Chapter 22: Ballet of Life
…
"Waaait a minute, wait a minute," Line called out as he dropped from the final step. He took a moment to join Link in the center of the deepest floor of the library. "You're… you're seriously saying that you dreamed you went in there, killed something, and now it's gone?!"
"That's it," Link replied, not even flinching as Layna dropped to his side. Instead, he kept his eyes on the corridor on the far side of the floor.
"Well that's nuts!" Line said.
"Then explain that."
Line glanced in the direction Link had pointed. Then he took another look before he could further elaborate on his opinion of Link's sanity.
The black was gone. Instead, just as in Link's dream, the walls of the library encompassed an open doorway leading into a corridor. And, much to Link's rising glee, that corridor was orange. To be precise, yellow and orange light swirled around the surface of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the narrow corridor. It had been a while, but this was the unmistakable appearance of the Sorians' technoworks.
The lifeblood of each island in the sky, the technoworks represented the magnificence of the Sorians before they had disappeared into the Undying Storm. They dwelled below the ground, living rock which not only kept all the islands afloat but provided rich soil and fresh water to the surface of every island. Irleen had explained that the technoworks brought these up from the world below to strip them of their impurities in order to feed. They were grown like plants and, like any living being, were vulnerable to various forms of interactions. With Sorian magic, they could change the winds around the Hylians' airborne kingdom. Sufficient physical force could wound them until they turned black with death. Link had even discovered that they could become drunk, a vice discovered by his chief engineer which had led to an entirely unique set of problems.
"I'm loving this," Irleen commented to break the silence around them.
"This is good, right?" Line asked, pointing. "This means we can go home."
"As long as the technoworks are intact," Irleen replied. "And we have to hope that the control room is down here."
"Let's go," Link said as he started forward.
"I thought the big islands always had a control room," Line said, falling into pace behind Link with Layna at his side. He glanced over his shoulder to see Cale rushing to catch them.
"Yeah," Irleen replied, "but the bigger islands can have more than one accessible section of technoworks. Might Island probably has two or three areas."
"Is there anything you can tell us from this area?" Link asked just before crossing the threshold into the technoworks.
Irleen took a moment as she glanced left and right at the walls. "There's damage, but it's hard to tell how much," she said. "I'm sure this technoworks has the capacity to provide us another Sky Line back, but it won't work until we fix it."
"Can we fix it?" Cale asked after catching up.
"Oh, yeah," Irleen replied, turning to fly backwards as she talked. "Once we tell the technoworks to heal itself, all of its abilities will be restored."
"How long with that take?" Line asked.
"Depends on how many times Link screws up the controls."
"I've been practicing," Link defended, looking up to give her an annoyed glare.
"Then what?" Line asked Irleen. "We just hop on the Sky Line and go home?"
"Soon," Link answered. "We still need rations. Besides, I didn't bring the blues harp with me."
"That figures."
Link glanced over his shoulder. "What?" he asked, sounding offended.
"The one thing we could use right now, and you forgot it."
"Oh, big deal, Line! It's not going anywhere."
"Oh, boy."
Irleen's comment drew attention to the large room they had just stepped into. They realized that the light was much more uneven than usual. High on the surrounding walls, part of the technoworks had turned a pulsing, angry red color. The floor also had a large, red curve from the right side if the room toward the exit into the corridor.
"What's all that?" Line asked, pointing at the red area around them.
"Necrosis," Irleen said. "The technoworks here have been injured."
"This can't be right…" Link said in a low voice.
"What?" Irleen asked. "It's not like we haven't seen this before."
Link strode toward the middle of the room and turned to take in the arrangement of the damaged areas. "I know how these got here," he told the group. "But… it's impossible."
"What do you mean?" Cale asked.
"I was fighting a gigantic Bubble in this room," Link replied. He pointed to the floor and said, "This is where it scraped its jaw chasing me down." Then his finger picked out the large spots on the walls as he continued, "And it was banging its head on the walls. But that was all in my dreams."
"It was also inside the black creature," Irleen pointed out. "Maybe whatever happened while you were fighting it found its way into reality." Then she shook in place, producing a small ring. "Wow. It's kinda creepy to think about. I know I've had dreams which I don't want coming true."
"What does this mean foh the technowohks?" Cale asked.
"Well, they don't normally want to function if they're injured," Irleen said. "But we can still trigger the healing process as long as we can get to the control room."
Link was just recalling the fight with the large skeleton creature in the final room, wondering what kind of damage that that fight had caused. Then he snapped his fingers and told her, "I bet it's down here. I remember seeing a room that looks like it could be the control room." He turned to the doorway behind him. "C'mon."
Link led them into the short hallway that he had seen previously designed with muscle and bone, grateful to see that it was technoworks in the daylight. The antechamber at the other end sported a metal ladder. When Link peered down to the next room, he was relieved to see that it too was just technoworks floor and walls. His caution was annoying Line and Irleen, although they did not say anything open about it. They, along with the curious Cale and calm Layna, continued to follow him like they usually did.
The large room below did not sport any damage. Link was half-tempted to throw his boomerang at a wall to see if it would disappear into the distance again, but he decided against it since the walls were perfectly visible and doing so would just make him look like an idiot. Instead, he chose not to dwell, leading his group to the single doorway.
Once they were through the short hallway between rooms, the group stepped into the final chamber and abruptly stopped. Gashes had been cut into the floor and a few parts of the wall on the right. These gashes were pitch-black, a sign that the underlying technoworks had died. Many areas of the room pulsed red.
"Oh, no…" Irleen uttered as she hurried forward. The rest of the group hustled to a pair of technowork columns taking up room in front of the opposite wall. Irleen circled the column on the left until stopping in front of a horizontal cut that looked to be about halfway from splitting the column across. The inside surface was black, and the entirety of the column was pulsing red.
"This… doesn't look good," Line commented.
"This column has been seriously injured," Irleen said. "I don't know if it'll work in this state."
"We have the othah column," Cale pointed out. Then, after indicating the other column, he noticed something shimmer on the floor.
"Yeah, but this one is the one that can give us another Sky Line," Irleen said. She looked around the room. "If we can heal the technoworks, they should gain the ability to make the Sky Line, but I don't know if this column will accept commands with damage like this."
"Well, if we heal the technoworks, it should fix this, too, right?" Link asked.
"Yeah, but the question is if we can even get to the technoworks' functions with one of the control columns like this."
"Will it completely black out if we don't do anything?" Line asked.
"With this level of injury, we've gotta fix it as soon as possible," Irleen said. "Otherwise, who knows?"
"Hey, Link," Cale said. Link peered around the column. Cale stood in the middle of a mess of broken wood. In his hands was a sheathed sword.
"That can't be," Link said as he rounded the column.
"What is it?" Line asked while Link took the sword.
Link had never gotten a good look at the sword before. But, even sheathed, it was actually quite stunning. The scabbard bore a coating of azure which felt smooth to the touch. Either edge bore a gold plate molded with diagonal grooves so fine that stroking one with a fingertip reminded Link of the barbs of a feather. A strap of layered cloth with an adjustable slider had been bolted to one side, positioned so that the owner could wear it across the back. The sword's crossguard was a gold disk barely wider than a fist. Link tugged on the black, bark-like handle to discover that the crossguard was actually a thin bar with a pair of prongs that pointed parallel to the scabbard while the rest of what Link had thought was the crossguard was actually the scabbard's throat. The pommel was a gold ball on the end of a cap fitted to the bottom of the handle. Link pulled the whole blade out to reveal a lightweight sword with a straight blade of white steel.
"A white sword," Irleen said as Link looked at the curve-like figures etched into the blade near the base. "It's kind of a rare thing. This must be old."
"Looks to be in pretty good shape to me," Line commented.
Link angled the sword so Irleen could see the blade. "Is this Sorian language?" he asked.
"Hmm," was her immediate response. "It looks like it, but I can't quite make it out. I don't even recognize some of these letters."
"Could it be a dialect?" Cale asked.
"I guess," Irleen said. "But we don't have time to deal with this."
Link sheathed the sword and looked back at the column. "Okay, this first," he said, pointing to it. "Layna and I'll go back to the ship; I'll pick up the blues harp while I'm there. Line, Cale, and Irleen, you'll stay here. Maybe see what you can find in the library above."
"Joy," Line said with a flat voice.
"Make sure you watch each other's backs," Link warned him. "The Night is gone, but don't get comfortable about it."
"Got it, Link," Irleen said before Line could make another comment.
"Wait a minute!" Line objected. "You're just gonna leave us here unprotected?!"
"My Kyabtin," Layna spoke up.
Link turned to find her tapping on his sword's pommel. He glanced down. Then he told Layna, "Good point." He slung the white sword onto his right shoulder and unbuckled his sword. "Take this then," he told Line as he offered the sword.
"Why do you get to keep the cool sword?" Line whined.
"Because I'm your captain?" Link replied. Line put on a sour look and swiped the sword out of Link's hand.
…
With only Layna accompanying him, the journey back to the ship was much faster. Layna moved only as fast as Link, so Link was able to move at a brisk pace through the settlement and across the stone plain on the island's outskirts to the ship. Between the visit to "Logan's" house and investigating the technoworks under the library, they had burned through most of the morning and into the afternoon just a bit. Even as he boarded the Island Symphony, he told himself that he would have to hustle back to the library if he wanted to return with Cale, Line, and Irleen before dark.
"Captain on-deck!" Airman Hunter called across the ship from the poop deck. Not that he needed to; Lwamm and Twali had already spotted him come aboard as they patrolled the main deck.
However, Flower would have needed to be alerted since he was on the forecastle. Link saw him jogging down the stairs and gave him time to approach before saying, "Report."
"Aye, sir," Flower replied as he came to a stop in front of Link. "The lieutenant had us change shifts at noon; we're on the night shift now. The ship's holding up well, but I think the engine room crew is getting a little stir-crazy."
"Tell them they're welcome to come up for fresh air if they need it," Link told him. "Where's Leynne at?"
"Went to bed not long after the shift change. He wanted to get some sleep before it got dark; he left me orders to wake him up at about six." He gave the island a side-nod. "What's going on out there?"
"Some of the locals were actually awake," Link told him. "Something to do with last night; I'll explain later. But we have access to the library and the technoworks underneath. We've also got a line on some rations."
Flower clapped his hands hard. "Good to hear, Captain. We going now?"
"There's supposed to be a mine or two on the other side of the island from here," Link said. "According to one of the locals, there should be some rations there. I don't know if I want to send out any more crew to take a look; I don't wanna leave the shift short. Cale and Line are already past time to switch off."
"The morning then?" Flower asked.
Link nodded. "This time tomorrow, we might be heading home. But be careful about spreading it around; we're not sure yet."
"Of course, sir."
Link indicated the port side with a hand. "Keep an eye out to port; we might be able to put another Sky Line in the air here in a couple hours."
"Gotcha," Flower told him, raising a thumbs up.
"For now, as you were."
"You got it."
As Flower headed back toward the forecastle, Layna put a hand on Link's shoulder. "My Kyabtin," she said in a low voice. "Rujun."
"Rujun?" Link asked, glancing at her over his shoulder. She nodded, her face changing to its emotionless stare. Link's eyes passed over the deck for a moment. Then he told her, "If it's Janni, you should be able to hide from it. Give it a try; let's make sure the Night isn't doing anything new." However, he found that she had disappeared before he could finish his statement. He gave the air behind him a sigh and a shake of the head before heading to his cabin.
Link took the opportunity to switch to another tunic and appropriately adjusted the belt to his Sorian white sword. It reminded him of carrying the Lokomo Sword through half of his adventure on the surface before returning to the sky. Although, as he drew it and gave it a couple of test swings in the open space in front of his desk, he found this sword to be much lighter than that sword or his own. It made him ponder if he could do the same damage as with his own sword. Then he reminded himself that he had defeated that bone monster in the technoworks with it, so it could not be bad to have a lightweight sword.
Then Link realized that, despite everything in that technoworks being an illusion made by the Night, why was it that this sword was real? Where it had been placed would be right in the way of anyone who needed to use the technoworks. Had the Sorians who had lived on this island done that? Or was it meant to be some kind of bait the Night was using? Link dismissed the second thought right away; if it had been bait, then it seemed to work against the Night.
Thinking about the technoworks reminded him that he needed to bring the blues harp, so he replaced the white sword and returned to his footlocker. The blues harp was in a box underneath his dirty clothes, a small pine chest that also held the award he had received from the King of Hyrule two years ago. The blues harp was actually of Sorian origin; it had belonged to a Sorian airman named Kaheel. This steel-cased instrument with ten thin bars of emerald on top and a single, solid bar on the bottom had been abandoned so that Cunimincus' minions could not take control of the Sky Lines or the islands. Shortly thereafter, Kaheel had sacrificed himself so that Cunimincus' only other option would be to bring down Sagacity Island. Or, at least, that had been the intention Link had taken from the message Kaheel had left with the Sky Lines. Link had not used the blues harp for a while since two years ago; he had only recently used it to confirm that the other islands could see that Obeeta had existed in this direction.
He pocketed the blues harp and left the cabin. Outside, he raised a hand over his head and called out, "Let's go, Layna!" Layna dropped to the deck just before he took the gangplank back to shore. He asked her over his shoulder, "Did you manage to hide yourself?"
"Ay'a, My Kyabtin," she answered.
"Then Janni must be up and about," he said. "You don't have to worry about her; she's caught in that strange, dream place like I was last night. She can't hurt anyone."
"'Inu mimathosak, My Kyabtin."
Link gave her a small grin. She caught the look and quickly diverted her own gaze. "You really do, don't you?" he asked her in a low voice.
…
On the return trip to the library, Link decided to pick up the pace so that they could return to the ship with some daylight to spare. So he and Layna used the rooftops to move faster, jumping the gaps over the streets. This was how Layna usually traveled, especially when she was following Link in secret. Link could only keep up with her pace using his magic boots and jumping feather. Even then, once she was in her element, he had to trail her by three roofs. Once they had found the hole in the street, Link had Layna stop for a moment so that he could catch his breath.
Upon finally entering the library once more, Link followed the sound of voices down two floors. There, Cale and Irleen were consulting a book while Line hovered near the table they used, one hand resting on the borrowed sword fastened around his waist.
As he approached with Layna in tow, he raised a hand and asked, "How's it going, guys?"
"I've had better luck finding things I wasn't interested in," Irleen confessed.
"Is that what you were whining about?" Line asked as he rested his bottom against the railing on the edge of the floor. "All I hear is these weird sounds like some little bird calling."
"Shut up," Irleen told him.
"Wait, wait," Link said, using his raised hand to halt them from fighting. "What's the problem? Isn't this your language?"
"Not quite," Irleen confessed.
"It's possible that the Sorians on this island experienced a language shift from the Sorians we knew from Foahlight Island," Cale spoke up.
"A what?" Link asked.
"A language shift," Cale said. "Accohding to language theory, it is possible that, ovah time, a language separated by some type of boundary begins to shift on eithah side of that boundary until the two halves become incomprehensible."
"Oh, boy, here we go…" Line groaned to himself, rolling his eyes.
"I… don't know what you're talking about," Link admitted.
"Well, think of the difference between Hylians in the sky kingdom vehsus the suhface population," Cale said. "Ouh physical bahrieh has caused us to sound quite different from one anothah." He gestured between himself and Link as he concluded, "If we had moah time apaht from each othah, we would eventually come to not undahstand each othah at all."
"And you're saying that's what's happened with the Sorians here?" Link asked.
"Precisely," Cale said.
"So what does that do for searching this library?" Link asked.
"Well, I can still read some of these older books," Irleen said. "But… anything from the Sorians that lived here before the Night turned them into… those things, I can't read."
"What about finding a magic book to change yourself back?" Link asked.
"That might take some time. It's hard to navigate this library because all the signs on the bookshelves are in the other Sorian language."
Link crossed his arms and pondered a moment. Then he suggested, "Maybe I can talk to Janni."
Irleen and Cale traded a look. "The… creatuah you weah chasing last night?" Cale asked.
Link nodded. "She's been here long enough that she can read the Sorian writing in this library. Maybe I can ask her where the magic books' shelf is."
"It would help," Irleen said. "The book itself should be old enough that I can read it, but we'd have to look at every title in this library to find it on our own. We don't have that kinda time, do we."
Link shook his head. "As soon as we have those rations and a return Sky Line, we're gone. The rations can wait another day, but I'd like to put that Sky Line out there so we have something to look forward to."
"No argument here," Irleen said as she rose from the table.
"Let's go," Link said, using a wave to invite Cale and Line along.
From the library back into the depths of the technoworks was much more silent. But then, they also moved faster now that they knew with a reasonable amount of certainty that there was nothing explicitly dangerous about the technoworks. The only thing to hold them up was Cale's slow pace descending the ladder to the bottom level, reminding Link and Line about his latent fear of heights. Once in the control room, the three boys cleared the space in between the columns of what remained of the box that had been holding the Sorian white sword.
Link then took his appropriate place in between the columns. After all this time, he had memorized the single note that started the interactions between him and the technoworks. He pulled the note on the blues harp and watched as blue particles came into existence on the undamaged column. As the note continued to sound, the blue particles formed words of the Sorian script familiar to him, although their meaning was lost.
After the undamaged column was finished providing a bulleted list, attention shifted to the column pulsing red. The column's surface flinched and wavered. The blue particles that were trying to gather together remained clouds of scattered pieces, completely unable to form a coherent shape.
"So far," Irleen said, "not so good."
"Well, let's fix it and try it out," Link said.
"Right. Cale, the circle next to the word 'health'. Push that one."
"Okay," Cale said as he touched a forefinger to the column right on top of the last bullet on the list. The list glowed white before disappearing.
Link looked down to see a circle of blue light form on the floor under him. Well, it was almost a circle; in front of him, the circle jerked and shook where it intersected a red portion of floor. Irleen failed to comment, so Link looked to the blues harp. The ten emeralds on the top surface gave a soft glow in a pattern that Link recognized as a song to be played, each note corresponding to the hole beneath it. It shifted from the front of the emerald to the back, showing where Link needed to pull and blow. Link had never learned how to read music, but this method of playing was much simpler. After allowing the sequence of notes to play out on the blues harp three times, Link placed his lips on the blues harp and began to play.
This piece was different from what he had come to expect when controlling other technoworks. Not that there was such a thing as consistency between technoworks; each technoworks seemed to have its own preference in musical emotion. A couple had had a sort of upbeat, casual feel, while some other songs could be mournful and depressing. This technoworks felt like it had a gleeful side to its chosen song of recovery. Well, Link decided that maybe "gleeful" was not the right word. It was more like a celebration. He had to admit a certain amount of sympathy for it. It had been a pretty rough four days since arriving at Obeeta. Doing this comforted him, especially since it put him and his crew one whole step closer to returning home.
While he played, the technoworks released a crumbling sound around him and his crew. The red areas that had been harmed changed to white stone for a brief moment before taking on the orange and yellow swirls of color of the surrounding, healthy technoworks. Some of the gashes in the floor and walls pulled themselves together during the white stone state. They closed into an uninterrupted continuation of the technoworks around them, their disappearance seeming to deny that they had existed in the first place. During his second playing of the song, the technoworks all around them began to shine with white light. He continued through three more plays before he stopped.
He and his group turned to the damaged column. While its normal colors had returned, craning to see around the column still showed the blackened technoworks on the inside of the large gash. Before Irleen could even say anything, Link pulled on the note to trigger the technoworks again. To his relief, a clear list formed on the damaged column.
"Oh, no…" Irleen then groaned as she fluttered closer to the column.
"What?" Line asked. But Link could already see where this was going. Only two of the six items on the list glowed blue. The other four were outlined in purple light. He had seen this once before on Bold Island. The technoworks there had been manipulated so that only one person could control them: a Sorian Grey named Lutock. He had taken control of the technoworks so that Cunimincus' minions could not and had gone on to slaughter them using the technoworks themselves. Link and Layna had had to work their way through the traps he had set and discovered that he had locked out some of the technoworks' abilities until Irleen had instructed Link on releasing the technoworks. Those locked abilities had appeared as purple letters as well.
"This can't be right," Irleen told the group. "There shouldn't be anything stopping us from making another Sky Line."
"You mean there is?" Line asked.
"What can we do about it?" Link asked, one hand held out to silence Line.
"We need to find where the interference is coming from," Irleen said as she moved back to the other column. "Cale. The circle with 'pulse' next to it. Push that one."
Cale did as she had instructed, and bands of blue light emerged from the words on the list. They swirled around the columns upward to the ceiling. Then they crawled across the ceiling and to the wall directly in front of the columns. They darkened into a large, malformed shape which Link could tell was supposed to be Obeeta from the top (having had a fair idea of the shape of the island from the ride in the Conductor two days ago). From there, squares of contrasting colors formed inside the larger shape. Squares that occupied part of the island near the center and directed upward were filled with green coloring. Two similar shapes on the right and bottom regions of the island, as well as a large square on the left side, were filled in with purple light instead.
"You must be joking," Irleen moaned.
"What is it?" Cale asked.
"Well, the area in green is this technoworks," Irleen explained, moving to the map so that she could indicate the different spots as she talked. She circled the green squares for a moment. "These technoworks show that everything is working fine." She then started moving between the purple areas. "These are other technoworks on this island. In order to get another Sky Line to form, we need to find out what is jamming up these technoworks and clear it out."
"What could be jamming them?" Cale asked.
"I bet I know," Link said.
"You're right," Irleen said. "Whatever this 'Night' thing is, it's somehow infected the technoworks like a disease. I doubt if this one looked any better until Link explored down here."
"So you're saying… uh… I don't get it," Line said, his confusion prevalent in his voice and posture.
"Whatever it is that happens when Link sleeps near that shield," Irleen explained, "it has an effect on the Night. In order to get out of here, Link is going to have to clear out all of the technoworks so we can make them build another Sky Line."
"Oh, so that's what you're saying," Line groaned. "Well how long is that gonna take?"
"And do we have the time?" Cale added.
Link nodded as he studied the map. "I think we will," he said. He pointed to the purple technoworks on the right. "I bet that one is the one connected to the river on the east side. If it was anything like the Night in this technoworks, I should be able to clear it up tonight."
"That will be a long way to travel on foot," Cale observed.
"There's a house we broke into on the outskirts near the ship," Link said. "I'll just fall asleep there so I won't have to walk all the way from the ship." He turned and nodded an invite toward the exit. "C'mon, let's get word back to the ship."