Chapter 8
In better times, Vaati thought with a little sadness, the view from up here must have been spectacular.
He was doing something he would have never thought possible at that moment. He was soaring like a bird high above the trees. Well, he wasn’t flying so much as being towed along for the ride, but it felt the same. His two new sorcerer friends were the ones doing the flying. They each had a tight grip on one of his arms, carrying him below them as they cut effortlessly through the air, heading what Vaati thought looked to be northeast. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to Vaati that it was a very natural thing for them, as if they were used to carrying people around with them like this.
The initial takeoff had scared Vaati half to death. Though he had studied their type of magic when he was growing up, he had never heard of these magic users being able to fly like this, so he didn’t see it coming. One moment he was standing on solid ground, the next minute he was being yanked high in the air, feeling like he had left his stomach behind. Lydia had been quite amused by his panicked reaction. Gordon reassured him repeatedly that he wasn’t going to fall. It took several minutes for Vaati to believe him. This felt far from natural, so he couldn’t be completely at ease, no matter how hard he tried to be, but he was able to at least stay calm enough to not be a panicky fool about it.
It was the first time Vaati had gotten a good look at where he had ended up after his trip down the river. Lake Hylia extended out below them, and much like the rest of this Hyrule’s landscape, it had probably been magnificent to behold in its better days. Judging by the form of the shoreline, it didn’t look like it had any less water in it than it was supposed to, but the water was murky and uninviting. With clear water and full sunlight, it must have been beautiful once. Vaati couldn’t help but wish he could go back further in time to see it as it was meant to be seen.
What happened to this place?
They didn’t linger there long. The sorcerers flew northeast, staying close to the cliffs on the east side of what he recognized to be the huge clearing he had been in before. He really had traveled all the way across the kingdom, just like they had said. He still didn’t know how he’d managed to survive long enough for them to find him at the lake.
Far ahead in the clearing, Vaati thought he could see the river again. It was wrapping south from where Ganon’s fortress was, and cut east into the cliffs and disappeared from view. The mouth of the river must be up that way.
They didn’t get close enough to it for him to get a better look. Before they reached that river, the sorcerers took a sharp turn east and flew away from the clearing. Up ahead, Vaati saw dense forestland appearing over the horizon. He was surprised to see something green. It had looked like this Hyrule could no longer support flora.
Instead of flying over the dense forest, the sorcerers descended suddenly, and once again Vaati felt his stomach move in a way it normally wouldn’t. He closed his eyes tightly, and didn’t open them again until he felt solid ground under his feet. He dropped to his knees and sighed with relief as the sorcerers touched down gently in front of him.
“You doing okay?” Lydia asked with a playful smile.
Vaati tried to steady his breathing. “Y-Yes, I’m all right,” he answered. “It was as invigorating as it was… terrifying.”
Gordon laughed, “It takes some getting used to.”
Finally lifting his head and looking around, Vaati asked, “Have we arrived at our destination?”
“Not quite yet. We have to continue on foot. The forest is too thick beyond here to allow us to approach from above.”
Vaati nodded in response. “I think a little solid ground would do me well.”
They started into the thick forest and continued walking east. Sure enough, the canopy of leaves above them was so thick that they wouldn’t be able to tell one thing from another from up in the air. There were no paths to speak of, but there was still enough room between the trees and shrubbery to walk comfortably.
The group walked silently for several minutes, with Lydia and Gordon leading and Vaati only a couple of steps behind. Vaati had so many questions he wanted to ask, but he got the feeling that this wasn’t really the best place to talk. It was something about the way the other two were behaving. Vaati caught them occasionally looking around, as if they were expecting something to jump out at them. They were definitely on guard. Vaati couldn’t imagine what was making them nervous. He hadn’t yet seen these two really use their magic to any great extent, but from what he knew of its nature, it had potential for great power. They could probably defend themselves easily. What was making them so nervous?
“May I ask where we are going?” Vaati asked quietly.
“I know you said you’re not from around here,” Lydia answered just as quietly, “but as I’m sure you can guess, this is not a very friendly place right now. But we know of a safe place. We’re taking you there so you can rest before you continue on to wherever you’re going.”
Not a friendly place right now, she had said. That led to Vaati’s next question. “Did it used to be friendlier out here?”
For a quiet moment, there was no response. She kept walking, looking straight ahead. Finally, she said, “Until pretty recently, yes. I mean, there were some bad guys out here, sure, but nothing like what you see now. This place was stable and beautiful once. And I hope it can be again someday.”
“What happened?”
“It’s kind of a long story. There was a bit of a catastrophe about four years ago. But we can talk more about that when we get to where we’re going.”
“Does it have something to do with whatever it is that’s making you keep our destination a secret?”
Lydia chuckled. “Is the over cautiousness that obvious? And here I thought I was being subtle.”
“Nothing about you is subtle,” her brother teased.
When they fell silent again, it was clear that they weren’t going to talk about it anymore. Not out here, at least. Vaati decided to change the subject for now.
“That flying magic… Though I think it took years off my life, it was quite impressive. What else can you do? There are different branches, right? Based on what you said before, I’m guessing you two represent black and white.”
The two sorcerers stopped in their tracks and spun around to face him. Vaati got a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realized he had said something wrong. Gordon was eyeing him with a little suspicion.
“How do you know about that?” he asked. His tone of voice was calmer than the look in his eyes.
Vaati swallowed and chose his words carefully, praying that he was not so far back in time that his answer wouldn’t sound plausible to them. “I-I’ve read about it. In old books from my kingdom. It was one of the reasons I came here in my travels. I wanted to learn more about it.”
It wasn’t a complete lie. He had learned about their magic from books, after all. He just hoped that the “old books” part of the fib wasn’t going to give him away.
The sorcerers looked at each other silently for a moment.
“I guess that makes sense,” Lydia said with a small nod to her brother. “I mean, didn’t there used to be whole guilds dedicated to this stuff? Maya and Riku were involved with that kind of thing, right?”
Her brother nodded back, his face finally relaxing again. “Yeah, that’s right. I guess there was a time when information about it would be commonplace.” He turned his attention back to Vaati and said, “Sorry. It’s just that we’re not used to other people knowing anything about how our magic works.”
“Why not?” Vaati asked.
“Well,” Lydia answered, absently looking up at the tree branches above them. “It’s more or less a lost art. I think the kid and I are the only ones left who can use it.”
Vaati breathed an internal sigh of relief. So the magic was already mostly lost in this time, which made his answer make sense. He had managed to discourage any follow-up questions from them for now. He just wasn’t quite ready to tell them the whole truth of where he was from.
The sorcerers turned and continued to walk, and Vaati hurried to catch up with them.
“To answer your initial question,” Gordon said, “she and I can both do a little bit of everything, but we definitely have our specialties. I’m more talented in the white magic side of things, as you probably noticed before. On the other hand, if you want something set on fire, or blown up, or anything of that nature, she’s the one you should look to.”
Even though he couldn’t see her face, Vaati could hear something in Lydia’s voice that suggested she was rolling her eyes. “Yeah, they’re always saying it’s my solution to everything. Can I help that blowing things up is a really effective way to get things done?!”
“Case in point,” Gordon teased with a smirk.
“So I have a simplistic approach,” Lydia continued. “So what? It works. You don’t have to poke fun.” The playful tone of her voice made it clear that she was only feigning offense to her brother’s comments.
“Well, the person that usually makes fun of you isn’t with us at the moment, so I’m just picking up the slack.”
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know that. No, seriously. He’d be disappointed to know that I went five minutes without being the butt of a joke.”
Vaati could do nothing to stop another uncharacteristic smile from creeping up across his face. With each minute he spent with these two, the more fascinating, and admittedly amusing, he found them. Here they were in what seemed to be a complete wasteland, with who-knows-what threatening them, and they still had it in them to joke around. Not many people could be that positive in this kind of environment.
It also showed that they were at ease even with him there. They were traveling with a complete stranger that, if Vaati looked at it objectively, they had no real reason to trust. Yet they had chosen to trust him based on nothing. They had chosen to trust him to the extent that they were willing to expose to him what was probably the only safe haven they had in this whole ruined place. What if he was turned out to be an enemy? Taking him there would be a fatal mistake on their part, and surely they knew that. But here they were, leading him straight to their secret safe place, and were still comfortable enough for playful bantering.
It was making him feel intensely guilty. They were placing all sorts of blind faith in someone they had just met, and he didn’t even have it in him to tell them the truth about himself. Surely, he had been through hell, and had a lot of reasons to have a strong sense of self-preservation. But these people had showed incredible selflessness, saving him from death and taking care of him, and all he could do was lie to them?
His initial thoughts were that he should be hesitant to be truthful with them until he was sure not only that they weren’t a threat to him, but that they could help him get home. Until they were… useful. The thought now made Vaati sickened with himself. Maybe they could help him, and maybe not. That shouldn’t be the basis for trust.
If they were going to put their faith in him like this, then he was going to do the same, and tell them the truth.
As he tried to decide first how to apologize to them for being dishonest, and then how to explain everything else, the sorcerers suddenly stopped walking. Gordon was looking around at their surroundings, looking a little perplexed.
“…Are we going the right way?” he asked hesitantly.
His sister’s mouth dropped open. “You mean you don’t know where we are?”
“I think I got a little sidetracked by the conversation. Now I’m not sure if we’re going the right way. Do you recognize this area?”
“Oh, please. You know I can’t be trusted with such things. I was just following you.”
With a roll of his eyes and a sigh, Gordon said, “Well, we'll just have to go up and have a look, to make sure we’re still at least going in the right direction.”
He and his sister wandered off a little ways with their eyes glued to the canopy above. Vaati didn’t follow. He stayed where he was, still trying to think about what he should say to them.
They stopped at a tree about twenty feet off their path, and Gordon pointed up into the branches. “There. I can see a little sunlight. Hopefully we can get up there without getting tangled in the leaves.”
“You mean hopefully you can get up there. I don’t go up trees. I’d probably just get sap in my hair.”
“You’re such a girl. Fine, rather than argue with you about how stupid that is, I’ll just go myself.”
He muttered a word of magic, then shot straight up into the air and grabbed onto the lowest branch. He started a slow climb through the branches, aiming for the ray of sunlight that was somehow finding its way through.
Back on the ground, Lydia stood there facing the tree, muttering quietly to herself. “Everyone knows I’m never in charge of directions. It’s practically a rule. Not my fault.”
Vaati was vaguely aware of what was going on, but he was still focused on his own thoughts as he stood alone on their path through the forest. He was jarred back into reality when his sensitive ears picked up a sound from elsewhere in the forest. It was quite a ways off in the distance, so he wasn’t surprised when Lydia didn’t react to it. Those ears of hers probably weren’t capable of picking up something so faint. She just continued to stand there, with her back to him, grumbling to herself.
He turned toward where he had heard the noise. It sounded like something moving through the forest a good distance away from them, toward what he thought was north. His eyes scanned the trees in that direction, trees so far away that they no longer looked distinct from each other.
He could see someone out there now. It was a young man dressed in a dark green outfit that looked like it was designed for forest travel. He made almost no sound as he moved through the trees. The only thing that kept him from being thoroughly camouflaged in his surroundings was his brilliantly blond hair. That hair stood out like an Octorok an a blizzard. There was a long sword strapped to his back.
Vaati was about to alert Lydia to this stranger’s presence, but his breath caught in his throat when he saw that the man wasn’t alone. There was a second person in step right behind him. With a start, Vaati saw that this second man was identical to the first, save for the fact that his clothes were blue instead of green. Twin warriors?
His heart began to pound furiously when a third identical man appeared, and then a fourth, dressed in red and deep violet. All four had identical copies of the same sword strapped to their backs.
Vaati felt like his stomach was twisting in a way that it was never meant to. He became short of breath, and his hands began to shake.
The Four Sword!
That’s how his seal had broken. Someone had taken up the Four Sword again.
He had been destroyed by four identical warriors like this that carried the Four Sword. They had cut him down and sealed him away in that terrible place, leaving him to spend an indeterminate amount of time in a personal hell. If this Hyrule had the Four Sword in it…
What if they used it to seal him away again?! No! He wasn’t going to let that happen! He was never going back to that place!
Reason started to give way to panic. Vaati’s intense fear and rage at the sight of the Four Sword and the identical warriors that carried it manifested in a very real way in his body. Ever since his fall into the river, physical weakness had sent his magic into dormancy. But regained strength and fearing for his very existence was bringing it to bear again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It overflowed from him and radiated out in waves.
A terrible shiver went up Lydia’s spine as she felt it, and she snapped to attention. She recognized it immediately. She had felt this twice before. Something had come through the time portal with them when they were heading back to their own time – it had felt like this. She had felt it faintly when all of them had come back to Hyrule again. Her brother and the Links had all known something had happened in that portal, but only Lydia seemed to feel that same energy upon returning here. She hadn’t said anything to the others at the time, because she honestly wasn’t sure if she was imaging it or not. If she wasn’t, she still had no clue what it was.
But what she was feeling now, more strongly than ever, made it very clear that she had not imagined it. This was that same dark energy she had felt before, now much more intense. The thing that had come back with them from the sword’s time…
Even without turning around to see with her eyes, the source of the energy was undeniable.
Vaati.
She spun around, but Vaati was already moving. He was sprinting through the trees, back the way they had come. The speed was unnatural, most likely aided by this dark magic he had. Before she could even open her mouth to call after him, he was gone.
She stood there unmoving. Her mind thought to go after him, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
Her brother hit the ground hard next to her. “What was that?! It felt just like that thing from before!” He looked around them guardedly. “H-Hey, where’s…?”
“That was him,” Lydia said.
“Vaati?!” Gordon half-shouted in surprise. “That thing that came through the time portal with us… It was him?! …But we were with him all day! How did we not notice that energy before?”
“I… I don’t know. Maybe he was suppressing it. Well, he was also still kinda weak… from the injuries, y’know.”
“What happened?”
“He just… He just took off all of a sudden. I felt that crazy energy, and he just took off running.”
“Well, come on!” Gordon took a step forward, tugging on Lydia’s arm.
She just shook her head and stayed rooted in place. “Forget it. With that magic, he was moving way too fast. Without being able to fly out of here, we’ll never catch him.”
The boy stared ahead into the trees where Lydia’s eyes were still glued. “Wh… Why would…?”
“I don’t know. I hope he’s okay…”
Gordon’s mouth pressed into a thin line, and he placed his hand reassuringly on his sister’s shoulder. “We’ll look for him the next time we go out. I’m sure he’ll be all right until then. You saw yourself how tough he is.” He looked back toward the trees again. “Hmm. ‘Neighboring kingdom’, indeed.”
------
“And he just took off all of a sudden?” Vio asked.
Everyone was back in Zelda’s safe haven now, gathered in the princess’ tent. The two sorcerers and the four Links were all gathered around the low table. Princess Zelda was there, as well, still dressed in her leather armor. Lydia and Gordon had just finished telling everyone the whole story about Vaati.
“Yeah.” Lydia said, her eyes lowered. “I don’t know what happened. He was fine the whole time… then all of a sudden there was this dark energy in the air, and he ran off without a word.”
Red had his forehead lowered into his hand. “You two may have led an enemy almost straight here. Do you realize that?”
Lydia should her head so fast that her hair flipped around. “No, no, he’s not an enemy.”
“How do you know that? You know we can’t risk giving ourselves away yet!”
“Red, please,” Green said authoritatively. “Calm down. They were in a tough situation. It’s not like they could have just left him at the lake.”
“Sure they could have. I could have. It would have been better to have just left him at the shore.”
“Hey!” Lydia shouted at Red. She lifted up onto her knees. Her eyes were starting to tear up. “What an awful thing to say!”
Red’s eyes were up now, staring at the girl across the table. His eyes remained defiant, but he said begrudgingly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. But you were still careless in bringing him out here.”
Appearing to calm somewhat, Lydia continued. “Listen, I can’t explain it, but I have a gut feeling about him! I know he’s not a bad guy!”
“Look,” Gordon cut in. “It wasn’t just her decision, okay? I was there, too. And though I was a little more hesitant about it, I agreed with her. He really did seem all right.”
“You trust us, right?”
Red stared back at Lydia silently, until finally he lowered his head and answered, “Yes… Despite my better judgment, I trust you. So if you two say he’s okay, then I’ll try to believe that.”
The girl smiled softly. “Thanks, Red,” she said as she lowered herself back down into a sitting position.
“All right, so we’ve established that Vaati is okay to trust,” Vio said, trying to move the conversation on. “And we’ve also established that it’s very likely he’s the one that came through time with us.”
“So he’s from the future?” Blue asked. “From the time we got the sword from?”
Vio nodded. “Looks that way.”
“Unfortunately, that’s all we know,” Gordon said. “He told us he was from a neighboring kingdom and wandered into some trouble when he traveled here.”
“I guess he didn’t want to tell us the truth,” Lydia wondered aloud, “because maybe he didn’t think we’d believe him.
“Well, one thing is for certain,” Green said. “We’ll have to find him again before we take this sword back. We have to get him back to his own time.”
“We have to find him soon and bring him back here. He’s not safe out there! With magic like that, you think Ganondorf’s going to ignore his presence here?”
“Definitely not,” her brother agreed.
On the other side of the table, with his arms tightly folded, Red sighed. “I’m not trying to be insensitive here… but I don’t think Vaati is our priority at the moment.” He raised a hand when Lydia opened her mouth to object. “Let me finish. Our priority is getting the Ocarina of Time and the Master Sword back first. Since one of the pieces is currently in Ganondorf’s hands, maybe the goals of getting it back and finding Vaati again will come together on their own. What I’m saying is that maybe we should just concentrate on what we’ve been doing, and the Vaati thing will work itself out along the way. Going out there and looking around aimlessly isn’t going to help anyone. After all, you have no idea where he’s gone or why.”
As worried as Lydia was about Vaati, she had to admit that Red was making sense. The best thing they could do for Vaati now was just to continue their quest and hope they found him along the way.
“…All right,” she agreed. “That’s probably best.”
Speaking for the first time, Princess Zelda said, “So the first thing that needs to be done is to continue to collect the pieces of the Ocarina of Time.” She turned her attention to the Links, and said, “Did you find the piece on the mountain that the fairies were talking about?”
Lydia looked up in surprise. “What’s this, now?”
Green smirked at her, and reached into his tunic. “We were a little busy while you were gone.” His hand reappeared, and he was holding a piece of blue clay in his hand. With a triumphant chuckle, he placed it on the table in front of him.
“Wow,” Gordon said. “Nice job! You guys beat a guardian by yourselves?”
“Did you have your doubts?” Red asked. His mood seemed to be picking up again now that they had moved away from the subject of Vaati.
“You should have seen us,” Blue said cheerfully. “We were great!”
Vio took a moment to explain his theory about the sword to everyone else.
When he was finished, Gordon said, “That’s really interesting. The sword quadruples the user’s ability, but the drawback is that you always have to stay together. If you split up, I imagine the whole thing comes apart.”
“Probably,” Vio agreed with a nod.
Lydia’s mood was also starting to lift again as they got back on track, and the fact that another piece had been recovered was encouraging. Of course, she and Gordon had a surprise of their own. With a grin, she reached down into the pocket of her jeans, produced another piece of blue clay, and set it on the table next to the other one.
All four of the Links stared at it in a stunned silence. Princess Zelda clapped her hands together in excitement.
Red’s eyebrow raised and he grinned. “I thought you were going to just ‘look around’. So much for that, huh?”
“Where did you find it?” Green asked.
“At her old Dragon Slave crater,” Gordon answered.
“Just out in the open like that?”
The sorcerer shrugged.
“Well,” Blue said to Lydia with a wide smile. “Looks like you finally got to let loose with your magic again.”
The girl sighed. “I wish.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t that piece have a guardian, too?”
Gordon’s lips were curled into a smirk, but he said nothing. Apparently it was up to Lydia to tell this part of the story.
“Well,” she said shyly, “it thought I was Maya.”
“Say what?!” Red exclaimed.
“It makes sense, though. I mean, she’s the one that put the Ocarina’s defenses in place. So… the guardian thought I was Maya and stopped attacking.”
“It called her ‘Mistress’,” Gordon added with a laugh. “She named it, too.”
“And I told him I’d take care of the piece from now on, and he gave it to me.”
“Wait a minute,” Green said, raising a hand. “You mean to tell me that we had to fight and defeat a guardian, and you just had to ask for that piece back?”
She shrugged. “Basically.”
He laughed, “That’s definitely a story to tell the grandchildren someday.”
“So, that means there’s only the one piece left,” Vio said. “The one Ganondorf has.”
The table fell silent again. The truth of the matter was that none of them had any idea how they were going to approach this. They couldn’t fight Ganondorf without the Master Sword, but they couldn’t get the Master Sword back without fighting Ganondorf.
“Now that we have five of the six pieces,” Zelda said, “I think that means it’s time for us to make our move.”
Everyone else looked up at her. “Make your move?” Vio asked. “You mean—“
“Yes, that’s right. We’ve spent the last four years training. It’s time for us to strike back and reclaim our kingdom.”
“But wait a second,” Lydia said. “It’s too soon for that, isn’t it? We can’t really hope to defeat Ganondorf without the Master Sword. And there’s still four of them.” She gestured toward the Links. “The fact is, Gordon and I can pack a punch, and I admit I am very impressed with everything that’s been done here. But in the end… The original, whole Hero of Time is still the key. I’ve been involved in this business long enough to know that’s the truth.”
Zelda sighed and nodded. “I know you’re right, but… I don’t know what else we can do.”
Lydia finger-tapped on the table, and added, “Honestly, I don’t know what else we can do, either. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time to make our move. After all, if he doesn’t know already, Ganondorf’s gonna find out that we have the other missing pieces now, and he’s not going to sit around much longer. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved against us already. We may have no choice here.”
“So…,” Green said, “we attack him with everything we’ve got.” He turned to Zelda. “Let the six of us go alone first. Maybe we’ll be able to get that piece back and get away alive without endangering anyone else.”
Zelda’s blue eyes were piercing. “And if not… That’s where the rest of us come in.”
Looking determined, he nodded.
The princess nodded back with the same determined look in her eyes. She got to her feet and said, “I’m going to make the preparations. I’ll gather everyone and get them ready for the battle. We’ll come to your aid as quickly as we can get mobilized.” She reached into her armor and produced the small leather pouch she kept the other three pieces of the Ocarina of Time in. She passed it over to Lydia. “You carry these now. If you do manage to get that last piece, you’ll need them.” She stood and started to walk toward the tent’s opening, but paused to say, “May the goddesses protect you all.”
Tears welled up in the princess’s eyes, and before she would allow herself to lose her composure, she quickly left the tent.
The six left behind all got to their feet and gathered up their gear.
“Man, I don’t like this,” Red grunted as he strapped his sword and shield to his back.
“We’ve done it to ourselves, though,” Blue said, adjusting his clothes. “We’re so darn good at what we do that we’ve worked ourselves into a corner. We got both missing pieces back in a single day, and now we have no choice but to move forward with this a lot sooner than anyone was prepared to.”
“So we just have to hope we get that sixth piece back before he kills us.”
“Come on, guys, it’ll work out,” Lydia said. “Keep in mind, we’ve all faced a lot of crap together over the years and made it through alive. This is just another day at the office.”
“One thing, though,” Gordon said, “We probably shouldn’t just march across Hyrule Field toward the castle. He’ll see us coming a mile away.”
“No problem,” Blue said cheerfully. “Navi and her friends showed us a shortcut through the forest that leads to Kakariko. We’ll just go that way again. By the time we have to go out in the open like that, there will be a lot less distance to cover.”
One by one, all six of them emerged from the tent, still discussing how best to approach all of this. Outside, people were rushing around everywhere. Whenever someone passed close by, they would pat one of them on the back or say a word or two of encouragement before moving on. Men and women of all the different races were emerging from their homes carrying weapons and armor, and appeared to be heading for the training fields.
“It’s inspiring, isn’t it?” Green asked with a proud smile. “The way everyone’s pulling together like this, even knowing just what it is they’re facing?”
Blue nodded and said, “It’s amazing, really. Even after losing everything, they still have the bravery it takes to defend their kingdom, even against someone like Ganondorf.”
“I guess you don’t have to have magical power or destiny’s favor to be a hero,” Gordon said. “They’re all heroes in their own ways.”
“Let’s make them proud, guys,” Lydia said. “Let’s go out there and get that sixth piece. And then… We can finally end this.”
------
All that mattered was to keep running. Everything else in Vaati’s world was a faint memory for the moment. All that was left was to run. The panic from seeing the Four Sword warriors had completely taken over his mind, triggering a fight or flight response. His body had chosen flight, and he had been running ever since.
No longer holding his magic at bay, as he had been since coming to this time, it was helping him to run at an inhuman speed. Running mindlessly, unsure of where he was going, he was back out of the forest in seconds. He ran west until he was back out into the clearing, where he turned north and started to follow the river.
He was so mindless with panic and rage that he could barely remember his own name. Why was this happening? He would rather die than get sealed away again. He would have to defend himself if they attacked him and tried to seal him, but he was defeated by the Four Sword once before. How could he expect to win this time around?
Finally, Vaati regained enough of his senses to control his body again. He skidded to a stop, kicking up dust in all directions. He stood there silently for several minutes, shaking with rage. Looking up, he could see he had run all the way to the north end of the clearing, and had ended up at the entrance to that ReDead-filled town again.
He recalled Ganon had offered him power if he agreed to kill someone for him. The Vaati of yesterday would sooner have spit in Ganon’s face than cooperate with him in any way. But the Vaati that stood there now was so overcome by his own fear of the Four Sword that all rational thought on the matter was pushed aside. All he could think about was the Four Sword warriors, and he was quickly becoming consumed with the desire to get revenge for being sealed away.
To defeat them, he would need extra power. But did he dare reconsider Ganon’s offer?
He once again saw the image of the identical men in his head. Rage surged within him, and before he had even made a conscious decision about Ganon’s deal, his body had already started moving forward. Like a man possessed, he entered the town square again. It was still fully populated by the zombie monsters, but Vaati no longer feared them. Casually raising his arms, he called upon his magic. Black lighting shot from his fingers and into the ReDeads in his path, reducing them to smoldering ash. He walked uncaringly down the path he was clearing for himself, paying little attention to the ReDeads that remained on either side. They made no move against him.
As soon as he was through the town, a dark shadow appeared on the path again. It was approaching him, tall and menacing. The clouds above shifted, allowing more light into the valley. The now-familiar Gerudo man stood there, staring angrily at Vaati. Vaati didn’t waver. He knew he couldn’t show any weakness now.
Vaati finally stopped several paces from him. He stood his ground there, waiting for the big man to make his move.
Ganondorf said nothing at first. He just stared at Vaati, his face hard and angry. Finally, he spoke through clenched teeth.
“I thought that was your power I felt,” he growled. “My first thought is to remove your head from your shoulders, but I have to admit, I’m intensely curious as to what possessed you to come back here. Considering that you somehow survived the Gerudo Falls, you’d think the smart decision would be to never show your face to me again. What’s changed, young lad?”
Vaati swallowed hard, trying to keep at bay the bile that was rising in his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do, but that mental image of the Four Sword warriors drove him on.
“I’ve… reconsidered your offer.”
Ganondorf chuckled to himself, reaching up to finger the dark scar across his face. Was he serious? Did this young whelp not realize that that offer expired the second he inflicted this wound upon him? Just the same, he couldn’t help but be curious. If the boy’s reasons didn’t amuse him, he would die just as easily a few minutes from now as he would right this second, so he felt there wasn’t too much harm in asking.
“Oh. Have you now? But, lad, you were so determined to have nothing to do with me before. You made that point quite forcefully. Do tell, what changed?”
Vaati said nothing for a moment. He simply stood there with his fists clenched. As Ganondorf watched those fists, waiting for blood to be drawn from the nails that were surely digging into his palms, he felt his patience wane. Every passing second made him less interested in the boy’s change of heart.
Finally, he answered, keeping his eyes glued to the ground. He stammered out partial sentences only, saying, “I can’t… Not by myself… Four of him…”
Ganondorf’s breath caught in his throat. Four of him? The only four of anybody he knew was Link. Did this kid have some kind of grudge against him? His mouth curled into a wicked sneer.
The enemy of my enemy is my pawn, the Evil King thought.
“It looks like we can help each other after all,” Ganondorf said. “What’s your name, kid?”
The boy swallowed again, and replied quietly, “Vaati.”
“I see. Well, Vaati, today is your lucky day. It so happens that those four identical men are part of my problem. You’d like to see them destroyed?”
Vaati nodded very slightly.
“Then we have similar goals,” the Gerudo man continued. “I don’t know what you have against them, but I really don’t care. If you help me, I will give you the power you need to defeat them.”
“What’s the condition?” the boy asked skeptically. “You said before you wanted somebody killed.”
“Indeed. Those four warriors will have a woman with them. She’s much more of a problem for me than you would guess by looking at her. I need her dead.”
Vaati raised an eyebrow. “You need me to kill a woman? Why can’t you do that yourself?”
Ganondorf ground his teeth for a moment, then calmed down again. Insolent boy. “Like I said during our rather unfortunate last encounter, she will be protected. Protected by those four warriors that seem to bother you so much.”
“Then there’s a serious flaw in your logic,” Vaati shot back. “You won’t give me the power I need until I kill the woman, but I can’t kill the woman without getting past the people I mean to destroy with that very power.”
The Gerudo man breathed slowly through his nose, then replied, “Well, then, you’re just going to have to be very sneaky, won’t you?”
There was no longer a mocking tone in Vaati’s voice. “And how do you propose I do that?”
Ganondorf looked absently off to the southeast, concentrating on something Vaati couldn’t determine. After a moment, his eyes refocused and he turned his attention back to Vaati.
“I can feel them now,” the big man growled. “They’re going north through the forest. Before long they’re going to come out in Kakariko Village’s graveyard. You will meet them there. Hide yourself well. You will only get one shot at the woman they have with them. If you do not kill her with a single strike, you never will, and she and her companions will destroy you very quickly for trying to.”
Vaati’s heart was pounding unchecked in his chest. In order to defeat the Four Sword warriors, he was going to have to face them one more time. He couldn’t get the power he needed to defeat them without facing them again. Trying to steady himself, he thought about the fact that he didn’t necessarily have to fight them just yet. They were just going to be nearby, that’s all. All he had to do was kill the woman quickly, and be gone again just as quickly, like a ghost. Barely even there at all. He could do it. He knew he could.
But should he? The rational part of his mind was fighting fiercely, trying to break through his current madness.
He started to be plagued by second thoughts. “I’ve… I’ve never actually killed anyone before,” he said quietly, mostly to himself. “I don’t know if I can…”
Ganondorf gritted his teeth. He was not going to lose his grip on this chance. “You have to if you want to defeat them,” he said forcefully. “Like I said, I don’t know what you have against those men, but this is your only chance to beat them.”
Vaati’s face grew determined as that rational part of its brain collapsed in momentary defeat. “Yes. I have to defeat them. I want my revenge.”
The Gerudo man breathed a silent sigh of relief, then said, “Very good. Actually, there’s one more thing.”
When Vaati turned to look, he saw the big man reaching somewhere into his armor. When his hand reappeared, he was holding what looked to be a piece of broken blue clay.
“See this?” Ganondorf said, carefully twirling the piece in his fingers. “There are five more of these. If that woman is carrying anything like this, you must get them and bring them back to me.”
“What is it?”
“That doesn’t matter,” he grunted as he put the blue clay back somewhere under his chest plate. “If she has any, get them. That’s all. Now hurry and go, or you’ll miss your chance. You must be in position when they arrive in the village or you’ll have no hope of killing the woman. Just go back the way you came and follow the river east. Go.”
Without further words, Vaati turned and ran back toward the Market, disappearing quickly into the darkness.
As Ganondorf watched him go, another sneer crawled across his face. Of course, wasn’t going to actually give the kid any power in the end. Once he killed the sorceress, he would no longer be useful, and he would just dispose of him. With the girl gone, he would be able to defeat the others without too much trouble. And then he would find and crush Princess Zelda, and finally claim total victory.
It was just a matter of time now.