Part Three: The Imprisoning War
Chapter 36: Desert Colossus
For I and he are of such different kinds
that no service which is vile can be done to me,
and no service which is not vile can be done to him.
~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
That night, long after the sun had set, Gerudo Valley lay silent under a panoply of stars. Nothing stirred in the outlying villages; though the sandstorm had ended hours ago, no one, be he man or beast, seemed willing to brave the elements, as if the god who controlled the weather had it in his mind to bury them in another storm the minute they stepped outside.
Thus, the only mortals who had a chance of monitoring the night's events as they happened were the guards in and immediately encircling Gerudo Fortress. Though watchful, few were as vigilant at this hour as they would have been in the daytime. Seven years after their lord had conquered the greatest city in all Hyrule, a concerted attack seemed unlikely, anyway.
A door opened somewhere in the fortress. This was nothing unusual, except it was a door that shouldn't have opened at all. Twenty-three people and a fairy hung back in the shadows just inside the door.
Nabooru whispered to Arswaine. "If you are still uncertain of the way, I will stay behind. Time is critical, but it would be far worse to lose three good soldiers."
"I will free these men," Arswaine said, "and no life will be lost, Hylian or Gerudo."
After a short pause, three of the figures detached themselves from the main group and slipped deeper into the fortress. Two, accompanied by the fairy, crept outside the fortress and made their way to the desert, stopping only to retrieve a pair of horses at the edge of the grounds.
The eighteen men left behind waited to give the others time, then they too left the fortress, found the horses Nabooru had readied for them in an isolated corner of the grounds, and led the animals beyond the eyes and ears of the Gerudo before galloping east, into the night.
No one saw them leave. No one knew they were there to begin with.
Link glanced over at his companion as Epona cantered across the sand dunes. "Thank you. I don't know what I would have done without a guide in this place."
Nabooru returned his glance with a smirk. "Yet I was not the guide you might have expected. You believed all Gerudos were evil, so you were surprised when one risked her life for you."
Link turned away with a blush. "I…don't know what to say."
"Hey." Navi peeked out from Epona's saddlebags. "How much farther?"
Nabooru laughed. "You are fortunate in your companions, Hero of Time."
Link kicked the saddlebags. "Navi, if you ask that one more time…"
The horses continued for nearly an hour, sometimes slowing, sometimes speeding up. When both began to show signs of fatigue, Nabooru reined in, and Link followed her lead. They dismounted on the far side of a dune facing west, well out of sight of Gerudo Fortress. After feeding the horses, they took some food for themselves and sat cross-legged on the sand to eat it.
Link munched on a block of cheese and watched as Navi chased a cloud of gnats in circles around the dune. "What do you know about the temple?"
"Our ancestors carved it from the side of a mountain," Nabooru said. "They called it the Spirit Temple, but it was so large that some referred to it as the Desert Colossus. It is the soul of our people, our place for worshipping Din, the creator of Hyrule. Much to my people's shame, it is also where some of our greatest atrocities have been committed."
Link nodded and bit down on a piece of bread, saying nothing.
"Once, our worship of Din was undefiled. Now it is cursed by the blood on our altars. The blood of Hylians. The blood of women and children. The blood of the Knights of Hyrule."
Link met Nabooru's gaze. "But not all Gerudos accept this?"
"No." Nabooru lowered her eyes to the ground. "I have never accepted it. There are others who feel as I do, but I have never had the courage to seek them out. There are many who fear Ganondorf. Others desire my position, and if I were to voice my doubts, those doubts would find their way to Ganondorf, and I would be executed. The only reason I'm here…"
Link watched her dark eyes moisten with tears.
"I…" Nabooru shook her head. "I cannot go on."
Link laid a hand on her shoulder. "All that matters is what you did for me back there. You don't have to tell me everything."
"Thank you." She wiped her eyes and stood to her feet. "There is one other thing you should know about the temple."
"Yes?"
"It is the home of Koume and Kotake, the twin sorceresses who oversee every sacrifice made to Din. They are responsible for the corruption of the Gerudos. They are older than any of us, including Ganondorf himself. It was they who raised him in his youth."
Link finished the last bites of his food. "I take it you're not friendly with them."
"They suspect me of deception, but they've never accused me of it directly." With that, Nabooru mounted her horse.
Link remained in thought, unmoving. "Nabooru, do you believe what I told you?"
This brought on another smirk. "That you are the 'Hero of Time,' destined to defeat the King of Evil with the help of the Six Sages? Yes, I believe there is truth in this story."
"Then you know what we'll have to do once we get to the temple? If Koume and Kotake are the reason for the evil there, there's only one way to get rid of it and find the last Sage."
"I understand."
Arswaine peered around a corner into the first cellblock. Wall-mounted torches cast a red light onto the floor and reflected off the iron bars of the cells. Behind him, two other Knights disposed of an unconscious Gerudo by wedging her body between two crates so that it lay hidden from all but the closest observer.
"I see no other guards," said Arswaine. Silently, he noted that Ganondorf's absence from the fortress had encouraged a lack of discipline.
"Sir." Daphnes, Arswaine's third-in-command, stepped up. "I ask to be the first."
Arswaine waved him on.
Drawing the scimitar Nabooru had entrusted to him, Daphnes moved into the room. As he passed in front of the first cell, they all heard a grunt.
"Say. First time I've seen another man around here in days."
"Silence," Daphnes hissed as he approached the cell. "Follow and remain quiet."
"Who—"
Arswaine advanced while the third knight, Glamis, watched the corridor they had come from. "Everything will be explained when we have escaped. For now, we are fellow prisoners of the Gerudos, but Sabooro is free."
The man in the cell chuckled. "Even if you aren't pulling my leg, you'll never get me out without at least one of them knowing. The cell guard keeps the key by her hip."
"Yes." Arswaine kept his eye on the doorway at the other end of the cellblock. "We know of their customs."
A faint jangling of metal prevented any further response Arswaine or Daphnes would have given. Separating, they took their positions, one at each side of the door opposite Glamis.
The guard stiffened as she entered the room. Glamis had folded his arms and was staring at her from the other doorway, smiling. Before she could speak a word, something hard crashed down on her skull, and she fell with a gasp barely audible. Daphnes slid the key ring off her belt.
"I'm Jiro." The carpenter, mustachioed and bare-chested except for a thin vest, stuck his hand out to his rescuers. "Whoever you are, thanks. Those women aren't worth the trouble."
Arswaine shook his head. "I fear you have not met enough of them to judge that, friend."
"You say that, and they threw you in here, too?" Jiro snorted. "How many do I need to meet?"
Daphnes gripped the carpenter's hand firmly. "One."
The change from towering knolls of sand to a flat plain came suddenly. Nabooru motioned for Link to dismount, but before she did likewise, she scanned the horizon ahead and to their rear. Once aground, she held the horse's reins in her left hand and drew a scimitar with the other.
They paced through the sand for another five minutes before the ground sank into a natural enclosure with cliffs rising on both sides. In the distance ahead of them, where the valley seemed to come to a dead end, a mountain jutted from the desert floor.
"Wow," Navi said.
Link nodded. It wasn't as big as Death Mountain, but he understood why it had been called the Desert Colossus. Inside the eastern face of the mountain, the rock had been carved away to form the shape of a woman sitting cross-legged, palms upward. The image must have been at least two hundred feet high.
They tied their horses to a pair of palm trees at the southern end of the enclosure and approached the Colossus. Now that her left hand was free, Nabooru had drawn another scimitar. She led them to a stair directly in front of the Colossus. Just beyond lay the entrance to the Spirit Temple.
"At last, the time of the Six approaches."
They had all sensed the movement behind them before they heard the voice. Link showed little sign of surprise, as if he had expected it. Nabooru, on the other hand, spun around, her scimitars stopping within inches of Sheik's chest.
The boy remained still, eyeing her calmly. He glanced at Link. "You have done well."
Link shrugged. "Thanks to you, my shadow."
Sheik's eyes flickered in the moonlight streaming over the shoulder of the Colossus. "The Knights of Hyrule survive thanks to the care of a Gerudo brave enough to stand against her King."
Nabooru slowly withdrew the scimitars. "Who are you, and why do you confront us in the middle of the night like a…thief?"
"I come to teach the Hero of Time a melody that will allow him to return here at need."
Link raised the Ocarina of Time to his lips and waited for Sheik to begin.
"Hear the Requiem of Spirit." Sheik plucked the first tingling notes on his harp. The music was slow and melancholy, though somehow more hopeful than the Nocturne of Shadow. The boy breathed a sigh as if the Requiem had released some burden he had been holding against his will. "Link," he whispered, "when we meet again, it will be for the last time."
With trembling hands, Link put away the Ocarina. "Please," he said. "Stay just once."
"I will return when the Sages are gathered. At that time, all will be revealed."
"Hey." Seeing Link's distress, Nabooru stepped forward as if she would hold the boy in place, but a blast of sand—unaccountable because there was no wind—had screened Sheik from view. When it passed, Sheik was gone.
"What's wrong, Link?" Navi landed gently on his left shoulder. "It's only Sheik."
"I know." Link wiped his forehead of a sudden sweat. "I don't know why; I just felt…nervous around him this time."
Nabooru scowled. "A hero who cannot control his fear is little use against great evils."
Link drew the Master Sword and turned to face the entrance to the Spirit Temple. "It wasn't fear. That much I'm sure of…"