Chapter Two
Twilight Has Fallen
"Rael, I do not know yet if you truly believe that I and Zelda are your father and mother… and frankly, I do not want to know now. However, I must at least inform you about what must follow, for you are more important to the future of Hyrule than you can know." Link looked at Link solidly from across the desk. Zelda held him with an equally penetrating gaze.
Rael sighed, propping his elbows on the desk and burying his face in his hands. "Just, tell me. What is the Lord of Dusk?"
"We will come onto that later Rael," said Zelda flatly.
Rael looked up and held Link and Zelda both in a single glare. "Is it, or he, Ralis?"
Zelda sniffed adamantly, and spoke him harshly, "Honestly Rael, I don't know. I don't know what your adopted brother's connection is your destiny, and don't yet know the nature of the Lord of Dusk. We are fumbling blindly in the dark, and until now we have had nothing to light our way. The reason I have brought you here today is so that the three of us may begin to shed light upon what must follow." She now indicated to the large leather-bound book on the desk. "We have been granted a small candle, to give hope and guide us through the shadow."
Rael did not recognise the characters scrawled across the pages of the book. Granted he was looking at it upside down, but he could see the characters were certainly not Hylian. "What is this?"
"Se Toma'se-ta'Bett. The Tome of the Ruler of Death," replied Link. "From what we have been able to tell so far, this tome predates every historical artefact ever uncovered in Hyrule. Scholars have suggested that it predates the Master Sword, and even the Triforce itself. Over the centuries some have gone as far as to say that it was written by the gods themselves."
"The language," said Zelda, "is what has become known as the Language of the Gods, for it predates written history – except its own written history of course. There is no record of when it died out though, or if it simple evolved into the language we use today. Although, it is true that some of the language still appears in modern Hylian. Which, in turn has indeed helped us to translate it."
The heavy looking book was open at the centre of its pages and was clearly several inches thick. The pages were yellow-brown, old and dusty, and the ink fading. The characters were angular, like a series of short upright rectangles, some with sides missing, some with dots added in various places.
"Can you read it?" asked Rael.
"Barely," replied Link, with a shrug. "I regret to say that this book has been kept hidden by the royal family for centuries, and if the long-dead scholars who studied it back then understood any of it, they have left very few clues as to how to translate it. Only occasional scribbling at the sides of the page, see." He pointed out a scrawl of modern Hylian at one side of the page.
Rael nodded slowly. "Well, it's a very pretty book, but I'm not getting why this is important to me yet."
"Patience, Rael," said Zelda. She smoothed her blue silk skirt and made a point of taking her time. At length, she perched her elbows on the desk again and balanced her chin on her knuckles, levelling her pretty pale blue eyes at him. "You remember I told you that I had a prophetic dream many years ago, Rael? A dream that foretold your birth?"
Rael frowned, "Apparently, yes."
"The prophecy that I heard in that dream is written in here also. It is strange… everything seems to work in circles like that…" she drifted off for a moment, then looked up again brightly. "You remember I told you I forgot most of it. Well, now I am able to refresh my memory again, with it."
"And?" said Rael, expectantly.
Zelda raised her eyebrows, sighed, and flipped the pages of the book until she was looking at the first open page. There, neatly arranged in a column, was a very concise but elaborately drawn script. Zelda read it aloud, starting with what Rael already knew. "The chosen beget a father of light. The sea rages and lightning breaks the waves. The father blade heralds twilight's fall. A dark road diverges to the ocean. A river of blood marks the father's path. A guide awakens and the horn rings true…" She paused, looking at the next lines. "The tides of night swallow the sand..." she began, but abruptly trailed off. "It ah… it becomes a little more difficult after that, Rael. And I ah… yes, well that is enough for now."
"What does it mean?" asked Rael, a little impatiently.
"Peace, Rael," said Link, who had been quietly contemplating for a while.
"Your guess is a good as mine, Rael. Perhaps you could venture a guess yourself?" she shrugged her shoulders. Then, she quickly wrote out the six lines on a spare piece of parchment and handed it to him.
The chosen beget a father of light.
The sea rages and lightning breaks the waves.
The father blade heralds twilight's fall.
A dark road diverges to the ocean.
A river of blood marks the father's path.
A guide awakens and the horn rings true.
He was already well aware of what the first three lines were supposed to represent. But the rest was lost on him. A dark road? A river of blood? A guide? 'The horn'? It meant nothing.
"It is just as well that the book itself goes on in far more detail then. The entire tome is nothing less than a very long and elaborate prophecy. What you see before you is a summary of the first two chapters. Or volumes I should say. If we understood this book, I believe we would know the exact nature of the entire war which will follow, and ultimately Rael, your destiny. This tome, this Toma'se-ta'Bett, Tome of the Ruler of Death, has been given another name by the scholars who studied it many years past." She turned the book to its front, heaving over the heavy pages and closing the front cover neatly. As she turned it around to face Rael, he took note of the gold embossed ancient characters that titled it, blazing off the dark red leather. Beneath, written in modern Hylian with white ink, there was another title. "The Foretelling of the War of Twilight," read Rael.
"Throughout its pages, the book makes one thing ultimately clear. A being known as the Lord of Dusk, or the Father of the Night - or Moon, it is unclear - is one day going to attack Hyrule with the full force of his great armies from beyond the sea and ultimately destroy the entire world. The prophecy also foretells that a being known as the Father of the Sun will stand against the Father of the Moon, clothed in the brilliance of the sun and wielding the 'blade that was forged in the light of the heavens'."
Rael shrugged, puzzled. "But can you really connect this to me? How do you know that I am really involved at all? I'm just a commoner."
"As was I," said Link, seriously.
"Rael is no commoner, he is my son. And your son too, Ivarl. He is the most royal and important man on this earth…"
"I'm not your son!" protested Rael, though he didn't believe his own words.
"You want proof that you are connected to this? Fine. Here." She turned a few pages of the book and pointed out a paragraph. Beside the Ancient Hylian runes was a translation into Old Hylian, and then into Modern Hylian.
A shanaal khar ladana tha rase. Vela se ter ra'Alis fiero takki, an ra'Ael valance farroi.
In twilight they wage eternal war. The Father of the Moon will strike fire upon the world, and the Father of the Sun will burn salvation.
"Ra'Ael…" whispered Rael. "That's what the Lord of Dusk called me in my dreams… And ra'Alis? Gods, but this must be lies."
"Ra'Ael, Father of the Sun. Ra'Ael, Father of the Moon. 'Ra' is the Old Hylian word for 'father'. 'Ael' and 'alis' are the old words for 'sun' and 'moon'. Couldn't be more simple could it?"
"Just because my name is 'Rael' doesn't mean anything!!"
Zelda sighed, but maintained her cool calm.
Link however appeared restless. "Rael you confuse us. Your mind appears to change at every minute. Sometimes you act as though you believe what we tell you, accept that which we place before you. Then you turn and strike back at us and deny anything and everything we try to teach."
Rael sat up straight in his chair and considered this for a moment. Then he rubbed his right temple as a fierce headache throbbed. Images crossed his mind of Ralis, blood-soaked and teary eyed, enraged and flaming in the Hylian Throne Room, and then images of war and battle.
Link took a grip on Rael's right hand, and his eyes, foggy grey like winter's haze, appeared to search his soul. "I will show you something that will open your eyes Rael…" he stood up sharply, and swept down the steps from the high end of the room towards the door. He pulled up his dark hood, and gathered the folds of his night-black cloak about him. "Come Rael! Twilight has fallen, and there can be no more idle talk. If you cannot be made to hear reason, then perhaps you can be made to see it."
Rael arose from his chair, standing tall and instinctively feeling for the sword at his side, for reassurance. Feeling nothing but an empty scabbard his eyes fell upon the shards of the Father Blade, strewn across the tiles. The black-and-gold hilt looked far less spectacular now.
"Can it be remade?" Rael asked.
Link stopped, turning, peering out of the cowl of his hood with eyes that now seemed bluer and harsher. "You want to remake it?" He shook his head solemnly. "That sword had particular special qualities that made it unique. My blood went into the forging, along with another man now dead - Brash al'Aals… the man you called father. You know this." He sighed regretfully. "No, it cannot be remade as it truly was with anything less than that blood bond. Now come. There are things you must see."