19. Ganon's Damn Castle

I ran. Feet pounding, lungs heaving for breath, I ran. I had only one goal in mind; saving Zelda. After that initial outburst I didn't even care about Ganon, except as an obstacle for saving Zelda. So I ran. As fast as was humanly possible. Towards Ganon's castle.

"Link!" Navi called, bobbing as fast as she could behind me, trying to keep up. "Calm down!"

"Calm down?" I shouted back, still running. "Calm down! Ganon kidnapped Zelda, and you want me to calm down?"

"Running in blindly is only going to get you killed. You don't know what Ganon's planning, he told you to come to his castle, remember? It's gotta be a trap."

"So? I am saving Zelda, got it? That's all there is to it!" I kept running.

"But Link! There could be all kinds of traps around it, it's much too dangerous!"

"No Navi! No more talking, no more objections, just no more!"

"But-"

"What?" I turned my head and glared at her. "What is it now?"

"Stop!"

I skidded to a stop just before an enormous drop-off into a boiling lake of lava that surrounded the castle.

"That…was not there seven years ago," I said, staring at it. The castle was precariously perched on a dangerously thin column of rock in the middle of the lake, with no way out to it. "Damn! Dammit, now what am I supposed to do!"

"Do not despair Link," Rauru's voice said. "We six will gather our power to create a bridge to the castle where Ganondorf dwells... The castle's keep, which is known as Ganon's Tower, is protected by six evil barriers. Bring down the six barriers and save Princess Zelda!"

"Huh?" I whirled around. The sages, all of them, appeared around me. At Rauru's shouted order they all raised their arms in the air and I could feel power rush round me, across the gap.

A rainbow stretched from the spot where I was standing to the entrance to the castle. A very solid-looking rainbow.

"Thanks guys," I called. Then I got back to running.

Through the front doors, down a staircase, and past a couple of Beamos I found a huge room with six doors spaced around it, each with a different-colored medallion above it. I recognized those medallions.

There was a shield around the big column thing in the middle of the room, and the big column thing, I soon discovered, held the stairs I needed to go up. So, somehow, I had to break that shield.

It was connected to the medallions above the six doors by ropes of magic, so I figured I could probably find a way to break those ropes through the doors. I went through the one with the green medallion.

FOREST HALL -

I killed the Wolfos as quickly as possible, then used Din's Fire to light four torches nearby, and a fire arrow to light the one above the door.

In the next room there were some silver rupees to collect. I had to play the Song of Time and put on the Iron Boots to get one, then put on the Hover Boots and hover to the switch over by the other door. I hit it, then used the Longshot to reach the pillar with the target on it and the silver rupee above it. The other three rupees were relatively easy with the hover boots on.

Once I had all five the door opened and I went into a room with nothing but a green medallion surrounded by the same kind of magic stuff as the shield. I tried to hit it with the Master Sword, defeating evil and all, but couldn't reach. Then I remembered Zelda's last gift to me.

When I hit the medallion with a Light Arrow the shield shattered and I was surprised to see Saria.

"Hurry up, Link!" she said, clasping her hands.

"Right," I agreed. Then I was warped back into the big room. The thread that connected the shield to the Forest Hall was gone.

WATER HALL -

Ice Hall would have been more appropriate, but I'm not the one naming these things. Anyway, first I had to ice a couple of Freezards (bad pun, sorry) then melt some red ice with some blue fire (good thing I had an empty bottle). I refilled the bottle, since I'd probably need it, and went into the next room.

There were two ice blocks and one hole. I pushed the farther block to the right, then to the right again so that it hit the small block, then fell into the hole. Then I pushed the other block over the block in the hole so that it hit the other little block, then pushed it left and left again so that it went right straight into the small alcove on the left side of the room. I hopped up onto the ledge with the red ice and melted it with the blue fire, then hit the rusted switch with the Megaton Hammer and entered the next room.

There was the water Medallion, surrounded by a shield. I already knew what to do of course, so I shot it with a Light Arrow and braced myself for Ruto.

"Can you believe Sheik was a girl?" she said as soon as she saw me.

"Yes," I said simply.

"Oh. Well, hurry up!"

I did.

SHADOW HALL -

Completely arbitrarily, I went into the Shadow Hall next, but regretted it when I saw there was no floor. There was a chest off to the left but it didn't look important. I shot a fire arrow at a torch on the right side of the room, which activated some platforms between me and the central platform. I ran across, then scanned for something else. There was a switch off to the left, but no way to it that I could see.

That I could see.

I remembered what the Shadow Temple had been like, and what had been important in it. Sure enough, the Lens of Truth showed a path leading to the switch. I used the Megaton Hammer to smack it down, then went back to the main platform and shot the torch by the now unlocked door to reveal a trail of blocks leading down to another switch. I hit that one with the Megaton Hammer too, then used the Longshot to get to that chest.

Golden Gauntlets. Theoretically these would be stronger than the Silver Gauntlets, so I swapped them right away. The Lens of Truth had shown me another trail, this one leading to the door.

"Please save the Princess!" Impa told me when she appeared. I didn't need to be told twice.

FIRE HALL -

I put on the Goron Tunic, just in case, and when I stepped on the odd-shaped central platform and felt it sink under me, I quickly stepped off and put on the Hover Boots. This was a simple silver rupee puzzle, two of which were easy to get right away: one on the platform to the right (which tried to collapse under me) and one on the platform to the left (which had fire that moved around the platform and tried to burn me). The last three were rather odd. The first one was underneath a big huge pillar with a crescent symbol on it on the left side of the room. I hit it with the Megaton Hammer. Nothing. I put three bombs around it. Nothing. Well, I figured I might as well test out the new gauntlets.

At first, I didn't think I could do it. Even with the power of gold, that pillar was seriously heavy. But I heaved, and I strained, and I chucked that thing across the room. Yes! It actually wound up making a rather bumpy platform to the next rupee on an octagonal platform. Then I used the Hover Boots to reach the final silver rupee.

Through the door and shoot the Medallion.

"Hurry up, Brother!" Darunia said.

I am, I am.

SPIRIT HALL -

Five or six razor traps awaited me, along with a Beamos, a bunch of silver rupees, and some Armos statues. Damn. I had to run past the razor traps while collecting all five silver rupees, one of which was guarded by the Beamos. For the last two I had to pull the Armos statues away so that the razor traps moved across the room, giving me access to the rupees.

The next room had two crystal switches on the other side of a set of bars. I hit the first one with a spin attack, and got a chest containing a bunch of Bombchus. I stood directly in front of the other crystal switch and aimed the Bombchu straight through the hole at the top of the bars. With much trial and error I managed to make it run through the hole and hit the switch, opening the door onward.

The next room had four sun faces, but no sunlight. I shot a Fire Arrow at the cobwebs in the middle of the ceiling to let the sunshine in, then aimed the Mirror Shield at the sun face directly to the right of the doorway. I wanted to ignore the other three, but I've always been careful about these things. Unfortunately, they only hid Wallmasters.

"Hurry up, kid!" Nabooru told me when I shot her medallion.

Why does everyone keep saying that?

LIGHT HALL -

Last hall, okay. I was so close now I could almost smell Zelda's hair. She smelled like dried flowers, maybe with a dried orange peel and some cinnamon sticks thrown in, or at least Sheik did.

Except that the last hall was blocked by one of those huge pillars. Okay, fine. I chucked the huge thing into the keep, where it crumbled.

Through the door I was attacked by invisible enemies. I hardly needed the Lens of Truth to beat them, since all I had to do was attack blindly. There was a skulltula in the center of the rook, and Navi pointed out some keese on top of the small treasure chests. Navi hadn't said much of anything since we'd got in here, and I got the feeling she was being quiet on purpose. Something was on her mind, but I didn't have time for it. Once all the enemies were gone, a chest containing a key appeared in the center. The other chests didn't have anything important.

In the next room I had to play Zelda's Lullaby to make a chest appear. Easy.

The room beyond that had a rather disorienting silver rupee puzzle. It had two boulders rolling around three walls arranged in a Y pattern. Two were in the Y shape, one was on top, and the other two were in small alcoves around the edge of the room. I dodged them, and went through the right door.

I had my bow out and was ready to shoot the Light Medallion, but it wasn't in there.

"Floormaster!" Navi exclaimed. I rolled away from it, rather badly since I was holding a bow, and I would have run into the wall if it had been real. Instead I rolled right through it and found the Light Medallion.

"Hurry!" Rauru bid me.

"Believe me, I am," I said, grinding my teeth.

zzz

When I got back to the main room for the last time, the shield around the keep shattered, finally giving me access to the tower.

Music was the first thing I noticed. Very faint music, from very far away, but I could hear it. Then I noticed the six Fire Keese, and three more guarding the staircase. I shot them all down, then went up the staircase in the direction of the music.

It was organ music, I decided. Very dark, solemn, but also very creepy. The next room had two Dinolfos, which weren't too difficult. The room above them had two Stalfos and a flaming chest. I killed the two Stalfos, then opened the chest to get the Boss Key.

I was killing very methodically, I noticed. I was hardly even thinking about it, just killing. Usually I at least felt something when I destroyed a life, but now, trying to save Zelda, I just didn't care.

That might have been a good thing, since in the next room I found not one, but TWO Iron Knuckles. I woke one at a time and chopped them to bits with the Biggoron Sword.

Once they were gone, I climbed the next staircase and opened the door. The organ music was getting louder and louder. It had a sort of savage undercurrent, rather disturbing. You can tell a lot about a person from the kind of music they like, and especially how they play. I should know, music's been very important to me ever since all this began, and I think they way he played is part of why I fell for Sheik. This music though, would not make anyone fall for anyone. It was mean.

It was Ganon.

In the next room I found a bunch of pots, a wall that I could probably climb, louder organ music, and another door. I ignored the pots, entered the next door and climbed the last staircase.

It was time.