Chapter Seventeen

Separation

"Unnnhhh…" Zelda awoke with a groan. Was she still asleep? It was pitch black in the room and it had a musty smell. "Link?" She called out into the darkness. No answer. Her hands were chained to the ceiling as she hung in the middle of nowhere. From the darkness, she had no way of telling how far down the floor was. It could've been two feet or a bottomless pit. She shuddered at the thought; not very many people knew that the princess had an incredible fear of heights, despite her recklessness. A breeze blew through from nowhere, chilling her to the bone. "What the…" she mumbled as she felt the wind hit bare skin.

"I hope you don't mind the darkness!" Zelda snapped her head around in the dark trying to locate the all-too-familiar grating voice. "We undead just can't understand your love for the sun."

"What do you want from me?" Zelda snapped.

"Oh quite simple… You can figure it out can't you?" The Stal-King sneered.

"You'll never get the rest of the Triforce!" She snarled back.

"We'll see about that…" The sound of a whip being cracked echoed through room.

"Aaaahhh!" Pain suddenly ran from her neck down to her lower back. The lash stung like a brand as it slowly faded.

"Get the picture?" The voice continued over the princess's sobbing. It sounded like the stalfos was walking around her. Zelda bit her lip and braced for a frontal attack. The pain of the whip hitting her stomach was still unexpected.

"Aaahhh!"

"Am I—(whip crack)—getting through—(whip crack)—to you?" The stalfos furnished his statement by delivering a hard punch to her solar plexus. Zelda only whimpered and wheezed as she tried to curl up in a fetal position. "Hmm… I shall come back every hour. Every session will be worse than the one before. This will continue until you surrender the Triforce of Wisdom." The skeleton spoke like a college professor outlining a semester plan.

"Go—(wheeze)—to hell…" Zelda managed to gasp out. A quiet chuckle echoed around the cell. With a snap, a small flame appeared in the darkness. The bony hand, guiding the flame, drew closer to Zelda's face. The Stalfos then moved his face into the light, giving Zelda a real good look at his decaying flesh, rotting against his bony skull. Zelda looked away in revulsion, but another bony hand grabbed her by her jaw, forcing her to look at the putrefied face.

"I'M ALREADY IN HELL!" He roared into her ear before backhanding her across the face. The king pivoted around, stormed out into a dark hallway and slammed the door shut, plunging the princess into total darkness. After recovering from the stunning blow, Zelda shivered from the sudden cold and lingering pain. Concentrating, she tried to connect to Link telepathically but her mind hit an iron wall. The king was blocking her, she quickly realized. Frustrated out of her mind, she let out a scream of anguish. The scream echoed around the room but soon died down, leaving only her pitiful sobs of despair.

Link drifted along Zora's River, scarlet blood staining the crystal water. Finally, the injured warrior was pulled into a pooling tributary, beaching on the small lake's sandy shore. The unconscious Hylian lay for hours, soaking in his own blood until a rickety old farm wagon pulled up.

"By the Trifo'ce! Marie! Come and 'elp me!" The old driver of the wagon said in a heavy accent as he jumped out of his seat and ran as fast as he could to Link's unconscious form.

"Petre! You'll give ye-self a heart attack, runnin' like that!" The driver's wife cried after him as she chased behind him. "Oh my…" She gasped at the bloody scene.

"'Elp me gett'em into da cart." The old couple each took an arm and carefully moved the young man to the back of the wagon. "Marie, see whot you can-do about those wounds, I'll get us 'ome!" His wife nodded and looked closely at a cut on his arm. Petre clambered back into his seat and gave the reins a sharp crack. In the back of the wagon, the old lady stared at the wound on the young warrior's arm. The slash was tinged with a deep purple and appeared to be sprawling across his arm like an ever growing spider.

"Whot'in Hyrule could've caused that?" She muttered as she picked up some spare rags in the wagon for bandages.

General Stalakor marched down the stony passageways of the tower dungeons, smirking at the numerous prisoners who feebly pleaded for freedom. He stopped in front of a cell where a frail girl dressed in tattered farm robes was staring blankly out of the cell bars. The elite gave the door a kick and the girl fell backward with a yelp. The girl's normally bright red hair had turned to a filthy rusty color; her brown eyes stared gloomily at the stalfos from the floor. Stalakor glared at the silent prisoner and gave the door another kick. Seeing no reaction, the general was about to kick again when a messenger came walking up.

"Sir, the King wishes to speak with you." Stalakor gave a nod of acknowledgement and with another glare at the girl, turned and followed the messenger out the heavy dungeon door.

After listening for any more guards, Malon slowly rose off the floor. After a visual check of the corridor through the bars, she moved to the back of her cell where she moved the small pile of threshes that served as her bed. She carefully picked up two metal nails, hidden under the hay, off the floor. Making no sound, Malon crept back to the gate and after another check for guards; she poked one of the nails into the lock, attempting to pick it.

"My Lord." Stalakor said with a humble kneel as he entered the throne room. The Stal-King, who was staring out a window, replied without turning around.

"General." His grating voice was tinged with a slight annoyance. "Tell me. What were your orders?"

"To retrieve the princess and…" The General hesitated slightly. "And the hero…"

"In my dungeon, I have the princess…" The king finally turned around, his eyes glowing with a red anger. "But no hero. Where is he?" Stalakor cast a dubious glance at the Obsidian Sphere sitting on a pedestal to the left. "I want to hear it from you." The Stal-King continued, correctly interpreting the hesitation.

"At the Zora's shrine, we dueled. I won and he was knocked off the falls." The General replied, keeping his eyes glued to the floor.

"I see…" Stalakor heard the king reply. From the tone of his voice, he knew he wasn't out of trouble yet.

"After he was knocked off the falls, it was either going after the hero or taking the princess who had been incapacitated in the battle." Stalakor finished. He cast a cautious look upward at the King who appeared to be considering his subordinate's fate.

"Very well. Retrieve the hero and all harm will be repaired." Stalakor straightened up at these words and bowed respectfully.

"Yes my lord." When the General was halfway to the door, the King spoke up again.

"By the way. I was watching. You had many opportunities to prevent his fall and never do anything as stupid as lying to me again! You're dismissed." With the warning now imprinted in his skull, Stalakor marched out of the room without another word.