Quietness shared the space with the dark. Link leisurely walked back to the Zawks under the safety of the torch lights and posted watch. While any watchman had the right to arrest Link and take him in for wandering outside past curfew, any watchman also knew that the city streets were full of ruffians and monsters much more dangerous than any threat Link posed. Not a single watchman even glanced over in Link's direction as he strolled through the familiar streets.
Unfortunately, he had strayed quite far from the target in his quest for his necessary items, but he had until sun up to destroy the blacksmith as well as the day after's sun up if his empty stomach could handle another day without food. With only five rupees worth of materials, Link was quite proud of what he had bargained for, but it was not enough. The blacksmith would have to provide the rest of the missing materials.
A growl of hunger erupted from within his malnourished frame. Luckily, it brought attention to none, as far as Link could tell from the vacated street. Not a stir in the light or in the dark. His stomach may have painfully distracted him from his journey, but with a strong image of his destination in mind, Link trudged forth against the pain. By now it was pointless to find food. The only places to find anything edible at this hour were located in the back alleyways, too dangerous to at this late hour to find heaps of rubbish.
Although Link's legs did not feel any weaker than normal, his stomach became a void that seemed to drain the energy in his torso. He diverted all thoughts away from his inner void so that his feet could march on faithfully to the destination, but each step eventually felt like his feet were pushing through soft mud. After trudging through the agony, Link had at last reached the street intersection preceding the blacksmith.
The two private sentries were the same as before, but the posted watch across the street was no longer there. Perfect. Link looked both ways before entering the darkness that occupied the center of the street. Under the cover of darkness and guided by his experience in stealth, the boy slipped into the gap between buildings.
The alleyway was so dark Link could not even see his hand held out in front of him. But a good memory could pinpoint the scaffolding exactly where he remembered it. He confidently reached out and grabbed the invisible wooden beam. And without any light whatsoever, Link lifted himself up off the ground and grabbed onto another beam. I coulda done this blindfolded, he thought to himself.
Near the top, moonlight from the sky bled onto the rooftops and soft wind flowed like a river. With his eyes adjusted to the pitch dark, Link could see the cityscape, as well as his own surroundings, as clear as day. It was a one, two, and a hop off the scaffolding, over the three story fall, onto the slanted roof…
Which was more slippery than Link had anticipated. His landing could not have been more perfect, but his bare feet slipped against the wooden shingling, giving him a jolt of bloodrush coursing from his heart. His prone body kept Link from slipping any further. He rose to his hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way up.
It was the big chimney. There was no more smoke coming out of it, but the wind carried the ashy smell straight into Link's face. He unwrapped the coil of rope and then wrapped the chimney once around before tying a firm knot. The rest of the slack went once around his waist and under the drawstring in his pants before climbing to the chimney top.
Link threw the rope down the chimney, and then the sweet satisfying sound of impact upon ground echoed up through the chimneys. With one hand firmly gripping the slack and the other gripping the end, he hopped over the chimney. Immediately, he felt his free falling body tighten the rope around his waist and his drawstring tighten around his back, but he was safely suspended. By gently releasing the brake and feeding slack with the other, Link lowered himself back into darkness without any hassle.
Upon touching the rocky bottom, Link unwrapped the rope around his waist and searched for the exit of what he assumed was the furnace. Finding his way around was impossible in the complete absence of light. Igniting the only source of light in the building past hours may have been risky, but he absolutely needed it if he had to search through rooms. He placed his hands all over the walls until finally, one felt the mouth of the furnace, and he hopped out into a pitch black room of an unknown size. However, Link had so much navigating through dark areas that he could practically do a night job blind if he wanted. Extending one hand out in front at all times, he took one soft step at a time until his hand felt something solid, revealing through touch to be a cold counter. Feeling a small stool underneath and metal tools on top, the burglar correctly deduced he had reached the workbench.
Link used the tedious but safe technique to move and map out the room by muscle memory. Once he snagged an unlit torch off of a wooden support, he returned to the workbench in the center of the smithy and began feeling about the metal tools, only grazing his skin against the steel enough to guess which was what. Metal instruments were scattered everywhere, and although the lack of lighting lighting made discerning the tools from one another difficult, it was not hard to find the wooden handle of the hammer, and so he grabbed it.
But while he was at it, or he could also pluck one of the Zawks' finest blades resting proudly against a rack, but he would need both his hands to climb back out of the chimney, so even a Goron-made knife that could fit snuggly against his drawstrings would suffice. Once again, his fingers went back to feeling for the sharpened edge of a blade. Ow! His finger felt the nick of pain as it slid across something sharp. Good enough. His hand found the blade handle, while his other withdrew the flint in his pocket.
Sparks flew out as Link's hand guided the stone onto the blade in total darkness, but the torch was stubborn. Finally, a spark caught onto the end of the torch, and light quickly filled the room shortly after. The small knife in his left hand turned out to be a woodsman's blade. It was a good blade, one durable and sharp enough to cut through wood, so he tucked it in the drawstrings hoisting his pants. Link grabbed the candle off the table so that he could continue exploring more of the blacksmith.
Next, he needed to find the fuel source. There had to be some place where they kept the peat, or the charcoal, or the firewood even. But there was none as far as Link's limited nightvision could see. From dark corner to dark corner, the shop only had counters, anvils, shelves, and racks full of works in progress. No, there had to be a fire source somewhere in the blacksmith shop; Zawk swords were not made with Goron magic, only Goron smithing techniques.
Think! he urged himself, The heat source must be near the furnace! Link checked the area near the furnace; nothing but the entrance, the tools hanging by, and the short little rope hanging off of the floorboard? He grabbed the rope and pulled upward, but it would not budge. After several unsuccessful tugs, it dawned on him that he was stepping on a trapdoor, and so he moved over and pulled wide open the door leading into the cellar below.
He descended down the stairs into the darkness, guided by the torchlight. The cramped space underneath, nothing more than rubble beneath a wooden floorboard, had two torches. Once Link lit them, the light revealed a pile of firewood in one corner and a large pile of… black rocks? Link picked up one of the stones. It felt like charcoal, and it yet it felt like a rock, and it left an oily, black residue upon his skin, unlike the ash of charred wood. What was this?
It was a question for another time. Link put his faith in the rock, praying to the rock that it would burn as fiercely as charcoal. He grabbed many handfuls and laid them out on the ground, and then he smashed one with the hammer. The rock shattered into many pieces with little force just like charcoal did. To test their flammability, he grabbed a sprinkle in his fingers and threw it into the fire of the torch; to his happy surprise, little specks of flame flew out the other side. With an evil grin on his scarred face, Link began hammering away at the black stones until they became black dust.
The rocks must have been the Zawk brothers' trade secret. And the fire Link was about to start was going to burn their trade secret to ashes. It was his final, missing ingredient. Collecting the dust, Link poured the black powder into his leather wallet, which contained the egg dust and the poop salt already, and mixed the ingredients with his hands every once in a while until the bag had ripened into a large, leathery fruit.
The firewood piled next to the black fuel all he needed to create the fire. Link carefully placed each log of wood on top of the pile of the black stones. After crushing more of the black stones, Link sprinkled the powder around the flammable pyre. All that was left to do was to plunge one of the torches into the pyre, and hopefully by the time anyone discovered that a fire was consuming the premises, it would already have been too late to stop the flame.
Sinisterly laughing to himself as he felt the heat grow upon his skin, Link walked back up the stairs with his homemade bomb and set the bomb in the mouth of the furnace. The woodsman's blade cut through the rope like butter so that Link could use one end of the slack to plug the opening of his bomb and laid out the rest of the slack in the general direction of the bomb.
Suddenly, Link's feet began to feel hot. Smoke was beginning to seep through the tiny gaps in the floor. The fire burns this hot already? Panicked, Link dropped the rest of the slack and instantly headed for the furnace. The fire from the cellar was going to ignite the fuse any minute now. There was no time wasted between his climb through the mouth of the furnace to his hand grabbing the rope. Blood rush coursed through his body and guided his hands as they grabbed rope after rope. The athletic child scaled upward with his strong arms at lightning speed, but nothing made his blood rush harder than when he suddenly felt the rope break…
Seriously? Link thought to himself in mid air. His leg was the first part to feel impact upon the ground, and so a searing of pain coursed from his leg into the rest of his body as he landed painfully next to the bomb. All the wind had been forced out of his lungs, luckily rendering him unable to scream in pain, only grunt pathetically. Any movement was denied by excruciating pain. As Link struggled to gasp for air, he could see the flames poking through the floorboard. At any moment, the floor would become too hot for Link to stand on, let alone cross. Oh well, he thought to himself as he relaxed his body and closed his eyes, I guess this is as good as any excuse to finally die.
There was no future for him in this wretched world anyway. Only pain and misery.
Promise me! her familiar voice pounded into his head. A tear rolled down his eye.
I can't, Link spoke back to her memory, I'm so tired. I just wanna sleep. Just like the rest of you.
No! she responded sharply, instantly quashing all potential comebacks, You promised me!
Link opened his eyes and sighed, "I did promise you." A new will to survive and blood rush awakened within him. It was only a matter of heartbeats before the makeshift fuse would catch on fire. First, he had to regain his breathing. Only when he could control his inhales and exhales did he begin pushing off of his healthy leg, painfully scooting himself towards the mouth of the furnace against the rough, sharp rocks underneath him. Once he reached the lip, he used his arms to lift his tender leg over the edge and onto the ground.
Damn! The pain made walking feel impossible. It would have been under any situation less life threatening than his current one. He wasted no time in reaching for the door, but while rushing out, he tripped over a stool and fell prone onto the hard surface. Immediately he could feel the front of his body begin to cook from the fire underneath, but survival instinct told him there was no time for pain. His knees and feet seared but would not quit until he reached the door.
His hand reached for the doorknob, and he lifted himself up to unlock the deadbolt. It was stuck. He grunted and heaved as he tried to force the mechanism. His heart raced faster and faster as each heartbeat ticked by. With a final twist, the deadbolt came loose, and the twist of the doorknob sent the burglar crashing forth onto the town street.
The breath of fresh air brought life-saving relief to his panic, but that was before he was looking at the pointy end of two spears. "What do you think you're doing, chump?" asked one of the blacksmith's guards.
"Uh, I obviously just broke in," Link retorted as he caught his breath while desperately using his good leg to continue pushing himself away from the building, "but what I just did isn't as important as what is about to happen,"
The two guards looked at him confused, and then the loud blast, louder than any normal bomb could make, clarified that statement...