodies? Was this room a deposit for the dead? It seemed unlikely. This room was the only way Link had found that led into the prison, which meant that it would have been the only way to pass in and out of the keep.
It would have been pointless to store dead criminals here ... unless other passages had been a part of the original design and had collapsed in piles of stone over the ages. Something just did not feel right, though. Maybe it was just that Link had never seen so many dead people and in such a way before. But it all seemed ... wrong.
It did not matter right now, however. Link's sole concern for the moment was to locate the Mirror of Twilight, and that meant searching through the entire forsaken fortress that he hoped would not be the end to his life as well.
He motioned to Midna—who clamped her nose tight—and led her through the corpses, avoiding as many of them as was possible. They passed quickly through the door at the other side of the room—only to be greeted by an air of dampened dark and grit. Webs of dust blanketed the surface of the walls and the pillars that lined the grand hallway. In the far half of the rectangular room, a staircase sat, bordered on either side with two large torches. The familiar eagle crest had been stamped onto each of these torches, yet the oddest feature lay in the lights themselves. Radiant flares of sapphire were reflected about the room, the dull shade creating an even more eerie atmosphere that seemed to echo the faint shrieks of death that remained upon the air.
Above this flight of stairs loomed a giant chandelier at the same height as the two balconies at its sides that overlooked the hallway. The metal with which it had been crafted had rusted, and the chains that held it suspended from the ceiling threatened to snap at any moment. Link moved cautiously through the room, vigilant for signs that any part of the structure may topple.
Link led the way up the staircase and through the doorway at the top, and after a narrow passage, he and Midna arrived in an already dimly lit chamber. Its area was small, but the room expanded upward, a colossal statue filling the height at the far wall. Its figure detailed the form of a woman sitting cross-legged, though; her face had been chiseled away through its age. Its upturned hands—resting upon the knees—were the sources of the flickering light. Something that resembled a snake was coiled about the body of the figure. Faded blues and reds suggested that it had been painted once, and Link could only imagine the beauty it had possessed upon the day of its completion.
Yet Link had paused in that moment, awed by the appearance of such craftsmanship in a prison—a tomb. It confused him. Something of such elegance within a chamber of sorrow did not seem to make sense … unless it was the depiction of some netherworld deity. Whether this statue, bearing the power of fire and the lethality of a serpent, was present to ease the prisoners or to cast them into even more distress, Link could not guess.
He peeled his gaze from the figure to search about the room. There was only one offshoot at the left, but just as he approached the passage, he stepped back. Two lines of spikes stretched across the opening, a skeleton resting against several of them, the pikes having speared its chin, chest, and leg. Link moved carefully through the spikes, now realizing that the prison guards must have put traps in place, prepared for any attempt by the inmates to escape. And where there was one trap, there was sure to be a dozen more. He crept through the passage slowly, watching his steps and the walls for any indication of hidden switches.
Several closed cells dotted the length of the corridor on either side. No light existed within the passage, so Link held up his torch to the rooms. Some were empty, yet others held scenes horror, traces of gore remaining as evidence to tragic endings. Both Link and Midna forced back their vomit, trying to breathe in the decayed deaths as little as possible. Link removed his light from the tiny chambers as well as he could, only the front sections visible in the partial light cast upon them.
They finally reached the end of the passage, but the relief seemed only temporary. Link looked into the next room from the doorway. Above hung a chandelier like the one he had seen in the grand entryway, level with a partly demolished balcony. The chains that suspended it were clasped through a loop constructed into the ceiling, the chains each streaming downward, connected to loops built into the walls. However, all but one metal rope had remained attached, causing the chandelier to slope awkwardly.
Three passages broke off from the room, but they had been blocked by collapsed debris. Bones and skulls were scattered across the edges of the room, making a complete body difficult to locate. Link was beginning to realize just why there seemed to be so much dust clogging the air and covering the architecture. Dead flakes of human skin....
Waking Link from his disgusted stare was the creepy feeling that eyes were upon him. His spine tingled. He reached back for his hilt … but something cold and frail brushed across his hand. His eyes wide, Link heaved a deep breath. Everything he had encountered with this tomb had been dead for decades, but—what...?
A shriek echoed behind him, chilling the very air and reverberating against the close walls of the corridor. The shrill sound entered into his ears and seemed to quake within his very soul, freezing his feet to the ground. For only a few seconds, Link could not bring himself to move, even as his brain screamed for him to make some attempt. Midna seemed to have undergone the same state. And it was within those split moments that rough vines enwrapped his wrist.
It was this touch that awoke his senses, and he spun about to guard Midna, but she had relocated to his side, having stumbled to her knees. What lay behind him now…. A face, wrapped in bandage upon filthy bandage, staring down into his eyes only inches away.... Drool and some other fluid dripped from its mouth, raining upon Link's clothes. Its breath trailed into Link's mouth and nostrils, and he was again paralyzed. The absolute fear that reigned within Link's stationary body felt like no other he had ever before experienced ... as if his own death were mirrored into those void yet ruthless eyes that peeked through the dirty wrappings. He realized that its hand was that which had captured his, and life seemed to drain away slowly. It was as if the tattered red cape around its torso were Link's blood, swirling in an ocean of death, consuming his life as it pooled around him.
In that moment a cold so deep enwrapped Link's heart, and the world seemed to recede.
The bandaged creature lunged.
But ... so did Midna.
She crashed into Link with the full force of her strength, knocking him into the side of the corridor. The creature's grasp had remained taut, but Link's eye contact had been severed from the monster's. In that instant warmness returned to Link and his vigor was returned. Before the body could consume him in its stare once more, Link retaliated against its incoming eyes and mouth by slamming his torch into it.
Flame caught its dried rags, devouring it in a blossoming rose of orange. Its shrieks were suffocated by the wall of fire and smoke, as it stumbled blindly away to collapse in the middle of the passage. Link looked to Midna, nodding his thanks, but she glowered at him. "Never look them in the eyes!"
Surprise hit Link as hard as the undead creature had held his wrist. Midna knew what such creatures were … and what they were capable of? And yet ... a memory resurfaced within him of a day long ago. He had been nearly twelve years old when he and Rusl had been within the woods hunting ... the evening when Rusl had spoken of the cruelest of creatures. Undead beings ... soulless beings. There had been many names for them. Ancient races had called them redeads. They had named walking armies of skeletons as stalkin and their formidable leaders as the stalfos. Link had doubted the tales of such hellish creatures, but now ... to have faced the vacant eyes of a redead....
"Uh ... Link?"
He turned about when Midna's voice came crashing through his mind again. The bones within the next room had begun trembling, and—as it clearly appeared—reassembling themselves. Before them, a room of nearly ten stalkin approached them, spears at hand.
Reflexes overtook Link's mind, and he was instantly in motion, calling for Midna to follow. Unable to detour through one of the passages since they had been obstructed, Link yanked out his blade while he sprinted directly into the midst of the stalkin force. He crushed some of their bodies to the floor again, but no strike seemed to keep them down for long. Midna questioned his sanity angrily, but she soon realized that he had not headed into the swarm—he was merely passing through, for the only direct route to the sole chain had been through their groping fingers and prodding spears.
Link did not have to say anything for Midna to understand his intent. As he came to the chain, she clung to his waist, and he smashed his blade into the bottom of the chain, tossing the torch away and seizing the whipping metal. Instantly, their feet left the ground, and they were cast upward as the chandelier fell onto the group of stalkin below, the torch having drenched two of them in flame.
Once Link reached the peak of the chain's upward swing, he released his grip, and he came crashing down to the balcony. Yet, he had not been close enough to land on it, his fingers barely clasping onto its edge. The impact of the stones into his desperate hand seemed to have broken his fingers, pain shooting through his arm. The rip near the middle of his arm began to pound with every heartbeat, the dried blood cracking open and sending a fresh wave of red squeezing out.
Link breathed deep and tossed his sword up onto the platform. He held onto the edge with both hands then, a small relief settling into his right arm. As he began pulling himself upward he could feel the weight that had been Midna lift from him. He saw a trail of bubbling black and red out of the corner of his eye, knowing that she had used her magic to propel her upward. Link heaved himself halfway onto the surface just as Midna landed. He pulled his legs up one at a time, and once he had managed to drag himself fully onto the balcony, he rested as Midna peered through the passage leading from their position.
"This is fantastic. It's pitch black and you tossed away our only light," she sneered.
Grumbling, Link picked himself up, grabbing his sword. "Well, if you preferred that I leave you with our walking skeleton friends, waving spears," —he said, peeking over the edge and then looking to her— "why didn't you just say so?"
Midna growled a response and turned to the darkened corridor.
The joke of a question had been more for Link's own peace of mind. He did not entirely like the idea of moving on without a way of clearly seeing, but he did not exactly fancy spending his time in a dead end pit with the soulless either. Flexing his right hand to work out the pain it had endured, Link led the way into the dark corridor. Now that he realized that beings still roamed the ancient prison, he decided to keep his blade at the ready.
They blindly stumbled through the passage, using the stone walls as their guide. However, Link's hand barely touched the wall—his fingertips tracing its path—for he did not wish to set one of the spike traps that had been the death of the first prisoner they had encountered. Thus, he also stepped lightly, judging the ground before he pushed his full weight down. His eyes could see a vague outline of the walls and floor, but he lent more of his attention to his other senses. The wretched shrieks of long dead victims still cried out. There were whispering voices, too. Some seemed hungry for Link's soul, and others…. It seemed as if they pleaded for him, wanting his presence to banish the insane loneliness and silence that had fallen upon the prison for years.
Link nearly tripped then, stubbing his toes on a raised stone. He felt around the area with his foot, concluding that they had come to a set of stairs. After they had ascended nearly fifty of these stones, Link could see a faint bluish light outlining where the staircase leveled off. They reached the last step, and the room before them spread out in a large circular shape. The walls—dotted with columns—were cracked, sand seeping through at some points, creating strips of intermittent falls that pooled into the depressions of the floor where stone had been stripped away. The construction of the room was symmetrical just as previous rooms, and there were three other exits. The two branching to the sides led deeper into the level they had just entered, yet the third stretched on ahead of them, ascending to another floor.
The blue light, Link noted, came from above. The ceiling was partially open to the night sky, the calming beams of the moon shining down and embracing him. A certain relief encased him in that moment. It was a reminder that this tomb—though at the end of the world—was not all there was in existence. The rays reminded him that there was an outside world to which he would return.
As Link inched further into the room, he noticed strange markings on the floor, radiating outward in circles from the central point of the chamber. He came to the middle, and stared at the carvings out of pure curiosity. Some of the symbols resembled worldly things such as birds or people, and there was a curling mark that appeared like a staff. The other etchings were simple lines either curving or straight or jagged. Perhaps they were characters of an ancient writing, but Link could not discern their meanings. Shrugging, he looked away from the markings, but--
A low grumble shook the pebbles lying across the floor, and Link's footstep halted in midair. A shrill cry pierced his ears, and his head jerked about, looking for any sign of movement.
But he heard the prelude to his death before he caught sight of it. The heavy gust created by the black sword sailing through the air alerted Link, and he dove out of its path before it crashed into his last position. It embedded itself into the stones of the central symbols and rested there for many a long moment, wherein Link picked himself back up and watched the weapon closely for its next attack, his own sword at the ready.
His sight only left the strangely motionless blade to search for Midna. She was no where that he could see. Perhaps she had taken refuge in one of the many shadows splayed across the chamber.
Yet he could not tend to his fear for Midna for too long. The blade began to hum, and red symbols much like those decorating the floor brightened in a dull red across its surface. Link raised his sword to his side, prepared to either attack or defend against any creature that wielded the dark saber. However, the metal rose from the ground without any indication of a master. Nothing gripped its hilt as it was pulled away, but Link did not lend himself to surprise. He had experienced first hand what would happen if he succumbed to the shock of the unnaturalness of this place.
The blade swung through the air at and incredible arch, and Link—having no other way to defend against a sword as long as he was tall—leapt back to allow the engaged column next to him take the brunt of the attack. Debris fell from the pillar, its middle bursting away at the force of the strike. A fit of coughs captured Link's lungs as he tried to free his airway from the rising dust. When he looked up through the cloud, it was to see Midna once more.
Midna hovered near the center of the room, where the sword had returned, dangling the same as she. However, she spread a black magic outward around the saber, enveloping it in beams that soon sparkled with red and green and white. The blade writhed at the touch of the magicks, nearly slamming into the unmoving Midna several times. Something alien tugged at Link's chest each time the sword whirled close to her, but—somehow—it seemed she knew what she was doing despite the great danger she had put herself in.
The magic uncloaked the hidden figure within the shadows, a white hand forming around the hilt of the blade. A voluminous figure appeared from within the dancing lights. A sinister figure. Once ripped from its cryptic darkness, a cry of death itself rained from its body. Billowing robes floated about its frame, hanging loosely upon its skeletal shoulders. Its brightness soon faded, and the morbid black that seemed to infest the worst of evils shrouded the form.
It turned its head to face them. A ghastly face. Its head was shaped like that of a mutated ram, its hornlike appendages curling toward its head in a crescent shape. The triangular head shot outward in a snout like that of a demon serpent. Lethal teeth and fangs hung out of its wide maw when it screeched, saliva dripping from their tips. Its red eyes flashed ominously.
Its hanging, scaly flesh drew back Link's memories of childhood nightmares. The dead flesh of a rotten body, sticking to its bones and withered muscles tightly. Bony fingers laced around the hilt of the blade, and the other set flexed hungrily, its long and curled blackened fingernails crusted over with the sick and blood of prisoners long dead. Either this creature was a lingering soul of the netherworld, or it had dwelled in the chamber for ages, torturing and murdering the souls of the criminals at the will of the guards. Whichever was true it looked as though it had been left alone for some time, starving for the chance to resume its pleasurable killings.
The creature cocked its head, glaring toward Midna, however; when it swung its giant blade toward her, she had disappeared once more into shadows. Enraged, its head jerked toward Link, a low grumble consuming the air as it circled around, sword dangling at its side. Black smoke rose into the air in its wake like a wave of cold death. As the deadly sword and its master approached Link, the curdling mass of fog stretched for him like greedy fingers.
Link had no clue how to fight an undead foe, for how could he kill something that was already supposed to be withered and silent? He moved quickly for an exit, but two skeleton guards rose up quickly, as if they had gathered their pieces from the very walls and floor. Their cranium obviously larger than the stalkin and their bones standing taller, Link realized they were stalfos, the legendary demon leaders. Link stepped back, their swords crossing together to bar his way, and he looked across at the other doorways. Both of them—and the stairway he had used to access the chamber—were now guarded by stalfos couples, barricading him inside.
The Death Sword was upon him again in that moment of fleeting panic. Link barely missed the blade as it crashed down to where he had once stood. He abandoned the option of fighting through the stalfos guards for the fear that if he engaged one they would all be upon him. Such a battle could not be won. But—perhaps if he defeated their apparent commander, they would disintegrate back into the walls from whence they had come.
Link turned on his heel at that thought, the soulless creature still near. Whipping the Master Sword about in a fanciful fashion, Link grinned. He had also forgotten one very simple fact about his new weapon. The benevolence to banish evil, as Zelda had described it. Evil can never bear to touch it. If that were true ... this Death Sword could be vanquished.
Link had concentrated his energies in that moment, blade flashing brightly. Recalling his final lesson with the shade of the former hero, Link empowered his blade with the energy that now coursed through his veins. Once the Death Sword came upon him again, halfway through its attack, Link swiped his blade toward it. A faint red glimmer shot out from the Master Sword and slammed into the creature. The sensation ad stunned it, blade rocking unsteadily before it. Link took advantage of its temporary weakness and dashed for it. Unsure how long it would remain docile, he simply sped by it, casting his blade along its side as he ran. Blackened red clumps of fluid drained from its body, reawakening it to the present circumstance.
Screeching, it whipped its sword about and cast it toward Link's retreating frame. Link rolled out of its path and immediately sprang back up, facing it once again. He resisted the urge to use his shield as an extra defense, for it would slow him down and he doubted that its simple metal would protect him from the cursed foe before him.
Link avoided the Death Sword's attacks as they rained upon him. During his defense he took up every opportunity to stun the creature with a wave of red light, thundering down upon its body in his distinctive manner of slashes and thrusts before it regained its stature. It had been close to cutting Link's flesh several times, once tearing a hole in the skirt of his tunic, but it had not yet been able to draw blood.
After several more minutes of chasing after Link, its several bleeding wounds began to take a toll upon its reactions. Its movements were slowing, but in effect, its attacks were becoming more lethal in its desperate need to see its prey writhing in anguish and death. Link took this to his advantage. He feigned to the left, the Death Sword taking the bait eagerly. Just as Link moved in on its opposite side, the dark blade's weight thundered upon the ground. Realizing Link's deception, however, it slashed out with its bony fingers. Having not expected such an attack, Link barely missed its diseased nails. With no other alternative available, he again switched directions and leapt up onto the dark saber as the creature pulled it from the ground without missing a beat.
He moved swiftly up the blade and hilt, and he ducked when its opposite hand whacked at him, ascending the arm quickly. Though, when it hurled its fingers toward him again, Link was forced to jump off the arm. He had directed his plunge toward its head, roaring mightily as he came down upon its throat. The Master Sword pierced cleanly through the grimy flesh, and blood gurgled from its mouth.
A cloud of black consumed its frame. Link pulled his weapon free and fell to the floor. He shook away the hard landing quickly, afraid that the haze would swallow him as well. Still on his backside, he inched away from the shrieking, flailing figure, scooting back as quickly as his hands and feet would allow. As the darkness devoured the colossal creature, it reeled forward, aiming at Link with a dangerous, pointed hand. However, its fingers found the ground instead, inches away from Link's body.
The darkness pulled at the monster, and its fingernails etched long scratches into the ornate floor. From this, Link realized what had created the markings in the first place. Finally, in an echo as loud as the crash of an ocean tide, the figure burst apart. Black darts were cast about, fluttering wildly, and Link realized that these dark specks were bats. He raised an arm against their beating wings, protecting his face as best he could. Their shattering screeches pounded against the walls as they flew upward, escaping through the opening above.
Link exhaled a relieved breath. As long as he did not encounter another creature as such in the next chambers, he would regain his full strength in no time. Now, however, he had to deal with the stalfos guards. At the memory of them, he sprang to his feet, Master Sword prepared to send more of their soulless bodies to the darkness of the netherworld.
But the corridors were empty.
Thankful but rather confused, Link continued cautiously. Perhaps they had gone, or perhaps they had hidden to ambush him. Whatever the case he could not leave without Midna. He looked about at every shadow, but none seemed to hold the presence of his imp partner. He called out her name with no response.
His heart sank. Had the Death Sword hit her with one of its attacks?
Just then a figure descended from the ceiling's opening. Link assumed a battle stance, but Midna's familiar voice rang out from the shadow. "Well, it looks like that central chamber is just ahead," she pointed to the stairway that pointed upward. "A few more rooms, and I think we'll be there."
Link nodded, but he did not allow his relief to consume him completely. There were still those missing stalfos that he had a feeling he would need to deal with eventually. He started for the steps just as Midna added, "Good job, by the way."
He continued on with a smirk. "Not bad yourself," he returned.
Once they had ascended the darkened stairway, they came to a torch lit room that appeared to have no further paths branching off from it. At first, Link had looked to Midna for confirmation, but she expressed again that the chamber with the spires had been directly in front of them. Shrugging, Link inspected the room closer, finding that this chamber, too, was symmetrical in that there were indentations for three other passages. However, solid stone doors, which blended into the coloring of the wall, blocked each of them. There were no handles, no switches ... no apparent way of opening them.
Link removed one of the torches for better light and swept about the room, searching for anything that might be a clue as to how to gain entrance to the passages. The floor was not partly torn apart as the rest of the rooms. No secret lay there. He looked to the walls then, running his hands across its surface. He hoped that this was not a dead end … hoped that they would not have to return to previous rooms to find another path that circled around to some other entrance to the chamber beyond.
Behind the door would be the Mirror of Twilight. Link could feel it. There had to be a way to--
Was it really that simple?
Link's hand raked over something on the wall near the door he and Midna needed. Sand and dirt covered some kind of circle and rod. He handed the torch to Midna, who poured its light onto the area as Link rubbed his hand over it. Certain that he had stumbled upon the answer, he cleared away the grime, revealing a lever mechanism. There were three notches along the slit that housed the lever other than the niche in which it currently rested. Unsettled at the possibilities of what this switch could do, he argued with himself. It could activate a trap, but it could also open the door in front of them. It was worth the risk.
Holding his breath he moved the lever down one notch. The entire room seemed to rumble as dust around the top and bottom edges of the circular wall spilled out into the room. However, instead of causing some terrible ambush, the door they had come through closed while the door at the east opened up. As the powder settled, Link and Midna wheezing out the coarse grit, Link realized the ingenuity that had gone into constructing this room. There was a drum on the inside of the wall that the switch operated, closing three doors at a time. If Link was correct in his prediction that the Mirror lay beyond this point, this mechanism would have insured the guards that any criminal to be banished to the netherworld could not have escaped their fate by disappearing back into the maze of the grounds.
Link pulled the lever down to the third notch and held his breath as the drum shifted once more, opening the northern door and sealing him and Midna off from a quick retreat. Link regained the torch from Midna, and they peered into the passage that would lead them into the Mirror Chamber. However, the room beyond owned a massive staircase that spiraled about the wall, reminiscent of the one within Hyrule Castle, yet the height of the steps reached far above.
With no other path available to them, Link shrugged and moved into the room to begin the ascent. After nearly a half hour, Link had struggled his way up the steps, not daring a look below. His feet panged in resentment, but no matter their pain, he had to admit that it had been worth the exerting effort. The Mirror would be close at hand now. The last leg of his journey awaited....
At the summit a conduit led into another circular room … but no portal of any kind was visible. Instead, the huge room was filled with the eerie blue torchlight that they had first seen within the tomblike prison, the circumference lined with columns. A deepening sand pit consumed the middle of the chamber. Curious, Link approached the hollow and peered down. At the bottom there lay a prone skeletal structure of a giant beast long dead.
At least it's already dead. Link breathed a sigh of relief. Its hands were five times as large as him, and—if its four long horns were taken out of the calculation—the head appeared to be only slightly smaller than the massive ribcage that lay broken above a spine that also seemed shattered into many pieces. What the creature's lower half looked like, Link would not know, for the sand had blanketed the rest of its bones.
None of it mattered, though, for Link could see that in its state, it would not be like the undead skeletons and redeads that roamed the grounds. This monster had died a very long time ago, and it was no longer a threat to anyone.
Link noticed an opening high above on a second level. A draft eased into the room, and Link realized that the door was open to the outside. This had to be the way into the Mirror Chamber. He took in the room in its entirety, contemplating how he was to reach the doorway.
"You still live...." a strangely pitched voice uttered.
Link tightened his grip upon his sword, searching the room for the source. The voice was too familiar for comfort … that sticky tone of a dark entity.
"No wonder some of this land call you hero."
Link found the voluminous robes of the helmeted figure standing upon the dead creature's head. Zant.
"You," Link's voice trailed away in anger. The memory of how the Twilight King had cursed him resurfaced along with a dose of the agony he had felt during their first encounter.
"A bittersweet reunion, I assure you," the dark voice spat. Then a laugh gurgled from beyond the metallic veil. "I fear this is the last time I will see you alive." He spread his arms wide, calling upon the powers he had been granted. As his bony hands drew closed, a red ball of energy formed between his fingers, darkening outward from the center of the mass. A blade appeared within his hands, symbols upon its blade glowing in a magenta hue just as that of the Death Sword.
With one powerful thrust, Zant embedded the dark blade into the forehead of the skull, and a wave of red twilit etchings swam across its entirety. Just as the symbols faded once more, Zant turned away with a short, low chortle and disappeared in a vapor of black specks. Link and Midna remained silent for a moment, watching the skeleton closely.
The ground began to grumble, the sands shifting, the walls quaking. A frightful scarlet glow infested the hollowed eyes of the skull. They were lifeless sockets no more. The neck arched as all its splintered bones reassembled themselves, and the skull lifted before them, mouth gaping wide with two long fangs and rows of smaller, broken teeth. Its spine cracked loudly as it righted itself, yet it was unable to lift completely from the pit, for the sand had crushed the opposite half of its body.
No matter. It seemed deadly enough. It placed its large hands upon the sand and an impossible low growl sounded. It arched its spine, testing its reacquired flexibility. Link tried to work through to a solution even as skeleton troops clothed in decaying armor began to infest the pit, rising up from the sands. Some also crowded around the room … and there was a noticeable cluster at one end of the room.
Perhaps there's another lever there that operates a way up to the Mirror Chamber, Link thought quickly. Nevertheless, he would need to deal with the Skeleton commander—the Stallord, Link supposed—in order to reduce the troops to the grit that had been there existence. No matter how much he preferred to keep his distance, Link's only option in accomplishing this would be to remove Zant's blade somehow. It was not going to be an easy battle to overcome ... not if he wanted to remain in one piece anyway.
Link tossed away the torch since the blue fires and the rays of the moon were sufficient sources of light and prepared for battle. He stepped lightly along the edge of the pit, learning how the Stallord moved. Though it had already understood Link as its only enemy, it could not reach him. Instead, a bubbling growl emanated from somewhere within its hairy neck, and a spout of violet fog erupted from its giant maw. It bore down instantly upon Link—who veiled his face with his cloak as it clouded in his vicinity. It choked and attacked his eyes and skin. The spew burned him without fire, and Link raced away from its haze, seeking cleaner air.
Just as Link managed to clear most of the dark mist, the wind had already begun to assail it, driving it back, snuffing it out with its purer scent. Coughing out the last of its filthy residue, Link refocused his attention. He had lost Midna in the fog, but as he had learned with their encounter with the Death Sword—and so many other occasions before—she would be able to handle herself. Right now, the best thing for both their sakes would be to deal with the skeletal monster before the wind could no longer combat its bile.
Just as Link tested the sands in the pit with a careful foot—minding that none of the troops nearer him—he learned that his full weight would lead to his imminent death if he remained within its pool too long. It was not exactly quicksand, but its unstable quality did little to ease his mind. How would he even reach Stallord to sever the evil magic from its dead body?
Just then he heard a constant whipping of metal, as if someone were shaking a chain. However, its beats sounded as if they made contact with something. He removed his foot from the sand to look up—and just in time. The source of the strange sound had come from some spinning device sweeping around the circumference of the pit. A rim attached it to a groove in the inside edge. A second rim, set below the first, consisted of a thick, sharp blade that seemed to keep the device in motion, moving it along the circle. Two more—set in place by a pair of stalfos—joined the first.
Link was initially astonished that such mechanisms could be found within the prison, yet as he looked back on everything else they had encountered, these spinners were nothing less that he truly expected. Another obstacle in front of his path.
Or were they obstacles?
Link grinned. The center of the flattened tops did not circulate at their outside counterparts, and they seemed just wide enough for--
Just as another jet of blackened sick shot for him, Link—timing his step correctly—hopped onto a spinner as it passed by. His unexpected weight knocked it free from its cycle, and Link was thankful that latches were apart of its surface design. He linked his fingers around one of these, knees bent. He used the swing of his hips to direct the spinner, and surprisingly it did not sink below the sands. Its tottering movements and wide, arching turns did not take Link long to become accustomed to, but the troops that surrounded Stallord made his maneuvering difficult. He was often forced to ram into them, slashing their zombielike bodies at the knees and rendering them to the sands.
Every time Link lost momentum, he coasted the spinner back up to the edge, slamming the spinner's double rim back into the grooves, the bottom rejuvenating its speed. His newly acquired tactic kept him one step ahead of the troops and Stallord's hands and spray, but this also forced him to think quicker. Improvisation had taken hold of his strategy at the moment, for his only avenue he had thought to pursue had been to reach its head. The only way he could do so was either by ascending its flailing hands or its spine which was well guarded by lines of troops. Yet that alone enticed Link—just as their wall cluster had. If they were protecting something, odds were good that it would serve to Link's advantage.
Again dislodging himself from the edge, he zoomed toward the group around the spine, dodging Stallord's hands and stray troops when necessary. Link went through a rigorous workout in chopping down a few zombie guards at a time, regaining speed, and reentering the field over the course of long minutes before there was finally an opening in their barrier.
Coming in for the last time—he hoped—he avoided the walking dead and the swipes that Stallord made for him, aiming straight through the path in the defenses that he had carved for himself. Tilting his body at the hips, he spun past the last of the guards, arching in to the left to reach the spine. The colossal form intimidated Link for a split moment, considering the climb he would have to survive while it tossed about with him upon its frame.
Regardless, just as Link neared the beast, he pushed off the spinner. He thrust his sword into a vertebra, and disregarded the roar of anger and pain that echoed from Stallord. Link hugged close to the spine, holding fast to his hilt that kept him lodged in place. Once the greater half of the beast's writhing subsided, Link began to ascend its back. After he had gained a firm grip on a crack in a vertebra and two footholds to complement his position, he sheathed his blade and instead drew one of his daggers. He navigated across its bones in this manner until he reached its collar. Here he noticed that its nape was overgrown with matted hair, and he used this fur as a device against it, tugging on its strands to pull himself upward.
Stallord's thrashing grew in ferocity at this point, trying its very best to toss Link from its body, but however much it struggled, it could not shed him free. At last, Link managed to reach the summit of its mane, and he waited until its head was parallel to the floor again before sprinting across its skull. He partly dove for the hilt of Zant's blade just as it reared its head back completely. Link held fast to the weapon as his body dangled toward the ground. The sight of the staring troops below startled him. What if he were to fall into their eyeless grasp?
He shook the though away, and as his body again stood firm upon the wavering head, he jerked at the blade. It had been driven deep into the skull, but Link could not turn back now. This was his only option. He tugged at the sword, sheathing his dagger so that he could attack its evil with both hands, and it started to ease out of its cranium. It seemed to Link that pain should have been impossible to a beast made entirely of bone, but remembering how it had growled at the touch of his blade, he accepted that the removal of Zant's sword was dealing an immeasurable amount of suffering to it—no matter the unnaturalness of it.
Just as Link had managed to wrestle the long blade free, Stallord had reared its head. Without the sword to keep him attached to its head, Link was cast upward. He seemed to hover in midair for a moment, but gravity soon became greedy and stole his body once more, sucking him back toward the distant ground. During his descent the dark blade dissipated into black specks of nothingness. Link could see the troops below withering, disintegrating into the sands, their watery gurgling chilling his spine as equally as the wind slapping at his clothes and body as he fell.
Stallord's red plagued eyes began to drain of color once more, and its bony structure was falling along with Link, its mass carrying it down heavier and dangerously faster. Landing on the sand would be one threat, but now that Link was also faced with helplessly falling where gravity deposited him.... He did not much like the idea of an even harder landing.
Just as its arms crunched into the pit, Link's descent stopped at last. However, his left side had smashed into one of the bones of one of its forearms. An awkward crack sounded and bounced him away from the site, crying out at the shattering pain of the impact. His body finally came to rest a few meters away, face up. Winded and struggling with a smart that he was too dizzy to comprehend, he lay there, sprawled, watching dazedly as Stallord's head came crashing down. He managed to regain half his senses to crawl out from under its dive. Its smaller teeth splintered upon its collision, flying out in all directions.
As the dust settled, Link looked down from the ceiling to see the head only inches away from his diagonal left. Sighing in relief he cast his glance about. All the troops were eliminated, but what of those stalfos he had seen deploying the spinners?
It seemed that in the shuddering end to Stallord, the quake had dislodged the spinners, which had been crushed by the monstrosity. But where were--
"So..." came the clicking voice of Midna. She loomed before his vision just then.
"You—"
"—have managed to get rid of the stalfos while you bested the beast," she giggled. "And once those troops were out of the way, I pulled the switch they were guarding, and poof!" She smirked, as she pointed toward a small spiral staircase made of brittle stones leading up to the opening. "We have our way out! Now, get up, hero."
Had she not seen him fall? His bones were killing him. He could barely move at the moment, every muscle within him still trembling from the pain of the fall. He was not exactly sure if he could get up, and his grimace at an attempt immediately wiped the smirk from Midna's face. "Link? Are you all right?"
"I... don't know," he winced. "Just give me a minute." He closed his eyes, trying to take in the pain and breathe it out again. And though with each exhale, his body seemed to quiet its raging screams, his left wrist pulsed.
He managed to sit up, the ache in his back receding in time, but when he placed his hands on the ground to push himself up, he screamed out. He looked to his immovable left hand and realized—from its awkward position and his inability to move his fingers without sharp pains erupting at the attempts—that it was broken. He bit back another cry of pain, holding his forearm in his opposite hand.
"Link?" Midna's voice was congested with concern.
"It's all right. I'm all right," he assured through gritted teeth. He managed to rise to his feet and readjusted his legs to the idea of standing, leaning against the head of Stallord. "Let's go," he said at last.
When Midna nodded and turned away, however, Link released a wince, moaning silently. He shook back the cloak from his left shoulder to view the source of another wound. A small piece of bone that had cracked away from one of Stallord's teeth had impaled his flesh. Fighting back a squeal of torture, he ripped the fragment away as gently as he could and tossed it to the sands, dripping with blood. Link measured the severity of the injury, and so that Midna could not see how much he had truthfully endured, he jerked his cloak back over it, wrapping it over his left forearm as well as it lay in his palm.
Thus, he trudged on, tailing behind Midna ... uncertain that his true confrontation with the Twilight King would end in his favor now.