Chapter Eight: The Fall of the Shiekah
Six nights passed, and Flat and Sharp met with Cornelius and Jean Drake (Cornelius had successfully disposed of his partner) beneath a dimly lit street lamp in a back alleyway of the Hyrule Castle Town Market. Sharp gave him the ocarina. "Keep the ocarina," he said. "I'll take the flute." Sharp nodded. He handed over the flute and took back the ocarina.
"Here," whispered Cornelius, handing Sharp a piece of parchment. It had a series of notes on it, and written beneath each note was a letter of the alphabet. "I've made absolutely certain that we haven't been followed. However, Ishmael may have ways of listening in on our conversation even if there's no one here in person. Just to be cautious, we'll "speak" in this code. Do you think you get it? Use the flute to answer yes or no."
Sharp had the flute in a bag at his waist. He took it out and put it to his lips. Then he played the note for Y, the note for E, and the note for S. Cornelius nodded. "You're going to come with me," he said, not using the ocarina. "There's a horse tied to a tree out in the field. I'll blindfold you and take you somewhere, and then you're going to put on a little performance for my master with this ocarina."
"I'm taking you to the Kokiri Forest," he said, using the ocarina to play the notes. "I don't know where we're going after that. We'll probably meet with the guide."
"I understand," replied Sharp.
"Give the flute to Jean," said Cornelius. "Jean, I think when we get to wherever we're going, you should be the one to play Saria's Song. You do remember it, don't you?"
Jean nodded.
"Orca was our music teacher," Cornelius said to Flat and Sharp. "We've memorized most of the songs in the book."
When they reached the forest, they were greeted by a man in a tattered brown cloak. It was the guide that Orca had described to them. "Hello," he said, letting out a dry laugh. "You two must be those composers. Yeah, Ishmael sees something in you. I don't know what, though—you just look like trash. You two, the escorts—I'm going to have to blindfold you guys, too. It's the same way it works going to the temple."
Once all of them were unable to see, they were led into the forest.
Then the blindfolds were taken off, after some amount of time.
And they were standing in a grove, with a tree in the center. The tree was ancient. There were grooves etched into its trunk as though something had dug into it, like a rope. But that had been a long time ago.
They were led past the tree and were taken down a short flight of steps hidden beneath a bush. They led into an underground cave which was lit by torches and had an old wooden stage built on the other wall.
"If you'll pardon me," said Jean, "I need to take a shit."
"What, do you think we want to hear all about it?" asked the guide. "Go on, and make it fast. Ishmael's on his way."
Jean went back up the stairs. He saw a man crouched over in the nearby bushes, fiddling with some sort of mechanism. It was Daron, setting up a trap to make a bomb go off if any unwanted visitors came. "Careful," he said. "Head right between those two trees there and you're safe. Oh, and take your shit over that way somewhere, 'cause there's a wind blowing down from the north and I don't want to be smelling it."
Several minutes later, Ishmael arrived with several guards. "Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats, please," he said. Everyone present sat on the ground except for Flat and Sharp. "Do you like the setting that I chose?" Ishmael asked them. "Those little woodland creatures called the Deku used to put on performances here. I thought it might be nice if there could be one last show, to let this old theater go out with a bang before we burn the forest to the ground. I hope you'll be giving us a lovely performance on that ocarina, boys. Come on, don't be shy. Everyone, let's give some encouragement to these two brothers! It's their first time."
The small crowd clapped and hollered. "Go on! Get up there!" shouted one of the several guards that had accompanied Ishmael. Flat and Sharp went onto the stage. "Bow to your audience," said Ishmael, and they did. "Now," he said. "Play something for us. And make it good."
Cornelius's mind was reeling about what Ishmael had said. Burn the forest! Is that possible? He thought about it. The natural magic of the forest would suppress any fire. It was like one gigantic organism and was able to defend itself against almost anything. Ishmael knew that, so what could he hope to gain from setting fire to the forest? A distraction. It was the only thing that made sense. A distraction for what? Most likely, a large-scale attack. Ishmael hadn't said anything about this to him and he hadn't heard about it from anyone else, either, but then again it wasn't Ishmael's style to give away information to anyone that it didn't concern directly. He'd probably just informed a select few officers that they would be making such an attack and then put a gag order on it to keep things silent. Either way, something huge was brewing. In his head, he composed a set of possible scenarios that could come from Ishmael's plan and then started coming up with strategies to counter them.
"Hold on," said Ishmael, stopping Sharp before he played a note on the ocarina. "Cornelius, where did that partner of yours go?"
"Well, it's private business," said Cornelius.
"We're not here to make jokes, Cornelius," said Ishmael. "Go out and find him. Unless he's constipated, it doesn't take such a long time to take a shit."
"Yes, Sir," said Cornelius. He got up and left the theater. Ishmael let several seconds pass and then made a gesture to the guide that meant, "Follow him." The guide nodded, and he went up the stairs after Cornelius. Cornelius stopped for a moment in the trees and looked behind him. He caught a glimpse of brown disappear into the trees. "Damn," he said. "Ishmael sent him."
Nobody had ever witnessed the guide's fighting abilities, but there were rumors that he was an A-Class assassin. Cornelius hit the ground and moved away, keeping hidden.
The melodious sound of Saria's song came floating through the trees. The guide stopped where he was and looked around him, but couldn't discern where it was coming from. "It's that other one," he said to himself. "They're doing something."
He had no doubts in his ability to stop both of them on his own, but his key mistake was the fact that he did not know how far the sound of Saria's Song was able to carry. In the underground theater, Ishmael and company were unable to hear the notes themselves because of Flat and Sharp playing on the ocarina. They played songs that made the trees dance, songs that made insects gather around them, and many others; among them, Sharp played the Song of Storms, and in answer it began to rain outside, setting a splendid scene for the upcoming battle.
A few miles away, on Death Mountain, little yellow Gorons raised their heads and listened to a wonderful tune flowing through their ears. It traveled down through the canyons below and through a tunnel into the Goron City, as well. It struck well with their musical tastes and made them dance and laugh. One of them rolled down to the lowest floor of the city—which was built as one large cylindrical chamber with numerous rooms branching outwards from there on a series of floors—and banged the big brass knocker on the door of Megaton's quarters. Megaton was the Goron chief.
The door opened, and Megaton stood inside. "What is it?" he bellowed. He always bellowed, since it was difficult for him to talk softly. He was large and intimidating on the surface, but in truth he was a very kindred spirit.
"Listen to this music!" said the Goron that had come to knock on his door. Megaton listened, and heard it. "Whoa!" he boomed with a voice that nearly knocked the little Goron off his feet in front of him. "Hot, hot, HOT! That's dancing music! Let's throw a party!"
He went about dancing and knocking things over in clumsiness when he was suddenly struck with the realization that he had heard this music before. He remembered it specifically because the first time he'd heard it, it had the very same effect on him—that was, making him dance about like a jolly fool and knocking over King Oswald's most precious china vase, which he had to pay for afterwards. "This is Saria's Song," he said.
"What's that, Chief?" asked a nearby Goron as he went spinning by. Megaton didn't respond. Instead, he went back into his room. A moment later, he came out carrying a huge black war hammer. The Gorons looked at him. "What's going on?" one of them asked. Megaton flashed him a smile with his huge teeth. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I just need to go see the king. Keep the party going until I get back, and don't forget to leave me some chips!"
He set off down the mountain and out onto Hyrule Field. As a Goron, he could move incredibly fast by curling into a ball and simply rolling forward. Gorons were thought to be descendents of boulders, since they very much resembled them when they rolled up like that—except that Gorons were yellow and had black spots, and boulders usually didn't. Gorons weren't all that much smarter than boulders, either.
A tall, blond-haired man dressed in a green tunic was riding a beautiful mahogany colored horse across the field when suddenly, a large yellow boulder struck the horse and sent him flying into a nearby ditch with a signature scream that I probably don't even need to describe. When he climbed out of the ditch, soaking wet, the large yellow boulder had disappeared. He scratched his head, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Megaton rolled through the Hyrule Castle Town Market and up the road to the castle. He burst through the closed gate, not even bothering to stop, and the stationed guard ran after him swinging a sword around and yelling at him to halt in his tracks and explain himself. But he kept going. Then, gaining a short burst of speed, he hit an incline in the ground that acted as a ramp and sent him rocketing through the air. "AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!" he screamed as he fell, suddenly realizing that he had gone higher than he had expected to and was afraid of heights. With a thunderous crash, he smashed through the roof of the castle's throne room, right as Frederick and King Oswald were sitting down to have a discussion about a disturbing matter—the disappearance of Flat and Sharp. This time, they had been spotted leaving the castle; but when a guard had gone after them, he'd found nothing but the hoof prints of a horse leading off to the south.
"What the hell!" exclaimed King Oswald, leaping from his chair. He spun around and took down a steel broadsword that hung on the wall above his throne—a family heirloom, but useful to defend himself in an attack. Then he saw that the intruder was Megaton, and he put the sword down. Still, he could not hide his anger. "Good evening, Megaton," he said. "Uh…to what do we owe this pleasant visit of yours?"
"Your Majesty, as we speak, the Gorons are dancing to strange music in Goron City," he said.
"And I'm concerned about this because…"
"The music was Saria's Song," said Megaton. "It was coming into the city through the tunnel that leads into the forest. In order to travel such a distance, the song is surely being played on one of the three instruments, Your Majesty, so I thought the matter might be of concern to you."
"You're right," said Oswald. "It is; because in fact, the royal composers, Flat and Sharp, have gone missing."
"I think it confirms our suspicions that they were captured by the Shiekah," said Frederick. "They must be playing the song to call us to them. We have to act quickly, before the magic of the notes dies away. On average, that takes about an hour from the time the last note is played."
"I'll go into the forest with some Goron warriors," said Megaton. "Send some of your soldiers with me. If I lead them, we won't lose!"
"You sure are full of yourself," said Oswald. "But there's no doubting your abilities as a fighter. My intuition tells me that the Shiekah have captured Flat and Sharp because they want to take possession of the Ocarina of Time. If that's the case, the Shiekah commander Ishmael Bogarth may be there as well. We may not get another chance like this, so we need to send the best we've got."
"That's me!" roared Megaton.
"Yes," said King Oswald. "As a matter of fact, it is. Get ready for battle. Oh, and the ceiling is coming right out of your mining profits. Next time, use the door."
"Orca, there's about fifty humans gathered a little southeast of here," the Great Fairy said. "They're spread out through the forest, hiding."
"It's as I assumed," said Orca. "Ishmael is going all out tonight. Those men are waiting to make an attack on the castle."
"What can we do about it?" asked the Great Fairy.
"I'm going to take a gamble," said Orca. "Tonight may be our chance to chase the Shiekah off the face of the world. I need to make sure we win. So what I'm going do is come out of hiding and go to the king, so we can end this pointless violence for good."
"I can use magic to make you invisible for fifteen minutes," said the Great Fairy. "You can go down the road without those men seeing you if you're fast."
"Do it, then," he said.
And so she did. "Good luck," she said to him as he left.
Fifteen minutes. Orca ran as fast as he could the little over one and a half miles southeast to the castle and made it just as the spell wore off. He was becoming an old man, but he still had some energy left in him. "Who are you?" shouted a guard, coming up to him. He was bathed in the light of a lantern, and the guard gasped. "You're Orca!" he said.
"That's right," said Orca. "And I need to the see the king."
Cornelius was running, slogging through muddy petals and hurtling over bushes. The guide was coming after him. The guide had gone after Jean and there had been a muffled cry; but Cornelius had taken the flute from him before that, and the music was still playing—because, as Frederick had said, it would continue to play for as long as an hour after the final note was struck. Cornelius had to assume the worst about Jean, but he needed to protect himself now. As he ran, he made marks in the trees with a dagger so that he could find his way back to the theater—if he even survived.
Then, suddenly, the guide was in front of him. He just appeared there, as though he had been standing there the entire time and Cornelius hadn't seen him. No, it wasn't that. It was probably because the guide was fast, so fast that his movements couldn't be caught by the normal human eye.
Cornelius flipped into the air, narrowly dodging the swing of a sword.
The guide leapt at him, and he could only dodge by throwing himself sideways off the branch. He landed on his left shoulder, and felt a jolt of pain through his arm. The guide's sword cut the branch off of the tree and continued in its momentum, cutting through the tree itself and sending it to the mud as a useless piece of wood. That was no small tree, either.
The guide came back down. Cornelius gathered some mud and rocks in his hand and chucked them into the guide's face when he turned around. The guide stumbled backwards and Cornelius pounced on him, knocking him onto the ground; but he was overpowered easily and pinned onto his back. He felt the guide's arms wrap around his neck, and he was being strangled. There was nothing he could do to break free. He felt himself becoming dizzy and knew that he was about to die.
But he was saved. The guide was struck in the back by a yellow boulder hurtling through the trees. His hands came loose from Cornelius' neck as he was knocked backwards almost ten feet, where he was brought to a stop with a collision of his head and the trunk of a tree acting as the breaks. Megaton stopped rolling and stood up. "Hello," he said. "I seem to have lost my men. Who are you?"
"It's a good thing you got lost," said Cornelius. "You just saved me from certain death. My name's Cornelius. You're Megaton, the Goron chief, is that right?"
"That's right!" he bellowed. "Hey, what about that guy over there? Is he all right? Did I hurt him?"
"Yeah," said Cornelius. "But don't worry. He's one of the Shiekah. You came here because you heard Saria's Song, didn't you?"
"Yes! I've come to rescue Flat and Sharp, the royal composers."
"Well then," said Cornelius, standing up. He felt weak, but he was all right. "You see those marks in the trees?"
"Yes."
"Those will lead us where we want to be. Come on, let's go and end all this, so we can get back in time for dinner."
"I love dinner!" bellowed Megaton.
"That's the spirit," said Cornelius.
They heard something behind them. Cornelius spun around and saw that the guide was no longer where they'd left him. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "That man…"
"He's strong, is he?" asked Megaton. "He'd have to be, if he could get up after getting hit like that. You go on ahead. The other Gorons and the soldiers that I came with probably didn't get lost like I did and were able to find the Shiekah. Go join them. I don't want to hold you back here."
Cornelius ran back the way he had come, and Megaton stayed to face off against the guide. "Come out!" he roared. He saw movement to his left and spun to face in that direction. A brown cloak hit him in the face and fell on the ground. The guide had thrown it as a distraction. Megaton threw a wild punch in a random direction. It was a lucky guess. His fist almost hit the guide, who changed direction at the last moment and danced backwards. Megaton saw the movement. With the insane strength that he was famous for, he pounded the ground with the Megaton Hammer. It created a small crater and sent out a shockwave that knocked the guide off his feet. Megaton grabbed him before he hit the ground and gave him a hard punch in the face. The guide's body went limp. He was dead. "Darn," said Megaton. "I just meant to knock him out. Well, partner, you put up a good fight. It was fun. I'd like to match with you again in the afterlife, if we ever get the chance."
He slung the guide over his shoulder and followed the grooves in the trees.
The Gorons disabled Daron's bomb trap with ease, since there was nobody that was better with bombs than the Gorons—bomb flowers were their special crop, after all. They had followed the sound of the music and it had led them to a dead man on the ground who was lying very near the clearing. After the trap was removed, they stopped and waited in the trees until Megaton returned. "He got lost again," someone remarked. "What a brute."
Cornelius got there first. One of the Hylian soldiers heard him and drew a sword.
"I'm not one of them," said Cornelius. The soldier put the sword away. "You were a hostage of theirs?" he asked.
"Something like that," said Cornelius.
"Did you know that guy?" asked the soldier. He pointed at Jean. Cornelius followed his finger and saw the body of one of his oldest friends lying on the ground. But he couldn't make himself cry. "Yes," he managed to say. "I've…seen him before."
Then Megaton showed up. He went past them at incredible speed, splattering them with a spray of mud. He kept going and finally managed to bring himself to a stop and come back. "Sorry," he said. "Breaks don't work in mud."
"There's a stairway that leads down into a hidden theater just inside this clearing," said Cornelius. "The Shiekah are there. So are Flat and Sharp."
"Let's go in," said Megaton. And so they did.
"You're back!" said Ishmael, when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "What…" Then he stopped when he saw that the people on the stairway were not who he had expected. Without hesitation, he drew his dragon bone sword and rushed at them. Megaton stepped forward. "I'll fight you," he said. He swung his hammer at Ishmael. There was a harsh clang of metal as it confronted Ishmael's sword in midair. Ishmael swung in the other direction and Megaton curled up, shielding himself with the famous Goron back that was reputedly the only thing they didn't have in common with rocks—that was to say, a rock wasn't nearly as hard as a Goron's back. Ishmael's sword was deflected. Megaton leapt up and struck him with the hammer. At the last second Ishmael twisted his body so that the blow went to his arm. Every bone around his shoulder was destroyed and the force even carried through to crack his ribs. Almost screaming in pain, he moved past Megaton's left side and threw a Deku Nut that blinded everyone in the room. Some of the soldiers on the stairwell felt him pushing past them and tried to grab them, but he threw them off. Then, when they all regained their sight, he was gone.
None of the other Shiekah managed to escape. They were forced against the wall and their hands were tied behind their backs. "You are all under arrest," stated Captain Winston of the Hyrule Police Force, "For the following crimes: First degree manslaughter; mass destruction of public and federal property; for stealing from the royal treasury; and so on. We will interrogate each and every one of you and we have clearance to use torture if we find any discrepancies. You will each be put on trial before the Royal Court and you will have certain rights revoked due to the severity of the crimes you have committed. If there are any among you that are not part of the Shiekah organization or have been forced to partake in the enacting of these crimes against your will, speak now or you will be declared guilty of all aforementioned crimes and we will proceed as I have just described. Do any of you wish to speak?"
Nobody spoke.
"Good job, men," said Winston. "We've secured the safety of Flat and Sharp. I'll accompany the Hylian soldiers that will escort them back to Hyrule Castle. Megaton, would you like to go with your Gorons and look for Ishmael? I don't think he can get far from here with a broken arm and ribcage, and he'll have to leave tracks."
"Gladly," said Megaton. "Oh, by the way," he added. "I left a man outside at the spot where I crashed into a tree. He's one of these lot, but he fought and died honorably against me in battle. Whatever side he chose to fight for, there are few I've ever fought that were as strong as he. I'd like to request that he be given a proper burial. If there are any other casualties among them, I don't care what you do."
"We'll do that," said Winston.
"Thank you. I'll be on my way," said Megaton. "Come on, Gorons. Let's go after that bastard, Ishmael. He interrupted me before I could crush the rest of his bones."
Outside, Jean Drake was lifted onto a thick sheet of fabric to be carried back to the castle. Some other men went to take care of the guide. Cornelius went with them, interested to see what the man looked like. "He'll never hide his face from anyone again," said Winston, and he lifted the hood of the cloak.
Cornelius stood looking at the man's face for a long time.
It was Jean Drake's brother who had disappeared almost twenty years earlier. One day in the forest he had wandered off the path and never come back. Everyone thought the wolves had gotten him, but they never found a body. Finally, Cornelius turned away. "So it goes," he said.
The two brothers were buried next to each other in the Kakariko Village graveyard.
The Shiekan attack on the castle was a failure, thanks to Orca's information. All fifty of the men were washed out of hiding and arrested. Thus, the Shiekah were horribly defeated, for the time. Ishmael managed to evade Megaton and the Gorons and made it back to the Shadow Temple. There, he addressed the remaining twenty or so members of the Shiekah and told them they would be going into temporary retreat. They would make their new headquarters at the ancient temple in the desert wastelands. So, for the next twelve years, the Shiekah disappeared from society. The government never stopped searching for them, but all efforts were fruitless. And then, twelve years later, the witches Koume and Kotake were to come to the Shiekah and help them down the path of the glorious revolution they had always dreamed of…
