Chapter 7 – The Demon King Moves His Pieces
"My Lord, Osgiliath has fallen!" The soldier in front of the King blurted out out as soon as he reached earshot.
"What was that?" The king asked him to repeat himself. He thought he was mistaken in what he had heard.
"My Lord Eldarion, Osgiliath has fallen." The soldier repeated as he fell to one knee. The throne room went dead silent as the soldier repeated himself.
They were words he never thought he'd hear in his lifetime. They were words from the time of his father's father, the man who restored the kingship to Gondor and Arnor.
"How?" He asked.
"Orcs." The soldier spat the word. "Orcs poured into the city. We had no warning. It was like they just appeared as if by magic. Thousands of orcs just materialized out of thin air it seemed."
"Orcs?" The king asked in unbelief. Orcs hadn't been seen in Gondor since the time of his father's father.
"I am certain of it. These were savage, evil creatures. If they did not match the descriptions of the ancient goblins then I do not know what would." The soldier responded.
"And the people?" The king feared the answer.
"Few of us escaped alive. I led the survivors to Minas Tirith as quickly as I could." He remained on one knee.
King Eldarion rose from his white throne. "Tend to the survivors. See that they have whatever they need." He instructed his advisers who immediately hurried out of the throne room shouting instructions to their own underlings. "Light the beacons," the king ordered. It was an order he never thought he'd have to give in his lifetime. "Call our armies at once." So now we face the nightmares of our ancestors, he thought. "I should wish for their heroes to arise as well." he said under his breath to himself. Human enemies they understood and could subdue, he thought, they had skirmishes with the men of the south more and more frequently. But no human being now living could remember the orcs as anything more than something to frighten children with. Children's stories or no, he thought, he remembered the histories he was taught. He only hoped he would prove himself to be forged of the same stuff as his ancestors.
These people proved even riper for conquest than Demise had thought. His orc host stalked through its ruins, the stones now stained with human blood. It took very little effort and a paltry bit of magic to storm their peaceful little river city. Why they had kept no standing army this close to their ancient enemies was beyond him. It only demonstrated their weakness, and weakness was something which he despised.
Why hadn't the orcs moved before now on their own? He wondered. Of course he knew the answer, they fought amongst themselves too much. He had needed put a swift end to it shortly after he had arrived if he was to make them useful to him. These orcs would be nothing like the humans of this world had faced before. Strong, disciplined, focused, and organized; yes, he had trained them well.
He was much stronger now than he had been in a long, long time. His power trickled to him slowly through the time and space which separated him from his cage. The "good" powers of Hyrule hadn't taken his bait as he had hoped, but the Master Sword would soon no longer matter. First, he would give these orcs what they desired, this world. And with this world, he would grow even stronger and would be able to send his armies through the gateways back to Hyrule, and then to Terra. Neither the sages, nor the Others, nor the cursed boy would be able to do anything about it. He chuckled to himself. He would look forward to their next encounter, their last encounter, with relish. His host licked his lips and fangs at the thought of it.
In the distance, he could see the outline of the white tower carved into the hillside. He had been certain it would be more difficult than this little excursion. In the six years he had been here he learned this land's history. An assault on Minas Tirith was a difficult proposition at best, or at least had been for the last occupant of the Dark Tower. Demise had learned to be far more patient, and far less reckless. He would let the fear which his magic brought upon this place do its work. Sauron, the last master of Mordor, had been a fool and a weakling, he thought. He moved too fast and let his personal feelings of vengeance get in the way. He wanted it too quickly. Demise had learned the sweet rewards of waiting for the opportune moment. Sauron had fallen prey to his fear. Demise had no such weakness. When Demise would take the field of battle against the white tower, it would be over quickly. He would see to it.
The sun was already risen and climbing the sky quickly when Link woke up in his room in Hyrule Castle. He knew he would probably receive another lecture about sleeping in too late from someone, probably Zelda.
His room was a far cry from his small tree house. in the Ordonian village. It was large, warm, comfortable, and well kept. The room was lined with bookcases, and decorated with various weapons, pieces of armor, strange objects, and books. They were all trophies of the Hero, he knew. He remembered when each and every one of them had been acquired whether or not he had been actually present to acquire them, at least in this lifetime.
His room was next to the Princess' private chambers in the most well guarded part of the castle's keep. Strictly speaking, it wasn't "his" room. It was the room which had been traditionally set aside for the chosen Hero. As such, it had been sealed and unused for a very long time prior to his arrival at the castle. In point of fact it wouldn't unseal itself for anyone else. Many had tried to enter it, and none had succeeded. Link only needed to touch the handle of the door and it swung gently open for him as though a servant welcoming his master home from a long trip. And Link had immediately felt at home as well. He knew he belonged in this room, among these artifacts as though he was one of them; a relic from a time in the distant past.
He got out of bed and went to the mirror of the vanity which had been set into the wall of a corner of the room. There was a washbasin with fresh water scented with rose petals on the counter in front of it and he splashed some of it on his face to wake himself up even more. Mornings were always the hardest, especially when there was little for him to do that day, and today was the end of the week.
He inspected his sixteen year old appearance in the mirror. Time, training, and what adventure he was allowed had been somewhat kind to him over the last six years, but not overly so. His body was muscular, but not overly so. His hands were hard and calloused from swordplay and shield training. He still retained the look of youth about his face, but no one could say he looked childish. His blue eyes said too much about him for anyone to think that.
He dressed in a clean green tunic, chain mail, and gauntlets and went to find Colonel Shepherd. If Link was lucky, he would be in the mood for sparring today. It would give him an excuse to avoid Doctor McKay.
Over the last six years, much to his credit, Doctor McKay had never given up trying to find a quicker way back to his world. He learned the Hylian language quickly and searched every book he could get his hands on for some clue. Link didn't often understand half of what McKay talked about, but soon found himself as the good doctor's chaperone to every far flung ancient ruin Hyrule had to offer. At first, Colonel Shepherd and his men would go with them, but as weeks turned into months, and months into years, and the list of sites he wanted to check grew it was increasingly just Link and McKay.
At first, Link didn't mind helping him too much, it gave him an excuse to put his dormant skills to good use against the creatures which lurked in such places. But McKay would talk so much, mostly about how much he knew and others didn't, that Link looked forward to it less and less. But he was one of the few people who knew where such sites were to be found, and how to navigate them safely. Over the course of six years though, the number of sites left to search was dwindling rapidly. He and McKay had criss-crossed Hyrule and its outlying islands so many times in the last few years that many people in the towns and villages knew them at first glance. They never found what McKay seemed to be looking for, and that made the doctor even more determined to check another temple, another ruin, another mine somewhere.
Link descended out into the sunlight of the courtyard and crossed over to the training grounds for the palace guard. This was usually where a person would find Colonel Shepherd. In the years they had been in Hyrule, Princess Zelda had set the good colonel and his men over the training of her palace guard and the training of Hyrule's armies in general. As with most of her decisions, it had been a wise one. It had given them a task to focus on, and it had produced a disciplined, well trained, professional military for Hyrule the likes of which Link couldn't remember from any of his past lifetimes. Shepherd instilled in them the principles of honor, duty, and one of his most sacred rules of never leaving one of their own people behind. This army of Hyrule would have stood up to Ganondorf's forces and probably defeated them instead of running like cowards.
He found Shepherd consulting a map with the generals of Hyrule's forces surrounding him. What was that about? Link wondered as he drew closer.
"The bokoblin raids on the outlying villages have been getting worse." He heard one of the generals say; Sir William if he heard right. "We need to send reinforcements to the border towns."
"What we need to do is put an end to the bokoblins once and for all." He could hear another of the generals, Sir Portant, remark.
"What's going on?" Link interrupted.
"Ah, Link, we were just discussing troop deployments. It seems that our bokoblin friends aren't living up to their terms of the treaty the princess signed with them." Sir Williams responded.
Shepherd had been quietly studying the map. Link glanced at it. On it were places marked with a red "X" along the border with Bokoblin territory. There were a lot of red "X" s.
"Link, have a seat." Shepherd told him without looking up from the map. He turned the map around so that Link could see it clearly and then told him, "each of these red "X"s is a point where there's been a bokoblin attack on a town or settlement in the last week. Does this mean anything to you? You see any kind of a pattern?"
Link studied the map more carefully. Bokoblin Territory began past the ancient Arbiter's grounds on the outer edge of Lanayru Province. It was a place he didn't like to remember. That was all desert. In much older times it was... He saw the pattern in it.
"They're rising up in what used to be called the Gerudo Desert centuries ago, way out on the edge of Lanayru." Link said.
"And what does that mean?" Shepherd asked.
"The Gerudo desert is where Ganondorf came from." Link responded. The generals took a step back, frowns creasing their faces.
"Ganondorf." Shepherd said. "He was the Demon King's last host, wasn't he?"
"It's a hated name." Sir Williams spat on the ground.
"I can see that." Shepherd retorted. "So what does that mean? The bokoblins are throwing him a party for old times' sake or what?"
"No." Link said. His mind was racing. It had happened before. The monsters would start becoming more frequent. Hyrule would come under siege. "It means the cycle is beginning in earnest again."
Shepherd sat back to take in what he had just heard. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Link said.
"Something's wrong. Why haven't the sages gotten a hold of us yet?" Shepherd asked.
"I don't know." Link responded.
"What are you talking about?" Sir Portant asked in total confusion. "What cycle? What's happening?"
Rodney McKay was staring intently at a chalkboard in his laboratory. It wasn't unusual for him to do this. Princess Zelda had often come into this part of the castle she had set aside for him to find him as still as a statue muttering strange things to himself, his eyes flittering over the symbols written out. On occasion he would erase some and add others. Today, as she found him once again, he barely seemed alive as he stared.
"Doctor McKay?" She asked.
"Yes, just a minute, I'm thinking." He responded with annoyance. She had mercifully enabled he and the four other soldiers, Johnson, Davidson, Billings, and Samuels to understand the Hylian speech in the same way she did for Colonel Shepherd several years before.
This was a game of sorts she played with him, "and what are you thinking?" She asked him.
"I'm trying to make the power requirements work to get us home." He told her without taking his eyes off the board. It wasn't the first time he had told her this.
"I see. Have you made any progress yet?" She asked, also part of the game.
"No." He responded in defeat. "I still don't have the slightest idea how the sages make the stargate work without a visible power source to begin with, and they never bothered to explain it to me. If they're something like priors then... I still don't know how they make it work."
He turned to face her. She had grown into a stunning young woman, tall and regal, yet lithe and athletic of build. She always had a serene expression on her face, and Doctor McKay could never seem to annoy her like he did with most people. She usually wore a bemused smile on her face when she talked with him.
"What of your latest excursion with Link, did you find what you were seeking?" She asked.
"No." He responded. "It has to be in Hyrule somewhere. From everything I've read of the D'ni, they never linked to a new world without taking a linking book with them to return home. They were ridiculously cautious and thorough. If the ancestors of the Hylians came from D'ni, then they would have had to have left one somewhere in Hyrule." It was the same thing he had said before many times. He only repeated it out of frustration.
"Is there anywhere else in Hyrule, any other ancient site which would possibly go back to the earliest times? Somewhere we haven't checked or been able to check?" McKay asked, hoping.
"Many of the most ancient places have been infested by dark creatures time and again. It is possible that the book of which you speak was destroyed during one of those times." She had said this before too, although there was a nagging voice in the back of her mind which said that it hadn't, and that the book was quite safe.
"Is there anywhere else?" He asked again.
"There is only one other place I can think of, and it's really only a legend. You would have to ask Link as to how to even get there if it exists." She said, the nagging voice telling her that it did indeed exist.
McKay had heard this part of the conversation before as well. "And where is that?" He asked.
"It is an ancient city built in the sky. Legend says that it was inhabited by the ancient Hylians many thousands of years ago. If you have searched everywhere on the surface of our world, then there is only one other place you can look." She told him.
"A city in the sky? We'd have to be able to see something that size from the ground wouldn't we?" He asked, disbelieving. It wasn't the idea of a city in the sky that he didn't believe, he'd read the reports of things like that from Stargate Command. In fact, that seemed entirely believable. It was that something like that could have remained hidden from the ground he had a difficult time with.
"As I said, it is a legend. The cycle of the Triforce has caused us to lose much of our learning and history over the many ages. What little we have been able to preserve of what is known is kept in the Castle's library, as you know." She said. She then asked, "have you been able to use any of our magical knowledge in your studies?"
McKay smirked, and then uncharacteristically bit back a rude comment. Zelda reminded him somewhat of Jennifer Keller, and that tended to make him behave a little better around her.
"To be honest, I haven't tried." He said.
"I see. Why?" She asked.
"I'm a man of science. Hard facts and information. Magic has nothing to do with that." He responded.
"And yet since you've been in Hyrule, have you seen no evidence of the reality of the power of our magic?" She argued.
He pursed his lips and said nothing.
She continued, "It has been magic, and not your science, which we have relied on, and been grieved by, for most of our history, Doctor. There are powerful forces in our world which you haven't even tried to understand." She then looked deeply into his eyes. "You're afraid of it." She pronounced quietly.
"I'm sorry, what? No... I'm not afraid of some hocus pocus witchcraft. I just don't believe in it." He responded defensively.
"It's something your science can't explain, so you try and pretend it doesn't exist. This isn't wise, Doctor McKay, and it won't help you find the answers you've been seeking." She said. "You are no longer on Earth. The rules of our world are quite different than the rules of yours. There's no way to win a game if you don't bother to understand the rules by which it is played. Consider this in your calculations."
She left McKay to his chalkboard to puzzle over what she had said. It wasn't the first time she had said it. She hoped, though, that it would finally sink in, for all their sakes.