Zelda Infinite

By Goddess Rinoa/Miss Lydia

Chapter 26

            The afternoon sun was beating down viciously on Hyrule Market on this particular day – there was not a single cloud in sight to soften the rays.   But that didn’t stop anyone from doing what they always did everyday.  The sounds of Hyruleans haggling with the street sellers filled the air, along with the lively music being played by a few in the corner.  Couples danced to the music, and children kept themselves busy chasing the stray cuccos.  Not a day went by that the Market was not bustling with activity, with the exception of a day just past.  That was the day of Princess Zelda’s mysterious disappearance.  Everybody had been too nervous to even leave their homes.

But now the initial shock of the incident had passed, and everyone was distracting themselves by coming out and talking to everyone else about it.  Some people were telling it like it was, and some others were adding a little spice of their own.

“She vanished into thin air!” one man said.

“Just like that?!” another replied nervously.

“This is a dark, dark time for Hyrule…”

“…Yeah.  I assume you saw that huge explosion in the Field the other day?”

“I thought it was doomsday.  We’re lucky to be alive, I think.”

“There’s a huge crater out there now.”

“I wonder what kind of evil being did that?  Perhaps the same thing that stole the princess.”

“Do you think so?”

There were also some other conversations that were even more colorful.

“It was a giant black winged horse!  It swooped out from a Hell portal and stole her away!”

“No, it wasn’t that simple!  There were these dark clouds, and from them came a giant cucco with teeth, and it was hungry!”

“You raving idiot!  No such thing exists!”

            “Oh yeah?!  I didn’t say that when you told me the other day that you saw flying kids!”

“I did!  Flying without wings!”

            “And you say I’m crazy…?”

The entire market was filled with conversations like this.  Everyone was so busy making up stories with one another that no one noticed the three kids come running from the direction of the great Temple of Time.   They paused for a moment in the market.   Their young eyes were filled with happiness, and if someone were to look carefully, they’d also see hope in those eyes.

            After only a moment’s hesitation, the three began to weave their way through the masses of people scattered throughout the Market.  Their small bodies were knocked back and forth repeatedly by the broad hips of the tall people around them, causing the small girl to mutter a very adult word or two as she tried to keep her balance. 

“Argh!” Lydia groaned loudly after almost being knocked down.   “Dammit, I’m not used to being so small!”

“Just keep going.  …We’re…almost…through!” Gordon replied with an annoyed growl in his child-like voice as he got himself stuck in a tangle of shoppers at a booth.

Little Link was actually doing pretty well maneuvering himself through the masses of people in comparison to his two human companions.  “Let’s just be thankful that there are people here, huh?  At least they’re not ReDeads.”

“You do have a point,” said Lydia, “accidentally” stomping on someone’s toes.  “Come on, people, make way!”

            After several more minutes of this, the three finally broke through the mob and made their way as quickly as possible to Hyrule Field.  The sight of the Field, lit by the bright sun of the day, still untainted by Ganondorf’s evil that would plague it over the next seven years made all three of them smile slightly.  There had been some times when they had forgotten what pre-Ganondorf Hyrule had looked like.

But they couldn’t stand there very long to admire the scenery.  They had a job to do.

With quick words of magic, they took flight and zipped toward where Kakariko Village was visible on the horizon.  Gordon flew solo, and Lydia carried Link, as usual.  Lydia was in an unusually good mood and almost decided against dragging Link through a passing tree’s branches just for fun.  …Almost.

The group landed at the mouth of the old well.  They had never really paid attention to the well’s appearance the first time they had been this age, but now that they had gotten a second chance, they all silently noticed how exactly-the-same it looked.  It should look seven years younger, having faced seven less years of weather-wear, but every single chip in the stone was still stubbornly in place.  It was like the well wouldn’t age.  …An effect of the shadow spirit?  Ganondorf’s magic?  Both?

The two sorcerers peered down into the well, having to stand on the very tips of their toes to see.  Instead of evil-looking darkness, they were greeted by a full load of water.  Lydia immediately made a mental statement of how inconvenient that was.  Weren’t they supposed to go down there?

Link, off to the side and too busy pulling twigs out of his hair to join the other two at the well quite yet, asked loudly, “Water?”

Lydia straightened and turned to face him.  “Yeah.  A lot.”  She paused, staring at Link, and tried not to laugh.  She lifted a finger and pointed to her ear.  “Missed one.”

Lifting a hand toward his own ear, Link’s fingers found the pointy end of a twig tucked back there.  He pulled it out with an annoyed groan, and glared at the little leaf attached to the twig. The thing seemed to be mocking him.  Throwing the twig down, along with the sarcastic leaf, he asked, “Will that be a problem?”

            “Hard to say.  As I’ve said before, the kid and I both have water-breathing magic, but if we get into a battle down there, your sword would be useless.  You’d be pretty much screwed.”

            Gordon scoffed loudly and straightened up.  Looking at Link, he said, “Don’t you just love how bluntly she puts things?”

“Too bluntly,” the little Hylian.

In too good a mood to argue back, she simply shrugged.  Besides, they were right.

“Seriously, though,” Gordon muttered, slumping down into a sitting position with his back pressed to the well’s cold stone.  “This is going to be a problem.  What are we gonna do now?”

Link stood silent for a moment, then suddenly his eyes widened.  “Of course!” he shouted, snapping his fingers.   “How could I forget?!”

“What?” the sorceress asked curiously.

Without waiting for any sort of reply, the Hylian took off.  The sorcerers quickly followed.  They climbed the stairs that led to the windmill, and once at the top, Link whispered for them to stay where they were and went on ahead.

“What’s he doing?” Lydia whispered as Link opened the door and ducked inside.  She turned to look at her brother and was surprised to see a smirk on his face.

“I think I know,” he replied coolly.  “Just watch.  This is gonna be good.”

It was then that they heard soft music.  Lydia recognized it as soon as the shivers crawled up her spine.  It was that creepy song he had played with the windmill guy a little while ago…

Of course! she suddenly shouted in her head.  I get it!  Way to go, Long Ears!

Proud of herself for figuring things out on her own, she eagerly awaited to see what would happen.

First came the rolling thunder overhead, and then the brief and light rain that showered Kakariko.  The blades of the windmill suddenly started moving faster and faster.  The sorcerers then heard the rush of water coming from the well, and turned in time to watch the water quickly disappear from their sight.

The water was gone, the rain stopped, and the clouds cleared.  But the show wasn’t quite over.  Almost immediately, loud, angry shouting sounded from inside the windmill.  They heard crashing, as if furniture was being thrown about inside.  The door suddenly burst open and Link practically flew out, his arms held up over his head to protect himself from the various small objects that sailed out after him.   He took a sharp turn and darted for the stairs.  “Run for it!” he yelled to the sorcerers, who were staring at him in bewilderment.  Not about to wait around for the wrath of the windmill guy, they turned on their heels and bolted down the stairs.

 

 

“So,” Lydia huffed.  “The one who ‘messed up the windmill seven years ago’ really was you, huh?”

“Geez, Link,” Gordon managed to say as he tried to catch his breath, “he really wanted your blood!”

“Who knew such a quiet guy could have such a violent side?” Link answered, trying to sound innocent.

The three were crouched behind a house, out of sight of the windmill.   They all agreed that it probably wasn’t wise to go into the well just yet.  Better to wait until the windmill guy cooled down a little bit, just in case he saw them.  None of them had a death wish.

Once Link could no longer hear the muffled shouts and curses from inside the windmill, he decided it was probably safe to make for the well.  As they stood up, Lydia suddenly spoke.

“Hey, wait a minute, wait a damn minute.”  She had one of her hands on her chin in serious thought.  She unconsciously reached up with a finger to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose, forgetting that she didn’t wear glasses when she was ten.  It was complete habit.  After another moment of silence, she said, “So…  That creepy song you used.  Where did it come from…if you learned it from him, and he learned it from you?”

A stunned silence fell over all three of them, and for several awkward seconds, they just stood there, staring at one another.  Finally, Gordon turned and started walking.  “Err…,” he muttered, “let’s not worry too much about it.”

“Yeah,” Link agreed quickly, falling into step beside Gordon.

Lydia walked just behind them, muttering to herself.  “I smell a time paradox.  …Either that, or the gaping maw of a plot hole.”

“Sssh,” Link hissed back.  “Just forget it.”

She reached up and gripped her head with her arms in an exaggerated gesture.   “Damn, my head hurts.”

Once they had reached the well and peered down inside, they saw both a good thing and a bad thing.  The good thing was that the water had indeed completely drained, allowing free movement and solving Link’s problem.  The bad thing, which Lydia promptly pointed out, was that the darkness they remembered from the last time they went down there had multiplied exponentially in thickness.  Was it their imagination?  Or was it really darker, for some reason?

“The shadow spirit,” Gordon suddenly said.  “Have we forgotten?  The spirit won’t break free from the ward on this well for another seven years.   It’s still down there.”

“Greeeaatt….” Lydia muttered very slowly.  “Is that what’s making it so dark?”

“Probably.  Let’s see…”  The young sorcerer’s voice trailed away in thought as he created a ball of light in his hand.  He dropped it down into the well, and all three watched intently as it floated downward.  I hadn’t gotten five feet down there when it suddenly disappeared.

Link’s voice caught in his throat.  When he found it again, he moaned, “It…It sure didn’t get very far, did it?  The darkness just…snuffed it.”

“No,” Lydia whispered, her voice softened by thought and wonder at the same time.  “It’s not snuffed.  It’s still lit – I can feel it.  …We just can’t see it, is all.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about going down there.”

“Nor I,” Gordon said as he started to climb up onto the stone.   “But we still have to.”

The two boys swung over the side and worked their toes into the nicks in the stone, and started downward, disappearing into the magical darkness within seconds.   Reluctantly, Lydia swung herself over and followed, concentrating on holding onto the stone with her shaking hands.  Various thoughts were racing through her head all at once, and the one that surfaced the most often was ‘I wanna go home’.  She scolded herself almost immediately.  She couldn’t turn tail and run now.  They were getting so close.  Two more sages to go.

The darkness was wrapped around her like a thick blanket, and she felt like it would suffocate her.  She couldn’t hear the movements of either of the boys below her, which made her feel even more alone.   Keep going, she kept saying to herself.  Keep going.

As she continued to reassure her already nervous spirit, her foot suddenly hit the floor.  Her ankle twisted and she fell backward with a yelp.  A pair of arms caught her before she got very far, and she clung to them as she tried to regain her balance.

“You all right?” Link’s young voice said from somewhere behind her.

“Physically, I’m fine,” she replied.  She turned around slowly and could just make out Link’s face in front of her, and Gordon’s off to the left.  Just above them was a tiny ball of dim light – the light spell Gordon had thrown down here.  Even when cast by a sorcerer as young as Gordon currently was, it should have been much brighter than that.   The kid was right – this was magical darkness.  It was feeding on the light spell, sucking the light away into some unseen abyss.

“But otherwise…” she continued.  “I…I’m really nervous.  This place is really freaking me out.  Seriously.  Look at my hands shake.”

“I know what you mean,” her brother said, trying to sound reassuring.  “This is a dark magic hotbed.”

“What about that light spell?” Link asked, his face tilted upward.   “…Do you think it would matter if you were to make more light?”

The sorcerers looked at each other.  The Hylian had a point.  Would fusing more light spells with the one already down here make things any brighter?  Or would the darkness just keep up with them and keep things as dark as this?  It was worth experimenting, anyway.  Each of them silently created a little ball of light in their hands, and willed it upward.  The three balls of light joined together and brightened significantly.

Normally, three light spells fused in this fashion would be enough to sufficiently light an entire auditorium.  Down here, it was barely bright enough to make the well walls visible.

            But it was enough.  As soon as the light spells fused, Link’s sharp eyes caught sight of a long, dark tunnel.  His face bared an I-thought-so look.  That tunnel lay where that rock seal had been last time they had come down in this well.  This was the tunnel that Ganondorf would later seal away.

With Link’s direction, the two sorcerers saw the tunnel, as well.   With all kinds of reluctance and hesitation, they slowly started inside, pulling the almost-useless super light spell behind them.

The super light spell did a little bit of good – it helped them see that the tunnel was about six to eight feet wide and the walls slowly turned from packed dirt to stone the farther in they went.  But the dome the light spell created was otherwise very small and not very helpful at all.   And it was deathly quiet in this place.   If one really wanted to mentally disturb someone, they’d put them in a situation like this.  The three walked, huddled together in the quiet darkness, clinging to each other as if afraid that the darkness would suck them away completely.  The entire world extended only as far as the light spell could reach.  Everything else in the known universe seemed to be gone forever.

After a few minutes of walking in silent disturbance and fear, the tunnel came to an abrupt end, where Link suddenly found a wall with his face.  As he held his nose and wished all sorts of curses upon whatever hit him, the two sorcerers pulled the light forward and found a thick dirt wall in front of them.  At first, they thought they’d hit a dead end and had come down here for nothing, and then they both noticed something at the same time.  Near the floor was a small hole in the wall, just small enough for a child to crawl though.

Link and Gordon considered this hole a convenience, but Lydia considered it an annoyance.  Now they no longer had a reason to go back.  She protested repeatedly, having absolutely no desire to crawl through this tiny hole.  Link reminded her that it was the only way.  But it wasn’t his reasoning as much as the look on his face that convinced her to press forward.  His young face had a look on it that both pleaded with her and sympathized with her.   His eyes were begging her to continue with them, but also knew how scared she was and seemed to communicate that everything would be all right.

Whatever it was, Lydia ended up dragging herself along the ground on her elbows, just behind the two boys, with the light spell following at her heels.  The hole was pretty small – her back kept brushing on the ceiling of this tiny tunnel.  She wasn’t necessarily claustrophobic, but this little thing was making her really nervous.

Thankfully, the little tunnel wasn’t very long.  Link was the first to emerge on the other side, and he immediately breathed with wonder.  Something here was very different.  Gordon followed and had a similar reaction.

“What’s up?” Lydia asked, pulling herself out of the hole.   She suddenly froze before she was completely up and looked around.  The darkness that had plagued them since the beginning had suddenly retreated.  This new room was completely lit by ordinary torches that hung from sconces on the walls.  The deathly quiet was now also mellowed to the point where the trio could hear distant voices.  They were creepy spiritual voices, but it was something.

But the wonder of this sudden change of environment was gone quickly as soon as they realized that they had crawled into a small, dead-end room.  There was no hole in the far wall this time.  Instead of a hole, there was an aged skeleton embedded partway into the wall, which made Lydia swallow hard at the sight of it.

“…What now?” Gordon wondered aloud.

“We go back?” Lydia asked hopefully.

Link shook his head and slowly stepped forward.  “There must be something in here.   Why else would Ganondorf seal this up?”   As he spoke, he eyeballed the wall with the skeleton in it.  He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about that wall was just weird.  The little Hylian stepped up to the wall and raised a fist to knock on it. 

“What are you looking for?” he heard Lydia ask from behind him.  “A secret door or something?”

“Anything,” he replied.  With a swift movement, he brought his fist forward to knock on the wall, but his hand, instead of hitting the stone, went thorough it effortlessly.  He yelped in shock, Lydia let out a quick scream, and Gordon gasped.

He quickly brought his hand back and tucked it protectively against his chest.  Once he saw that everything was still there and worked properly, he moved forward to touch the wall again.   Again his hand went right through.  This time, he pushed his whole arm in.  Then suddenly, he stuck his entire torso through.

In any other situation, the sight of Link’s lower half sticking out of a wall would have caused Lydia a case of side-splitting laughter, but she was too weirded out to even react.

“What…What is it?” Gordon asked, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.

Link’s upper half appeared again and he turned to look at them.   “It’s a fake wall.  Some kind of illusion.  There’s a huge room on the other side.”  Without another word, he stepped completely through the wall.

Gordon turned to his wide-eyed sister, nodded once, and then disappeared through the wall as well.

Lydia suddenly found herself faced with an inner conflict and began to argue with herself.  She was already freaked out behind reason, and going any farther into this horrible place did not please her at all.  On the other hand, she was now standing alone in this horrible place, with only an old skeleton for company.  It grinned at her, as if inviting her to join it.

Hell freaking no! she silently shouted at it, then took a breath and walked through the wall with her eyes closed.

When she opened her eyes again, the wall was behind her, and the two boys were standing just ahead, surveying the new scenery.  This room they were in was much, much larger, with two large doorways on each side.  The walls and floor were aged, cracked, and a bit smelly, and somewhere off in the distance, the irritating sound of dripping water could be heard.

“Which way?” Link asked aloud.

Lydia decided it really didn’t matter at this point.  “Right-hand rule.  It works in videogames.  Let’s take the right hall.”

Gordon simply shrugged and followed quietly.

They hadn’t taken three steps with Link suddenly stiffened.   His swift hand yanked the Kokiri Sword from the tiny sheath, and he motioned the other two against the left wall.  He pressed himself against the wall just beside the entryway into the left hallway and stood poised, ready to strike.

What set off his sixth sense showed itself right away.  It was something that Lydia had never expected to see and had to fight herself really hard to avoid reacting out loud.  It was a giant skull with wings, covered with green fire.  The wings, which seemed proportionally all wrong compared to the size of the head, flapped up and down.  The huge jaw did the same thing – loosely dancing up and down as the skull moved forward.  It was so…gangly looking.  There’s really no other word to describe it.

The green skull moved through the room, either completely unaware of the presence of the three kids or completely uncaring, and disappeared into the right hallway.

Nobody moved until the green light from the flames was no longer visible.  Nobody said anything right away, all of them thoroughly freaked out.  Gordon was first to speak.

“…How about we…take the left hallway?”

“Y-Yeah,” Lydia quickly agreed.  It seemed completely plausible to head the opposite way that thing went.  Silently, they slipped away from the aged wall and ducked into the left hallway.

Walking once again in a tight group, the trio moved slowly through the hallway, unconsciously trying not to make too much noise with their feet.  They were all on full alert, ready for any changes in the environment, and at the same time hoping that nothing would happen.

The hallway, after some time, took a right turn, then continued straight for a while longer.  Completely straight, completely uneventful.  Lydia counted fifteen identical wall sconces before something finally changed.  Another hallway branched off to the right, and the one they were in continued on farther.

“So,” Gordon asked Link.  “The right branch, or do we keep going?”

Link was about to answer when green light suddenly appeared ahead.  Everyone saw the light, but only Link heard the faint beating of disproportioned wings coming closer.

“The right branch!” he hissed, and pulled both of the sorcerers into the branching hallway.  They pressed their backs against the wall and held their breaths, trying to be invisible.   After a few nervous moments, another giant green skull flew past them, continuing down the corridor they had been walking in, then disappeared from sight.

“Augh!”  Lydia groaned, detaching herself from the wall.  “Another one?”

“No…,” Link replied quietly.  “I…I think it was the same one…”  He glanced over at Gordon for confirmation.  “Wasn’t it?”

Gordon thought for a moment, and then said, “Perhaps that corridor wasn’t a left or right, but rather, two ends of a circle.”

“So,” his sister said, “it’s the same skull traveling in a circle through this place?  Well, I don’t know about you boys, but I don’t really feel like walking down that corridor anymore.”  She turned her gaze meaningfully into the branched hallway they had ducked into.  “Let’s go this way.”

The new corridor they were in stretched far ahead into blackness.  Link, as usual, took the lead.  It would probably be best anyway.  If anything was in store for them up ahead in this creepy place, he would definitely be the first to find it.

And find something he did.  Or rather, it found him.  The two sorcerers looked on as Link suddenly disappeared through the floor with a strangled yelp.  To stunned to even move at first, they heard him land somewhere below.

Silence.

Finally finding their legs again, the sorcerers ran forward to where he had disappeared and knelt down.  Gordon put his hand out and felt the floor, and watched as his hand went right through.

“Of all the stupid-ass trickery!”  the sorcerer snarled.  “It’s a fake floor!  Just like that wall!  Levitation!”  He swung himself down into the invisible hole and vanished.  Lydia ground her teeth together, then followed.

As the magic lowered her down through the floor, she broke through the ceiling of an enormous room.  The walls were made completely of what looked like packed mud or dark stone.  It didn’t look very man-made.  The room looked somewhat natural.  The floor was littered with little puddles of…  Well, she wasn’t sure what it was.  Sure wasn’t water.

Between two of these puddles, Link was crumpled on the ground, slowly and painfully trying to pick himself up, but not having much luck.  Gordon touched down beside him and spoke too quietly for Lydia to hear.  As soon as she was low enough to do it safely, she prematurely canceled the Levitation spell and dropped the rest of the way down at a normal speed.

“Anything broken?” she heard Gordon ask Link.

Link’s answer was more of a loud moan than words, but he managed to say, “No…I don’t think so.  Ugh, everything hurts…”

Lydia knelt down and took a gentle grip on his arm.  “That was a long fall…  Are you sure you’re all right?”

The Hylian looked up and was thrown off balance momentarily by the look of genuine worry on her childlike face.  He smiled as warmly as he could and said softly, “I think I’ll be okay.   Just need to – ouch – stand up…”

She heard Link moan loudly as he tried to get up again.  But with the horror of a sudden realization, she noticed that it wasn’t Link moaning at all.  Both of the boys heard the moaning as well and began to look around them.

All at once, they saw the culprit.  A culprit that was all around them.

Redeads.  Dozens of Redeads.   They had appeared out of the darkness and were staggering toward them at a slow but still frightening pace.  If the three stayed where they were much longer, there would be no easy escape. 

Link’s quick eyes immediately started scanning the walls that he could barely see anyway.  Off to the left, he caught sight of a gaping hallway.  A way out!  He motioned Gordon in that direction.

Gordon draped one of Link’s arms around his shoulders, helped him to his feet, and started toward the hallway as quickly as they could move.  The Redeads seemed to move faster, intent on not letting the fresh meat escape. 

Suddenly, Link realized that Lydia wasn’t following and motioned for Gordon to stop.  The sorceress was still rooted to the spot, frozen in the most utter and horrible fear that could grip a person, like a deer caught in a pair of car headlights.

“Lyd!” he shouted, remembering the incident in the Market that had planted a seed for her new Redead phobia.  “Get out of there!”

But she just stood there, staring at the flaky zombies closing in on her.  Her wide eyes didn’t even blink once.  Her small arms trembled visibly and her teeth chattered with fear.

Link knew that if he didn’t do something quick she wouldn’t get away in time.  He broke away from Gordon’s grasp before the sorcerer could stop him and bolted forward.  Pain shot up his legs and body with every step, but he ignored it completely.

Lydia was completely detached from the world of reality, pulled away violently by her fear.  Everything around her was gone, with the exception of the ruined bodies and gaping, hungry mouths of the Redeads, coming closer and closer to her.  Suddenly, something tightly gripped her wrist, and for a terrifying moment, she thought one of the creatures had snuck up on her.  But the sight of Link’s face brought her back down to earth.  In too much of a hurry to speak, Link turned around to run back, pulling her behind him.  Suddenly aware of what was going on around her, Lydia came back to her senses all at once and fought to keep up.

Too late, however.  Redeads now blocked the way to the exit, and Gordon was no longer in sight.  Link skidded to a stop and tried to think quickly.  He almost asked Lydia if there were any spells she could try, but quickly realized that she was so terrified that she could barely walk.  Spell casting would be out of the question.  The girl was clinging to his arm so tightly he feared it would fall off, her eyes wide and fixed on the zombies.

As Link fought hard to try to think of a second escape option, he heard Gordon’s voice somewhere behind the zombie mob, chanting a spell in harsh tone.  Suddenly, the small sorcerer appeared high above the Redeads, flying upward in a magically aided leap.   In his right hand he held a giant ball of pure white light.  He hung up near the ceiling for but a moment, and then propelled himself downward, just behind where Link and Lydia were stranded.

“Rah-Tilt!!” he bellowed, and struck the ground with the spell, which exploded on contact and spread throughout the room.  As soon as the sparking white light hit the Redeads, they all growled in pain and dissolved into nothing, completely obliterated by their greatest weakness – white magic.

After another moment, the light faded.  Gordon was still crouched on the floor, breathing very heavily from the amount of effort it had required to make his six-year-old body produce a potent Rah-Tilt.  He stood up slowly, almost dramatically.  He triumphantly dusted his hands off and turned around to check on his companions.  Link was holding onto Lydia very tightly, who in turn had her face buried in his shirt.

Gordon cleared his throat, and Link slowly opened one eye.   He slowly released his grip on Lydia and proceeded to look at himself, as if checking to make sure everything was still there.  Gordon suddenly found himself trying not to laugh.

“What…were you afraid that spell was going to destroy you, too?” he asked with obvious amusement.  “It was white magic.  You’re not undead – it wasn’t gonna get you.”

            Link turned red all the way to his ears.  “I…I knew that.”

            “Heh, sure you did.   You guys okay?”

Lydia was looking slowly around the room, fighting to stop shaking.  “A-Are they gone?” she asked nervously.

“For now.  Knowing Redeads, they’ll regenerate before long.”  As he spoke, the sorcerer began leading the other two toward the exit.  “Best to be out of here before that happens.”

As soon as they were out of the giant undead room and into the seemingly safe hallway, Link collapsed onto a knee, no longer able to fight the pain that wracked through his body in pulses.  Lydia helped him to lean against the wall and knelt beside him.  She looked up at her brother and said, “Why don’t you scout a little ways ahead and see what’s up there?”

“You bet,” the boy replied, and then started down the corridor slowly.   He hadn’t gotten very far when his sister’s voice stopped him.

“Hey kid?” she called.

He turned around and saw her smiling at him.

            “…Good show back there.”

            Gordon smiled at her compliment and gave her a thumbs-up.  “I may be the smallest right now,” he called back, “but I remain the coolest.”  With a confident smirk, he turned back around and disappeared into the darkness.

            Lydia’s smile didn’t fade, even after her brother had vanished from view.  “Yes, indeed,” she said softly.  Then she turned her attention to Link, whose eyes were closed as he winced at the pain from some unseen wound.

            “What hurts?” she asked him, preparing a healing spell between her small hands.

            Link groaned loudly in response.

            “…Okay, does anything not hurt?”

            “Yeah,” he whispered.  “The tip of my right elbow is okay, I think.”

            Lydia couldn’t help but giggle.  If he could make jokes, he wasn’t as badly hurt as she thought.  She concentrated the spell on his chest, figuring that was as good a place as any to begin.

            Neither of them said anything for several moments.  Lydia worked her magic in relative silence; until she thought of something she should probably say.

            “Um…” she stammered.

            Link looked up in reaction to her voice.

            “Thanks for back there.  I don’t know what came over me.  They probably would have been snacking on me if not for you.”

            The boy smiled at her.  He remembered that he hadn’t had a second thought about it.  She had been in danger, and his legs had just moved on their own.  “Don’t worry about it.  Let’s not forget – I’m the hero of this story.  I’m supposed to do…heroic stuff.”

            The healing spell slowly faded and disappeared.  In a swift motion, Lydia wrapped her arms around Link’s neck and rested her forehead on his shoulder.

            “I’m glad you’re always there to do heroic stuff,” she whispered.  “I hope you always will be.”

            Link paused for a moment, and then smiled and returned the embrace, slipping his healed arms around her small waist.  “I will be.  I promise.”

 

 

            Every one of Gordon’s brain cells was dancing with worry as he snuck through the dark hallway.  The deathly quiet had returned and that made him feel horribly uneasy, especially since he was alone this time.  The slightest sound made him jump and caused his imagination to play tricks.  He laughed at himself – he had all but forgotten how wild his little imagination had been when he was this age.  It was really working against him now, and he fought to keep control and not let it take over.

            The hallway ended rather suddenly and opened up into a fairly large room.  Not nearly as large as the Redead room, but not very small either.

            What was in the room made Gordon’s breath catch in his throat and die there.  He stood in the doorway in revoltion, staring into the room.  The boy was horrified by the…the sheer weirdness of what he was seeing.  Without giving himself enough time to make sense of it, he turned around on his heel and ran back the way he had come.

            Running shortened the distance significantly, and he quickly came upon Link and Lydia again.  The Hylian was just then standing up on his own.  He looked much better.

            They saw him running back and immediately, and correctly, assumed trouble, and ran forward to meet him.  Gordon said nothing, but instead silently beckoned them to follow, then turned back once more.

            As they got close to where Gordon had stopped, they heard him whisper back to them.  “Wait until you guys see this.”

            Lydia and Link gave each other puzzled looks, each one’s imagination running away with them.

            The hallway opened up into the room again, and Gordon stopped them at the doorway, where he had stopped.  Once glance back showed the boy that the other two were having a very similar reaction – one of revoltion and disturbance.

            In this dark, damp room, there was a dark floor made of tightly packed soil.  The room was empty except for the arms.  Clammy, slimy-looking, pasty white arms were sticking out of the ground, reaching for the ceiling with their bony fingers.  These arms were arranged in a circle in the middle of the room.  They didn’t move much, except for the very gentle, almost undetectable swaying back and forth as they continued to try to touch the ceiling.

            “What the…hell…are those…?” Link asked aloud, his voice unusually small and quiet.

            Lydia was shaking visibly again.  Not really from fear this time, but more from the mental disturbance of the sight.  “C-Can we go back to the Redead room now?” she asked meekly.

            “See what I mean?” Gordon asked.  “I don’t even know what to make of this.”

            “Who would?” Link wondered, carefully drawing his sword.  “I guess I’ll go see what they are.”  His gaze turned to Lydia almost instantly, knowing what she was going to say.  “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

            He sucked in a long breath to steady himself, then started to edge forward, keeping the sword in a ready position in front of his body.  He was almost certain he was only imagining it, but the room seemed to get colder the farther in he got.  As he closed in on one of the clammy zombie arms, it became apparent that each one of them was at least twice as long as he was tall, which was somewhat off-putting, to say the least.

            Back in the doorway, Gordon felt his sister’s hand close down on his left arm.  “Be ready for anything,” he whispered to her.

            Nobody had to tell her that, but Lydia nodded anyway, and continued to quietly watch Link get closer and closer to one of those things.  She started to get a really nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach, and swallowed hard to keep the butterflies down as the Hylian slowly reached his sword out and attempted to touch one of the arms with the tip of the blade.

            With sudden and incredible speed, the arm suddenly moved and the hand flew down to grab whatever had wandered into its territory.  Link tried to roll away, but the hand got a vicious grip on the back of his neck and held him fast.  The feeling of the ice-cold, clammy fingers digging into his neck made the boy want to scream, and he struggled hard, wanting nothing more than to make those cold fingers go away forever.

            Before anyone could react any further, the soil in the middle of the circle started to shift, and a large creature lifted itself out of the ground.  The sight of the thing made Lydia gasp in horror.  It was even taller than the arms, and wore the same color and skin type.  The bulk of it was all in the lower half – a blob with no visible legs.  The thing’s arms had no hands, and were tiny and stubby, flailing back and forth with minds of their own as the creature moved.  The head looked like nothing more than another limb and was sticking straight up in the air.  If the thing had a face, it wasn’t visible from where anyone was standing.

            And it was heading right for Link, who was still held in place by the arm that had nabbed him.

            “Lunchtime, huh?” Link growled bravely at it.  With his nimble fingers, he turned his sword around in his hand and stabbed backward, catching the arm at the base.  The hand trembled violently and the fingers loosened their grip.  He rolled free immediately and stood up at a safe range from the arm circle, and watched as the creature slowly waddled after him.

            The sorcerers moved forward, but Link help up a hand.  “I think I can take care of Ugly,” he called back.   “Just keep those arms off me.”   Without waiting for them to either agree or protest, he readied the sword again and stood still, waiting for the thing to approach.

            After what seemed like hours, the thing finally was almost upon them.   The top limb, the one that looked like a neck, trembled and started to arch down toward him.  From the very top of the neck, the face appeared.  A gaping mouth full of enormous, blunt teeth, accompanied by beady black eyes were both staring at him now.  The mouth opened and reached for his face.

            Link agilely swung the sword in a wide arch, catching the creature across the eyes with the sharp edge.  The thing recoiled slightly, then hissed and turned to him again.  The skin that had been broken by the sword melded back together and it made another grab for Link, who rolled away off to the left.  However, he did so trying to recover from the shock of seeing the thing heal itself, and misjudged the distance, finding himself right at the base of another arm.   It came down before he could move again and took a firm grip on his right shoulder.  The feeling of the cold hands sunk right through his clothes, making him feel disgusted all over again.  To compound the problem, a second arm attacked from the left, grabbing hold of Link’s sword arm.

            Caught in the trap again, Link struggled violently as Ugly made his way slowly toward him.  Then, coming in like the cavalry, the two sorcerers ran around from either side of Ugly and passed him, both clutching magical fire whips.  In a single synchronized motion from both of them, the two arms fell over like dead trees, and Link rolled free again.

            But Ugly made things so it wouldn’t be that easy.  More arms sprung from the ground almost instantly, and decided that the two morsels with magic would taste much better, and made a grab for them.  Gordon, being the smaller, managed to squirm out of the way just enough that the clammy hand only managed to nab the hem of his shirt, which he promptly pulled free.  Lydia, on the other hand, managed to get her whole upper arm into another arm’s grasp.

The fear factor of this whole well episode was really starting to get to her, and anger began to mix with the fright.  As the fright made her scream repeatedly, the anger moved her free arm up to swing the fire whip like a lasso, and then slap it down at the base of the arm.  It burned quickly, and Lydia ran out of the way, soon horrified to find that even though she was well away from the circle, the detached hand still had a grip on her arm.

            As Gordon helped Lydia pry the nasty fingers from her arm, Link was busy facing off with Ugly again.  It was moving just the same as before – the slow waddle, arms dancing back and forth, neck wobbling in a strangely confident manner.   Link lay in wait as it approached and brought its face down again.  This time, Link rammed the sword directly into its eye, hoping to damage a more vital part.  Once again, Ugly recoiled, but didn’t back down.  The eye just put itself back together.

            Link backed away almost to the hallway in a temporary retreat, where the two sorcerers joined him.

            “No good?” Lydia asked, feverishly brushing her arm off where the monster had grabbed her.

            “I don’t understand!” Link growled angrily, clutching the sword so tightly that his knuckles were losing their color.  “This thing is obviously undead!  The Master Sword should be able to—“

            He stopped midsentence, and stared downward.  He had completely forgotten.  The Master Sword was safely resting in the Pedestal of Time.  All he had was this Kokiri Dagger.  While the Master Sword would indeed be able to slay an undead creature without a second thought needed, the Kokiri Sword was—

            “Useless…” he muttered to himself.  “This Kokiri Sword can’t do anything!”

            The two sorcerers looked at each other for a moment and smiled.  “No sweat!” Lydia said.  “We’ll just have to make it a Super Kokiri Sword!”

            They each leaned around Link and wrapped their small hands around the blade, and after a moment, white magic began appearing.  As they charged the sword with whatever anti-undead magic it was, Link kept his eyes on Ugly.  It sure was a good thing he was taking his time catching his lunch.

            He was too busy watching the monster to notice that Lydia and Gordon had finished the spell.  He only woke up when Lydia shoved him in the back.  “The spell won’t hold onto an ordinary sword very long!” she shouted.  “Go beat him up before you lose it!”

            Link didn’t need to be told twice.  Not about to wait for Ugly to come to him, he charged forward with the sword held out to the side.  Ugly, not sure how to react to his lunch coming to him for a change, lowered his head and opened his mouth, and waited for his meal to run in.

            The Hylian got there just in time to avoid losing the spell.  He could feel the magic loosening and preparing to explode.   He rammed the sword forward toward the monster’s face, and Ugly started to clamp his teeth together.  The monster froze mid-bite as the blade of the sword went right through the back of its throat.  Link kept it there just long enough for the magic to release.  In a bright flash of light, Ugly’s head was blown into dust, and the rest of the body flopped backward in a heap.  The circle of arms all trembled at once, then disappeared back into the soil.

            The room quieted again, save for Lydia’s enthusiastic cheers from behind him.  As he moved to sheath the sword again, he stopped and stared at his wrist.  All around it were big teeth marks.  If he had been just a second slower, he may not have had a left hand anymore.  He shuddered at the thought as Lydia ran up beside him and Gordon playfully punched his shoulder.

            “Well,” Lydia groaned, staring at what remained of Ugly.  “That was a disturbingly gruesome demise.  Nice work, though.”

            “You guys, too,” he replied with a smile, dusting his hands off casually.   "Bit of a close one for my sword hand, though."

            Gordon had his eyes glued on the creature.  Not really at Ugly himself…but at the faint glimmer he saw wedged under the body.  He wandered over and knelt down next to it, trying his best to ignore the smell the remains were giving off.  It was some kind of object, but he couldn’t tell what.  He wrapped his tiny fingers around it and tried to pull it free, but Ugly was just too big.  He called his companions over and pointed out his find.

            Link was immediately intrigued, and tried to shove the creature’s body off the object, but wasn’t quite strong enough.  He glanced over at Lydia, who seemed disgusted by the fact that he was touching the monster.  “Can you help me with this?”

            The girl was absolutely appalled.  “You want me to touch it?!”

            All it took was another one of those meaningful looks on Link’s face.   Lydia rolled her sleeves up and took a deep breath.  The two counted to three, then shoved on Ugly’s hide with all the might their child bodies cared to offer.   Link grunted from the effort, and Lydia whined very loudly in disgust.

            Gordon, still crouched on the ground, waited until the creature had been rolled just enough, and reached his hand under.  When he brought it back, he had the shiny object tightly clutched in his small hand.

            Link let go of the monster with a great sigh and stepped back to look at what Gordon had found.  Lydia, on the other hand, danced away quickly, shaking her hands up and down as hard as she could, whining something awful.  She repeatedly cast water spells on her hands until she was certain all of Ugly’s yuckiness was off them.

            “What is it?” Gordon wondered.

            It looked like a really old-fashioned magnifying glass.  The lens was the most interesting part of it.  One side of the glass was red, the other a deep blue.

            Link laughed at himself for not realizing what it was immediately.  “It’s the Lens of Truth,” he stated with a smile.  “It has to be.”

            Gordon turned it over and over to look at it thoroughly.  “This little thing?”

            “What did you find?” Lydia called, wiping her hands on her pants.

            “What we think is the Lens of Truth.”

            Lydia stared.  “That little thing?” she asked, repeating her brother’s words.

            Link took the probably-the-Lens from Gordon and tucked it into his tunic front.  “We’ll soon know,” he said matter-of-factly, and started walking into the hallway they had come from.  The two sorcerers, hopeful that they had found what they had come down into this living nightmare for.

            When the hallway broke into the giant Redead room, they immediately took off in flight to avoid the Redeads, which had indeed regenerated while they were fighting Ugly.  Lydia concentrated on the hole in the ceiling and tried very hard not to look at them, but their hungry moans still made her tense up all the way to her bones.

            Once up and through the ceiling, they found themselves back in that hallway that branched off from the main circle.  Link, once he had made sure the ground beneath his feet was solid, pulled the little glass from his tunic pocket and looked through it down at the floor.  Where there had been a floor before, the glass showed him that there was really no floor there at all, but a gaping hole.

            Link smiled at their triumph.  “This is it, all right.  The Lens that can lead the way through trickery and illusion.”  He gently tucked it back into his tunic and sighed.  “Too bad we didn’t find it before I found the Redead room.”

            Glancing nervously about, Lydia muttered, “Can we please leave now?  We have the Lens of Truth.  Let get out of this hell hole and back to our time.”

            “Yeah, none of us are really enjoying this,” Gordon agreed.   “Let’s get outta here.”

            The group made their way out of the branch and back into the main circle, then broke into a slow run, all eager to get back up into the sunlight again.  No one was really going to relax until they were out of this main circle hallway.  It was a long run, with no other branches other than the one they had left behind, not until the very end.   There was nowhere to go if something came up.

            Link was having that very thought when he once again heard the beating of disproportioned wings, coming from behind them.  He skidded to a stop and turned around, and saw the giant skull coming.

            “Oh great,” he muttered, pulling his sword out.  “Nowhere to run this time.”

            Gordon stood close to him with his hands in spell firing position.   The big, freaky-looking skull, which was as large as the hallway was tall, was dancing their way, and would be upon them in moments.   They’d never outrun it.

            Lydia, they noticed, was once again standing perfectly still.   She was facing away from the skull, toward them.  Her hair was hiding her eyes and her body shook.  Was it fear again?   …No, it was anger.

            First, the scary darkness at the beginning.  Then the grinning skeleton, and the giant flaming bat-skull.  Then Link fell through the floor.  …And the Redeads.  Oh, the Redeads.  And then having Ugly’s bony hand clamp down on her arm.  It was so cold, so disgusting, and so dead…  And now the bat-skull was trying to mess with her again, when all she wanted to do was leave.

            The flying skull had just picked the final straw.

            Link was about to yell at her to either get ready or move out of the way, when she suddenly screamed with fury and whirled around to face the skull.

            “EVERYBODY STOP SCARING ME!!!!” she shrieked at it with everything inside her.  With a yell of the utmost fury, she threw her hands out.  “Astral BREAK!”

            White light exploded from her and propelled forward, expanding to fill the entire hallway, slamming into the skull.  It didn’t even know what hit it.  When the spell finally faded, all that was left of the gangly skull was a pile of black ashes.

            The girl breathed heavily, and then fell down to one knee.  The two boys were knelt down on either side of her almost immediately.

            “Somebody lost her temper,” Gordon said in a teasing manner.

            “You okay?” Link asked her.

            Lydia slowly stood up, clinging to Link for extra support.  “Y-Yeah, I’ll be fine.  I just forgot how weak this ten-year-old body was with some of my spells.”

            “Well, not for long.  Let’s get back to the Temple of Time.  I’ve had enough of this place.”

            “Okay, but if we were wrong and there’s more than one of those things, Gordon gets it.  I’m done.   Not dealing with this anymore.”

            Gordon stood up proudly as they walked through the fake wall into the room with the little hole.  “No problem.   I killed dozens of Redeads with one shot.  I should be able to handle a bat-skull.”

            “Bah,” Lydia shouted back as she followed them through the small tunnel, just as before.  “I could have done that.”

            “Yeah, if you weren’t such a chicken-heart.”

            “You are so dead, small fry.  As soon as I get the chance, I’ll turn your face inside out.”

            Link just kept quiet.  He was rather amused.  This was one of the first times he was actually an observer to an argument with Lydia rather than a participant.  He quickly decided that participating was far more fun.

            No matter, though.  They had succeeded in finding the Lens of Truth.  Once they were back in the future Hyrule, their next stop would be the Shadow Temple.   He started to have disturbing thoughts.   This old well was supposed to be linked to the Shadow Temple, and being down here hadn't exactly been a picnic.  …What kind of nasty things did the Shadow Temple have in store for them?