Chapter 18: Held by Bandits Chapter 20: The Broken Laugh
Chapter 19: The Land of Sand
There was a huge stone in the distance, much closer now. Link staggered towards it.
“Want some more water?” Navi asked.
“I’ll hang on for a bit, thanks.”
As they got closer, Link could see the stone more clearly. There was an ancient, broken statue of a woman sitting crosslegged with her hands palm upwards that was carved directly into the face of the rock. In front of her was a rough stone arch, rising out of the desert.
There also was a Triforce pad.
Link walked past the pad and over to the entrance under the statue’s feet. He stood looking around a bit.
“Isn’t Sheik supposed to meet me here?” he asked Navi. He turned around to scan the desert.
Sheik was there, smirking. At least, Link thought it was a smirk. He couldn’t tell. The other youth’s collar was too high for him to see.
Link clutched his chest, pretending to have a heart attack. “Goodness, Sheik, where did you come from?”
“Up there,” Sheik answered, pointing at the top of the arch. “I’ve been watching you. You need a drink, don’t you?”
“I guess so.” Navi gave him his bottle of water.
“Also,” Link began, “how did you land so quietly? You just seem to appear and disappear out of nowhere.” Sheik disappeared. Link started.
“I’m a ninja,” Sheik’s voice sounded in his ear. Link started again, putting a hand up to feel the silver chain suddenly looped around his neck. The man’s breath was hot on his cheek.
Sheik released him and walked around to face him. “I’ve been training like mad ever since you vanished seven years ago. I thought you might not come back.” He paused. “Are we gonna learn a song or what?”
Link shrugged and took out his Ocarina.
Sheik played a sombre melody. It didn’t seem to fit with the desert or the Gerudo, but it fit the idea of ‘Spirit’ Temple perfectly. Link played it back gravely.
“This will take you here in any port of time,” Sheik said, looking at him closely.
“You mean…”
“You need another tool to enter this… um, the Temple proper. However, it’s been taken seven years ago. Probably by you.”
Link groaned. “Not again. Right.”
“You can’t see much of the Temple now. On one side of the foyer is a tunnel so small even I can’t fit. On the other side is a block so heavy that even both of us together pushing it wouldn’t be able to move it. That’s why you need to go back”
“Thanks.”
Sheik resettled his harp and played the Song of Time. A blue portal appeared in the archway. Link walked into it and disappeared in a flash of blue light.
On the other side of time, seven years ago, Link yelled and ran for his life as two ugly old women on broomsticks chased him into the Temple entrance, firing blasts of fire and ice magic at him. He stumbled in the sudden cool darkness inside, dashing up the stairs. At the top, an arm came out of nowhere, looped around him, and yanked him into a dark corner. Link kicked and tore himself away from his attacker.
The girl held out her hands placatingly. “Whoa, kid, relax! I’m just trying to help you!”
“Sorry,” Link panted, crouching in the alcove with his rescuer. “Who are those witches?” They were flying away. Using a magic portal, they flew right through a solid stone wall.
The Gerudo’s face hardened. “They’re Ganondorf’s henchmen. They’re using this place as a hideout…”
“The Spirit Temple, a hideout?” Navi spluttered indignantly.
“What’s that?”
“This is Navi, my fairy. My name’s Link. Who are you?”
The girl drew herself up. “I’m Nabooru, the lone wolf thief. I’m completely against Ganondorf and all his evilness! Yeah, he’s a thief too. But he steals from the needy and kills people!” She glared at him. “You aren’t one of his spies, are you?”
“We hate Ganondorf!” Link snapped. “He’s done terrible things to my friends, all in his insane quest for power. I’m taking him down. I’m the Hero of Time, by the way.”
“What’s that? Wait. I’ll explain our custom, and you explain yours. Every hundred years, a male Gerudo is born. That one man is the King of the Gerudo. I’m not bowing to this one. What’s a Hero of Time?”
“It seems whenever the land of Hyrule, or even other lands, is in danger, a Hylian is chosen to wield the Master Sword, Evil’s Bane, and strike down whatever is causing the problem.”
“Goodie. I suppose I can trust you then. First, I need your help. How old are you?”
“Um…. Twelve.”
“I’m fifteen. I’ve already grown up, so I can’t fit through this hole, and I can’t trust any of the other Gerudo girls. They all have a crush on that idiot king, and besides, they’re too young to fight. Beyond here is hidden the Silver Gauntlets somewhere. If I can get those, I’ll be able to sneak into the rest of the Temple, steal all Gannie’s treasure, and mess up their plans.”
“I’ll go,” Link said instantly. “I can fight.”
“Yeah, yeah, hero-boy. Is that the Master Sword? It looks small.”
“No, this is the Kokiri Sword. I’m too small to use the big sword. Just wait seven years. I’m sure I’ll see you sometime in the future after this.”
The boy wriggled his way into the tiny crawl tunnel.
As he wandered, he found many new creatures, most of them attacking him. He also found a room that was vast, dark, and mysterious. He liked it. A huge statue of another cross legged woman, with her palms up, a katana carved on her back, and a snake wrapped around her waist and neck and hooding over her head was placed in the centre of the room. Link felt quite dwarfed.
Following the path laid for him, he trudged up some velvety red carpeted stairs and came to another door.
The room was full of brick pillars and had a red painted walkway on the floor. It took a right angle left. Link glanced towards the end of the room in a combat-ready crouch.
A massive, armoured warrior sat in a throne of brick, battleaxe at the ready. Seeing Link, it rose to its feet and came towards him ponderously.
He darted in and stabbed it, then backflipped away with an abrupt inhalation as the axe cleaved the air he had just vacated.
The hulking figure kept lumbering towards him, swinging its axe when he came close enough. Often Link misjudged his shorter Kokiri sword, shorter than the Master Sword, not coming close enough to hit. He would rather be cautious than dead, though, and persisted.
Finally something parted in the armour, and most of it fell off. Link had no time to celebrate, though because now the soldier was free to run towards him quickly.
Link hit it, and it flinched. Staying in close, ducking around behind it, he kept attacking it, taking advantage of its reactions to keep stabbing it.
At last, it crumpled in a blue flame, and Link crumpled in a pile of sweaty green tunic. Navi gave him another drink, a big one.
“That warrior was called an Ironknuckle. I think they’re robotic soldiers of Ganondorf.”
“So, not alive, you mean?”
“Yes. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe they are, but they’re not Hylian or Gerudo or… anything anymore. They’re half monster now.”
“How can you tell?”
“Something with the feel of the spirit. It’s different.”
“All right. I’m ready to go now.”
Exiting the door behind the throne, Link found himself standing in the palm of one of the hands of the woman on the outside the Desert Colossus. Beside him was a huge treasure chest. Link looked up, wondering how old the statue was to have been half broken away – the woman was missing a breast and one side of the lower half of her face. He wondered where the broken rocks had gone, too. He could see no sign of them.
He turned back to the chest and opened it, finding the gauntlets. They looked exactly like those he had as an adult, but with silver plates on the backs.
Then he heard a scream. A high-pitched cry echoed around the cliffs of the Temple.
Link edged carefully to the brink of the drop and looked down, catching sight of the two witches who had chased him; they were circling quickly. In the centre of their ring, in the sand, was a purple-black hole of magic, and being sucked into the circle was Nabooru.
Link almost called to her, but Nabooru cried above the whir of magic. “Kyaaaa! Link, wherever you are, get out of there! These witches… they…” Her head sank below the sand and her words were lost.
The witches flew back into the Temple as their magic hole faded from view.
Link gritted his teeth in anger, and hopped off the hand to the desert ground, many feet below. He ran back to the blue swirling magic of time in the archway and jumped through.
He appeared again in his adult body, still clutching the Silver Gauntlets. He pulled them on. The temple looked exactly the same.
“That was fast!” Sheik called, sitting in the shade of the doorway.
Link walked over to him. “It wasn’t too difficult, but something bad happened.”
“What?”
“We met a nice, Ganondorf-hating Gerudo girl named Nabooru, and she was captured by two witches.”
“Ah. I’ve heard of them. They’re called the Twinrova. I don’t know why.”
“It’s probably too late, but I’m going to go in there and see if she’s still stuck… Wait. One of the Gerudo at the fort said something about her! She said she was going to prove herself to Nabooru…”
Sheik thought for a long while. “Well, we don’t usually have much to do with the Gerudo, but I believe that Nabooru did become the chieftain of the Gerudo. She must have escaped.”
“Oh. That’s good. Well, see you later!”
“Bye, Hero! After you’re done, come to the Temple of Time! I’ll be there!”
Link re-entered the Spirit Temple. He turned to the right this time, glancing to the left. No one was there. Ahead of him, to the right of the entrance, there was a huge black stone block with a carving on it.
Link rubbed his hands together and set his shoulder against the block. Energy rushed through him like lava through the veins of a volcano, astonishing him completely. The block moved easily. He continued pushing, not knowing, or really caring what would happen, when it would stop.
He felt it sliding through his hands and stopped pushing. It had fallen into a hole.
After countless puzzles and passages, Link entered a door and found himself outside again.
He was on the carved woman’s left hand, with an enormous treasure chest. He opened it. The lid was very heavy.
The treasure was a polished, shiny shield of silver bordered in red, decorated with Gerudo symbols.
“So shiny…” Navi said.
Link grinned. “It’s as good as a mirror. I bet it’s magical.”
“Ooh! Ooh! Try it on!”
“Sure, but I’m keeping my Hylian shield mostly.”
“All right.”
The sun reflected off the shield in a blinding beam that stretched a long way into the desert. The sun was setting again.
“I think it’s almost time to sleep again. This seems like a safe spot.”
“Good idea!”
Link had some supper and curled up on the warm gritty stone.
The next morning, he ate breakfast and went back inside. He wandered all over the temple, even finding access to some of the places he had been as a boy, searching every nook and cranny. It was a fantastic temple; not damp and mouldy at all, and not too dark, and every spare spot was covered in amazing carvings which he couldn’t read.
Several hours later, he found a platform that lowered him directly in front of the inside seated statue’s face.
He stared at it. Light reflecting from mirrors above shone down on him, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to make them match up properly even when he had no idea what it would do.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know!” Navi cried frantically. She was very upset. Soon the light would move and then they would have to wait a whole day, which would be absolute boredom, not to mention it was against their natures to sit around while Ganondorf was at large.
Link tried using the Lens of Truth, but he could see nothing different. He tried aiming the hookshot for the snake-hood, he tried throwing a Deku nut at it, he shot arrows at the stone jewel and the statues eyes; anything to find the hidden portal that surely must be there. He managed to throw a Deku stick like a javelin, he cast Din’s Fire, he played songs on the Ocarina…
“Hurry!” Navi said frantically.
Link let his Ocarina fall from his lips. “Wait. Navi, why are we so concerned about the light?” He rubbed his forehead. “Farore help me, I’m so dense.”
He took the Mirror shield and focused the sun’s light on the face of the statue.
Dust rose and dangerous-looking cracks appeared on the face of the statue.
Link lowered his shield before the damage got any worse. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to do this…”
“DO IT!” Navi screamed at him.
“Okay, okay, fine. But I’m telling Nabooru it’s all your fault.”
“That’s fine, just hurry up!”
“Navi,” Link snapped, his patience wearing, “stop talking. Please.”
The light was dim; otherwise there might have been time for an apology and making-up between them. They both knew it, so they only exchanged a glance and Link raised his shield again.
The stone of the statue’s face crumbled under the fire of the sun and fell to her lap. Behind, there was a round tunnel with a grill in it.
Link fired his hookshot at the grill, not really knowing if it would stick. It did, and he landed gently as the hookshot came loose and the grill slid into the ceiling of its own accord. Behind the grill was a plain stone door.
“Link, I want to say that what you said about telling Nabooru was funny.”
“Hey, thanks!”
He opened the door.
Here, a straight red carpet led down to another brick throne occupied by an Ironknuckle. Walking up the aisle towards it, he noted the positions of six brick pillars and also the fact that the Ironknuckle had a red cloak.
When he had come only halfway down the room, it stood, raised its arms above its head, and… wait a minute…
The Ironknuckle looked at its empty gauntlets, peered around the room, and snapped its fingers. Link laughed. A huge axe popped out of thin air and fell into its hands.
It shook the axe above its head, roaring, and Link’s laughter ceased as he readied his sword and shield, though he kept a wide grin on his face.
He danced around the clumsily slow enemy, stabbing abruptly when he saw a chance. It was actually fun; his range as an adult was much better and the moments that worried him to the point of heart-attack were few and far between. The deadly axe missed him with every swing, and Link felt he had never backflipped more easily in his life; though being far heavier than a child, he was much stronger.
At last, the armour fell in pieces. It seemed the Master Sword had severed a vital cord that kept the heavy plates secured in place.
A slim figure fell to the floor.