Chapter 36: Path to Nowhere
For close to a fortnight, the three warriors attempted to navigate the tunnels underneath the mountain range. None of them knew exactly what they were searching for, exactly, but it was not an accident that they had been led to the caves. Something was inside, and it was only a matter of time before they found out what it was.
On the second day, Tunasri was leading the group when the cavern walls burst into flame. If he had been on foot, the others would have surely been burned, but because Tunasri was riding his dodongo steed, Morris and Kitsu were far enough back to be saved from the flames. After a few seconds the fire subsided, revealing an unharmed, though fairly annoyed, Tunasri.
From then on, they were especially alert to their surroundings. Hardly a day went by when they didn't encounter some kind of trap designed to repel intruders. Pitfalls, collapsing ceilings, hidden explosives, all were present, although Kitsu noted that none of them were particularly deadly. What wasn't easily avoided could usually be withstood, and none of the devices ever managed to completely block the forward progress of the party. After seven days in the tunnels, they began to notice major changes. They encountered no more traps, and side passages no longer appeared. The only thing they ever noticed to distinguish any one place from another was a steel cage built into the right wall of the tunnel. On the opposite side of the cage, there was another set of steel bars, and beyond it the tunnel looked as though it continued past that. Unfortunately, the cage was impossible to enter, even with Tunasri's brute strength, Morris' magic arrows, and Kitsu's razor-sharp blades. They continued on.
"Have you noticed that we're just going in a big circle?" Kitsu asked on the eleventh day.
"What're you talking about, kid?" Tunasri replied crossly, still angry that he had been used to forge their way through most of the traps they had encountered earlier.
"The tunnel always turns to the right. Ever since we ran into that last trap, we haven't turned left at all."
"It's nothing, kid," the knight explained. "Tunnels curve all the time. Later on it'll probably seem like it's going to the left all the time. You don't even notice it when you've been underground as much as I have." Out of evidence, Kitsu looked to Morris for help, silently pleading with the quiet archer for support.
"Even if you are right," he said at last, "What do you plan to do?"
"W-what do you mean?" Kitsu asked.
"If the tunnel is, as you say, going in circles, than that information does us no use now, because there is only one way to proceed."
"I guess you're right…"
"Furthermore," the archer continued, "It may be that the tunnel is spiraling upward, or decreasing in radius. The fact that we are moving in a circle does not necessarily mean that we will end up back where we started." Without any more reasons to protest, Kitsu fell silent. On the next day, however, something happened that changed their opinions.
Kitsu was searching the area ahead for traps when he saw a glint of metal off the right. As he drew nearer, he found himself filled with dread: it was the same cage they had encountered earlier. He said as much to Tunasri.
"You're imagining things again. We don't know that it's the same one."
"We don't know that it isn't, either."
"Yes, we do," Morris pointed out. "If it were the same one, the tunnel would have had to fork to form the tunnel we arrived through, joining at the last fork before we found the cage. We haven't encountered such a fork, so it simply can't be the same location."
"but-" he stopped as a familiar voice came from ahead.
"Is somebody there?" The voice had the rasping quality that came from not being used in days. The three warriors cautiously drew closer, until the light from the torch illuminated the enclosure. As they approached, Kitsu knew who would be within.
"How did you get here?" Link asked.
"I could ask you the same thing," Kitsu replied, slightly angered. "I thought you were going to go up into the mountains."
"If I may interject, we are currently under the mountain range," Morris told them. "If Link did indeed go into the mountains, it is conceivable that he could have come to be here."
"Is that you, Morris?" Link asked. "You're here too?"
Kitsu frowned. Link should have been able to see them approaching. Looking closer, he saw that the boy's eyes were shut. He finally found the courage to inquire about it. "Did something happen to your eyes?" he asked.
"They're fine, but your torch is kinda bright," Link assured them.
"Poor lad's probably been in the darkness since... well, whenever he got down here," Tunasri explained.
"Tunasri, too? We're all here."
"We can have the reunion later," Kitsu said impatiently. "Just tell us how you ended up down here."
"I fell," Link told them. Experimentally, he tried opening one eye, but apparently found the torch to be still too bright, for he closed it immediately. "I was…"
Whatever he said afterwards was lost in the confusion that followed. A massive explosion rocked the tunnels, triggering a rockfall on the outside of the cage. As the noise began to settle down, Kitsu swore that he heard the sound of steel on steel, but wasn't sure, as another rockfall occurred immediately afterward. In a few seconds it was over.
"Link!" Kitsu called out. The falling rocks had blocked the cage from view, but Link should have still been okay within. In the silence that followed, Kitsu remembered the second rockfall. "LINK!"