Chapter 64: Elegy of the Streamways

…

~~Same day, almost midnight.

~~We're back at Obeeta. And the Obeetans are gone. Irleen and Janni say that the two people I met on the shore were the Obeetans pulling together the last of their fragmented lives in order to at least give me a thank you. This whole time, I've been wondering if there was anything we could do for them. It looks like we've already done it.

~~As much as I'd like to get this ship on its way, we're all tired. Leynne doesn't want to take too much time repairing the mizzen-masts, so we're gonna forego the mechanisms that we've been using to crank the sails up and down and rig the booms so that we can raise and lower the sails by hand. It won't be as efficient as the mechanisms, but we'll have our maneuverability back.

~~Tomorrow, Irleen and I are going to the technoworks to change the Sky Lines again. Leynne estimates that we'll be cutting our trip down to a week, ten days at most, of non-stop sailing. It's a lot better than the month we were looking at. I can't think of why we didn't do this before we left Hyrule, but, considering the head-start the Dreamweaver got on us, I'm glad we didn't try.

…

The next morning saw the crew almost back to normal. Almost, because Flower was still disabled (if putting himself to work anyway), Geordie was still in a coma, and Beech was still limiting himself to attending to Geordie. These concerns nagged at Link, and he could only hope that things would improve by the time they reached the kingdom if not as soon as they set sail.

Today, while Leynne and Dubbl rigged the mizzen-masts so the sails could be raised and lowered by hand, Link, Irleen, and Cale (and, most likely, Layna) ventured onto the island to pay the technoworks a visit. Work had started when the sun peered over the horizon. However, they did not set out until sunlight touched the surface of the island itself, allowing the sky to come near its full, brilliant blue while still casting some shade over the island. None of the trio could really agree whether this comforted them as they approached the settlement; they all found the island simply empty without any of the eeriness they had felt about it before.

Traversing the settlement itself was about as unimposing. The breeze gave a soft whistle as it wandered through the buildings. There was not any trash to roll free since it would have blown off the island long ago, but they could occasionally see a cloud of dust lift over the buildings in the distance from the direction of the tower's remains. Doors to almost every building had been left open, allowing the contents to stir a bit. Although some were still locked, Link or Cale only ever gave a soft tug before decided they were not interested in what was inside.

They made a detour to a nearby shop and found a ladder to carry along. With this, it was easier to descend into the hole in the street rather than continue to clamber up and down over the dust and debris from Biluf's explosion. Once they were in the library, Irleen did something different: she put a hand on the inside of the entrance and paused. Link and Cale watched as the wandering lights became full bars of illumination recessed in the library's architecture. This provided the library with brilliance almost as if the whole library had been opened up to the sun. They descended to the bottom floor and stepped into the technoworks.

The technoworks appeared to be the same, if maybe a little brighter without the Dreamweaver wandering around. The descent into the control room almost felt natural. Once standing between the columns, Link felt a small pang of regret toward the dead portions of technoworks around the room.

"It feels as if it has been months since we last saw this room," Cale commented as he leaned his back against the wall in front of Link.

"No kidding," Irleen replied as Link drew the blues harp from his pocket. "I don't know about you guys, but I keep getting that feeling every time we come down here."

"It's been…" Link started just before he put the blues harp to his lips. He paused for a moment. "It's been two days. Two long days." When he did not get a response from either, he put his lips on the blues harp and played the activation note.

Irleen watched the list show up on the columns and started going through it. She pressed her thumb against a pair of bullets. Then, after perusing a list, she dismissed it and pressed two more bullets. Cale leaned to one side and asked, "Is everything all right, Ihleen?"

"I'm trying to remember how we did this before," she replied as she dismissed another list. "I got used to everything being larger than me."

"We haven't done this for two years," Link added.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to think I can actually remember this sort of thing," Irleen told him after opening another list. "Oh, here it is!"

"Ah you suah?" Cale asked.

Irleen gave him an irritated glance. "Strangely enough, Sorian is very readable at my height," she told him. Cale was taken aback and could only open and close his mouth in response. Having silenced him, Irleen pressed her thumb against the bullet she had been examining.

Green points of light began streaking silently across the columns' surfaces. It was a familiar sight, having done this twice two years ago. The points, moving so fast that they were bands of light encircling the columns, eventually shifted to blue. The room's color dimmed, and Link glanced down to find the blue ring on the floor. He stood for a while, trying to memorize the notes and even miming the position of the blues harp to help him work out the rhythm. Then he began playing. And promptly failed the first playthrough twice, having lost the rhythm of the second portion of the song through a series of drawn-out notes that he had not timed correctly.

What he heard as he followed the music was a very sad piece, full of lengthy segments of low notes with an occasional segment that prompted Link to switch between holes at just a slightly increased pace. To an extent, he sympathized with the tone. This island had seen its population slowly driven to insanity and suicide. When the Hylians had arrived, they had so radically changed the landscape that there had been no way to tell the Sorians had ever been here, not without further exploration. The Dreamweaver had invaded the technoworks and used them as his den of nightmares. Link could only wonder how much the technoworks had to suffer through the years, especially since they probably could not comprehend what was happening to them. Or maybe they could; he believed that Irleen had once mentioned that the technoworks were sensitive to the state of the island. Or something along those lines; he could only vaguely recall the conversation.

Once he was finished with the single playthrough, the technoworks returned to their original illumination. Link looked at the wall in front of him. Dark orange blotches had formed on the wall, solid within the wall's normal flow of light. The green bands from before had become lines that wove their path through the dark blotches. Anyone who had seen a map of Hyrule recognized the shapes of the islands in the blotches and the green bands the Sky Lines. Link glanced down to ensure that the blue ring had changed green.

Irleen stepped to the left column and glanced at the new lines of Sorian text that had appeared. She pressed a finger to one bullet, and the map before Link shifted with about half of the islands disappearing from the bottom of the map. She glanced at the wall to double-check her action, and then she frowned at the column. One more finger push, and the map slid again to show an additional blotch at the top of the map with two wide-stretching Sky Lines almost kissing the bottom.

"Cahtainly appeahs that we've taken quite the roundabout couhse to reach this island," Cale commented.

"Well, the technoworks don't just randomly decide where a Sky Line goes," Irleen said. "I've told you before that they hold the islands in place so they don't drift apart." She turned to Link. "Which means, if we change the Sky Lines, we could be setting Obeeta free. We might not be able to come here again."

"Are you sure we should be doing this, then?" Link asked her. "You already said you can't be sure if you'd ever find clues to where the other Sorians are. It seems like that would be the only reason to keep this island around."

Irleen cast a look down to one side. Then she visibly steeled her features and told Link, "Yeah. I don't think any good could come from this island again. We should take the chance."

Link nodded and glanced down at his blues harp. He tried to recall the directions Irleen had given him two years ago when they were moving the Sky Line Cunimincus was trapped in. He tried blowing into the left end. This caused one of the Sky Lines near the top to flash a bright green color. Link gave that note a longer, gentle blow and watched the lines briefly flash one by one, circling the map. Link had to shift to the right side and gave a pair of quick blows when he caught the flash jumping past the Sky Line he had meant to select. He pointed and asked, "That's the Sky Line we took here, right?"

Irleen wrinkled her nose as she stared at it. "Yyyyyeah, I think so," she replied. "That one was on the… what, the north side, right? The closer one?"

"I think so."

Irleen stepped closer and leaned toward the wall to get a better look. "Yeah, I can see the way the light flows," she told him. "That should be the one."

Link had to think a moment before he remembered that he had to blow one of the center notes on the blues harp. He did so, and the flashing Sky Line changed to white with a patch of blue near one of the kingdom's islands. He started with a low note on the left side, but the blue patch did not move. Link then remembered that he had had to play high notes to move it and shifted sides. This caused the patch to start flowing along the Sky Line. Link carefully positioned the patch just beyond the blotch that represented Obeeta. Then he blew a center note to change it to purple.

"Looks good, Link," Irleen said. "I think you should be able to move it now."

"Can you remind me how?" Link asked as he held the harmonica out to her.

Irleen took it into one hand and closed her eyes to concentrate. After just a few seconds, she offered it back. "The far sides let you rotate the Sky Line or change the size of the area you're trying to move, depending on blowing or pulling. The notes between the far ends and the middle notes move the Sky Line in the same way."

Link nodded as he took back the blues harp and positioned himself to play again. He tested the movement by giving a soft blow into the notes left of the center of the instrument. This nudged the area to the left, so Link pulled the note. The purple area rose out of the white line, revealing that it was dragging a faint, green line with it. Link pulled on the far left, and the purple area rotated counterclockwise. He recalled that, whatever he did on one side of the harmonica, the other side would perform the opposite function. Now that he had had a chance to remember how to control the Sky Line, he rotated the purple area and directed it downward, nearly forming a line straight south from the western edge of Obeeta. He halfway expected that the other end of the Sky Line would bunch up near the kingdom's islands, but the green line slowly receded into the white line while Link manipulated it.

Once he had it in a position he was comfortable with, he turned to Irleen. "What do you think?" he asked.

Irleen nodded. "Looks good. Middle note to make it happen."

Link blew into the middle of the blues harp. This caused the white line to fade out, and the green line came into prominence until it changed color to match the rest of the Sky Lines. As the lines were changing, the trio could feel the technoworks quivering under their feet.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Cale asked as a flurry of green particles flew across the map.

"I think that's the technoworks moving the Sky Line," Irleen said.

"It happened before," Link said.

Irleen turned and pushed a bullet on the nearby column. This caused the map to scatter into blue particles that simply faded into the surrounding technoworks. "That's it, then. We've got our way back."

"Quite the ohdahly process," Cale commented. He turned around to follow Link and Irleen.

The walk back to the library was a little more active with Cale asking Irleen more about the technoworks. Irleen could not answer many of his questions; she explained that she could only understand how to operate the technoworks whenever she needed to perform a specific function. Link had mostly tuned it out, his mind focused on whether allowing Obeeta to float free of the Sky Lines was a good idea. His overwhelming, natural response was to let the island go. This island had been the site of a very horrible ordeal that his crew, he imagined, would sooner forget. Then again, the actual threat was gone. On top of that was the fact that Irleen might have found a way to the Sorians if she had more time here. As for the crew and Hyrule, it was just another island. He might have seen the kingdom wanting to keep access to it if only so that there was another island for Hyrule to settle. In the end, though, he felt that the decision was ultimately Irleen's since she needed the island the most. If King Lauris was interested in keeping it, well… Link could live with leaving that to chance.

Irleen made sure to touch the wall again to turn out the library's lights once they had reached the entrance. They were in the tunnel where Biluf had blown open the library when the trio realized that a shadow had flown overhead. All three quickly turned back toward the library, searching the small window of sky for the shadow.

"What was that?" Cale asked after about a minute of searching.

"I think that was Janni flying overhead," Irleen said. "It looked like her."

"Wheah would she be going?" Cale asked.

Link took in a breath. "I think I know," he said. "But let's go see anyway."