Chapter 38: The Sword With the Blade of Horn

…

"'—To whomever finds this. Get off this island now.

"'—My name is Link, captain of the Island Symphony. If you are reading this, you have found the island of Obeeta. You should leave immediately.

"'—There is a monster on this island that the local people (yes, they are there) call 'The Night'. It appears around the island as a black mass. During the day, it's solid because it sleeps. At night, it will take people into itself and do things which, with fortune, I will never know about. People who come out of The Night aren't right anymore; if they do not kill themselves, they will have to be killed.

"'—The Night is active at night. If you sleep during the night, The Night will turn your dreams into nightmares. These nightmares will turn you and your crew, your companions, whoever has come with you insane ever so slowly that you won't even realize it's happening. The Obeetans, the people who wander the streets at night, were once Hylians and Sorians who made their home on the island. Now, they are nothing more than mindless fragments of themselves waiting to finish dying. The Night is patient; it will slowly turn you into Obeetans while it feeds on your good dreams. It uses your own fears against you, and you can't hide your thoughts from it because it is always watching you, even when it is asleep. Even as you read this, it is reading along with you.

"'—At the time that I have written this, part of my crew has started behaving abnormally. Two fights have broken out between individuals, and another of my crew is doing things for reasons he can't explain. We've attempted to get the crew to sleep during the day, but The Night lulls them to sleep once it wakes up. My crew won't stop falling asleep wherever it happens to hit them, day or night. One of them almost fell over the side of the ship because she fell asleep sitting on the bulwark.

"'—If you are reading this, all my efforts to stop The Night have failed. There is no other way to fight it. If you see it, do not provoke it; even if it's sleeping, it will take you if you bother it. It can control the wind; the only way for you to escape is the Sky Line.

"'—Get ou—' wait a minute, I don't think that has the appropriate tone to it. Maybe something in an ominous booming voice. What do you think?"

Link slammed the door shut on the storage cabinet. "You would be the one to mock that idea," he replied in an annoyed tone.

Janni had been reading the entirety of the note Link had scribbled out that afternoon while he was preparing for another attempt to get to the mines' technoworks. It had started in the sick bay, where she had giggled to herself before revealing that she had found the note. She had read it aloud as she had followed him out and down to the orlop.

"You're right," Janni told him. "This requires spooky; that generally covers ominous anyway." She cleared her throat. "'—GeeEEEeet ouuuuUUUuut NOW and praaAAAaay that YOOOoooUUU have ESCAAAAAPED!'"

"Put it back," Link told her as he turned to find the coil of rope he had swiped before.

"Oh, I'm saving this copy for myself," Janni said as she folded the note back into quarters and tucked it into a trouser pocket. "I just love it too much. By far, it's one of the craziest things you've written. Even accounting for that 'lapse' in your log book."

"You saw that, huh?" Link asked with a grunt as he shouldered the rope.

"Yeah, you see, you can't fool me with that line," Janni said. "I saw you hesitate before you wrote that. You are months from being that far gone."

"You said The Night is going to use us to attract more ships, either by keeping us here or letting us go," Link reminded her. "Maybe, if we try this, we might be able to effectively warn people away."

"And how do you plan to get it to them?" Janni said. "With this sort of thing, The Night doesn't have any reason to let you go."

"That's not for if we get back," Link said as he started up the stairs. Janni, now standing on the deck, followed him. "That's for if we don't get back."

"Aaaah, I see," Janni said. "So, your intention is to leave this on the island where another ship will find it, read it, and decide Obeeta isn't worth it."

"That's it," Link said as he reached the main deck.

"I think I see a problem with that plan," Janni told him, deciding to float again as he headed toward the boat deck. "Where are you supposed to leave it where it'll be found. It'll only work if it's the first thing they find; otherwise, they're just as doomed as you."

"That's where I'll hope the next ship has some brains," Link said. "I can put it in one of Sello's bottles to keep it safe. I was thinking that a long ribbon would be a good way for it to be found. I'll just have to secure it where The Night can't get rid of it."

"I love this idea," Janni said. "A good way to spook someone else off the island. Where'd you get an idea like that?"

"Some old stories I read. Stories about ghost ships where the captain or someone leaves behind a note so that the people that find them know what happened."

"Do they work?"

Link paused in front of the starboard staircase to the quarterdeck and turned to her. However, he had to pause to remember the stories he had read. "Actually, most of them stayed around long enough for whatever took the ship to get them, too. But I'm hoping that an actual airship crew who reads that note will get out of here before The Night gets them. The crews in the stories all seem to be too stupid, and there's always that one guy who screws everything up for the rest."

Janni moved so that she floated along the outside of the ship while maintaining eye level with Link. "I'll give you some props for it, Link, especially since it'll spook the next person who reads it," she said, "but I see a serious flaw with your plan."

"Whoever finds it is probably already trapped on the island," Link said with a slight nod. "I know that, but they still have a chance as long as that isn't around them." He pointed to port to indicate the storm. "No captain is gonna order a ship into it. So, as long as there's a Sky Line, there's an escape."

"Maybe, but this is almost futile."

"Well then, I'd better finish this before more ships start showing up."

Janni kept silent while Link opened a door to the boat deck. Then she asked, "So, what's your plan this time? So far, you've been crushed by a giant, shot in the face, took a mace to the chest, and fell onto a spike trap. Although—" She giggled. "—that third one was kinda funny."

"Well, it's simple," Link said as he rounded the Conductor. "When I went in, I didn't think about the goggles I found in the river." He tugged the strap of the goggles dangling around his neck for emphasis. "The traps are hidden. Therefore, the goggles will help me see them."

"And it all sounds so perfectly logical in a place made of the illogical," Janni commented as Link climbed the ladder to the Conductor's deck. "But what if it doesn't work?"

Link clambered over the transom and gave her a pondering stare for a moment. "I don't know yet. That's why I'm kinda hoping it will work."

"Oh, this is gonna be a good one," Janni said to herself.

Link cut the mooring lines with a rigging knife and piloted the launch toward the tower, now familiar enough with the island to know about where and how he should fly. He allowed the engine a little more speed this time so that he had a little longer to explore the mines. He kept track of the tower in reference to where he landed, hoping that, if he had to come again, he might be able to land closer to the mines' entrance. For now, he found the same place he had set down before (revealed by the flashes of lightning overhead) and carefully aimed the Conductor toward the tower. He was not sure if he should actually take the boat as far as the mines, so he advanced it to about where he had found the fork in the road. This was a particularly tricky process; since Janni did not want to help, he had to steer the ship, run to the transom to check their position on the road (which was illuminated just enough by the meager flame produced by Sello's engine operating at minimal throttle), and dash back to the wheel in order to stop the boat from listing. He nearly missed the fork, having just barely spotted it behind the boat before he had to catch the wheel. But then, as the boat had listed, it wandered onto the path he needed to take anyway, so he stopped the Conductor over the path and lowered it just enough that the boat's hull brushed against the treetops. He lit a lantern and unloaded the net to climb down, neglecting to anchor the boat with the sandbags since the Conductor would simply be back in its deck in the morning; unloading the sandbags took time since he was alone.

He used the lantern to find his way to the mines. Just the same as last time, he saw the Sorian buildings first. He found this promising; since The Night did not use the same illusion twice, it meant that the buildings were real. As was the cave entrance in the side of the hill.

He stopped at the mouth, just outside where everything turned black. "Okay, then," he said as he pulled on the goggles. "Let's see this place."

Once he had the goggles on, he saw…

Nothing.

The mine was still pure black. Nothing had changed. Link even put his hands on his face to be certain that he had put the goggles on.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding…" he groaned.

"Didn't work, huh?" Janni asked as she hovered around his head in her green-black fairy form.

"The Night is using that to hide traps!" Link declared, indicating the cave with his hands. "How does that not qualify?!"

"Maybe it does, you just haven't realized something," Janni suggested.

"What's that?"

"Well, you can't see anything if there's no light."

Link glanced down at the lantern next to him. He realized that she was right. It was not as if anything inside was going to appear if he just put on a pair of goggles. So he reached behind his back and pulled out his flare gun. "Well," he told her as he found and loaded a shell, "that's how some of my plans go, too. Thanks for the help, Janni."

"Oh, please," Janni replied. "I only told you because I figured you wouldn't go in."

Link aimed the gun into the mine and fired. FZZZZZZZzzzzz! The flare sailed into the mine and skipped off a wall before striking the floor. A second later, Link heard a pop, and the mine was doused with green light.

And it still did not work. Link saw a green, pulsing light hovering in the middle of a black nothing. "Aaah c'mon!" Link yelled, swinging the gun in the air.

"Huh," Janni said. "I'm actually a little disappointed that didn't work…"

Link let out a huff and let his arms hang at his sides for a moment, giving the green light an angry glare. Then, as he replaced the gun, he told Janni, "Well, maybe we can use this after all. Even if nothing inside can be lit, that doesn't really mean we won't see anything. I'd definitely like to know if I'm about to run into a wall or something."

"I don't know about this," Janni said as Link picked up the lantern. "You are entirely too optimistic about this."

"Well, let's look at it this way," Link said as he switched the lantern to his other hand. "Whoop—" He had to then catch the lantern when he did not wrap his fingers around the wire-thin handle properly, inhibited as they were by the shield strap Link was still holding. He grabbed it on either side of the glass with both hands, fingers splayed out so that his fingerless gloves protected his hands. "Oops."

"Yeah, you are so dying this time around," Janni said in a flat voice.

"So, between here and the flare," Link said as he crouched to put the lantern on the ground again, "there isn't anything, right? So if something happens to be between it and us, we know it's there."

"And what if there are two things?" Janni asked. "How will you know then?"

Link picked up the lantern and sighed. "You're not gonna make this easy, are you?"

"Hey, you're the one who thinks he has everything covered."

Link pulled the sword off his back and started forward. "Okay, so there are still a few flaws with what I'm doing," he admitted. He held the sword in front of him, its blade level with his head. "If I'm lucky, I won't have to figure them out before I reach the bottom."

"What are you doing that for?"

"What?"

"With your sword."

"Oh. I'm holding it up in case there's anything near my head. And, well, it almost glows in the light."

Krrr-WHUMPH! Link jumped forward and quickly spun around, his sword clanging against the walls.

And, where the mouth of the mine should have been, there was now just a big mass of black.

"Trap door?" Link asked.

"Yeah, probably," Janni said.

"Well, I haven't retreated from a technoworks yet," Link said as he turned and found the green flare again.

"That's because you get killed every time."

As he slowly walked toward the flare, Link had a feeling that he was walking on stone blocks. It was easy enough to tell; he found gaps every few steps, and he knew what his boots sounded like when walking on it. He touched the fingers of his sword-hand to the walls and judged the smooth, porous feel to be stone bricks composing the walls, too. If he had to guess, he was in a castle or fortress, something akin to a keep with an unusually narrow corridor. He slowly advanced, eyes waiting to see a shadow block out the flare, ears keen on any sort of sound. Janni must have picked up on how hard he was concentrating because she did not say much.

So much for making this a fast one, he ended up thinking to himself.

His arrival at the flare was equally as anti-climactic. The light was dying anyway, providing illumination just a little stronger than the lantern in his hand. He extended his arm and waved around, looking for any traps that might be nearby. Then he put the sword away and set the lantern on the ground. As he drew his flare gun, he said, "So far so good."

"So long, so boring, and so lame," Janni added with a regretful sigh.

"Think The Night is letting me have this one for free?" Link asked with a grin on his face as he picked out another flare.

"If anything, the first one was for free," Janni said. "You're paying for this one."

Link loaded a new shell. "Well, let's see where this one goes," he said as he took aim in the direction of the corridor.

FZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz! Link bounced the flare off a wall again, but it still landed on a surface that indicated that there was still some length to this corridor.

Link gave a sigh. "Hasn't this thing ever heard of corners?" he asked.

"Be careful, Link," Janni told him, although it was hardly with a cautioning voice. "That corner you're looking for just might be down."

"Yeah, maybe," Link replied as he retrieved the lantern. Then he pulled out the sword again. "With my luck, it'll be down and to the right." He held up the sword and started walking forward. "What are the chances that maybe it'll jus—"

Ssssk. Link only had a split second to realize that his left foot had just slipped of the lip of a ledge directly in his path. And then—

"YAAAAAA—" Down he fell, his arms flailing. On the first hit, he released both the lantern and his sword purely on reflex, trying to stop his fall. The lantern shattered. His sword was gone. In the dark, he continued to holler as he rolled down a solid slope. "—AAAaaAAaaaaAAAAaaa—hu-goouh!"

His stop was much less pleasant, having the feeling of a drop straight down until he landed hard on his stomach. Something stabbed into his gut just left of his bellybutton, and he lay on this uneven floor for a moment as the full impact of falling spread throughout his body.

"Link!" Janni hollered after a moment. "Are you all right?"

"Uuugh…" Link groaned as he started moving. He positioned his arms and carefully pushed away from the floor. "I don't know…" He had felt the pressure lift from where he had been stabbed in the belly and slid his left hand over the spot. "Oh, good."

"What?"

"I thought I felt something stab me," Link grunted as he rolled away from the offending protrusion. He sat up and said, "It didn't even punch through my tunic." He glanced around. "Where are we?"

"Down and to the left," Janni said with a giggle.

Link sighed. "Oh, man… it left a pit for me?" he whined. He held a hand over where he had been stabbed and carefully got to his feet.

"I really wanna say that The Night won't alter the technoworks after it's decided on them," Janni said, "but, here… I kinda wonder."

"Where are you? I can't see anything."

"Goggles, Link."

"Oh. Right." Link used his free hand to pull the goggles down off his face. Janni floated in front of him, a simple, green ring in the dark. "What happened to my lantern?"

"Doesn't matter," she said. "You smashed it during the fall."

"My sword?"

"I have… no idea."

Link reached behind his back and produced his flare gun. "This isn't good…" he said to himself as he located a shell on his belt. He had to work the flare gun under Janni's light, with worse illumination than the lantern. "Ow!" Which was the likeliest reason why he closed the breach on the tip of his thumb. He cocked the gun, aimed to his left, and pulled the trigger. FZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz-bonk! The shell struck something metal and bounced directly to the ground. Then, with an angry hiss, the shell flared yellow for a moment. "Uh oh," Link said as he went for another shell.

"What? What happened?" Janni asked.

"I put in a smoke shell," Link said. He added as he looked at another shell, "I reeeeeally need to organize these shells better."

"Wonderful…"

"Ah!" Link hissed as he tried to pry out the empty shell from his gun. He grabbed something that felt long and narrow from the nearby debris on the floor and jammed it into the other end of the gun to pop the spent shell from the breach. Then he slid the new shell into the breach and closed it. He glanced side to side before he decided that he would be better off firing in the opposite direction. FZZZZZZzzzzzz! The shell skipped off the ground a couple of times. Then it burst into a red light that made things easier to see.

"That ought to do it," Link told her as he stood up.

"Uh, Link?" Janni asked.

"Yeah?"

"Should your sword be floating like that?"

Link turned to see what she was talking about, guided by a vague intuition of where she was looking.

In the next moment, Link perceived his sword not only floating above his head, but poised to come down on his head.

"Whoa!" Link hollered as he dove aside. The landing hurt because something jabbed him in about the same spot on his belly.

He scrambled to his feet and looked back. The sword was floating almost of its own accord. Almost, because the smoke from the first shell he had fired had drifted in his direction. The glow of the second shell caused the smoke to become visible, and Link could see something shaped like a tall, scrawny human holding the sword. But there was something wrong with this thing. The way it "stood" was with its free arm draped at its side and its head lolled over like it was about to flop onto the ground. Its knees were bent so far outward that there was no feasible way for it to stand.

"Hiyaaaaaaaah!" The scream was shrill, reminiscent of the voice of a terrified woman. Link's vision clouded for a moment while a shiver struck his entire body.

And, when his vision cleared, the void in the smoke was three times larger.

Link quickly found the sword about to be swung from the side and quickly spun—"Agh!"—in the same direction as the swing. He had probably saved himself from a larger wound, but the sword's blade had cut cleanly through his tunic and bodysuit. He located the sword, the creature only able to obscure part of the flare on the opposite side of the room. With the Dreamweaver's Shield raised, he used his left hand to feel the wound. It was a good strike, he could not argue. The wound was a significant gash in his side, and it felt like blood was already soaking into his clothes. He hastily wiped his wet hand on his trousers and pulled out the rigging knife attached to his gun belt. He kept the shield raised to block off avenues of attack while he tried to figure out what to do.

"Hiyaaaaaaah!" the creature screamed again. Link felt the jolt throughout his body and lost sight of the creature. Once he had his sight back, he dashed forward in the expectation that the empty air in front of him would, at worst, be the creature.

Instead, he heard the clang of a blade against the floor and spun around. The creature was outlined in the smoke once again, having just tried to strike downward from Link's right before Link had moved. Link quickly took the initiative and lunged forward. The creature was moving far too slow for Link to miss, and he stabbed the rigging knife into the creature's arm. The creature did not even flinch or scream. Link twisted the blade. Crnch! The sword fell from its hand. And then, as it straightened up, its forearm simply dangled from its elbow. Link dropped the knife and moved to retrieve the sword.

"Hiyaaaaaah!" Link had just grabbed the sword when the scream pierced his ears again. He felt the shock throughout his body. He willed himself to swing, hoping to catch the creature coming into range.

Instead, he hollered in pain as something clamped down hard on his neck just above his shoulder. His body crawled with a new, dreadful sensation. It was like having bones layered with dried, rotted meat clamped around his chest and waist. And the pressure on his neck…

It was the very impression of teeth!

Link screamed again, this time in horror. The sword forgotten, he grabbed the limb wrapped around his chest and tugged. At the same time, he walked forward, hoping that the creature would fall off. Instead, he was bit again, eliciting another scream mixing both fright and pain. The creature was so light that Link decided to dash at the wall opposite of where he stood. Smoke was beginning to sting his eyes. Just about where he thought the wall was, he quickly spun and thrust his feet against the floor. He felt the surge of power whenever the feather in his pocket affected his jump. He slammed hard into the wall, feeling the sharper protrusions of a bony body stab into his back. The creature's head came forward and knocked into Link's skull hard. For a moment, Link was seeing the wrong colors.

Then he noticed that, while the creature had wrapped one arm around his chest, its other was still dangling, pressed against his right shoulder as if it was supposed to do something. Link grabbed the broken limb by the wrist and tugged hard. With a sickening sound beyond feasible description other than "wet", the forearm ripped at the elbow. The creature bit down on Link's neck again. Link ground his teeth hard trying not to scream. He swung the arm at himself and struck the creature's head. And then again. And again. And once more. He took a single step away from the wall and then thrust his back against it to crush the creature. He wedged the broken arm into the creature's opposite hand and used it to pry the hand free of his tunic. The creature lost its grip, and Link stepped away from the wall again. This time, he twisted his hips hard, causing the creature to release its legs.

Link staggered, his vision blurring for a moment while his head felt light. He coughed, now realizing that the smoke that he had fired earlier was thickening to the point of choking him. He saw a shadow rise nearby and, without thinking, used the severed arm to deliver a vicious swing at its head. The two connected, and the creature flopped back to the ground. Right about where he had seen the creature fall, Link delivered a kick. Crnch. The sound it made told Link that he had found the right spot. He had to correct his stance, and then he kicked once more. Ktak! Something snapped free and hit the wall somewhere in the direction he had kicked.

He coughed again and fell to the ground, no longer able to stand with his own dwindling strength. "Janni…" he tried to say. The effort caused him to cough some more. "Janni!"

"Yeah!" Janni replied as she appeared in front of him.

Link had to cough before telling her, "I have to get outta here," he told her. "How do I wake myself up?"

"Have you ever realized that you've been having a bad dream and forced yourself awake?" Janni asked, her voice level.

"I—hrup!" Link had to stop talking so that he could cough again. "I think so."

"Then realize you're in a bad dream and get your ass out."

Link's mind was clouding too fast; he could not remember a particular instance of forcing himself to wake up. He thought hard about how he was still on the Island Symphony. He closed his eyes and focused on the sick bay. He was having a bad dream. He had to wake up.

Suddenly, the dark tore away from his vision, and he was looking up at the deckhead in the sick bay. It had worked.

Almost. Link rolled and coughed, feeling the ache of a split in his side and the pain of having had something bite his neck. His hand, as he sat up, fell on something wet. He coughed again, thinking that it really should not surprise him that he wet the bed.

But this did not feel like urine. It was actually very sticky. So, he raised his hand. In the dim light of the sick bay, and through a head still swimming in suffocation, he had at first a very simple thought upon seeing the stain on his hand.

"Oh.

"Blood."