Author's Note: Hey folks! Once again, we've got another long chapter here-this one topped out over 9k-so like I said last chapter, if you've got somewhere to be tomorrow morning feel free to put the fic down.
Unlike last chapter, this one comes with a content warning for gore and body horror, for a fight scene about halfway through. If you'd prefer to skip it, the fight scene begins at the line "The room before them was full of Gerudo." and ends at the paragraph beginning with "When the light faded, Ganondorf uncurled carefully, raising his head from the cradle of his arms."
True power lies within the land;
A Prince extends his blazing hand
Where Din's Flame sleeps beneath the sand.
Darkness fell like a shroud the moment they passed the threshold of the temple. Cold came with it, the chill and damp of a cavern, and Ganondorf pulled his cloak more tightly around himself, trying to ward it off. His bootsteps rang out in the silent space, echoing off the walls and a ceiling lost above him in the gloom, and he tilted his head back, squinting up into the blackness. There was a smell in the air, under the scent of damp— something acrid, and faintly rotten— and he curled his lip in distaste.
"...It's darker than I expected in here," Zelda said from somewhere behind him. "And...Link, you smell that too, right?"
"Smells like Malice," said Link.
His voice issued from behind Ganondorf's left shoulder, and the scuff of leather boots on the stone floor signalled his approach. Ganondorf peered back at him, but the Hylian was little more than a dim silhouette in the faint light from the doorway. His pale eyes seemed to glitter, though, and Ganondorf swallowed uncomfortably.
"...What's this malice ?" he asked.
"According to my grandmother, it's an emanation from Calamity itself," Zelda said, and Ganondorf looked over his other shoulder at her. "It's this...viscous, acidic substance that manifests in places the Calamity has touched. It manifests body parts— eyes are the most common, she called them the Dark Watchers— it reanimates monsters that fall into it...sometimes it's just a pool of seemingly inert substance , but don't be fooled. It destroys any living thing that falls into it— it eats stone and steel, and scars the very earth beneath it."
Her silhouette shuddered.
"It was in the Temple of Farore's Flame, too," Link added. "Zelda can purify it, but—"
"—It's taxing," Zelda said. "I must draw on Hylia's power to dispel it, but I can't do it too often or it wears me out. And…"
"Last time, it drew all the monsters in the area to us," Link said.
"And if we can smell it from the temple's entrance…" Ganondorf said cautiously, and dropped his hand to the hilt of his scimitar, thumbing the guard for comfort.
"Then there must be a lot of Malice deeper in," Zelda said grimly. "Link, do you still have that torch in the Slate? I don't want anything to sneak up on us in the dark."
"Just a second," Link said.
Fabric rustled in the dark, and Ganondorf turned fully to face the Hylians— just in time to be blinded by a brilliant flash of blue light. He shook his head, blinking spots from his eyes, and squinted at Link, who was lit by the blue rectangle of the Sheikah tablet he held. His fingers darted across the screen, and then he tapped at something, and—
There was a torch in Link's free hand.
" How — ?" he began.
"Oh, it's fascinating ," Zelda said, and took the torch from Link, brandishing it excitedly. "Apparently, the ancient Sheikah were capable of folding space just enough to create what's essentially an extradimensional pack, accessible via icons on the Slate. We still don't know how they could possibly have done it, but they did ."
"...So now we have a torch," Ganondorf said flatly.
"So now we have a torch," Link said.
"Care to light it for us, Dragmire?" Zelda asked, and held it out with the head pointed at him.
Ganondorf could smell the oil-soaked rags wrapping the end, so it was real enough, and he shrugged reluctantly and snapped his fingers, sparks leaping from them and catching the head instantly. The tug was notable this time, and he swayed a moment before steadying himself.
"You alright?" That was Link, and the Hylian had extended a hand as if to steady him before thinking better of it. His brows pinched in concern.
"Raising the temple...took more of a toll than I had anticipated," Ganondorf said. "It'll take me a little while to recover from that— I've never done such a large working before, much less alone."
Zelda made a sound that might have been a groan, if it had been any louder. "Guess we won't be able to count on your magic from here forward."
"I didn't say that , I said it would take some time to recover. Working magic like what I did outside is taxing , as drawing on your goddess's power is for you," Ganondorf retorted, shooting her a glare. His fingernails dug into his palm.
"Zelda," Link said quietly, and Zelda— whose mouth had opened to reply, no doubt with another biting retort— fell quiet, her shoulders slumping. "It's fine. We have a second torch, we're all armed, and we handled the gatekeeper in the last temple without magic."
"I suppose you're right," Zelda said quietly.
"...Gatekeeper?" Ganondorf said warily.
Link and Zelda exchanged a look, and the Princess's hand tightened on the haft of the torch.
Link exhaled quietly, then said, "The last temple had this...monster guarding the Chamber of Farore's Flame. We checked Zelda's grandmother's research on temples, and—"
"—It's theorized that Calamity sets guards to block the Hero from reaching his goals," Zelda said. "Seeing as there's evidence of Calamity's rising once again, and there was a gatekeeper in the last temple, it's safe to assume there will be another monster waiting for us in the depths."
Ganondorf grimaced. The cold presence beneath the sand, when he had raised the temple, was still fresh in his mind. It had sensed him— seen him, he was sure of it.
If that was the gatekeeper, it would be waiting for them.
"...Hopefully we'll have enough time before we face it for my power to return," he said. "Link, that second torch?"
"Right," Link said, and tapped at the Slate again.
A moment later he was holding a second torch, which he offered to Ganondorf. The wood was cool under his palm, smooth and even-grained, and the smell of the oil was more pungent than the other's had been. He held it out to press the head against Zelda's torch, waiting until it caught before pulling it away to hold aloft, casting a broader circle of light than Zelda's torch did.
The room stretched far beyond the glow, even with the light thrown more broadly, and the ceiling was still lost in shadow, but Ganondorf drank in what he could see eagerly. The floor was covered in a fine layer of sand, obscuring the pavers covering it— he'd expected a mosaic, but then, the Temple of the Triune had its entrance closed to the elements, not open to the deep desert. His torch caught the side of a column in its glow, reflecting off the red and orange tiles that wound their way up to where darkness claimed it once again. He recognized the pattern, an invocation of fire that symbolized the flaming arms of the goddess Din in the act of creating the earth. If this temple was like the Temple of the Triune, there would be a second pillar past it, blue for Nayru setting the world in order, and then a third as green as Farore's living breath.
"Well?" Zelda asked.
"It's a temple," Ganondorf said.
"I meant the mosaic," she replied.
Ganondorf shrugged. "Temple entrances have three pairs of pillars, one for each member of the Triune. They uphold the roof as the goddesses uphold the world."
"Ah. And how is a temple like this usually laid out?" she asked.
"There should be stairs at the far end of this room, and a landing at the top," Ganondorf said, and strode forward, earning a yelp as she hurried forward to keep pace. His torch lit Nayru's pillar, as he had expected— though the mosaic pattern was damaged, crumbling away in places to bare the stone of the pillar beneath. "On that landing, there will be two doors, one on either side, and a third in the center leading to the sanctum."
"That seems too easy," Link said quietly. "The sanctum of Farore's Flame was deep underground and through a maze of traps."
A chill ran down Ganondorf's spine, like ice down the back of his kurta. "I...believe this one will be so, as well. The sanctum of a temple is for worship by the people— the most sacred places will be underground."
"So which door is it, left or right?" Zelda asked.
"In the Temple of the Triune, the door on the right brings you to the halls of the acolytes and the offices of the Rova, and the door on the left leads you to the archives," Ganondorf said. "If the Desert Colossus is laid out the same, we should take the left door and follow it down."
"I wish we had a map," Link muttered.
"The last temple was largely old Sheikah architecture," Zelda said, before Ganondorf could ask. "They worked their technology into the whole edifice— there was a terminal in the first room that registered the Slate and allowed Link and I to download a map of the whole building. I suppose there won't be anything like that in here."
"No," Ganondorf agreed. "And most of the mechanisms to operate this place will rely on electri— what in Din's name ?!"
The third pillar had come into view, and something was...wrong about it. The green still showed in scattered patches, but the whole of the base was littered with shards of emerald tile. Thick vines of black and magenta curled down from the ceiling, spreading against the pale stone of the pillar, and pulsating with each flicker of the torchlight. The stench hit him at that moment, burning his throat like bile, and Ganondorf pulled the cowl of his cloak up to cover his nose. Link retched behind him, and Zelda gagged violently, as if she were about to vomit.
" Goddess —" the princess choked out.
"That's Malice," Link said, sounding strangled. "It shouldn't be this far up."
Ganondorf held the torch out, taking a cautious step closer to inspect it. The tendrils of Malice quivered and pulsated, seeming to curl towards him, and at that moment a hand closed on his wrist to pull him back.
"What are you doing ?" Zelda hissed. "Didn't you listen earlier? It'll burn you if you touch it."
"It looks like it's...alive," Ganondorf said quietly.
"Then definitely don't touch it," she replied.
"Do either of you see an eye?" Link asked from behind him, and when Zelda tugged at his wrist again Ganondorf let himself be pulled back, away from the tainted column. He held his torch as high as he could, peering up into the gloom.
"...Nothing," he said.
"Then we'd better not disturb it," Zelda said. She hadn't let go of his wrist either, he noted, the blunt crescents of her nails digging into his skin through the fabric of his sleeve. "If it's in the ceiling, for all we know the Malice could be holding this whole place together."
Link sucked in a breath, hissing unsettlingly between his teeth, and Ganondorf took another step away from the pillar. Something crackled beneath his boots— when he looked down, green shards glittered against the pale stone of the floor.
"...You're right," he said quietly. "We should keep moving. This place feels...wrong."
Heavy , he wanted to say. As if the blackness between them and the ceiling would press down and crush them at any moment.
He took as deep a breath as he could without the stench of the Malice choking him, steeling himself, and stepped forward again, towards the far end of the room. Zelda kept pace with him, refusing to relinquish her grip on his arm, but he let her keep it. The warmth of her hand was somehow reassuring. Link's footsteps stayed behind them, and stayed close, drawing near on Ganondorf's left as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Here were the mosaics he had been expecting, swirling up the steps in ribbons of gold, of red and blue and green, spraying out at the edges like the front edge of a sandstorm. Ganondorf hurried up them, pausing at the top and hefting his torch higher. It was as he'd expected— a door across from them at the center of the wall, a door to the left, and a door to the right.
The Malice was there too. The door leading to the sanctum bulged outwards, the ancient wood too cracked and laced with dry rot to hold against the weight of the substance. Fingers of it curled through the gap beneath the door, oozing out around the sides and pulsing thickly through every weakness in the wood. Bile stung the back of Ganondorf's throat again, and he turned his gaze away, to the door to the right. That one was in better condition, hanging straight on its hinges, and there was a sconce beside it where a torch should go, empty and rusted.
He nearly moved towards it, but there was— a whisper. A scrape. Leather on stone.
"You hear it too?" Zelda whispered.
"There's something on the other side of that door," he whispered back.
"Hope it doesn't know how to open that door," Link murmured.
"...You said the door to the right leads to the acolytes' halls, right?" Zelda asked.
Another scrape, and a low, metallic grating.
"Yes," Ganondorf breathed. He dared not raise his voice. His palm on the torch was slick with sweat; he adjusted his grip to hold it better.
"Then most of the people who were here when the temple sank—" Link began.
Ganondorf pulled his hand free of Zelda's and put it over his mouth to silence him. There was another scrape, a shuffle .
Something thumped against the door.
"It knows we're here," he whispered in Link's ear, and the Hylian went still.
"What do we do?" Zelda whispered back.
Another thump. The door juddered on its hinges, shedding flakes of rust.
Ganondorf released Link and took hold of Zelda's shoulder, moving her behind him, towards the left-hand door. "Now we go through the other door, and pray there isn't something quieter behind it."
Before any of them could move, there was a hideous squeal of metal on stone from the other side of the right-hand door. A moment of silence. Ganondorf's hands clenched on the hilts of his scimitars, his breath fast and ragged.
The ancient wood shattered when the blow fell, splitting and cracking under the force of the rusted scimitar. It caught on the crossbeam halfway down and stilled. Juddered. Slid back an inch into the darkness behind, and through the broken board Ganondorf got a glimpse of dulled enamel armor. A yellow eye glowing in the darkness.
" Move !" he shouted, and shoved at the Hylians.
Zelda gave a stifled shriek as Link caught her wrist and tugged, and Ganondorf backpedalled after them, eyes fixed on the broken door. The rusted scimitar jerked back another inch, caught again in the old wood.
" Got it!" Link hissed from behind him. Rusty hinges screamed in protest, and a blast of cold, musty air struck Ganondorf in the back as the door behind him opened.
Zelda's hand closed on his wrist again, tugging insistently. He took a step back, and then another, stumbling over the threshold as the scimitar jerked free and vanished into the darkness. Again, the eye shone out behind the broken door. Another dragging scrape—
Link slammed the door shut behind him and grabbed his other arm, towing him away from it. Ganondorf turned, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end at putting his back to the door, and hefted his torch higher, looking down at the Hylians. Zelda's face had gone pale as ash, her grip on his wrist slicked with sweat, and Link didn't look much better. The corridor behind them was narrow, pale stone leading to a dead-end at a wall— no, there were steps there, going down.
"What in Hylia's name was that?" Zelda demanded. Her voice quavered despite it, and he couldn't help shifting to run his thumb over the back of her hand, trying for comfort.
"—I don't know," he said, when he could manage it, glancing back at the door behind them.
The air was silent. Dead.
"Did you see anything?" Link asked.
"...The sword was of Gerudo make," Ganondorf replied. "That was all. I— it's too dark."
"Of course," Zelda muttered. "...Question is, will it keep coming after us?"
"If it can still hear us, it will come," Ganondorf said quietly. He glanced back at the door, ears straining against the silence.
He was rewarded with another muffled scrape.
"Lovely," Link said. "Let's just….get away from the door, go down the stairs into the Malice basement, and hope it doesn't follow us."
"Let's hope there aren't more of them down there," Zelda said darkly.
Then she hefted her torch a little higher and strode towards the stairs, leaving Link and Ganondorf behind her.
Ganondorf met Link's eyes a moment— they'd gone wide, pupils drawn tight in fear— and then reached down and caught his forearm, leading him after Zelda. The princess had reached the stairs by that point and waited impatiently for them, tapping a boot on the floor. Her torchlight cascaded down into the dark below, reflecting dimly off the dusty stone of the steps before being swallowed up by the gloom. The smell of Malice was stronger here, and underlaid with a scent of rot that nearly made Ganondorf gag. Wet rot, not dry— uncommon in the desert, where the sand and sun stripped the moisture from the dead.
Assuming there was enough body left to strip the moisture from .
"...At least the steps should hold us," Link said.
"So which of us is going first?" Zelda asked. "I don't think it should be me— bows aren't suited to close-quarters combat, and if something down there catches us, we'll want someone who can handle it."
"...I can," Ganondorf said, and stepped forward. Link stepped aside, letting him move through, up to the top step. The blackness at the bottom looked even more impenetrable, and as Ganondorf peered into it, he caught a glimpse of magenta sparks swirling up out of the depths. "...I know how temples are laid out, and of the three of us, I'll have the best reach if anything comes up after us."
"You want me to take the torch?" Link asked.
Ganondorf passed it to him wordlessly, then stepped down onto the first stair. They were solid under his feet, but his guts still clenched uncomfortably. He took the next step, and Zelda's boots tapped on the one behind him, slightly weightier than Link's as he took her place on the uppermost step. The scent was stronger still on the next step, and the one after that, even as the blackness below receded, thrust back by the torches.
By the fifth step his knees had gone weak and wobbling, and he braced himself against the left-hand wall, palm against the cool, gritty sandstone. It felt almost wet under his hand— but maybe that was just sweat, or just the chill. The Hylians came to a stop behind him, and for a moment there was silence, save for their breathing.
His lungs wouldn't expand.
"Are you alright?" Zelda asked. Her voice was quiet, tight.
"...I need to sit down," Ganondorf said, and a moment later his knees gave way beneath him. He nearly collided with Zelda on the way down, slamming hard onto the stair behind him, and put his head between his knees a moment, trying to steady his breathing. His armor felt like bands around his chest.
Leather shuffled on stone, and then Zelda sat down on the step beside him. Her face was pale and pinched when he looked up, and her green eyes glittered in the torchlight. She hesitated a moment, eyes darting across his face, then reached out carefully and placed her hand on his shoulder.
"I feel it too," she said quietly.
Ganondorf hummed in response, uncomprehending.
"I mean it," Zelda said. "The air being too heavy, the...the wrongness ."
"I do too, but it doesn't bother me," Link said.
"But does it get better?" Ganondorf asked, watching Zelda carefully.
She shrugged, pulling her braid over her shoulder to play with it. "When we find the thing that's infested this place with Malice, it stops being so cloying, and it goes away entirely when we kill it."
"Then we need to find it and kill it," he said.
"It would be easier if we knew where we were going ," Zelda huffed.
Above them, Link hummed thoughtfully. "...Hey Zelda, you remember that thing you did in the other temple, with the, uh—"
"Yeah?"
"Maybe we could use it to find the way, since we don't have a map."
"Link, I could kiss you," Zelda said.
"...Stop talking around me and explain what the 'thing with the uh ' is," Ganondorf said.
Zelda's eyes lit up. "It's one of my abilities— that is, the ones that come with being a descendant of Hylia," she said eagerly, and her hands dropped to his forearm, fingers curling under the edges of his vambraces. "My grandmother theorized it was possible based on the writings of some of our ancestresses, but my mother was the first to actually achieve it— that we can document, that is. The theory is that it's loosely adjacent to the meditative state that allows me to sense the ley lines, but—"
"Zelda," Link said above them.
"Right, right," Zelda said. "Getting carried away. Sorry. Essentially , it's a state of awareness that allows me to sense the locations and relative...power densities, as it were, of various masses of Malice in my general vicinity. And since the gatekeeper is made of Malice—"
"Then you'll be able to sense its location," Ganondorf said thoughtfully.
" Exactly ," Zelda said.
"We just have to be careful with it, because it lets the monsters know where we are," Link said.
"Last time, we got these...decaying bokoblins," Zelda said, and both of them shivered.
Ganondorf grimaced, the glint of a yellow eye through the door all too fresh in his mind. "I don't expect what finds us here will be any better," he said.
"Only one way to find out," Zelda said, and stood.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then the air around her began to ripple, golden light seeping from her skin and hair until she threw back the shadows around them, washing the stairwell in warm gold. Ganondorf felt it like a struck bell, resonating through his body, in his bones, thrumming against his skin like an echo of the sun's warmth at dawn. Zelda turned to look down the staircase, her eyes opening, and gold shone through them too, staring into places he couldn't see.
He thought of the cold, sharp presence he'd felt when raising the temple and shivered.
Zelda gasped. The light went out, leaving them in flickering torchlight once more. She staggered, and Ganondorf was on his feet in an instant, catching her by the wrist to support her. Link braced against her other shoulder. The princess trembled, leaning her weight against Ganondorf for a moment.
"Are you alright?" he asked softly.
"—I felt it," Zelda gasped. "It's— it's bigger than the last one. And there are so many —"
"So many what ?" Link asked.
Before Zelda could answer, a resounding crash shook the air. Her grip on Ganondorf's arm tightened, nails digging into him. Another grating screech of steel on stone.
From the top of the staircase.
"...Fuck," said Link.
Ganondorf pulled Zelda closer, down the steps, and then Link was at his other shoulder, tugging and pulling at the edge of his cloak. Their boots splashed in a rank puddle, throwing rusty ooze every which way. Cool air pressed through his kurta as they entered the tunnel proper, the smell of decay growing stronger. He looked left, then right, staring into the dark before casting a glance back over his shoulder.
"Which way?" he asked, shaking Zelda gently.
"—The right," she said. "You were right, it's below— below the sanctum. Right below it. But there's more of them that way—"
"More of what ?" he demanded. Another scrape behind him.
"Less talking, more moving," Link said, and shoved at his shoulder. He stumbled. Zelda tugged his wrist, pulling them down the right-hand corridor.
"Like at the top of the landing," Zelda said hurriedly, hefting her torch a little higher. "They're like— they feel like little scraps of Malice, they're tied to the gatekeeper. Strands of energy."
They rounded a corner, and Ganondorf stopped dead in his tracks.
The room before them was full of Gerudo.
Zelda's torchlight caught on vibrant fabric, on gold embroidery tarnished black. In a dozen glowing yellow eyes. Withered, dry hands clutched battered scimitars.
The nearest vai's face was gashed from rusty brow to blue-painted lips. Malice oozed through the rent in her sunken skin. Her mouth opened.
She screamed.
Ganondorf's knees buckled. His knees slammed hard into the stone floor, then palms, the skin scraped raw by the contact. Hot liquid ran down his neck from his ear. He forced himself to raise his head, shuddering against the pressure. His ears rang, sound muffled save the pulse of blood in his head.
The dead vai loomed over him. Her jaundiced eyes stared, accusing. Her shoulder jerked, the scimitar she carried lifting torturously.
Zelda's hand tightened spasmodically on his wrist.
Ganondorf shook his head, trying to clear his ears. With his other hand he grabbed for his own scimitar, forced himself upright and lunged forward.
His blade caught the dead vai's mid-swing, his arm juddering with the effort. Her withered arms couldn't possibly hold so much strength, but she shoved him backwards. He pushed back, knocked her to the floor. Her empty hand scrabbled at the tile. Futilely. He thrust his sword through the gash in her face, felt her skull crack under his hands. A shudder ran up the blade of his scimitar as the tip struck the floor. Her jaw jerked, severed at the joint, her yellowed eyes fading to a dull magenta light.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. Ganondorf jerked and turned— and Link darted past him, sword unsheathed. The blade glowed in the dim light, flashing as it collided with a rusted saber swinging for them and snapped the lesser blade in twain. He met Zelda's eyes a moment. The girl squeezed his shoulder, then reached up to touch the bow at her back.
The bow. It hit Ganondorf at once, what she needed him to do. He nodded and scrambled fully upright, pulling her up with him, and squeezed her hand.
Then he turned and unsheathed his second scimitar. The nearest vai— corpse — lurched towards him. Barehanded. He lashed out with his off-hand. Her flesh parted beneath his blade, dessicated bones shattering. Malice poured from her. He leapt back away from the growing pool.
Link shouted, the sound breaking through the ringing in his ears. He spun towards the Hylian. Caught a falling scimitar with a cross-block and shoved. Planted his boot in a yielding gut. Something cracked when the corpse struck the ground, and he shook his head again and rammed his blade through her sternum to keep her from rising as her nails broke on his cape.
A deafening shriek cut through the air, and he staggered. Crashed back to his knees beside the corpse. Her head turned towards him, eyes brightening from throbbing embers to yellow fury. She grabbed for his face with claws, and he jerked, scrabbling backwards. Fingers caught in the hood of his cloak and pulled—
Link, towing him upright. "The throat —" the Hylian gasped. Ganondorf hardly heard him. His skull rang like a struck bell.
Link released him, spinning on his heel and slamming another corpse back. The one on the floor clawed her way towards him, Malice pouring from the hole in her chest, and Ganondorf screamed and brought his swords down on her head until she stopped.
He turned. Caught another blow. Slashed a blade across a withered brown throat. Malice oozed like congealing blood from the wound. He rammed his swords through her chest again and shoved, hardly blocked another blow—
Too many—
An arrow struck the ground between him and the next corpse, glowing with brilliant light. White and gold filled his vision, and a blast struck him in the ribs, hurling him to the ground.
When the light faded, Ganondorf uncurled carefully, raising his head from the cradle of his arms. His right side ached where he'd struck stone, head pounding, hands stiff on the hilts of his scimitars. His ears still rang. His eyes focused, then crossed again as, across the room, Link brought down the last standing corpse and cut her throat. A pair of hands landed on his upper back, pulling gently at him.
Zelda.
The princess turned him towards her, and he went willingly, letting her turn his face from side to side to inspect him. She spoke— her lips moved, but no sound met his ears through the ringing. Her brows creased, and she turned toward Link, who had come trotting over while his attention was on Zelda, and held out a hand. Link nodded, grabbing at the Sheikah Slate, and Ganondorf hardly had the wherewithal to shield his face from the flash of light that followed. One of them pressed something into his hand— cool, smooth glass, and when he opened his eyes there was a bottle in his hand. It was filled to the neck with a bright red liquid, and he swirled the bottle thoughtfully, studying it. It looked like one of the elixirs Hylian traders often carried with them to manage the heat of the desert, but those were usually blue , as he recalled…
When he looked up at Link, the Hylian mimed uncorking the bottle and knocking it back.
Well, that explained it. Ganondorf did as he was bid. The elixir was acidic, almost bitter, and he winced as it hit the back of his throat and lowered the bottle after a couple of sips, grimacing up at Link. His inner ear had begun to itch— and his skinned knees and palms as well, and a deep-muscle ache bloomed along his bruised side— must have been the elixir taking effect. His ears popped a minute later, and he worked his jaw a moment before handing the bottle back to Link.
"That's disgusting ," he said.
"They usually are," Link said, shrugging apologetically, and took a swig of the elixir himself.
"Are you alright?" Zelda asked. She hadn't let go of his shoulder, he noticed, like she was afraid he would collapse if she did. "I didn't mean to catch you with that arrow— you were right in the middle of the blast zone."
"That...wasn't a bomb arrow," Ganondorf said hesitantly.
Zelda shook her head. "One of mine— an amber arrow. I've been experimenting with it as a conduit for divine energy—"
"Princess," Link said, almost warningly.
"Oh please ," Zelda huffed. "As if you haven't lectured me on goat hoof care before."
"Yeah, but not when we're in a temple ," Link said. "You think any more of them are coming?"
Zelda went quiet immediately, and Ganondorf tilted his head, listening.
Nothing. Nothing but their own breathing.
"...I don't think so," Zelda said quietly. "It's...strange. When I sensed the gatekeeper, it was as if these...creatures...were connected to it— that must be how they kept reviving like that—"
"Can we please not call them creatures ?" Ganondorf cut in. "They are— they were Gerudo. They...the least you can do is grant them the respect in death they haven't been given."
"...I'm sorry," Link said quietly.
"It's not your fault," Ganondorf replied, and stood carefully, sheathing his blades at last and gazing around the room.
The dead vai were still now, most of them laid flat or curled on their sides, and his stomach churned as his eyes fell on the one whose head he had staved in to defend himself. Her eyes would never be closed in death, not now. The one beside her was flat on her back, arms at her sides, and he padded closer, hands in fists. She'd taken a blow up under her armor, through her stomach, and though neither blood nor Malice pooled beneath her, he couldn't look at her too-still body, her empty, slack face.
He knelt beside her and, gently, pulled her desiccated eyelids closed.
"...We need to find the gatekeeper," he said quietly, rising again to his feet. "If they're all connected to it, if we destroy it, then they can rest— I can send the Rova and their acolytes to—"
His voice broke before he could say bring them home .
"...Zelda, you said it was up ahead?" Link asked.
"Yes," Zelda replied. He heard her take a few steps forward to stand beside him, though she didn't touch him. "...Are you alright to go on?"
"Do I have another choice?" Ganondorf asked dryly.
There was a pause, and then Link stepped forward as well, bumping his shoulder against Ganondorf's as he crossed the room, stepping carefully around the fallen warriors until he reached the door on the other side. He looked back, then, his hand on the rusted doorknob. Ganondorf met his gaze, then looked down at Zelda— who looked back up at him and nodded. They joined him in the same motion, standing aside as Link opened the door.
Another empty hall waited for them on the other side, shadowed by their torchlight, though Ganondorf could see a glint of metal somewhere in the gloom. Zelda hefted her torch a little higher, and he took that as a cue to enter the hall, letting her follow behind and throw light into the space.
There was another door on the other end. A pristine one. The wood was smooth and glossy in the torchlight, as if it had just been freshly conditioned, and the metal bands holding it together and the steel of the doorknob shone polished. It hung straight on its hinges, and instinct told Ganondorf that if he pulled it open, those hinges wouldn't so much as whisper.
Some part of him quailed at the idea of even touching it.
"...That just doesn't look right," Link said.
"I can't believe there's a door here at all," Zelda said. "The mass of Malice in the sanctum is almost directly above us— if it came up through the floor, it should have flooded this chamber. That door should have been eaten away three thousand years ago."
Ganondorf steeled himself and strode forward, holding his hand above the knob, and closed his eyes. He reached out, feeling for the enchantment he was certain was in the wood. And there it was, tingling under his palm and filling his mouth with ozone. The metal was electrified.
"Both of you stay back," he said, not opening his eyes or looking back at the Hylians. "There's lightning-work in the steel, you'll get a shock if you touch it."
Or him at that point, for that matter— the electricity reached up to the metal of his gauntlets, crackling harmlessly to bracer to pauldron to breastplate, his braid beginning to curl and lift as the charge rolled harmlessly through him. The spell was a deterrent— meant to keep out non-mages— but he could feel the catches in its working like a lock, and he reached out with his reserves of power, pressing at them until they opened one by one under his probing. The spell tasted copper under his tongue as he undid the last catch and let it slide open. The frisson across his skin as the charge dissipated was oddly familiar, though he was certain he'd never worked one like this before.
"I think I have it unlocked now. It should be safe," he said, opening his eyes and glancing back over his shoulder at Link and Zelda.
The pair of them looked at each other, then hurried to join him as one, standing close at either side. Link's elbow bumped against his side— he'd reached up and put his hand on the Blade sheathed at his shoulder, then drew it evenly. The length of the blade glowed faintly blue in his hands, and the air around it felt almost charged. Zelda seemed to share that thought, as she slung her bow from her shoulder and nocked an arrow. Ganondorf nodded and closed his hand on the doorknob, which hummed gently under his hand as he twisted it and pushed.
His instinct had been right. The hinges didn't so much as whisper as the door swung open.
The chamber on the other side of the door was bright, lit everywhere with topaz sconces still crackling with electricity. The floor was swept clean, flagstones reflecting the light— where they weren't engulfed in Malice. Tendrils of it snaked across the floor, sinking between the stones like overgrown roots and growing thicker as they spread up the walls, all of them seeming to pulse and shudder. Like a heartbeat. The tendrils of Malice stopped at the bounds of a circle of glyphs in the floor, shining faintly silver in the light, and Ganondorf tracked one line of writing up and up—
To the pedestal dead-center in the room. A massive black sword was thrust into it, jagged-edged, with dark wings sweeping up and away from the hilt. A red gem shone between them, but something told Ganondorf it wasn't a ruby. It glinted darkly in the light, watchful as an eye. His palms ached and burned.
"...Where's the gatekeeper?" Zelda asked.
Link took a step forward over the threshold, sword at the ready. "...I don't see it. Might still be in the Malice…"
Zelda followed him, and Ganondorf let himself join them, peering around the room. The ceiling was lost overhead— no, not lost, the Malice had eaten the wooden floor between them and the sanctum above, joining the two rooms— and the walls were rounded, eaten smooth by the Malice save for where the topaz still shone. Lines of silver ran down from them, joining up at the circle of glyphs around the pedestal, and the Malice did not cross them. Link and Zelda were careful to step over them, and Ganondorf followed their lead. The room fairly hummed with magic, growing louder as he stepped closer to the bounds of the circle.
The sword hung in the edges of his vision, and his palms itched. Something told him that, if he drew it, his hands would fit perfectly on that hilt. The taste of copper blossomed under his tongue again, like he'd bitten himself.
"—Dragmire, wait—" Zelda called.
Ganondorf froze. He hadn't realized he'd been moving.
When he looked down, he'd stepped into the circle, one boot over the line, and one on it. The light flickered abruptly.
Then it went out.
Darkness seeped from the glyphs. Not like Malice, more like smoke. Ganondorf sprang back— away from it, away from the sword— as it billowed up, curling like claws for the oozing tendrils of Malice on the walls, which moved in turn. Smoke and viscous fluid curled about each other. A hundred eyes opened. The Malice peeled itself up off the floor, curling and coiling into a shape beside the sword.
A person-shape.
The Malice pulsed, condensed, stretched too tall, the limbs contorted, the joints reversed. Black armor pulsed thickly to the surface of the mass, the curve of a Gerudo breastplate, the sharp thrust of pauldrons. The hands, when it opened them, had too many fingers. Or too few. It opened eyes across its stomach. In the gap between gorget and throat. On its face, askew . Its hands closed on the hilt of the sword, shoulders twisting , and the beast pulled the blade from the pedestal. The air throbbed. Ganondorf shuddered.
"Don't just stand there," Zelda hissed. A hand caught Ganondorf's cloak and pulled him backwards. He stumbled sideways, grabbing for his scimitars and circling the beast.
The eyes on the thing's face twitched to follow him. The ones on its throat and stomach tracked other movements— Link and Zelda circling the other direction. A mouth split its face like a wound, yellowed fang and oozing, glowing magenta. A hissed intake of breath, scenting the air.
A bowstring sang. An arrow sprouted from the beast's throat. The thing screamed , and Ganondorf staggered.
Link was on it in an instant. His sword was an arc of light, slashing at the blackened cuirass. The beast took the first blow, stumbling on twisted legs. It caught the second on the jagged edge of the sword and shoved . Tossed Link aside. It rose, lifting a hand in a too-familiar gesture. Lightning crackled around its outstretched fingers as it pointed at the prone Hylian beneath it
The air filled with the scent of ozone.
Ganondorf moved without thinking, thrusting his own hand skyward, fist clenched. The beast's head snapped towards him. Its hand fell, scything towards him. He raised his arms in a cross-block, and the lightning wrapped itself around his forearms like a whip. The beast pulled . Ganondorf stumbled, then braced, teeth gritted. His mouth was full of copper.
A second arrow slammed home into the side of the beast's head, spraying Malice, and the lightning flickered out. Ganondorf staggered as the pull vanished, regaining his footing a moment later, just as Link rammed into the beast from behind. His sword sang in his hands. The air around him glowed hazy blue.
The beast sprang back, raising its own sword and slashing at Link— but the Hylian wasn't there anymore. He'd ducked the blow. Come up under it to land blows across the beast's gut where its too-small breastplate failed to cover. Malice flowed like blood. The beast screamed .
The Malice still coating the walls throbbed in response. Ganondorf froze. Link leapt back, sword at the ready, but the beast didn't pursue him. The Malice of its form twisted, and it surged up— launched itself skyward into the darkened sanctum above. Movement in the corner of his eye. Zelda, raising her bow to track its flight. The arrowhead glowed gold as if lit from within. She drew, and Ganondorf found himself watching the flex of her arm, powerful muscles straining against the confines of her kurta.
She loosed the arrow in a burst of light, and the beast wailed . The percussive blast of the amber arrowhead shattering hurled it into the wall. The building shuddered. The beast didn't fall.
It raised its sword instead. Lightning crackled down the jagged length of the blade, rippling red and gold. Ganondorf's eyes were drawn up to the body. Magenta veins pulsed and glowed through the black of the Malice. Its empty hand seemed unraveled, hardly holding its shape, and more eyes had opened across its form, staring malevolently. His diadem was hot against his brow.
Ah . He'd forgotten about it. About the store of energy in the topaz.
The beast lowered the sword, pointing the maelstrom of lightning along its length at Link and Zelda. Ganondorf stepped forward. He could taste the energy in the air, could feel the knot of lightning at the beast's core. Lightning and something else, something unfamiliar. The beast thrust forward. Thunder shook the temple.
Ganondorf threw his arms up and caught the blow as it fell. Lightning surged up his forearms, snapped across his shoulders and stung down his spine. The beast roared fury and hauled back on the tether of electricity binding them. Ganondorf pulled back, tasting the ozone in his throat. He caught hold of the spell with both hands, reaching for the knot of lightning and pulling at it. Lightning unspooled. His heart stuttered in his chest.
The something else unspooled too, spilling silver across the shape of the void. Silver like the binding circle. The beast screamed and fell, striking the floor with a blow that shook the earth. Ganondorf pulled, reeled the silver threads out of the knot of Malice at the heart of the beast. There was form beneath the Malice, a shape he nearly recognized—
The point of the Blade of Evil's Bane emerged from the beast's chest, shattering the hollow breastplate into shards of light.
It wailed , crackling upwards in flakes of magenta light and ash. The Malice on the walls peeled up with it, the silver circle on the floor brightening beneath them. The air lightened. Ganondorf fell to his knees, the lightning fading as the beast did, until the only sound in the sanctum was their own heavy breathing.
"... Goddess bright ," Zelda gasped, shattering the silence.
" Fuck ," Link said in agreement, and pushed himself back to his feet.
Ganondorf shook himself and rose as well, closing his eyes to feel for the pulse of the energy of the space. It was brighter without the Malice, clearer and cleaner, and he could feel it rippling through the floor, pushing the numbness from his exhausted limbs.
"What in Din's name was that ?" he asked.
Silence.
"...I don't know," Link said quietly.
"It wasn't like the last gatekeeper," Zelda said. Ganondorf opened his eyes to look at her. Her dark hair was partially loose from its braid, hanging around her shoulders in tangled masses. "The last one...it was partially Sheikah technology and partly Malice, but this one was…"
"All Malice," Link agreed. "And the sword, too. The last one's weapon disappeared when it died." Metal squealed on stone— he'd nudged the black sword with the toe of a boot, scooting it across the floor.
" Don't touch that," Ganondorf said, the words spilling out before he could stop himself.
Zelda cocked her head to one side, green eyes glittering. "Why not?"
Ganondorf's face heated. "I— it feels wrong, and I think touching it at all would have...consequences."
"Then we'll leave it," Zelda said, and shoved a hank of hair out of her face. "We're here about the flame, anyway, not some evil-looking sword."
Link's expression was more skeptical, and he prodded the leather-wrapped hilt of the black sword again with the toe of his boot before crossing to the other side of the room, where silver letters had begun to shimmer in the arch of a doorway. It must have been hidden in a fall of Malice before— Ganondorf didn't remember seeing it when he came in. He picked his way across the room to join Link, standing slightly behind the Hylian and studying the door. The script was unfamiliar to him, seeming to shift across the stone.
Zelda bumped up against his right side. "Well? Care to do the honors, Link?"
Link nodded and raised his hand, laying his palm against the center of the door.
The moving script stilled, brightening, then faded out entirely— and the door rippled away with it, leaving the open hall behind it. Cool air whispered through the breach, spectral blue light filtering down the passage from a larger chamber beyond. Ganondorf stilled, gazed into the dimness. The faintest hint of copper bloomed beneath his tongue.
The Hylians had no such hesitation. Link shrugged his shoulders a little, shifting the lay of the sheath across his back, and strode through the open doorway. Zelda ducked around Ganondorf to follow him, her boots tapping at the stone. Ganondorf shook himself. This was nothing, really— not compared to the gatekeeper-beast, or to the fallen Gerudo warriors— it shouldn't have sent a shiver down his spine.
He followed the Hylians.
The hallway was dim, but short, and it quickly opened up into a round, high-ceilinged chamber flooded with that pale blue light. The sandstone underfoot looked almost white in its glow, as did the walls, every inch of which were covered in carvings. Ganondorf rocked back on his heels and took them all in— the arch and bow of flame and wind chasing across them, stylized lines of canyon systems winding across the ceiling like a map. The wall opposite the doorway was muraled with the Triforce, bright golden tiles edged in red and green and blue, the Crest of Din red and proud in its center. A low brazier, empty of flame, ran the length of the wall beneath it. Hylia's crest was graven on the center of it, the edges as crisp as if the mason had just lifted her chisel.
"Right," Zelda said, and clapped her hands together. "Hold off on the Flame a minute, Link, I want to get a look at the mural for the next one."
The princess stood looking up at the wall to the right of the doorway, studying the other prominent mural in the room. This one was a stylized crest like a flame, one Ganondorf didn't recognize— the shape of it was unlike the stylizations for Din, blockier by comparison. The Mark of Nayru glowed at its heart, shimmering blue chased in gold, and there was writing beneath in the same unfamiliar script as had marked the vanished door. Zelda knelt at the foot of the mural, tracing her fingers over the lettering.
"What does it say?" Ganondorf asked, padding over to take a look.
"Hold on a moment, let me look," Zelda said. Her fingers paused at the end of the first line, brows furrowing. "... Peaks where the winds break... and something about the wise …...it's hard to tell, the stylization on these lines are something else — I'd almost think this was Gerudo script, but—"
"It isn't," Ganondorf said. "What does it mean ?"
"They're clues to the location of the next temple," Link said. "The first one led us to the Spring of Courage in Faron, the second one pointed us out to the desert, and...I can't tell with this one. Any luck, Zelda?"
"None," she replied. "Hand me the Slate— I'm going to take a picture of this and finish translating when we get back to town. After we get some sleep, that is, so my eyes stop crossing while I try to decipher it."
Link snorted and slid the Slate out of the holster on his hip, passing it to Zelda. The screen brightened under her touch, and she tapped at the right-hand side of the screen— and then again, and then clicked on a glyph.
The eye on the back blinked open.
Ganondorf took a hasty step back, away from it, but Zelda didn't seem to notice. She held the Slate up instead, pointing it towards the wall, and the screen shifted, displaying the inscription as clearly and crisply as it appeared on the wall. She tapped again— and then a second time, before pressing a button on the device's face. The screen went black.
"...So, what does that do?" Ganondorf asked, crouching beside her. The eye had closed again, he noted, and she passed it back to Link before she answered him.
"My grandmother's notes call it a 'pictogram'," Zelda said. "It recreates a true-to-life image of an object or an inscription— I usually copy them down instead, but I'm worried my own assumptions about the style of this script will lead me to mistranslate it, so it's better to have the pictogram."
"Sensible," Ganondorf said. He hesitated, studying her face a moment. She looked dust-smudged and weary, but her green eyes were still bright. "So...you'll be leaving the desert after this, then?" he asked carefully.
Zelda stood, brushing her hair out of her face again, and Ganondorf had to clench his hands into fists to keep from pulling her hair back himself. "...Well, I suppose we'll have to finish that stupid treaty negotiation, but I can just tell my father you wouldn't cede to his demands and threw us out, and then Link and I will be out of your way. Are you amenable to that?"
"More than amenable," Ganondorf said, suppressing a sigh of relief. "So all that's left here is…"
"The Flame," Zelda said.
Link crossed back to the center of the room, positioning himself in front of the crest on the brazier. He raised his sword skyward.
For a moment, nothing. Then the crest lit up blue— and then a moment later the Mark of Din on the wall behind it began to glow like molten metal, and a crimson flame leapt up in the brazier, and—
Ganondorf was on his knees. The room shuddered about him— bathed in crimson light instead of blue. Link and Zelda were gone, but the room was not empty.
A Gerudo stood between him and the brazier, her back to him. Her hair was cropped short, irregularly, like it had been hacked off with a sword. Her cape was caked in dust and dried blood, as were her boots and what he could see of her sirwal. She shifted uncomfortably before the raging fire in the brazier.
"Will it be enough?" she asked the empty air. Her voice was strident. Familiar. "If I open the gate, will this power be enough to avenge my sisters' deaths upon Hyrule?"
Silence.
The Gerudo nodded. Her arms shifted— she tossed something into the air. A polished orb, small enough to fit in Ganondorf's cupped palm, glowing blue and violet by turns. "...Very well, Lord," she said, and tossed the orb again. The air around her shimmered. "I open the gate—"
The temple thundered. Ganondorf jolted forward onto his palms, and the Gerudo cried out.
"No—" she cried.
She turned.
She was not a woman. The brilliant orange topaz of the War Crown sat centered on the King's brow, the solar disc of the headdress haloing his battered face, and the eyes that stared back at Ganondorf were his own.
Black Malice-light opened behind him.
"—gmire?" Zelda called, shaking his shoulder. "Are you alright?"
Ganondorf shook himself. He was on his knees after all, kneecaps abraded by his linen sirwal when they struck the floor, and Link and Zelda peered down at him with matching looks of concern. Cautiously, he pushed himself back to his feet. Something bumped against his hip as he rose— a small, round weight that hadn't been there when he'd fallen, and his hand twitched with a need to reach into his pocket and see what it was.
"...I'm alright, just...dizzy for a moment," he said. "It's been a very long day."
Zelda hummed thoughtfully.
Link nodded. "It has," he said.
"Come on, then," Zelda said. "There's stairs behind the mural on the left wall that should take us back to the surface."
She turned her back, then, padding over to join Link near the other mural, and Ganondorf's hand dropped to his pocket immediately. His fingers closed on a cool, smooth ball, just large enough to fit into his cupped palm, and when he withdrew his hand, the orb the King had thrown winked back at him from the depths of his pocket.