Chapter 6

PALACE 2

Link had never seen an odder palace in his life. It was a light blue in color and seemed to be made from small tablets of ceramic. Link was relieved to see another one on those glowing slots on the chest of the Ironknuckle statue outside. He had used up some magic going through the swamp and he really could use a red jar. With his powers renewed he pressed his crest against the door and entered the elevator.

If Link thought the outside of the palace was odd, it was nothing compared to the inside. From the elevator he observed drops of a red liquid run down two pillars. After several drops fell, blue drops came down and became Bots. Not only that but it seemed the Ropes here had learned a new trick. They spit rocks at him. He hadn't been prepared for that and wound up with a fat lip.

Unsure of where to go, Link took the elevator down as far as it would go. Well Link had almost forgotten what it was like to enter a room only to have statues shooting beams at him out of their mouths. It was a rather unpleasant wake up call. Well at least this one had a limited range and the only other enemy in the room was a pack of Bots.

As soon as he entered the next room he spotted platforms and two Trolls. He decided to give the downward thrust another try. What an amazing gift Marcellus had given him! Enemy after enemy had fallen thanks to this new technique. If only he had met Marcellus during his original quest. Grabbing a key off the shelf, Link headed back up the elevator shaft.

The downward thrust became essential once more as Link faced some more of those new and improved Ropes on the next floor up. If he had bent down to stab at them it would have left his face exposed and these things jumped before they spit rocks. The Ropes weren't the only new and improved enemy. Link knew by now that if an enemy had a bluish hue to it, it was stronger but he wasn't prepared for the two Stalfos in the next room. The thrust didn't work on them (they had shields) and when he went for the legs he was in for a real shocker: THEY COULD DO THE THRUST! They were still weak enough so that he wasn't hurt seriously but it seemed so unfair. He just had to go for the legs as fast as possible, that's all. Any lack of haste and they would jump again. Picking up another key and hitting another dead end, Link headed back for the elevator. The repetitive nature of these palaces was getting on his nerves.

By process of elimination the next path had to be one floor up. One more Blue Stalfos was all too eager to greet him and he once again observed those strange pillars that dripped a blood-like substance that turned into a Bot once it was dark enough. Link wondered if Elezaar had put that in or if it was naturally occurring.

When Link reached the next room his appreciation for the downward thrust was reinforced once again. First the room seemed empty. But when Link had walked in far enough a monster suddenly materialized right out of the floor. It was a Demon Head, just like the one that had been shooting at him from the wall but this one was free-floating and could dematerialize itself through the floor only to pop up again unexpectedly a moment later. Hitting it with his sword only stunned it for a moment and when it recovered it hit him harder than a linebacker.

At this point Link discovered a little secret about the downward thrust. If he was completely still when he jumped up to use it, he could repeatedly bounce up and down on top on an enemy, blade first. It was the only practical way to kill the Demon Heads. Of course he absolutely had to be stationary. If he had been moving when he jumped he'd bounce right off these things and fall. He was starting to develop a strategy for this technique.

It appeared that perhaps a trend was starting here. More lava. Yup, obvious magic. These palaces certainly hadn't been built over cracks in the earth. Elezaar must have had a lot of faith in the abilities of whoever was to be the "Chosen One". At this point Link wondered why he couldn't have chosen else. His desire for adventure had long since been drained. Well at least this pit didn't have a bridge that would disappear. What it did have were two drains in the ceiling that leaked that red stuff and some Bots. Link had the nasty feeling that that red stuff wasn't safe and he'd better avoid it. He had to time one of his jumps carefully so as not to be hit by it and possibly knocked into the lava again.

Link found out once again that the downward thrust didn't work on all enemies when he entered the next room. An Ironknuckle was there waiting for him. The thrust failed. Duh, it had a shield too. Thankfully he hadn't been stationary when he tried it so he merely bounced off instead of landing right on top of it or bouncing indefinitely. He had to use the old "jump and stab it in the head" technique. Another Ironknuckle was waiting for him a few feet away but this time he had to back off a little. A Skull Ball was bouncing around making it difficult to fight. Before too long it passed and the Ironknuckle was dog meat.

Another long corridor guarded by two Skull Balls lead to another elevator. He couldn't dodge them so he bounced over them with the thrust. He had a feeling a stationary thrust would have killed one but the other would hit him if he tried it. Besides, it was too time-consuming. He ran into the elevator and descended.

His first thought had been to go to the bottom floor but that instinct of his kicked in again and he took the higher of the two paths. Good thing he had been collecting keys because there was another gate and an agile Stalfos in front of it. It jumped over Link and tried using the thrust on him too but he got out of the way in time and attacked the legs. Sadly, he had turned his back on a Rope behind him. No sooner had he slain the Stalfos than he felt fangs in his back. Yelling a few naughty words I wouldn't dare repeat here, he angrily turned on the Rope and gored it.

In the next room he was thrilled to see a P-Bag laying there just waiting for him to…

WHAM!

"What the hell was that!" screamed Link out loud. He had been scared out of his wits by the sudden thud. He looked up and to his horror, the large stones that made up the ceiling were falling. He had to run and leap about this way and that to avoid being squashed. Forget the P-Bag! This was life and death here!

Badly shaken, Link reached the next room unhurt but badly frightened. One look told him it was a treasure room. He remembered a time when these things were only guarded by Keeses. Now he was face to face with an Ironknuckle and this one was red. Normally red indicated a weaker enemy but Link had noticed thus far that a third color, orange, often signified the weak enemies, not all of whom were that weak. But he had also seen Blue. Perhaps red was an intermediate color.

This Ironknuckle was faster and slightly more aggressive than its orange counterparts. What made it irritating was that it just wouldn't die even after he stabbed it several times. It retreated behind the gate and seemed to dare Link to approach. It took him a second to unlock gates and in that time it could easily stab him. But Link knew he could lure it out by running away. Sure enough it worked. The Ironknuckle followed him out and he finished it off.

At that moment, Link made a rather upsetting discovery. He must have dropped a key at some point. After all that he couldn't open the gate to get the treasure. He tried to squeeze between the iron bars but they were just too narrow. If only he were smaller. Smaller… Hmmm...

"AGRA!"

At once Link turned into a fairy. He felt humiliated because even male fairies looked rather effeminate. He sailed between the bars and found a golden gauntlet. So that's what that fat lady had been talking about! But it was too huge to carry, right? To his surprise it was light as a feather. Well it couldn't offer much protection if it was that light, right? He flew out through the bars again. There was an Ironknuckle statue on the shelf with one of those glowing slots in its chest. Maybe if he got back to his regular self he could get a red jar. The fairy spell had wiped out a lot of his magic. As soon as he exited the room he was in his old form again. He stepped back in but he didn't have enough magic to make the jump. Link noticed though that the drain on the ceiling had created a lot of Bots. He ran over and stabbed a few. The third one dropped a blue jar.

"AGDA!"

Link ran over and jumped up on the shelf, stuck his sword in the slot, and bingo, there was the red jar. A wild thought occurred to him. He took a swig and as he felt his energy return…

"ADAK!"

His wounds healed and oddly enough, his magic continued to replenish although it didn't end up being restored quite completely.

Link prepared himself for another game of dodge the rocks but they had fallen too quickly. A massive wall of rock was now between him and the exit. Link had nearly forgotten about the gauntlet but that little voice in his head told him to put it on his sword hand.

"Whoah!"

It disappeared the moment he put it on. But it had done something. His hand felt stronger. Much stronger. He punched a rock and hard as he could.

"Ow! Dammit!"

What had he done wrong? He had… Oh, duh! The sword. How stupid could he be? He picked his sword up off the floor and stabbed at the rocks, reducing them to dust.

Well after that little exeprience he was back in the elevator a few minutes and a few monsters later. As he headed to the bottom floor he heard a very odd sound. It was very high pitched and sounded like a whine or beep of some sort. What was it? He was about to get an answer to that one. No sooner had he reached the ground than he saw his first Moa. Now ghostly monsters had always bugged Link. Ghinis and Peahats had given him a ghastly amount of trouble on his first quest. But there was something very frightening about this one eyed ghoul that really freaked him out. It was just out of the range of his sword. Well if it stayed above him, maybe it couldn't hurt him. Wrong. It began to rain fireballs down on him. As if that wasn't bad enough, an Ironknuckle approached and since the magic fire didn't disappear right away, his mobility was limited. Until the fireballs faded, he had to make good use of his shield since he didn't have enough room to attack properly. No sooner had he slain the Ironknuckle and proceeded than the same thing happened again. The Moa rained more fire and another Ironknuckle approached.

Link was all too happy to put that room behind him. That was until he entered the next room. A Blue Stalfos attacked him and once again he had no room to fight properly because a demon statue on one side of the room and a wolf statue on the other started fired beams at him. This was getting irritating. He managed to slay the Stalfos, but could he get past the beams without getting hit? He had to jump at just the right moment and had to be quite clever with his shield. The rock barrier in front of him made him glad he had gone after the glove first before going down here. He had to deal with one more wall, one more Stalfos, and two more sets of statues before he could leave the room.

Something told him to avoid the elevator in the next room for the moment. It wasn't instinct, it was experience. He was sure that if he went straight on he would find another key. Sure enough, down the hall another key was being guarded by another Troll. After that experience in the treasury, he wasn't about to take any chances on missing another key. Hmm… More Goatheads. Interesting. Oh well.

The elevator led him to a room with a Bot and a Troll and more bricks. Nothing interesting there. It may interest YOU the reader to know that a red jar lay concealed within the bricks but it was of no consequence to Link who didn't know about it and didn't need it. The following room was a bit more interesting because it had a lava pit and more of those stones that disappear when you walk on them. There were three layers of these and a P-Bag sat on the bottom layer. Now surely this was there to lure someone into doing something stupid. If you went after it you put yourself at risk. But Link figured out a way to get it safely. He walked to the right and then to the left to eliminate the first two layers. He grabbed it quickly upon reaching the third and ran. Failure to eliminate the top two would have put an obstacle above him making it impossible to jump and likely killing him.

The hallway that followed contained two Goatheads and yet another one of those Red Ironknuckles. The next room had a Blue Stalfos and two Ironknuckles. All these tough enemies in one spot could only mean one thing. The guardian must be nearby. After Link's encounter with Horsehead this was not a comforting thought. Down the hall he walked in only to see the familiar sight of draperies on the ceiling. Standing in front of him was none other than Helmethead.

Helmethead was a wee bit shorter than Horsehead, but not by much. It wore blue armor and carried a large sword and shield. So that was it. Link was to face a fellow swordsman. He wondered how good it was with its shield. As Link approached, two red eyes flashed from within the darkness of its helmet. It was awake, the force fields were up and the battle was on.

Link readied himself for the monster to attack him with its sword. He was completely caught off guard by its attack. Helmethead fired a beam at Link from its head. This Link blocked with his shield. After another couple of steps another beam was fired and blocked as well. Link ran up and sliced at its legs. Though Helmethead backed up a few steps, it showed no indication of being hurt. Maybe the head… But would it block him with the shield and stab him? Only one way to find out. Link jumped up and stabbed at the head. It flew right off!

For a moment Link thought that he had won the fight with one blow. But then to his shock another head with a different style of helmet emerged and the one he had just removed flew up into the air! Of course. Never could have been that easy. Nope, never in a million years. Both heads fired at him at once and he blocked both with difficulty. Link had an idea. If the creature couldn't use its sword, then the shield was possibly useless as well. Perhaps Helmethead wasn't protected from the thrust. Link was right. He tried it and the second head flew off.

The third head that emerged was not a pretty sight. It was Helmethead's real head. It was hideous! Its face was pure white and it was bald. The ears were pointy like an elf's but way longer. Its face had sort of a snake-like quality. It bore an evil grin but its eyes didn't seem focused on Link or anything else in particular. That made sense since it was as mindless as Horsehead. Link had to wonder what Elezaar was smoking when he concocted this monstrosity.

Link had to move quickly. He now had three heads firing at him. He kept hoping and praying that he was correct in believing that Helmethead's sword was useless. He was right. He jumped up and stabbed it in the head three more times. Success!

Helmethead self-destructed in a brilliant display of light. The key fell from the ceiling and the force fields disappeared. Link opened the gate and stepped before the second statue. He placed the crystal in the mouth and once again it traveled to the forehead. His health and magic were restored and his strength increased once more. He stepped outside and breathed the air again (if you can call swamp air fresh). He felt so…

Something was wrong! He didn't know what but something was horribly wrong. It was as if Zelda was screaming out to him in terror. What was it? He raced back to the North Palace like a bat out of hell not stopping even once.

End Chapter 6