A/N: I hope you all like my time-travel system. Yes, there will be no back and forth in the Temple of Time. This is gonna be a little different, but fun! I'm excited!
Why did Mudora do that whole chapter? It was fun. And it got across some other ideas I'm building in the Forest Temple. But mostly, it introduced the time-travel system and I got to reinstate Link's friendship w/ Saria. Man, Saria's great. Anyway, enjoy this chappy and review, plz!
A Hero's PathChapter 27: Death and Second Death
Link walked back through the Door of Time and it slammed shut behind him. His eyes were unaccustomed to the dim light of the main chamber of the temple, still lit by the two strange fires. Navi greeted him heartily.
"You'd better not leave me behind!" she said in a tough voice. "That wasn't nice. Come on, let's go!"
Link started walking back out toward the middle of the room. He was now an adult once more.
"Link? Aren't we going through the Door of Time?"
"What? Didn't you notice I was gone for almost half an hour?"
"What are you talking about? Don't be dumb! You walked through and came back, immediately."
Link pondered a moment. "No time passed?"
"What are you talking about?" she repeated louder than before.
Link walked under the blue flame and unrolled the parchment Saria had given him.
"What's that?" Navi was quieting down a little.
"A gift. From a friend," Link stated briefly.
"Where'd you get that?"
Link just stared at the map. He recognized the whole western wing as being where he had gone to obtain his bow and slay two of the ghostly sisters. But there were many places he hadn't been. In the two rooms where he had stopped the poes, Saria had marked the braziers that were in them. But at the twisted corridor, she marked two different paths. One was the way Link had gone. The other was something completely different, leading to another room with a brazier. He had to get there.
Link hurried back up the staircase that led into the west wing of the temple. Through the door was the great room with the bubbles. He hurried up through the walkways and hallways of the room, until he reached the next door. All the while, Navi was saying, "Link, where are we going? Come on, I'm here too! What are you doing!"
Through this door was that twisted hallway that led to that strange room with windows and doors on every facet. The eye was still above the door, searching. Link checked the map again. Yes, this was where the paths split. He remembered Saria saying something about the eyes closing and flipping sections of the temple. He didn't know how he was supposed to make those eyes close, but he improvised.
He knocked an arrow in his bowstring and drew back, aiming at the eye. It gazed straight at him, and appeared to widen in fright. He fired the arrow, and the eye closed tightly to seal out the oncoming missile. Link rushed through the door. The hall was straight now. He was relieved, though even more confused than before.
"Whoa," Navi said. "How'd you know to do that?"
"Saria told me," he said, intentionally leaving out when and where. He didn't feel like explaining all of this to Navi. She was no longer his friend, just an aid, his fairy guide.
"What? You met Saria?" She just wouldn't leave him alone. Fine. He'd tell her.
"I went through that door. It took me back seven years ago, before there was any evil here, out in the courtyard. Saria gave me a map and some advice. There, you happy?"
"Wow. That sounds like an important piece of information you left out," Navi said.
"Yeah, well I didn't feel like sharing."
"Would you just grow up?"
"Would you just shut up? I mean seriously, Navi. You think your nagging and whining is gonna make this any better? I just…" They were silent as they slowly progressed down the hall. At the other end, they went through the door. The room Link now stood in was flipped on its side from before. The door he had gone through was now on the ceiling, and the window he'd seen with the checkered wall behind was now on the floor.
This temple was an incredible image of exactly how Link felt right now. Everything was so dark, so hidden from him. The goddesses would leave him little bits to show him the way, but he just had to guess the rest of the way. At any given moment, his life would spin over again and change completely. And above all was his unfinished childhood, sealed away somewhere in the expanse of his life.
Finally, Link broke the silence. "I just don't know… anything, anymore, Navi. I thought I knew. But… I have no ground to stand on anymore. The Great Deku Tree's gone, Ganondorf's here, Saria's in trouble… This wonderful, bright world is dark from one end to the other, a masked man who I know nothing about knows more about me than I do, and my best friend doesn't even remember why she's my best friend! It's just… so… hard."
Navi was stunned. She knew all of those things, but hadn't considered how much of a combined impact they had made on Link. He was falling apart, even though he had to be a hero. "I… I'm sorry," Navi said.
"You're sorry?" Link said, scanning the room for any other possible exits. Nothing. "That's it? My life's gone down in flames and my one rock, pillar, trust, my one friend in this harsh environment can only say, 'I'm sorry'!" He jumped down through the hole, still looking out on the black and white checkered surface.
"Link!" Navi said, dropping down the hole after him.
He fell a long way, but landed without much of a sound, and no pain hit his legs. The ground was firm, though. He was facing a wall. Suddenly, there was a tremor in the ground and a loud crashing sound. Link turned to see the expansive, checker-floored room.
Pillars stuck to the ground, connected to a large surface covering a majority of the checkered floor. They raised, and the surface uncovered the floor. The surface raised high, to blend in with the ceiling, then fell rapidly down. It crashed into the checkered floor, shaking the ground and making the same loud crash. At the other end of the long room was an open doorway, leading into a hall. Link knew his only option.
As the ceiling began to rise again, he walked up to it. Once it was high enough for him to duck under, he ran as fast as he could across the large, checkered room. It seemed as though it grew longer as he ran. He knew that the ceiling would kill him if he didn't make it.
He reached the half-point. There was no going back now. He would never make it. He just dashed as fast as his legs would let him. He kept going and going. He felt the air being pushed down on him as the ceiling came down. He was so close. If he could just reach… Navi was already there. He had to make it…
CRASH! The ceiling crashed into the ground behind him as he dove through the threshold to safety. The air was pushed out onto him, creating a cooling, refreshing breeze. He decided this temple was going to be the death of him, and got to his feet.
"You are one crazy kid," Navi said.
"Well, as long as we don't deal with mining plants, I'll be all right…" He realized, of course that maybe she wouldn't remember this either, but decided to test her.
"You mean the bomb flowers?" she replied. "Yeah, I think we had a few close calls with those, didn't we?"
She remembered, but vaguely. It was like calling up ancient memories with a childhood friend, instead of talking about something that happened last week. It wasn't what Link was hoping for. He sighed and led the way down the dark hall.
The door at the end of this hall led into a large room with a large, tapestry-like, framed portrait. This one was a green-hooded woman. The door at the opposite end of the room had an unlit brazier next to it.
Link took aim and fired at the head of the cloaked woman. When he did, the portrait fell and broke into pieces that scattered about the room. The torch didn't light.
"Link, I think we're gonna have to put the picture back together," Navi said.
Link sighed. "You really think so? Normally when you're trying to kill someone, you don't reassemble them."
"I don't know why, but it looks like the poe is still in this portrait."
"Then let's get to it."
They spent several following minutes putting it back together. It had shattered so terribly, it took them almost half an hour to find every piece and where it belonged. When they finally did, they put them all together and each piece started burning with green fire. Finally, after the last piece was also a pile of ash, the last green ember floated through the air and lit the brazier.
"That was very strange," Link said.
"Yeah, well ghosts are very strange, Link. You can only see them if you absolutely have to, and they do all kinds of tricky things. Most people can't see ghosts unless they want to be seen by particular people. That's why you have to act fast with these things. If you can't see them, you can't fight them."
"I guess that's true," Link said. He looked at the map under the green light again.
"I don't see anymore unlit torches on the map," Link said.
"Then what do we do?"
"I guess we just keep going."
They walked through the next door, which led into a dark hallway. At the end of the hall was a door, and they went through it. They now stood, overlooking the main hall, where there was now one more lit brazier in the middle area, a green one. Link hopped down from the balcony he was on and looked at the last brazier, thinking.
"Any ideas?" Navi asked.
"No, you're the one with ideas, remember? I always have 'Plan B'," he laughed. Navi didn't. She didn't remember. She didn't even realize he was recalling an inside joke of theirs.
Suddenly, the unlit brazier flickered a purple flame. Then it went out again.
"That was weird," Navi said. Echoing off the walls was a faint cackling noise.
"Yeah. Really weird," Link said.
Suddenly, the torch flickered purple again, but not in the form of flame. This time, it was an older woman, with a drawn hood and a candle. She disappeared again, with a cackle.
A breeze started circling the room. "Navi, what's going on?" Link said.
"Just parlor tricks," Navi said, but she didn't sound too calm herself. "Ghosts like to frighten people." All three of the flames started to fan out in the wind. Then they blew out, and all was dark.
Four luminescent purple figures surrounded Link momentarily, and disappeared with a surrounding, echoing cackle. The breeze started blowing harder. Link couldn't see anything except by Navi's faint light. The echoing cackle started growing louder, and a purple blur flew past Link's vision, against the swirling wind.
"Navi, what do I do?" he shouted over the sound of cackling and wind.
"I don't know!"
"You don't know? How can you not know?"
"I wasn't expecting to deal with ghosts on this adventure!"
"What were you expecting? Bunny rabbits?"
The darkness weighed heavily on Link's eyes. He closed them, and yet, he could hardly tell he had. The purple blur blew past his vision again, through his eyelids. He opened his eyes and saw nothing. He closed them again and could feel something tugging at him in a certain direction, swirling around. At first, he couldn't tell it from the wind, but it began to pull in a circling fashion against the wind.
As the strange, spiritual pull began to tug forward, the purple blur passed over his eyelids again. He decided what to do. He pulled out his bow and notched an arrow. Then, he prepared to fire as the pull circled behind him. As it drew close to pull forward, he released. As the purple blur crossed in front of him it was met by a sharp arrowhead.
The winds suddenly ceased and the three braziers lit once more. Link's eyes were now open, and he saw a figure incinerating in purple fire in front of him. The purple tongues finally licked away the cloaked woman and hovered over to the unlit torch. The booth that had been in the middle of the room rose from the floor again.
"How did you…?" Navi asked.
"Navi, I don't know anymore than you. I get these intuitions and hints and just run with them. But still…"
"Still what?"
"Well, I just finished off the Poe Sisters!"
"Don't start celebrating yet, Link," Navi said. "We still have to find Saria, right?"
"Yeah, and Ganondorf, too. I gotta wonder what this thing is," he said, kicking the edge of the booth. It shook and started to lower into the ground, then rose back to its position.
"Link, this thing…" Navi started.
"What?"
"It must take you down!"
"You think so?"
"Try it!"
Link stepped into the booth. It slowly descended through the floor. As they lowered, Link could see the room they were entering. It was a circular area room. Ahead of him was a large threshold, leading into a long, dark hall, with a soft red carpet running down it. At the end of the hall was a staircase, leading up to large, double doors.
He remembered the Desert Colossus again, and his philosophical decision that anything on the other side of double doors was either very welcoming or very dangerous. He had yet to be proven wrong.
He stepped off the booth, and it ascended again. There would be no going back. Through here was either Saria or Ganondorf, certainly. Either way, Link would meet destiny.
"Navi," he said. "You never told me. What is a husband?" He chuckled.
"A husband? Did you ask me about that?"
"Never mind, Navi. Just, never mind." He walked up the staircase to the double doors.
"Link," Navi said. "It's a man who is married."
"It doesn't matter, Navi," Link said. "It was a dumb question." He pushed open one of the doors and walked through the door. Navi trailed slowly behind.
Through the door was a staircase leading up to a circular area. An ornate mosaic of the Triforce made up the floor of this circular area. It was fenced in, and on the outer walls were four pictures, one in each of the cardinal directions. Every one of them depicted the same image—a creek running peacefully through a darkened forest.
Leaning against the fence, unconscious, was Saria. As Link stared at her, he wondered at what had happened to her. He checked to make sure she was breathing. She was, but she had severe burns. He had to get her out of here, before whatever did this to her returned. He picked her up and started toward the gate to the staircase. A fence now stood in his path back down stairs. It hadn't been there before.
He heard a snort behind him and turned around to stare directly into a black horse's flaring nostrils. That had definitely not been there before. Atop the horse sat Ganondorf, glaring down at Link with a smirk across his hideous face. He didn't appear to have aged a day. In one hand he held a large, ornate staff. He suddenly burst out into laughter, the laughter that had haunted Link's dreams for so long now.
His horse bucked and whinnied, then jumped straight over Link, right into one of the portraits. Ganondorf rode the horse down the path following the river in the picture now, until he had disappeared on the horizon. This was some dark magic, Link decided, and he had to be on guard at all times.
He drew his sword, the evil-destroying Master Sword, and waited. Ganondorf came galloping back toward him in the image. Suddenly, he stopped and turned around, rushing back toward the horizon. Suddenly, a strange and painful sensation came over Link. All he could compare it to was a combination of that fireball Ganondorf had shot him with when last they met, and the sting of the Biri in Lord Jabu-Jabu's belly. Link's knees buckled as the pain surged through his body.
Ganondorf's mighty steed leapt over Link again from behind, still laughing, back into the picture. How had he done that? He had just run back through…. Link stood again and waited, watching.
Ganondorf started running toward him again from within the picture. He waited, holding his sword. But Ganondorf had come from behind before! He whirled around, and saw that all four pictures showed Ganondorf charging toward him. Which one was real? Or were any of them real?
Suddenly, three of the images turned around and the fourth jumped out of the picture. Link prepared to swing with his sword, but Ganondorf had already fired a strange magical orb at him. It hit Link in the middle of his chest, and the pain hit harder this time. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming in pain as the profane energy surged through his body once more. He dropped to his knees once more.
Ganondorf wouldn't give him the chance to get close enough to strike with the sword. Link sheathed the Master Sword and drew his bow, notching an arrow. As he stood and the Ganondorfs started charging toward him, he fired at each picture, quickly drawing another arrow in time to shoot another picture. He got three of them. The Ganondorfs froze in place as the arrows rent the pictures. The fourth Ganondorf leapt out of the frame before he could fire. He was about to release another of his magic attacks, but Link fired first.
It was a poorly aimed shot. He missed Ganondorf all together, and the arrow pierced straight through the black stallion's chest. It flew through the horse and out to the picture. The horse crashed on the ground. Its knees buckled, and Ganondorf went flying forward. He tumbled across the ground.
"Link! That's not…" Navi started, but Link didn't want to hear her.
"Navi, this is my fight! I have to do this! Not you!"
She kept silent as he drew the Master Sword and rushed over to Ganondorf. He lay, sprawled out on the ground as Link stood over him, even though he hadn't been hit. Link raised his sword and swung down at Ganondorf's thick neck. His sword cut through with ease, and an incredible pleasure rushed through Link. He had done it. He had killed Ganondorf.
As the mosaic was covered in black blood, and Ganondorf's hideous head rolled across the floor and under the fence, Ganondorf's body began to rise again.
"No way…" Link said. "You don't have a head! Die!"
Ganondorf's body rose high into the air, and in a spray of black blood, another head emerged from his shoulders. This head could only be compared to that of a black horse, with large, red eyes, and horns sprouting as its mane.
"Link, that's just what I was trying to tell you!" Navi shouted.
Ganondorf's cackle was distorted, muffled, and amplified all at once as he gave a sharp cry of laughter. He raised his mighty staff high and light began to glow from its ornate head.
"That's not Ganondorf! It's a shadow puppet! He used the power of Lord Bongo to summon forth an evil spirit from beyond, a phantom, not unlike Lord Bongo himself! His magic is different from Ganondorf's! Be careful!"
The light shot from his staff and hit Link hard as he listened to Navi. It sent the same surging sensation through Link's body, only much more potent. He was blown back against the fence, and his bow was loosed from his hand.
"Link!" Navi shouted. The phantom creature cackled and whinnied at once, and began to charge another magic attack.
Link began to pull himself up. The creature fired again and Link jumped aside. He rolled to his feet once more and stared up as the phantom began to conjure its spell again.
"Navi, what else do you know? Any weaknesses?"
"All I know is a passage about it in the Book of Bongo. It said 'Answer his magic attack with an attack of your own'!"
"Answer his attack?" Link repeated. The creature was hovering too high for him to reach it with anything other than an arrow. He had to get his bow.
As the phantom fired another ball of energy, Link rolled under it and reached for the bow. He was caught in the back with a smaller orb, and fell face first in front of the bow. Once he could, he started up again, bow in hand. He reached in his quiver for an arrow, but found none. He looked around the room. They were all scattered across the mosaic floor.
As the phantom cast another ball at him, Link rolled aside and caught two arrows up off the floor. He aimed to shoot as the phantom fired again. Link answered his magic with an arrow. It flew straight into the magic orb and incinerated. The orb kept coming, and Link rolled aside, holding his bow in one hand and his arrow in the other.
This shot had to be perfect. He aimed and shot at the phantom while it charged energy with its staff. As the arrow approached, he used his free hand to brush it aside, as if it were a housefly. It flew off and crashed into the wall. Arrows had no effect on this monster. He needed something stronger, faster…
He took a hard hit from the phantom's magic orb. Then an idea struck him. He drew his sword as the phantom charged an attack. He waited, holding the Master Sword in both hands. He gripped it hard and hoped beyond hope that it would work.
The creature fired again, and Link waited for the coming orb. "Just like Deku Ball," he muttered, and swung full force with the blade as the ball of energy came close. The blade made impact on the orb, and it swirled around the Master Sword before reversing its course completely, and planting itself right in the phantom's chest.
The phantom glowed like the balls of energy that he had been firing at Link. Then it fell on the ground. Link rushed over to him.
"Link, that's his real head!" Navi said. "Strike it, it holds his essence!"
Link jabbed the Master Sword right through the monster's head. It started convulsing wildly, and it made a popping sound. It freed itself of Link's sword and floated into the air, still convulsing. Ganondorf's voice echoed throughout the room.
"You, kid…" his intimidating voice beamed. "You're that punk kid that helped me get the Triforce all those years ago… You did quite well. You must have gained some slight skill! This creature was about as strong as I was then, but he was only my phantom!"
"You'd better watch out, Ganondorf," Link said, raising his sword at the hovering phantom. "You're next!"
"When and if you get to fight the real me, it won't be so easy! What a worthless creation that ghost was! I will banish it to the gap between dimensions!"
A strange, dark circle appeared directly below the phantom, and it slowly sank in. It started crying out in its strange mixture of muffled horse and Hylian. It reached its arms up as it fell in, and slowly, it drowned in the dark pool that had appeared from nowhere. Ganondorf's booming voice laughed hysterically as all this occurred, until finally, the phantom's outreaching fingers were swallowed up in the dark portal.