12. Seeing the Truth

The Nocturne of Shadow took me to a Triforce pedestal on a ledge above the graveyard. It gave me a good view of the burning village, which basically just depressed me. I could see the sun setting through the clouds of smoke, which reminded me of how badly I'd been treating my body lately. I'd gotten little proper sleep, hadn't been eating well, was constantly being pummeled by monsters and having to carry around heavy weapons…but without those I'd be dead by now. I think, considering the circumstances, I'd been doing pretty well.

Behind me on the ledge was an entrance into a cave or something. It was very dark, unnaturally dark, and I knew I had to go into it.

But I really didn't want to.

Into the creepy cave and down the creepy stairs I found a creepy room filled with pause to count sixteen torches. I seriously doubted I could hit all of them with fire arrows before they went out, so I climbed up on to the creepy platform in the middle of the creepy room and cast Din's Fire.

Door open check.

"Oh hell," was my reaction to the next room, and, in fact, to most of the Temple. This place was just creepy, horribly, horribly creepy, and I hated it. And yes, I will be over-using the word creepy throughout this entire chapter.

I used the Longshot to get across the enormous pit in the middle of the room, then used the Lens of Truth to see through the wall. The Lens, I could already tell, was going to be incredibly important in this Temple. For one thing, that damn crow statue had to be pointed at one of the skulls, the only real skull, and I was fairly certain something bad would happen if I messed it up. Then I had to follow the Lens down a hall, find a map, head to the right, and open a door.

I took one look in the room, closed the door and backed away, then mentally cursed myself for doing so. I was a coward, a craven little coward, but…

I opened the door again, took a deep breath and swallowed hard, then looked back at what I'd seen. Blood. A thick bright red pool of blood underneath a torture device like the one I'd seen under the well. But that one hadn't had a fresh pool of blood beneath it.

I couldn't help but picture whoever it was that had been so recently injured, Impa maybe, chained to that big X, writhing in pain. Perhaps their spirit had been added to those that (I was sure) already haunted this horrific place.

Reluctantly, I walked into the room. The fact that someone had been bleeding in that room only moments before meant that something was definitely in there, and I had to find out what.

Then a pale claw-like hand attached to an unnaturally long skeletal arm grabbed my head.

I jumped Dead Hands up to number 3 on my list of most-hated monsters (ReDeads and Like Likes just beat it out). But the Lens helped me find strategic places for bombs and blow the dead bastard up.

After the damn thing was dead…again, a chest appeared which contained, um, winged boots?

"Hover boots!" Navi exclaimed. "I've heard of these! They let you walk on air… for awhile."

I looked at the boots. "What's the downside, besides the wings?"

"Well…no traction."

"Ah. Now let's get out of here before I puke."

Back in the room with the crow statue I pulled the Hover Boots on and approached the gaping chasm. "You're sure I can walk on air?" I asked. That drop was definitely making me nervous.

"Positive," Navi assured me. "But only for awhile."

"And how long is 'awhile'?"

"Well…let's find out!"

Carefully I placed one foot on the empty space beyond the floor and put a little of my weight on it. Solid. Great!

Unfortunately, Navi was right, again. The boots had no traction, and their power only lasted for a short time. As evidenced by my frantic leap to the path up to the door on the other side of the chasm when I felt myself sinking in the air.

"Damn Navi," I muttered, clambering onto the path. "That was less than 'awhile.'"

"Awhile is a relative term!" Navi tried to defend herself.

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Down the passage and past the beam-shooting statue (appropriately named a "Beamos"), was a room with spinning Grim Reaper statues that tried to behead me, a huge blade trap, and a silver rupees puzzle. If that doesn't tell you how evil this place was, I don't know what will.

Oh wait, yes I do. Everything else that happened there.

As I kept going through the Shadow Temple I kept running into more and more horrible things. Beamos, mummies, guillotines, Wallmasters, Stalfos, Like Likes, Keese, invisible Grim Reaper statues, giant fans, ReDeads, and hidden spikes.

Creepy. All creepy.

Eventually I came to a huge room with a man-made river and a very pretty boat. "Ooh," Navi said. "Look at that."

"It doesn't make up for the rest of the stuff," I said gloomily.

"But look! It's got a swan on the front and everything!"

I sighed. "Fine, we'll go explore it. Happy?"

"Yes."

It was a pretty boat, or ship, or whatever. But it had a Gold Skulltula near the bow, and a creepy empty feeling throughout. The Triforce seal was carved into the, uhh, floor (I know there's a technical term for the floor of the top part of the ship, I just don't know what it is), and the carved lines were filled with dust.

"Hey Navi," I called, "look at this."

She bobbed over. "The Triforce?"

"Yeah, but there's more to it. It looks like the seal of the royal family. What would a boat belonging to the royal family be doing in a place like this?"

"Gathering dust?" Navi shrugged. "Why does it matter?"

"Well…" I didn't want to say it to her, but I really didn't want any reason to connect the royal family (a.k.a. Zelda) with the recently used torture devices in the Shadow Temple. So instead of saying anything, I put the Ocarina to my lips and played Zelda's Lullaby.

Immediately the boat shuddered and jerked forward, then began sailing smoothly down the river.

"Do you think that was a good idea?" I asked, peering over the side of the boat.

"Usually whenever something tries to stop you from doing something it's a good idea."

"Yeah," I agreed. "That does seem to be the way it works in these places." I turned around. "But nothing's trying to stop me from doing this."

"Tell that to him."

A Stalfos jumped down from somewhere above, landing hard enough to buckle the boards of the deck (hey, I remembered!).

For the rest of the cruise I fought those creepy skeleton warriors as the boat gently swayed back and forth. Stalfos, according to Tido, were once adults who had gotten lost in the Lost Woods. I have no idea if that's true, but it made fighting them all the more creepy.

As soon as I defeated the second one the boat gave a mighty shudder and came to a stop.

"Link! This ship is sinking!" Navi shouted. "Abandon ship! Get onto a safe platform!"

"What!" Quickly, I ran over and leapt off the left side of the boat, rolling and popping back up to my feet when I landed on the ground next to the river. I watched as the swan ship sank into the water, leaving nothing but the top of the mast above the surface.

There was really nothing else I could do there so I went through the door and came to a room full of pillars. Navi started to bob ahead of me, but stopped abruptly, as though she'd run into something.

"Ow!" she exclaimed.

Then something I couldn't see attacked me from the side.

"Ow!" I exclaimed.

I pulled out the Lens of Truth and put it to my eye. The room, empty as it had seemed, was actually full of invisible walls and Floormasters. Damn.

I fought my way through the room, skirting walls and giant hands all the way, then went through a door.

Three enormous (and incredibly creepy) skull statues full of blue fire stood in the middle of the room. There was a Gold Skulltula behind them, but other than that their only purpose seemed to be to be creepy. I decided to blow them up.

After chucking bombs into the blue flames of the skulls and blowing them to smithereens (all they had in them was a few rupees and some healing supplies…for some reason), I went back into the room with all the invisible walls and through another door.

It looked just like a small room with spikes on the walls (I didn't know why there were spikes on the walls, but the troubling brown stains on the spikes discouraged me from investigating further) but as I walked into the room there was a grinding sound and the walls started to move towards me.

"Crap!" I ran towards one of the walls and started pushing it between the spikes. No good, I couldn't stop it. But as I was pushing I noticed that the spikes seemed to be made of wood, and the walls were equally flammable.

So I stood in the middle of the rapidly-shrinking room and cast Din's Fire.

The walls burned to ash, and beyond them I found a creepy chest with a creepy key inside.

The other two doors in the room with the invisible walls lead to a room with some bad guys and a key, and back out to the place where I'd jumped off the ship.

There was a locked door on the other side of the river, but I couldn't get across without touching the water, which looked toxic. There was, however, a really tall statue with bomb flowers around the base at just the right place to fall and make a bridge.

I shot fire arrows at the bomb flowers, which exploded and knocked the statue over.

Beyond the locked door was a room with a big gaping chasm (I was starting to notice a pattern with chasms in this temple), and a huge creepy door on the other side.

Huge creepy doors often hide huge creepy monsters, like that shadow that had attacked Sheik, and probably done something to Impa.

This was personal.

The Lens of Truth revealed plenty of platforms in the chasm, and the Hover Boots had just enough power to cross the space between them, even though their lack of traction made it much harder to stay on.

But I crossed the expanse without incident and used the creepy key to open the creepy door.

I was in a big creepy room with a big creepy pit in the center, and down in the pit seemed to be… a giant drum? I put my regular boots back on, got the Lens of Truth ready, and hopped down onto it.

Suddenly something drummed the drum, shaking the ground and knocking me down. I looked around and saw giant disembodied hands on either side of me, one of them turned sideways and rushing towards me. I rolled out of the way just in time and put the Lens of Truth to my eye to see if it would help.

It did. The giant hands weren't disembodied, the body was just invisible, and had one huge eye.

"Bongo Bongo," Navi said.

"Huh?" I dodged one of his huge hands again, not an easy thing to do when also trying to draw a bow.

"Bongo Bongo, the Phantom Shadow Beast. I've heard of him, but the stories say he was sealed away a long time ago."

"He was." Instead of dodging the next attack I shot an arrow at his giant hand, reveling in the apparent pain this caused him.

Bongo Bongo shook the hand I'd shot, trying to get the arrow out, and banged the drum with the other. So I shot it too.

With both hands out of commission there was no way for the Phantom Shadow Beast (nice name) to block any arrows I shot at his head. I couldn't fire arrows and use the Lens at the same time, but I remembered where the eye was and sent a stream of arrows into it.

There was a massive thump on the drum and I quickly put up the Lens to see what it was. Bongo Bongo's body had come crashing down. He was vulnerable.

I rushed over, drawing the Master Sword as I ran. "Hey there drum guy," I said. "You and I have a score to settle." Then, quite methodically, I stabbed the sword that can repel evil through the head of the Phantom Shadow Beast Bongo Bongo.

The Beast dissolved into a puddle of evilness and a portal of light appeared nearby. "That was for Impa, Kakariko, and Sheik," I told the puddle, then stepped into the light.

zzz

"The boy with the noble Zelda's Ocarina...As I expected, you have come," a woman's voice said. I focused in on the speaker and saw, much to my relief, Impa.

"Miss Impa," I exclaimed. "You're all right!"

"You thought I wasn't?" She frowned at me.

"Well…I was worried." I looked down. "There was…blood, fresh blood, in one of the rooms. I couldn't think of anyone else who would be in here so…"

"Oh, that." Impa shook her head and rubbed her neck. "The Shadow Temple is designed to keep people on their toes, the blood is, probably, fake."

"Really?" I sighed with relief. "Well, I'm still not going back in there. No way in hell."

"Understandable," Impa said. She looked me up and down. "When last I saw you, as we made our escape from the castle, you were just a lad. Now I see that you have become a fine hero..."

I shrugged.

"You must be quite strong to have defeated the shadow that escaped."

"I can't fail," I said. "I decide that before every battle. If I tell myself I can't fail, that's it's just not a possibility, that I won't stop until I win, then I always win."

"That's rather intelligent," Impa approved. "But what could be so important to you that you are willing to fight yourself into the ground?"

I looked at Impa for a few moments, trying to decide what to say, then I looked down at the ground and told the truth. "Zelda. It's…Princess Zelda."

"I see," was all Impa said.

There was silence in the Chamber of the Sages of awhile, then Impa took a deep breath and spoke.

"I have to stay here..." She looked me directly in the eyes. "You go to Princess Zelda's side and protect her on my behalf."

I nodded and bowed a little. "I will Impa, I swear it."

"Now I put my power, which should be helpful to you, into this Medallion." She passed me the Shadow Medallion and joined her power with mine. Impa's power was very impressive, and I suddenly felt better then I had in days. "There's nothing to worry about, the Princess is safe now."

"Thank you Impa."

"Goodbye Link."

"Goodbye."

The Chamber of the Sages faded around me and the light pulled me away, depositing me next to the tree in front of the no-longer-burning Kakariko, but not before I heard Impa's last words.

"Please look out for the Princess!"

Don't worry, I will.