Chapter XXIX: The Mountain People

The roads coming out of Hyrule proper were cobbled, like those within the city itself. As one got further from the city cobbles became gravel, and then eventually simple dirt— cut into the plains by endless use. The path that snaked between the sides of the fifth great prominence and the southern twin peaks was a difficult mixture of the last two. Navigating it required a somewhat careful attention, or one might slip amidst the centuries' collected rubble and the boulders that had fallen from the sides of the mountain. Several times they had been forced to edge along the side of either the peaks or their resorbed neighbor, as the path was impeded by a rock of great size.

Even so, something about their path seemed… deliberate. When it wasn't troubled by great crags or littered with tedious geodes and stones, the way seemed… eroded, somehow. The cleft would have been natural, of that she had no doubt. But it seemed worn, cleaner cut than it ought to have. It was nothing any Hylian was capable of— cutting this deep into the range would have required tools she couldn't imagine, and reasons that go beyond reason.

It took them several hours to make their way along the winding path, but eventually they came to a clearing. It was… odd. Equally as odd as the path that led them there. Grass grew as it did out in the plains, and a few trees shabbily poked out of the ground and into the air above them. But the clearing didn't edge away evenly, the way soil and gravel gave way to one another at the western face of the mountains. Instead, like a line blatantly drawn, on one side there was earth and grass and the other hard rock. To Zelda, it seemed… out of place. Like it didn't belong there.

Aryll nudged her in the ribs, interrupting her probing of her discomfort. "We're here." And then she realized that, yes, they were. The place was choked with a fog that discouraged closer study, and Zelda hadn't taken in the clearing for itself.

But… "Wait, this is…?" she wondered aloud.

"Are those supposed to be graves?" Aryll asked in disturbed tones, seemingly of the graveyard itself.

The only answer she could manage was a nod, and a slight one at that. This was a graveyard, but… it wasn't a cemetery. At least, it wasn't a place where the living grieved and honored their dead. Not a somber-warm plot of earth, ornamented with flowers and stone effigies. These weren't graves lovingly made, but hastily dug. Shallow, protruding, barren of the grasses that grew around them and rendered more stark for it. No spirit of quiet reflection, but a sickening air of silent dread. This wasn't a place to remember… it was a place to forget.

"Aryll…" Zelda muttered, discomfited. "What happened here?"

Aryll could only shake her head. Then, after a moment, "But… think I know why they shun this place so hard…" Zelda made a questioning sound, and Aryll clarified, "Whatever gave 'em cause to dig these graves… it ain't a thing they like to think on." And that was more insightful than she realized, Zelda noted. Because they probably did remember, whatever it was they had been trying to forget. This place was at least a thousand years old. When she could move again, Zelda turned and found Aryll studying the shovel in her hand. The girl noticed her gaze and said, "Reckon I don't need this now?"

But Zelda shook her head. "No. You…," she paused, fighting with the thoughts that warred in her mind, "…you need to do it."

Aryll's brow leapt. "Yer serious?" But the look on Zelda's face must have betrayed her, because understanding spread across the girl's features. "You… hearin' voices again?" Zelda shook her head. "A vision, then?" Aryll continued to prompt.

Zelda fought the urge to groan. "No."

"Well, what is it, then?" Aryll prodded, heedless of her visible disorientation.

Zelda shook her head. "I don't know…" she confessed, turning away. "It's… I just know, you're supposed to use that to… It's like I'm… aware of something. An awareness. That's the best way I can describe it to you." There was a buzzing at the edge of her mind, a trembling firmament just behind her eyes. It wasn't a vision, but she knew from the feel of it that it belonged to whatever caused her to experience the visions.

"Kinda like Blackwell, then, after all," Aryll confirmed, partly for herself. With a dark look at the shovel in her hand, "It got a reason for tellin' you to dig up a grave?"

"Not me," Zelda corrected her. She turned and looked the girl in the eye, "You."

Aryll's eyes went wide, and then narrowed in mute fury. "You gonna make me desecrate a—"

Zelda cut her off, "I'm not going to make you do anything." She turned and started off towards the edge of the clearing, where a path seemed to open up and wend southeast. "You can do it if you want to, or not do it if that's what you want. It doesn't make a difference."

Aryll made an exasperated sound, "Well, if that's how it is why suggest it to me in the first place?"

Zelda stopped and turned, "Because it wanted me to, Aryll." The younger woman just stared back angrily, so Zelda went on. "I don't know why I know. And it's got nothing to do with reasons for…" she shook her head, still trying to articulate just what she was sensing. "It's not about the temple. You're supposed to see something. If you don't see it here, then it'll be taken care of elsewhere. But it's going to have it's way."

Aryll's jaw dropped in frustrated confusion. "What are ye talkin' about?"

Zelda turned again, continuing on toward the path at the end of the clearing. "I already told you that I can't explain it to you. You can take what I've told you however you like. I'm going on, and you can follow or catch up with me. I won't get far before…" before you finish. But somehow she knew— just like she knew that Aryll needed to see whatever it was that was buried here— somehow she knew that Aryll would comply. As she heard the girl's footsteps behind her cease, she wondered at just what forces were at play in the Aryll's life… and her own.


With a huff, Gethrim dropped the cumbersome barrel into the footing prepared for it. Sailors what lived at the edge of a blade were endlessly at work on their vessel. Even without the added tear of danger, the inescapable wear of use always left this or that in need of repair. Most liked to keep their supplies in the hull, and he was no exception. But as the years went by the nature of his rigging changed, the hand of necessity forced by that of extremity. The Anathema often carried fewer men than most vessels would have preferred— old habit— and the operation of his ship eventually required certain innovations accessible to his ranks.

A friend and former crew-mate from his younger days helped him develop a system that used pulleys and levers to operate the sails and riggings of his ship. He need only give the word, and his men could loose or trim the mainsails, topsails, or foresails. The tactical use of this system had more than once proved the trump card in nautical battle. But it's complexity required more frequent maintenance, and against the need he'd had his boatswain and carpenter fashion a depression in the deck next to the mast, where a barrel could be set without fear of being toppled.

By rights, he had no business shuffling the extras from the hull above deck. But he had needed something to distract himself. And as if the Light saw fit to chasten his complacency, his troubles had indeed come to find him rather than wait to be sought out. The boy had wandered aboard nearly twenty minutes ago, and had simply stood off to the side staring as Gethrim and the crew of the ship went about their duties. Content to let the lad initiate, Gethrim had labored on to keep himself busy.

Because what could Komali possibly expect him to say? He was a bright lad, but this was not a thing to be puzzled through. The disparity between his frame of understanding and the reality of Gethrim's experience was far and away beyond his own ability to explain and the boy's to understand.

Gethrim had been raised by his drunken pirate uncle— Tam— from the age of seven until he was eleven. His father, captain of a smalltime pirate vessel, had been murdered by his uncle, who led a mutiny against him alongside Gethrim's own mother. It was less than a year before Tam had murdered his mother as well. He had seen the deed done, with his own eyes, and had been ordered to haul her dead body out of the cabin the three of them shared and to toss it overboard. Years later, Tam would be dragged from his bunk in the dead of night, butchered and hurled into the sea himself. The ship on which Gethrim lived knew a handful of other cur leaders before being broken at last by the mostly feeble militia of the south.

Faced with the gallows, he had been offered the chance to serve with the militia rather than be hung. At the time he had thought himself a rat in the making, an idea that both reviled and thrilled him. Now, though, he wondered if it were only because even men as rough as those what come from the Outset Isles balked at the idea of hanging a thirteen-year-old boy.

So, serve he did. And merit notice as well. In just a few short years, at seventeen, he was made captain of a brig with the Outset Militia. He no longer cursed the hellish life into which he'd been born, because it had led him to that very moment. Providence, he decided, had fit him with a youth filled with the depravity of piracy so that he might one day serve as it's scourge. He did so gladly. And it was upon that very ship— the Wolf— that he had met his future wife. He could still remember the venomous look in her eye as she glared up at him, kneeling with his blade at her chin.

Those pirates that hadn't gone down to the drink found themselves in the brig, and Tetra was no exception— though, she was afforded a more private cell, given both her gender and her tender youth. She wasn't much younger than he had been, when he had found himself kneeling at the end of a militiaman's sword. At fifteen years, she was given pardon for her crimes in exchange for ten years of service with the militia. And despite the objections of his superstitious crewmen, Gethrim had seen to it that she was placed aboard his ship. They thought he fancied her, and beneath the grime of the sea she really was very pretty. But at the time it was more kinship than anything drew him to her. Here at last was another poor soul made wretched by the life of piracy.

She didn't thank him for it, though. No, she hated his guts. For a time. But as the years went by her guard fell and they were able to find in each other a friend who could understand what most others could not— who bore in kind the scars of a scorched life. At twenty-five he was promoted to commodore, and they were wed shortly after. Together with the few they could call friends— a pair of brothers older than they— they built a few cottages on one of the larger islands a few miles out of town. There they would live and work, and raise their son Colm (who would grow to be a fisherman).

But the grasping claw of piracy, it seems, would not suffer his vengeance in silence. Despite the marked change in the climate of their lives, Colm would not live to see his twenty-fifth year. One day while he was at work upon one of the schooners he owned, he was murdered along with his wife by pirates. They took nothing, didn't even bother to destroy the ship. To nearly all it seemed they had simply killed them for the sport of it, orphaning their two children on a whim. But not to Gethrim. He had grown complacent in those peaceable times, but he had never forgotten the demon of piracy. It was as if the devil of the sea itself had risen from it's dank and watery depths to drag his loves into the black.

And he would not suffer it quietly, either. He found that insipid band of cutthroats. Rained down fire and steel on their ship of straw and putrescence. He stormed their homely ship and bid them kneel before him, a commodore. A man of justice. And true to form, he would offer them justice that day. These men had slain a few of his comrades, which simply wouldn't do— he always did keep himself a little shorthanded. Let these men be given the chance to turn from their lives of piracy, as he had been. A choice much like that given him, and to his wife Tetra. A choice between a life of vengeance or a just and fitting death.

But not at the mercy of the gallows. No. Lest they forget, these men had slaughtered his son. These men had ravaged the mother of his grandchildren. He'd spent years culling the brood of the darker of his kind, but only then did he understand the truth: the sin of piracy was like a madness. Given enough time, it warped the mind so terribly that no mercy could inspire repentance. These men were so perverted, so defiled by the evil of their lives that they had ceased entirely to be men. And only men were afforded the dignity of the noose. No. These would be given a different choice.

And so he had thrown down his sword at the feet of the mewling mongrel forced to kneel before him. Five men he'd lost, he told them. Five men he'd take in return. Just as the life of his son had been in their hands, so too now were their own lives in their hands— and in those of their comrades. Would you live?, he challenged them, fury reddening his face and splintering his voice. Then you must take your life back from your brother's hand… before he takes his back from you. And just like the sin that had sunk those men into a hell beyond redemption, his own soul was finally shipwrecked as he had watched them slaughter each other in desperation.

At last the boy stirred, perhaps alerted by the completion of Gethrim's task as he finished absentmindedly examining the contents of the barrel. With a sigh, he finally met Komali's nervous gaze. Komali opened his mouth to speak, then closed it suddenly as if changing his mind. And finally he asked, "Where are you going?"

It wasn't what he'd come to ask. But that was just as well, as Gethrim had no taste for that conversation. And even if he were forced to stomach it, the boy would find nothing to help him in this old man. Not with this. "To tend to some business," he grunted in answer.

Komali was again silent a moment. "Will you come back?"

Gethrim fought to unclench his teeth, but managed another answer, "Aye."

"Why?" Komali breathed, seemingly exasperated.

Gethrim felt his brow leap. "Ye'd rather I didn't?"

Komali shook his head, staring down at his hands. "I just… I don't understand. It couldn't be chance that found you in port when Zelda had needed a ship. Can't be idle fancy that urged you to chase down the Lion's Roar when they were taken."

Gethrim guffawed. "What are ye talkin' about, boy?" he spat.

"It's not money," Komali insisted, almost to himself. "You could have assumed control of the kidnapping, if that's what you were after. You could have demanded compensation for your service— you'd be within your rights to, though I'm not sure you'd get very far."

Gethrim turned and made for the companionway, growling over his shoulder, "I ain't got time for this."

But the boy went on, his voice rising in pitch and passion. "And clearly there's some kind of… rift between you and Aryll."

Gethrim whirled on the boy, striving close to clutch vehemently at his shoulders. "Don't you mention her to me, y'hear? Don't."

"Why, Graybeard?" Komali pleased, somewhere between frenzy and desperation.

"What, sink it, why what?" Gethrim roared, his hands a vice on the boy's collar.

"Why are you here?!" Komali bellowed in answer. Gethrim could only blink at the question, but again the boy's interrogation went on with little pause. "If you have nothing to gain and you're so resentful of the only family you have left—"

And that did it. Before he realized what he'd done Gethrim lifted the boy from his feet and plunged a fist into his ribs, then dropped him sputtering on the ground like a rag doll. He turned away from the coughing sprat and shook his head. Gasping for breath, Komali refused to let up. "Why… Graybeard?… Why does it all… have to be this way?… When you could… do something about it?"

It was as he had expected, and perhaps worse. Aye, the question he dreaded was mixed in with the larger inquiry. But this? He would not be called to reckoning by a child that couldn't possibly understand that the sea would not be reproached. She did not give back her dead. And as far as he was concerned, both he and his granddaughter were lost to it.

He looked back to where Komali lay in a crumpled heap, nursing his ribs. Though he had stirred his anger, Gethrim did not hate the boy. He reminded him too much of Colm for that. So he knelt where he lay, deciding to answer at least one of the boy's questions and to give him the opportunity to grasp at the truth for the other. "I'm here because I made a promise," he told him.

After a moment, Komali looked up. "…To her?"

Gethrim shook his head. "No," he corrected, "to her brother." He stood then, and turned to find Grime tending the ropes for the mainsail pulley nearby. "Grime!" he beckoned.

At once the man dropped what he was doing and came to stand before his captain. "Aye, sir?"

"Tell the boatswain to weigh anchor," he ordered and, jabbing a finger toward Komali, "and see this one to the surgeon— a few broken ribs, I'd wager."

Grime raised a single eyebrow, "Sir?"

Gethrim nodded. "Aye— he's comin' with us."


Zelda's trail beyond the cemetery wasn't hard for Aryll to follow, but then there wouldn't have been anywhere else to go. Clutching dumbly at the dirt caked shovel, she half stumbled and half climbed her way along the cluttered path. Her travel would likely have been much clumsier were it not for the unnatural smoothness of the tread, and somewhere in the jumble of her thoughts she was both disturbed by and grateful for that. But it was a dim, whispering idea amidst a cacophony that was made all the louder by the ghastly silence of her environment.

She had been too preoccupied with her own affairs to be affected by it, but she had taken note of the gradual change in her companion's demeanor as they had made their way deeper into the range. She wasn't overfond of the woman, but there was a settled confidence in the princess— something of a marriage of the innate and the attained— that seemed to dissipate like a wan mist the deeper they went. It had taken the cemetery… and her unholy business there, to pry loose Aryll's grasp on her own peace of mind.

It was as Zelda had remarked: the place didn't belong, was as though it had simply been dropped onto the face of the earth. The mountains surrounding her rose up to eclipse the face of the sun, like the clawed fingers of a titanic fist. Rather, it felt like she didn't belong— a fool barnacle lolling about in the palm of a god's hand. She did not know what time it was, or how far off dusk might be. But then, she wasn't really thinking about that. She wasn't really thinking about anything. And she longed for nothing more in that moment than to remain thoughtless, content merely to drift aimless down the road.

She walked on for for sometime until the path cut into the back of the largest prominence, climbing it's seaward face. Her course was much slower from there, and required greater focus to keep her from losing footing and sliding down the steeply rising slopes. What felt like hours after the start of her course, she found Zelda kneeling on the edge of the path, dry-heaving. She was even paler than normal, and Aryll thought the woman must have been glad for her leather breeches and rough-spun cloak (her dress and tights would have been in tatters by now).

Neither made any attempt to bandy words— about what Aryll had found in the graves or what had forced Zelda to her knees to be sick. Instead, when at last Zelda stood and drew in a deep breath, Aryll nodded for her to lead the way and they went on. Aryll couldn't imagine that their narrow path up the mountainside would lead them to some place in the peak. If this was where the temple was, then likely it belonged to some people that had once lived in the belly of the mountain, much the way Komali's people had in Dragonroost.

The next stretch of their journey was markedly longer, perhaps four or five hours of walking interrupted only by handfuls of minutes needed to recover their strength. More than once they had to climb a steep, vertical jog— the mountain face itself, actually— where their path came to an end against what could only have been a wall. Upon ascending the rock-face, they would have to hoist themselves over to a smoothed outcropping that they were sure now was a deliberate continuation of the path. This did require them to speak, guiding one another and asking for or lending what help was needed. Apart from this, they were silent for the length of their journey.

After completing their ascent of a rather daunting rise, they found themselves upon something of a plateau. It rose from where they stood as something of a ramp, toward a broad opening in the mountain. This cave seemed natural, lacking the subtle signs of design the rest of their path had offered. But it was clear that this was the object of it all. This was the point to which the path led. This must have been the sight of the ancient Kakariko.

Aryll was panting from the exertion of her trek, and forgetting both herself and the bitternesses that had gnawed at her thus far, commented between gasping breaths, "To think folk… actually used t'live here."

Zelda shook her head. "No human ever lived here," she muttered, almost to herself. "A few came and went... but never to stay."

That drew Aryll's attention a little more sharply. "So now ye've had a vision?" Aryll pried. "Is that what had y'sick earlier?"

Zelda didn't answer at first, but when she answered Aryll could only assume the answer was yes. "It's different, this time," was all she said at first. Aryll grunted, drawing her on. Zelda shook her head, seemingly to clear it. "I'm sorry," she said, wincing. "I don't think I'm… entirely with you right now. That's… how it's different."

"Yer havin' a vision right now?" Aryll clarified. Zelda could only nod. "But… I thought you—" her words were interrupted as Zelda reached over to take her hand. She was too alarmed by what followed to protest. Thunder seemed to peal in her head, and it seemed as though a torrent of rains pelted at the back of her eyes. The moment was perhaps less than even a second, but it felt as though it lasted a day. Then, just as suddenly as the sensation came, it passed… and everything around her had changed.

Because of the grievous associations her recent experience in the cemetery forced her to make with what she saw, she involuntarily wrenched her hand free and collapsed to her knees. Scurrying over to the edge of the plateau in a frenzied crawl, she was sick until she could only wheeze. When it was over, she collapsed fully and rolled over onto her back. Lost in the hysteria, she hadn't noticed as Zelda came to kneel beside her. She didn't know what she expected to see when she looked up, but it certainly wasn't the pity she found in the woman's eyes. "Wh-what… what are they?" was all she could ask.

Zelda shook her head. "We don't have a word for them, anymore," she said, somewhat sadly. "But, no… they aren't human."

Clearly, Aryll guffawed. The way Zelda turned to study the empty space beyond them told her that the vision still hung before the woman's eyes, and Aryll was glad that she could no longer see it. They weren't terrifying to look upon— she'd seen men uglier than these things. But they were so… different. So unhuman. They were the living forms of those beings she found desiccated and decomposed in the graves at the cemetery.

There was always talk in the pubs of the alien races that had lived among humans, thousands of years ago. Heck, there were still more than a few moblins in the bush back home. But she'd always thought the talk to be little more than that— talk. There were no records, no stories, of dealings with non-human creatures, nothing that she knew of anyway. Not even fanciful descriptions of what such exotic beings might have looked like. But, there they had been, right before her eyes.

Had the vision persisted, she would have at first glance thought them to be strange rock formations— clumps of stone intermingled with mounds of oily soil and grit and sand. But as she examined the images that swam before her eyes, helpless to dispel them though the vision had passed, she knew them more than that. A barrel-like torso that sat upon short, stout legs; broad, stony shoulders that gave way to massive and gangling arms, hammer like fists at their end. A head sat almost neckless upon those shoulders, with a chin that jutted out so as to allow them some ability to turn their faces about. They wore no clothing, save for shining, jewel-encrusted bracelets on each wrist. Few had hair atop their heads, but most of who she assumed to be the males had long, bristly beards.

Human-like in many ways, but in many more undeniably otherwise. The texture of their skin had the appearance of wet sand that had somehow been fused together, and ranged in color from dark browns to golden tans. In many places on their bodies protuberances of gravel and stone freckled their skin like would-be moles. The males were additionally set apart by pauldron-like boulders with the diameter of human heads that crowned their shoulders. By and large the adults stood at least two heads taller than the tallest man she knew. But most incredible of all was the way in which they traveled.

They could walk, and stand, on their legs in the same way that humans did. But because their legs were so short this was likely not very practical for distances further than a few feet. Instead, these creatures would kneel and, tucking their limbs and heads inward, would roll about like a ball kicked by children. Though her glimpse of the vision had only been a handful of moments, she saw clearly enough more than a few entering or leaving this form, and others on their way into or out of the cave. Which meant…

"This was their home," she realized, looking over at Zelda. "Them… them creatures, they lived here." Zelda nodded silently. "What… what do ye think happened to 'em all?"

"I don't know," the princess answered. "But with a little time… I might." Before Aryll could ask what that meant, Zelda turned to her. "Would you be alright with camping here for the night?" she asked. She shot a glance at the darkening sky. "Dusk will be upon us within the hour, and I think it'll take us longer than that to find our way around in there."

"Ye don't want to be in there at night time, huh?" Aryll wondered.

Zelda's face scrunched a little in amusement. "Well, I'm not afraid of anything, if that's what you're asking. But no." Aryll didn't like the idea of being here any longer than she needed, and sensing her potential objections Zelda added, "It will give me time to sort through everything in my head, which I will need to do one way or the other if we're going to be successful here."

And there was little use in arguing with that. So with a nod, she agreed.