Chapter 20: The Broken Laugh

    “Nabooru?!?” Link cried in shock and disbelief. She didn’t seem to be hurt, although he had struck the hulking Ironknuckle in the torso more than once; perhaps the massive padding under the armour had protected her.
    She raised herself to her knees. “Who… who are you…”
    He knelt beside her, trying to help her stand. “My name’s Link. I met you seven years ago. Do you remember?”
    Two swirls appeared in the corner of the room, condensing into witches; one with red and black robes, the other with blue and black.
    “Oh, look, Koume, she’s woken up again.”
    “Oh dear, Kotake, you’re right. What should we do with her?”
    Nabooru sprang to her feet, keeping a wary eye on both of them, growling like a wolf.
    “Let’s lock her up again,” said Koume. Both witches now held glowing balls of light in their colours.
    “Run, Nabooru!” Link shouted, jumping in front of her. The Gerudo woman didn’t need telling twice. She was out the door before the old crones could fire their spells.
    Instead, they fired them at Link, who blocked them both with the Mirror shield.
    “We’ll wait for them in the big room, right, Kotake?” cackled Koume.
    “We will, Koume,” screeched Kotake. With a swirl, they both disappeared.
    Link charged through the door behind the Ironknuckle’s chair. He guessed that the big room meant the room with the large statue, but he didn’t want to leave any room unexplored.
    He found himself in a short corridor, leading to a massive door. He opened that door and his mouth fell open with surprise.
    The next room was huge, far larger than it had any right to be in the monolith of rock that stuck out of the desert. Actually, Link was not great at calculating the dimensions of the inside compared to the outside; this was the reason that he did, indeed, occasionally become lost.
    The room was filled by a large stone block about three stories tall and surrounded by four other pillars. Four skylights in the corners of the room let light into the otherwise dark room. Still, the light level was not the greatest, and Link tripped on his way to climb up the central block. He was a bit uncertain as to what the witches meant by ‘the big room’ now. Perhaps it was this one.
    When he stood in the centre of the mosaic on top of the stone, the witches warped to opposite pillars.
    “Look, Koume, this young man’s come to offer himself as a sacrifice to the Great Ganondorf!”
    “Oh, Kotake, he’s so nice! Ganondorf will be so happy!”
    Link, tired of whipping his head back and forth to focus on both of them, backed up and went into a crouch.
    “I’ll burn him to a crisp!” they chanted. “I’ll freeze him to his marrow!”
    The witches began to circle him, still making mouth noises.
    The blue one raised a wand and a patterned ring of blue light appeared in front of her. Link brought his shield up just in time. A blue spell hit it with a whump, and then… his shield started to glow, pulsing with blue light. Link stared at it, startled, and almost missed another blue spell.
    His shield started glowing faster. And when another spell hit it, it flashed brightly and a stream of icy air shot out of the front. Somehow, it hit the red witch.
    The witch screamed, and Link felt one step closer to victory.
    The one who had been hit then began to cast spells at Link, and his shield hummed with stored power. This one, he tried to aim at the blue witch, but he missed.
    Many times, he absorbed their spells and tried to throw them back, but much of the time the seeking beam of wind or flame missed completely. Finally, though, they stopped and stared at him.
    “All right, Kotake, time to get serious!”
    “I agree!”
    The two began to circle each other, tighter and tighter, and faster and faster. With a bright flash of purple light, they hit each other.
    A huge woman exploded into being, hovering in midair. She was younger-looking than the witches, but wore skimpy Gerudo clothing and make-up. Link shuddered.
    “Yes, fear us! We are the Twinrova!” shrieked the woman, posing flirtishly. Link shook his head to clear it and gripped his sword tighter.
    The Twinrova held two wands, one red, one blue. Her method of attack was the same as the witches had been, but now she cast her spells randomly. Link found that absorbing a flame spell after an ice spell meant the stored power vanished out of his shield.
    Then he hit the Twinrova with a flame spell. She screamed and sank to one of the towers. Link ran and jumped towards her, attacking with his sword.
    The Twinrova dissolved in another flash of purple light, and two witches hovered.
    “What happened, Koume?”
    “I think we lost, Kotake.”
    “What? This is all your fault!”
    “Don’t try to blame it on me! It’s your fault!”
    “How can you do such a thing to your little sister!?”
    “You’re my twin! Don’t lie about your age!”
    “I’m only 380!”
    “You’re 400!”
    “Imbecile!”
    “Nitwit!”
    “Senile!”
    “Hag!”
    Navi giggled. Link hid his own grin behind his hand.
    A white light came down and absorbed the two arguing women.
    A blue crystal formed around Link, and he relaxed into the healing power of the warp.

    He appeared in the Temple of Light. Appearing out of the orange platform across from him was…
    “Nabooru?”
    “Hello, hero-boy. Long time, no see.”
    “You’re the Sage of Spirit.”
    “The Desert.”
    “Same thing!” Navi interrupted. “You got away!”
    “Yeah,” Nabooru said, grinning wolfishly. “I’m still a nimble lone wolf thief, though I was brainwashed for so many years. They were worried about you. They forgot. Now I’m a Sage, so I’m even more powerful. Heh.”
    “Um… that’s good,” Link said, unsure how to respond.
    “Yeah. Oh, and you can keep those gauntlets.”
    “Thanks. They were amazing.”
    “What do you mean, ‘were’? You’re gonna use ‘em again, aren’t you? … Mmmm…” Nabooru stared at Link with large golden eyes. “If only I’d known you’d grow into such a handsome man…”
    “Uh…”
    “If only… heh, that’s past now. For the future, take this!”
    She reached up, and the orange Desert Medallion spun down into Link’s hands. Holding it in both gauntleted hands, he looked at the Sage.
    “Thank you, Nabooru.”
    Nabooru whispered “If only…” again as the world turned white around him.

    The Hero of Time reappeared in the desert. Sheik was not there to greet him this time, but that didn’t worry Link. He warped to Kokiri Forest and went to sleep.
    The next day, he rode to Hyrule Castle Town. Warping would have been faster, but Link enjoyed the ride, bright with the expectation that Ganondorf would be ousted that day, and that he needn’t hurry since everything was in place. Navi, watching his face, saw it shifting often, from gay and carefree to anxious to determined and back to happy.
    He dismounted and left Epona at the broken drawbridge, wading through the shallow water in the centre of the ford. Striding through the gate… he stopped. All thought of the Temple of Time went right out of his head.
    An Ironknuckle was stomping into the square, leading a Redead. Link hid behind the well and watched. The armoured soldier plopped the monster down and began clanking away down a side street. Link followed softly.
    The houses and buildings down this side street looked less dilapidated than those in the main square, and the Ironknuckle went into one.
    Link slipped after it and peered through a crack in the door. There was a horrid stink coming from inside, and he heard moaning, deep unearthly moaning.
    He opened the door, not bothering to be quiet about it. He had found another nest of Ganondorf’s monsters, and he was going to exterminate it, quickly.
    Once he found all the inmates of the house looking at him, he wondered if he had made a mistake – there were about ten armoured knights, and one of them rushed to a sliding gate and opened it.
    Redead poured out, and Link charged in, Master Sword blazing. The Redead seemed unfinished, somehow; they looked more human than most of the ones he had fought before, and they were even slower and clumsier than most others as well. The Ironknuckles were much more difficult. He felt his head was too exposed.
    Leaping and spinning and ducking so much left him drained at the end of the battle. He drooped, panting, in the middle of a pile of bodies.
    “Maybe that was a lot to do at once,” Navi chided him.
    “I’m going to ache tomorrow,” Link grinned back. “I’d better save my strength.” Sheathing his sword and shield, he went to explore the rest of the building. There were two corridors leading from the opening room.
    He found a great number of empty, cold stone cells lining the one corridor and wondered. There were other rooms on the other corridor, like a small kitchen, in which the main ingredient available seemed to be cabbage, and something like a barracks, which he supposed was for the armoured guards.
    “Is this some sort of Redead farm?” Navi asked, inspecting odd implements the use of which neither could guess at.
    “Looks like it,” Link replied, unhappily.
    He left that room and continued down to the last rooms. All that was left were dank prison-like holes, all locked. He smashed the locks.
    The first two were empty.
    In the third lay a girl, huddled in a corner. She was asleep, but was muttering and moaning. She was no redead, though. Link gave a slight smile – one person was saved out of this mess, at least.
    “Hey, wake up!” Navi chirped, fluttering down to near the girl’s face. She was incredibly skinny and was covered in worn, dark grey clothes. Her ribs showed through, and her brown hair was lank and tangled.
    Link knelt beside her too, touching her shoulder. “We’re here to re-“
    The young woman twisted under his hand and lunged suddenly for his throat, knocking him backwards to the floor. Her green eyes burned unnaturally bright with an incredible hatred, and her grip on his neck was surprisingly strong.
    “Ra – Ra –na!” Link gasped, prying her hands away from his windpipe. She withdrew suddenly, backing into a combat-ready crouch, glaring defiantly. Link sat up and rubbed his neck.
    “How do you know my name?” snarled the girl.
    “I – “ Link stopped short. “My name is Link. You don’t remember me?” Navi flew down to his shoulder, staring at Rana.
    “No,” she snapped, staring always at his hands, now idly fallen to his lap. “You’re a new guard, aren’t you? Come to see if you can break me? Try!” Her voice was taunting now.
    “No! We were friends… once. A long time ago, Rana… You don’t remember?” Something felt uncomfortably wet in his eye, and he knew he was going to begin crying soon. “My dear kitten friend… I called you a laughing butterfly… What happened to you after I drew the Master Sword? How did this happen?”
    “Master Sword?” Her mouth worked for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was weary and bitter. “Are you that heroic idiot that deserted Hyrule just when it needed one most?”
Link stared miserably.
    “Rana?” Navi said. “Where’s Naeri?”
    Rana pointed to a lantern near the door without taking her eyes from Link’s hands. Navi swooped up to it, and opened it. Naeri woke at that, and seeing Navi, flung herself at her friend and hugged her.
    Meanwhile, the two Hylians had been frozen in their impasse. Link broke the deep silence first.
    “Why won’t you look at me?”
    “Hands are dangerous.”
    “Would you trust me?” he whispered.
    “No!”
    “Rana…”
    “Shut up.”
    “Please?” He sat on his hands, looking at her pleadingly. “Please, my friend…”


Chapter 19: The Land of Sand    Contents    Chapter 21: To Find Tranquility