Worlds Apart - Part II

by Miss Lydia

Ganondorf has free reign of Hyrule and is slowly destroying the land. To his surprise, seven years after he gained power, his sworn enemies reappear and strike back! Link and the sorcerers set out to save Hyrule! (Read Worlds Apart - Part I first!)

17. Chapter 17

Worlds Apart
Part II
By Miss Lydia

Chapter 17

The pure hearts of the three adventurers were full of new strive and determination.  Not only must they save Hyrule from its fate of destruction, but a true victim of the Evil King needed help as well.  They landed at Lake Hylia and didn't slow their pace.  Lydia walked up straight, her shredded up brown hair dangling behind her, just below her shoulders.  Nabooru's pink ribbon fluttered in the wind as it dangled from her sword's hilt. 

Just as determined, Link and Gordon followed closely.  Gordon's spiked flail was hooked to his belt, and he touched it with anticipation.  Link didn't slow as he slipped his blue tunic over his head, never taking his eyes away from their next goal. 

The three heroes of Hyrule were ready and waiting for their next challenge!

After the transfer into the Iron Boots, Link made his way down to the Water Temple, and after some magical preparation, the sorcerers followed.

"Okay, Hero," Lydia called as they reached the bottom, "do your stuff."

Link planted himself a short distance from the iron gate in the wall.  He reached behind his shield and pulled out Dampé's Hookshot.  Closing one eye, he aimed at the diamond above the door.

"Here goes nothing," he said, then let it go.

The hook shot forward, dragging the chain behind it.  Even in the water, the hook didn't slow in its path.  It hit the diamond dead on target, and the diamond gave.  It moved down a notch from its position, then slowly moved in closer to the wall.  With a loud creak, the rusty old iron gates shook and started to rise.

Lydia clapped Link on the shoulder, then swam forward toward the rising gates.  She was slightly overanxious and impatient now that she had seen Nabooru's true state.  All she could think about was moving forward in their quest and actually getting something accomplished for a change.

Link grabbed her ankle as she swam by.  "Hang on, now," he said.  "We should go in together.  Don't leave us behind."

Gordon grabbed her other ankle and pulled her down to the sand floor of the lake.  "He's right, you know."

Lydia crossed her arms.  "I know he's right.  He's always right."  Her eyes darkened and she scowled.  "I just...I just want to finish this.  I want to give Ganondorf what he's had coming to him for seven long years."

"Fine.  I agree with you."  Link waved a finger.  "But leaving us behind won't do you any good."  He started forward, brushing past her.  Gordon followed him closely.  Lydia shrugged and grabbed the back of Link's tunic as he walked by, letting him pull her along for the ride, too lazy to swim for herself.

Once they had passed under the metal gate, a wall appeared almost immediately.  It was only about six feet high, and the water ended at the top of the wall.  Link was tall enough to reach up and pull himself up and out of the water without taking off his Iron Boots.  Gordon swam up and climbed out.  Lydia sprung up off the floor and steadied herself on the wall with one knee.

The top of the wall was actually a dry platform that was the beginning of a long hallway.  There was light near the end.  Link started forward immediately toward the light.  The sorcerers hung back a little.  Lydia leaned against the wall of the hallway and wrung water out of what was left of her hair.  Ahead, Link stopped at the end of the hallway and gazed around the room beyond it.

"Well, I'm glad the temple is dry," Lydia said to her brother, who was twisting water out of his shirt.  "I thought we'd certainly be messing around with some water maze or something.  I don't really feel like coming out of this looking like a prune anyway."

At the end of the hall, Link turned around and cleared his throat very loudly, to get her attention.  When she glanced up at him, he used his thumb to point behind him, into the room ahead.

The sorcerers trotted ahead and glanced over Link's shoulder, into the lit room.  Gordon sighed loudly, and Lydia made an almost inaudible squeak.

The room was huge.  In fact, it was three levels of rooms, and the hallway the trio stood in was in the third story.  The whole room was full of water, all the way up to the dry floor where they were.

Lydia squatted down and put her hands behind her head.  "Oh, man."

Link waved ahead, into the room.  "Ma'am, your water maze."

"This sucks."

"You said it."

Gordon got down on his knees and peered down to the submerged lower levels.  "There are so many paths to take."  He jabbed his finger into the air, counting the rooms.  "....ten....'leven....twelve."

Link's head flopped back.  "Twelve paths to take?" he said to the ceiling.  "For the love of Nayru....  Well, maybe we—"

"NO, we are not splitting up again."  Lydia stood back up quickly.  "Especially not in this temple.  The Fire Temple was easy.  One way or the other.  But look how many different ways to go there are here.  We could get lost.  And the best way to get lost is together."

"Uh, I wasn't about to suggest that at all.  I was going to suggest that maybe we should take a look around before going too deep into this place."

Gordon crossed his arms and nodded.  "I see.  Get to know the place first."

Lydia gazed down into the deep water.  "Yeah, but still....  There are so many flippin' ways to go.  How do we know where to even start?"

A voice spoke up behind them.  "Perhaps I can be of assistance...?"

Startled, the group whirled around.  Link instinctively gripped the hilt of the Master Sword as a reaction to the sound.  Standing at the other end of the hallway, near the entrance, was Princess Ruto.  Her fins fluttered as she smiled at Link.

"Oh!" Gordon stepped forward.  "I thought you were at Zora's Fountain."

"Yeah!"  Lydia waved a finger at her.  "Why aren't you there?"

The Zora shrugged.  "I was...but I felt rather useless there.  Besides, I have information that I should have given to my sweet fiancé before I left before."

"Information?"

"Yes.  Being the princess of the Zora race, I know the secrets this temple hides within the many paths and hallways."

Link leaned against the wall and smiled at her, silently asking her to go on.

Lydia was slightly more verbal than that.  "We could really use that now.  Out with it."

Ruto blinked at her.  "You don't have to be so...forward...about it.  You sure are forward in just about everything."

"You think I'm forward about things?"  The sorceress chewed down the mischievous smile that threatened to spread across her face.  "What about you being forward about Long Ears over there?"

Link appeared behind her.  "Okay, forget about that for now."  He tugged Lydia back by the collar of her shirt, then turned to the Zora.  "Could you please tell us what you know?"

Ruto suddenly got all dreamy-eyed and looked at Link with complete adoration.  "Of course.  I'll tell you whatever you want to know, dear fiancé."

Lydia rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall.

"First of all," Ruto began, "much to your relief, I'm sure, the Water Temple is not nearly as large or as complicated as it looks."

"I dunno," Lydia mumbled, peering into the three-level room.  "It looks pretty large and complicated to me."

"That's the Water Temple's tricky illusion at work."

"Illusion?" Link asked her.

The Zora nodded.  "Yes.  Mr. Gordon, I believe you counted twelve paths to take, did you not?  In reality, there should be only two paths that actually lead anywhere.  The others are either dead ends or they intertwine with other fake paths."

"How odd," Gordon commented thoughtfully.  "Why would a temple be built in such a fashion?"

"The most obvious reason was to cause anyone who wandered in here to get lost."

Link leaned against the wall.  "That makes sense, I suppose."

"Plus, there are many traps in the false paths to destroy the lost trespassers."

"Why on earth are there so many traps in here?"

"It is said that somewhere in the temple, a giant ruby is hidden, that is worth much on the market."

"Really?" Gordon's dark eyebrows raised with interest.

Ruto nodded.  "Oddly enough, the rumor about the giant ruby only came about recently, around the time Ganon came to power.  Many Zoras have ventured into the Water Temple after it, and none ever returned."

"Sounds like some kind of ghost story for the campfire."

"That is why there is an iron gate at the entrance.  A few years ago, my father got fed up with the disappearances, and sealed the temple.  We haven't lost one Zora since."

Link drummed on the wall with his fingers.  "I had no idea such a dangerous place existed in Hyrule."

Ruto sighed.  "I've been in this temple before – back when Hyrule was still peaceful.  Just like now, there were mostly dead-end paths.  But there were never death traps.  I believe the traps are a new addition of Ganondorf's."

Gordon rubbed his chin throughtfully.  "Perhaps the giant ruby belongs to him.  If it is worth a lot, he'd prevent it from being stolen.  Death traps are his style, after all."

"Hmph." Lydia grunted.  "Everything nowadays has traps.  We'll just have to avoid those."  She looked up at the Zora.  "Do you know which of these paths are the real ones?"

Link and Gordon looked at Ruto expectantly.

"Not specifically, I'm afraid," she said with obvious regret in her voice.

Gordon slid to the floor and sat down.  "How do we know which is a fake path and which is a real path without going into one and getting caught by a trap?"

Lydia shook her head.  "I dunno.  It seems that we'll just have to find out by trial and error."

Ruto smiled and stepped closer to Link.  "My dear fiancé, I have not been wasting the last few days at the frozen fountain.  I have traveled around Hyrule, and have visited three Great Fairies."

"The Great Fairies?" Link asked.  "Why?"

"I have brought you gifts from them, to help you in your quest."  As she spoke, a white mist swirled around her hands, and three diamonds appeared in her palms."

Link looked at them like a curious child.  "What are they?"

"Magical spells, for if you are ever caught without your sorcerer companions."  She happily gave the large diamonds to Link.  "Din's Fire, which gives you power over fire.  Fanore's Wind, to escape from danger.  Nayru's Love, for protection."

Lydia scratched her head.  "Din, Fanore, and Nayru.  Aren't those the three goddesses of Hyrule?"

Link smiled.  "Once again, they are very useful gifts.  Thank you very much."

The Zora turned red and got giggly. 

The sorceress rolled her eyes.  "We should really get moving now.  Ruto, I think it'd be smarter if you stayed behind."

Ruto scoffed.  "No.  I'm coming with you.  I don't want to be useless when my race is in danger!  I'm the princess"

"But you haven't been useless.  You've helped us a lot.  You need to go back outside, where it's safe, because you're the princess."

The Zora's face turned hard.  "Don't make me repeat myself."  She smacked her hands on her hips.  "I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

"Fine!  But don't come crying to me when some monster eats you!"

"Girls, girls, girls!" Link waved his hands between them.  "Knock it off!"  He sighed loudly, forced himself to smile, then turned to Ruto.  "I have to agree with Lydia on this one.  You indeed have been a big help, and I think I'd feel better if you'd stay where it's safe.  After all, if you want to be my wife someday, you need to stay safe."

Lydia's fists clenched and unclenched.  If you want to be my WIFE someday?  She wasn't sure why, but she wanted to kill the Hylian right then.

Ruto's face melted and her eyes grew to twice their size.  "Oh, you're right of course.  I'll do just as Miss Lydia says and wait outside."  She hugged Link tightly around the neck. 

The sorceress was steaming.

Ruto let go of him and stepped back.  She smiled and waved to the trio, then turned and dove into the water.  In seconds, she had disappeared back through the iron gates, back to Lake Hylia.

Gordon knew his sister well.  He cleared his throat loudly and stepped as far away from her as he could.  Link backed away from her until he was practically climbing up the wall.

Lydia pounced on him and climbed up his back like a spider.  "Wife, huh?  Wife?" she shouted as she repeatedly beat down on his head.  "I thought you didn't want to marry that Zora!  What's with the sudden change of heart?"

Under her, Link squirmed around and tried to throw her off.  "Ahh!  Ow!  Ow!  I didn't mean it!  We all know that saying something like that would be the only way that she'd leave!  I didn't mean it, you hear?"

"Excuses, excuses!  You fool!  That'll only make it worse!  How could you say that to her?  Didn't you even stop to think how I'd feel about that?"  She stopped short as soon as she realized what just slipped out.

Gordon tapped his foot on the floor.  Cat's out of the bag.

Caught off guard, Link looked over his shoulder at the sorceress clinging to his back.  "What do you mean by that?"

Lydia stuttered horribly and flushed bright red.  "I...I...well....n-nothing...,"  She slipped to the floor and stepped back a little bit, really embarrassed.

Link just looked at her, then turned a little red himself. 

She continued moving backward.  "That didn't mean anything okay?" she said quickly.  "I was just mad, and you know how when I'm mad, I talk fast."

"Now who's making excuses?"  He reached up and pushed on Lydia's forehead with one finger.  "Caught ya."

Link's push caused Lydia to step back again, and this time, there was no ground beneath her feet.  With a wail, she tumbled back into the water-filled room at the end of the hall.  She resurfaced quickly, and Gordon and Link were both laughing down at her.

"You're all wet now, huh?" Gordon called.

"Weren't you just saying something?" Link asked through his laughter.

Lydia paddled back and grabbed onto the edge.  "Oh, go lay an egg, Long Ears."

Gordon sat down on the edge and dangled his legs into the deep water.  "Well, now that we've gotten that out of our systems, what say we get started?"

The sorceress turned and looked down.  The water she was in was so deep, she couldn't even see the bottom clearly.  "I'm not goin' all the way down there."

"Can't blame you, really," she heard her brother say.

"Okay!" Lydia slapped the water next to her, then pulled herself up onto the ledge and sat between the boys.  "Here's the plan.  Link, you go to the bottom floor and see if you can figure out if any of those paths is one of the two that leads anywhere.  Gordon, you search the middle floor.  I'll search the top.  When we're finished, we'll meet back right here."

Her brother looked at her.  "A few minutes ago, weren't you just ranting that we shouldn't split up?"

"Changed my mind.  It's the only way we're gonna figure this place out."

"Y-You want me to go way down there?" Link asked, nervously pointing at himself.  "Why me?"

Lydia stared at him.  "You have the weight advantage," she replied, jabbing a finger at the Iron Boots.  "What's the matter, Hero?  Scared?"

"Of course not.  Triforce of Courage, remember?  It's just that the idea of there being lots of traps in here is making me really nervous."

"You're not the only one," Gordon said.  "I'm kinda nervous, too."

Lydia laughed.  "I'll bet my car that I'm more nervous than both of ya put together.  But we'll all be nervous together, okay?"

Link smiled.  "Right.  Okay."  He cleared his throat the peered into the water.  "Let's just be really careful.  The false paths have traps meant to kill the tresspassers."

"So...if we hit a trap, it's a false path, right?"

"I guess."

The sorceress played with her earring.  "Hmph.  Sounds too easy."

"You think so?"  Gordon asked.  "They're probably nasty traps.  I'm not too worried about Link; his reflexes will be hard to keep up with.  It's you I'm worried about."

"Well, I appreciate that, but I promise I'll be careful."  She pounded a fist into the open palm of her other hand, then turned to Link.  "Are you ready?"

Link cracked his knuckles with anticipation.  "As I'll ever be."

"Then what are you doing wasting time up here, Hero?" she scoffed back at him.  "Go, already."

She gave him a hard shove in the back, pushing him right off the platform and into the water.  The Iron Boots dragged him to the bottom in moments.  Lydia peered into the water after him.  Link seemed so small way down there.  He looked up at them, waved, then moved into the closest hallway.

When his sister looked over at him, Gordon raised his hands defensively.  "No need for a push.  I can go myself.  Is that spell of yours still in effect?  We've been out of the water for a while."

Lydia nodded.  "Yeah, it should be.  In fact, it'll probably be in effect until the middle of the night, so we have plenty of time.  Hours.  Don't worry 'bout it."

Gordon peered below his feet at the middle floor of the temple.  "Something tells me we're gonna need hours to figure out this place."  Without further words, he pushed himself off the edge and slipped into the water.  He picked the closest hallway in the floor below and swam inside. 

Left alone, the sorceress stretched her legs out, moaned loudly, then stood up on the platform.  There were three passages on this dry level of the temple that she could choose from.  One on the left, right, and straight ahead.  As she tried to decide where to go first, her own voice echoed back in her head.

Didn't you even stop to think how I'd feel about that?

"Man," she thought to herself, "that was really stupid.  I really don't think as well as I probably should.  Think before you speak next time, idiot.  Hell, I don't even know why I said something like that in the first place.  Why should I care what Long Ears says to that Zora?  Well, phooey on him, I'm not even gonna think about that right now.  I have more important things to do here."

That was her excuse to herself.  That would be her method of forgetting about it.

It didn't work too well.

God, what the hell is wrong with me?  Why DO I seem to care about what Link said to her?  I mean, it's not like I care about the guy quite like that...or anything....  No, that's Ruto's job.

Unsatisfied and angry at herself, she smacked her forehead.

Damn, why can't I just admit it to myself, finally?  I've been refusing to admit it for seven years now, and it's about time I said it.  Not to anyone else, necessarily.  More importantly, to myself.

She took a deep breath and spoke aloud, even though no one was there to hear it.

"I care about you, Link.  A lot."

There, I said it.  Was that so hard?  ....Hell yes, it was hard.

She scoffed out loud and slapped her hand across her own face.  "Snap out of it, fool.  You finally said it and it's over.  Now forget it and get to work.  The guys'll get impatient."

Easier said than done, but she gave it her best effort.

The temple suddenly seemed bigger than it had a second or two ago.  The room seemed deeper and the passages seemed darker.  She seemed really small in comparison to the world.

"Ah, crabs," she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck.  "I hope we come out of this place in one piece."

Peering down to the bottom of the central room of the temple, Lydia caught herself suddenly worried about Link.

Oh, knock it off and quit acting like some lovesick schoolgirl.

Determined to move forward and forget about it, she uttered short words of magic and levitated over to the east passageway.

Link peered down the corridor he now stood in.  When he landed on the bottom of the room, there were four ways to go, and the closest one was the north path.  The corridor wasn't very long, and took a sharp right turn at the end.

He didn't move forward right away.  Instead, he leaned on the wall just inside and crossed his arms.  He could still hear her voice in his head.

Didn't you even stop to think how I'd feel about that?

"No, I didn't.  I didn't know you cared that much…."

He slid down along the wall, sat on the floor, and thought hard.

He had known Lydia for quite a while now, and nothing he said had ever seemed to bother her.  He teased her and called her names, and poked fun at her all the time, and she always fought back with a smile on her face.  He even said some pretty sorry things when he had gotten depressed about Hyrule, and it still didn't bother her.  All she did the whole time was try to cheer him up.  They were constantly threatened by various enemies, and nothing they ever said got to Lydia.  The enemies were always feeding them death threats, but she never swallowed a single one.  She just brushed it off and threw fireballs.

But today, he had seen something completely new.  He said the one thing that he knew would make Ruto go somewhere safer, and it worked.  He really didn't mean what he said to her about being his wife someday.  He didn't want to marry Ruto at all.  And yet, it really bothered the sorceress.

How could he have been so blind? 

Besides, it's not like this is the first time she's reacted to something like that!  How could he have been so stupid?  Why didn't he pay attention before?  Plus, Gordon had been giving him hints all this time!

Why couldn't he have seen that somewhere deep down in that rock-hard personality of hers, she had feelings, just like any other person? 

And that those feelings were for him?

Disgusted with himself, Link grabbed hold of his hair with both hands and pulled on it.  "I am such an idiot!"  He felt like kicking himself.

Link stood quickly.  "I have to talk to her," he said to himself.  He turned and started back out of the corridor.  After a few steps into the main room, he stopped.  Glancing up, he could see the ripples of the surface of the water, three stories up.  He smiled to himself and shook his head.

"....Better not.  Knowing her, she'd yell at me for not doing what I came down here to do.  She'd probably try to tie my ears together."  He sighed and turned around, then started back into the corridor.  "…I'll talk to her after this is all over."

The Hylian pulled himself together quickly, then stepped inside the passage.  He moved slowly at first.  The Iron Boots clanged on the floor with every step, and the water only amplified the sound.  As he got farther in, and nothing had happened yet, he quickened his pace slightly.  He neared the right turn in the hallway.

Then he heard a click.

Instinctively, he jumped back a few feet, just as a sharp iron gate slammed shut inches in front of him.  It was a bar gate, much like the one at the entrance of the temple.  The edges of it were lined with spines.  If he hadn't jumped back, it would have sliced right through him.

There was another click.  Link jumped back again, and another gate, just like the first, snapped shut where he had just been standing.  There was another click, another jump, and a third gate.  This time, Link kept running backward.  As he went, gate after gate after gate slammed shut in front of him, each narrowly missing slicing him into two pieces.

After about fifteen individual gates, Link finally ended up back in the main room, and a final gate slammed shut at the entrance to the corridor.  He stood there, his chest heaving and his mouth hanging open.

"False...False path...." 

He turned and moved to the next one, the west corridor.  "I hope they don't get much worse than that," he muttered to himself.

Link carefully moved into the west corridor, and almost immediately had to dive out again.  A section of the left wall opened and a razor blade taller than him swung across the corridor.  Praising his quick reflexes, Link moved on to the third corridor, the north one.

It was another long hallway that took a left turn at the end.  Link moved really slowly and listened for any sounds other than the clanging of his boots.  He watched the walls, floor, and ceiling for any movement.  When he neared the left turn, something shifted in the wall at the end.  The Hylian stiffened as the wall in front of him opened up.  It moved back and slid into the right wall, revealing a second wall, covered with long steel spikes. 

Impaled in the center of the spike wall was the skeleton of a long dead Zora.

Link choked when he saw it. 

One of the Zoras that had tried to get the ruby in the temple.  This particular trap in this particular false path had done its horrible job.

The spike wall shifted and slowly began to move forward.  Link snapped back into reality and turned on his heel.  "Okay, time to move!"  Then he bolted for the main room.  The Iron Boots slowed him down a bit, but even so, being planted on the ground by them tripled his underwater moving speed.

As Link ran, the spike wall began moving faster and faster behind him.  It chased after him, as if eager to hang another victim among its steel spikes.  It got closer and closer with every passing second.

When he could almost feel the spikes poking his back, Link made a flying leap and rolled back into the main room.  The spike wall clanged into its resting place at the corridor's entrance and stopped.

Link sat down and held his aching chest with his hand.  He looked at the skeleton of the poor Zora that had been unable to outrun the spikes.  It was stretched out in the position that told the story of the absolute agony of its last few moments of life. 

"What a horribly nasty place this is," he whispered aloud.

He curled his legs close and gave the Iron Boots a thankful pat with his hand.  It's a good thing he had those things.  There would have been no way to out-swim those spikes.  He would've been next to that Zora.  Then a horrible thought crossed his mind.

By the goddesses....  If Gordon or Lydia had come down here instead of me...

A violent shudder traveled up Link's spine as he pushed the terrible image out of his head.

After gathering the pieces of his courage back together, he stood up again.  He gave the dead Zora a respectful salute, then turned and edged toward the last corridor on the bottom floor – the east path.

Link didn't walk right into the corridor this time.  Instead, he edged along the adjacent wall, pressing his back against the cold concrete.  Step by step, he neared the corridor entrance, then carefully followed the wall inside.

He pushed off the wall then, expecting something to spring out of it, and walked slowly down the middle of the corridor.  This one was perfectly straight – no turns or bends.  Completely paranoid, the Hylian edged down the hallway.  Every sense was perked, expecting the unexpected.

Eventually, he hit another small wall.  It was only about as tall as Link, just like the one at the entrance.  He gripped the edges and heaved himself up to the top of the small wall.  Just like at the entrance, the water ended there, and he was up on a dry platform.  Ahead was another corridor.  Now convinced he was finally getting somewhere, Link pressed on.

There was a light at the end of the corridor.  When the corridor ended, there was a large, empty room, except for a single dead tree in the middle.  The floor was very misty – it was like a shallow lake at sunrise.

Link didn't step inside.  He just looked in from his place at the end of the hall.  After a few moments, he turned and started to head back.

"I found one of the two real paths.  The east path on the bottom floor actually leads somewhere."

He reached the small wall and jumped back into the water, and started trekking back to the main room.  He had to hurry back to meet up with the sorcerers.

"I just hope that I got the worst of the traps," he said.  "I hope the others are okay."

He thought of the Zora skeleton and shuddered again.

I don't understand those two at all.  Why don't they just come out and SAY it to each other instead of being all sneaky?

As soon as Link had gone into his first hallway, Gordon swam into the closest one, which was the south path of the second floor.

"They're so screwy," he said quietly to himself.  "Lydia's in denial and Link's completely unobservant.  I've been helping them along for a while, but they're stubborn."  He shrugged heartilly.  "Ah, well, they'll come around.  As for me, I have work to do.  We have a temple to crack."

He swam down the corridor, taking his time.  He held onto the wall and pulled himself along by putting his fingers in the tile cracks.

At the end of the hallway, there was a right turn.  When the turn was in sight, he saw something move in the wall ahead.  Several tiles slid open, and a trap was sprung.

Around two dozen silver arrowheads shot themselves from the wall.  There were no shafts on these arrows.  Only the sharp, pointy part.  Two dozen of them were rocketing down the corridor, with amazing speed, considering that this floor was underwater, right toward the sorcerer.

Gordon's adrenilin kicked in and he threw his hands out.  "Chaos String!"

Hundreds of very thin strings of white magic sprung from his fingers and formed a make-shift web in front of him.  The arrowheads hit the strings and got entangled, stopping in their path.  Gordon shook the strings from his hands, and the arrowheads sank to the bottom of the hallway, still tangled in the pile of magic strings.

The sorcerer heaved a sigh of relief.  "Fake path," he told himself, then turned and swam back to the main room.

Once back in the large main room, he moved right and swam over to the east corridor.  He peered around the corner and looked inside.  The corridor obviously ended a ways in, but he couldn't tell from where he was if it turned somewhere, or just dead-ended.  So he edged inside, and once again used the walls to move ahead.

The end of the corridor was indeed a dead end.  It didn't turn left or right.  It simply stopped.

Gordon scoffed.  "Another fake."

With a shrug, he turned around and started to make his way back.  Then there was a short rumble, and the ceiling opened up in the corridor, right above the entrance at the beginning.  A huge boulder fell through the opening and landed in the corridor.  It was large enough to fill the entire hallway.  It completely blocked Gordon's way back into the main room.

And then the boulder started rolling.  Not out into the main room.  Rather, into the corridor, straight at Gordon, who was trapped like a rat in the dead end.  The boulder picked up speed quickly as it hurried to squash the trespasser.

Gordon knew he could get out of this situation, but the fact that he was cornered like this gave the element of fear a chance to edge into his brain.  It delayed his reaction by a couple of seconds, and he had trouble thinking of what to do.

When the boulder was halfway down the corridor, Gordon's head cleared and he saw his way out of this trap.  He balled his fists and held them out in front of him.

"Dolph Zork!"

The water that surrounded him quickly massed between his balled fists and snapped together to form a long water blade.  With a shout, Gordon swung his arms out and sent the blade flying.  It cut right through the boulder, breaking it into a hundred small pieces.  The sorcerer held his arms up in front of his head as the small stones whizzed by him and smashed into the dead end wall.

Gordon raked his hand down his face.  "Geez.  Ganondorf really doesn't want his ruby stolen."

He moved up to the north corridor next. 

After only a few feet inside, another trap sprung.  The ceiling above opened up and a wall of spikes started decending quickly down on him.  It would be impossible to swim out of the way.  Gordon only had a fraction of a second to react, but as a sorcerer, that was all he needed.

"Diem Wing!"

In the water, the air spell had a different effect.  The force of the spell blew him backward.  He sailed out of the way of the spikes just as they crashed into the floor where he had been, each spike making small dents in the tile floor.

When he gathered himself and look back again, he saw something sticking out from under the spikes.  His chest collapsed when he realized what it was.  It was an arm – the arm of a Zora skeleton.  The skeleton was impaled on the spikes.  They had come down on Gordon so fast that he hadn't even seen the bones before reacting.

"These traps are serious!" he heaved. 

Eager to leave this temple as soon as possible, he moved on to the west corridor, the last one in his section of the temple.

He carefully edged into the west hall, and soon came up to a small platform.  He grabbed hold of the top and pulled himself up, finding it dry.  He hauled himself up out of the water, shook the water off of his shoes, then moved forward.

The dry hallway ended quickly.  At the end was a dead-end circular room.  There were no other paths out of this room.  It was just a plain, empty room with curved walls.

Having learned to expect the worst in this place, Gordon did not enter the room.  He stood at the end of the hallway, just outside the circle.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin.  He tossed the coin ahead of him.  It bounced several times and came to rest near the center of the room.  Within seconds, the ceiling of the circular room rumbled and shook, then crashed down to the floor with amazing speed.  The weight of the ceiling made huge cracks in the floor and scattered rubble everywhere.  Anything in there would have been crushed.

It was obvious to Gordon that he wasn't going to get his coin back. 

The sorcerer sighed and cracked his back.  "Glad that's over," he sighed.  "This floor is nothing but traps." 

He snarled loudly, thinking of the Zora skeleton he had seen.  "What a crap-hole this place is."

Disgusted and angry, the sorcerer briskly headed back to the meeting place on the third floor.

The east corridor of the third floor was completely silent, save for the sound of Lydia's shoes on the stone floor.  She could smell the humidity and could feel the heat.  She wanted to get this over with.

The hall she was in was straight, until it took a right turn at the end.  The sorceress swiftly moved through the hallway.  About halfway in, she saw a discolored spot on the wall.  It was a square ring of discolor that circled the hallway.  The band of off-color was about three feet wide.

Lydia stopped in her tracks.  "This is too obvious if I notice it.  May be smart to send a scout ahead."

She closed her eyes and held her hands in front of her.  "Ferrous Bleed."  A ball of light began to glow between her hands, and after a few seconds, it formed into the shape of a small dove.  Satisfied with herself, Lydia held the dove with one hand and stroked its white wings with the other.

"Okay, little one," she said to it, "you're gonna be my lookout."  She gently waved her hand in the direction of the turn at the end of the corridor, and the dove beat its wings and flew ahead down the hall.

As it was flying past the band of discolored wall, the off-colored tiles opened up, and two thin walls of steel spikes came out of the walls and slammed into each other, barely missing the dove as it flew between, only managing to clip off its tail feathers.  The dove turned into a ball of light and vanished.

Lydia gritted her teeth.  "What IS it with ancient dungeons and spike wall traps?  They all have them.  ...I suppose they are efficient, but still..."  She grunted again, turned, and ran back to the main hallway and flew over to the north corridor.

The north path was a very short hallway that immediatly opened up into a humongous room.  Torches lined the walls, and at the far end was a huge set of double iron doors.  

Lydia gawked.  "This one definitely leads somewhere."

She moved in and examined the doors.  They were made of really sturdy iron, and would not be easy to open.  Only her strongest spells would open these.  Right in the center of the right door was a hollow in the shape of a sphere.  It sat empty, waiting for something to be inserted.

"Hmm....," Lydia rubbed her neck.  "Needs some kind of key or something...  I'll have to show this to the guys.  But for now, I have one more hallway to check.

Within minutes, she had moved into the west corridor, the last unchecked path on her floor.

The corridor was completely straight, and it looked like it the end was a dead-end wall, but Lydia figured it'd probably be smart to check it anyway.

When she was about halfway down the hall, the ground beneath her suddenly disappeared with her next step as a trap door in the floor opened up.  As soon as she realized she was falling, the sorceress frantically reached out to catch herself on something.  She somehow managed to grab hold of the far edge of the hole.  Her stomach slammed into the wall of the pit, knocking the wind out of her lungs.  She gasped for air, and the fact that she had just been badly startled wasn't helping.

As she hung there like some kind of bait, Lydia's heart raced, not realizing until now what had just happened.  It had happened so fast that there had been no time to think.  She swallowed hard, then worked up the courage to look down.

Several feet below her toes, the pit ended.  Sticking up were dozens of long steel spikes.  The spikes were stained with dark red blood, and several Zora skeletons lay entangled among them, twisted with the agony of their deaths.

Lydia was so disgusted and terrified that she shrieked out loud.  Her arms trembled and she almost lost her grip on the wall.  With a sudden burst of adrenilin, the sorceress pulled herself up out of the pit, back onto the solid ground of the corridor.  There she sat for a long time with her hand over her mouth, unable to ward off the sudden terror and sickness she felt.  She felt like a lost, scared child.

All in one move, she stood, closed her eyes, and jumped back over the pit.  She only made it a few feet more before her knees gave out from fear.  She stopped and slumped down against the wall, then started crying into her hands.

"Oh God Oh God Oh God.  I don't want to be here!  I can't handle this!  I can't stay here!"

She tried to tell her legs to stand up and start running back to the exit, but they wouldn't obey.  They just stayed curled underneath her, as if they knew her companions would need help, and that she shouldn't run.

That's when she realized what they had gotten themselves into by coming here.  All the Zoras that came in here were killed.  And now it was possible that they could be killed, as well.  For all she knew, Link and Gordon could have already been caught by the traps.  She might never see either of them alive again.

Lydia had been scared when Ganondorf attacked them seven years before.  She had been scared when Link pulled the Master Sword and disappeared into the Sacred Realm.  She had been scared when Volvagia tried to eat her and her brother.  She had been scared when Nabooru tried to slice her to pieces.

But this left those all behind.

All she could do was sit there and cry.