"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."

-Winston Churchill


General Slash's boots pounded against the stone floor. The small imp steward's shoes tapped along behind. The echoes of both resounded from the darkened walls and around the great, hollow space, their hurry setting lazy dust motes swirling through bars of moonlight. Garrett's own boots, worn and lithe from long use, made no sound whatsoever.

"Upon entering the presence of the Fiendlord," the steward's words frothed energetically out, "you approach him with no sudden movement, you do not make eye contact with him, you stop before the first step of his throne, at no point do you speak until spoken to, you-"

Slash snapped over him. "Will you cut your prattling? The Fiendlord does not care for proper formality in a state of emergency." Two black-liveried guardsmen lifted their crossed halberds to let them pass, and Slash shoved the doors open.

The hall beyond was dauntingly vast, icy, dark. Fit for the throne room of one who fashioned himself the Fiendlord. But Garrett had stood in darker rooms, before darker beings, and had no fear left in him. Two columns of unlit candelabrum, four meters wide, stretched away down the stone floor, a summoning glyph inscribed in the middle. A high dais rose beyond it, a dozen men in full armor standing guard in front. Upon the dais was an obsidian chair. Within the chair was the Great Fiendlord, Magus. He was a whitish-blue haired, stone-faced, hulking mass of muscles wearing boiled leather armor and gloves with bare forearms exposed, baggy purple pants that would have looked comical on anyone else, sharp black polished boots, and a dark-blue cape draped behind him. Certainly not what one would expect if told he was an old warlock.

A strange and sinister selection of people, two dozen or more, of many races, sizes and shapes, surrounded the dais in a wide arc. Garrett knew some few of them by sight and smell. Killers. Thugs. Mercenaries. The most wretched collection of filth one could lure out by the glint of a gold coin.

He glided through the half-circle of assorted psychopaths precisely before the first step of the throne that held the legendary wizard. He watched General Slash stride past the guards and up the steps to the throne, lean to whisper in Magus' ear while the steward took up a stern pose at his other side.

The Fiendlord stared at Garrett with his piercing red eyes for a long moment and Garrett stared back, the hall cloaked all the while in that oppressive silence that only great spaces can produce. "So this is he. Would you remind me his surname?" A deep voice, one that Garrett imagined would send shivers down a regular man's spine.

"He has none," said Slash.

"Oh? Few people have merely a single name. What makes you special?"

"Nothing," said Garrett.

"But surely you have family?"

"No."

Magus's eyes narrowed. "Surely you had to have been raised by someone?"

"Some tried."

"And?"

"And I have no family."

"Pity. King Hyrule has declared war on me."

"Sorry to hear."

"You do not sound sorrowful."

"Not my war."

"No, but if you accept this job, it will. You come to me with the highest recommendations."

Garrett said nothing.

"That business with Lord Constantine-whom I know to have been the pagan god, The Trickster- I understand that was your work. It is said that the thing that was left could hardly be called a corpse."

Garrett said nothing.

"It was you who retrieved The Eye in the first place?"

Garrett stared into Magus' face, and said nothing.

"You do not deny it?"

More nothing.

"I like a tight-lipped man. A man who says little to his friends will say naught to his enemies."

Silence.

"The King of Hyrule has fancied himself a prophet, but in truth is a walking corpse afflicted by the rattles. He is convinced I am trying to summon an ancient demon with the purpose of destroying the world. He claims to have seen it in a dream. Normally, I wouldn't so much as bat an eye at mental instability in an old man. However, he has chosen to act upon his mad seizures. Many of my friends and associates, my ambassadors, were put to the sword at his command. He marches upon my country as we speak. I am not amused." His voice was quiet but foreboding as an ominous thunderstorm. Every person in the room flinched at what they knew was coming. "I need you to poison him, but that's not enough! The whole country must suffer. I need you to hit them where it hurts the most. The one the people-even foreign ones-love the most."

"His daughter, then."

"Princess Zelda!" Magus smashed the arm of his chair with his fist. "I must make an example of her. Bring her to me."

"Many nations, especially those who took The Oath with Hyrule, will howl for your blood."

"Let them howl. If I am to be the world's newest boogeyman, I should play the part proper."

"It may be necessary for me to use some of your resources."

"Whatever it takes. Cut off the country's head and carve out its heart. Poetic, no?"

"Its head and heart, then."

"What will be your advance?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing!?"

"If I complete the job, you will pay me one-hundred thousand in gil for the corpse of the king. For his daughter, I get Shadow Island, the place south of this keep. That is my price."

"A very high one!" yelped the steward. "What would you do with an entire island?"

"I will make it a grave site for little imps who like the sound of their own voice and ask stupid questions. You will find no employer, anywhere, unsatisfied with my work." Garrett moved his eyes slowly to the half-circle of degenerates at his back. "Or you could pay one of these fine gentlemen to hang themselves before all of Hyrule's citizens."

"I will," said Magus. "If first, you hang."

"I would accept no other arrangement, your Lordship."

"Good," growled the Fiendlord. "Go, then. The Black Wind moans each moment you delay!"

"You are dismissed!" screeched the steward. Garrett turned and walked back down the way lined by the candelabrum towards the great doors.

One of the killers blocked his path, a man of average height but wide as a door, muscle showing through the gap in his dark shirt. His lip curled. "You are Garrett? I expected more."

"Pray you never see more."

"I don't pray."

Garrett leaned close, showing the gleaming metal of his mechanical eye normally covered by his hood. "Start."