Chapter 5

It was late afternoon and the sun was just beginning to dip down towards the mountains in the west. Oliver sat astride his old, white war stallion, Firefight, as he watched the columns of men march down the main road. He had been a trusted companion to Hyrule's chief general for almost two decades, though neither of them had seen much actual combat on the field recently. For that matter, neither had the men in the gray uniforms and chain-mail in front of him. He would stake his life on their ability just from their training, and he was doing just that, but none of them knew what war was truly like, or what they could be walking into. Every man in front of him knew someone or had friends in the Eastern legions. He would be asking them to fire on those friends if it came to it. "What do you think, boy?" He patted his horse on the side of his neck, "Will they do it if it comes down to that?"

Firefight seemed to study the troops as well, and then snorted in response.

"That's my fear too." Oliver replied.

The legion had marched from Hyrule castle the morning after John and the two other men had departed on their more clandestine mission. Their had been no change with the queen, but four more ministers had convulsed and died. Only the prime minister, the foreign minister, and the minister of transportation remained alive besides her majesty. Oliver held out hope that their deaths were in direct proportion to how much they had eaten the morning before. Her majesty had only had the one cup of tea. The men who had died were not so abstinent with their breakfast.

"Sir," Oliver's lieutenant aide, who pulled up next to him on his own roan horse, addressed him, "the forward regiments report that they have reached the staging area for the night. Scouts in Mido report no landing as of yet. Our whole force should make Mido by tomorrow morning."

"Has there been any word from Prince John?" Oliver asked, hopefully.

"None sir." The aide then said, "If I might ask, sir, is he expected to join us tonight with more reinforcements?"

Oliver thought about how to answer the younger officer's question, then said, "The crown prince's mission is for he and I to know alone." The fewer people that know the plan, the fewer people will accuse us both of insanity if we survive this, he thought. "But let us pray to the goddesses that he is successful, for all our sakes."

"Very good, sir." The lieutenant responded, and then moved off towards the rear regiments to gather the reports from their officers.

He asked himself again and again, would her majesty have approved of her son's plan? Had he failed her in protecting her son? Had he failed her in training her other son in the right way?

His heart was torn for John and Talon. With the two boys, her majesty, and all of Hyrule for that matter, to look after, Oliver had never married. There might have been a time, and a maiden he had courted, when that might have been possible. But then the Hero gave his life, and the princess was slain and the whole world was torn apart and turned upside down in a single day it seemed, and his life changed forever upon meeting his old commanding officer from his youth. He couldn't, and wouldn't, ask those sacrifices of the young woman.

He had never had his own children, but the young princes had been as dear to him as though they were his own as he watched them grow. They were not his sons, but he tried his best to honor their father by filling the role left vacant with the Hero's death in the best way he knew how. Where his queen was concerned... He would be forever hers, but she never his. He knew he held the closest position to her of anyone in the kingdom, but her heart was not for him. He did not question it, but resolved to only be there at her service whenever she needed him in any capacity. It was his duty, his honor, and his love for all of them. He honestly could not imagine anything short of witchcraft or evil sorcery on the order of the demon king of old which could have so torn "his" family apart, the family he loved most in the world. The thought of having to fight Talon... His eyes, already red from his queen's deathly sleep, began to water once more.

"I am sorry for this, Hero," he said out loud, wondering if somewhere, somehow Link might hear him. "I did the best I could with them, but I wasn't you. I don't know where or what you may be now. But if you can hear me, please help them. Both of them. They need your guidance now."

A warm gust of wind blew unexpectedly across the road where it had been dead calm all day before that. Taking notice of it, Oliver quietly nodded in acknowledgment.

The Hylian Sea pitched and tossed the steam powered troop transports back and forth as they slowly made their way across the normally calm channel between Hyrule's two halves. Talon had been in a large cabin commandeered for his personal use, attempting to sleep in an increasingly wildly swinging hammock, but there was no use. There was to be no rest for him that night. He lay awake, eyes shut tight in futility, angry and irritable.

"Talon..." He heard a breathy voice whisper. Talon's eyes flew open. His cabin had been locked from the inside. "Talon..." The voice called him again, and he jumped out of the hammock and onto his feet. The vessel pitched to the side at just that moment, so he landed wrong nearly twisting his ankle. "What?!" He shouted in pain into the darkness. "Who dares invade the prince-regent's cabin?!"

"Talon..." The voice said again, from behind him. The prince spun around to face his burglar to find a shadowy, dark figure wearing a very dark, almost black, green tunic over chain mail and dark leather gauntlets. The figure's face was obscured in shadow. His eyes glowed red.

"What do you want from me, demon!" Talon said, lunging for his sword which hung in its scabbard on the wall.

"Don't draw your sword unless you are prepared to use it." The shade said, deadly menace edging every word.

Talon drew his hand back, sensing his danger. "What do you want?" He asked again, more warily than before.

The figure said nothing, but just stared at him. No, Talon sensed he wasn't staring at him, he was staring into him, into his very soul and being, searching... but searching for what?

"There is a poison which has seeped into Hyrule." The shade finally said. "Only you can stop it from destroying this land."

"I already know all about it. My armies cross the Hylian Sea to put an end to it." Talon told him. "You need not fear. I will see the Hylian royal family restored to their proper place."

"Fool!" The shade spat bitterly at the prince. "You cannot fight poison with armies! It must be rooted out and cured! You must bring the three forces into balance to heal our people!"

"I don't understand." Talon said.

"That is obvious." The shadow returned, and then said sternly, "I can see the good seeds there struggling to grow within you, but there are weeds, boy, strangling them and choking the life out of them. You have to find the power, wisdom, and courage within yourself to cut them out. Only then can you truly bring healing to our land."

"What must I do?" Talon asked calmly.

"Turn back, and govern your people in your rightful place." The shadow warned.

"Turn back? How can I govern the people in my rightful place if I don't first put an end to the conspiring Sages?" Talon asked, hostility dripping from his words. "This poison you speak of must be cut out at its source! We will raze all of the temples to the ground, bring the Sages to justice, and Hyrule will start fresh in the new age my mother envisioned!"

"So you choose power then? Over everything else?" The shadow asked with sorrow.

"Only the power to do good! To drive back the poison and abolish it forever!" Talon said triumphantly.

"Beware, boy!" The shade commanded, angry authority radiating from him, "Throw the three forces out of balance, and all of Hyrule is thrown out of balance!"

"I've had enough of you, shade. Be gone!" Talon shouted, unwilling to hear any more.

The shadow figure faded. As he did so, a whispered voice said, "Good bye my son, I fear I have lost you forever."

But Talon did not hear it. He had stopped listening.

John had taken the first watch that night on the hills overlooking the beach where he knew his brother would land Eastern Hyrule's forces. He knew Oliver's legions would be at least a day's march behind he, Rodney, and Daniel; perhaps two. The weight of all of those Hylian lives lay heavy on his heart. Either he succeeded in his plan, or Hyrule would plunge into chaos again.

The two men from Earth were fast asleep on the sandy hill. Rodney snored louder than John was comfortable with, but there was nothing for it. The man was brave in his own way, but he was a thinker, not a fighter, John thought. Their fire had died low, but the night air was not uncomfortably cold.

John saw a flash of movement off to the side of their makeshift beach camp and he trained his eyes on it, but there was nothing there. He stood up to get a better view of the surrounding land. He then heard a whispered, strangely familiar male voice call out, "John." Turning his head this way and that, he spotted a lone, dark figure in the shadows less than twenty feet from where he stood. Before John could wake the other men, the figure held up his left hand palm out, and with his right he put his finger to his lips. John nodded his understanding. The figure then beckoned him with his hand to join him away from where the others might hear and see, and turning to go, John followed him sensing that this strange meeting was for him alone.

When they had gotten far enough away, the shadow figure turned to face John. Even close up, the figure's face could not be clearly seen, but there was something familiar in it that he recognized, and even trusted. The figure wore a very dark green tunic and chain mail that seemed to blend in with the night's shadows around them. A Hylian sword and shield appeared from nowhere in the figure's hands.

"Defend yourself!" The dark figure before John commanded.

John instinctively brought his shield up and the Master Sword leaped into his hand without conscious thought as his muscles had been conditioned to do by the sword masters all of his life. John had been raised with a sword in his hand for as long as he could remember. His father had been the first man to press real blades into his and his brother's hands. By the time he was five, when his father has passed on, he and his brother both has mastered all of the basic forms and movements of swordplay. His mother had insisted on them having the best swordsmen in Hyrule come and train her sons after the Hero's self-sacrifice. Now, his own movements were done without conscious thought at all.

"Who are you?" John asked.

The shadow didn't answer, but faster than John could see or think he attacked forcefully with an overhead strike. John's shield went up instinctively to block it before his mind could process the action. He then brought his sword around in a tightly controlled but fierce slash.

His opponent quickly danced out of the way, spinning around to bring his own sword to sever John's head from his neck. John rolled forward and around the sword wielding shade striking at his back, the shade only blocking the Sacred Blade's bite by a fraction of a second, and returning his own strike in a sweeping arc that should have disemboweled the prince, but didn't. They continued silently trading fierce blows in the attempt to relieve the other combatant of his mortality. The only sound was the ringing and clashing of sword upon sword and shield. They moved faster and faster in the deadly dance until the shadow swordsman called out "Enough!" And they both froze, the edges of their swords pressed against each other's throats.

"You've learned well." The shadow swordsman said calmly as he drew his blade slowly away and sheathed it. "As well as any I've ever trained."

"I had good teachers." John replied, breathing harder than he cared to admit, as the Master Sword returned to its sheath. "And a good sword."

"A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage." The shadow told him. "You hold the Sacred Blade, but do you have the courage to wield it?"

"Let's go another round and we will discover the answer together!" John responded.

The shadow warrior held up his hand palm facing John, and said, "Hold. You will need your courage, young prince, in the trial that lies ahead of you. You will need the wisdom to know who your enemy truly is. And you will need the power to defend our people from that enemy."

"And who is my true enemy, sword master?" John asked.

"The one who poisons the hearts of our people." He answered. "Power, wisdom, and courage united by sacrificial love. This is the practice of our faith, young prince. The faith of our ancestors was in allowing each person to choose his own path and destiny without interference or enslavement. This is why the goddesses created the Triforce, so that we would have the means to remain free to choose or reject them of our own free will. The Demon King never understood that, and neither did his 'descendents'. The enemy of our people is always the one who brings the Triforce out of balance in order to force others to his will."

"Our brothers of Eastern Hyrule are not our enemies." John said. "I don't want to shed their blood any more than I want to shed my brother's blood. I don't want this war."

"Then put a stop to it." The shadow said.

John had been asking himself that question for two days. It had been his plan, but the closer he came, the more he doubted it. "How?" He asked in frustration. "It is a task now that even the goddesses would find difficult. I carry my father's sword, but I am but a poor imitation. I do not carry the Triforce as my father and aunt did." John replied.

"No one can use a part of the Triforce unless that virtue already exists within him. The power of the Triforce resides within the faith of the one who believes in it. Find this faith within yourself, and the power of the Triforce will be yours." The shade told him.

John nodded, trying to understand. "I am not my father, but I am my father's son. He gave his life for our people and our land, I am prepared to do no less."

John then found himself frozen in place as the shade approached him to gently place his palm on John's forehead. There was a brief flash of light, and the shade was gone. On the wind, John could still hear the shadow's voice, "You have taken your rightful place, my son. Receive my blessing and go; be the Hero Hyrule needs."

As John unfroze he looked down at himself and found that his royal traveling clothes had been exchanged for the same chain mail, leather gauntlets, and dark green tunic which the shadow had worn. On his head was a long green cap, the end of which fell behind his back. On his back, covering the Master Sword's sapphire scabbard there materialized an antique shield bearing the Triforce crest of the royal family. He recognized the garments and dress from his mother's pictures and stories of his father, and his eyes watered with tears.

"Goodbye, father." John whispered into the wind, as a single tear fell from his eye.