Winds whistled and the moon shone bright, creating a lonely atmosphere over the haunted wasteland that was the Gerudo Desert. In the emptiness of the twilight, the heat escaped the area, leaving a cold and dry air behind. Though the usually lifeless desert exhibited no signs of life, it is here that the only link between the twilight world and the light world existed.
Arbiter's Grounds, an ancient colosseum which housed this very link, stood at the far north end of this desert, along with an underground prison that was used to hold deadly criminals while they awaited either execution, or exile to the world of twilight. The prison had long since been abandoned, but the souls of these mentally tortured criminals still roamed, serving as a permanent reminder to Hyrule's bloodstained past.
Outside the prison, a high-security fortress remained untouched, previously used to contain any inmates who managed to escape the prison. Here was where Callum had been taken, the memory of being vaporised and shattered into dark matter still lingering in his mind.
"You, who take the form of a menacing dragon... Rise!"
"He's not moved a limb ever since we locked him up, do you really think commanding him to wake up is going to have any effect?"
"We can't just ignore the fact that a huge dragon was lying in the middle of the desert! This thing is no ordinary twilit beast, I can sense it. Look at the golden imprint on its shoulder blade... that's not a good sign, I'm telling you."
"Since when were you an expert on dragon anatomy? Besides, it looks harmless enough, it can't possibly-"
The voice was interrupted by the sound of something metallic clashing against the steel prison bars. The two creatures stopped their bickering and turned their attention to the dragon's cell, to find that it was most certainly awake – its tail, possessing a sharp metallic blade at the tip, had sliced through the bars in an attempt to make an escape from the claustrophobic prison cell. Another slash of its tail cleared the exit for it, allowing it to escape the cell's tiny confinement and spread its wings over the fortress.
Callum gazed down at his new form – he resembled a serpentine dragon, covered in black scales with a slightly lighter, plated underside, as well as large wings that, combined with his streamlined shape, allowed him to fly at surprisingly fast speeds. He stretched his tail out, looking down at the lethal sharp blade that allowed him to carve his way out of imprisonment. However, he had little time to admire his mysterious transformation – there were creatures on the ground below, shooting from all angles. Fire arrows pierced his skin, causing a scorching pain and prompting him to fly swiftly away from the scene, but his escape was not as successful as he'd hoped – a ground-dwelling creature, supposedly a mage of some sort, cast a beam of light energy at him, crippling his wings with electric pulses and bringing him crashing to the ground. His tail managed to slice the offender in the process, however his comrades were rushing over in mere seconds, tying chains around his draconic feet and being very careful to avoid his pointed claws. Using some sort of black magic from the remaining mages, they lifted him carefully over the fortress, and into the abandoned prison below...
Callum's head hurt. Not only was it hard to breathe with a respiratory system he wasn't at all used to, but the power of the magic from earlier had given him some sort of full-body paralysis. He hated not being able to move, and he felt like he wanted to thrash and break out into the open air, but he couldn't. The only sounds he could make were deep grunts, and the only thing he could move were his eyes as he helplessly watched these creatures take him wherever they pleased.
After a while, he felt himself being placed on the ground, and the grip of the magic being released from his limbs. He immediately attempted to lash out, rage bottled up inside him and ready to burst like an overly shaken bottle of champagne. However, when he tried to do this, he could move no more than a few feet from his current position. He soon found out why – a horribly strong force pulled on his tail, neck and limbs, and he found himself unable to breathe properly. Upon the realisation that he could still rotate his neck, he noticed several chains had been wrapped around his body, along with a few loose ones draped over him, supposedly for extra security (but certainly not comfort). He was being hoisted up, and slowly rotated so that he was facing forward rather than face down on the ground. Eventually, the movement stopped, and he was facing straight out onto a desert vista. He presumed there to be no other life forms in the vicinity, but he turned out to be wrong – upon closer inspection, there were roughly eight of the creatures from before on the ground, but they were difficult to spot from the height he was at. It was then that a thin black line suddenly descended from the sky, and materialised into a strange person... if it were a person at all. They were heavily covered in robes and had a metal mask on, with a tongue-resembling shape rather than a gap for its mouth.
"So. They found you then..." the voice whispered, deep and soft. "You're stronger than I presumed you to be. I didn't expect you to slice one of my trusty mages in half, or kill another half a dozen with your claws. But I doubt you remember that, seeing as you were practically unconscious until you got here."
Callum tried to muster some words to confront this mysterious man. It came out as a soft roar, but apparently the man understood him.
"What? No, we're not going to kill you. You're bad news. We don't want you around here, kid. You're just going to interfere with us. Nothing personal. Actually, it is personal. But we have things to tend to that are more important than you right now. Don't even think about trying to escape, though – there's mage knights waiting down there to cripple you if you try. If you want to try though, you're welcome to. Just expect a much worse fate, because I'll be sure to be hearing about it."
Callum wasn't so concerned about everything he'd just said. He just wanted to know who he was, and why he was important enough to hurl so many threats at him. Surprisingly, and somewhat worryingly, the man picked up his thoughts.
"Me? I am Zant. Do not oppose your king. I can dispose of you however I may please. Maybe you'd like to share your nasty thoughts out aloud next time, hm? That way I won't have to get you in trouble for being secretive. Stay here, don't move a muscle until I come back. Have fun awaiting your fate. It's a shame your journey was cut short..."
With that, Zant disappeared into shards of blackness, as Callum had when he was attacked at the spring. Callum wanted to think so many nasty thoughts. But Zant's words echoed in his head. A mind-reading, manipulative man, apparently egotistical enough to call himself the king was not someone he wanted to mess with right now. Whatever was going on, he wanted to find out. His mind could not rest until he found out why he'd been imprisoned and chained to a giant stone slab. Callum was somewhat of a mythology enthusiast, and he knew that this stone slab was often used by the ancient sages, when they wanted to cast a teleport to the twilight realm. Could they really be planning to use this for the same purpose... on him?