28

Midna Tells a Story (Reprise). Hyrule Castle Town. Further Unpleasantness.


The first thing Midna noticed about the Princess Zelda was that the darkness did not seem to touch her.

This far beneath Hyrule, in the heart of the Twili kingdom, natural light was a scarcity. But Zelda seemed to radiate a light of her own, somehow, and now even in the deep of the night her skin glowed as if illuminated by gentle sunlight.

Not that Midna had ever seen the sun. The light of day was like fire upon the skin of all but the most magically gifted Twili, and even they could not bear its heat for very long.

They were waiting in icy silence, the two of them, in an antechamber beneath the Sol Sanctum. This was the very lowest part of her kingdom, Midna knew, and tonight while the Twili people slept they would steal down to the forbidden depths and conduct a ritual so secret that it would mean death if they were found out.

Even for figures as beloved as the Twilight Princess and her fiancee, the mighty vizier Zant. The magic of the reliquary was ancient, and the very mention of it was taboo. The knowledge of it had long ago been sealed away in the palace's most heavily guarded recesses, and those Twili priests that had once practised it were all long since dead

At the centre of the antechamber, a stone slab was set into the floor. It was featureless, save for one symbol: three triangles, joined together to form one. Zelda had removed one of her white gloves, revealing the same insignia tattooed on the back of her hand.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps. Zant descended the narrow staircase and swept into the room, his voluminous robes fluttering behind him.

"Midna." He embraced her, briefly, tightly, and then turned to Zelda. "I have it. I have the book."

"Let me see it," she said. Zant produced a heavy black tome from inside his robes. The cover was inscribed with numerous intersecting circles which shone oddly despite the absence of light.

Zelda opened the book and flipped through several pages of seemingly incomprehensible symbols. "Yes," she muttered, "Your people have done well. Such powerful magic... It's almost a shame."

"What is?" Midna asked.

"That it should remain hidden," Zant answered, perhaps a bit hastily. "It is dangerous, true, but in the hands of such gifted individuals as ourselves? Think of the good we could do."

Zelda raised her hand- the one with the tattoo on it. "No time to lose. The night carries on, and the appointed time draws near."

The triangles on the back of Zelda's hand shone with a blinding light and in that same split second, so did the ones engraved upon the stone slab. And then the slab was gone, revealing a dark passageway beneath and more steps leading down.

Zelda started down the steps, descending confidently into that darkness. Zant followed, and Midna jumped forward to stay close to him.

"I'm not the one protecting you down here," he said, a hint of mirth in his voice.

They travelled in darkness. Midna saw very little of their journey, but occasionally heard the sounds of things moving just out of the range of her vision. "You will not be harmed," Zelda said. "Not as long as you are with me."

Presently they came upon a great hall, and it was here that Zelda stopped. They had arrived.

The floor of the hall was covered in strange symbols that Midna had never seen before, flowing into one another and comprising an enormous binding circle, the blueprint for powerful magic. The lines of the spell were neither etched into the ground or drawn with chalk or paint. Rather, they seemed to be made of a faint, golden light.

"The book, please," Zelda said, and Zant handed it to her.

She opened the musty pages and began examining them, pacing the room and periodically bending down and inscribing new golden lines, or erasing old ones. Light seemed to pour from her fingers where she touched the floor.

As the old pattern was slowly altered into something new, Zant watched quietly. "It's beautiful," he breathed, finally.

"The greatest achievement of the Twili people," Zelda said. "One idea, gestating for generations, and now finally come to fruition. Tonight, the Twili fulfil their purpose."

Something about that didn't sound right. "What does that mean?" Midna asked sharply. "Zant, what is she talking about?"

"The magic we do here tonight will make Hyrule strong," Zant said, proudly. "For centuries we have lived down here in the darkness, but after tonight, the entire city shall know us!"

"It is time." Zelda's solemn voice echoed briefly in the dark hall. "Take your place in the circle."

Along the circumference of the glowing design were three empty spaces, evenly spaced. Zelda was already standing in one of them. Zant stepped into his position. But Midna hesitated. "Maybe the priests sealed the reliquary magic for a reason. Maybe we shouldn't be unleashing this kind of power."

Zant's eyes flicked quickly from Midna to Zelda.

But the icy Princess smiled. "You are in no danger, Midna. I am here, and inside my city there is no power greater than my own."

"Think of the power we would wield together, my love," Zant pleaded. "Think of all that we could do."

Midna stepped forward, into the last space in the circle.

Immediately, the room was illuminated the the brilliant light of the spell. Looking around briefly, Midna saw that the seemed to be in some sort of great audience chamber, ringed with crumbling pillars and with walls of mossy stone.

Magic surged through her, and she could feel the other two connected with her, through the enchantment. The familiar presence of Zant at her left, and to her right, the almost incomprehensible power of the Princess Zelda.

"This magic... it is different from what I have read," Zant commented.

Zelda closed her eyes. Power began to crackle all around them as she channelled energy into the spell. "Splitting a soul takes a great amount of power. Splitting three takes more. And if one of those three is as great as mine... then it will require magic unlike anything Hyrule has ever seen."

She was no fool. Midna knew another ancient secret of the Twili, whereby great amounts of power could be gained from removing the soul of an individual from their body. "Zant! She's brought us here to kill us! She's planning on using us to power the reliquary spell!"

It was too late to step out of the circle. Even as she struggled against it the magic worked to bind her tighter, holding her in place.

Zelda actually laughed at this, a soft, cold, chuckle. "Do not flatter yourself. The two of you are not nearly enough."

"What are you... NO!" Realization washed over her. "Zant! Do something! She's going to use the Twili people to cast the spell! They'll all be killed! Zant! ZANT!"

The sorcerer had his eyes closed, his face slack. "She will keep her promise."

"That I will," Zelda said. "The two of you, included in the reliquary magic, shall be spared."

"NO! Zant, we have to- we have to stop her!"

Now he opened his eyes and looked into hers. They were still the eyes she had fallen in love with, but only now did she truly see them. "Don't you see, my love? We will receive power beyond our wildest dreams, and live forever. Together."

"You knew?" She whispered. "You knew! You... my gods... what have you done? You're a monster!"

He closed his eyes. The magic all around them was a constant whine in her ears, gradually growing until it began to overwhelm her other senses.

Still, she struggled. Still, she shouted.

"STOP THIS, ZELDA! PLEASE! GODDESSES, PLEASE, NO!"

There was a single moment of absolute silence. The night seemed to be completely, wholly still, and in that one instant it seemed as though she could feel a hundred thousand lives hanging by a thread.

Then the moment passed, the thread snapped, and the world around her was a swirling maelstrom of violent light and wordless screams. The air was rife with agony, her head was filled with nothing but thoughts of fear, and despair, and rage, and hatred. The scream came from around her and from within her, one long howl of pain so complete that she thought her very throat would tear with the strain of it.

And still, in this storm of sound and light, Zelda's voice cut through with unnatural clarity.

"Do not worry," she said. "They shall not go to waste."


The chamber beneath the Sol Sanctum was there, just as Midna had described it. And, just as she had described it, the heavy stone slab sealed the passage downward, the Triforce etched into its black surface.

"The most powerful wizard in the world couldn't move this stone," Ganondorf was saying, apparently impressed. "Not without the key."

Midna's sullen face loomed out of the shadows from where she was skulking in the corner. "A key you two happen to have. Get on with it."

"I'm admiring the magic," he said. "It's masterful. Only three people in the entire world can pass through here. Do you know the skill involved in a spell like this?"

Link reached out towards the sigil. "Shall I do the honors?"

"Be my guest."

He lowered his hand, briefly touching the cool surface of the stone. The now-familiar blinding light of the Triforce filled the room, and then was gone. When Link had blinked the afterimage out of his eyes, he saw that the stone slab had now vanished. The stairs that had once been there had crumbled away, and now a dark passageway yawned open below them.

He looked across the hole at Ganondorf. "Well?"

"Let's do it." Without further delay, he vaulted down into the pit, armour clanking loudly as he landed somewhere below.

Link peered down. He could barely see Ganondorf's dark face looking back up at him, framed by the red of his beard. "You okay?"

"There's a bit of a landing down here, and some more stairs. The rock here is ancient though, and it's covered in some kind of moss."

Navi zipped through Link's peripheral vision, bobbing around the bottom of the pit and illuminating it. "It's not that far! Look!" Although the drop was considerable, he was confident that he could make it safely.

Link slowly lowered himself into the aperture, taking a deep breath and letting go. There was an instant of weightlessness, and then his boots hit the ground hard. He let his knees fold up beneath him and rolled, softening the impact.

Ganondorf helped him up. "Midna," he called up. "Come on. It's time to get moving."

Her head appeared above them. "Will one of you guys catch me?"

"No," they both said.

Cursing, she jumped down and landed in a heap in front of them. "Ow! Ow, ow. I think I broke both my ankles."

Link grabbed her flailing hand and helped her to her feet. "You just want attention. Come on, we must be getting close now."

Ganondorf had gone on ahead, and was already several turns of the narrow spiral staircase beneath them. When he shouted up at them, his deep voice seemed to fill the small space. "Come look at this!"

He was standing next to a hole in the wall.

"It's a hole in the wall," said Midna with literally the smallest amount of enthusiasm she could muster.

"No, look closer. Something about this isn't right."

Link saw it. "It's an arrowslit. Like in a castle wall. Look, here is the space where the archer stands." He came to a sudden realization about what the spiral staircase entailed. "Ganondorf, we're in a tower."

Midna snorted. "Pfft. How could we be in a tower? We're miles underground."

"Exactly," Ganondorf said, dead serious. Suddenly he bolted in a dead sprint down the stairs, cloak flapping behind him as he disappeared around the next bend.

They took off after him. The end of the staircase came almost as a shock to Link, and he nearly ran straight into Ganondorf's back where the Gerudo leader stood gaping.

"I don't believe it," he was saying. "Goddesses above... I never thought I would set eyes on this place again."

Before them was an enormous cavern. And in that cavern was an entire city- empty roads, abandoned homes, derelict temples and shops. They stood atop a wall that circled the town, collapsed in places and with guard towers like the one they had just descended spaced out along its length. The entire cave was cast in an eerie glow, as some kind of luminescent moss had overgrown much of what remained of the city.

At the centre of the town was a castle. And not just any castle. Link recognized this place.

"You know it, don't you?" Ganondorf asked him quietly.

Behind them, Midna and Navi emerged from the stairwell. "Wow!" Navi was saying. "What is this place?"

Link fished the mask salesman's compass out of his cloak. The needle pointed straight ahead, right at the decaying castle. "It's Hyrule Castle Town," Link answered her. "The capital of the nation of Hyrule."

"There must be magic preserving this place," Ganondorf said. "This town has been down here for thousands of years, at least."

Link's eyes followed the curve of the wall around the sunken city. It formed a perfect circle. He noticed how the streets met at odd angles, how evenly spaced the guard towers were, and how Hyrule Castle seemed to be exactly in the centre of the town. "This is it. This is the heart of Zelda's power. The centre of the circle. It's there, in the castle."

"That's where she took Zant and me," Midna piped up. "Where we... where the Twili died."

Link closed his eyes. The constant thrum of power that had been running through him for the past few days was stronger now, like blood pounding through his temples after a bout of strenuous exercise. The three pieces of the Triforce were very close together, now.

Ganondorf seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Let's go," he said, and his voice was hoarse.

The crumbling wall made for a hazardous climb down, over slippery stone and unstable piles of rubble. The city itself was under a waist-deep layer of dark water, which every so often rippled suddenly for no visible reason. Link thought once that he felt something brush his leg beneath the surface, but just as quickly, it was gone.

They waded through the flooded streets, making their way towards the castle. The smell of rot was all around them, and the air was cold and thick with moisture. The heat from the Goron mines was far above and long since gone.

Suddenly, Ganondorf stopped. "Don't say anything," he whispered.

"I didn't-"

"Shh," he shushed Midna softly. "Navi," he said. The fairy leaned forward from her perch on his shoulder. "Fly quickly and quietly. We are surrounded. Inside the houses on our immediate left, at the corner on the right, and the one behind us with the collapsed roof. Come back and tell me how many there are."

She nodded, and was gone.

"Magic?" Midna asked, raising her hands.

"Not yet," he whispered. "If we can avoid aggravating them, so much the better."

Link slowly turned in the water, scanning each of the buildings Ganondorf had mentioned. As he watched, Navi flitted out of one of them and made a beeline for the next. "Do you know what they are?"

"No. But I hear them. Listen."

He listened. In the silence of the cavern, between the sounds of rippling water and their own breathing, a board creaked in one of the houses. Too loudly to be anything natural.

So they stood there, stock-still, until Navi came flitting back to them and landed on Ganondorf's shoulder.

"Well?" he asked.

There was something strange on her face, some emotion so powerful that it was clearly visible even on her tiny features. It was fear. "Run," she said. "There are too many of them. You have to get out of here."

"What?" Midna snapped. "Goddesses, too many of what?" Her voice shattered the silence of the cavern.

Link pointed.

Up ahead of them, something had lurched out from the darkness of a flooded alleyway. It was a woman, or at least it had been once, long ago.

Her skin had been waterlogged and rotted until it was a black festering mass that had sloughed off in places, revealing hideous expanses of skull and sinew. Filthy rags still clung wetly to her spindly form, and she walked with an unnatural, uneven gait that was sickening to watch.

Both eyes burned with points of bright blue light, like a cold fire in a dark cave.

Almost without thinking, Link reached for his sword. "Dont-" Ganondorf began, but it was too late. He unsheathed the Master Sword, blade glowing brightly in the darkness and casting a glittering reflection on the water.

The very instant the sword left the scabbard, the shamble-woman raised a bony arm, pointing at him with one broken finger. And then she opened her mouth and screamed.

It was a scream unlike anything any human could make, or for that matter, any creature not born of the blackest magic. The sound cut right through Link, chilling him to the bone. For an instant, even he was overwhelmed with fear, his feet rooted to the ground and an icy hand clutching at his heart.

"Dear Gods," Midna was panicking. "Dear holy Gods."

All around them, the same bone-chilling scream was being taken up a hundred times over as walking corpses appeared in windows and doorways of the derelict houses.

Midna heaved a fireball at the nearest one. The flames ignited the blackened flesh briefly, filling the air with a foul smell as the thing continued to hobble towards them.

"I suppose this is what she did with the people of this town," Ganondorf said mournfully. "It's a trap, to guard against intruders. They must be attracted to magic. That's why your sword enraged them, I think,"

"So what are we supposed to do, stand here quietly and hope they go away?" Midna spat. "The hell I will."

Link raised his sword. "I also think that is a bad idea."

Midna continued to throw magic at the shamble-men, to no avail. Her eyes were wild as she churned up the water around her feet, looking for the next foe.

"Calm down!" Ganondorf said, although he did not sound at all calm himself. "We need to start making our way towards that castle. Slowly- let's stay together, in a circle. Don't panic!"

But Link could feel panic begin to well up inside of him. It was something about their unearthly screeches that struck terror into even his heart. The noise was gut-wrenching, horrifying. He fought to quell his roiling emotions and struck out at one of the shamble-men, slicing it in half from hip to shoulder.

The two halves of the corpse toppled over and vanished beneath the black water. Seconds later Link felt a bony hand wrapping itself around his leg. "Agh! Gods!" He bashed at it with the hilt of his sword, staving in the rotting skull. "They don't die!"

"I can't stop them!" Midna was shouting. "I can't do anything!"

"Towards the castle!" Ganondorf boomed. "Stay calm!"

But there was nowhere to go. The four of them were now completely surrounded by the living corpses, at the centre of a circle that was growing smaller by the minute. No matter the wound Link inflicted upon the horrors, they kept fighting and kept advancing.

Midna raised both her arms above her head. A sudden light appeared there, and Link felt a wave of heat wash over him. "I am not dying here!"

Screaming in exertion, she flung her arms downwards, and an inferno of flame roiled over the undead townsfolk. There was a mighty thump as two of the ancient houses collapsed under the force of the spell, sending plumes of filthy water up into the air. The flames boiled away the liquid and within seconds they had all been engulfed in a cloud of steam, the oncoming monsters reduced to shadows moving towards them through the mist.

Suddenly, the flames disappeared. Link turned in time to see Midna's eyes roll up into the back of her head as she collapsed, sinking beneath the foaming waters.

"Uh-oh!" Navi shouted.

"Gods dammit," Link plunged his free arm into the water. It felt like he had just submerged it in a block of ice. Swiping blindly in the murk, he found Midna and hauled her up one-handed, slinging her over his shoulder. With his other hand he held the Master Sword high, as it and Navi were now the only visible sources of light in the billowing steam.

"Let's go!" Ganondorf said, lowering his shoulders and charging headlong into the mist. Link sprinted along behind him, Midna's head thumping into the small of his back with every step.

"Ow... hey, Link- ow. Did I get them...?"

"Yeah, you got them good," he said. "Shut up now, OK?"

He put his head down and concentrated on staying close to Ganondorf. The Gerudo leader was using the flat side of his greatsword to knock the living corpses aside, sending them flying through the air with each mighty swing.

"This way- no, this way!" Navi guided them. They broke free of the heavy steam that Midna had stirred up and saw that they were only a short distance from where the castle steps rose out of the water.

The entire population of the city had risen from its centuries-long slumber, now. All around them the living dead were stumbling from doorways or rising out of the water, reaching out to wrap their arms around the intruders and pull them down into the murk.

They were sprinting full-out now, Link and Ganondorf, both of them breathing hard and churning up white foam. Link's boots sank into the muck at the bottom with each step, and his legs were burning with exertion after only a couple minutes of running. His lungs felt like they were about to burst.

And then suddenly they were there, out of the water and ascending the white steps of the castle two at a time and skidding to a stop just inside the gate.

Link dropped Midna to the ground unceremoniously in his rush to get to the winch and close the portcullis. "It's rusted shut!"

Ganondorf joined him and threw his back into turning the lever, but both their combined strength could still only turn it a quarter of the way. Desperate, Link slammed himself into the winch, drawing every last bit of effort from his already exhausted legs.

"Relax, you guys," Midna said, lifting herself up onto her elbows. "They can't come into the castle."

Red-faced and puffing, both Ganondorf and Link stepped away from the winch. "What?" They said in unison.

"Look!" Navi said. "She's right!"

Sure enough, not a single one of the horrors had set foot on the castle's steps. They milled about, groaning and screaming their awful scream, but there seemed to be an invisible line around Hyrule Castle that they could not cross.

As they watched, some of them lurched off or simply sank back beneath the water. Something about the castle was keeping them away.

"Hey, jerk, help me up."

Link took Midna's hand and pulled her to her feet. She wobbled a bit and then leaned against him. "So, uh, sorry for dropping you there. Are you alright?"

Her face had a strange pallor to it, and sweat shone on her brow. "Fine. I'm fine. I overestimated myself back there, that's all. Not what I used to be."

Ganondorf sheathed his sword. "It's close by. Let's go."

Together, the four of them walked across the barren courtyard and into the castle's great hall. Just as Midna had said, the floor of the room was covered with the runes of Zelda's magic, entwined together in a great circle that glowed softly with the golden light of the Triforce.

"It's here," Midna said. "This is where... it happened."

Ganondorf closed his eyes, and pressed his hand against the floor. "Link. Can you feel that?"

"I do." The sensation of powerful magic was all around them. Not just at their feet, but through the entire castle, as if the enchantment was contained within the stone walls themselves.

This was the centre of the vast enchantment that enveloped the city. Zelda's piece of the Triforce was somewhere here, inside the ancient remains of Hyrule castle. Hopefully, all that remained was to find it.

But Link knew more than enough to expect that it wasn't going to be quite so easy.


In my original outline of this story, Midna's flashback sequence here was intended to take up an entire chapter. However, as with Ganondorf's similar sequences in earlier chapters, I found that it was both intrusive and detrimental to the plot, especially when it has been advancing at the rate that it has. However, Midna's story had to be included, so I tried to go for a minimalist approach when deciding what details I should put in there.

Yes, the zombie Hylians are intended to be ReDead. I had to put them in this story somewhere, they're the creepiest enemies in the whole series. It was a challenge to do so without once using the words 'zombie' or 'ReDead,' I found.

The next chapter will be very long. From a narrative perspective, it will also be the climax of the story, as everything that happens afterwards will simply be the inevitable playing itself out. I always loved plays and stories where the climax was only obvious in retrospect- for example, Macbeth. I've tried to emulate that structure in writing Sacred Reliquary. Look forward to the next chapter- it's gonna be good.