The hero was close. Ganondorf could feel it on the wind.
"Tetra," he said, snapping his fan shut. "It's time."
"Time for what?" she asked, stretching and yawning like a cat.
"We need to go to the castle."
"Do we have to?"
"Yes." He wouldn't allow himself to consider the alternatives. He had waited too long.
He stood up and walked to the center of the room. Gathering his will, he stomped his foot onto the stone floor. Glowing lines spread from his bootheel like ripples rising from a rock dropped into a still oasis.
Tetra regarded him curiously. "Come here," he ordered.
"Are we leaving now?" She sauntered over with feigned nonchalance, but he could tell from the tightness at the corners of her mouth that she was afraid. He didn't blame her.
Ganondorf held out his hand. "Nothing down there can hurt you as long as you're with me."
Tetra hesitated. "But the king..."
"The king is a coward. He dares not approach me without the hero."
Tetra clicked her tongue. "Okay, fine. I guess that's all right then."
She took his hand.
Ganondorf touched the Triforce and woke to find Hyrule overgrown, a dense jungle rising from the plains. When he recovered from his shock, he organized an expedition into the lost kingdom. The thick growth was filled with dangerous creatures, but his Goron and Deku companions were unfazed by the insects and the humidity. The Gerudo tribeswomen who accompanied him were proud warriors and even prouder scientists, and they were just as eager to locate the legendary castle as he was.
What they found were not ruins but an intensely xenophobic society that had achieved a sense of harmony with its chaotic surroundings by means of a strictly enforced isolation from the outside world. Their princess, a swift and mighty hunter who held court within marble walls choked with vines, was said to receive visions from the gods. She had known he was coming, and she resisted his progress into her city, but he would not be turned away.
Although she initially treated him as an unwelcome invader, he spoke to her of the unbroken skies beyond the forest, softly lulling her into the state of curiosity he knew to be her weakness. She agreed to open Hyrule to the tribes at its borders, and for a brief time her kingdom enjoyed a period of prosperity. The Hylians had been sheltered for too long, however, and one by one they fell prey to the diseases the outsiders unwittingly brought with them. When Zelda died in his arms, she did not curse him, and somehow her sad smile was worse than any condemnation.
The air in the underwater castle smelled of dust and decay. Tetra was clearly uncomfortable, and once again Ganondorf wondered what Daphnes had been thinking when he ordered her to remain here on her own. Even as fearless as she was, this was no place for a child. The light streaming through the tall stained glass windows was eerie and unsettling, and the bodies of the creatures the hero had slain still lay where they had fallen.
Ganondorf could sense the boy and the king getting closer. If he could manage to lure them into his stronghold, he would be able to take the Triforce without further bloodshed, but he was running out of time.
Tetra stumbled behind him, and without thinking he stretched out an arm to catch her. Looking back, he saw that her face was drawn and pale.
"Do you need to rest?" he asked, unable to keep his impatience from leaching into his voice.
She shook her head. "No, just, can we slow down a little?"
"Very well," he acquiesced. The oak doors of the castle rose in front of them. He broke the magic sealing them shut as easily as snapping a desiccated twig. He wondered why, in this cold and lonely otherworld, the grand marble tomb of the Hylian monarchy still maintained its locks and barriers.
Ganondorf walked across the threshold of the doorway, and Tetra followed. She had not been able to leave the castle, so this was the first time she had seen what lay beyond its walls. He watched her gape in terrified awe as she took in the field of ghostly grass waving in the stale wind. Far above their heads floated the bottom of the Great Sea, its water blue and lifeless.
He had come here almost every night, and the landscape never failed to fill him with loathing.
"This is Hyrule?" Tetra asked.
"This was never Hyrule," he answered. "This is a pale imitation and a hideous mockery."
"Once we pass through the gates of the outer wall, space will become distorted," he told her. "We must travel quickly. Let me know if you start to feel faint."
Tetra rubbed her arms, which had broken into goosebumps. "And what're you gonna do if I do feel sick? It's not like that'll stop you."
"No," he agreed. "It won't. If you can no longer walk, I will carry you."
"What's the big hurry?"
"The hero is on his way." He grimaced. "Can't you feel him getting closer?"
"Yes," Tetra answered miserably.
Again he touched the Triforce, and when he opened his eyes the wooden floor was vibrating underneath his feet. From his window he saw only clouds. Ganondorf rushed outside to find himself on the deck of a massive ship sailing across the sky. He gaped at the stunning vista around him in wonder while Gerudo tribeswomen wearing what appeared to be military uniforms went about their business with complete nonchalance.
The marvels of this timeline were beyond his wildest dreams. Technology had progressed by leaps and bounds. Even as airships trawled the skies, steam engines sped along iron rails on the surface of the earth. Buildings rose to incredible heights, and the population had exploded. The kingdom of Hyrule was now an empire, and the world seemed wider than he could ever have imagined. Ganondorf had his pilot direct a course for Hyrule Castle. He yearned so desperately to meet the princess that he could barely sleep; surely she must be a marvel.
When they docked high on one of the soaring towers of the castle complex, he was received with utmost dignity and respect, but the princess was nowhere to be seen, and no one spoke of her. To the befuddlement and consternation of his tribeswomen, he decided to remain in Hyrule on an extended diplomatic mission. He spent his days in the library and his evenings at court, but at night he prowled the enormous castle and descended into the teeming city below, searching everywhere for the woman that not even the resonance of his Triforce could locate.
What he learned chilled him to his core. Although the Hylians had always distrusted magic, it was absolutely forbidden in this timeline, and anyone found to have any trace of magical ability within the borders of the empire was swiftly executed, their very existence erased. He feared for Zelda, whose identity as a bearer of the Triforce could not have remained hidden.
Since he could not find her, he instead managed to locate the hero, who had always shared a psychic bond with the princess. In this world, of all the many worlds he had seen, the hero was not a child or a teenager but a man his own age. United by a common grievance against the empire, they became comrades in arms. Perhaps they may have even become friends.
After much hardship, they were able to infiltrate the labyrinthine cellars underneath the castle, where at long last they found Zelda. Wires and tubes snaked from her body, which was kept artificially alive and used as a magical battery. No wonder he had not been able to sense her – if she had once had a mind, it was long gone.
Ganondorf destroyed the machinery imprisoning her and wrenched her freezing body away from its prison. After kissing her smooth and flawless forehead, he thrust his sword through her heart, sending a jolt of energy through the blade to ensure a clean death. He then turned to the hero, who had watched this scene unfold with his mouth agape.
He took advantage of the hero's abject horror to slay him on the spot.
By the time Ganondorf and Tetra reached the dark tower that spiraled up into the sea, the girl was obviously not well. Her eyes had lost their focus, and her skin had taken on a deathly pallor.
He pressed his hands and his magic against the tower's black granite doors, and they creaked open.
"I don't like this place," Tetra announced.
"Nor do I."
"What is it?"
"Many years ago it was called 'Ganon's Tower,' after a mythical wizard who once threatened the kingdom. It was always a cursed place, but it only looked like this in the imagination of the Hylians, who did not realize that it stood on the foundations of a temple once erected to honor their patron goddess."
"Why did we come here?" Tetra asked, hesitant to draw any closer.
"It was my base of operations when I waged a war against Hyrule."
Tetra looked up at him. There was no anger or accusation on her face, merely exhausted resignation. "Why did you attack Hyrule?"
"I didn't," Ganondorf said as he strode through the open doors. "Hyrule attacked me."
"You're... not lying," Tetra said, unhappily following along behind him.
As soon as the sole of her boot touched the interior flagstones, she suddenly collapsed.
Ganondorf managed to catch her as she fell, but he could not rouse her. Unconsciousness had fallen over her like a shroud. Her breathing was shallow, and her heartbeat was weak.
"No," he whispered, before screaming in wordless rage. His voice echoed hollowly through the empty tower.
It was true that he had not attacked the kingdom of Hyrule, but he was not blameless.
After countless timelines, Ganondorf finally found himself in a world strikingly similar to the one he had left behind when he first touched the Triforce. In the most stunning miracle of miracles, Zelda recognized him. They had apparently been childhood friends, and she clearly had feelings for him. He felt himself grow young again as her bright laughter washed away the despair of his endless quest to find her.
When he courted her, he was careful, ever so careful, not trusting himself not to harm her. Zelda was no delicate flower wilting under the heat of his affection, however, and she seemed to find delight in his roughness. After years of not being able to hold her, he found himself falling in love with her as if for the first time. She responded in kind, and the intensity of the passion that rose between them dazzled him.
Late in the night after their wedding, as they lay tangled in the sheets of their bed in the princess's castle, Ganondorf told her about the Triforce and the many worlds he had created and discarded, the story spilling out of him like blood from a wound. Zelda listened intently, and then she made a confession of her own. She had loved him, she said, but she had needed a marriage to bolster her status within Hyrule. There was much she hadn't revealed to him, the sum total of which was that her father's kingdom was horrendously unstable. If she had been repeatedly assassinated in other worlds, she mused, then it was highly likely that she was not safe in this one. He agreed.
"Let me take you into the desert," he said. "No one will find us. Your father is a capable ruler, and your kingdom will rise or fall without us. We can return when we know we'll be safe."
And so he and Zelda had fled, telling no one of their plans. In retaliation, Daphnes had declared war on the Gerudo, razing their capital city to the ground. Zelda returned to him, pleading that he see reason, but when Ganondorf rode to join her he was attacked by Hylian soldiers. He became a one-man trail of destruction as he marshaled his forces and fought his way to Hyrule Castle.
When he arrived, Daphnes was waiting for him.
Ganondorf knelt beside the bed in his former room at the base of the tower. Tetra lay on top of the quilt. Her clothing had once again been magically replaced by the traditional dress of Hylian royalty. A golden crown was twined through her hair, its center gem the shimmering ruby he had given Zelda to commemorate their engagement.
He knew in his heart that this girl could not possibly be his Zelda, but his memory was damnably vague. Who had touched the Triforce? Had it truly been his hand that had reshaped this world?
Had he made a terrible mistake by bringing Tetra to this place?
He had lit the torches on the standing braziers around the bed, hoping to cast light and warmth into this windowless room, but the air remained as cold and unforgiving as the history that suffused it.
Tetra was barely breathing.
Ganondorf pressed his face against the quilt and wept.