Chapter 10
They had walked along shimmering corridors of coral and abalone, a hundred million shades of pink, moss green, sunflower yellow, and oceanic turquoise. In places, the pathway narrowed, and standing pools of crystal water held little isolated pockets of habitation, teeming with fluorescent, pulsating anemones and slow creeping crustaceans. It seemed that the Zoras had no boundaries between their homes and nature, and barnacles of tremendous size clung to the walls, their growth completely unchecked.
Eventually, they came to a room, wherein a kind of table had been made by way of setting a piece of glass over the half-shell of a giant clam. It was surrounded by stools of pink coral, carved and polished to marble smoothness.
Upon the table, a feast had been laid out for them, a cornucopia of underwater delicacies strange and exotic to Hylian palettes. Boiled crab and lobster claws, raw fillets of tuna, bass and salmon, sautéed scallops, bright red roe, crispy chips of kelp, whole baby octopi, and flame grilled steaks of shark were piled up on a bed of long-grain rice. The Zora who had guided them there went to one of the coral stools and pulled it out to offer to the Princess.
"Your Highness, and her esteemed colleagues, please be seated and enjoy this trifle of local favorites while you await His Majesty, King Zora."
"Thank you," said Zelda, curtseying daintily. The Princess sat down lightly on her stool, and moved it in carefully and quietly, sitting with perfect posture.
Link and the pirates approached the table as well, each grabbing a stool and dragging it under them with a clattering scrape. Link planted his elbows on the table, leaning in to inspect the food. Kef leaned back on his stool, balancing on two of its legs. Gwen lounged, her legs sprawled, unladylike. Scarlett drew a dagger from her belt, skewered a shark steak with it, and proceeded to gnash away noisily and open mouthed.
"Yes, well," said the Zora, looking taken aback, though only Zelda seemed to notice, "Please, help your selves. His Majesty will be along shortly."
The Zora disappeared back into the sparkling corridor that had brought them there, leaving the party alone once more in the strange domain.
"Were you all born in a barn!" exclaimed Zelda.
"Close," said Gwen, "A pirate ship."
"Remember when we were kids and we used to hold our tongues and say that?" said Kef, sniggering, "I wath bord on a pile of…"
"That is quite enough!" said Zelda, alarm in her voice, "We must keep our manners in mind. We are meeting with royalty. You can't just go around acting like a bunch of barbarians. Link, I'm sure that you… oh Goddess!"
Link was slurping the tentacles of a baby octopus into his mouth, chewing with one eye squinted weirdly. He chomped on the thing like a ball of gum, and began to try to talk with his mouth still full of cephalopod.
"Ish not thath bad," sputtered Link, passing the thing from one side of his mouth to the other, "S'chewy."
"That's it!" said Zelda, throwing her arms in the air. She sat her elbows upon the table and let her face rest in her palms, looking downtrodden, "We're all going to be executed, you realize."
"Lighten up, Princess," said Scarlett, jabbing the point of her blade into one of the salmon fillets, "Here, have a bite. Gotta keep yer energy up. No telling how long we'll be down here."
The pirate shoved the piece of fish at Zelda. It glistened wetly, the rich pinkness of the meat still fresh and pungent. The Princess felt a lump rise in her stomach.
"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly…"
"Ah, Princess Zelda!" a booming voice suddenly made its presence known in the room. Link, Zelda and the pirates all turned to regard the new arrival. They were startled to see a Zora of immense proportions, both taller and wider than any they had yet met. His shoulders were adorned with a ruby-red cape of comically miniscule size. Atop his catfish head a sort of golden headdress was perched enigmatically, looking more like a golden mohawk than an actual piece of headgear. The tip of it, just over his forehead, was adorned with a sparkling ruby the size of a coconut and expertly cut. Beneath his incredible bulk, tiny stilt-like legs carried him, only adding to the general ridiculousness of his overall appearance. "I am pleased to see that you are a fan of Zora sashimi! There are no finer or fresher examples of seafood anywhere in the known world. The salmon is particularly lovely. Go on, try it."
"Yeah, Your Majesty," said Scarlett, her voice gilded in syrupy, malicious joy, "Go on, try it."
"Oh, ok," said Zelda, laughing nervously, "Well, if you insist."
She shot the pirate a stabbing glare as she clutched the handle of the dagger and snatched it away. She only allowed herself to appraise the shiny hunk of uncooked meat a moment longer before furrowing her brow and snapping one dainty bite off the corner of the fillet. It was cold and slimy, and tasted of pungent fishiness which her taste buds were completely unaccustomed to. She chewed the thing slowly and deliberately, feeling it gush between her molars, and she had to stifle a hiccup to gulp the wad of chewed up seafood sickly down her gullet. In her mind she could hear it plop down in the depths of her stomach with an awful splash, and once the ordeal was over she felt as though she had just been forced to swallow a slug. She smiled weakly.
"How is it?" asked the King, expectantly.
"Mmmm," hummed Zelda, insincerely, trying with all her will to keep the choking substance down. King Zora did not seem to notice.
"Aha! Yes, a lovely salmon. Truly the pinnacle of Zora culinary mastery," cheered the King, striding regally around the table and planting his massive posterior upon one of the coral stools. It was nothing short of amazing that he was able to balance on the tiny thing.
"You must forgive my soldiers for their rudeness in greeting you," the King went on, merrily, "Of course, there was no way they could have guessed that it was you! This is quite an unexpected and pleasant surprise."
"I'm shocked that it wasn't more hostile," said Scarlett, unabashed by the presence of a king, "As I recall it, things between the Zoras and Hyrule were shaky at best when last the two encountered one another."
"Do forgive me, but you are… ?"
"Scarlett Delahaye," replied Scarlett, proudly, "Captain of the airship Crimson Stalfos."
"A pleasure, I'm sure," said King Zora, "Well, Captain Delahaye…"
"Captain Scarlett, if'n ya please," snapped Scarlett, and then when she saw the way everyone stared at her she softly added, "Your Majesty."
"Quite," said King Zora, blinking, "Indeed, Captain Scarlett then, I can see by the symbol you bear on the patch over your eye that you are of Shiekah descent, am I correct?"
"Aye."
"Well," said King Zora, "As I recall, the Shiekah and the Royal Family have a history even more precarious than that between the Royal Family and the Zoras, yet here you sit at the side of their Princess. Clearly, things in Hyrule land have changed in many ways in seventy years. The Zora are a peaceful people, and we do not easily forget the alliances we forged so very long ago. Perhaps there was a time when many Zora, even the old King, were angry with Hyrule, but here in Zora's Domain we live a peaceful and utopian life, and want for nothing. It would be pointless prejudice to turn away the Princess of such an old and noble kingdom based on a disagreement which approaches a century in age."
"Well, you're right about one thing," said Scarlett, crossing her arms, "Things in Hyrule have changed quite a bit."
"So tell me, Princess," said King Zora, turning his attention away from Scarlett, "To what do we owe this momentous occasion, where the Royal Family of Hyrule once again calls at the door of its sworn brethren, the Zora, for the first time in seventy long years?"
"I wish I had pleasant news for you, Good King," began Zelda, wistfully, "The truth is that all is not well in Hyrule. The evil wizard Nyarlath has put a curse upon my father, and convinced my people that I am a traitor. He seeks to usurp the Hylian throne from my family, and has spoken of his intentions to bring about some sort of cataclysm which will affect all of Hylia. I can only guess as to the nature of this coming calamity, but one thing is certain: Nyarlath must be stopped."
"I see," said King Zora, his fishy eyes bulging wide, "Truly that is terrible. I am sorry to hear that your father is in such mortal peril. Of course, the Zora are at your disposal, but dear Princess... what can we do to help you?"
"We have come to this land seeking out an ancient treasure," said Zelda, "A shard of a powerful relic which rests under the waters of this lake."
"A shard you say?" said King Zora, twirling his mustache-like barbel around one of his webbed fingers, "Hmm. But you couldn't mean the treasure of the Temple of the Mind, could you?"
"Aye," said Scarlett, a gleam in her eye, "One and the same."
"I am sorry, Princess," said King Zora, "But the Zora are sworn to never let that treasure fall into the hands of mortals again. Even our high priests cannot lay eyes upon it. Its removal from the temple is absolutely out of the question. I will aid your land and your people in any way that I can, except that way. It would be a massive breach of tradition. I'm sure you understand."
"Actually, we don't understand!" said Scarlett urgently, clapping her hand upon the table, "We traveled a long way to get that shard. It's the only thing that can break the sleeping curse. We cannot leave this realm without it!"
"Princess, I must ask you to control your subjects!" cried the King, "This is highly inappropriate."
"I in't anyone's subject," growled Scarlett.
"Scarlett, please!" urged Zelda, "Good king, I do apologize. We have no intention of being rude. We really must have the shard though. The seven shards of this treasure, when assembled, form a powerful weapon which no evil can withstand. I believe it to be our only hope in defeating Nyarlath. He has grown so powerful, and I fear that his sights will not be limited to my Kingdom. If he is not stopped then we are all in danger!"
"There is a reason why the Sages of the last era sealed this treasure away!" replied King Zora, "It is not a thing for mortal hands to hold. It was broken up based on wisdom more ancient and profound than you could imagine. Who are you to question it? A mere mortal princess? The will of the Sages is the will of the gods, and you would do well to remember it."
"If we don't do something, Nyarlath will kill everyone," said Zelda, "Don't you understand? We have no choice. We need the power of that weapon."
"I'm sorry, Princess," said King Zora, "It is simply out of the question. This conversation is over. I am a very busy Zora, and I have other matters to attend to. This visit has been most intrusive and most rude on your part, Highness, but I forgive you. You are only Hylian after all. If you are weary from your travels, rooms will be prepared for you to rest, but I must respectfully ask you to leave Zora's domain in the morning and do not return with any more sacrilegious requests or you shall not find me so amenable to your presence in my kingdom!"
The King rose from his stool, his fishy nose held up pompously, and he waddled out of the room as proudly as one can waddle out of anything.
"I'd like to scale and debone that bottom-feeding catfish," said Scarlett.
"Your attitude isn't helping anything!" snapped Zelda, "The way you were acting, I'm shocked he didn't have us killed right there at the table. You can't just go blurting out whatever comes into your head when you're a guest in someone else's castle! He is a King, he can do whatever he likes to us."
"I'd welcome him to try," sneered the pirate, "And don't ye be forgettin' who the Captain is here! Jus' cause we find ourselves proverbial fish out of water at the moment doesn't make me any less responsible for keeping you eating when we get back to the Stalfos."
"We're not getting anything done by sitting here fighting with each other," said Link, "I think Zelda is right, we need to have a better attitude about this. Let's apologize for being rude and accept his offer to stay the night, and we won't bring up the shard again…"
"…until the morning once he's had a chance to warm up to us a bit better! Perfect, I love it," Zelda cut in, "Now that's thinking diplomatically, Link!"
"Actually, I thought we would sneak out of our rooms in the middle of the night and steal it," confessed the boy.
"Link!" said Zelda, shocked.
"Now thar be a plan I can get behind!" cheered Scarlett, "I like the way you think, boy."
"What if we get caught?" said Zelda, "They'll lock us up forever, maybe even kill us, and then we'll never get the shard!"
"Sometimes ya gotta break some eggs, princess," replied Scarlett, picking some shark out of her teeth with the end of her dagger, "We don't have the option of leaving the shard here, and we don't have the time to spend a week wooing the good King Zora into seeing things our way. Link's right, our only option is to catch them off guard and get out of here with the treasure before they can do anything to stop us. You ready to participate in some honest-to-Goddess piracy, Princess?"
Zelda crossed her arms and scowled, but there was nothing left to be said. As much as it bothered her, Scarlett was right.
The hours ticked by with a kind of nervous anxiety that Zelda was altogether unfamiliar with. She smiled awkwardly as she lied to the soldier who came to fetch them, extending her most gracious apologies to King Zora and stressing that she didn't know what they had been thinking upon making such a rude request. Of course they couldn't take the treasure from the Temple of the Mind. Obviously, this would be foolish heresy. Surely they could come up with some alternative way to save the king.
Zelda had never lied like this before. She had told meager and paper-thin lies to her father, in the usual way children do when they are young and still establishing boundaries, but the King was an honorable man, and had instilled in Zelda a deep rooted sense of duty. Lying didn't even occur as an option to her, and being coerced into the action by a gang of murderous pirates left a bad taste in her mouth.
Yet, it had been Link who had made the suggestion, after all. She had looked on the boy as being wholly pure and innocent, considering the simple and often whimsical way he viewed the world with an unending sense of optimism. This, she told herself, was proof of the necessity of their actions. There wasn't time to do things the proper, diplomatic way. The Zoras would understand once Nyarlath was defeated and the danger of his rule averted. Then they would see the error of keeping the shard hidden away, and they would pardon Zelda for her misdeeds.
This she told herself, and yet, as she stood alone in the private quarters she had been assigned, staring out the thick pane of oceanic glass which peered out into the depths of the cool blue lake, she felt as though she had betrayed a part of herself she would rather have held onto. Each day since the terrible night that Nyarlath had locked her away in the castle dungeon, she had felt a little bit more of her own innocence slipping away, and the world was looking less and less a hopeful place to live in. Was this what it felt like to grow up, she wondered? Would the coming years see a darker and darker tarnish on her perspective, until the whole world seemed nothing but a jaded gem, its once stunning and epitomic beauty forever lost to the cruel hand of time?
When she was a child, she had enjoyed sitting in the castle courtyard making necklaces out of flowers by weaving the stems together. Her father would watch her, and laugh merrily as she slipped one of the wreaths over his neck, and the petals fell in his mane of wavy brown hair. Things had seemed so bright back then. Her father was a beacon of safety, strong and courageous and untouchable. Nothing was more powerful, more loving, or more dependable. Now, it seemed that even that strength had been tarnished, and her father lay helpless and asleep, unable to help her in her most dire moment of need.
Anger welled up in her, and she was surprised to find it there. She found difficult questions surfacing in that feeling. Why had the King allowed a madman like Nyarlath into the castle in the first place? Why did he trust the old Wizard? Could he not see that it was an evil beast, a sower of seeds of destruction, which he allowed to share his table and stalk his halls? He had done nothing to stop the wicked man from taking his Kingdom, and, despite his constant promises that he would be there for Zelda any time she needed him, that time had finally come and he was not there.
As the sun set somewhere on the surface of the lake overhead, the water darkened for a few minutes, but then sprang to life new and beautiful. For miles over the floor of the ancient lake, bio-luminescent anemones were unfurling like budding flowers in the deep nighttime water. They were like a million stars, twinkling cosmically on the alien horizon, their electric fronds waving in the gentle pull of the currents. Across the domain of the Zora, families were swimming back to their hovels and coves, preparing for their nightly sojourn into the curious lands of sleep. Zelda desperately wished she could join them. In her dreams, her father was still strong, still in control, and she never had to tell any lies to anyone.
Several hours passed, and Zelda was beginning to doze when the knock she had been waiting for came at her door at last. She slipped out of the clam-shell bed she'd been resting on, throwing aside the odd fabric of the bedspread, and creeping over to the door as silently as she was able. She undid the lock and cracked the door ever so slightly.
"Who's there?"
"It's Link," whispered a figure from the shadows of the hall, "Come on, we gotta hurry!"
Zelda stepped out into the hall. The anemones that usually lit the halls of the maze of caves that made up the central structure of Zora's Domain were all extinguished, and the cave stretched away into darkness in either direction. Zelda had been separated from her friends upon being led to the bedroom, and had no clue where Link and the pirates had been brought to.
"Link?" whispered Zelda, "How do we see our way around?"
"We scraped some of these off the wall in our room," said Link, producing a little glass jar from the pouch on his belt. Inside, there were brightly glowing tiny versions of the blue anemones which Zelda had become used to seeing as lighting in the halls of the Zora realm. "It seems like they stay lit until you touch 'em again. Don't know how they know, but it's pretty neat."
"Where are the others?"
"They're waiting for us," said Link, "Scarlett thinks she figured out how to get to the temple. Come on, we should be quick so that we don't get caught. You're still wearing your Zora tunic, right? Good. Come on, take my hand."
Link led Zelda along the winding corridors of Zora's Domain, stopping at corners to peer cautiously for the lights of roving guards who might be out and about. They encountered nothing, but the silence and sheer tension of the night kept Zelda's heart hammering away in her chest.
After a time, they came to a hallway which Zelda thought she recognized by the dim light of Link's bottled torch. Moments after Zelda felt this sense of déjà vu her suspicions were confirmed as they emerged into the circular room with the standing pool of water that was the mouth of the underwater tunnel they had come in by. A blue light twinkled in the dark cave, and Zelda could make out the lithe forms of the pirates, standing around a group of fallen Zora. Zelda opened her mouth to gasp, but Link quickly clapped his hand over her mouth.
"Shh! Don't worry," said Link, "They've been pricked by a dart dipped in a Gerudo sedative. They're out cold, but they'll wake up on a few hours good as new. Scarlett's idea."
"As long as they aren't dead," whispered Zelda, "I'll break a couple rules to save my kingdom if it is the only way, but I will not become a murderer of innocents."
"Took you kids long enough," said Scarlett, "I don't think we have more than ten minutes before the next patrol comes through, and if we keep putting 'em down like this eventually someone is gonna grow wise to our little plan here. I figure the tunnel we need to take is about two hundred feet down from here, so we'll need to swim as fast as we can. It won't be long before they find these guys and after that we'll be sure to have them on our tail. Our only chance is to get to the temple and grab the shard before they can catch up. And we'll have to find another way out, because this way is sure to be swarming with the little urchins by then."
"How are you so certain that the temple is down there?" asked Zelda, skeptically.
"The old legends say that Princess Ruto, the ancient Zora sage, summoned the temple forth from the floor of the lake, and that it was like a glorious castle of living coral. When the temples were used to hide the shards of the treasure, many of them were abandoned by mortals and reinforced with traps, exotic monsters to act as guards, and in some cases significant geographical changes in order to make the temples less reachable to those who would seek to plunder them. My guess is that the land mass we are inside of, with all its networks of caves and tunnels, is actually built on top of the temple in order to hide it," explained Scarlett, "When we were on our way in, I counted the leagues we traveled, and kept a bearing of our direction in my mind. If my sense of location hasn't failed me, and it never has in the past, then we should be right where that temple is supposed to be, in the center of the lake. Partway through this tunnel, I noticed a fork which led down further below, and I put two and two together."
"I suppose that makes sense," conceded Zelda.
"It's the best plan we've got, so there's no point in worrying about it," said Gwen, "We had better get a move on though, before more soldiers show up."
The five of them took to the water with a gentle splash, swimming down into the inky depths with only the hazy glow of the bottled anemones to guide them. The tunnel felt longer than it had coming in, in no small part thanks to the anxiety of knowing they were not supposed to be there. They found the tunnel deserted, and had no problems reaching the place where a smaller tunnel forked off and led yet deeper under the waves. Zelda had not noticed this pathway on the way in, it was so small and well concealed by the jutting rocks which surrounded it. It was a marvel how perceptive Scarlett was despite being down one eye.
The path became very narrowed down this deeper tunnel, and they were forced to line up single file, pushing off the claustrophobic walls of the passageway to move them along. Small crustaceans and tiny fish went scattering away at their approach, the light from their bottled anemones clearly alien and confusing to the little creatures. Whatever this tunnel lead to, it was not commonly frequented by anyone.
Deeper and deeper they went, finding nothing, until they were well past the 200ft mark which Scarlett had predicted. There was no sign of the Captain's course changing, and onward they plunged for several minutes into the deep, until Zelda was beginning to feel that they could not possibly be headed in the right direction. The Princess was about to protest, when they emerged into a cave so wide that they could not see the walls by the light of their meager lamp.
Scarlett motioned in the hazy darkness for the rest of her team to follow, and silently they descended through the water in steady strokes.
It came rising out of the darkness like a ghost from the forgotten past, high spires of gnarled pink coral twisting like the shells of mighty sea snails. It was a magnificent palace made of solid coral, seamless and carved clean out of one massive reef. Its gates shimmered with an eldritch glow, dimly lighting the water around it. They swam towards that shimmering gate, and as they came closer Zelda could see by the light of their anemone lamps that the portal appeared to be wide open and unprotected, its mouth leading directly into a dark and cavernous fore chamber.
Scarlett was the first to reach the threshold, and Zelda was surprised to see the pirate go sliding through a kind of viscous membrane, arriving on solid ground on the other side of the portal as if the temple somehow contained its own private bubble of air behind the invisible barrier she had breached. As Zelda stuck her own arm through the doorway, she could feel cool air chilling her damp clothes and felt relieved as she came to rest her feet on solid stone once more. Soon, they were all standing in the threshold of the ancient temple, breathing in cool fresh air without the assistance of their magic tunics.
"Just as I suspected," said Scarlett, "Welcome to the Temple of the Mind."
As Scarlett said this there was suddenly a bright flash, and the walls of the temple began to etch themselves in lines of fluorescent green, illuminating carvings of ancient hieroglyphs, murals of extravagant design, and complex patterns of mathematical intricacy. The vibrant emerald light was enough to light the entire room, and they could see now that they were standing at one end of a massive heptagon, the side they'd entered on flanked by two solid walls of coral, and the remaining three sides opening into high, arched doorways which led off deeper into the structure.
"Who turned the lights on?" said Gwen, drawing her sword, "Could the Zora have already been waiting for us?"
"No," said Scarlett, "No, this temple has been awoken by our presence here. It is the Temple of the Mind, after all. I suspect its reading our thoughts like an open book even as we speak."
"Readin' our thoughts?" said Kef, "Oooh, I don't like the sound of that. I don't want no creepin' fish monsters pickin' my brain!"
"I'd be worried about more than our brains!" cried Link, "Look!"
Up ahead, through the center passageway of the old temple, a pair of monstrous claws the size of a carriage was gripping the sides of the archway. Pulling itself in on skittering legs of armored blue, its antennae whipping around erratically and eye stalks stretching to peer at them, a lobster the size of a small house was approaching. It clacked its mandibles, and a trail of sickly looking foam came drooling out of the offensive orifice.
"Look alive, crew!" called Scarlett. The pirates brandished their swords, forming a semi-circle around Link and Zelda. Link's hand went to his baldric, but there was nothing there. He'd forgotten, he'd lost his sword somewhere in the lake! He thumbed the handle of his hookshot, but the weapon seemed pointless to try against such a thickly armored foe.
The monster was upon them in seconds, its clicking legs making a horrible scrabble on the stones of the temple floor. The emerald green of the magical wall etchings cast a terrifying light on the thing, and it wasted no time in groping for them with its gigantic pincers. Gwen met it at a charge, swinging her sword, but the beast caught the blade and gripped it in one fierce claw, twisting it free of her grasp. Scarlett swung hard at its arm, but her blade bounced harmlessly off the thick armor of the lobster's carapace.
"It's too tough!" cried Scarlett, "We can't hurt it with these weapons!"
"Come on, yah great ugly bastard!" screamed Kef, running up to jab the thing's face with his blade. The tip of the cutlass barely chipped the shell of the massive crustacean, and it lunged with its free claw to snip at Kef's leg. He only barely managed to escape amputation.
"It's no use, we've got to fall back further into the temple!" shouted Scarlett, seizing Zelda's arm and dragging her along. Link did his best to keep up, glancing back to see Kef and Gwen dodging around the monster, narrowly avoiding its horrible claws. As they all rushed past, the monster turned with surprising swiftness to follow them, and Gwen was forced to leave her sword. Making a mad dash, the group chose one of the pathways, the one on the right, at complete random.
"Hurry, before it catches up to us!" cried Scarlett, her and Zelda taking a considerable lead. Gwen went flying past, but Link was still glancing back over his shoulder for Kef. The other pirate was moving to catch up when the toe of his foot caught an irregularity in the stone, and he went tumbling onto the ground.
Link stopped in mid run and went back for Kef.
"What are you doing, little bug?" cried Gwen, then she noticed Kef lying face down on the floor, "Kef!"
"I gotcha!" shouted Link, grabbing one of Kef's hands and wrenching him to his feet.
"You gotta leave me, I twisted my ankle!" said Kef, struggling to keep his feet. Any pressure on his right ankle made him hiss with pain, and Link could see that the pirate could not run.
"No, I won't leave you!" said the boy. The massive lobster was approaching steadily from the end of the passage, and Link didn't have time to think. He pulled the hookshot off his belt and pointed it up to the rough coral ceiling of the temple. Kachink! –the hook went barreling out of the little tube and lodged itself securely into the coral, and immediately Link was being pulled into the air. The lobster snapped at him menacingly as he flew up over its head, but it missed him! The chain of the hookshot contracted completely, bringing him all the way to the ceiling before clicking back into place and dropping him right on the monster's head.
The thing began to thrash about immediately, swinging its claws in wide arcs and spinning round on its clattering legs.
"Ahhhhh!" screamed Link as the crustacean bounced him around like a bucking bronco.
"Boy!" cried Scarlett, "Catch!"
She had drawn her dagger from her belt, the same one which she had fed Zelda salmon from earlier, and tossed it at Link. The boy leaned as far as he could off the side of the beast, grabbing blindly at the air as the monster continued to flail. He caught the thing by the handle, whirling it around in his hand into a stabbing position, and brought it down hard on the soft spot beneath its eye stalk. The thing shuddered in noiseless pain, unable to scream. Its claws slammed into the rough coral of the walls, crumbling pieces away. Link gripped the shell of the beast for dear life.
"Link, hang on!" shouted Zelda, but there was nothing any of them could do but watch the monster stomp around, flailing the poor boy every which way.
The beast staggered into the wall again, causing flakes of coral to fall from the ceiling, and part of the wall to crumble away. The rough floor began to crack apart, and Link could feel the ground somewhere under the beast beginning to cave.
"It's falling!" he screamed.
"Link!" Zelda tried to run to him, but Scarlett had her arm tight. All the Princess could do was watch helplessly as the floor below Link and the beast began to cave more and more.
"Boy!" cried Scarlett, "Stay alive. We will come for you."
Link didn't have time to respond as the last of the coral supporting him and the beast went tumbling out from under them. There was a tremendous rumbling as the floor below them caved entirely, and down they fell into gaping darkness, Link and the giant crustacean, hand over claw over foot.