Chapter 36: The Gate Is Open, But the Lights Are Gone

…

"One-two-five-one-one-six-seven. Is this it?"

Leynne double-checked the empty ration bag he was holding in one hand. Then he told Cale, "Yes, that's the one."

Link watched with a grim expression as Cale and Botu lifted the lid off one of the ration crates they had taken on over a month back in anticipation of this journey. He had only seen such an emergency once before while serving on the Grand Sails. It was a scary prospect to have to deal with, especially since they were so far away from the kingdom.

"Whe-shweuw!" Botu hollered after throwing back the crate's lid. "Yeah! This is the one, Chief. Just like Hunter said."

Food poisoning. From a single ration crate, as much as three-quarters of a crew could be affected at once. With the way rations were processed and package nowadays, very few crates per year turned up spoiled. Link could not be sure of the cause, only knowing that compromised packaging was either a source or an indication of bad rations. He never expected that something like this could complicate their situation. It at least gave Nester some treatable patients, although now Link was down three more crewmen: Hunter, Gillam, and Stan, all three having dug into the rations on their own. This was hardly a problem as long as they did not make pigs of themselves. In fact, deciding to taste-test a different crate likely saved the rest of the crew from eventually falling to the same thing later. With the recent lapses in judgment, this one crate might have devastated his entire crew.

"Goddesses Above!" Cale said as he backed away, one hand holding his nose shut. "What is that?"

"Probably some jerky that wasn't cured right," Botu replied, leaning aside and trying to peer into the crate as if trying to watch a dangerous animal. "Hunter must not be able to smell if he didn't notice this stench."

"How many rations ah we talking about, Cale?" Leynne asked.

Cale glanced at the clipboard he held in one hand. "This is one of the crates of one-hundred-and-eighty. That's about two days' wohth of rations." He then looked at Link. "Can we salvage this?"

"Nope," Botu answered instead, stepping to the side of the crate to retrieve the lid. "Not even worth the effort."

"On a lone vessel one month away from known civilization?" Leynne asked. "Why not?"

"We don't know why the rations went bad," Link explained. "We can't risk keeping this around even if the crew was warned that there are some bad rations in there."

"If it was just one man, maybe we could keep it," Botu added. He paused to heft the lid onto the crate. "But with three guys down, it's a safer bet that the entire lot is bad."

Leynne nodded. "Yes, I can cehtainly see the logic." He glanced around the cargo hold at the other crates, most of which would be similar lots of rations. "Should we be concehned that othehs ah similahly tainted?"

"Nah, we shouldn't," Botu answered. "Things like this don't happen too often. I mean, how many times has this happened on the Symphony here?"

"Obviously, this is the fihst," Leynne answered.

"I've been sailing for twelve years," Botu said. "This is my fourth. Trust me, Lieutenant; it's just the one crate."

"Captain?" Leynne asked.

Link nodded. "I agree. And you'll probably have every other veteran airman aboard tell you the same thing."

Leynne gave a hum as he nodded. "As long as theh is some consistency, I think I can sleep betteh." Then he crossed his arms. "Though, I would like to keep the crate. We could use it to poht whateveh rations we obtain from the mines." He glanced at Link. "I presume that is going to be youh goal tonight."

"Huh?" Link asked, not aware that Leynne had addressed him. "Oh, uh, yeah. And, uh… Airman, would you suggest we can keep the crate and just toss the bad rations over the side?"

Botu shrugged as he slid the lid off once more. "Nothing in the regs say otherwise, Captain," he answered. "Even if they do, well… quite frankly, Captain, who cares?"

"I feel the same way," Link told him. He pointed at the port bulkhead which served as their cargo door. "Get to it, guys."

"Aye aye, Captain," Botu replied as Cale said, "Right."

"So, while we ah down one aihman from both shifts, do we find a way to fill the gaps?" Leynne asked as both he and Link started slowly walking toward the front of the hold.

"I was thinking about that in the sick bay earlier," Link said. "I'd like to assign Cale and Lilly to the deck. Cale should be familiar with how the deck works, and I'm sure Lilly can pick it up with a little time."

"Won't wohking the deck conflict with Cale's daily routine to the library?"

Link paused to think, running his tongue across the inside of his left cheek. "That's right… How long did Nester say they'd be down?"

"Two days at least."

Link nodded. Then he sighed and said, "Well, that'll have to be at least two days Cale and Line stay here for duty. I hate to do it, but it's just temporary. With the deck crew possibly falling asleep on-duty, I'd rather have the crew up to the usual count to keep an eye on each other."

"By that ahgument, we ought to have placed them on the deck the moment we stahted having problems," Leynne commented.

Link glanced over his shoulder when he heard Botu open the port cargo door. Then he scrunched his face as he told Leynne, "Yeah… it does kinda sound like something we should've done earlier."

Leynne leaned toward him a little and whispered, "I won't say anything if you won't." Link gave him a confused look only to be met with a grin. No one could blame Link for being confused; sometimes, it was not very clear whether Leynne had a sense of humor or not.

…

~~9/27, Expedition Day 44.

~~Last night, I got killed in the sick bay. Spent the rest of the night looking for monsters all over the ship. Found eyes instead. If we ever needed proof that The Night is watching us, I found it. The Night has eyes on every member of the crew. It's no wonder we don't seem to get away with anything. And on top of that, we had to dump two days of rations. I hve got to get into that mine.

…

With Hunter, Gillam, and Stan trying to get past their food poisoning, Nester had decided that new measures had to be taken. Instead of confining them to the sick bay since Link needed the space in the event that he was injured again, Nester asked Leynne to set up spare cots for the men in the cargo hold. This meant that, for the next two nights at least, Hunter, Gillam, and Stan would be puking into buckets in plain view of everyone trying to work. Link had asked why they could not use their own berths, and Nester had said that the less they swing in a hammock, the better. Not to mention that having a ready route to the head rather than hustling around the dividing wall into the sick bay would encourage them to try to get up to the deck for some fresh air. Now had been the worst time to have sick airmen; without access to fresh food, their recovery just might be prolonged by the trio having to eat rations with the rest of the crew.

What aggravated Link more was the news that both Geordie and Beech were developing their own complications. Nester had informed him that they had trouble keeping the rations down: Geordie because of peritonitis and Beech because of the disturbances his lack of sleep and troubling anxiety was causing. Nester had explained that Geordie's peritonitis was especially dire because Nester could only diagnose Geordie based on unreliable outward symptoms. Without a surgical setup (not that Nester had the right kind of training to perform surgery anyway), Nester could not confirm the diagnosis nor determine what the cause was beyond one of the blows that forgot to hit Geordie's ribs. His best treatment was going to be a regular dose of general antibacterials and a well-worded prayer to Nayru that Geordie's peritoneum had not been punctured. Link could only follow this news for so long; even with Nester explaining it to him, he was not sure what the peritoneum was. His head cleared up in time for more bad news from Nester. In trying to keep Geordie and Link alive, Nester was quickly running out of supplies. Should the peritonitis turn Gerodie's condition even worse, Nester did not have the medicines to ensure he survived the month-long journey back to Hyrule.

This weighed heavily on Link's mind, making getting to sleep that night much harder than before. Even after he had asked Nester to cover up some of the lamps in the room, he was beset by the thought that one of his airmen, sleeping only a few beds away, could begin dying any time. And, if one died, how long would it be before others followed? This could not be in The Night's best interest. If it needed nourishment as bad as Janni had indicated, could it afford to let Geordie die?

Link was not sure when he finally fell asleep. With Nester in the back trying to watch over Geordie and failing to stay awake, Link knew that the desk near his bed should have been clear. So, when he saw someone sitting on the desk out the corner of his eye just barely visible in the low light, he turned his head to check whether it was Janni or not.

"Well. I see the crew isn't quite holding up now. Is it?"

Of course, she gave him a wide grin. Link gave a frustrated sigh and sat up on the edge of the bed. "I thought you said the process would take longer than this," he told her.

"It does," she answered. "But at the rate your crew is going, you'll probably be lucky if even a fifth of this crew survives that long. Do you think that all of the Sorians and Hylians became Obeetans? Why do you think so many of these buildings are empty?"

"But there are hundreds of them out there!" Link declared, left hand indicating the sick bay entrance. "I know that can't be an illusion!"

"Of course they aren't," Janni said with an indifferent shrug. "There are so many of them living closer to the tower that, when they go out, they almost flood the streets. Only some of them died, some out of maybe a few thousand."

Link blinked at her. "A thou—… that can't be right. If these people came off an expedition ship, they would've only been a couple hundred."

"Sure, if they only came from one," Janni said. "The Night had complete control of the technoworks back then, and it knew that there were more Hylians out there. So, while it slowly started feeding off the ones already settling on the island, it manipulated the winds to bring the other expedition vessels this way. And there were plenty more on each vessel." At this, she showed him a toothy smile.

"So why hasn't anyone from the kingdom gone missing?" Link asked. "If expedition ships were being grabbed up, why didn't vessels from the kingdom disappear, too? It isn't that far away."

"So suddenly, you know where all the ships missing from your kingdom went?" Janni asked, cocking one eyebrow.

Link looked taken aback. "We—… well, no…" he admitted.

"That's okay, because I guarantee you they didn't come here," Janni said. "Chances are that the Sky Lines blocked The Night's influence, but who's to really say? Might be that it has other plans for the kingdom."

"You think it could?" Link asked, his face showing concern.

Janni shrugged. "Again, who's to say? The Night doesn't reveal its plans to me."

Link pushed off the bed. "Yeah, but you seem to think like it," he told her as he moved to pick up his gear.

"Ouch," Janni said in a flat voice. "That's just mean." She slid off the desk and lofted toward Link to hang over his right shoulder as he put his gear on. "So, we'll say for argument that I can think like The Night. And I've gotten hungry because all my little Hylian meals are little more than the fragments of people I swept this way once they left the safety of their kingdom."

Link put on his gun belt and took a backwards step so that Janni could float down to meet him face to face. He crossed his arms and said, "I'm listening."

"Oh, it's really a simple plan, Link. You might even get a kick out of how easy it all is. After all this work you put into it, I would let you go."

Link's face blanked for a moment. Then, to confirm his lack of understanding, he told Janni, "I don't get it."

"And that would be the whole point!" Janni hollered before cackling, pushing herself backwards and causing Link to take another step away from her. She took a few moments to compose herself. Then she said, "Oh, Link, that would be too perfect. Because if you escaped, what would be the first thing you tell people when you get back?"

"Well, it would definitely be to not come to this island," Link replied. "I can march up to the castle and… I-I don't know, have them forbid it or-or something!"

"And that's what makes it brilliant," Janni said, pointing a finger at him. "Suddenly, you come back and tell the rest of your world that there's an island out here with a creature that drives people insane? Or—" She paused to giggle at him. "—better yet, the king decides to forbid people to sail to an island no one's ever heard of? Oh, Link, that was one of the things that brought those settlers here."

Link frowned at her. "What?"

"Curiosity. People love a good story. But when they can live it, well… what's stopping them from coming here?"

Link's eyes grew wide as he started to see the logic. "No…"

"First will be the 'intrepid voyagers' who sail off in search of… well, whatever they can find, I suppose. Treasure? Adventure? Probably doesn't matter. Oh, after a few months, their loved ones will start wondering what happened to them. 'Oh where, oh where has my little boy gone? What's that? To the mysterious island that the teenage hero escaped from? Well, if that's where he went, someone must find him!' And, well, whoever those finders are, do you think they have families, too?"

Link could feel his whole body grow cold. He stumbled as he took another step backward and had to grab the bed to keep himself from falling over. Janni was right. The whole plan was perfect. Even now, he and his crew were here. Even if they did not return, Princess Zelda and the Skyriders knew where they were. How long would they wait before sending expeditions to find them? The logic behind them getting off Obeeta was even crueler. No matter what, The Night had a lure by which it could pull in more people. If he told someone, Janni's prediction would come true. If he stayed silent, if he could keep his whole crew silent about the island, it would still spark interest.

There was only one way to ensure that The Night's plan failed. "I have to kill The Night," he uttered.

Janni reoriented herself so that she was lying on the air with her arms acting like they were propping her head up. "Of course, that's just what I think it has in mind. The Night hasn't had many options since the last expedition vessel landed. It's kinda hard to get around with so much of you anchored to the island."

Link turned and slammed one forearm onto the bed in frustration. "Dammit! I just wanna get my crew out of this hellhole!"

"Not so easy now, is it?" Janni said with a slight, mocking, staccato voice.

Link spun at her. But he quickly caught himself and took in a deep breath before he tried to holler at her. Instead, he gave himself a slight pause to rein in his thoughts. Then he asked her, "Are you gonna help me or not?"

"What, kill The Night?" Janni asked.

"Yes."

Link almost did not notice Janni scowl at him. She turned her noseless face up to the deckhead and simply replied, "Nope."

"Why not?"

"Why don't I wanna help you kill something that's been mercilessly tormenting the people who landed on this island generations ago?" she asked in response, turning her face back down to him with one eyebrow cocked. "You can brag about killing large things all you like. But The Night has had years to gain power and insight. It probably had your personality down the moment you landed. How you found the Dreamweaver's Shield hasn't been much more than a fluke.

"Face it, Link. The best you can do is save yourself and your crew."

"No," Link replied. And, before Janni could rebut, he marched forward underneath her. "My conscience has had enough of this!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Oh, yeah," Janni replied as she chased him out of the sick bay. "Another part of your 'bodies in the water' story?"

"Never mind," he said as he used one hand to turn sharply into the port stairwell.

"You know," Janni said as she continued to follow him up the stairs, "for someone who doesn't mind bragging about killing things, you've got a funny response when it comes to thinking about the dead."

"There's a difference between killing monsters and killing people!" Link snapped over his shoulder.

"Yeah, that funny little feeling in the bottom of your stomach," Janni taunted. "But. You have killed."

"No I didn't!" Link said as he stomped across the main deck.

"Then why feel so guilty about it?"

"Because I was responsible for it!"

The conversation came to a dead stop at the same time Link planted his feet in the deck and spun to confront Janni. Janni was hardly surprised. If anything, she looked confused. Once Link realized this, it also occurred to him that he had just shouted that in the middle of the deck. He glanced around, but his crew had not noticed.

"Dream, remember," Janni told him.

Link sighed and let his arms fall to his sides. "Oh, yeah…"

"Nice to know we've picked out each other's issues," Janni said. "I'll be honest with you; I don't wanna see you die. In reality, I mean. It's…" Link watched her grin. And it was not in jest, either; it looked quite genuine if weak. "It's actually been kinda nice talking to someone who can talk back. I don't… particularly care if you don't feel the same way."

"I… can't really say at this point," Link admitted.

"But you can't be responsible for the lives of every man and woman who decides to come to this island after you," Janni said. "It's like you wanna catch every bird in the sky before it falls and hurts itself."

"If there's something I can do about it, then I'm responsible for it. For them."

"And what about your crew?" Janni asked as she glanced around the deck. "Which do you wanna be more responsible for? Your crew, or The Night's victims?"

Link sighed and covered his eyes with a hand. "I just… I just wanna do the right thing."

"You're talking about killing something that can see your every move and thought, Link. The right thing is impossible."

"Well then, maybe I'll just keep The Night amused for a little while longer," Link told her. "Look, whether we make it back to the kingdom or not, there's always gonna be people who want to see this island, right?"

"That's what I was explaining earlier."

"So does it even matter if I wanna try stopping The Night?"

"What about your crew?"

Link glanced around. He could see the weary look in Lwamm's and Twali's eyes as they walked by. Flower sat on the forward capstan some distance behind Janni and looked to be prepared to slap himself in the face as he started to drift to sleep. Randy stood at the back of the forecastle, appearing to have run out of conversation with Gold.

Link steeled his look as he told Janni, "When the time comes, they'll save themselves."

…

Since Link had already gone to the main deck, he opted to just take the Conductor without stopping for a handful of hardware. What was a pocket full of nuts and bolts going to do for him anyway? That was his thinking as he cut the Conductor free of its moorings and sped toward the other side of the island.

The trip in the launch gave Link a little time to cool himself down. He admitted to himself that the revelation of The Night's plan had caught him off-guard and made him furious in a way he had never felt before. Since his sleep had been disturbed all day, he considered attributing his poor response to Janni's ideas a side effect. It left him with the comfort of knowing that, as long as he can spot the way his disrupted sleep affected his mood, he could put a stop to bursting out mad like that again.

Once again, Link found himself amazed by what The Night had done to the area near the mine. It was not some large temple like what it had shown him two nights before nor was there any odd illumination other than the occasional lightning. To be more precise about it, The Night had done nothing to change the outside environment. The forest below, including the paths carved through it, looked the same as when he had first ventured into the area three nights ago. He decided that he needed a lantern before he descended, the same precaution he had taken then, and brought the Conductor to rest over one of the roads. He only paused to question whether or not he really needed to anchor the launch down, and then he figured that, if anything, it gave him a somewhat safe place to run to if The Night's next surprise let him. So, he unloaded the sandbags and the net and climbed down.

He set the lantern on the ground and used its meager light to locate a flare shell on his gun belt. As he loaded, Janni asked, "What are you expecting to do with that?"

"With the way it looks now, I could use some extra light," Link said. He closed the flare gun with a loud clap. "If I get the chance, this can show me back to the Conductor."

"I don't see you making it that far."

Link turned to find her hovering just behind one shoulder, her face a smug grin that asked "What? You wanna argue?". So, he gave her his own grin and said, "Just trying to be positive."

"Right, because that kinda attitude hasn't failed you yet."

Link cocked the flare gun and fired into the darkness ahead of him. FZZZZZZZZZZZ! He watched the small ball of smoke and sparks bounce against the ground for some distance before it burst into green light that outlined the trees further away. After replacing the gun, Link pulled out the map Leynne had made for him a few days ago and started forward under the guidance of the lantern.

To call the walk through the sparse wood uneventful belittled the effect The Night had already woven through Link's perceptions. The rustle of the nearby trees, while ultimately attributed to the outgoing winds, reminded Link of the second attempt he had made to get into the river's technoworks. And since Link had actually made progress toward the mines' entrance, he was filled with the sense that The Night had finally returned to its playful ways (for those definitions of "playful" which included rending him into a hunk of meat). He actually breathed a sigh of relief when he found the rock in the path as indicated on Leynne's map; he was not sure how long he had been walking, but he had almost decided to double back, thinking that he had landed on the wrong road. He took the left turn in a subsequent fork and continued on. Link was not normally a good navigator, and the inability to see his surroundings made it difficult to pick out anything but trees to remember which way he was supposed to go. This was only balanced out by the shortage of visible branches off the road, although that may have simply been the poor lighting from his lantern. Every now and then, a lightning flash would reveal the tower at the center of the island, but Link had to contend with the leaves above him.

As he came closer, the trees seemed to choke off what little of the storm he could see from the ground. The dirt path eventually turned to rough rock. And then, he finally found the mine's opening. He was hailed by the presence of the type of architecture that the Sorians preferred: oddly-shaped trees. The first two buildings on either side of the path were trees as wide as a ship's hull with seven doors all facing toward the center of the worksite. In contrast to how the Sorians had made their homes on Forelight Island, these "barracks", as Link had assumed them to be, were very low to the ground with thick branches digging into the soil beneath to support the extreme ends. Link also saw a pair of house-sized bulbs sitting at the top of trees that appeared to overlook the site. The last mine Link had seen had small rails running the length of the entire settlement; here, Link did not even see a bar of iron on the ground. But then, he reasoned that the Sorians probably mined using magic rather than machines. After all, something like the infamous "Crunchy" would not have a home to itself up here. At about its center, Link's lantern just barely touched the buildings behind him. Ahead of him was just a ground of bare rock.

"I… don't really know what I was expecting," Link confessed as he came to a stop. "I suppose the Sorians have different ways of mining compared to us."

"You mean methods that include cutting down trees, building carts out of wood and iron, and laying tracks into the mine that you're getting the metal from?" Janni asked.

Link frowned and turned around to find her staring at the empty space to her right. "You know what a Hylian mine looks like?"

Janni let out a scoffing sound as she returned his look. "You think this is the only mine on the island?" she asked in return. "Where do you think the Hylians got all that stone they laid over half the island?"

Link glanced over her head as if to look back at the tree buildings behind her. "So the Hylians did build all that stuff," he said to himself.

One of Janni's hands settled onto her crown. She flopped it up and down as if to imitate her mouth as she said, "Of course. Sorians love their trees, and Hylians love their rocks and metal. That's the way it's been here."

Link frowned and looked down at her face as he asked, "What about that mooring post that snapped loose on us? Sorian or Hylian?"

"Hylian, obviously enough," Janni replied as she dropped her arm. "But with some input from The Night."

"And it was The Night that detached it," Link reasoned.

"Neat little trick, huh? The Night had reach all the way out to the edge of the island where you moored the Symphony. Until you killed that part of it in the library."

Link sighed and placed a hand over his eyes for a moment. "Man, if only we knew what we were getting into…"

"Something tells me that hasn't been a concern for a while," Janni said.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Link said as he turned back around. "Well, let's find this mine and get down there. Do you know where to find the technoworks?"

"You know, I'm not really all that certain." Link paused mid-step and glanced over his shoulder at her. She quickly held her hands up. "Not joking; I really don't know. It's kinda hard to navigate down there."

"Why's that?" Link asked as he turned forward again.

Just as a mound of bare earth came under the lantern's poor light, Janni stepped beside Link and used a hand to indicate the mine. "That's why."

The mine was a pile of bare rock vaguely shaped like a hill with an opening barely tall enough for an adult. Link at first thought that Janni's response was just Janni being cryptic to get a rise out of him. Then he realized the problem as he stepped closer to the mine, his feet cautious since The Night could spring a trap at any moment. He could not tell what the issue was until he was standing in the mouth of the mine.

The mine, from floor to ceiling, was pitch-black. The lantern's weak light was not the problem as far as Link could tell. As he held the lantern close to the wall, he could see that light simply refused to touch the wall just inside the mouth of the mine.

"Oh, this can't be good," Link groaned.

"That's right, Link," Janni said as she zipped in front of him in her fairy form. "Even I can't put any light on anything in here."

"And the entire mine is like this? All the time?"

"Mm-hmm. Maybe even down into the technoworks."

"What happened to 'never the same twice'?"

"Oh, trust me, Link, you're gonna love how this one works."

Link reached his left hand over his shoulder and pulled the Sorian sword. "I'm sure I will…"

He advanced into the black mine with only Janni as his guide, his lantern mostly useless since it could not illuminate anything except him. It looked to Link like he was simply standing in a void. Janni still provided her own light as well, but it still did not offer much insight into the cave around them. It left him asking if he would see anything that decided to charge him.

At one point a few minutes after walking into the mine, he spoke up, "Hang on, Janni."

Janni stopped and turned around. "What is it?" she asked.

"The floor doesn't feel right," Link said.

Janni let the silence hang in the air for a moment. Then she said, "Yeah, that doesn't say a whole lot."

"No, what I mean is the floor is… it's smooth, but not quite." Link looked down as if to find an answer. He swept his foot over the floorspace in front of him, although it felt surreal of him to think that there was a floor there at all. "It's like walking on flat stone, but… I think—I think I feel holes in the floor."

"That's a little better. Where are they?"

"I can't tell. I think I'm standing on some right now, really. The heel of my boot feels like it's sinking into one. Hang on." Link reached his sword hand to the wall on his left with the intention of balancing on one foot as he used the other to feel the ground where he stood.

His hand found a narrow section of protruding wall at about chest-height which, once he put weight on it, shifted downward with a heavy kh-CHUNK!

"Uh, Link?" Janni asked, her voice small and concerned. "What was that?"

Shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk—

"I don't know, but—"

—shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk-khrck!

"HE-YAAAAAH!" Link suddenly screamed out as lances of pain shot straight into his left foot. He fell onto the same narrow section of wall, which shifted downward again. Then he slipped off, unable to even balance on that foot any longer. He fell to the floor hard, his sword and lantern clanging against the ground with him.

Shk, shk, shk, shk, shk, shk—

His foot seared with pain, so he rolled onto his back and lifted his head with the intention of checking on the boot.

—shk, shk, shk, shk, shk-khrck!

Something stabbed into the back of his head and jerked the base of his skull hard enough to drive his chin into his neck. He had only a second of clarity, hardly enough to actually react to the new feeling of pain.

What he saw, as his vision started to blur and slide upward against his control, was a boot soaked in blood with two pitch-black holes in the middle of the foot and at the base of his ankle.