Chapter 12
The gold covered wooden door opened silently inward upon Zelda's firm touch. "Once the door closes again, the seal will reset." She told Shepherd and Link. It was midnight precisely according to their watches, the moon overhead beginning its wane. She then moved to enter with them.
"Where are you going?" Shepherd asked, standing in her way. "You're not going in there with us, are you?" That just wasn't going to happen. There was no way he was going to allow her to put herself into possible harm's way.
"Of course. The Temples and their Sages are my responsibility. Why would I ask you to go in and not go in myself?" Zelda responded.
"Look, your highness, we don't know what's in there, and you're the crown princess. I'm not taking you in there and then having to explain to your father why I allowed you to get hurt because some monster neither of us expected popped out of the ceiling." Shepherd told her. "Look, we should be able to get out again without your help, right?"
"The seal was meant to keep unwanted people out, not in." Zelda admitted.".
"Right." He replied. "So, go home, get some sleep and we'll report back directly to you first once we're done."
Zelda could see that Shepherd wouldn't be moved. She looked to Link, and could see that the Hero was in full, if silent agreement with his friend. "We'll be fine. We always are." Link told her confidently.
She gave him a look which said, "I know better than that," but she relented. "Alright. But be careful." She told them before turning back. The last the two saw of her, she was being escorted by R.H.M.G. personnel out of the Temple complex.
The two then turned back to the open gilded wooden door and the dark interior beyond it. "Don't worry, I've been through here before." Link told him. "We'll be in and out before you know it. Sooner, if the Sage is fine."
"Okay, so let's hope he's just been feeling anti-social for the last twenty years." Shepherd said, losing hope as the words came out of his mouth. His rifle came comfortably into his hands, his finger on the trigger. He also carried a Hylian sword and shield in the uniform fashion of the R.H.M.G.
They passed through the doorway and into the darkened entry hall of the Temple of Light. The door silently swung shut behind them. Patterns of colored light danced gently across the marble floor as the silver moonlight struck the stained glass windows which had been set up high to the sides of the hall. It had its own melancholy beauty to it. It was a lot like the pictures of the sanctuaries of the great Catholic cathedrals back on Earth which Shepherd had seen, except there were no pews lining the hall, and the iconography of the stained glass was of a decidedly different faith with vastly different stories depicted. The altar at the opposite end of the hall was certainly intended for a different offering than those given at a Catholic Mass as well, as three radiant jeweled pieces had been placed over the top of it.
Link went to go and stand in front of the altar, and then he knelt on one knee in reverence. To what god or goddess he might be praying Shepherd didn't really know, given the man's unusual history and his own connection with the depictions in the stained glass. But there was something about the place that impressed its sacredness and solemnity on those who entered.
Link stood up again and rejoined Shepherd in the center of the entry hall. "For my mother; my birth mother." He told him, though Shepherd didn't ask. "And to my mother as well, I suppose." He added. Shepherd hadn't asked about his most recent birth mother before, but Link had told him that she died when he was ten. It then occurred to him that he never said anything about his father. He resolved to ask him later if it became appropriate.
Link then drew out the simple wooden flute that Colin had carved for him from a pouch at his side. He looked down at the floor to be certain of where he stood when he played. On the marble floor beneath him was inlaid a golden set of three triangles flanked by outspread wings. He then played a series of six notes.
As Shepherd heard them, he recognized the melody. It was the same six notes that both Link and Impa, the last Sage of Time whom had had grown to respect, played in order to open the doorway to the Temple of Time. "Useful tune, that." Shepherd said.
The Triangles beneath them glowed in response, and light began to flood the hall around them, though from what source they couldn't tell. Behind the altar, three doors began to open, allowing access to the rest of the Temple. But that wasn't what caught their immediate attention when the lights came on. No, what caught their attention was that many of the shadows in the hall didn't disappear.
"Link, is that supposed to happen?" Shepherd asked, knowing the answer.
"Not on a good day, no." Link said, drawing his sword and shield.
Shepherd cocked his rifle. "That's what I was afraid of."
There were a couple of dozen shadows like large black pools of ink along the floor and walls around the entry hall that had been exposed by the radiant light. When the light touched them they began to take shape and solidify into dark three dimensional figures of what looked like giant humanoid lizards armed with swords and maces. Their eyes glowed with a pale green light.
"Shadow Lizalfos?" Shepherd asked, not having seen one of the reptile men in a long, long time.
Link shrugged his shoulders non-commitally, "What difference does it make?" He replied.
"Right." Shepherd responded, and shot the closest one in the chest with his rifle. It had the immediate effect of getting its attention, but not much else. "Okay, Didn't expect that!"
The creature used its tail and whipped the rifle away from Shepherd, at which point he drew his own sword from its scabbard, the shield he had carried adorned his left arm. He had only agreed to wear them because it was part of the Guard uniform he had been given, but now he remembered the immediate practicality of the medieval weapons when dealing with the threats of this world. Tiny lead bullets don't always work against creatures born of magic. Sometimes you needed steel.
Link didn't hear Shepherd's last comment as he went to work. He hadn't even bothered with carrying a rifle this time. It was cumbersome and slowed him down. The dark Lizalfo nearest him fell as the swordsman bashed his long reptile snout in with his shield and plunged his sword through its breastplate and into its chest, quickly pulling it out again. The creature fell to the ground and disappeared in a puff of black smoke. He then engaged the next one which proved to be a better fighter than the first, and lasted a little longer against the Hero until Link took off its head.
Shepherd blocked the strike of the one he'd made angry with his own shield and caught the creature in the side. It brought its tail around again and used it like a whip lashing his legs, tripping him up and dropping the human on his backside. The Lizalfo took advantage of it to quickly attempt another slash at his head, but then found his own sword blocked by what looked like a huge golden skeleton key.
"Pick on someone your own size!" Cried a high pitched voice as the key swung back around slashing at the shadow across the midsection, disemboweling and dropping the creature.
Shepherd looked up in disbelief to see that his rescuer wasn't the friend he walked in with having teenage troubles with his voice. Instead it was a four foot giant black mouse with a tan face, white gloves, yellow shoes and garbed in what looked like a long black leather cloak with a metal zipper up the front. "You've got to be kidding me." He exclaimed as he recognized the face and voice of their new ally all too well from movies and cartoons he'd seen or heard of all of his pre-adolescent life.
"We'll get to the introductions later!" The mouse said as he gave Shepherd his four fingered hand to help him to his feet. The man couldn't help but just stare at him as he turned back to the shadow creatures wielding his huge key weapon like a samurai master.
"You've got to be kidding me." Shepherd said again in disbelief. He then was snapped out of it by the charge of another shadow warrior whose blow he just barely got his shield raised in time to block.
"Get your head in the game, soldier!" The mouse called out to him. "We've got a lot of work to do!"
"Uh, Right!" Shepherd called back as he cleared his head and used his own sword to drop the monster.
Link took out two more, and the mouse felled four more on his own using a magic spell involving spinning blades of light that sought out the living shadows like guided missiles. The three of them began to work their way through the monsters until the last one disappeared into black smoke after it lost its head in a duel with Shepherd.
"Clear!" Shepherd called out as no more shadows appeared in the entry hall, he then went to retrieve his firearm which had landed on the floor and skidded against the north wall. "Clear!" Came Link's and the mouse's response.
"Now, time for me to properly introduce myself." The mouse began turning around to offer his hand to shake. "I'm..."
"Mickey Mouse." Shepherd finished for him, staring at the mouse's free hand as though he didn't know what to do with it.
"Why yes!" Mickey said. "You know of me?" His left hand was still extended, and Shepherd finally took it, shaking it gingerly before pulling back, thoroughly weirded out by the experience. Link shook the mouse's hand in a friendly but confused manner as well.
"Uh... yeah. I've heard of you somewhere before." He said trying to remain nonchalant and cool about the absurd situation he had just found himself in. "Uh, what are you doing here?"
Mickey's expression turned very serious and troubled. It was a look on the mouse's face which Shepherd had honestly never seen him drawn with in all of his childhood or adult life watching images of the Disney figure. "I have to find someone; a sorceress who entered your world recently. She and I have the same enemy, an evil man name Xehanort. He's committed a horrible number of crimes in our realms and has to be stopped and brought to justice. I traced her here, and she was tracking him. If she traced him here, then he's going to be a very serious threat to your realm too." Mickey's tone of voice had become all business.
"He's here, and he's already a threat." Link told the mouse. "The sorceress is gone."
"Gone? Where? How?" The mouse asked, and Shepherd and Link explained the story as quickly as they could. When they finished, Mickey nodded and smiled, "I'm glad your friend was able to do that for her. She's been in such pain for so long. That's why she was hurting people before. I hope she's able to make things right with Aurora. So, what are your names?"
"I'm John Shepherd, and this is Link Faroson." Shepherd told him, feeling like he was in some kind of a weird hallucination.
"How did you enter the Temple? No one but the royal family or the Temple's Sage can unseal the door." Link asked.
"I used my keyblade." Mickey said, holding it up for them to see. "I can unlock any door with it, even the doors between worlds, or the door to a person's heart." He then looked at the sword in Link's hand, "But you know that already, don't you keyblade master Link?" He said, gesturing to the Master Sword.
"What do you mean?" Link asked, looking at the sword he had carried in every lifetime he had lived. He knew from his deep memories that it had originally been crafted by Hylia long ago on Atlantis before their exile to Hyrule had become permanent, and he knew it was a lamna clavia, a keyblade for accessing the Sacred Realm, but he had never known any property of the Master Sword giving it the ability to open any other lock.
The mouse eyed the blue and silver sword critically, but said nothing as he did so. "We may need to talk later." He finally told him. "It could be very important. But for right now, we need to find Xehanort and stop him. I came here because I thought this is where he would be most drawn to."
"Look, uh, Mickey," Shepherd was trying to make the best of the situation, "uh, we're in here trying to figure out what might have happened to the Sage of Light. He's kind of like a religious sorcerer or wizard that guards the Temple and prays to his god all the time. The palace and another Sage we can talk to have lost contact with him. That fact that he didn't show up when we turned on the lights tells us something's wrong. Do you have any ideas as to whether or not Xehanort might be behind it?" Shepherd asked, still trying to accept the fact that he just asked Mickey Mouse a serious question upon which answer the fate of the world might rest.
"Would he be a person in whose heart there is no darkness?" The mouse asked sincerely.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he would." Shepherd responded, looking at Link questioningly. Link nodded in agreement.
"Then we need to try and find him quickly, or else he's going to be in serious, serious danger. Xehanort will try and use his heart along with several others to open the doorway to Kingdom Hearts. The fact there were heartless in here already tells me we might be too late, but we need to try." The mouse told them. "I'm going with you." He said with high pitched determination.
"Looks like it's going to be that kind of a mission. Welcome aboard." Shepherd said graciously.
"Thank you!" The mouse said cheerfully. "Okay, let's go!" He then looked at the three open doorways and asked, "uh, which way?"
"The Sage's residence is on the south side of the Temple in the rectory, we should check there first." Link said. "So we go through the door to our right." Link said, pointing with his sword. Mickey, keyblade in hand, led the way.
"So, where did you know him from? Another video game?" Link asked Shepherd, whispering.
"I really don't want to talk about it. And whatever you do, don't tell Rodney about this if we can help it." Shepherd told him.
Link nodded in understanding. "To be honest, it's kind of weird even for me."
After he had thought Bill and Daniel had gone to bed that night, Rodney was still awake and working on his own project to assist in the defense of Castleton against the expected invasion. "Learn to play the game by its own rules." He kept repeating to himself. He and Shepherd had discussed it after his meeting in the war room.
"How many people are in this city would you guess?" Shepherd had asked him.
"I don't know. It's obviously grown a lot in two hundred years. I'd estimate around half a million just from what we've seen, minimum." Rodney had answered.
"And probably more. From my understanding there are several large cities, but from a military standpoint, Castleton would be the one with the biggest target painted on it, wouldn't you say?" He asked.
"Yeah, most likely with the main armory and military complex here," Rodney answered, "Where are you going with this?"
"What happens to the civilian population if there's an aerial assault?" Shepherd wondered aloud. "There's a lot of innocent people in this city who would be hurt."
"So what are we talking about then? You're worried about bombers aren't you?" Rodney's mind went into gear.
"Bombers and other aircraft which could drop uninvited guests or unwanted presents, yeah." Shepherd answered. "There doesn't seem to be any good places set up to protect the population in that kind of a campaign, and we can't just announce an evacuation based on what I would do in the enemy's position. And in the event of a bombing campaign there would be no time. So I'm asking you, with everything we now know about Ancient tech and Hyrule's combination of tech and magic, is there anything we can do to secure the city from a potential bombing raid?"
Rodney had started going through the possibilities in his mind. "How much time do you think we've got?"
"If I was them, not much. A day or two more at most. They just declared war yesterday, so they've probably already got their forces geared up and just waiting for the word." Shepherd had said.
"Okay, give me a couple of hours, and I'll eventually need the manpower to set something up." Rodney had told him.
"You've got something in mind?" Shepherd asked hopefully.
"Yeah, maybe. It's a long-shot, and I don't know if we can fulfill the power requirements, but... yeah, maybe." Rodney said, already going through the calculations in his mind. "I'll need to work with the castle magicians to iron out the details though."
"I'll send some your way." Shepherd told him, somewhat impressed that Rodney would even consider Hylian magic in his calculations.
"And I'll need a lab space to work. I think they turned my old one into a library or something." Rodney said.
"It's been two hundred and thirty years, you can't expect them to just keep it set up for you." Shepherd replied. "I'll have them clear some space for you."
"Good." Rodney said, happy to have something useful and even challenging to do after being forced to learn more about Bill Lee's Disney video games than he ever wanted to know.
Now, three hours after that conversation, he wondered if he had finally promised something that was actually impossible as he went over the factors with three of the castle magicians who weren't particularly happy about being kept up this late at night.
"The magic doesn't work like that!" Afredo, a blond bearded man in a white lab coat with spectacles kept telling him, and Rodney would have to patiently try and work around his objections. The other men, an older man with a more open mind and his lab assistant apprentice were more willing to try and make the magic work the way he wanted it to, but even they were having trouble following his lines of reasoning.
"So what do we need then to make it work like that?" He asked. "Do we need more crystals, a bigger power source, what? Don't tell me what I can't do, tell me what I can do!"
The thing that really frustrated him was that he knew he was out of his element. If magic was a science like physics, it had its own logic to it that Rodney just couldn't fathom, but he needed to in order to deliver what he told Shepherd might be able to be done.
"We need more crystals, and we just don't have enough to fix a perimeter around the whole city like what you're suggesting. It's never been done before." Afredo told him. "The whole thing is too theoretical. There hasn't been open conflict between the east and west for over fifty years. Why would we even need to consider these kinds of measures?"
"Hello? Mr. Wizard! Anyone home? Excuse me, genius, but a hostile nation doesn't go and declare war and then sit on its hands and drink tea, now does it." Rodney said, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "I didn't ask if it had been done before, I asked what we needed to do it." Rodney retorted. "I thought magical barriers like this had been raised over Hyrule Castle before."
"According to legend, yes. But then it was by powerful sorcerers with the aid of a part of the Triforce. We don't have that resource at our disposal." The older man, Rodney thought his name was something like Phil maybe, told him in a more reasoned tone of voice.
"Yeah, well we don't happen to have one of those at our disposal." He said bitterly, still stinging from the three that had been dropped into his lap disappearing without a trace. "Believe me, I wish we did, but the only people who have access to it aren't going to go there for something as small as a little war among mortals. It's meant for frying much bigger fish."
"Perhaps we don't need more crystals, but bigger ones at set points. And perhaps we can bring the perimeter in a bit, not covering the whole city area but let's say bring it down to here." Phil pointed out a halfway point on the map where the city became more densely packed. "If we could evacuate the population to within this area, then maybe we could do it. And we could, theoretically, tie the system into our time-shift power grid. It might cause a blackout in the city, but it also might give it enough power to work for more than the few minutes a normal spell of this kind does. Maybe up to an hour?"
Rodney pushed aside his annoyance with Afredo and began working it over in his head. "Yeah, that just might work. Let's crunch the numbers again, and if they look good, we'll call the boys in gray and get started setting it up."
"Tonight?" Afredo complained. "It's after midnight, Doctor McKay!"
"Yes. Yes it is. And if bombers start flying at dawn or enemy troops start parachuting down I'll just direct them towards your house first for an early morning wake up call." Rodney said sarcastically. "So, still feeling tired? No? Good. Then let's get back to work."
Shepherd, Link and Mickey had been searching the residence, and most of the outlying rooms of the Temple for two hours, running into more stray shadow creatures as they went from chamber to chamber. These were dispatched as soon as they were discovered. There was no sign of the Sage of Light. The only room in the complex left for them to search was the Sanctum, except they had no way of entering because the key was still hidden somewhere in the Temple.
They came to stand in front of the chamber. It wasn't difficult for them to reach, it was right through the center door from the entry hall, and down a short tunnel. "This is the sanctum entrance," Link said, trying to forget the experience of the last time he had to enter hundreds of years ago. It was an unpleasant experience involving a giant armored spider thing, one of the Demon King's pets. "It's sealed tight." He said, looking at the door, and feeling the oddly shaped lock with his hand.
"So, how do we open the door? We searched everywhere in this place and didn't find the key for it." Shepherd asked, looking at the imposing set of gold doors. "What if he took the key inside it with him?"
"Why would he do that?" Link asked. "Why would he lock himself in?"
Mickey, while listening, had been studying the door lock. "Let me try." He said, and he pointed his keyblade at the door. The lock on the door began to change shape until it grew and resembled something big enough for the massive key to fit within. He inserted the keyblade and turned it. The door opened inwards.
"I wish I had known how to do that trick with the Master Sword before." Link said, impressed. "It would have saved me a lot of trouble in the past."
"Didn't anyone teach you how to use your keyblade?" Mickey asked. "I had a master teach me and had to pass an exam."
"No. I've always had to figure it out as I went." Link said, sword in hand scanning the scene which presented itself through the open doorway, trying to understand what he was looking at as the three entered the doorway, blades at hand.
They came into a circular stone room lined with pillars that stood around the circumference. As elsewhere in the Temple, golden light glowed within the room from no discernible source. In the center of the room was a small pedestal with an indentation similar to the much larger one in the Temple of Time where normally rested the Master Sword. Arranged around the pedestal in a circle were the seals symbolizing the different elements represented by the Temples and their Sages. That part of the room was painfully familiar to Link as the mistake he and Zelda had made as children many lifetimes ago had caused the ruin of their world; a ruin that took seven years to repair. It was the figure dressed in red and gold robes suspended above it that was new to his considerable experience.
"Is that the Sage of Light?" Mickey asked, looking at him strangely, as if trying to see through him.
"I think so. I've only seen a picture of him once in school a couple of years ago from when the King was crowned before I was born... uh, reborn." Link replied. "He looks about twenty or thirty years older than in the film of the coronation, though."
The portly Hylian man was suspended in mid air, though there was no discernible means for him to be so. His long hair had turned mostly white from what might have originally been a light brown. His face held a brown beard with streaks of white. His eyes were closed as if in sleep.
"What's wrong with him?" Shepherd asked, not seeing anything else in the room to explain the Sage's condition.
"I don't know." Link said. "The only thing this reminds me of is this one time when Ganondorf held Zelda prisoner in a similar way."
"And how did that turn out?" Mickey asked, still eying the Sage, trying to understand what he thought he was sensing.
"Not well. He possessed her body and used her to try and kill me. I still have nightmares about it." Link said matter-of-factly. "Among other things."
Shepherd couldn't even imagine what Link must have gone through that time. He'd only been married once, and that ended badly all by itself. Sure, there'd been other women, but nothing like the relationship Link had with the princess.
"I don't know what I would have done if it had been Minnie." Mickey empathized. "I've had a lot of friends hurt, but Minnie's always been protected from that kind of evil. Although Xehanort did use a good friend of mine like that. It took a long time for him to recover from it. I'm so glad now that Riku's free of him."
"It's been about par for my life." Link said as he studied the man too. "There doesn't seem to be any depth to which evil men won't sink to try and get what they want. Oddly enough, growing up this time in Ordonville has been the closest thing I've had to a normal life in hundreds of life-times."
"No, there certainly doesn't." Mickey agreed with him knowingly.
"Look at that." Mickey finally pointed at the man. "Do you see it?"
"See what?" Shepherd asked, not sure what the mouse was pointing at.
"It's barely perceptible, but it's there. A thin line of darkness is just above his head and wrapping around his body. I think it's what's suspending him above the floor. We'll need to somehow cut it to get him down." Mickey told them. "Maybe if we just try and dispel some of it?"
Link looked hard and just barely saw the translucent shadow that Mickey had pointed out. "Let me try something." He pointed the tip of his blade towards the ceiling. The Master Sword began to glow with a white radiant light, he then pointed it at where he thought the line was and released the built up energy within it. A wave of radiant bright energy flew from the blade and cut straight through the line of darkness, dispelling the tether and dropping the man to the stone floor.
They went to his side as he hit. The man's eyes blinked open, and he asked, "Where? Where am I?"
"You're in the Sanctum of the Temple of Light, your grace. You were sealed inside." Link answered, trying to help him up.
"Yes, yes, I am aren't I?" The man said, then his eyes fell on the open door. "You opened the door, how?"
Mickey came around and was about to explain, but then he looked into his eyes. "Uh, fellas? What color are the Sage's eyes normally?" He asked aloud, seeing his gold colored eyes with bright yellow highlights.
Then the man dropped all pretense and tried to make a dash for the door, but Shepherd blocked his way with a sword and shield. The man then struck the ground with his fist and a wave of darkness came pulsing at them, knocking Shepherd off of his feet. Link reacted on instinct and somersaulted high above the wave while Mickey jumped over it and rolled coming up on his feet again in front of the combative Sage.
"YOU!" The Sage roared, darkness swirling around him, recognizing the mouse. "How could you have found me here?!" He yelled.
"You know how to drive out the darkness don't you Xehanort?!" Mickey shouted back. "You turn up the light!" And he pointed his keyblade at the man's chest. A beam of pure light shot from the end of the key and struck the man in the heart. "Link, back me up!" Mickey cried out.
Link saw what Mickey was trying to do and thought he understood. He raised the Master Sword to the sky again, and then pointed the tip, aiming for the center of the man's chest. Once more a wave of light was unleashed and slammed into the man. The portly man screamed an unearthly scream and fell to the ground.
Before the other two realized what he was going to do, Mickey took the opportunity to plunge the end of his key into the man's chest like he was inserting it into a lock, and then somehow he turned it. The darkness which now surrounded the Sage like a cloud dissipated and then was gone. His eyes changed their color to a deep blue. The mouse pulled the key out of the man's chest, leaving no marks or indications that he had ever been impaled at all.
Shepherd got back up to his feet. I will never disrespect that mouse again, he thought to himself as he watched the scene unfold. "Where'd you learn to do that?" He asked Mickey.
"Years of practice unfortunately." The mouse responded.
"The Hero?" The Sage asked as he looked upon Link as though he was just coming to his senses. "No, that's not right. You're not supposed to be here. You and my Lady were done with your tasks." He said.
"Obviously not." Link replied, more tired than he realized. "What happened?"
"There was a dark presence," The Sage began. "I felt it coming. I felt the power of it, it spoke to me, called out to the evil in my own heart. I recognized the danger I was in from the darkness in my own heart and sealed myself in here, in the Sanctum, but somehow the dark presence broke through the seal and found me here. It invaded my mind and heart, but trapped within my body it couldn't leave. For, for a long time I fought against it as it studied my mind, tempted me, taunted me. It was a living nightmare, eventually it broke through."
"Broke through to what?" Shepherd asked.
"It wanted to know about the Sacred Realm, and the Master Sword. It wanted to know about something called 'Kingdom Hearts,' but I had never heard of it. And then the Sacred Realm flashed into my mind, and it seized on that. It wanted to know everything about it. It wanted to know where the entry point was and how to enter the Sacred Realm. It wanted to know about the Triforce. I couldn't stop it, it took the information from my mind. He took it just like he took control of me." The portly man began to weep. "I couldn't stop him, after... after so long he got what he wanted."
"He knows how to enter the Sacred Realm?" Link asked.
"Yes." The Sage of Light answers. "Goddesses forgive me, I told him everything." And his tears flowed freely as he began to sob.