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Author's note: I'll be surprised if anyone even notices this now with the horrible new system, but anyway enjoy the penultimate chapter...
Story so far: -
Tai, a gerudo, summoned the power of her god Nura and used the power to free Ganondorf Dragmire. Ganon captured Nura's power and used it to destroy Hyrule. However, Zelda and Link awake in the alternate dimension of Nurai, the land that Nura created, and also the homeland of the gerudos.
Tai also wakes up in Nurai, but discovers that Ganon who she always supposed to be her king, is actually not that role any more. He has not been for the last 17 years. Instead she decides to join a group of incredibly skilled warriors called the Xi, who may be able to tell her where the real gerudo king is. However, instead she finds that she no longer cares about the Gerudo king and just wants to learn about the Xi ways from her teacher Bren. While completing her second task she finds that for a brief moment that her body seems to control itself without her input.
Zelda is given the new name of Hail as a joke when she is forced to become a pirate. But gradually she finds that she can no longer remember her old life, and her old thoughts and emotions seem invalid. She takes over as the pirate captain and soon her name reverberates around the country as one to be feared. For Hail is the prophesised figure who will appear shortly before the Distile, the end of the world. This new 'Hail' seems to live up to the legacy that had been told of – not even a fleet fifty times bigger than hers can defeated her.
Link is awakened by a priest of the Nuran church who is called Nala. However, while Link is still confined to bed a Kalen (a mysterious group who all the Nuran people seem to hate) breaks in a gives Link a mysterious broach.
Nala reveals that Link's coming is also foretold of in the stories of the Distile. The only chance Link has to stop it is to find the six sages who are somewhere in Nura. Hoping to recruit more help Link and Nala travel to Nurai's capital Asreal where they are due to meet in the Glass Temple. Here Link meets Tai (although he does not know who she is) and the two become uneasy friends.
Nurai's history is revealed to Link in a meeting inside the Glass Temple, however half way through an earthquake (one of the prophesied signs of the Distile) strikes. While trying to evacuate the building a huge D'Ran knife that long ago had been used in sacrifices falls to the floor. To the horror of Nala and Tanya it falls on Link and kills him. Link finds himself in a place beyond death, where those that call themselves gods live. He learns here that his infinite chances have run out, and he has only one left. Here all knowledge is stored and much of it flows into his head. He learns of an old man called Rein who was struck by lightning while being attacked by a wolf, and also of Hail's plans to defend herself against Black.
When Link returns once again into the real world he has lost all his memories, although a witch manages to restore them through Nala at least far back as the two met. He continues to dream of Rein, who became after he was struck by the lightning, a wondering spirit who inhabited people's bodies until they died. He later realises that Rein's spirit is actually now inhabiting Tai. He manages to set it free, but instead it travels into Bren, one of its old companions. It will be impossible to ever split them again.
But there is worse, much worse coming. There is another earthquake and in this one Nurai's worse enemy – the Sadia – is set free. A mysterious metallic people, they can change their shape at will. Within a few seconds they have travelled several miles from what was their mountain prison to Asreal.
Link battles one, but is easily defeated. In the last moment before what would be his death he unconsciously calls on the power of the Triforce and the Sadia are banished back into their mountain prison.
Deciding that the time has come to rescue the sages the church organises two groups to scout out likely areas for where they may be imprisoned. Nala and a small army are lucky, and quickly manage to find and rescue Impa and Rauru. Link, Tai and Bren manage to defeat the temple guardian they are assigned to and rescue Saria and Darunia. Bren gives a potion to Link and Saria which puts them into a strange sleep. Here Link enters Saria's mind and regains his memories. But the temple guardian awakes later, and as a last revenge, he releases the Sadia again.
Hail is met by Ganondorf who tells her of her ultimate destiny – to first clean the Gerudo blood by killing all the man and then to kill Nura herself. She gathers a group of followers and quests around the countryside, killing any men can get hold of. Eventually she also collides with Nala's army. She kidnaps Impa and Rauru and among the others only Nala is able to escape.
Bren gives a potion to Link and Saria which puts them into a strange sleep. Here Link enters Saria's mind and manages to regain his memories. But the Sadia attack their camp, and in the ensuing battle Saria is killed. In the aftermath Link and Tai argue, and end up running away from Darunia and Bren. Later that night they accidentally bump into each other and meet up again.
The next morning Raymus, a priest from the Nuran church, finds Darunia and Bren. Meanwhile, Tai tells Link that his mother was a Gerudo, and encourages him to put on the broach given by the mysterious Kalen when he first woke up in Nurai. When he does so he finds that he can see before him a fortress that was previously invisible. The conclusion is obvious – this must be the long hidden Kalen fortress. As they walk towards it they are confronted by a Kalen named Kaze.
Tai reveals that Link is the Kalen's king, and subsequently the Kalen all agree to commit to obeying him, and at his first order find Bren and Darunia and bring them to the fortress (along with Raymus). Bren has strange news – Saria's body has been stolen.
Meanwhile Hail has decided that she has done enough on her first objective, and decides to move onto the second of killing Nura. In the end she decides that the most likely way she will get to her is by following the Sadia. Shortly after she comes near the Kalen Fortress and finds Impa and Rauru mysteriously gone, she also meets Ganondorf. She agrees to use his sceptre with Nurai inside it to send him to Link. In return she is given the sceptre herself, which she can use to send herself wherever she likes, and finally to complete the second of Ganondorf's earlier commands.
Obligingly the Sadia leave an easy to follow trail, which en route includes destroying the Xi Headquarters. The Xi have however already moved out and decided to join their formers enemies the Kalen at their fortress. Thus the Sadia too are soon heading towards the once hidden castle. When the battle is going badly the Sadia try to negotiate with some hostages – four of the sages. Link declines, but manages to rescue the Sages anyway. In their ensuing rage the Sadia manages to overcome the Kalen/Xi defences, and drive them back into the fortress itself. Eventually they are all cornered into one room.
Ganondorf transports into the middle of them, and the sages try to cast enough magic so that he can be trapped again in the Sacred Realm. But, the power of the magic affects magic and he is unable to hold the beast inside him within. To everyone's horror, he once again turns into the monstrous Ganon...
Twenty-Three
It stretched forever.
A mass of swirling power and knowledge in which only a few mortals had ever returned from. For to be in this place, was to be not mortal, and to return and to resume that status was to do something that was equivalent to risinge from death. Of those who did, only the most strong in destiny and will could stop themselves from going mad with the knowledge that had been packed in their heads, drowning out even their own thoughts.
Through this mass of knowledge great beings travelled, with their power so enormous that they dared to call themselves Gods, and to tell their created so. They could find anything here, for this was where all fact and knowledge was stored, the index of existence. No name existed for it, although many could have been suggested.
In the sharpest contrast to this were the four stone columns and platform that stood in the middle, breaking the great tides of power that could be stopped by nothing else. If they could have, the beings there would have destroyed them long ago, but such an ancient force had placed them that even they feared it.
Strangest of all was the thing that stood in the midst of the platform, her body from a mortal but her mind not. Her name? She had had several; but the one that she had been called upon to use here was that of Hail.
In her hand she held a knife; a knife that had lasted millennia. And one of those Gods that were entrapped in that place tried to move apart – but there was no escape from infinity. The blade that Hail held had created something, something whose time had run out.
And so Hail began to speak, speak in a language so old that only those in the chamber would have knowhad any right to known it. But anyone could recognise the terrifying tone of the voice and maybe even the meaning. It was not the very first language and not even the last, but it was one of the first and would be nearly the last.
To Hail standing there the tongue flowed of and out her mouth easily as her breath did. It focused her mind and yet left part of it free and able to explore the place within which it found itself. And left it open to the final desperate attempts from the desperate goddess.
I can give you anything you want, she said or communicated in some similar way. It did not matter – Hail would recognise that voice forever. It was that of Nura.
"You can give me nothing that you have not already stolen," she replied with one part of her even while the other was still intoning the ancient dialect.
Not you. Even now her voice was still as scornful as it had always been. To the one you inhabit, to the one you control. You dangle on a thinner thread than you realise.
Hail would have laughed if she could at the utter absurdity in that statement. "I am dead. You killed me – remember? Obviously you have already forgot the desert, and the stone, and the knife I now hold."
The one below never even knew of it. She can break through you is she is really pushed. Watch.
At once the swirling hall was gone; not forgotten, never forgotten, but in the backdrop. Green plains stretched below and to the north where the forest stopped small mountains rose. In the centre a circular field lay, and among it played horses. From the aerial view they suddenly flung themselves down (but not dizzily so) till they were among the animals on the ground. Past them rushed two creatures with riders on, engaged in an obviously familiar if still passionately fought race. On one of the racer's faces did their attention focus until they were so close that even his green tunic was out of their field of vision.
And then they jumped.
Instead far below them was a cloudy and dusty mess of a world, a land where grass was only the beach to the sea of mud. Occasionally an island or two of burnt wreckage added contrast. Again down they rocketed, but this time they found a battle taking place. Fifty men were fighting a single woman, but this woman had red hair and similar eyes. This virtual Hail slew all the men in front of the watching eyes, and as the last man fell it was as if their vision was truly clear for the first time. The sea of mud was a sea of bodies, and every man in it screamed out the name of his killer.
You are this. Fight back and you will stop it. Nura's speech seemed to reverberate more here.
The watching Hail (as a spirit here, but her body still chanted back among the columns) felt something rise within her. "Not now," she whispered. "I promise this is coming to an end. Hyrule will come back soon, I swear it."
You... She... Both of you have not completed your first destiny. There are still men here. Such as this one.
He looked confused, and there were freshly earned scars regularly distributed over his face, but it was still Link who suddenly appeared in front of them.
Your first destiny was chosen by me and I control it. Finish this and it will be over. Now.
The virtual Hail was gone, and instead it was the one who had thought herself trapped elsewhere who was now in that place. But she still had the sword from the previous Hail, and the blood still covered it.
"Who are you? What's going on?" asked the confused warrior, and then he stared at the women covered in blood before him. "Zelda..."
That name made that something within Hail rise even more strongly until she was powerless to stop it, and out of her mouth spilled a few desperate words. "Link... Help me... I..."
Enough, Hail thought, and found to her surprise that her body was already moving into her normal attacking stance for a fight. She did not want to do this, or hurt the boy in green who haunted her, but she could see no other choice. In the same way that soon Nura would have bow to her, until she had completed her first task she would have to bow to her enemy. How hard could it be anyway?
She ran forward and sliced her sword forward neatly in the air. His eyes still clearly displaying shock and pain – that was a weakness for a warrior, she decided – he unsteadily put his own blade up to block. To her surprise he managed it in time, but it was of no matter. That was only her first strike.
As he made no attempt to reply in any kind she swung her sword around again and tried to submerge the arguing voice within her. Again he parried. Getting desperate now, and afraid this wouldn't end soon she moved faster. Thrust, parry. Thrust, parry. She moved until her eyes could hardly follow her own hands and yet he defended every strike. He never tried to return a single blow once. She couldn't fail. She had never failed.
"Zelda – is that you?" he asked.
Angry that he had dared her by taking so much attention off, she once again increased pace and still doggedly refused to accept the sweat pouring out of her or the weariness setting in. She was invincible – she had to be. Every man had his weakness. And his – his must be his emotions.
She stopped suddenly. Again he made no move to now attack her. She pulled her own sword to her throat. "Disarm now or your friend dies alongside me." She could feel Nura's pleasure and triumph in the air.
Link stared at her, and said, "Explain first why..." – but her sword was already pushing harder into her neck and so dejectedly he lowered his own. With a nod from her he reluctantly dropped it and kicked it away. "Now..." he started.
"Now this ends," Hail said, and even the step forward was a struggle as she tried to stop the other princess inside breaking lose. But she managed to stay in control and she was free to take that last mighty sweep against the boy in green. Then it would be over. Then Nura over, and her revenge with it.
Link bowed down, his eyes closed. He still did not even try to defend himself. Maybe he was regretting not learning from his friends how to fight hand–to–hand. But he certainly didn't look depressed – in fact, he almost looked elated. Certainly she had never seen anybody any more ready to accept destiny.
A dull thud.
The sword had bounced uselessly off his skin. His clothing had not even been cut. Stunned she swung the sword once more, twice. Not a scratch, not a break, not any success. Finally she stopped and stared at him. "What magic do you hold?" she asked.
He looked up, and obviously didn't understand her. He hadn't even felt her blows. "Why can't I hurt you?" she cried and thrust her sword again straight at him. Another useless bounce.
His gaze just looked as annoyingly resigned as ever, although with a touch of bewilderment. "Who are you?" he asked one more time.
"I am Hail," she finally told him. "I am she who will clean this land of the blood that is no longer pure." She simplified it for him. "I'll get rid of anyone who isn't a Gerudo – as in men."
For once he showed pure emotion and laughed. She could even feel Nura being confused. On second thoughts that made her even more puzzled. How could a god be confused? They knew everything. Unless...
"I am the King of the Gerudos," he said, and his tone made her belief him. The thing within her was however stunned, and could have almost forced a gasp through at that moment.
She nodded slowly. "You were the last I had to finish – but you are already clean. Therefore this is over."
Flash – and she was back among the stone columns and the infinity, and she realised why she had felt Nura's confusion. For she was no longer a god, but a human standing before her.Finally, the voice ended, Hail's summons were done.
"Please…" begged the desperate woman, dressed now in a torn robe that now stood with her on the stone platform. . She had not even been given the honour of wearing nothing, for to do so would be to suggest that she was pure. She felt wretched, did that The woman looked wretched –. She felt as if she had just gained and then immediately lost the universe. ; as, to To some extent she had.
But Hail cared not and calmly walked forward, still clasping that blade that had killed her and so many so long ago. "You know of your crime," she said, now speaking in the common tongue that the woman could understand. "Nura, daughter of Gerudo, you have lived enough."
And the blade scratched against Nura's skin. She even saw tears in her eyes as Nura saw the blood falling from the wound. She was mortal now, but she must know that would soon soon end. For her credit, she stood upright and managed to not open her lips as it happened.
Her eyes wondered down to see the blade sticking through her heart, and she simply bowed her head. At last for her it was over. And also for the people she had left behind.
*-*
The left blade caught him while he was still surprised, and Link was sent sprawling to the floor.
Link stumbled as suddenly he found himself back in the fortress room. He only just managed to avoid a vicious swipe from Ganon's sceptre.
"Help me!" he cried, finding himself fallen to the floor in his hurry, and immediately almost a dozen Kalen ran to try and meet Ganon's blows. But, as Link He wearily got up, but already he could see that he knew it was too late. The master sword had stopped glowing, and he had a feeling it wouldn't have been much good anyway. It had just felt too unstable.
"What's going on?" asked Kaze. "There was a kind of flash where you were for a second. Did he – it I mean – do something?"
Link shook his head slowly. He didn't quite know himself what happened and he did not want to confuse this situation any more than it was already. The people in here, especially the children, looked frightened enough already without him mentioning Hail. And for once there seemed to be nothing he could do for Zelda.
"Is everyone back yet?" he asked.
Kaze was about to answer when a warning shout of "Sadia!" suddenly rang in from the corridor. At once the civilians started shaking, and Link cursed for what must have been the fiftieth time that the Kalen's families also lived in the fortress. One young girl he saw resolutely trying to keep a straight face, all the time her body slowly shaking. Many children were sharing her example, and the older people looked no less brave. He saw many of the supposed to be wounded stand up and stagger their way over to the entrance into the corridor. This room would not fall easily.
He made his own way over (carefully staying out of range of Ganon as the Kalen continued to valiantly fight to keep him under control) and grimaced as he saw the approaching forty warriors.
"What are they doing?" asked an Xi in astonishment. He saw what she meant. As well as the thirty or so Sadia that were still running forward in warrior shape a metallic blur was flying. It looked like the one that had brought the Sages, except much smaller. Already several dozen arrows had been fired at it, but they seemed to pass through as harmlessly as if it was a normal cloud. He didn't see how they could stop it.
To his surprise the Sadia flew right up to him. Then, in a voice deep as any he had heard, it said, "I wish to speak alone."
"If you've got anything to say," Link told it, "you can say it here."
"Please…" the Sadia begged, although he wasn't convinced of any weakness in its voice. "In the name of peace let me speak to you."
Kaze's look told Link clearly how much he trusted it, but when Link turned to Tai leaning on the floor he saw the opposite reaction. She thinks I should trust it, he told himself, and after all, why shouldn't I? Because you broke a promise with them earlier his mind reminded. Still, if the Sadia's honour was anything like as strong as he had been told...
Slowly, he nodded to the Sadia. After all, they could have easily killed him if they wanted to by using trickery before now. He pointed to a small room that was off the main one and made his way over to it. The Sadia followed; it's floating form followed by every free pair of eyes. Link let it through the door, looked back to check that Ganon and the other Sadia were still under control and then softly closed it behind him. His last sight of the room was Kaze's worrying face staring at him. He considered that it showed how loyal he was by the sheer fact that he hadn't even argued with him about this.
"Let us come to Hyrule with you," the creature told him straight out when it was sure the others couldn't hear.
Link stared at the floating Sadia. He wasn't sure if he preferred it talking to a formless cloud or like it had been the last time he had seen something similar when at least a head had been sticking out of it. Both methods seemed about equally bad. Such a long time ago since had had been standing talking to the Sadia on the fortress tower. In reality it was a few hours. A few hours in which they had lost so much.
"What?" he asked aloud. "Are you mad? How could I trust you not to attack it?"
"We would give our honour," the cloud said, "not even to touch a subject of Hyrule for a century or more."
Link shook his head and even went as far as to laugh. The Sadia quickly started to speak again, "We have a gift in return. At least see it before you decide."
"I will see it," Link said, "but I will not change my mind."
"Very well," the Sadia replied and at once began its explanation. "You know that we can change our shape, do you not? But do you know how useful that gift is? We can turn into anything we wish; anyone we wish. Alas, we can not change our colour or make our skin solid. However, we can do better. We can flow, even through veins if we want. We can rejoin the mind, we can… Let me show you."
The Sadian cloud slowly lowered to the floor, and two separate Sadia warriors flowed out of it and so only a very thin grey haze was left. And then out of that haze was revealed something that could not be a Sadia. Link first saw the still pale flesh, and then the first locks of green came out. Agonisingly slowly the rest of the body stepped out.
Standing before him was his dead childhood friend. Except she was no longer dead, but standing up straight, all her muscles taught. She was a puppet in these things' hands.
"What have you done to her?" Link asked, feeling an anger like he had experienced never before swell up in him.
Then the whites of her eyes changed colour into the same hatred metallic colour he knew so well. Saria's mouth ever so slowly opened and then speech came out of it. Cruel twisted speech.
"This is not her alive. But it could be. I change my shape ever so slightly and her brain sparks into consciousness again. But if you do not fulfil your side of the bargain this time, she will die again. She need not even know how she was restored."
"Your decision?" one of the other Sadia asked.
Link stared over Saria's body, desperately trying to come up with some other way. But he knew of none. His heart tried to tell him that in a hundred years they could find some way to defeat the Sadia. Without her, his heart argued, they might not get back to Hyrule at all. Without Zelda, his mind argued, we might not get back even with Saria. If one person died because he had let Saria live… If she was really some kind of secret storage for the Sadia to carry themselves to Hyrule in... Could he decide who could live and who could die? Could Saria live with the knowledge that her life had killed someone else?
"Link… Please…"
Her grey eyes had been replaced with wet moist ones. He stared at them and tried not to remember the days they had played together in the lost woods. He couldn't help thinking back to how they had dodged the nuts that that the Deku monsters had shot at them, or how she had looked after him when one had hit or he had been ill. How she had given him her ocarina on that bridge so long ago.
"I'm sorry."
She seemed to nod ever so slightly as he shot his sword right through her heart; her mouth trying to resolutely stay shut but finally giving up and giving out a whimper of pain. The blade continued its swipe through her body, her flesh seeming to cut far too easily. It finally found air and then it was shooting through the heart of the Sadia on her left. He swung round, crouched onto his knees at first, and then pushed straight up through the body of the final Sadia.
And so he was alone with the body. And his bloodstained sword. He dropped again to the floor, and slowly pulled her body up into his arms.
"I'm so sorry."