10

We stared at one another. She with sly, pleased purpose. I in mute, terror-bound astonishment.

I realized that it had begun to rain – delicately, almost shyly. A cool, quiet pattering on my hair and shoulders.

"Hello there, Hero. Once again, you look just a little too surprised to see me," the Iron Knuckle grinned. "I'm sure you're fun at surprise parties and Christmas, Olsen. Always blown away by the obvious."

The Nameless Woman slid closer, fingers trailing thin strokes through rainwater pooled atop the railing. As she moved, the silvery web woven across her gown jangled its own dissonant music. Slipping from light to shadow and then back again, her shining, bestial eyes flickered like distant embers. When she drew near, I could finally make out the outline of her broad cheekbones and boxy chin. Alchemic torches glinted off of bared teeth.

My bell. Just needed to reach inside my jacket and give it a quick jingle.

Oh, fuck. My bell!

I had never taken it back. Despite the party still swinging behind me, I was – for all intents and purposes – utterly alone. All except for the madwoman before me.

I was trembling. Painfully involuntary shivers vibrated through my chest and spine.

Run. Please. Turn and run, some part of me pleaded. Not the Other Me, I think. Some other creature – a small and brutalized fragment. Terror and fleshbound nightmares.

I could not move. I couldn't even take a step back to match the Iron Knuckle's advance. I simply stared, cold and damp and drunk and so full of fear that every cell felt paralyzed, as if struck dumb by the goddesses themselves.

The Iron Knuckle stopped a pace away from me. Small raindrops speckled the shoulders of her cloak and gown. Her burning eyes pulled every iota of my attention.

As I shook numbly, mute as a broken torture victim, she gave me a serious once-over. Scanned up and down, lingering on my slack face and the bandages mummifying my left arm. At last, the Iron Knuckle inhaled sharply through her nostrils and growled, "You smell like a fucking winery, Olsen. One of the bad ones."

Behind us, voices rose in jubilation. They were accompanied by applause and an exuberant crash of music.

I should have turned, then. Should have dashed back into the banquet hall and cried a warning. Done something – anything – to let the assembled aristocracy know that a wolf prowled just outside the fold.

And yet I remained. And yet I continued to gaze into the woman's eyes. And yet I stood my ground – if one could call it that. It didn't feel like bravery. Quite the opposite.

A fully formed image pummeled into my brain:

A scene from an anti-meat documentary a friend of Jade Egoyan had made me watch while extremely stoned. Thus, susceptible to suggestion. He thought it would drive me into instant veganism, but it simply gave me recurrent anxiety dreams involving weed and hamburgers. It had contained footage of a sheep rancher scratching a gauzy lamb behind the ears, stroking the back of its neck. The lamb, blowing out a pair of contented bleats and leaning its face into the rancher's side. The killing knife, handed to the rancher from off-screen. The lamb's throat, opened in spasming shower of red.

You've sidled up, Linus. You're leaning in. You're not being brave and stoic and stolid – all you're doing is showing her the best spot to slide in the blade.

Somehow, I managed to pronounce, "Whatever it is you're here to do, know that there are more fuckin' soldiers in this palace than any other building in Hyrule. Even if you take me out, you'll have to fight every single one of them afterward."

The sides of the Iron Knuckle's gown shook with stony laughter. She brought a gloved hand to her lips and giggled through her fingers. As her chuckles faded, she leaned into the railing and shot me a smile that was as far from reassuring as it possibly could be.

"Oh, do relax, Hero. It's not that kind of visit. I'm just here to enjoy some prime vino and soak in the scenery. I've never been to this part of Hyrule, you know. It's nice."

Up this close, the Iron Knuckle exuded a curious odor – something like overheated copper and dried rose petals. I found some petty slice of relief in the fact that she wasn't wearing her armor, because I wouldn't have to endure its vile, quasi-electric hum.

Still, the woman's proximity undeniably made the hair on the back of my arms try to stand on end. Even outside the massive armor of her calling, she gave the unnerving impression of taking up much more space than was commensurate with her actual size. There was a kind of gravitational pull about the woman. Even though she stood several feet away, I felt as if I was being aggressively crowded.

"You know, it really has been a nice little soiree, don't you think?" the Nameless Woman smiled, showing off the full gleam of her dagger-like canines. She lolled upon the railing as if she were shooting the shit with a buddy she hadn't seen since high school. "Of course, I had to skip the dinner. Someone probably would have made me if I sat still for more than a few minutes. Still, those appetizers? Fucking hell, man. You've got a sweet gig here. You know that, right?"

As fatuous as she was Nameless.

. . . No. Not Nameless. Not really. I swept desperately through the wine-befouled depths of my brain, grasping at the name I knew I had heard – though only in passing, and within a purgatory of agonized horror.

"It's Mayda, isn't it?" I ventured. An insignificant sally.

The Iron Knuckle tilted her face to the side, eyes like backlit jewels. A genuinely pleased smile pulled at the edges of her mouth.

"Good ear," she rasped. "Mayda Keana. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

She extended a gloved hand. I did not take it.

I said, "I really wish that I could say the same."

"I understand the sentiment, Linus. But give me a little credit here."

"Fuck you," I growled.

"Fair enough," Mayda said, withdrawing her hand.

The rain was not making a fuss of it, apparently. Just coming and going as it pleased, never insistent in its arrival. It made almost dainty sounds as it sprinkled across the Iron Knuckle's cowl. Glassy beads of water rolled down the chains arrayed about her gown.

"Ye gods, man. You don't have to look so fucking . . . frightened. I'm not the boogieman. Or boogiewoman, for that matter."

"There are a lot of reasons why I'd beg to differ," I murmured. My hand slid wetly over the rail as I finally – finally – was able to take a step backward. "And unless you have a real short fuckin' memory, you do too."

The giggles she produced sounded like a hybrid of "teenage girl" and "playful tiger." It took some obvious effort on her part to tamp the outburst down. With a cough and a sputter, Mayda finally exhaled, "Okay, enough of that. To business. While the party is a big bonus, I really came out here to tell you something."

There came into her tone a seriousness so uncharacteristic that it made me queasy.

"Now. Linus." She pressed her palms together and gestured toward me with them. "You have to know how goddamn sorry I am for what happened at Kerneghi. I get . . . I get carried away sometimes. It's a failing, I know, and I'm afraid it's not going to be one of those things that I ever really get over."

". . . What?" I managed.

"I'm apologizing for fucking up your arm, you doofus." Mayda beamed magnanimously. "I really am sorry for that."

I considered this. It didn't actually compute with me, really. I spent a few moment's silence wondering if she was making of fun of me. Then it finally clicked – she actually meant it. There was no guile on her face.

"Huh!" I ejected. "Huh. Wow."

We stood there, looking one upon the other, invaded by a sudden and awkward silence. I fidgeted.

Mayda apparently dealt with awkwardness in the way she did with battle. She barreled forth with, "Like my dress?"

Finding myself staring at sweep of bodice below swaying chains, I was suddenly both elated and terrified by my drunkenness. "It's weird," I said.

The Iron Knuckle stuck out her lower lip in a jocular mock-pout. "Really? I made it myself, you know. This may knock your ass off, but I don't get many opportunities to be properly girly these days."

"Double-weird, then." I glanced at the dark woman doubtfully. "You don't look bad in it, though. Or would, if it didn't bring to mind . . ."

". . . A certain ugliness. Yes. I'm sure you'll keep reminding me of that."

"And why shouldn't I?" I spat.

"I did apologize. Should I say it again?"

I slurred, "You're actin' like you tagged me in the nuts during paintball or somethin'. I almost died, goddamnit!"

More than a bit petulantly: "Said I was sorry."

We each grimaced.

"You know," I said tentatively, "I remember you being taller."

"It's the suit, man. Puts on some altitude." She smirked. "Better than six-inch heels any day. Quite a job perk."

"Sure. Too bad the guy you work for is a bit of a cockmaster."

"He's more than just a 'guy,' Linus," the Iron Knuckle said. Dreamily, she whispered, "Much more. Lord Ganon is power incarnate. His hatred has shaped this world. A truly knowledgeable, able, and determined opponent. And believe me, he is obsessed with you."

Her tone suddenly went soft and ruminative. With a sniff, Mayda said, "He saved me from prison, you know. Scooped me up like an avenging angel and gave me my freedom."

There was a breath of silence between us. When she didn't say anything else – just continued to look at me as if she were admiring a particularly rich cut of meat – I growled, "Oh. What. A. Shock. What were you in for? Something fucking heinous, no doubt."

That triumphant grin trembled for a moment, then faltered. It didn't leave entirely – but what I saw now was more measured. Soured. Unpleasant.

Mayda finally said, "Killing my father."

That hung in the air, lingering like some toxic cloudlet migrating through the night.

Before I could get in a single word, she added, "And that's all the more I want to talk about that. You can ask me anything else you want tonight, but nothing about that. It's off-limits."

I blinked. "I. Um. Really?"

"Seriously. Ask me anything."

"That's – I mean. Q and fucking A? That's what you're here for?"

"Yes, yes. Strange as it may seem, I did come here to have a conversation. And given that you're still at the disadvantage vis-à-vis what's really going on, I figured you might want the opportunity to pick my brain a bit."

Mayda snarled, "If that's not okay – hey, no skin off my back. I'll fuck off and you can go back to stumbling around this shindig like a bargain-basement Hunter S. Thompson." Then, almost in an aside to the night itself, "This is what I get. So much for the concept of gratitude."

"A conversation. You. And me. Just shooting the shit."

"Chewin' the fat."

"Just chillin'." I huffed a deep breath through my nostrils. "Yeah, no. No. Bullshit. This is a ruse, isn't it?"

"What? You don't trust me?"

I groaned, "Please do not tell me that you actually just asked that."

"Come on, man. Give me a break. I get the attitude – really, I do – but you should be fucking giddy. Here I am, offering you a window into the inner workings of this whole crazy mess. I can't promise I'll tell you everything, but I'll definitely give it some thought. What do you have to lose?"

"Another arm, if this turns out to be a trick," I grumbled.

"Sorry, really. Truly, deeply. Mea motherfucking culpa." Mayda wagged a finger with mock remonstration. "But you better get to asking before I get bored."

"Okay," I breathed. "Oh . . . kay. Okay okay okay." I thought – or at least tried to think – as hard as I could. Lit up like I was, it was an ungainly, unpleasant exercise. Somewhat like navigating a dark hallway during an earthquake. It didn't help that every one of my animal instincts was howling for me to escape.

I went immediately for a dangling issue that had bothered me ever since I had woken in Harkinian Keep: "What the hell were you doing at Jeff's place when we first met? How did you get to Earth from Hyrule?"

She adopted a pleased expression. "Well, as per the first question – and you're not gonna believe this – I was invited to that party."

"By who?"

"Oh, a friend of a friend," she said slyly. "You wouldn't know him. As for the second item, well . . . let's just say there are multiple methods we use to pass back home. For what I hope are obvious reasons, I can't tell you any of 'em." She seemed to reconsider. "Well – haha. Perhaps there is one way. The one that's completely useless to you."

I cocked my head, confused.

"You see, Armos? He can will himself and nearby objects to pass through the barrier between the worlds. Each jump can be consciously planned to land at any location Armos can clearly remember. If he alternates jumps quickly, it acts as a sort of shake-and-bake teleportation."

"You're telling me that the fucking Bishop can step from here to Earth and back again whenever he wants?"

"Yep."

Even though it made sense given what I had seen, I still shook my head and guttered, "No. That's . . . How can he even do that?"

"All of the Council have received gifts from Ganon, Linus. A unique blessing bestowed upon us in celebration of our service. Armos's gift is perhaps the strangest. He's certainly the strangest." Mayda gazed out into the rain-speckled shadows, looking wistful and a bit bemused. "Though Stalfos can give him a run for his money, sometimes. Creepy fucker.

"Also, good on you for making the whole 'Bishop' connection." She wrinkled her nose and sneered, "Frankly, that degenerate bothers me intensely. He's probably the most fervent of Ganon's followers, but there's something so goddamn indecent about running with an honest-to-God serial killer. Especially since he has this fucked-up thing with women."

Across the courtyard, a lantern wove ghostlike through the dark. Attached to it was a man in servant's attire, smiling dopily and chuckling with every third or fourth uncertain step. He tottered over the flagstones as if he were navigating a ship chopping through rough breakers. A fellow far deeper in the bag than even I was, Farore help him.

Stupidly, I let my eyes leave Mayda and trace the route of this strange pilgrim. In the ensuing quiet, I more than halfway felt compelled to call out to him. Run! Get help! Alert the guards! Bring in the whole fucking First Legion!

The Iron Knuckle's voice was a neatly honed hiss: "Don't you dare, Linus. This is our conversation. Just us. Just you and me and a nice autumn night."

The nameless attendant waddled and swerved and made just barely perceptible noises of blotto self-enjoyment. Scarcely aware of the tiles below his feet, much less the two people staring at him from across the lawn. I watched him disappear through a side door and back into the twisting bowels of the palace.

I shivered with an uncontrollable chill. The night brooded about us. The broken lines of rain slicing through the lamplight felt suddenly malicious.

"Where were we?" I murmured. I let loose a hoarse, anemic chuckle.

Mayda said, "Me and the party?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's stabbing in the right direction . . . but come on, Linus. You must have better than that. That's just trivia. Why not ask something about the Council? About Ganon or the Protectorate or the war effort?"

"Okay. Okay." I wondered if there was a time limit to this. Some built-in trick she would use to justify pouncing on me like an attack dog.

"If you really can step back and forth between Hyrule and Earth, why don't you just bring a bunch of guns over here? Nothing fancy, even – just a few machine guns, maybe a rocket launcher or two. There's nothing like that here. You'd win the war easy."

"You don't think we didn't try that?" she scoffed. "Of course we tried that! It's too bad they didn't work when they got here."

"Huh?"

"Eh . . . I'm not really the one to go into details on that one, amigo," Mayda admitted, shrugging. "Kenji is our science guy. Or alchemy guy, while he's over here. And you may have noticed that he doesn't talk much.

"From what I can understand, basic physics and chemistry are different in Hyrule. Universal constants that we take for granted on Earth are just slightly twisted here. For instance, all the ingredients for gunpowder are freely available – they just don't do the same things. Mix 'em together and all you get is stinking dirt."

"Bullshit," I chuffed. "I've seen bombs go off here."

"Hand to God!" Mayda insisted, eyes wide and earnest. "Trust me, I was as incredulous as you."

"Go on," I said.

She continued, "Turns out Hyrule's bombs are just more weird alchemy shit. Some sort of goo that bursts into flame when it meets oxygen. Adapt it properly – something the Guild Volcanum thinks no one else can do, the schmucks – and you can turn it into a one hell of an explosive. Just not one you can adapt into a firearm, unless you really like picking half-dissolved iron shrapnel out of your guts.

"But here's the thing: it works both ways. Magic doesn't function on Earth. Take that delightful potion that kept you alive in the gorge. You know how much of a fucking fortune we would make if we packed up a crate of the Red and schlepped it back to California? Pfizer would be eating out of our hands." It was Mayda's turn to recede momentarily into her thoughts. "Of course, not many of us give much of a shit about money anymore. I sure don't."

She blew a perturbed raspberry and absently wiped a raindrop from the tip of her nose.

"Point is, it wouldn't work. The Red's just oily sludge back in ol' L.A. Other stuff too. My kickass armor, for instance, is more or less useless over there. Well – for the most part. There are exceptions, but we haven't figured out any way to make them consistent."

Mayda disengaged from the railing and began to take long, measured strides out over the veranda. I watched her with a sense of rising, nervous, hot-bellied fear. She moved like a big cat cooped up in a zoo enclosure.

"So yeah," Mayda said, "we tried guns. And computers, shortwave radios, and even an old Gameboy loaded with Link's Awakening for maximum ironic hilarity. Nothing worked. It's just," she made a face like she'd just found a really interesting beetle in her cornflakes, "weird here. Stay here long enough and it'll eventually sink in. The moon . . . the stars . . . the goddamn sunlight is different.

"But really? Do you honestly think we need guns to win this war? You saw what we have to work with at Kerneghi. What's a few Glocks compared to an armogohma?"

Having reached the end of her invisible enclosure, Mayda pivoted and began her circuit again. She flashed me a sharp, conspiratorial grin and a lightly glowing wink.

"And what the hell is the fun of using a cannon when you can kill someone up close and personal? I can't say that I've ever wounded anyone with a firearm – much less killed them – but I submit that the sensation has to be some weak shit compared to the pleasures of the axe and sword. You don't feel that bone-deep vibration that runs up your weapon when it lands. None of the heat and stink and sound – but God, the sounds! – of a good in-your-face fight. Use a gun and I bet you never even hear what noise muscle makes when it tears open. The snap of bones shattering. Or that gushy little hiss when an artery is severed."

The Iron Knuckle regarded me somberly, eyes aflame.

"Seriously. Who the hell would want that?"

A staccato splash of laughter emanated from the open ballroom doors. Drums thrummed out a playfully. Mayda's rhetorical question hung between on us on quicksilver filaments of rain.

"And you say you have a problem with the Bishop? Jesus Christ on a cracker."

"C'mon. He's different. Armos butchers innocents, and gets off on doing it. I bring the sword only to those worthy of it."

"S'all the same to me," I said. "Same violence. The same pointless killing. Same bullshit all around."

Mayda clucked her tongue and said, "You make it sound so unseemly, Hero. Like we're opening a crooked used car lot." She sighed and stretched hands over her head, fingers laced together. "But no more of that judgy, quasi-philosophical crap for tonight, please? Next question."

"Fine." Once more, I went with the first thing that popped into my skull. I asked, "How is it you can move so fast while you're wearing all that armor?"

"Well, this may have gotten lost in all the, uh, craziness of the last time we met, but you may have noticed that my armor's not exactly a suit you can just pick up at the local blacksmith's place."

"Obviously."

"Well, right. It's special. The armor was my gift from Ganon, given to me when I bowed before him and pledged him my service. That, and reflexes – the war-sense – necessary to use it."

"How's that?"

Every tooth Mayda showed incrementally deepened my sense of dread. "There's a sort of . . . awareness to it. I see the world differently. Every single moment I experience seems to swim separately from the others."

My mouth twisted with befuddlement. "What does that mean?"

"Oh – it's difficult to describe. It's a different sort of perception than the one I had before my blessing. In a way, I can almost parcel out blocks of time and look hard – real hard – at each of them in detail."

"That sounds . . . well, not to piss you off or anything, but that sounds like you're just deeply, deeply stoned."

"Perhaps," Mayda laughed. "Though – and correct me if I'm wrong, because it's been a long while since I smoked the chiba – not many people have such total mastery of their environments while toasted. None could do the things I can do.

"No – this is different. Even as it parts time, it also makes it flow back together. Connections become so apparent. Weak points rendered utterly obvious. In battle, it's as if I dance through a galaxy of calculations and nebulae of possibility. The last, tiny part of me that remembers how I used to see and smell and feel holds all of that in complete awe. It's beautiful."

For this insane evocation, I had no reply.

"So," the Iron Knuckle sighed, "it's really not like being high at all."

She leaned forward with a sandpaper purr. "And you would know, wouldn't you, Linus? A proper little stoner, you are. If the reports are accurate, you spent the entire weekend after you retrieved the Master Sword marinating in reefer. Pulled a smoky cover over the entire world so you wouldn't have to face the inevitable."

An arctic stiffness shuddered through my muscles. My gorge whipped and churned.

"Yessir, you treated the whole affair with a kind of silly utilitarianism, as I recall. Just hid the sword away and set to getting as baked as possible while watching movies."

Sweet Jesus.

"Robocop, was it? Yes, I remember that. It stuck out in my head."

"How the fuck do you know about that?" I suddenly snarled.

Something coy and playful stole into Mayda's expression. It frolicked at the edges of her lips.

The Iron Knuckle softly said, "Don't you know? You must have a few suspicions. There are many ways to maintain surveillance on a person. All sorts of directional microphones and high-zoom lenses."

For a time, I had almost let the casual tone of our private chat lull me into a sense of normalcy. Despite its hideous origin, it had begun to develop a kind of tense bonhomie – the snappy back-and-forth of new acquaintances testing boundaries.

But now all bets were off. I found myself quivering with a thick, odious mélange of anger, wet cold, and rapidly snowballing fear.

Mayda sidled up against the garden rail with a lazy, languorous flop. "You look upset, Linus. Are you upset?"

I launched into sudden motion, matching Mayda's earlier movement. Boots squelched over wet stone. Mayda watched me with amused patience.

"Of course I'm upset!" I barked. "You admit that you and your fucking buddies –"

"No buddies of mine," she said laconically.

"– were watching me? Tracking me? Peeking on me while I was in the shower? Taking a shit?!" I made an ineffectual flailing motion. "Pretty sure I jerked off in the bathroom that weekend, Mayda. You have a video of that?"

"Christ, I hope not."

"Fuck you. Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!" I gibbered.

"Hey now. I'm all for such talk on the battlefield. But this is a respectable establishment," Mayda chuckled. "Besides . . ."

She arched her back, gown flowing behind her the same way her cape had moved during our ill-fated duel. Pendants and tiny chain-link clinked and jangled as Mayda rose from her measured slouch.

"Best keep it down, Hero, or you'll wake the neighbors," the Iron Knuckle purred. She glanced back at the doors leading into the banquet. "And then I really don't know what I'd do."

I spasmed about so abruptly that a lion's roar of pain erupted from my arm. The sensation propelled me forth in a dwarfish charge, index finger jutting like a fencing foil. Mayda made no attempt to tamp down her gleeful mirth.

"You come here and you act all casual about murdering dozens of people? Tell me that your boss treated me like a rat in a cage and then act like it's no big deal? Threaten my friends? And yet you expect me to just let this shit go?!" I spat. "You must be insane. You are insane, you you – you bitch you fucking bi –"

Truth be told, I still wasn't used to the largely treadless Hylian dress boots. Stylish; great comfort; but not terribly recommended for mountain climbing. Or polished wet tiles, for that matter.

At that moment, my inexperience with them undid me. Before I could finish the next syllable, my right foot was suddenly sluicing out in front of me much faster than the left. The boot swept upward, carrying all my miscalculated momentum behind it as if on a tether. I didn't even have time to properly realize that I was about to slip and fall ass over tea kettle.

[Just fucking super, Linus.]

The careening night was overtaken by a kaleidoscope of blood and moonlight. A whispery slash of metal and silk. Steel wrapped in velvet took hold of my shoulders. The plummet ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Mayda Keana propped me back up with a touch that was gentle, but exuded almost Herculean restraint. Her arm muscles seemed to ripple with the effort of not being used. She flashed me an almost demure smile and stepped back with arms crossed. I gazed at her as she retreated, body still incandescent with misfired rage.

"You really are shitfaced, aren't you?" Mayda said quietly.

I said nothing, but my treasonous body's continued sway did all the talking necessary.

"Just like when we first met, huh?" Mayda said. "It's enough to make me nostalgic! If one can get nostalgic about something that happened a month ago."

Her eyes smoldered. "You really need do need to calm your drunk ass down, Linus. I won't be able to help myself if things get out of hand."

"You're a fucking psychopath."

She shrugged. "Sociopath, actually. Well – I was never diagnosed. But I've suspected it for a long time. That or something like it."

I stared, seething, all but steaming in the pallid half-drizzle. Amid the damp grass and clean, sharp scent of rain on bare stone, I detected a whiff of branna smoke. Someone out amid the dark galleries, lighting up in contemplative solitude? A ring of noblemen or servants, passing a pipe between clouds of inebriated conversation?

The lamps hissed and popped as raindrops struck their sides.

"Enough," I exhaled. "Just – done. I'm done. You may be getting off on this, but I'm less than fucking happy about it. Unless this conversation," (pronounced, to the Inner Me's wince, cawverzayshun), "ends with you takin' me back to L.A., I'm through with you. Fuck off."

It was not without a barrel's worth of nerves that I turned on my heel and began marching away from her. My spine and ankles tingled with nascent terror.

"Maybe the Bishop's right about you."

I halted, just now cognizant of how furiously my heart was crashing against my ribs.

"Maybe you really are just some burnout. Yet another guy in his twenties who couldn't hack it once he stepped outside the walls of Mom and Dad's house."

I forced myself to pivot back to face her. Lifeless white lamplight haloed the Iron Knuckle like a blood-dim apparition. She regarded me half-lidded from within her gossamer helm, expression somewhere between concern and distaste.

"Just one more broken child hiding in the skin of a man. A coward and a disappointment, even to himself," Mayda said.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I asked weakly. At that moment, it seemed as if all energy were draining from me, wicked away by rain and every verbal jab the Iron Knuckle deployed. I felt dull and dim and somehow boneless. A human jellyfish, floating alone in a cold and endless benthic twilight.

"Linus, you better tighten up or I'm going to start believing you're just as thick as the Bishop thinks you are. The man really does talk shit about you incessantly," Mayda tutted. "You already asked me that, and I already gave you my honest answer."

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back to the sky, smiling warmly, rapturously. "You're the Link. The Hero. The savior of the Hylian people, foretold in songs and legend. You're the only one who can square down with Ganon."

Miserably, I thought: Am I the Link? Could I possibly be that mythical creature, chained by Fate and headed toward some incomprehensibly violent destiny? Absurd.

I fought dual urges – bound fast together like conjoined twins – to howl in rage and burst into helpless tears.

Mayda stepped toward me, palms outstretched. Placating, pleading, supplicating, supporting. An odious incongruity.

"Listen – I get it. I know this sounds like horseshit coming from me, of all people, but I do get it. Despite all the pomp and ceremony and great food and women just lining up to jump into bed with you, this is a fairly shit hand you've been dealt. Last month, all you were probably worrying about was whether you'd have enough left over from paying the rent to sock some away for a new computer. Now, this place – this fucking place, man! – has put the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. You're hurt and tired and probably still confused as shit.

"That's where I fucked up the worst, really," she sighed. "Back in the gorge, I mean. Gettin' all in a tizzy because you broke down when you did. I forgot how hard the transition can be. It's easy, four years on, to forget how jarring it is just to exist here.

"Me? One minute, I was lying in my cell, reading some junk paperback romance I'd pulled off the library cart at random that afternoon. Then out of fuckin' nowhere my parasite of a half-brother is standing there, all teeth and elbows. Just another nightmare after drifting off, I thought. And then, with no warning whatsoever, I'm on my ass on top of the Foundry, hot wind and cinders blowing through my hair."

Mayda inhaled sharply. Her eyes blazed. "On my ass, staring up at the G-Man, in the flesh. On my ass and listening to a proposal from the goddamn devil himself."

"Foundry?" I burbled.

"Quiet," she chided. "I'm monologuing. Give a proper villain her moment, okay?" Mayda dipped her head in a manner that was damned near coquettish. Seeming to recompose herself, she said, "Point is, I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I understand you need time to digest all this."

It wasn't until I smelled dead flowers and overclocked wiring that I realized how close Mayda had come. A red-wrapped finger shot out and jabbed me in the chest, just below my rain-limp cravat.

Mayda grinned, "And even more to the point: You are the Hero, Linus. I told you that at Kerneghi, and hand to God, it is not a lie. You may be a shambles right now, but I've seen you at your best. Yeah, you're a bit of a putz sometimes. But scratch off that top layer of self-pity and mopey navel-gazing, and it turns out there's so much more to you. So much anger. So much determination."

I blinked uncertainly and said, "These're some pretty heavy mixed signals, y'know."

Mayda screwed up her features and shrugged with full-on Whaddyagonnado? gravitas. She chattered, "Hey, I've never been great with other people. When I'm not in the ring with 'em, that is. This is, like, seriously heady emotional shit for me."

"Noted, I guess."

"Now," she clapped her gloves together with a brawny whap. "You cool? We cool?"

"I wouldn't call it that," I said. "But if you want me to stick around, I will. If it means that much to you."

Mayda nodded excitedly. "Yes. Definitely! We've got some time yet, and so far as I can tell, you've yet to ask the most important question of all."

"And what's that?"

She smirked, "What is the relationship between Hyrule and Earth? How are the two worlds connected so that people – even just a select few – are able to travel between them? How is it that Earth knows almost everything about Hyrule, but Hyrule knows next to nothing about Earth?"

I frowned, wondering why I hadn't just sprinted for safety when I had the chance. The hooded woman gaze at me intently, as if she expected me to actually answer.

I didn't so much say as ooze, "I have no fucking idea."

"Well, sure," Mayda said. She began sashaying farther down the veranda, away from the banquet hall. There was a playful little spring in her step. Did she expect me to follow? "But don't you have any ideas? Theories? Hypotheses?"

I reached up and ran my fingers through my gelid hair, squeegeeing water out between my fingers. Cool rivulets ran down the back of my neck. "Sure. I've thought about it, from time to time. But you should know that I've been a bit busy for that kind of thing."

I actually had to scurry after her to keep up with the conversation. Mayda said, "Fine enough. But doesn't the incongruity of this world ever just stop you dead in your tracks?"

"Mayda, there are cats the size of greyhounds and talking sharks here. Of course it gets to me! I have to stop and fuggin', I dunno, reboot at least once a day or I shut down."

"Not really what I'm talking about," she breathed, pausing in her constitutional. When the Iron Knuckle looked back over her shoulder, only her irises shone catlike in the depths of her red cowl. "You can go to Mexico for a bit of culture shock. What I'm referring to runs a lot deeper. It's not just the societal shit. It's the familiarity, man! The similarities to –"

"The video games," I finished.

A sickle-moon of teeth appeared below the burning amber of her eyes. "Exactly! This is Hyrule, Linus. The same place you and I 'visited' back when we were kids, more or less. Right on down to the names and faces!"

"Please. I've already gone over this a thousand times in my head since I got here. It almost drove me crazy. Literally. You saw how close I came to going straight bugfuck from it. There's no real answer. So don't even bother."

"What if there was, though?"

"An answer?"

"Yes," Mayda said sagely. "There's always an answer. Sometimes it's just harder to reach."

"I'm guessing all this dramatic buildup means that you have an answer, then."

"I may," she said smugly.

"Then out with it."

Mayda laced her fingers together and squeezed, producing a gut-jabbing series of knuckle-cracks. She waggled her eyebrows provocatively.

The woman in red stated, "It's clear that the two worlds are of separate and discrete realities, yes?"

"Am I supposed to answer that?" I asked tiredly.

"No. Shoosh. Bad guy diatribe!" Mayda seemed to double back and mull her next words. "Earth and Hyrule – or whatever we call the planet, solar system, et cetera surrounding Hyrule – occupy two distinct physical and existential spaces. The differences between the two seem to defy rational thought – so far as physics, chemistry, and biology go. Constants that are ironclad on Earth are either tweaked or completely different in Hyrule."

Mayda swept past me, talking with her hands as she said, "Not only do these differences make no earthly sense, Hyrule resembles a common cultural product from Earth – so much so that individual people depicted in that product exist here. Not only do they exist here, they exist now, at the moment that you and I exist here."

Weakly, I attempted, "Coincidence?"

The Iron Knuckle heaved a chuckle like razors on rocks. "Once is a coincidence, Hero. Twice and things get fishy. But this is an entire world of coincidences, amigo. So many analogues in people, places, and occurrences that I spent the first few months here half-certain that I'd finally given up on waiting for parole and retreated into my own skull for the duration."

"Now that I can relate with."

"My point is that Hyrule is utterly reflective of an aspect of our home place and time – and yet it displays none of the opposite. It feels like a reality dictated by a weird, plastic version of Fate," she said, giving me a wide brimstone stare. "Or maybe by design."

While the sentiment was one that I had puzzled over more than a few times myself, hearing someone else say it out loud sent a numbing pulse through my bones. "Mayda, please do not tell me that we're plugged into the fuckin' Matrix."

The Iron Knuckle cackled delightedly. "Hahaha noooo. No. Haha. I assure you that our real bodies are not hooked up to some giant, post-apocalyptic Super Nintendo. Heh."

She continued her restless stroll up and down the veranda, with me shuffling behind her like an overworked personal assistant hot on the trail of an imperious executive. "Then again," she mused, "that may be entirely the wrong way to look at it. Take the opposite tack: the relationship between this reality, universe, whatever, and the video games on Earth. Perhaps the angle of Fate and prophecy are inverted, yes?"

"Less word wank, please."

She stretched out her burly arms and swept them over the courtyard, the palace, all things and fellows. "Hyrule and Earth exist simultaneously, on an equivalent timescale. Remember: we of the Inner Council can make the trip back and forth between the worlds with only the slightest trouble. Even though they are very different places with very different flavors, they are equally 'real,' in the practical sense.

"Thus, Hyrule must have existed before this point in time, congruous with Earth. Perhaps even side by side, in some way that I'm sure only a quantum physicist could explain."

"A parallel universe?"

"Sure. Maybe. Perhaps so parallel that one exists in the other's shadow, so to speak. Or even each to the other." She ceased pacing and showed me her canines. "And the thing about shadows? They exert influence, of a sort. If Earth lies in Hyrule's shadow so closely that we can step between the two as if through a hallway, who's to say what else has crossed between? What if impressions of this place have wafted over there like the smell of a neighbor's cooking? What if some essence of Hyrule made its way over the universal divide? Perhaps in the dreams of a certain mop-haired game designer?"

"So you're implying that Hyrule pre-dates The Legend of Zelda? That this place somehow – what – influenced the games' creation?"

"Who's to say?" she said wistfully.

"I'd like an answer that isn't also a goddamn riddle for once."

Without even pretending to answer my question, Mayda jabbed a hand beneath the folds of her sanguinary cloak. With a swiftness that reminded me of Zelda's many ingenious hidden pockets, the Iron Knuckle withdrew an argent disc attached to a length of chain so fine it looked like spider's silk. She pressed a thumb against the top of the object, clicking open a previously indiscernible lid. Whatever she saw inside the disc caused her eyes to narrow and her lips to draw down into an irritable comma.

"The fuck is that?"

"A watch." She snapped the instrument shut. Her eyes flitted my way. "Oh, don't look so incredulous, Hero. Even the Inner Council has a schedule to keep. Point of fact, our dance cards are even more stringently managed than most.

"Speaking of which: this has been fun and all, but I have to bounce soon. Places to go, people to bleed. So. One last thing, Hero."

Suddenly she was strutting my way, the intense dark-star pull of her presence all but unbearable. Mayda leaned in toward me, a gesture made all the more brash by the fact that she was, in fact, shorter than I was.

In a voice like pyre smoke, she said, "Do you want to know a sweet, sweet secret?"

The Iron Knuckle pressed so close that her lips grazed the outer edge of my ear. I smelled funeral parlor bouquets.

"There is a traitor here," she whispered joyfully. "Right here, right now, in this very palace. One who has sold all of Hyrule to Ganon in exchange for . . . well, that would ruin the surprise. But rest assured, Linus – you are betrayed."

I looked into her eyes, shaking. I breathed in smells of damp and alchemic fire. "Who?" I managed.

"All you need to know is that we are always five moves ahead of you. Every decision made in this palace is known to us quickly and efficiently. Our mole is quite the clever operator. If you ever manage to figure out his or her identity, I'll eat my own shoes."

As Mayda receded, I looked at her with a sense of revulsion mixed liberally with an uncanny admiration of her utter ballsiness. Gone was my desire to run from the woman while sobbing – if anything, I realized that I was disappointed that she was apparently about to leave. The sensations knotted together deep in my chest, tight and hot and aggressively strange.

I blurted, "If I killed you right here and now, it would save me a lot of trouble, wouldn't it?"

How disturbing it was to watch someone's eyes literally light up with excitement. "Please, try! I would love to see you try!" the Iron Knuckle shuddered, voice gnarled and breathless. She began taking sideways steps, pulling her out toward the rows of lamps.

"I didn't . . . I mean I . . ." I blinked and flapped my jaw and realized that I was done walking things back. My hand dropped and hovered as if in blank magnetic attraction over the sheath attached to my hip. I took a step in concert with Mayda.

"You're not in armor," I murmured. "You don't have backup. You're alone. Maybe this time I can take you."

A microburst of lupine chuckles followed the Iron Knuckle's path. "You think so, Hero?" she purled. "I may be alone and unarmed, but you're drunk as an Irish uncle and only have one hand. I like your moxy, but you might want to rethink this."

My boots made sleek sounds as they propelled me over the veranda. My finger brushed cool, unyielding metal. I said, "If I kill you, how many people get to keep on living? How many . . . how many more soldiers get to go home to their families after all is said and done?"

We moved in tandem. Each step matched. Every slippery stride mirrored in the other, deliberate as cogs and clockwork. Each traced a circle with the other as its focal point. Prelude to showdown.

"Sweet Christmas, you really have a mad-on for me, don't you?" Mayda grinned. "Why, I'm flattered. Are you having nightmares, Linus? When you close your eyes at night, do you dream of me?"

I swallowed, throat like the Mojave. "Sometimes," I said.

Her elated grin shrunk, changed shape, became something that felt completely alien to our current death-dance. "You probably have a touch of PTSD, truth be told. Really, I'm surprised at how well you're doing. People turn into spineless blobs for much less than what you went through."

Only later did I recognize her expression as sympathy.

"Don't care," I drawled. "This is sick. This is obscene. If I can end it now . . ."

Not unkindly, "You can't win, Hero. Not tonight."

"Even if it's a mistake . . . I gotta do something," I said. "I gotta try."

Abruptly, Mayda ended our circle chase. She jerked to a stop, gown swishing and chains tinkling with dread festiveness. From within her hood, I could just see the manic upwelling of joy upon her face. "Well well well! I knew I backed the right horse! Now this . . . this is good warm-up. Anyone ever tell you you're good at setting the mood, Hero?"

"Wait – what?"

The Iron Knuckle showed me her gloved hands, fingers flexing into fists as she declared, "I may have lied a bit when I said I had just dropped by to talk. For what it's worth – not much, I suspect – I'm sorry about that, too."

That greasy, confused ball of respect and repulsion evaporated. In its place yawned a glacial pit. Horror gleamed in its depths.

Mayda said, "See, the Inner Council liked the idea of this shindig so much that we decided to throw a party of our own."

She extended a finger and pointed at the billowing orange flow pouring through the open doors of the ballroom. As if from a parallel dream, energetic strings and drumbeats sifted into the cold night. "Much of this country continues to labor under the ridiculous delusion that it isn't really fighting for its survival. Especially these pampered idiots – these supposedly powerful few."

"No," I whimpered.

Raising her voice into a volcanic roar, the Iron Knuckle cried, "It's time that these foolish creatures discover what it truly means to be at war! I think that even these dainty aristocrats should know fear and desperation." She shot out a fist and pumped it in unbridled, unhinged excitement. "Tonight is the night of a thousand flames, Linus. You've already popped the cork on the champagne. Now, we just need the fireworks."

Fear like a typhoon, overwhelming and unstoppable. My eyes spun, searching for some kind of meaning or purchase. Through my head screamed a dozen different directives, smashing my stupid, single-minded, earlier bravery into matchsticks.

"Well . . ." Mayda crooned, ". . . if I read that clock right, it should be starting soon. Right . . . about . . ."

There was a distant roar, pressing itself against the sky. A concussion that thrummed and echoed and shook the otherwise solid ground beneath my feet.

"NOW!" the Iron Knuckle cried out in triumph.

Outside the palace walls, there rose wails of fear and astonishment.

"What the hell was that?" I shouted.

Mayda winked. The expression left a greasy, revolted sensation in my guts. She breathlessly said, "Oh, that would be the opening bell, Linus. The starting gun. The first salvo in what we hope to be a long campaign of joyous destruction. Welcome to the real party."

Inside the banquet hall, the blithely joyful music had come to an abrupt halt. Anxious voices fluttered through the night. Somewhere, a bell began to toll.

With an expression of giddy ecstasy, Mayda Keana proclaimed, "I'd say the cocktail hour has passed, Hero! Back to work and all that. Duty calls. Now . . ."

With all the purpose of a potentate, the Iron Knuckle strode toward the veranda doors and the ballroom beyond.

". . . I guess it's time to greet my adoring public."