Chapter 17: The Most Frightening Place in Hyrule

    Inside, his senses were assailed by a cold wind, distant howls, moans, and cackles, dim but steady lighting, and a horrible smell. The floor was smooth and even, but stopped after the first bend. Beyond was a terrible chasm. Navi flew forward, and pointed out a place where the hookshot might catch to reach the tunnel beyond.
    “Might is a pretty awful word in this spot,” Link said to himself, but fired. It carried him safely across the pit, and he pulled himself out with great relief. Then he scolded himself.
    “Only around the first bend and you’re uneasy. Snap out of it. Get yourself together. You need to save Hyrule. Saria and Zelda and Sheik are relying on you. And Ruto and Darunia and Malon and Talon. And perhaps Rana…” But there words failed him, because the idea he could not finish was the thought that Rana might be imprisoned here in this dreadful place.
    In the chamber ahead, a tall statue of an eagle, surrounded by a dozen skulls on poles, sat accusingly. Another chasm separated the eagle from the door further on, shaped like a snake head with open mouth.
    “Find the skull of truth, and those with sacred feet may pass,” Navi said.
    “The what?”
    “That’s what they said,” Navi insisted. Link shivered and gave his fairy the Lens of Truth. Then he looked at the statue. It seemed important. One majestic wing was outstretched, and the brooding beak pointed in the same direction. Link pushed it gently, and it gave a little.
    “There’s a false wall here,” said Navi. “And this skull is the only real one.”
    “The Lens is a far better way of determining that than touching it, isn’t it,” commented Link, revolving the statue to face the skull Navi pointed out. As the two objects moved into conjunction, the door in the snake’s mouth opened invitingly.
    “You can’t jump that gap,” Navi said hastily, speeding in front of Link’s face to forestall any foolhardy attempts.
    “I know I can’t. I just want a look.” The look was unpromising. After one disappointed glance, he turned back to go through the false wall.
    As he ventured further into the elaborate catacombs, his blood chilled. Tales of blood and death decorated the walls, and every so often a skull or a torch in a niche provided horror or light. The terrifying aspect was the fact that the stories were all tales of the ancient Royal Family of Hyrule, going back thousands of years. Chances were that the undertakers, mourners, and all the paraphernalia of a state burial braved their way down at the interment, and then hastened back to the sunlight, fearful of the tortured minds that might still inhibit the tunnels.
    And now he was venturing into them, voluntarily, alone.
    “Hey!” cried Navi suddenly. “Look here!”
    The walls seemed less ancient than the previous tunnels, and the words were sharper. Link looked closely at them, and then blinked.
    He had seen his own name.
    Link III read on carefully, learning that this was not the first time a Ganondorf had worried Hyrule. Link I had fought one, called Ganon, in the shape of a giant boar, and rescued a Princess Zelda, going on to waken her from an enchanted sleep and to marry her. Skipping 500 years, Link II had fought one all through Hyrule and into the Dark World, rescuing the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna from darkness, and defeating a wind wizard called Vaati. Link wasn’t sure of the last; the writing was worn enough to miss a word or two. Link II had also married a Princess Zelda. That, too, was several centuries ago.
The text ended in one more panel, so Link went back and read it again.
    Navi screeched. “Behind you!” Link whirled and hacked at the two Stalfos sneaking up on him. One’s shield was completely sliced in half.
    After dealing with the skeletons and rereading the script, Link pressed on deeper into the labyrinth.
    At the end of the mazes, he found a room with a dirt floor and six long undead-white arms sticking straight up. Their nails were red.
    Link cautiously advanced towards one and slashed at it with his sword. Blindingly fast, it whipped towards him and fumbled around the sword, ignoring the gashes appearing in its tattered skin, groping towards his throat.
    Dozens of arms erupted out of the ground and held him so he couldn’t move a muscle. The Master Sword hung frozen in his motionless hand. A blobby, oozy zombie body squelched out of the ground in a shower of mud and began to wobble towards him. Navi immediately targeted the thing, trying to bonk it in the head with her glowing wings, trying to distract it. It waddled on, almost wading in the ground, with mindless blankness. It came closer and closer… it was right in front of him…
    The ghastly head, which had been up in the air on a skinny neck, lowered to his level. It stank horribly, with the skin sagging off mushed bone-pulp, and dagger-sized yellow teeth bared. A growl tore itself from Link’s throat as he fought his stomach down. Two more hands, these weak and flimsy, laid themselves on him, and the dreadful teeth were getting awfully close to his neck. The tips of the teeth touched his skin… tore his white shirt…
    And Link ripped himself from the constricting hands, stumbling over backwards onto his back and doing a roll into a crouch, the Master Sword shining very brightly in that room where the only light came from Link’s helpful little fairy.
    The ghoul took one hit, two, three, and went down.
    A chest appeared, a big one, and Link opened it. Inside were what looked like large golden sandals with wings on the back.
    “Hover boots!” sang Navi. “That’s what it means by ‘sacred feet’. You put these on top of your normal boots. Let’s see… you can hover, but they’re very slippery.”
    “Right.”
    “And you beat that thing so well! I thought you were… well, it was frightening. And it almost got you.”
    “Yes? Well, I got him. Let’s go!”
    He returned to the room with the snake head door and floated across the gap. There was a long, steep passage leading down. Link opened the door at the bottom and sighed. The dark passage in navy blue stone was headed… down.
    “I’m cold as it is, and they want to go down?” he complained.
    “That’s normal,” Navi told him, fluttering down to his hand and smiling into his face. “It’s supposed to be hidden, and twistly, so evil can’t get at the Sage so easily.”
    “Yes, but then, evil things just grow. Like mould on old wet bread.” Navi giggled.
    Link took two quick steps forward, and then stopped as scritching came to his ears. He looked up instinctively, and whipped out his sword as a Skulltula dropped towards him.
    After slaying the giant spider, he was starting to feel pretty good about this passage. He wondered why. Normally he would have found it harder than that. Then he took a look at what lay ahead beyond that.
    He had stepped into a vast cavern, dyed in a faded green light. A narrow walkway, topped with large bloodstained guillotines, led to the other side. Various chains hung from the vague ceiling, and there were many distant lumps and glitters too far to make out.
    Link watched the nearest blade and somersaulted below it at an appropriate time. Adrenaline, already pulsing through him, intensified as he raced to duck under another one. He accidentally hopped off a ledge in the walkway, but landed safely on another one. Then he had to run before getting chopped in half by another axe.
    At the end, he found a Stalfos on a ledge and leaped towards it, making it fall backwards into the abyss.
    Crossing an invisible bridge in thin air, he came to a very small door, hidden away. The great long chamber behind it had a small dock and a large ship. It had a head like a jackal and paddlewheels on each side. Two golden bells hung from the prow. Hopping to the centre of the deck, he found a Triforce inlaid in the wood. He took out the Ocarina of Time, smiling fondly, and played Zelda’s Lullaby.
    He almost choked in the middle of the song. Zelda and Rana… both missing… An anxious tear ran down his cheek as he finished the song.
    The bells rang and the ship began to sway rather violently as it began its journey through a dark tunnel on the ghostly river.
    A Stalfos skeleton dropped down onto the deck. Link killed it, dancing around its defences. Another one met the same fate, and then Link had time to look around and sightsee. There was little variation in the smooth walls of the tunnel.
    And then, the tunnel broadened out, and a strip of land appeared beside the ship, but the tunnel ended in a smooth grey wall ahead. Link’s eyebrows twitched as the ship struck the wall at the end of the tunnel and began to break apart.
    “They didn’t plan this thing very well!” he yelled, jumping off startled. The ship sank like a rock.
    “Well, we can’t get back now,” Navi sighed, staring into the black depths.
    There was a dark hole in the wall on the other side of another chasm, flanked by two huge eagle statues. Unable to get there, he stared around until he saw another door that he could go through. Though the room inside was full of Redead and Floormasters, it was also guarding a lovely chest of gold and lapus lazuli. Inside was a golden key with a ruby.
    “Well, here we go!” Link sang as he walked out, battered, but whole. “We have one more Temple to finish past this one, and then we can defeat Ganondorf!”
    “You’re a bit happy,” Navi said.
    “I just found help in seeing how far we’ve come. I just wish Rana were with me…”
    Abruptly Navi began to sob. “Do you think… sniff… that she’s dead?”
    Link stopped and gathered his fairy into his hands, stroking her ethereal head with a finger. He had to guess because she was invisible, except for the fairy light that surrounded her and her wings. “I wonder, too, Navi.”
    “I hope that she isn’t, but no one’s seen her for two years. I don’t know what to think. I can only hope with all my heart that she’s alive somewhere,” Link said sombrely. “I must have faith in her.”
    Suddenly Navi flew up and hugged his face, making him start. “I love you, Link. You’re the best partner anyone could have in the world.”

    Navi finally let go of Link’s nose.
    “I love you, too, Navi. We’ll keep looking for Rana. She’ll probably find us first, mind you.”
    “Yes! She will. Let’s go.”
    Link walked back to the strip of land where the ship had sank and looked at the statues on the other side.
    The head of one had fallen off and was on his side of the chasm. Link looked at the other one, suddenly inspired.
    “Navi, could you fly a bomb over there?”
    “No, they’re too big and heavy.”
    “Okay. What if you used the… teleporter thingy?”
    “I could do that…”
    “Take the whole bag and dump it in front of the statue… I think it’ll break and make a bridge… On second thought, just use a couple. We don’t want to destroy the statue, just destabilize it.”
    “Listen to the pyrotechnician,” Navi giggled, doing as he asked.
    Three bombs went off, and the statue wavered. Breaking off at the base with a crack, it plunged towards Link, who rolled out of the way.
    The curving back of the eagle statue made a perfect bridge for Link, who trotted across hurriedly, in case it broke apart and collapsed into the chasm.
    Down a short dark hallway, a door with an ornate lock on the handle just begged to be unlocked with the golden key. Then there was a round room with blue, pitted stone in the walls, and a deep well in the floor. Looking around, finding nothing to latch on to, he let himself down. It was a very long drop.
    He bounced a metre in the air when he landed. The floor was springy. Tan coloured, and smoothly rough and worn…
    Something else hit the ground, making him bounce again. He felt three other taps through his soles as well, and then another heavy thud. It was very rhythmic. Almost as if…


Chapter 16: The Magic Eye    Contents    Chapter 18: Held by Bandits