I consider this to be the most important chapter of the entire story. Read carefully.


29

Mistakes From Another Life. The Triforce of Wisdom. Ice, Flame, and Shadow.


These words were for him, and for him alone. Ganondorf's voice was a quiet murmur in Link's ear, low enough that neither Midna nor Navi could overhear.

"When the time comes, you must promise me that you will take Zelda's piece of the Triforce."

It was a big thing to ask of him. "What's this all about?"

"You must keep it from me." Ganondorf was dead serious. "For countless lifetimes I did horrible things in pursuit of that power. I do not trust myself with it."

There was a time when Ganondorf holding two-thirds of the Triforce would have been a notion that terrified Link. But thinking about it now, he realized that the Gerudo was maybe the only person in the world that he now trusted with that responsibility. "Are you sure that's necessary? I know you're not that man anymore."

"Do you want to know the truth?" Ganondorf looked him in the eye. "I'm scared. Of what I used to be. And I'm scared that I could become that monster again. Please, Link, do me this one favour."

"I'll do it. But remember: Running away from your fears is not the same as conquering them."

He didn't acknowledge Link's advice, turning away and saying, "You go and search the castle. Zelda's reliquary must be hidden here somewhere, so come and tell me once you've found it. In the meantime, I'll try and decipher these symbols and see if I can find a way to break this enchantment."

"...Alright. Good luck."

Ganondorf remained hunched over the floor, not looking up as the footsteps of Link and Midna faded into quietness as they set off further into the bowels of the abandoned castle. His breath formed faint wisps of white in the cold as he studied the runes on the floor, admiring the artistry that had gone into their creation.

"Decided to stay with me again, have you?" He said after a while.

"Yep!" Navi alighted on his shoulder. Through his armour, he couldn't even feel her tiny weight. "I think you need a friend to keep you company."

"That's what you said last time."

She smiled up at him. "I was right, wasn't I?"

Slowly, Ganondorf smiled back. "Yes. I suppose you were."


"Do you think Ganondorf has been acting... kind of weird lately?"

Link watched the needle of the compass wobble back and forth before finally pointing them left. "I think you've been acting weird lately," he said.

Midna gave him a strange look. "What are you talking about?"

"It's hard to explain. It just seems like recently you've been distracted by something. You're not yourself."

She scowled. "And what is 'myself?' What should I be like?"

"Well, usually nothing seems to get to you. But now... it's like your mind is elsewhere. You're distracted, I suppose."

They were wandering the dungeons of the abandoned castle, cold gutted corridors that ran beneath the foundations of the ancient structure. A chill wind blew through the narrow passageways.

A chill wind that was unusual considering they were several kilometres underground. They'd been following its keening wail for some time now, certain that the source must be unnatural. It was cold beneath the castle, so cold that some of the stone walls were coated in a thin layer of frost.

"Do you remember," Midna said suddenly, "The last time we saw each other? In the mirror chamber at Arbiter's Grounds?"

A memory from another life. A memory that she shouldn't have.

He rubbed his hands together, flexing his fingers in an attempt to keep them from going numb. Link couldn't believe how cold it was down here. "Yes."

"And... do you remember what I said? The last words I spoke to you?"

It had been an unfinished sentence, he recalled. "Yeah. I remember."

He waited for her to say something else, but when she didn't he glanced over his shoulder at her. Midna trudged along behind him, staring firmly at her boots, her long hair falling forward and hiding her face.

In his concern for her, Link almost missed it- a stone door, with the three triangles of the Triforce visible through the frost that covered it. "Look here," he said. "I think this is it."

Slowly, Midna turned her head to look at the door. She stared at it for a long time, and then looked back at him.

"Midna, is something-"

He stopped midsentence because suddenly Midna had taken two quick steps towards him, and then her arms were wrapped around his neck, her hair was in his eyes and her mouth was pressed firmly against his.

In all of his lives, Link was unsure that anybody had ever kissed him the way that Midna was now. It felt like fire being breathed into him, so fiercely did she burn, and one of her fists clenched his hair, somehow managing to draw him even tighter against her. In the chill air he was acutely aware of her warmth, and the quick gasping breath he took in the second she broke away was like ice water in his lungs. But then she was kissing him again, the gesture so filled with need and tenderness that all he could do was let her burn against him.

As suddenly as she had leaped at him, she jumped away, her eyes meeting his briefly.

"...Shut up," she muttered, and then took off in a full sprint down the frozen corridor.

Link just stood there. He could still feel her fading heat against his chest, and the sensation of her lips on his.

Tears stung Link's cheeks. They weren't his.

With a sigh of resignation, he sat with his back against the dungeon wall, trying his best to make himself comfortable. He knew what choice Midna would make. After all, she had made it once before.


It was a short while later when Ganondorf came striding down the passageway towards him, with Navi fluttering along behind and Midna trying her best to appear aloof.

Link decided that it would be best if he pretended to forget about what had happened between the two of them. Perhaps there would come a time when he could talk to her about it, but right now it was simply a distraction from the task at hand, and he pushed it out of his mind.

"Well?" Link said to Ganondorf. "Did you figure anything out?"

Ganondorf stopped in front of the sealed doorway and examined the Triforce crest on it. "Yes. And I don't think you're going to like it."

"What is it?"

Instead of explaining, Ganondorf gestured at the door.

Link stepped forward and laid his hand on the crest. Just as before, there was a flash of golden light, and the doorway disappeared, revealing a stone staircase that descended into the blackness ahead. A gust of frigid wind swirled out of the opening and buffeted Link's hair around his face.

They started down the stairs, Navi illuminating the way ahead. There was a gentle curve to the staircase, Link noticed almost immediately. It took him only a few minutes longer to notice that the curve was slowly widening, and that they were moving downwards in larger and larger circles.

As they walked, Ganondorf began to explain. "The ruins of Hyrule castle are placed at the exact centre of the city of Hyrule, up above. The magic circle in the throne room that we just saw acts as a focal point for the enchantment, allowing Zelda to control the flow of power from her reliquary. It seems that I woefully underestimated the sheer scale and complexity of the spell- I almost can't believe she's actually done it."

"Well, she's had a few thousand years to get it right," Link said.

Ganondorf thought for a moment. "Here's the best example I can give: Think of Hyrule as being shaped like an hourglass."

"Now, just like the flow of sand is restricted by the thinnest part of the hourglass, so is the flow of magic restricted by the binding circle in the old Hyrule Castle. We are talking about untold amounts of power, here, something that has never been done in this world or any other. Allowed to pour forth unheeded, it could tear the city apart. So it makes sense that Zelda would need some way to control how much of it was fed into her enchantment."

Link was seeing exactly how Ganondorf's theory was related to their current task. "So the Triforce is still somewhere below us."

"Yes. The most fundamental part of the enchantment- that which draws power from the piece of Zelda that is fused with the Triforce- will be somewhere beneath the focal point of her magic."

"How much farther down?" Midna asked.

"I think we're about to find out."

They continued walking in silence, for half an hour, then an hour, then two. The stairs' gentle curve gradually widened until it was imperceptible, and they may as well have been walking in a straight line.

Navi's eyes, ever the keenest, spotted it first. "Light up ahead!"

Link saw it moments afterward. It wasn't the warmth of daylight. But neither was it the golden glow of the Triforce. Instead, it was a cold misty whiteness. Another blast of chill air swirled up from the opening ahead and sucked the heat from the air around them.

It only took them a few more minutes to reach the light. And when they did-

"Is this for real?" Midna asked. "It... it can't be..."

"Gods," Link said. There were no words that could describe the sight before them.

It was a pit, so wide and so vast that the far side of it was hidden in a white fog. Ahead of them, the staircase disappeared into that same fog, hugging the gargantuan circumference and gently sloping downwards.

"How wide do you think this is?" Midna knelt down and levered her head over the edge of the stairs, looking down.

"How wide is the city of Hyrule?" Ganondorf said as an answer. "I shudder to think of how far it is to the bottom."

Far, far below, a gentle glow radiated through the whiteness, illuminating the entire chasm. It was freezing cold, and snowflakes fluttered around in the wind that howled through the emptiness.

"Well," Link said, after they had absorbed the sheer scale of what they were looking at. "I bet it's a long journey down. No point waiting around up here."

So they started walking.

It soon became apparent that the walls of the cavern were so utterly featureless that they could walk for hours without making any visible progress. Indeed, they did just that, and after the eighth hour of nothing but stairs, Midna could take no more.

"Stop!" she yelled suddenly. "Stop, here. I just thought of something."

Glad for a break, they dropped their packs and turned to face her. She was last in their procession, and Ganondorf first, so they both were looking up at her.

"What if this is a trap?" she said. "Like, an infinite staircase, or something, so we're stuck here walking forever, and we never get anywhere?"

Ganondorf paused to consider this. "It is... unlikely. We would be able to tell if we were in the grip of such an enchantment."

She sighed. "What if we jumped? Maybe there's an enchantment down there that will cushion our fall?"

He laughed dryly at this. "If you want to jump, then be my guest. But I don't think it would be the wisest course of action."

"Well, what about this?" Midna unbuckled her sword. "Not like this thing will ever do me any good, anyways." She tossed it into the pit.

Arcing lazily, the sword seemed to hover there in the void for a moment, before vanishing and falling out of view. They leaned forward, listening for the sound of the weapon hitting bottom, but no sound ever came.

Midna moaned in despair. "We're going to be walking down these stairs forever, I just know it."

Link ignored her. "Let's give it three more hours, and then we'll stop. We'll all need sleep by that point anyways. Hopefully we'll reach the bottom tomorrow."

When did they finally did decide to stop for a rest, three and a half hours had passed and there was still nothing visible through the thick white mist. The staircase was wide enough, at least, for the three of them to huddle around one of Midna's conjured fires and attempt to drive some of the chill from their bones.

"It's times like this I feel my age," Ganondorf said, rubbing his hands together. "I grow tired of this fight."

"It's almost over," Midna's voice was quiet. "Hyrule will be ours. Soon. And we can finally make things right. People won't need to be afraid anymore."

Ganondorf sighed and then leaned back against the cold stone. "Maybe then, I will at last be able to rest."

Link noticed that the look on Midna's face was a very strange one, indeed. "Well, I don't know how restful sleeping on a frozen staircase is going to be," he said, "But let's get what sleep we can. Maybe we can make it to the bottom of this thing tomorrow."

Just as he had suspected, the frozen steps were an extraordinarily uncomfortable place to lie down and sleep. He lay there for what felt like hours, unable to sleep, and his mind was put further ill at ease by the strange sounds that he thought he could hear, echoing up faintly from somewhere far, far below.


They didn't reach the bottom of the pit the next day, or the day after that. But on the fourth day of their descent into the featureless whiteness, the bottom of the pit suddenly loomed out of the void below them.

"Is this... ice?" Midna said, stepping off of the last stair and setting foot on the bluish surface and brushing away the dusting of snow that lay on top of it. "It is!"

At first, Link thought that the surface of the ice seemed to be glowing slightly. But then he realized that the source of the light was actually something frozen deep beneath it.

He knelt and began swiping away large swathes of snow, uncovering more and more of the glassy surface. Sure enough, a golden light shone from below, through a thick shield of frozen water. "This is it," he said. "This is the heart of Zelda's enchantment."

Contained within the ice were layers upon layers of shining circles and runes, woven together with stunning complexity. The design occupied three dimensions, he saw, and the ice held the whole thing together.

Ganondorf had come to the same realization that he had. "We are standing atop an enormous binding circle. This is the source of the spell that powers Zelda's magic, here beneath our feet."

Midna raised her fist in the air, and fire bloomed between her clenched fingers. "What are we waiting for, then?"

She brought her fist down, smashing into the ice and sending shards of it flying. But as she raised her fist for another blow, the crater that she had made filled in, refreezing itself. Within seconds, the ice had been repaired completely.

"Well, that was my idea," Midna said. "Now what?"

"Now-" Link shuffled around in his pack, withdrawing the golden compass. "We follow this."

The needle pointed them away from the wall, into the white mist. Towards the centre of the circle. Towards the Triforce of Wisdom.

They set off into the mist, walking slowly for fear of losing purchase on the slippery terrain.

"Do you feel that?" Ganondorf asked him, quietly.

"What?" Midna interrupted. "Is it the Triforce?"

Ganondorf unsheathed his greatsword. "No. Something else. Something bad."

Link drew the Master Sword and tried to dispel some of the haze with its light. He could feel a malevolent presence lurking in the fog. For a few minutes more they walked in silence, slowly approaching the centre of the great chamber.

"Ee-hee!" A faint giggle echoed towards them out of the haze.

"There!" Navi shouted. "Just ahead!"

Amidst the swirling whiteness hovered a dark shape. It was a familiar silhouette- the tiny body that had once been Midna's, complete with the two-pronged helm atop her head. It was the last remnant of the Nameless.

As quickly as it had appeared, it dissolved into smoke and was gone, fading into the void around them.

"It guards this place," Midna said, eyes darting back and forth, straining for a glimpse of the monstrosity. "This is what it was made for. To keep watch."

"Then this is the very source of its power," Ganondorf replied. "Keep moving. Be on your guard."

They continued on through the fog, their long journey beneath Hyrule nearing its end with each step. Was it just Link's imagination, or was the golden glow beneath the ice becoming more and more pronounced?

"I see something!" Midna said suddenly. "On the ground!"

It was a small, dark shape lying on the ice. They approached it cautiously, with blades drawn.

"Oh!" Navi flitted over the shape. "It's that sword you threw down here earlier!"

Link let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Gods," he punched Midna on the shoulder. "Don't scare us like that."

She bent and picked up the sword. "Yeah... yeah." She turned the weapon over in her hands and for a moment, seemed as if she was going to buckle it at her waist once again. But then she threw the blade aside. "Let's go. We're almost there."

They continued to follow the needle of the compass, which began to swing more and more wildly, growing hot in Link's hand. Only- it wasn't. It took a few minutes for him to realize, but Link's hand was shaking, and the Triforce symbol on his skin was burning.

"Din, Farore, and Nayru," Ganondorf was saying. He was clenching and unclenching his own fist reflexively, the sigil there shining brightly as well. His face seemed to have an unusual pallor to it, and he was sweating despite the cold.

The Triforce was calling out, each piece sensing the presence of its siblings.

Finally they reached a spot where the light from beneath them was brightest, pulsing like the beating of some great heart. His face cast in a golden glow, Link knelt to peer beneath the ice again.

There it was. At the very centre of the grand design, in the spot where all the glowing lines intersected, there was a tiny light that burned even brighter than the sun itself. Link estimated that the golden triangle was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

"It's here," he said, standing, "right below us."

There was a moment of silence as the realization of what they were looking at washed over all of them.

"How do we get it out?" Navi asked. "We can't break the ice."

"We could-" Midna began, but then her face paled. "It's here. The Nameless. It's here now."

All traces of melancholy suddenly vanished, Ganondorf twirled his broadsword over his head and slammed it down into the ice. "Then here is where we end the blighted thing."

As Link settled into a defensive stance and began scanning the gold-tinged mist around them, he could tell that Midna was panicking. He could hear her feet scrambling for purchase in the snow, and the strange high note in her voice. "I can't kill it," she was saying, "not like this, I'm too weak, but I have an idea, I can get the Triforce! You two need to hold it off, just hold it off for five, maybe ten minutes. Maybe ten. That's it, I can do it, I swear!"

"Ten minutes?" Ganondorf said. In the silence between his words, Link thought he could hear footsteps coming from somewhere out in the fog.

"I need time to draw on enough magic to shatter the ice from underneath. Maybe fifteen," Midna said. She had started drawing lines in the air, the beginnings of a powerful spell.

"You almost killed yourself with magic fighting those living corpses," Link said. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Just buy me time!" She shouted back at him. And then she had no more time for words, as she began to chant under her breath as her fingers traced lines of fire in the air.

Both Link and Ganondorf paced around the spot where Midna was kneeling on the ice, blades drawn and searching the mist for any hint of movement. "It's can't wait long," Ganondorf said. "It needs to protect the Triforce. It will come to us, soon."

They continued their vigil, the silence around them broken by Midna's low chanting. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Still, she wove magic above the spot where the Triforce rested.

The whiteness that surrounded them was so complete that Link's eyes began to play tricks on him. Several times he thought he saw dark shapes lurking in the haze, but each time he would blink and they would be gone.

"Where are you...?" he whispered.

There was a sudden shout from behind him. Link whirled in time to see Ganondorf hurling lightning into the fog.

"I saw it, right there. It was only for a second."

"This damned fog," Link cursed. "I can't tell if I'm imagining things or actually seeing-"

A dark shape flickered at the edge of his vision, something black and hideous shifting in the fog.

"Dammit, there! It's-"

It happened in an instant.

The Nameless poured towards them out of the whiteness, its black hide roiling like something out of a nightmare, and before Link had time to do anything more than raise his sword it was upon him, knocking him to the ice.

Sliding wildly through the thin layer of snow, unable to find purchase, he slashed wildly at the beast, and it recoiled with an angry screech. A tendril of shadow lashed out, striking his sword arm and pinning it to the ice as the beast raised a clawed appendage and swung it down at him.

Ganondorf crashed into the Nameless from the side, screaming wordlessly and driving his own sword deep into its hide. The monster was flung off of Link as Ganondorf and the beast fought madly, staining the ice crimson with spilled blood.

The Nameless threw Ganondorf aside, easily, and he crashed heavily to the ice. His greatsword flew from his grip and skittered through the thin snow.

The creature was a nightmarish colossus, its bulk towering above them. With one massive hand it swiped at Link, and he had to throw himself aside to avoid being crushed.

"I thought it was nearly dead!" He sprinted headlong, boots slipping underneath him, barely keeping himself ahead of the Nameless's scything limbs.

"It's more powerful here!" Ganondorf shouted, scrambling to retrieve his sword. There was blood running out of his mouth and staining his beard. "The Triforce lends it strength!"

Link dodged another mighty blow and retaliated with a flick of the Master Sword, but the damage he inflicted was little more than a scratch to the behemoth. "How do we kill it?" He shouted.

"We can't, not here!" Ganondorf flung bolts of lightning that sloughed harmlessly off the dark hide of the beast. "It's too strong!"

"Any second now, Midna!" Link yelled.

But she was beyond hearing him now, so absorbed in the spell that the sounds of the nearby battle didn't interrupt her rhythmic chant in the slightest.

"You need to buy more time!" Navi yelled.

Use the terrain, Link thought to himself.

"YAAAAGGH!" He charged the Nameless, shouting at the top of his lungs in an attempt to get the creature's attention. Ponderously, it turned, taking another swipe at him with a slowness that belied the power behind the motion.

He ducked under the blow, and felt the shuddering crash as came down in the spot he had occupied an instant before. Link dropped to one knee and broke into a slide along the ice, his momentum carrying him underneath the belly of the beast. Swinging the Master Sword with both hands and pouring all of his strength into the strike, he slashed at the massive legs of the Nameless.

The effort drew a bellow of effort from his lungs, and the shining blade cut deeply into the black flesh this time, slicing through the creature's hind legs as though they were nothing more than smoke. With a roar, the beast collapsed, gouts of ichor pouring forth from its wound. Link's boots caught on an unevenness in the ice, and his tired legs betrayed him as he overbalanced and crashed painfully into the hard surface yet again.

"Run!" Ganondorf's voice seemed muffled, although harsh echoes of his magic and the monster's roars had a surreal clarity to them. "Run, Link!"

His every muscle protesting the action, he struggled to his feet and raised his blade once more.

In its rage, the Nameless had now ceased to resemble anything more than a furious tangle of writhing limbs and snapping jaws. It poured towards Link like an oil slick, moving with unnatural speed across the ice. Glowing yellow eyes focused on him with predatory bloodlust in their gaze.

Reaching back with all of his strength, Link took one strong step towards the monster and heaved the Master Sword at it.

In the furthest corner of his perception, he heard Ganondorf shouting, 'What the hell are you DOING!?' but it was too late, the blade was already spinning end over end towards the surging shadows.

His aim was true, and the sword buried itself deeply into the brightest and biggest of the creature's eyes, sending it rearing backwards in pain, unable to stop its forward motion as it slid across the ice.

The Nameless rammed into Link with bone-crushing force, sending a spray of snow high into the air. Link pulled his sword out of the oozing eye socket and slashed madly, scoring blow after blow on the screeching creature's flesh.

"Haagh!"

The breath was pushed from his lungs in a sharp exhortation as the Nameless finally swatted him aside, sending him flying through the air and slamming painfully into the ice.

"Midna!"

The one word was all he could muster. At least two of his ribs were broken. Probably more. In an ironic twist of fate, the only thing that had saved Link's life was the enchanted tunic that Zelda had given him.

His vision blurred. Ganondorf was fighting the creature now, he saw, and losing. In a haze of pain, he watched the shining broadsword flicker back and forth with each mighty swing, saw the bursts of magic as brief flares of light against the shadows of the beast.

He stood up, ready to help, but tumbled to the ice again, suddenly overwhelmed by agony.

Link looked down. "Oh."

The white cloth of his pants had blossomed into bright red all the way down his left leg. His shin had been broken, badly, the bone now jutting out through his skin, and Link was lying in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.

"Oh no! Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no!" Navi was zipping back and forth, trying her best to heal him, to stop him from bleeding to death.

"Help me!" Ganondorf shouted suddenly. He was being overwhelmed by the Nameless, badly wounded but still on his feet, and being beaten backwards by the force of the creature's assault. "Link! Help me!" In the fury of battle he hadn't even noticed that Link had been incapacitated.

Link found that he was very, very tired. A bleak certainty washed over him- that this was it, that this life would end here in this frozen abyss far below the city, and that he would begin yet another life in yet another version of Hyrule.

There was a sudden, sharp crack, like a cannon firing, and he was jerked out of his morbid ruminations.

This strange noise was immediately followed by several more just like it in quick succession. Link looked around him for the source of the sounds, and then realized they were coming from beneath the ice itself.

In the centre of her magic circle, Midna knelt with arms splayed at her sides. Her head was tilted back, eyes unfocused, mouth open in a silent scream.

And underneath them, light blossomed. Not the pulsing golden light of the Triforce, but the roiling light of flames. Unable to run, barely able to move, all he could do was watch.

The ice shook beneath him, twisting Link's broken leg and drawing a shout of pain from him. The tremors only intensified, until the surface of the ice was bucking and heaving, and thesound of thousand-year-old ice shattering was all around them.

The Nameless had abandoned its battle with Ganondorf, and was now writhing wildly, shrieking in its death throes. The flames beneath them spiralled up, closer and closer, until they burst through the ice with a tremendous cacophony, a massive pillar of flame punching through the frozen surface and rocketing upwards, out of sight.

At the edge of this outpouring of power, Midna knelt in her circle, unmoving. Her body can't handle this much magic! Link tried to cry out, to warn somebody, but he still lacked the breath to form words. She'll kill herself. She IS killing herself!

He reached out for her, vainly.

And then the fire stopped.

The flames simply vanished, leaving a massive crater in the ice with Midna stock-still at the edge of it. For a moment, everything was absolute silence- Midna at the lip if the crater. Link, prone on the ice. Navi, perched atop his shattered limb. Ganondorf, covered in blood and ichor, staring blankly. And the Nameless, frozen in its paroxysms of agony.

The golden light from below the ice faded, and the Nameless crumbled, dissolving into smoke that swirled above them like dark spirits in the mist. In the corner of his mind Link could feel thousands of tormented souls screaming in those wisps of shadow.

As he watched the smoke solidified, swirling faster and faster until it was a whirlpool of blackness. The whirlpool was centred over Midna, he saw.

A hundred black tendrils shot downward, piercing into her limp body with the horrifying sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh. Midna heaved herself forward and clapped her hands to her mouth as some foul black substance began to pour forth from it.

Her body spasmed in pain, and the blackness issued forth from between her fingers and now, Link saw, from her every orifice- her nose, her eyes, her ears. Still, plumes of darkness swirled down into her, and in moments Midna was no longer visible as anything more than a long-limbed figure enveloped in roiling shadows. Then she collapsed and that, too, was indistinguishable.

"Ganondorf." he croaked.

The Gerudo had sank to his knees, exhausted. He now lifted his head towards Link. "What is it? Ah- you're hurt-"

"It's not important... look. There." He pointed.

In the bottom of the crater that Midna's spell had created, something was glowing with supernatural brightness. It was a tiny golden object, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

Ganondorf paled. "I cannot. I cannot take it."

"Do it," Link said. "I believe in you, now. I trust you."

"I... no... please do not place this burden upon me. I am not fit to carry it."

"Do it!" he growled. "Hurry!"

"But, I..." He saw hesitation flicker across Ganondorf's face, and linger there. Then, resolution. "Perhaps... perhaps this is the Gods' will, then." He made to pull himself to his feet.

There was a sudden movement at the edge of the pit. The black form that was Midna lurched forward, and toppled down into the crater and out of sight.

"Wait-" Navi said.

There was an eruption of light and noise, and the Triforce on the back of Link's had seared with such pain that for a moment the agony in his leg was forgotten. And then in an instant it was over, and the world descended back into silence.

"What happened?" Navi asked. "What did she do? Link? What happened?"

Ganondorf's face was ashen. "Midna?" he called out.

He shared a worried glance with Link. Then he came over to where Link lay, hoisted him up off the ice, and together they both limped over to the edge of the pit.

The ethereal glow had vanished completely. Midna lay at the bottom of the crater, motionless beneath her cloak. As they watched, she stirred. The beaten cloth of her cloak fell away as she stood- no, floated.

Her childlike form seemed to absorb the light around her, radiating darkness, and her hair was incandescent beneath the heavy stone helm that sat atop her head. With a look of disbelief she raised one of her hands in front of her eyes, turning it back and forth, examining it.

What she saw pleased her, and she smiled savagely.

On the back of Midna's palm, the three golden triangles of the Triforce burned brightly.