9: A Great Evil to Confront
The skull straightened itself, the red fading from its eyes. Lyra was staring at it just like Gold. The skull roared and shot out of the sand, revealing its body, which was entirely made of cylinder-like bones with armor on some of them. The armor was black with spikes on it except for certain places. When the skull reached its full height, it towered over Lyra and Gold. They stared at it in fear. Thousands of grains of sand fell off its body and it leaned down to them and roared again. The devastating noise of its scream forced Gold and Lyra to cover their ears. It returned to its normal height after it finished screaming.
Just like that, the battle for the Bow of Light started.
"Don't stand there, Gold," Lyra said. "It's probably gonna try to hurt us."
Gold ran with Lyra to the right and the skull kept on staring at them. It opened a door in its lowest bone cylinder and shot out a boulder at them. Lyra pulled Gold out of the way and the boulder fell over the edge of the circular arena.
"Whew! That was close!" Gold panted. Lyra nodded.
Suddenly, they heard a faint voice saying, "Over here!"
Gold and Lyra followed the voice until they came to a small prison. A boy wearing green was inside it. "If you want to beat that boss, you need this!" the boy said, holding up a little claw thing with a face on it.
Gold stepped forward. "Did you shoot the targets in the pyramid?" he asked.
The boy nodded. "Yes, I shot th– look out!"
Gold and Lyra both spun around and saw red in the skull's mouth. It stared at them and suddenly shot a laser at them. Gold ducked and the laser hit the boy. "Yeeouch!" the boy screeched. He turned to Lyra. "We have little time to defeat Skeldritch, the boss. Would you give me one of those pots?"
Lyra ran to a blue pot, picked it up, and started dashing back.
"Lyra!" Gold shouted, seeing the door in Skeldritch open wide. Lyra turned just in time to see a spinning boulder zoom toward her.
The boy in green pointed the claw toward Lyra and squeezed the handle. It sent out a green ball of light that transformed the sand Lyra was standing on into a solid wall, with Lyra on top of it. The boulder struck the wall, causing the wall to crumble, and stopped rolling. Lyra fell off the boulder and slid off it and began running to the boy again.
When she reached the mini prison, she handed the boy the pot through the bars. He drew a medium sized sword and struck the pot. It shattered into millions of pieces, leaving Lyra confused and angry. Why should I bring him a pot if he's just gonna break it? she thought. She returned her gaze to the prison and saw a small heart in the remains of the pot. The boy in green reached for it, grabbed it, and it vanished in his hands. For some reason, the boy seemed more energized than before.
Lyra looked at the boy. She had a question in her mind, but wondered if it was okay to ask it, for if he said 'no', she would feel embarrassed for asking such a question. She made up her mind and took a deep breath. "Are you…by any chance…Link?" she asked.
The boy nodded. "Yes, I am Link."
Lyra breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm supposed to give you this sword," she explained and reached into her bag for it.
Link's eyes grew large. "Get away!" he shouted.
Lyra rolled out of the way of a deadly laser aimed at her. Link protected himself with a shield and tossed the claw thing to Gold, saying, "Take this, the Sand Wand™. Squeeze the handle and its light will pack the sand into raised blocks!"
Gold grinned. "Thanks!" He turned and faced Skeldritch.
"Ready or not, here I come!"
