Day VIII

The Pillar.

"Just a dream."

The dream never visited Ganondorf again. The only scar it left him with was a night of dreamless sleep…hours of dreamless silence.

Kaysho dreamed, but he dreamed of other things. Of Goddesses, of endless waters, of Ganondorf, of red. They were neither good or bad dreams…just visions.

"Hey, Kaysho…" Ganondorf asked his companion, one afternoon. He was sitting on the floor of the very first level of the temple, leaning against a statue. The statue depicted an ancient god, with the head of a jackal.

"Yes?" Kaysho replied a second later, and lifted his head to face Ganondorf, and the jackal god.

"If you…" Ganondorf paused, trying to figure out how to ask what was on his mind, "What would you do…if you could change the world?" Ganondorf leaned forward from the statue, and rested his elbows on his knees.

"Change the world?" Kaysho asked, "It is not mine to change. Besides, I have a good life here. The world is yours to change, not mine." Kaysho said with a content nod, then smiled.

"Mine?" Ganondorf asked.

"You are the heir to a throne, are you not?" Kaysho stated, and lifted his ears.

"Well…yes," Ganondorf admitted, "But I won't make a good king…a boy can only do so much."

"Nonsense!" Kaysho argued, and sat up, "You take good care of me…you lead me. It's the same as that. A king takes good care of his subjects."

Ganondorf paused, then averted his eyes to the ground, "That's because I care about you."

Kaysho blinked, "eh….Thank you." He said, slightly confused. What Kaysho didn't realize from Ganondorf's tone, what that he implied that he did not care about his future subjects. They were on the other side of the wall inside his mind. He, his soul, and Kaysho on one side. The world on the other.

"I believe…"

Kaysho dreamt. He had fallen asleep in front of the fireplace as usual, while tonight, Ganondorf stayed awake in the long hours of the night, going through his books and studies. Something about the ancient stories intrigued him, even more so than the more modern books of sorcery. In the late darkness of the night, he'd read of the Gerudo Goddess of the Sand, and even further back, into scrolls no over library or temple contained.

"No one can stop my turning…"

Kaysho dreamed on, as Ganondorf read. Ancient stories of Horus, Ra, Anubis, and other deities. The riddling creature called the Sphinx, the Tome of Eternal Darkness, the Dragon of Heaven and the Dragon of Earth. He probably would have read through the darkness of every night, if sleep hadn't found him first.

"No matter how you try to hold me…"

That night, Ganondorf dug deeper through the stacks of scrolls, and shelves full of dusty books. "All too new…" He mumbled to himself in discontent, and dug deeper into the Papyri stacks. He'd reached the bottom of the pile, when one scroll caught his eye. Before him was a deep, dirty tanned color scroll, and from the looks of it, was literally falling apart. It was tied with a red string, from the looks of it, it was perhaps the oldest scroll in the Spirit Temple. 'I wonder why I've never seen this before,' He though, 'Although…it isn't very appealing to the eye.' He reached over, and touched the crinkled papyrus, feeling with his fingers for the tie of the string.

"Kaysho!"

From across the room, in front of the fireplace, a voice called to Kaysho in his sleep. He gasped a little, and instantly lifted his head. 'Someone calling to me…' He thought.

Facing opposite of Kaysho, and unbeknownst that he had awoken, Ganondorf reached for the bright red string on the ancient scroll, and started to gradually pull on it, to slip the knot tied tight many years ago.

"Kaysho!"

"The one called Kaysho!"

Kaysho, half sleepily stood up, and looked to the doorway, wondering if it was Kotake calling to him, or perhaps Koume. He stepped out of the room, and started down the hallway and up a circular flight of stairs, following the voice.

"Kaysho!"

Ganondorf, blinked, then put the scroll down again. 'How stupid of me…' He thought, and looked at the red string again, 'Red string means medicine…black is magic…white is legends.' He set the scroll down, very slowly. For some strange reason…the papyri suddenly seemed very heavy. He blinked once, 'Very heavy…for so thin a thing.'

"Come forth, the one called Kaysho!"

Higher and higher Kaysho followed, and the voice became louder, and more commanding. "Come! Come Forth!" It shouted at him. When it shouted, Kaysho jumped a little, and started to walk faster. Eventually, he was running around the corners, through the corridors, and up the stairwells, his paws scratching against the titled floor and his body brushing up against the sandstone walls.

"Show thyself!"

Kaysho reached the highest heights of the temple, and walked into a large room. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, they were all written on in the same strange, ancient language he'd seen on the mirror. There was no place uncovered with the symbols, all in a absolute perfect geometric order, not one out of place by even a millimeter. The room was huge, running to one end then back again could easily make a human tired. The ceiling was extremely high, and matched the walls so that the room created the shape of a flawless cube. Inside was a disturbing sense of nothing, and all was quiet. But Kaysho looked down and saw that a man made stream stretched through the room, cut into the cold tile beneath his feet. The stream started on the left side of the room, went through the middle, formed a square, then exited on the right side of the room. The stream came in strait lines that fitted into the tiled grid that he stood on. The square of water in the exact midpoint of the floor made the floor inside the square of water seem like a small island. And in the exact middle of the island, stood a lone pillar.

Kaysho was intrigued by the entire room, because of it's silence, and it's perfection. And because of the lone pillar. Every step he took towards it echoed, a soft sound from his small paws. He walked over to the pillar, then circled it a couple of times. 'It's beautiful!' He thought, 'But so strange, too.' He encircled it once more, till he was facing the side he's started at. Kaysho sat down in his puzzlement, and Looked into the deep, gleaming pillar. It looked to be made of Hematite. It too, like the walls, was in tune with the geometric perfection of the room. The pillar was a prefect rectangle on each side, and on each side were also lines and lines of strange symbols. Kaysho bent down a little, and started looking at the strange symbols. One after another, each more unusual looking than the other. He'd seen Ganondorf reading this strange language once, and could only wonder how.

"…Ah!" Kaysho said suddenly, and took a step back. There they were again. The same symbols on the bottom of the mirror…the same three emotively familiar symbols. They stood right in front of his face, and he stared at them for a while, not moving from his spot. Just sitting and staring. Then, something inside his mind screamed at him, compelling him to slowly raise his paw. The screaming in his head that he couldn't make sense of kept raising his paw higher and higher, until he was holding it right above the three symbols. Kaysho blinked, and the screaming left him, and he remembered nothing of it. 'Should…I?' He wondered, and stared even further into the pillar. Kaysho's curiosity got the got the best of him, and he slowly set the pads of his paw down on the cold metal. He felt the pattern of the symbols, deeply carved into the pillar…the very cold pillar. 'So cold!' Kaysho thought, and quickly took his paw away. Or so he thought.

Ganondorf had found himself another story to read. Though his mind occasionally drifted back to the scroll, what really distracted him was the distinct feeling he felt. He felt that something wasn't right.

Kaysho's paw wouldn't move from the cold, smooth surface. 'Is it frozen?' he thought naively, 'But nothing can freeze that fast, can it?' He yanked and pulled and desperately tried to pull his paw away from the strange characters that were beneath his paws, and the cold pillar. The cold pillar that was starting to grow warmer. Kaysho finally wrenched his paw away from the surface, and sighed in relief, then looked over at where it had been stuck. His instantly became silent, and his ears stood strait up. Kaysho's narrow, slit eyes grew wide. "…No." he mumbled softly.

The three characters on the pillar were glowing, glowing a bright sky blue, that could almost be considered white. Kaysho took a step back, into the now thick air. A light mist was coming from the letters, and was starting to fill the room, from the center out. The letters started to glow brighter, and reflected themselves in Kaysho's wide eyes…in his pupils. Never before had the world seen…that deadly black which lay within a keaton.

"What?" Ganondorf whispered suddenly, though no one was there to hear him. He looked down at what he'd been writing…his pen had snapped, and the ink from the bottle spilled all over the canvas he was writing on. It reminded him of blood. 'What was that…?' Ganondorf thought, and set the pen down, 'I thought I heard something. Did I hear…?'

"Who are you…?" Kaysho asked of the glowing pillar, confused, afraid…and vulnerable.

"Show Thyself, O Morning and Evening Star!"