Chapter 55: The Depths of Others

…

Link could only blink at her for the few seconds it took him to process what she was saying and realize that this was another aspect of Janni that was completely confounding him. "I… I don't get it," he admitted. "Don't you… I thought you would already want that. Isn't that why you've been helping me?"

"Up until now, Link, I didn't care," Janni told him as she moved around his desk. Link unconsciously took a step back as she leaned closer to his face. "I still don't really care what happens to you or your crew. I still have my doubts that you'll make it off this island alive even if you do kill the Dreamweaver. But I'm ready for this all to end. I could spend my immortality screaming at the top of my lungs in that shield if I have to. Kill him, Link."

"Janni, I…" Link started to say. However, he could not get his thoughts straight to form a sentence. Why was she suddenly demanding this?

Janni backed away from him. "Don't tell me you're actually having second thoughts about killing a Sorian," she said.

Link shook his head. "That-that's not it."

"Good, because I doubt he's thought about anything other than killing you," she said. "You want a fair shot at him tonight? It takes willpower, Link. If we both change the dream, we can make it to the top of the tower. That's where he is, Link. The very top of the tower, holed up where no one can reach him without having to trudge through his insanity. That sword of yours can cut straight through to him. Tonight's your night, Link."

"You… you're sure?" Link asked. "I mean… you-you don't usually volunteer in—"

"I don't usually volunteer this stuff," Janni finished. "Yeah, I know. The truth is delightfully horrible, and I'm a fan of your reactions. But you know what? I'm an open book now. Go ahead. Ask me anything."

Link raised an eyebrow. "Anything?"

"Anything," Janni repeated.

"Who are you to the Dreamweaver?"

The question only deepened the angry scowl on her face. "Nothing," she answered.

"Nothing?"

"That's right, nothing. I don't matter. I might as well be a figment of the dream; at least I'd disappear every night. You expect it to be deeper than that?"

"N-no," Link said, backing up another step when she raised one arm like she was about to punch him. "I ju—I'm sorry, I just wanted to know."

"Satisfied?"

"I-I guess?"

Janni held her ground for a moment. Then she sighed and lowered her hands. "The miasma is just a solid extension of his body," she told him. "That's what you've been killing this whole time, these… these little puppet blobs of consciousness that he used to manipulate the technoworks and terrorize the Sorians and Hylians. It took him just a few years to learn how to make them. I believe most of his consciousness is still in his original body. It's encased in the tower, but we can make it vulnerable if we both will it to happen. But we still need to be there; there's no way the Dreamweaver would let us kill him from here."

"That's gonna be a lot of tower to climb," Link pointed out.

"You can't tire out here; it's a dream."

Link stared at her for a moment. Then he crossed his arms. "What if we can't find a way to the top?" he asked.

"Then we'll make one. If we have to, we can make a ladder that goes all the way to the top. The Dreamweaver isn't going anywhere; I doubt if he can even walk." When Link did not respond, she asked, "Anything else?"

"Yeah," Link replied. "What's with you?"

"What's with me? What's with you!?" she told him. "You wanted to kill the Dreamweaver, and you're questioning what's wrong with me?"

"What, you think I wouldn't?" Link asked, frustration tinging his voice. "Up until now, I've seen you behave all sorts of ways, but this is the first time I've seen you mad. It makes me wanna ask questions."

Janni did not respond. Link could feel their gazes clash in a battle of wills. Would he accept how things are and move on? Would she relent and explain the change in attitude? Link had to admit that he did not really want to question it. Up until now, their lives had been filled with horrors caused by the Dreamweaver giving them nightmares. On this evening, the cusp of their escape with a Sky Line waiting to whisk them back to the kingdom, should it really matter why Janni suddenly decided that she would rather kill the Dreamweaver?

Janni won. "Link," she told him. "Stop asking questions… and kill the Dreamweaver."

Link released the breath he was holding. He stepped to her side and leaned over to retrieve the Dreamweaver's shield next to the bed. "Have it your way," he said to her in a cold tone. "If you're done with the fun, you're done."

"You just keep telling yourself that so we can get to work," she said.

…

Link and Janni disembarked only a few moments later with very little word. Link did not think that he would need to be burdened with items from the tool chest this time, now knowing and understanding that even he had the power to create things in the dream. What it would mean for him from here on in, he really was not sure. He just hoped that whatever he came up with, he could dream into existence in a heartbeat; he was certain that the Dreamweaver would be able to adjust to anything if it took him too long.

Link ran across the open area between the settlement and the ship uninterrupted. Janni was right about not feeling fatigued; he could not remember a time when his legs would burn with exhaustion from running in these strange boots he had taken from Linebeck two years ago. However, once he reached the edge of the settlement, the Obeetans made it difficult to continue running. So, Link jumped onto the building tops and started leaping from roof to roof, his path almost perfectly clear. Through this, he avoided the Obeetans and, as he made it closer to the tower, the piles of refuse they had left in the streets. The tower shone like a beacon under rays of light from the ground.

So it nearly caught Link by surprise to find a moat between the last, closest building and the tower's portico instead of the stairs leading up to the open courtyard around the tower. Link had to stop himself by jamming his foot against the parapet surrounding the roof. His ankle cracked, but it hardly caused him pain as he looked over the edge into the murky water below.

"How deep do you think that is?" he asked.

Janni stepped up to the edge to look down with him. "As deep as he wants it to be," she said. "Filled with whatever monsters he would like to feed you to."

Link nodded. "I kinda figured." He looked around for a moment. "I'm not sure I can jump over this."

"I don't think you should anyway. If it put something big in there, it'd snap you up before you hit the water."

Link pulled the lift reel off his belt. "I don't suppose I could just fly over there, could I?"

"Depends on how easy it is for you to forget that gravity exists. What are you expecting to do with that?"

"Well, when I was in my cabin earlier, I fired this thing into my wall, and it slammed me into the bulkhead. Seems like I should be able to use this." He pointed at the portico around the tower. "If there was a plank of wood somewhere over there."

Janni quirked a half-smile. "Small enough he shouldn't notice," she uttered.

Link glanced at her. When his eyes fell back on the tower, a wooden pallet had appeared above one of archways on the portico. "That seems easy enough," he said.

"Well, don't count on it being that easy," Janni said. "Once you get that blade in, you should get across right away."

"Sounds like a plan," he said as he took aim.

Link fired the lift reel and watched the wire rope's coils trail behind the blade as it sailed over the moat. He was amazed at the distance it had traveled, definitely much further than he could have jumped. When the blade hit the pallet, the coils twisted in wild directions. Link immediately put a foot on the parapet and squeezed the handle to retract the line. Just as before, as soon as the line became taut, he was yanked off his feet and flew over the water. His fingers were clamped around the handle for fear of falling into the ground. The air blew in his ears with the same whoosh he heard when he was running with his special boots.

This deafened him to the sound of something large leaping out of the water below. If it had not been for Link seeing a brief moment of sharp teeth on the edges of his vision, he might not have known at all.

Once he was close enough, he held the Dreamweaver's shield up and let it take the brunt of the force as he struck the pallet. This also saved him some rebound. However, once he jolted to a stop from falling to the ground, the blade dislodged, and Link dropped anyway. He felt the feather's effects take the force out of the fall, but he still landed hard on the stone walkway. This forced him to a knee.

The moment his memory brought back images of the teeth, he turned to see what it was. However, the best he could see with a single, large tailfin disappear under the water.

"What the hell was that?" Link asked, rising to his feet.

"Big guy," Janni said as her fairy form fluttered to the side of his vision. "Lots of teeth. If you're lucky, you won't see him again."

"Big enough to eat me?" Link asked.

"Big enough to—watch out!"

Link spun around to look inside the archway behind him. In the next instant, he ducked beneath a blade swinging horizontal at his eyes. Link quickly looked up to see who was attacking him. His impression was that he was being attacked by an Obeetan. However, the creature's robe was closed. The thin, curved blade it had attacked with appeared to simply protrude from the hem of its robe, giving Link the impression that the blade was its hand.

The creature turned a pair of red, glowing eyes on Link. Link immediately raised his shield and intercepted the creature's backhanded swing. However, the shield rang out twice from impact. Link pushed the subsequent pressure back into the creature's swing, and the creature's blades slid off. Link took a step backward to better gauge his opponent. However, the creature pressed forward with a quick jab aimed for Link's stomach. Link twisted and smacked the blade up and away with the lift reel. The creature spun and aimed a diagonal backswing at Link's chest. Link, with his torso twisted and both arms high in the air, hopped backwards out of range. At the same time, the momentum from the movement caused both of Link's arms to swing downward. In pure accident, he pulled the lift reel's trigger just as it pointed at the robed creature. With a meaty thunk, the blade punched into the creature's chest, causing it to stagger.

Both combatants froze, caught off-guard by the sudden reality of the lift reel's blade stuck in the creature. Link and the creature glanced down at the blade and the short coil of wire rope between them. Then their eyes met.

The creature brought up a blade with the apparent intention of knocking the lift reel out of its chest.

Link, however, clenched the handle and swung his arm as he spun toward the moat.

Between the Sorian bracelet giving a boost to Link's strength and a firm stance as Link turned, the creature suddenly felt itself yanked into the air and flew past Link's shoulder. The lift reel's blade slipped out of the creature's chest, allowing the creature to sail free while the blade returned to Link's device. The creature splashed into the moat, a jumble of robe and feet disappearing underwater.

Link quickly dropped the lift reel to the ground and reached around to pull his sword out. The creature broke the surface at about the middle of the moat. Link paused, however, when he realized that the creature was flailing helplessly, unable to swim in any direction due to the blades in its hands. Even if it could swim, it only had about half a minute to try to reach shore.

Because a pair of long, thick jaws was on it. That was about all Link saw, just a pair of long jaws, reptilian in appearance with two rows of pointed teeth, thrusting out of the water to tower the creature on either side. No face, no idea what the rest of the monster might have looked like. As quickly as they had appeared, the jaws shut with an audible snap and simply slid back under the surface.

Link stood frozen, his heart thudding against his chest. "Holy crap…" he uttered to himself after about a minute of mindless staring at the water's calm surface.

Janni cleared her throat from nearby. "Like I was about to say," she told him. "Big enough to eat twenty of you."

"The Dreamweaver isn't playing this time, is he?" Link asked as he retrieved the lift reel from the ground.

"Well, like you saw with Layna the other night," Janni said as Link turned back toward the tower, "you can still die in the dream if you take the right blow. You might be able to shrug off an arrow or two, but if something takes out your head, you're dead." Link started forward, and Janni moved to hover near his left ear. "Don't get caught up in your potential immortality, Link; I'm pretty sure that was just a warm-up."

"Sounds reasonable enough," Link said as he attached the lift reel to his belt. When he looked up at the entryway he was approaching, he took the light from inside as a sign and decided to pull out his sword.

Link kept his eyes moving as he stepped through the blackened entryway with quick feet. Although it ultimately proved empty, he would rather have had something attack him just to ease his mind. Not that this was a good area to fight in; anything that attacked him would probably be obscured by a darkness that barely touched even Link. How crossing this entryway into the lit room with the mezzanine was more daunting that having to traverse a moat with a massive creature waiting to snap intruders under, he could not be certain.

Against his expectations, the interior was largely untouched compared to how it had looked when Link and his party had been here over two weeks ago. Perhaps the only difference was that the circular cap of bronze on the high ceiling was glowing blue like a clear sky, just bright enough to illuminate the room in what felt like natural light. The paintings remained two on each of the four curved walls, all of them still slashed diagonally. However, rather than the canvas being flat grey like the walls, Link could see that there was color to them this time. He did not want to approach and investigate, though, preferring to slowly step out to the middle of the floor while carefully turning to check for ambush. He was quiet enough that his boots did not make a sound on the smooth, white marble underneath.

Still, once he was in the middle of the floor, he commented, "What's with the paintings? Why is there color on the canvas?"

"The Dreamweaver probably doesn't care that they were destroyed," Janni answered, holding position above his head and watching the floor behind Link.

"Did the Obeetans do that?"

"Actually, the Sorians did that before they became Obeetans. It's something Sorians do, although it's really kinda petty. You shame a person by painting over the portraits in their home. I think cutting the canvas was just extra spite."

"Did the Dreamweaver respond?"

"All I can say is the other Sorians hung them." Link glanced up at her. "I'm not sure if the Dreamweaver drove them nuts or if the Sorians thought hanging them would save them from the Dreamweaver's wrath. Of course, I'm not even sure they got the right Sorians; it seemed like everyone was pointing fingers. And it's kinda hard to tell what people are thinking when everyone's slowly losing their minds."

Link spied one of the stairwells and started toward it, still turning as he walked to check for danger. "This place must've been a nightmare when people started turning into Obeetans."

"If you're talking about the tower, the Sorians learned very fast not to come here anymore. As for the rest of the island, well… honestly, you'd've never known anything was wrong until you actually spoke to someone. You know, kinda like that first day you ran into the Obeetans?"

Link droned his hesitation a bit before confessing, "That actually wasn't as weird as it probably should've been. I can tolerate someone talking weird to me. I mean, come on, you've seen my chief engineer." Janni gave an affirmative sound. "It was more the way they appeared."

"Oh, sure, you got it easy."

Link ascended to the mezzanine in silence. Once he was on the upper floor, he noticed the portrait on the opposite end of the mezzanine from the stairs that continued upward. The single canvas that had not been slashed still did not have color. However, instead of grey, the canvas was completely purple. Link indicated the portrait with his sword and asked before turning toward the other staircase, "How come that one's still covered?"

"What?" Janni asked.

Link pointed with his sword again. "That portrait there. It's still painted over." Janni did not reply right away. Link was halfway to the next staircase when he prompted her, "Janni?"

"What?"

Link stopped and looked up at her. "The portrait over there," Link said, this time pointing with the hand holding the Dreamweaver's shield. "Why is it still covered?"

"It's… probably someone the Dreamweaver doesn't… doesn't wanna think about," she answered.

Link gave her a difficult look, unsure how to interpret her response. "You mean the Dreamweaver did that on purpose?"

"Link, this really doesn't need to be a priority," she told him, her tone heated. "You've got a lot of tower to climb and very little time to do it."

"Okay, okay," Link calmly relented, his shield arm raised in surrender. "I'll stop." Link continued on, although he made a mental note of how the portrait looked before it was out of sight.

Link glanced up the stairs to get an idea of what he was walking into. However, all he saw was blackness with just a hint of the tower wall barely visible under the glow of the floor he stood on. Link decided to replace the sword and pulled out his flare gun. Rather than walk into another dark space, he felt that lighting the path ahead would be smarter. He opened the breech and pulled a shell to look at the marking on the si—

"LINK!" Janni suddenly screamed.

Link quickly looked up in response. He only had a second to notice a large, green eye bulging out of the darkness. He quickly raised his shield, the same hand occupied with the flare gun.

A pair of jet-black pincers then shot from the darkness and snapped onto the shield, breaking his fingers between the gun's barrel and the back of the shield with the impact. Link only had a moment to register pain before the pincers twisted his arm, causing his shoulder to release a horrible crack. Link's attempt to grab his sword's hilt was halted when the pincers then pulled him to one side. He lost his footing, as his arm refused to pull him into a reasonable angle.

In the next moment, Link was thrown over the railing. His left leg crumpled under the rest of his body, crushing his ankle horribly and breaking his hip. He felt a crack when his spine hit the floor, a sensation dulled by his skull subsequently smacking into marble.

Once Link's head cleared, he picked himself up from the floor. A series of rapid clicking alerted him to something overhead, and he found the source crawling on the railing he had just been thrown over. He immediately saw a reflection of the segmented creature he had once encountered in the tunnels under the Fire Realm. However, this creature was much smaller. That hardly made it look any less dangerous. The green eye that it watched him with was sheathed under a carapace of reflective black rock, the same substance as its spiked, man-sized, blade-shaped mandibles. Each segment of its long, skinny body, maybe five or six in total, sported similar armor over top of bright, green flesh. Its legs looked little more than black spikes stabbing into the wooden rail. Its tail was a gathering of jagged blades that swept back and forth with the force of a man swinging a sword.

Almost as fast as Link had spotted it, the creature fell to the floor and landed on its belly. Link dropped his flare gun and reached back for his sword while he raised the Dreamweaver's shield in defense. However, the creature's mandibles were already past his shield before Link's fingers found the hilt. Link responded by swinging the shield to his right, striking the pincer. This only caused the creature's head to jolt, and Link felt the other pincer slice into his left side. The shield slid off the pincer, and both mandibles snapped closed just under Link's ribs. Link let out a cough of surprise at the pain inflicted by the razor-sharp pincers digging into his sides. The pressure increased, and Link felt he only had a few moments to do something before he was sliced in half. He wedged the shield into the pincers directly in front of him to brace them open while he tried to twist. Warmth drenched his waist as he turned, his blood adding a crimson tinge to the reflection of light on the creature's mandibles. The creature still would not release him, eye locked onto its victim as if it feared it would lose Link should it look away.

Link thrust his free hand down to his gun belt, now easily accessible as the blades cut into Link's belly and lower back. He pulled a shell, caring little for what it was.

He took in a deep breath against his pain and hollered, "Janni! Light this shell!"

Searing pain engulfed Link's hand as the shell erupted into a green flare. He continued to clench the flare anyway, twisted his shoulders, and threw it directly at the creature's eye. The creature's head jolted downward to prevent the flare from hitting its bare eye. However, if Link was capable of such accuracy, the creature's reaction would have protected it. Instead, while slamming one mandible into the floor and crushing Link's right foot in the process, the flare landed on the floor directly in front of the creature's eye. The creature finally opened its mandibles and swung its head upward to get its eye away from the hot light. Link let out a surprised scream as he was flung across the room and landed hard on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. He needed a moment to catch his breath before he flipped onto his back and looked past his feet.

The creature was charging straight for him, needle-sharp legs snapping angrily against the marble. The distance between them might have given Link a brief moment to pull his sword, but he had no way of rising to his feet before the creature reached him. So, Link rolled onto his right side and thrust his hand into the lift reel.

When he fired the lift reel, the kick snapped his thumb, and the blade tore a gash on the outside of his left boot. Hitting the boot deflected the blade slightly upward just as the creature was poised to snap its pincers right into Link's chest. The blade struck the creature's eye hard, destroying it in a splash of bright blue. The creature reared back onto its middle segment, its response a silent writhe with its mandibles wide and shaking in agony. Link quickly rose to his feet and pulled the sword. Before the creature could react, he lunged toward its belly and stabbed the sword directly into its second segment. He then twisted the blade and ripped it out in a backhanded slice, splaying blue blood across the floor. The creature leaned in the same direction and, with the sound of a fallen boulder, smashed its head hard into the marble surface, cracking the floor.

Link stood above the dead creature, his gasps heavy with surprise as he watched its blue blood pool slowly toward him. Then he took in a deep breath to calm his heart. Janni was right; for as much as Link had expended himself, the dream would not let him tire. He found he was back to almost a relaxed state in seconds. He backed away a few steps as he wiped his sword against his trousers.

"You doing okay?" Janni asked.

"Yeah," Link said as he lined the sword's blade with its sheath. Once the sword was put away, he pulled the lift reel off his belt. "This thing's coming in handy. Good for getting around and stabbing monsters without warning."

Janni waited until Link retracted the lift reel before she spoke. "I'm actually kinda surprised myself," Janni admitted. "A device like that would be pretty useless to Sorians, but it seems to be doing you wonders. I'd almost think the Mystics fully expected you specifically to come to the rescue."

"Yeah, well," Link said as he hooked the lift reel to his belt, "it wouldn't be the first time."

"Oh?"

Link looked up to find her circling his head. "I'll tell you about it later. Do you know how much longer we have?"

"It's kinda hard to say from in here," Janni admitted. "We definitely need to get moving if we're still on the first floor."

"I just hope there aren't any more of him around," Link said as he walked around the creature toward the nearest staircase.