Link suspect it was a trick - any pledge to a Dark Heart is a false one. But Ganondorf looked strangely at peace - as if his concession took some of the bite from his jaw, some of the shadow from his form. He looked enlightened - as Link suspected he himself would look once he stood on the edge of the Field of Glory, in the shadow of the Triforce's Tower. This is what it was all about. This is my justification. For a moment he burned with jealousy.
"You will leave me alone."
Ganondorf smiled. "Your way is clear."
"I don't believe you."
"I didn't think you would. Which is why I'd have you kill me."
Link could not help the contemptuous, confused laugh that escaped him. No. Not like this. He never suspected it would be like this. He could not let himself believe it.
Ganondorf shrugged. "I lost this race before I began running it, child. I knew you would be my downfall - I've always known. And long ago I knew I would meet you here - this you, the truest you - in this dead town, and concede victory. I will not die again on the edge of the Field of Glory - I have dreamed it so many times, and lived it in so many worlds. Sometimes I won - oh yes, for not all of your selves is invulnerable to my wrath - but I never gained access to the Tower or it's prize. It is not for me. It never was. In this world, the only world that matters, I concede before I lay my eyes on it. For if I don't, I am truly doomed."
Link's head was spinning. There are other worlds than these. Hadn't he known? Hadn't he always known? Hadn't he used that very phrase to carry him through his many grievings? When the princess fell, her broken body splayed on the cobblestones at the base of her high castle, hadn't she said on her dying breath, "I am never lost to you. Not here, not ever," and hadn't he smiled and nodded and let her leave this life with love? With not hope, but knowledge of what she spoke?
He managed to say, "You are doomed anyway, fiend and foe."
Ganondorf stood. He brushed the dirt off his cloak as if it mattered. "It is done. I'd have you kill me now, if you don't mind. I'd like the sun to be the last thing I see."
Link stood and grabbed his daggers. They were steady in his hands. Ganondorf turned his back and held his head up to the sky.
A million thoughts raced through his mind then. Memories like flashes of lightening; faces he'd long tried to forget, he'd begged to forgive him; creatures who'd barred the way with their sick, salivating jaws and catching claws; miles and miles and miles of roads, all leading here. He would have won. Not just a hero's assertion - didn't his life's greatest enemy just admit it? It was fated - it was written. No matter the death and destruction along the way - he would have won the Tower and the Triforce. In the only world that mattered, all that had once mattered to him was lost, and he the ever-willing sacrificer. Without this man, he would have gained his goal and been able to return home to the once loving arms of so many.
It was rage that drove the knifes home, and a cry so full of pain that had there been any life in the town, it would have wept in despair. Indeed, the very buildings seemed to tremble.
Ganondorf just stood there, two hilts quivering in his back. He made not a sound, but his breathing had quickened.
Link grabbed the knives and yanked them out. Ganondorf let out a little sigh - the last sound this most evil man would make - the last sight he would have not of the sun, but of Link, coming around to face him and claim his head.
Link did not leave Burgis Batal that afternoon - he stoked the fire and saw to the horse - no particular allegiance to his fallen master, as Grimghest regarded him without fear or suspicion. Link patted his velvety muzzle and remembered he once had a horse he called friend.
He took the head of Ganondorf to the edge of town. There he placed it upon a sharpened stick, facing the road he'd travelled. Ganondorf's eyes were rolled back white, and his jaw hung slack and humourless. This is all I can offer, Link thought, fighting tears. This is my apology to all I have betrayed keeping my first promise.
Was it in vain? Was it truly? For after he'd mounted the head at it's watching post, and buried the body in the shallow dirt behind the stable, he remembered something Ganondorf had said, and passed over: Did it ever occur to you that I had as little choice in my part as you do in yours? He poked at the fire heartlessly, lost in thought. Grimghest had come closer to fight the chilling afternoon - the firelight danced across his shiny black hide, and Link was startled by his seemingly sudden appearance.
We are both blameless, he thought bitterly. We are both victims to the power of the Triforce.
After a while he thought, I will gain the Tower. I will release the Triforce, and wield it's power to heal all wounds.
He looked at the silhouette of his foe's speared head against the darkening sky.
I did you a service you did not deserve. I freed you from your task, thankless and hopeless though it was. It is I alone who am damned. This final villainy - a triumph above all others for you and your kind. I leave here not with hope, but doubt. And you - you - are now free.
He smiled a bitter smile.
You have won the day.
He let the fire burn, mounted Grimghest, and fled the of town in the gathering dusk. He did not look behind him - not then, not ever again.