Chapter Four: The Perilous Labyrinth

Link was only a hundred feet into the tunnel when he saw the first light since he had entered the underground. It was only one barely lit torch, but to Link's eyes, which were now accustomed to the overwhelming darkness of the passageway, it was as blinding as staring directly into the sun on a summer day. As he approached the torch the first sign of the hazards that lay ahead occurred. The walls, floor, and unseen ceiling began to shake violently. Link tried to steady himself but was unsuccessful. His legs jolted out from beneath him and he fell to the ground. This seeming misfortune proved to be lucky for Link though. Immediately as he hit the ground an arrow darted from the shadows fifty feet in front of him, narrowly missing where his abdomen had been before he tumbled. The arrow was so close that Link could actually feel the green hat atop his head stir as the arrow brushed it.

Link did not breathe a sigh of relief however. He knew he was lucky, but he also knew that another arrow would certainly be coming. Therefore, he stood up and charged the unseen enemy. As he passed the torch the area became dark once more. By the time he reached his concealed adversary it was as if he was blind again. Without knowing how far away his foe was Link was surprised when he bumped into an invisible entity only seconds later. There was a loud grunt as Link knocked over what seemed to be his enemy. Link felt another arrow whisk past his head as he dropped to the ground with his opponent.

Link began to feel around with his uninjured hand, trying to find the bow so he could prevent himself from getting shot with it. He locked onto his enemy's wrist and was disgusted to find it covered in squishy bumps and hair. He bent the wrist back until his adversary cried out. The thud of something falling to the ground resounded in Link's ears. He released his foe's now broken wrist and felt along the ground. He brushed a curved piece of wood that he knew to be a bow. An arrow that had apparently already been nocked and ready to fire was next to it. He picked them up and stood.

Now that Link's eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness he was able to see his enemy lying on the ground, quivering in pain. His foe was apparently human, but he was scarred with thousands of blood-red bumps, many of them bursting forth with pus even as he looked at them. However, Link did not take pity. He readied the bow and fired the arrow he had found into the man's jugular. There was a short gasp and then silence. Link rolled the man over and took his quiver, along with the arrows in it. Now that he was armed, Link felt a little safer.

He resolved to continue on in the hope of hurrying out of this loathsome pit. So he ran forward up the tunnel. After thirty seconds the tunnel ended at an intersection. To the left was a path that climbed upwards steeply; that direction seemed significantly more well lit than the path to the right. In that direction a set of stairs marched down until they disappeared into an impenetrable gloom. Link decided that his best bet was the left path. The path might actually keep climbing until it came out of the hill above, he reasoned.

Therefore, Link turned onto that route and began to sprint up the steep passageway. Unfortunately, because of his quick pace, Link became tired fast. That was why when he came to the top of the climb he could barely even breathe. He needed a break so he sat underneath a nearby torch, which was sitting inside of its own bracket. After five minutes he had caught his breath again and was ready to move on. The farther he walked the more paths there were branching away from the one he had chosen. He ignored them and continued along the same one he had selected before.

After five minutes this tunnel came to an end. Link had to backtrack and take a left at another path. This is when things began to become difficult. Link so frequently arrived at dead ends that within fifteen minutes he had lost all sense of direction. He was now wandering around aimlessly, like a rat inside a maze. Just when it seemed all hope was lost—the arrow wound in his left hand was now turning a sickly shade of green and he had not eaten for over a day, leaving him very tired and hungry—the walls began to rumble again. Link braced himself, hoping to avoid falling like he did the last time the walls had shook. However, it was pointless. When the floor began to quake too Link fell to the ground almost immediately. Unlike the last time though the tremors did not stop. They continued so long that the floor began to crack.

One crack especially made Link nervous. It started about fifteen feet up the passageway. As the shaking continued it raced up the middle of the tunnel, eventually passing directly beneath Link. Then a booming crack reverberated in the chamber. A moment later the stone floor beneath Link crumbled into oblivion. Link found himself falling for almost a hundred feet, surrounded by the jagged shards of stone that had once been the ground.

If it wasn't for the underground lake that Link fell into he would almost certainly have died upon impact. However, when he finally managed to pull himself out of the water it seemed that maybe it would have been better if he had. There seemed to be no escape from the gigantic cavern he was in. Impassable limestone walls stood fifty feet away all around him, and the hole in the ceiling that he had fallen through, which seemed to be no more than a tiny fracture from this far down, was unreachable. Moreover, that was the least of Link's worries. When he turned to look behind him he saw without a doubt the largest monster he had ever seen in all of his travels.

Its head almost touched the ceiling and it was so wide that it barely fit in the vast chamber that was its home. After seeing that the giant being had one eye and had the build of a man Link thought that it was no more than an extra-large Cyclops, which would not have been a problem considering that he had defeated three of them already while journeying between Ikana Canyon and the Forest of Gormoth. However, this was not a Cyclops. It was a Cyberscor. Upon its head was a crown of spikes. It wielded a barbed club at least thirty feet long. Neither of these were its most fearsome weapon though.

The Cyberscor let out an unanticipated high-pitched squeal. With this piercing sound an invisible force burst forth from the monster's mouth. The water in the lake was divided down the middle and thrown to the sides. Link dove out of the way as the invisible sound waves hit the ground on his side of the lake, digging a ten-foot deep and twenty-foot wide trough through the earth all the way up to the wall that bounded the chamber. The sound waves hit this wall and shattered its bottom into pieces. After the sound dissipated there was a hole in the wall almost thirty feet deep.

Link did not want to imagine what damage would have been done if he had let the unseen sound waves hit him. Although, if he did not make sure to be as quick on his feet as possible he might not have to imagine; he would feel it for himself. As the Cyberscor readied its most dangerous attack again Link prepared his bow for what was sure to be his most epic battle for quite some time.