Mount Crenel was probably what later became Death Mountain, though right now it was just a great mountain and there was little volcanic activity. Pools of steaming water dotted the rocky, craggy peak and vines formed natural ladders reaching up as they used any rock as a foothold.
Waiting for me at the top of the first trio of vines was the figure the guard had warned me about. Absolutely identical to me but for two things – his cap was just a cap unlike Ezlo acting as mine, and like the guard had told me, his tunic was black rather than green. Otherwise, we could have been twins.
"Is it my imagination, or does he look too much like you?" Ezlo murmured while the two of us stood watching each other. If he was me, he knew everything I did – and knew that the moment one of us made a move, the other would also. If he wasn't on the other hand, he was in for a bad time.
"It's not just you," I replied quietly. "Watch him, Ezlo. I get the feeling he's going to try something."
Our imposter grinned slightly, then made the first move, turning and running. I quickly looked over the vines and rocks and leapt up a vine after him, emerging behind but in pursuit on the second rocky crag.
There were spider-like creatures here Ezlo quickly identified as Tektites, creatures that had left sticky webs hanging between rocks and scrubby and usually dead trees. Mostly I ignored them in my pursuit of the imposter, who darted around a corner ahead and into a cave entrance that someone had actually made, not a natural one.
I paused briefly at the threshold, listening intently in case he was lying in wait – a common trick when I'm the one running is to hide behind a door, wait for the pursuit to run past, then dart back out again before they realize they've been had.
The imposter didn't do that however, as footsteps inside told me he was deeper in.
"Sloppy," I remarked critically, tugging another mushroom back to cross a pit. "If you can make your pursuers lose sight of you, you want to avoid making sounds that'll lead them to you."
"In the circumstances, I think that sentiment is a little misplaced," Ezlo remarked. I landed on the other side, rolling back to my feet and continuing up a set of nearby stairs into a higher gallery. Several smashed pots left a trail of destruction, and a few small red creatures with metal masks on them were poking about. One ran for me, but it didn't seem to be able to change direction once it started, so was easily ignored.
A second cave mouth led us back out into the sunlight, the only way he could have gone – but he wasn't there. The rocks left only one way I could go without scrambling over them, leading to a whirling vortex of air right in front of a ledge overlooking the entrance of the cave.
Opposite me was another ledge and another vortex – along with the other hedgehog, who appeared to have a parachute of some kind in his hands. He turned, smirked at me again, then darted off.
"So that's why he didn't care about the trail," I said, staring after him. "He knew we couldn't follow him past here."
"Not so quick, Manic," Ezlo said thoughtfully. "I've got an idea. Grab hold of my edges and run into that vortex."
"If I do that, I'll fall."
"Trust me," he told me. I hate it when people tell me that.
I tried it though, and was amazed that when I hit the vortex, the hollow inside of Ezlo ballooned out with air and my momentum carried us easily over the gap, the second vortex lifting us up high enough to land on the edge.
"What an amazing thing," I remarked, let Ezlo get comfortable again, then set off to find my quarry. I didn't hurry yet – hurrying would have been more noticeable, and if I could sneak up on him I'd cut down his lead.
He wasn't anywhere visible just yet, but that didn't mean he wasn't in the area, and unless he wanted to scale one of the rough walls he had nowhere to run. I went on more warily now, listening out for any sounds that would give him way.
"Manic, there!" Ezlo exclaimed, leaning forward to point. A vine was quickly growing up a wall – along with a figure in a black tunic scaling it. He didn't seem to be aware of me just yet, so I quickly checked the terrain between me and him – rough, and with several more Tektite webs, but passable.
Putting my sometimes shady past to good use I scrambled toward him, making only slightly less sound than an actual spider – at most a few tiny rocks clattering, but the sounds of those were lost to the crunching of larger rocks that seemed to be falling from further ahead.
I quickly ducked behind a tree when I saw him reach the top and pause, apparently breathing hard. I made sure I was as well concealed as you can be when you're wearing green on a sun-blasted yellow rock mountain as I watched.
After a few moments he turned to survey the lower part of Mount Crenel, perhaps looking for me. Whatever he was looking for, he didn't find it and he sauntered much more casually back away from the precipice of that upper crag.
I waited a few moments in case he'd been sneaky enough to double back in an attempt to catch me out, then resumed my pursuit, avoiding several more Tektites and slashing away a web that got in my way, once again scaling this new vine while trying to avoid making it rustle too much.
Again I paused, listening before I would come into view of anything waiting up there. Hard breaths, as if someone had been running themselves hard and was catching their breath. Warily I peeked up, hoping that the green vine would make it easier to make whoever it was look past me.
Sat on a rock off to one side was the imposter, leaning back against the rough wall behind him, his eyes closed, but one hand closed around the hilt of his sword. Occasionally, an ear twitched as if listening.
Moving slowly to avoid unnecessary sound I came up over the edge and crept closer on silent feet, gesturing to Ezlo to stay silent. A sudden inspiration came to me, and I had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.
Rather than confront him just yet, I took a rock beside him, waited a few moments to see what he'd do, then said, "Come here often?"
He started back from that so violently he fell off the rock he'd perched on, giving a startled exclamation as he scrabbled for the sword he'd dropped, trying to get hold of himself after that shock.
"You jerk!" he accused me – even sounding like me. "How did you cross that ledge down there?"
"Oh, I found a way," I answered evasively. "Question is, who're you?"
He watched me instead of answering, his sword still held ready, and far more competently than I would have at the time. I was still perched on that rock, without even a weapon drawn, just watching him. He must have taken that as a cue to react, because he sheathed his sword, turned and bolted again, darting into a narrow crack between two higher ledges and out of sight.
I followed again, crossing a bridge someone had put over a pit just inside that crack and then into yet another cavern, hearing the sounds of pottery being smashed. Once inside I saw he'd left me another trail to pick through.
Like the last one it led up a level and back outside to another pair of ledges that overlooked each other, each of which with another air vortex beside. He was already in the air, using his parachute to catch the air and cross. He landed, glanced back, and instead of running he waited instead.
"What's wrong, Manic?" he called over. "Afraid I'll steal your secrets?"
"What about you?" I called back. "Aren't you going to do something about that Tektite eyeing you?"
"Oh, no," he laughed. "I'm not falling for that one."
I didn't say anything, watching as the Tektite bounced up nearby and caused a few small rocks to move. He muttered something under his breath and turned to fight it, while I quickly had Ezlo help me cross, managing to land just before the imposter finished dealing with the Tektite.
He turned back, about to say something, then saw me and leapt back in surprise again. He muttered something else, then took off.
"Why are we following him, Manic?" Ezlo asked as I gave chase again. "Besides to find out who he is?"
"For the fun of it? He's going the same way we probably do, Ezlo. As long as that holds true, I'm going to keep with it."
My imposter seemed to be getting desperate far too quickly now, even taking the risk of scrambling up one of the walls. After seeing him run this far, I was starting to get the idea that he had at least some of the skills I did, but not on the same level as me. I climbed that same wall and closed the gap between us quite a bit.
At the top he didn't stop, bolting as he made his way past a set of stairs that had been hewed out of the rock face, carrying on to a ledge which he showed no hesitation in dropping down. I glanced at a small sign beside the steps, which told me the Crenel Mines were up there, and paused. That was my destination after all.
Rather reluctantly I gave up my fun and headed up to have a look around, but it turned out to be a false alarm – there had once been a route here to the mines, but a rock slide had destroyed it, and I was forced to head back down and follow the path my imposter had taken after all. By now he'd probably managed to make good his escape, so I didn't bother to hurry.
There were only two ways he could have gone from there. Up, by climbing a rock face that showed signs of being climbed before, or down. I chose up, since I wanted the mines, and then found I had to dodge frequent rocks that bounded down that rough face. Getting one of those to the face was going to hurt – a lot.
Nimbleness counts for something however and I made it to the top without a single rock catching me, though there'd been a few near misses and once point where I almost lost my grip entirely – which would have been... inconvenient.
This took me to the top of Mount Crenel, and the view from there was absolutely breathtaking. I could see most of Hyrule from here. The Castle and Town looked almost like a model, with the people in them little more than tiny figures.
I had another view point much later on that was even better, but the memory of that view is something no one could ever forget. It did however mean that I could go no higher, and that there had to be another route to reach the mines from here.
There was a set of steps to one side that led back down, but rocks made it impossible to go anywhere from there, so I discounted it, leaving my only option a mushroom that would catapult me over a rather large gap, over which there was a fairly large heat-haze. I rather suspected I didn't want to end up down there.
I don't like those mushrooms anyway, but it was my only choice to progress, so I used it to fling myself over – and typically, right into a rock. Several rocks, actually.
There was a puzzle here that looked at a glance like I'd have to use a large stone with a hole in the top and side – a portal, obviously – to shrink, pass over to the other side and restore my size, then push one stone into place to fill in a gap, then bring another one past there to this side to fill in another.
Since I'm more sensible than that, I just ignored it and figured that since I could see over it all, I could also climb over it all to the ladder sticking out of a hole. That led me into another cave, and a familiar face, leaning back on one wall instead of perched on a rock this time, and aware of me too.
"Don't you ever give up?" he sighed in exasperation.
"Would you?" I asked him. "You look like me almost to the detail. That's suspicious enough in itself, you know."
"It certainly wasn't my idea," he told me. "Alright, if it'll make you leave me alone, I give in. I don't have a name – not one of my own, anyway. Technically, I'm you. You're the local Hero, so I look like you, only different enough for you to tell the difference."
"You really expect me to believe that?"
"Believe it or not, I don't care. Right now I just want a rest. You ran me pretty hard. All I was trying to do was make sure you went the right way."
"Then you work for Link?" I asked, ignoring the fact that Ezlo had no idea who Link was.
"Link? Don't be stupid. I don't work for anyone. I'm not against you, Manic – but I'm not with you either. I'm helping you this time because I thought you'd need it, but next time we meet..." he trailed off and shrugged. "Who knows? I'll decide when we meet. I've already pushed the blocks out the way ahead and even got rid of the monsters for you so you won't have any trouble getting to the mines."
"Why not come with me?"
"Manic," Ezlo said in a pained tone. "I can't handle two. I can just about handle you when we use those portals, someone else is completely out of the question."
"That, and I don't like keeping company with Heroes for long. You're all too self-righteous for my liking. See you around, Manic, Ezlo. Don't get yourselves killed now," he told us, then took the ladder back up outside.