His Fist
Chapter III
Summer
Ten Years Ago
Intricately sewn robes moved with the slow deliberation of age atop an obsidian judge's bench, anchored high in the public hearing room of the Imperial Chamberlain. Fantastically ornate symbols of office adorned them. Multicolored ribbons indicated meritorious service in the Hylian Civil War. An ebony gavel provided the parliamentary pretense of authority. A meekly held golden scepter crowned the top with a single red triangle inverted on its vertex, giving the wielder the constitutional authority of the sovereign. And yet, this was just a cruel joke. For all pretenses of superiority, Imperial Magelord Vaati knew that the Imperial Chamberlain Blaaz situated high on the benches was but a contemptible and foolish old man vainly clinging to whatever authority he could still command in this world.
If this man did not speak for the World Emperor himself, Vaati would have happily facilitated his relocation from the mortal world. He is, Vaati thought, a toady of exceptional caliber. His skills as a sorcerer for someone of such high office are the ultimate argument against meritocracy. His duty to be the voice of the Emperor is a farce for one so meek and frail. It is a wonder that the hundreds of nations within the Emperor's vast empire take him seriously. And yet, here he is. Perhaps the goddesses do exist and this is their idea of a divine joke. Vaati smirked as he silently dismissed the notion.
Despite how unbearable the old fool was, Vaati congratulated himself on his impeccable etiquette. As the herald of the Imperial Chamberlain bellowed for Vaati to approach and be recognized through the arched iron doors of the hearing room, Vaati approached with all the bearing and grace that a lifetime spent as one of the Emperor's elite mages drilled into him. He was not a normal mortal; in lieu of whatever fanciful notion of divine beings, he and his kind were the arbiters of life and death in this world. It was a responsibility that Vaati relished.
The herald shouted in a curious blend of the melodramatic and monotone Vaati's titles: "My Lord Chamberlain, I present Imperial Magelord Vaati, victor over the Minish, Warden of the North Tower, Executor of…" As Vaati's ambling terminated in front of Blaaz's bench, he stood there for what seemed like an interminable amount of time as the herald finished concluding his assault of titles and announcements. Perhaps, rather than being an exercise of flattery, this was Blaaz's way of demonstrating his control over this tortuous exchange. Waiting a moment to be sure that the herald had concluded his tirade, Vaati's hand fell over his heart as he bended his body at his midriff to convey an overly sincere bow.
"Rise, Lord Vaati." An ancient white beard ruffled in reply underneath a thick cowl. Vaati complied and gave a slight smile. Blaaz waited for a handful of seconds, during which Vaati could feel eyes, invisible underneath a cowl, assail Vaati with a critical glance. Vaati merely smiled and patiently stared back with red irises fixed to where he estimated Blaaz's face to be. Finally Blaaz broke the silence. "His Imperial Majesty is displeased about the incidence of rebellion of late. This particularly concerns the peripheral provinces of the Empire." Vaati frowned. This was nothing new. Savages ignorant of the Empire's promises of civilization, science, and prosperity frequently took up arms to defend their exceedingly narrow-minded view of the world; a world where tradition and superstition triumphed over progress and reason. The Empire was the sole bastion standing against the unruly tide of barbarism in the world. Vaati waited for Blaaz to continue, silently hoping that he might expire and fossilize in this very meeting.
"His Majesty has been… most displeased with the prior administration of these provinces." Blaaz's voice rippled with understatement. He wondered what type of violent fate was meted out those "prior administrators." While most men of civilized tastes would find the extermination of imperial servants distasteful, Vaati understood and embraced the idea that incompetence had no place in the Empire. Blaaz droned on. "Though these insurrections are not of any security concern, His Majesty takes great offense in this lack of gratitude for His mercy and leniency." Vaati positively beamed, barely checking his expansive grin on his ivory-white face. He was going to receive his field commission against the Zora rebellion that had arisen. The surest path for power in the Empire was military victory, and the Zora rebellion was the most expansive threat the Empire had experienced since its birth over ten years ago.
"Therefore," Blaaz continued, "it is His Majesty's decree that administration of those provinces should fall into the purview of officials… less inclined to idleness. It is His Majesty's order that you be appointed to special office. You are hereby, by the power of the World Emperor, granted the title Imperial Procurator with the special commission of multiple provinces." Blaaz's voice dropped low. "His Majesty believed that your experience as Magelord might allow you to pursue rather unorthodox methods that many of our bureaucrats might shy away from due to reasons of civility."
Try as he may to contain his displeasure, Vaati was pretty sure that Blaaz could see the expanding disappointment on his face. The prospects of military command and glory vanishing with the resignation of spending a significant portion of his life to smashing local dissidents using a variety of creative yet barbaric measures. It was the ultimate insult for this Magelord who prided to be an academically inclined gentleman to be the Emperor's premier instrument of brute force. Steeling his frayed nerves, the previously silent Vaati spoke; his patrician voice strangely quavering with both insecurity and barely concealed righteous anger.
"My Lord, does this charge include the suppression of the Zora insurrection?" Even though Blaaz's expression was indiscernible beneath his cowl, Vaati's suspicious mind thought he could make out an amused snort at Vaati's desperation.
"His Majesty has decided that this matter demands the oversight of His Fist. He will be prosecuting military operations against the Zora renegades personally." Vaati's lips nearly curled in disgust at the mention of the Emperor's personal enforcer, His Fist. The tales surrounding His Fist were near legendary. He was widely regarded as the greatest warrior of the age, as well as probably its greatest general. He was perhaps the greatest weapon in the Emperor's swollen arsenal, and was directly responsible for much of the Empire's conquests. Despite his success, he was repulsive, representing and enshrining the very barbarian lifestyle that the Empire had fought so hard to extinguish. He was an anachronism that had no place in Vaati's vision of the Empire.
"If he requires it, I trust you will convey to him your full support in the form of material and military assistance, correct?" It was official, Blaaz was officially jeering over the complete lack of control Vaati had over the situation. Vaati stiffly clasped two clenched fist at the back of his regally violet tunic, and muttered stiffly. "Of course, Lord Chamberlain." Vaati mentally sighed. His acquiescence was expressed more as a challenge than as a sign of compliance, but Vaati's discontent was such at this point that he could care less.
Blaaz let silence fill the cavernous hearing room before continuing on, satisfied that Vaati's composure had briefly yielded to a childish temper tantrum. Contented, Blaaz spoke on. "Implicit in His Majesty's charge is that you find the seeds of these localized outcroppings of discontent. Our local sources of information in the outlying provinces are somewhat conflicted on this matter. Though the Empire conquered these areas at different times, the standard Imperial practice of fixing corn prices was instituted. Poverty was quickly alleviated in most of these areas. These areas have boomed economically while sustaining only mild interference from His Majesty's central government. It is your task to uncover why these sporadic local risings are so pervasive."
Vaati briefly shelved his self pity to consider this largely academic problem. It was, he had to admit, an interesting dilemma. These people, having near-nothing in common, separated by hundreds of miles, who took for granted the vast improvements in standards of living were simultaneously rebelling against the Empire. There was seemingly no obvious connection. And then it dawned on Vaati. He snorted contemptuously at the revelation, so incredibly improbable that it invited hubris. And yet, it was the only explanation that made sense.
"That is unnecessary Lord Chamberlain," Vaati began, the soft silk of his voice returning after its tantrum-induced vacation. Blaaz arched an invisible eyebrow, waiting for the new Procurator to continue. "They are rebelling in favor of their former government. They want the royal family back."
Blaaz shifted uncomfortably in his bench. "And why, Lord Procurator, would they ever want that?"
"Because, Lord Chamberlain," Vaati replied, sarcastically matching the ancient man's cadence, "unlike the good people of Castle Town whose loyalty can be bought with bread and circus, these rustic sorts are those who respond to baser, primitive ideas of feudal loyalty and tradition. They are easily stirred to rages because of perceived breaches in their primitive traditions. They believe the monarchy—'the way things were' means the restoration of a world without the Empire and its enlightened civilization being so 'unjustly' thrust upon their small and petty minds."
Blaaz paused as if considering this. "Lord Procurator, you may have discerned why, but you have yet to answer something else: why are the risings contemporaneous?"
Vaati smirked, the poisonous scent of condescension evident in all his movements and features. "I would have thought that answer obvious, Lord Chamberlain. It's simultaneous because agents of the royal family are inciting them."
Blaaz chuckled mirthlessly. "You mean the royal family that now cowers at His Majesty's every whim? The very family that's not even taken seriously by its own House of Lords? The family whose existence is only at the pleasure of the Emperor?"
Vaati nodded slightly. "The same." He sighed. "I am certainly not an all-knowing, Ancient Imperial Bureaucrat, but it seems to me that the royal family's best opportunity of success is to feign weakness while slowly cultivating a base of allies."
Blaaz raised his cowled visage ever so slightly to reveal a naked chin forked with his white beard. Irritation dominated his ancient voice. "If this is correct, Lord Procurator, then the royal family had better find allies more skilled and competent then wayward peasants."
Vaati rubbed his chin with a black gloved hand. "They already have."
Blaaz leaned forward as his frustration redoubled into a crescendo. "I beg your pardon?"
"My Lord Chamberlain, these rustic provincials are only a convenient distraction; an opportunity to divert our legions away from a more challenging opponent." Vaati smiled as he saw Blaaz shift uncomfortably, and though his expression remained concealed, Vaati could guess that he had arrived at the correct deduction.
"The Zora," Blaaz breathed. "It is an interesting theory." The old man painfully conceded to the white-haired mage. "If you are correct, Lord Procurator, then it appears His Majesty was correct about your talents."
"I believe they are deliberately concealing their true strength, unveiling a force large enough to attract our attention, but small enough that we dispatch our legions to the periphery. They want His Fist to attack them because they believe this is their best opportunity for success in a conventional engagement. Imagine the political consequences of having the Emperor's best general bested in combat. It would be scandalous."
Blaaz folded leathery hands across the voluptuous mass of robes that encompassed him. "And I am sure, Lord Procurator, that you would not wish for there to be a scandal." Blaaz took a brief moment to chuckle in amusement before continuing. "No, while we may have underestimated the resolve of the otherwise compliant Zora, they underestimate in turn His Fist. He cannot be defeated in combat."
Vaati was aghast at such simple-minded dribble. "But my Lord…."
"He cannot be defeated in combat." Blaaz repeated, lacing each syllable with promises of danger if the subject was not dropped.
"Of course, my Lord," Vaati conceded joylessly. "If I may petition your Lordship further? As His Majesty's directive is to root out the source of the dissent, and the royal family seems like the primary culprit, might I have permission to seek out their arrest?"
Blaaz stroked his cobwebbed beard with a long-nailed hand. "No," he finally concluded after a long silence. "His Majesty would be endlessly petitioned by the House of Lords for their release. They can still create enough vexation that His Majesty might make that concession."
Vaati frowned as the new Procurator sensed his chance for glory vanish once again. Blaaz mused thoughtfully to himself before continuing. "However, the day is approaching with haste when the House of Lords will cease to be relevant." Vaati smirked. More irrelevant than it is today? I was under the impression that was impossible. Blaaz continued, "Therefore, I empower you to quietly and discreetly investigate the members of the royal household and the family itself to attempt to verify these theories. They could be acted on at a later time."
Vaati was elated at this small victory. "Thank you, my Lord."
Blaaz leaned back in his massive chair, no longer peering downward at Vaati. "If there is nothing further I will leave you to claim your post. Good day, Lord Procurator Vaati."
Vaati responded with his most flourishing bow, long white hair cascading down all sides of his face as he did so. "And good day to you, my Lord Chamberlain Blaaz." It had a sort of perverse humor to it. With all the exchanges of subtle and not so subtle taunts, insults, and rebukes, it was amusing to have the exchange end with incredible pomp and dignity.
As Vaati turned back toward the double-iron doors, he felt somewhat triumphant. His name might not become immortalized on account of suppressing an anonymous rebellion that history would in its constant absent-mindedness forget in lieu of a more significant event. But it would become immortalized by finishing what his Emperor had begun ten years ago: the eradication of the royal family—the Harkinians. It gave him a cold pleasure to think that the longest-lived dynasty in history would be stilled by his hand, after unveiling their treachery against the Empire of course. Finally, when the Emperor promoted him in rank after exterminating His most implacable political rivals, he would convince Him that he no longer needed an old fool like Blaaz. He would take particular pleasure in facilitating his permanent removal. The Empire had no room for incompetence after all. The cold pleasure took hold over him so completely that he almost failed to notice the herald conclude the meeting with "All hail His Imperial Majesty, the World Emperor Ganondorf, House Dragmire."
Autumn
Eight Years Ago
As Link stood shakily atop a rickety ladder with a basket of newly picked apples, he found his devotion to the goddesses redouble as he began to swoon on the ancient rungs as the ladder began to go off balance. Had Link not shouted in surprise he probably would have heard the dull thud as his adolescent body flattened itself against packed earth. As he opened his eyes, ripe balls of now bruised red littered the ground, streaming out from an overturned basket. Link let out a primal growl and proceeded to hurl the discarded apples back into the basket. He halted as he noticed that most of the apples, once firm to the touch, now had shriveled flesh with a spongy bruise underneath. Giving into futility, he tossed the apple over a bronze shoulder and grabbed the overturned ladder.
A second frustrated growl permeated the orchard as he noticed the hinge connecting the two halves of the v-shaped step-ladder had split. I told Bo not to be cheap and actually buy a real ladder instead of making this piece of "fine quality craftsmanship." Link tried not to laugh as he looked at the awkwardly carved ladder rungs and remembered the sweat, the time, and the shouts of pain from hammer swollen fingers poured into every inch of the ladder. While he was still annoyed as dull pain lingered in his chest, his face contorted to absolute elation as he came to a life altering conclusion: without the ladder, he didn't have to pick apples. Therefore, Link followed this premise to surmise that since he could not pick apples, he did not have any chores to do. Link concluded this very logical premise to deduce that he must not have chores to do. Link stood up, steadying his disproportioned adolescent body, and frowned as he looked down at the ladder. Horror crept onto his face as he noticed the broken, rotten ladder; Bo would make a new ladder, and he would practically kill everybody in the house trying to make it….
Link remembered a talk that Bo gave him that certain things in life were worth fighting for. Link concluded that preventing Bo from wreaking havoc trying to "build" something was probably one of those things. He knew he had to somehow conceal the fact that the ladder was useless; that meant picking all the apples from the high to the low branches of the orchard by hand. Link's courage faltered until a mental image of Bo bumbling around the workshop muttering curses, breaking fingers, and forgetting to make dinner out of irritation squelched his indecision. This was worth fighting for. Seconds later, his gangly features leapt into the low branch of a particular tree, his hand clasping the branch while his other clutched the rim of his basket. He repeated the process until he found himself in a branch that allowed him full access to the rather large tree's canopy. Securing his footing on the branch which was situated over ten feet high, Link began plucking the ripe red fruit, slowly building a small lump in his basket. Satisfied that his adventure on this tree was nearing its completion, Link outstretched his palm to clasp the last ripened fruit and--
"Hey Link…."
Though Link was disoriented, he could feel the all too familiar sensation of dull pain shooting through his chest as he made contact with the ground. Biting back curses that would be unseemly for a twelve year old to say, Link regarded the source of his distraction and near mortality.
"Hey Ilia," Link said, his voice muffled by tall blades of grass. As he slowly allowed aching limbs to pick himself off the ground he regarded Bo's ten year old daughter whose face, Link thought, was an amusing combination of guilt, fright, and geniality. Had he not felt like his internal organs had shifted, he might have appreciated the absurd expression.
Concern won out and sprouted on Ilia's face. "I'm sorry…are you all right?" Link turned his head and rolled his eyes.
"No," Link muttered under his breath as he brushed clumped soil off his white cotton shirt and out of his white-blonde bangs. Ilia's human ears perked at the faint muttering.
"Huh?"
"I said I'm doing fine, don't worry," he said, managing his most theatrical smile. Despite his annoyance with both her penchant for pointing out the obvious and for in general just being a girl, he was careful not to incite Ilia's easily frayed emotions. Bo's only daughter, born two years after Link was dressed in a loose fitting cotton shirt with short wheat-colored hair that favored her late mother. She stared at Link with large green eyes, a shade that faintly reminded Link of pea soup. The thought made his tempestuous stomach perk to life again, despite the rather dizzying fall. Link's assurance soothed Ilia's frenzy of worry.
"What were you doing up there?"
He swallowed a delicious but utterly cruel sarcastic comment as he monotonously droned. "Pickin' apples."
"Oh," Ilia replied, trying to sound faintly surprised.
"Yeah…hmm…." Even though Ilia was practically his sister, Link always felt awkward conversing with her. Actually, when Link thought about it he felt strange talking to any girl, at least any girl that he met at Ordon. It was not the case that Link was rude, it was more a general lack of understanding of what being this creature called girl was. When they laughed at him, was it because he was funny, or did he do something unbelievably stupid? He recalled none too pleasant memories of multiple village girls waving coyly in his direction, laughing at him, or making frankly annoying comments about how cute his ears were. Link's sarcastic muse implored him to complement them in kind with "How adorable your humongous feet are."
Alarm coursed through Link as he noticed Ilia's eyes darting to the space behind him, noticing the broken ladder. Ilia craned her head a quarter turn and regarded the heap of broken wood quizzically. "What happened? Is that the ladder Pa made?"
Of all the incredibly stupid words that Link could have uttered, he picked the worst: "What ladder?" A slender vein bulged in Link's neck as he clenched his teeth. Despite her usual naïveté, she appeared unusually perceptive now.
"That ladder behind you," she replied evenly.
Link decided to wax philosophical. "Ilia, do you know what a secret is?"
She nodded imperceptibly. He realized that to corrupt such a trusting mind was a sin before Din, Farore, and Naryu, but right now none of that mattered; this was a matter of life and death. He continued.
"Well, I don't think there's any need to tell Uncle Bo about this. It'd just worry him."
Ilia stood thoughtfully before some sort of realization dawned on her face. "Oooooh! You mean that kind of secret!? Like me not telling Pa how you snuck off that one night to pull a prank with Fado, an' how you hid Pa's shoes for two months, an' how you set his favorite shirt on fire while trying to do laundry, an' how you always got second deserts by insisting you never got any, an'…." Link's mind faded to black as he attempted to recover from the incomprehensible speed of Ilia's recitation.
His face burned with embarrassment, appreciated with interest as the memories flooded back. "Well, he always gave me small desert portions…. But yeah, those kinds of secrets I guess…."
Ilia looked quizzically once again at Link. "Oh, well that's ok. Bo wanted me to come get you to tell you to pick up the new ladder back at the house that he just bought."
As Ilia smiled and turned to walk away, Link slapped his brow and followed after his cousin, grumbling as he went.
Winter
Eight Years Ago
The uninformed observer from dozens of miles away might have concluded that the mountains nestled to the north of Hyrule were experiencing some sort of earthquake or avalanche. So loud was the thundering erupting from the Zora's Domain that any organism with any vestige of locomotion steered away from the mountainous kingdom. There were two exceptions to this general rule: the multitude of warriors locked in mortal combat and their carrion birds that feasted on them.
Massive cannons spouted flame and smoke as metal spheres of death impacted against the battlements surrounding the waterfall entrance of the kingdom. The shells either slammed into the rock faces, hurling debris hundreds of feet below or burst into fragments, splattering the unfortunate souls who fell in its wake with flesh-piercing shards. Small units of blue-skinned archers, the remnants of what was once a powerful army, offered a meek reply in a disoriented volley of arrows and javelins. Not missing an opportunity for a rebuttal, the cannons honed in the hapless archers and let out a volley that not only eliminated the archers, but caused the stone causeway on which they situated themselves to plummet down hundreds of feet to the watery gorge below. This left the meaning of the reply unmistakable: the Empire had come with vengeance to the Zora Domain.
Thousands of mail-clad warriors from dozens of races waited on the shores of the gorge, skirmishing with anonymous blue-skinned opponents. The defenders, no doubt, believed that despite the skill of their mail-clad opponents, their unassailable cliff side residence would force them to embark upon a long and costly siege. Given the astronomically high casualties that would result from a storming operation, this would be the conventional military wisdom. However, conventional military wisdom was not to be followed today.
Ponderously moving upstream was an iron structure situated atop dozens of large pontoons partially submerged while vainly trying to maintain ballast. The iron raft was towed on either side of the gorge by nearly twenty carts pulled by oxen with tethered chains struggling against the current. Once it neared the rock face just in front of where the huge waterfall terminated into the Zora River, the teams of carts halted. Seemingly indifferent to his conspicuousness, an armored figure on horseback galloped onto a wide gangplank connecting the shore to the iron raft. Unlike the ubiquitous mail-clad warriors that were simply clothed with chainmail, an iron helm, and a tunic displaying their racial or geographic designation, this figure was armored in meticulously crafted ebony plate armor and fine black chain mail. A black cloak with a cowl concealing an indiscernible visage flapped relentlessly against the roar of the falls, and the figure unsheathed a sword to hold it defiantly in his left hand. After dismounting and reaching the top of the cube-shaped structure on the raft, the figure raised his gauntleted right hand to signal teams of men to board the raft to begin turning two massive cranks. Signal teams bellowed out the cadence of every movement as small arrows fell impotently from the defender's bows into the river.
The multitudes of blue-skinned warriors gazed downward in shock as iron structure crowning the raft slowly began to elevate, slowly, one foot at a time. Too disoriented to respond, they wordlessly watched as the structure rose fifty, then one-hundred, then two-hundred, and finally three-hundred feet. For a moment, the blue-skinned warriors were unified in their collective awe and terror as they slowly realized that this was no iron raft carrying supplies or a new cannon; it was a siege tower. The tower terminated its ascent at the entrance to the kingdom's throne room. Grapples burst forth from the tower's crown, securing chunks of rock in order to physically impose its resolve both over the blue-skinned warriors and the earth itself. As the boarding plank was extended and the tattered remnants of blue-skinned warriors tried to maintain some sort of formation to greet the hundreds of mail-clad warriors who would no doubt pour out of the tower. And yet they were bewildered when, rather than facing the tides of opponents washing over their defenses, there was but one black-armored man stalking steadily toward the throne room.
His Fist….
Smoke pouring out of the cavernous throne room entrance signaled the battle's dénouement. Moments later as the universally recognized white flag streamed down from the cavern mere minutes after His Fist entered, it was all over. As coats of arms, ensigns, and flags were stripped to be replaced by the red inverted triangle, one message was clear: the Zora Domain had fallen.
Author's Note: I am aware that Blaaz is actually somewhat different in form and appearance in LoZ: Phantom Hourglass. My general preference is to import as many names and characters that already inhabit the Legend of Zelda universe before I populate it with my own. I will take certain liberties with names later on, but I wish to do so only when necessary.
Another general preference of mine is to suspend imagery unless it is symbolic or evocative. I rarely use it for its own sake because I generally trust in the capabilities of the audience's imagination. Does anybody have any problem with this approach?
I will criticize myself in stating that I wish I had a better opportunity to insert Ilia in the story earlier, but I felt like I couldn't without making these prologue chapters longer than they already are (something I am loath to do). I generally was not as happy with this chapter, but it was necessary to "take care of business." I may consider expanding or subtracting some portions at a later date.
If anybody feels particularly compelled, I could use a volunteer to be a beta reader. My sister (who I credit as this story's midwife) and my fiancé do an admirable proofing job, however they know almost the entire plot, so it would be welcoming to get feedback from somebody who is "in the dark."
Again, feedback is welcome. Thanks.