Chapter 11

It was a long way down.

The lobster's carapace made horrible chipping and cracking noises as it scraped along the narrow walls of the temple. They went crashing down three stories into utter blackness. Link felt the icy-wet air streaming all around him, the chunks of the damaged beast hurtling past in the dark. A prong of loose coral caught his arm and gouged a sizeable cut up his bicep. He screamed at the pain, gripping the shell of the lobster tighter to keep from being flung into the wind.

After a fall that seemed to last minutes, the thing hit the floor with a wet crunch, throwing Link head over heels. He clutched the handle of the dagger desperately. It was still stuck into the pocket beneath the crustacean's eye, and it was just strong enough to support him as he dangled there. The sick, wet feeling of the monster's mandibles at his knee startled him, but he quickly realized that the thing was now quite definitively dead.

The lights came on suddenly so that he had to wince at their emerald glow. The same lines of green energy he had seen in the entry hall began to creep like spider's webs across the walls and ceiling, each vibrant vein of color bringing light into the world of darkness.

This was a narrow hallway, its length bending away in a bow shape in each direction, and dozens of doors lining the wall on the inner side of the curvature. The door closest to him had been thoroughly destroyed by their fall, but he would only have to travel a few feet down to reach the next one.

He reached up with his other arm, gripping the dagger tightly in both hands, and braced his feet on the crustacean's massive claws to give him leverage. With a mighty heave he pushed his feet out and pulled as hard as he could on the handle of the blade. It came free with a grizzly popping sound, sending Link flying to the ground back first. He gasped in pain as his tailbone made contact with the hard, unforgiving coral, and it was a few moments before he could pull himself to his feet and dust himself off.

Link peered up through the hole he had left in the floors above, and darkness peered back at him. Bits of coral and dust were still pouring down like a gentle drizzle of sandy rain. There was no sign of Zelda or the pirates.

"I gotta stop falling through ceilings," said Link to himself, stowing Scarlett's dagger away in his belt. He turned to gaze down the hallway, his hands on his hips, scanning for his next course of action. He began by trying the nearest door. It was a tall and narrow door with a square shape, its surface hewn from a rougher stone than the coral of the rest of the chamber, and carved with intricate pictographs of fish and other aquatic animals. Link could discern no handle. He reached out and brushed the cool stone with his fingers, testing the grooves of the carvings for some sort of hidden lever or button that might open the thing.

Where he made contact with the door, the stone began to glow the same emerald as the veins of light on the walls. Link felt a tingling sensation of electricity creeping up his arm. As he wondered about how the door might be opened, it was as if his very intentions became manifest. The heavy stone began to slide down, revealing the path ahead.

"Wow," said Link, "The temple really does read your thoughts."

The room beyond the door was a large, circular room with a low ceiling made mostly of thick sheets of glass. The glass formed massive windows, which looked out into the deep, dark water of the cave. Link could see angler fish, glowing eels and menacing crustaceans creeping along beyond the glass, but the creatures took no notice of him.

Stepping into the room, Link was not surprised to find that the walls sprang to life with the webbing of green etchings just as the other chambers of the temple had. The walls to the left and right of him were lined with more doors, confirming his suspicion that all the doors in the hallway he'd fallen into must open into one central chamber. Link's focus was immediately brought to one door which dwarfed the rest, which was almost directly across the room from him, although a little to the right hand side. If there was a path to the most central chamber of the temple, the chamber likeliest to hold the treasure, Link thought it must be through that door.

As he crossed the shimmering floor, each step lit up dazzling emerald and darkened again when his foot left the ground, each contact making a ripple of energy like stones dropping on the surface of a pond. Overhead, between the huge glass windows, the ceiling seemed connected to the upper floors by hollow tubes of coral, which were too far above for Link to reach them. He thought about using the hookshot to climb up, but decided that Zelda and the pirates couldn't have stopped moving forward, and that it would be pointless to try to backtrack now to find them.

The double doors Link headed to were far too massive to be pushed open, but thankfully Link's intuition served him well. All he had to do was stand in front of the door and concentrate on its opening and soon the massive slabs of stone began to glow with emerald light and slide away as if being pulled by invisible giants.

Beyond that ancient and gargantuan portal, a great hall lay open and silent. Link took a few tentative steps in, the only sound the soft echo of his own footfalls off the high ceiling and distant walls.

The chamber lit up dazzlingly!

Statues of Zoras bearing luminescent anemones sprang to glowing emerald life. The spider veins of eldritch green illuminated the floor of the path ahead with thrumming electricity. Pillars which lined the path erupted in dazzling flames of sparkling green.

Link could see that the path ahead was a narrow outcropping flanked by dark pits of questionable depth. The path ended abruptly in a semi-circle platform bearing a single podium, but not before passing under the massive, hollow skeleton of some ancient sea creature, whose ribcage made marvelous arches to travel under. Link stared up at the tremendous old bones as he walked beneath them, drawn forward by the pure awe of the scene.

At last he reached the podium. It was about three feet high, slanted towards him, and its surface glowed with eldritch green runes at his approach. He inspected them, and was surprised to see that they were in plain-as-day Hylian, just as if they had been carved yesterday. The inscription was short and concise, and simply read: "Death comes not for the dreamer."

Link peered cautiously over the edge of the path, staring down into the darkness of the pit beneath him. There was no bottom in sight. He glanced back at the doorway he'd entered by. There was nothing there, but if he used the Sleepstone now he would be completely vulnerable should someone come along. He considered his situation for a moment, but came to the conclusion that he was without option. Impa had told him that he should trust his own judgment with concerns to the use of the stone, and he was inclined to want to believe her. He sat down, his back to the podium, and drew the little glowing stone from his pocket, holding it in front of himself in his palms.

"Slumber," he whispered.

This time, the shift of the kaleidoscope was marvelous and intense. The emerald light cooled to cerulean, the darkness of the temple became bright and glorious, and the rough-hewn walls of coral became smooth and glamorous. Water rose to fill the bottomless void which surrounded him, and behind it came dazzling light. No longer was the surrounding pit a gaping, silent darkness, but rather a pool of crystalline water, illuminated brightly by some untold light source deep below. The statues lost their age-old tarnish, and were suddenly bright golden, their glowing anemones traded for vases of water which poured endlessly into the crystal pool in a procession of masterful fountains.

More bizarre than any of this, however, was the sudden and unexpected presence of a massive fish, its blank-eyed, goggle stare fixated directly on Link, its wet and snorting nostrils only an arm's length away from the boy. Somehow, in the Dreamworld, the ancient skeleton Link had seen in the chamber had sprung to life!

"I welcome you to my chamber, Hero of Dreams," spoke a voice in Link's head which was not his own.

"Ahhh!" screamed the boy, scrambling to his feet and backing up against the podium. He looked down, where his feet were sunk partially into his own sleeping body in a ghostly sort of way, and the combined shock was enough to make him a little dizzy.

"I did not mean to alarm you, young hero," said the voice, "I am Jabu-Jabu, God-Elemental of the ancient Zora. I am your ally, and have awaited you in this place for eons."

"Wait a second," said Link, staring in horror at the giant fish, "You're talking to me?"

"In a manner of speaking," replied the thing, "I am communicating with your mind directly, and your brain is interpreting my meaning in a way you can understand: spoken words."

"Ok, weird," said Link, relaxing a little, "So you're a God?"

"God-Elemental," said Jabu-Jabu, "A nature spirit which the old Zora once prayed to for calm waters and plentiful fish. I was once the keeper of the spiritual stone of water, which I gifted to the first Queen of the Zora on the day of her wedding. The royal Zoras kept me in their old domain, where I stood sentinel against the corruption of that realm for centuries, until a malevolent illness of magic fell upon me, and I perished from the World of the Waking. The Zora Princess who attended me at that time did not forget me though, and when she built this temple she brought my bones to rest here in this chamber. The entire temple is a conduit by which my mind is able to live on here in the Dreamworld."

"The Temple of the Mind," murmured Link, "Okay, I think I might get it. So the whole temple is like a big mind reading machine? That some ancient princess built centuries ago so that she could talk to her dead fish? God? Elemental? Thing?"

"Your concept is somewhat crude, but not inaccurate," replied Jabu-Jabu, emotionless, "That was the original purpose of this structure, yes- that I might communicate with gentle Ruto even after my demise, that I might guide her to fulfill her destiny as a Sage. My purpose has changed in more recent millennia however, and I now lay in wait for the Hero of Dreams who will come to claim the shard of the sacred weapon from its shrine here in the temple. You, Link, are that hero, and it is my task now to guide you in your next step."

"What about my friends?" said Link, "Zelda and Scarlett and the others, are they okay?"

"You are worried. Do not be," said Jabu-Jabu, "The Princess Zelda and her Shiekah companions have a part yet to play in all that is to come."

"But where are they now?"

"They are coming to save you. They face a great trial in doing so," said Jabu-Jabu, "You must accomplish your own trial, or you will not be able to help them when they come for you."

"What must I do?"

Zelda and the pirates had followed the hall the only direction they could, the floor leading back to the entry room being completely caved in. Kef groaned in pain as they hobbled along with him, arms over Scarlett and Gwen's shoulders. Zelda stayed as close to the pirates as she could, trying not to think about what might be happening to poor Link tumbling down into darkness with the giant lobster.

The hallway terminated in another heptagonal chamber, encircled with statues of Zora women. There was only one other exit to this chamber, another hallway which angled itself in the opposite direction from the slant of the one they'd just entered by. The group stopped for a moment to catch their breath, setting Kef down on the cool coral floor with his back against the pedestal of one of the statues. He grunted painfully.

"How is it?" said Gwen, testing Kef's ankle with her fingertips. The pirate winced and swatted Gwen's hand away.

"Easy! That's still sensitive!" hissed Kef, "I don't think it's broken," he added, shifting his ankle experimentally. The gentle movement shot a spike of pain of his leg, and he cried aloud, "Son of a! Ok, yeah, it's not broken, but I sprained the hell out of it."

"Is it too much to ask for you to pay attention to where you're running you damned fool?" said Scarlett, "This is just perfect. We lost our ringer and now we've gotta lug around a cripple. Goddess divine, I don't know how my day could get any better."

"Zelda, can you use your magic?" said Gwen.

"I'm sorry," said Zelda, "In order to use the Light of the Goddess there must be sunlight. Down here in the dark there's no way to cast the spell."

"Doesn't that just figure," said Scarlett, "Gods only help you when it suits them. Who needs them?"

"Captain, we need to keep moving," said Gwen, "The Zora could be right behind us. We don't want to get caught off guard down here."

"You're absolutely right, Ms. Gwendolin," said Scarlett, "Here, let's pick up the lug and get going. I don't see anything down the next hall. Princess, you stay close by, you hear? If it comes to a fight, Gwen, you fall back with Kef and Zelda. Kef, give Gwen your cutlass, it isn't going to do you any good now."

The pirates obeyed their captain mechanically, and in moments they were hobbling down the next hallway with Kef on their shoulders. The hall was narrow and glowing with emerald veins, just like the one they had come from, but as the end came into view they saw that the chamber it opened on was much larger than the one where they had rested at the foot of the statue.

They emerged into another heptagon, its ceiling higher up and made of domed glass which looked out like a skylight on the dark, subterranean water. The platform they appeared on was the top of a landing of stairs, and as the eldritch green spider webs crept to catch up with them, they traced the ornate bannisters which curled silently to the floor below.

Zelda went to the bannister and peered over. Below, a circular chamber awaited them. Its walls were devoid of proper doors, but rather did strange sort of pods glow emerald green from the recesses of half-pipes in the coral which were arranged vertically on the side opposite the stairway. At the center of the room, a podium of coral stood, its top already glowing with emerald runes.

"Down there," said Zelda. Scarlett came and glanced over the bannister.

"That podium must be some kind of control panel," said Scarlett, "Come on, let's get down there and see what we can do."

They descended the stairs quickly, and at the bottom they propped Kef up on the lowest step. Scarlett went to the podium immediately, scanning the runes with her one red eye.

"The minds of the worthy must submit to the judgment of the gods. Only the rightful will pass," read Scarlett, "Judgment? I don't like the sound of it."

"What does it mean?" said Zelda, approaching.

"I can't be certain, but I think it means that we have to pass some kind of test in order to proceed," replied Scarlett, "And judging by those pods on the wall, I'd say that we each have to handle this on our own."

"You mean we have to climb into those things?" said Gwen, pointing Kef's cutlass at the glowing green pods.

"Do you have a better idea?" asked Scarlett.

"What about Kef?" said Zelda, "He cannot get into one of those things on his own, and how is he supposed to pass any tests with his ankle twisted? We cannot go that way."

"Yes, you can," said Kef, "Look, I'm just dead weight anyway. If you leave me here now, probably the Zora will find me, and while they can't be terribly fond of us at this point I don't think they'll just slaughter an unarmed man. They're too peaceful and civilized for that. They'll probably drag me back up to their castle and throw me in a jail cell. Worst comes to worst, at least that gives you a chance of maybe breaking me out."

"What if the Zora do kill you though?" said Zelda, "We cannot just leave you here!"

"We're going to have to take the risk," said Scarlett, "It's not a fun decision, but if we wait here then they're sure to get all of us, capture or kill as they might. We have to press on."

"How can you be so cold? Is it easy for you to just abandon your own crew like this?" cried Zelda, not believing her ears.

"Look, Princess," said Scarlett, seizing Zelda's arm and dragging her roughly to the pods on the wall, much to the Princess' dismay, "One day, maybe, ye'll know what it's like to have to make calls that affect how people live and die. Maybe one day ye'll have to know what it's like to keep yer composure under significant emotional distress. Then, my dear Princess, you may judge me however you see fit. For the time being, get your ass in that Goddess-be-damned pod!"

Scarlett grabbed Zelda's tunic by the collar, and tossed her into the pod without a bit of hesitation. Zelda tried to scream, but the sound was stifled as the glowing green walls of the pod closed up around her. She was alarmed to learn that they felt quite slimy. Then, everything faded out to a blinding, all-consuming white…

"You must descend to the depths of this pool," said Jabu-Jabu, "There, you will find the pathway which leads to the chamber of the spiritual stone. Inside, you will find the treasure which you seek. It may only be reached by one who walks in dreams such as you do."

"I understand," said Link, turning to face the pool of crystal water, "Okay, I'm going in. I'll be back in a flash!"

With that the boy went diving into the water, kicking his legs and waving his arms in the froglike swimming stroke he'd grown accustomed to. The water seemed serene and devoid of any other creatures, but as he reached a lower depth he spotted something he had not seen before: a cylinder of rushing bubbles, like an underwater jet aimed straight up at him. He struggled against this new current, kicking and swiping, but he was unable to gain any further depth. Eventually, he rose to the surface in frustration.

"Jabu-Jabu," said Link, the moment his head breached the surface of the water, "I can't swim any deeper. There's no way for me to get to the bottom!"

"The manifestation of your dreaming mind has been your companion thus far," responded Jabu-Jabu, "Call upon it, and it shall give you the strength to venture forth."

"Manifestation of my dreaming mind?" said Link, drawing a blank. Then, suddenly, he remembered, "Oh! Here boy!"

Links whistle echoed magnificently along the walls of the shining temple, and it was answered by a proud roar which reverberated with the force of a turning airship engine. In a graceful bound, the clockwork dragon went sailing over the top of Jabu-Jabu, landing in the water beside Link with a splash. The resulting waves pushed the boy away, and he had to dive under the water for a moment to keep from inhaling the coming torrent. For a moment, the water was still and silent. Then, something came barreling up from underneath him, lifting Link into the air.

He was astride the dragon once more, but its aspect had shifted again into something new, strange, and beautiful. No longer was it comprised of brass and cloth and wood, nor was it draped in leafy fronds and growing moss. When the head of the thing breached the water, it revealed its new, cetacean shape. Its nose was bottled, the nostrils flared, and it opened its mouth to show rows of dagger-sharp, conical teeth. A wet, pink tongue lolled happily from the mouth, and the creature let out a dolphin trill of unconstrained excitement. Its wings were next to rise, brilliant butterfly sheets of lace, wafting over the water like the curtained fins of crown-tailed betta fish. It turned its head to regard Link, and its shining, rubber-skinned neck was long enough to turn all the way around and face the boy on its own back. It hooted and clicked at him merrily.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" said Link, patting the dragon on the head.

"Now go, hero! There is not a moment to lose. Danger approaches your friends quite rapidly, and you will want to be there to meet them when it arrives," urged Jabu-Jabu.

"Right!" said Link, and then he gripped the dragon tight. The beast seemed to know what he wanted without him making a sound, and the dragon whipped around and dove deep under the water. The last part of it to disappear was the magnificent fluke tail of shining silver.

She was swaddled in darkness, and felt small and alone. Something important had been happening to her; she remembered that much, but it all felt so hazy and faraway, as though it had been a mere dream of another life from which she had awoken.

Zelda pushed the covers away, letting the bright light of the sun shine on her face. She yawned and stretched, rising from her lush pink bed to greet the new day. Outside, Castle Town rested serenely under skies of brilliant cobalt. She went to her dresser and selected her favorite dress. Today she would get her father to come down to the courtyard with her and play. She was determined not to let his 'kingly duties' get in the way.

Dashing down the hallway on shoeless feet, she felt the velvety carpet of the castle halls crush between her toes. She rounded a corner at full speed, ducking between the legs of two servants carrying loads of freshly laundered towels. One of them shouted at her plaintively, but she paid no heed.

Up the spiral stars she leapt, two at a time, careful not to step on the diamond-shaped pattern on the carpet, for those were the dangerous ones which every child knew would turn the ground into boiling lava. She clutched the orb of gold which marked the end of the bannister, and used it as leverage as she flung herself down the hallway of the upper floor. Her father's bed chamber was at the end of the hall. She would burst in and jump on him until he woke up and took her down to the courtyard.

Something was wrong though. The closer she came to the bright, white double-doors which led to the King's bedroom, it seemed as though the entire hall was stretching around her. Soon, the doors and windows which lined the hall seemed taller than the factory smokestacks that kissed the sky, and outside it seemed that the sun itself was dimming like a fading candle. Motion was becoming slow and thick, and the faces of the standing guards became gaunt and pallid. Zelda found herself striding along as though urged by some irrefutable force, but no longer was the joy of morning at Hyrule Castle in her heart. She continued with a terrible, sinking fear rising in her all the while, and by the time she reached the massive doors her eyes were streaming tears.

The doors swung open of their own accord, revealing the King's chambers to be shadowy, dark as night, with no defined walls or ceiling or even a visible floor. Only the King's bed stood within the room, illuminated by a nonexistent spotlight which seemed to bathe every feature of the massive bed with a kind of evil, sterile glow.

Zelda approached the bedside, trembling.

"Father?"

"Zelda," said the King, his voice barely a rasped whisper. The Princess came closer so she could look on him, and was horrified to see that his face too had become gaunt and pale, and his rich brown hair had turned grizzled and white. He gazed on her through half-lidded, bloodshot orbs, and the lines in his face made him look ancient and withered. "My dear daughter, come to me."

"Father," whimpered Zelda, between sobs, "Father, we were supposed to go down to the courtyard. Will you not get out of bed, father?"

"I'm sorry, my dear," rasped the King, "I just don't have the energy. My bones feel too weary to lift me. I fear that I must slumber… slumber…"

The King's eyes closed gently, and did not reopen. The Princess gripped at the sheets around him, shook him as hard as she could and cried and cried. There was no response. The King had fallen into a deep and unbreakable sleep.

"This is your fault, little girl!" the voice belonged to a teenage girl, who came slinking from the darkness somewhere behind the King's bed. Only her pointing hand came completely into the light, and Zelda saw her own silken pink glove holding out the accusatory digit her direction. The figure took a step forward, the light casting on its grinning face. It was Zelda! She was older, and her eyes were narrowed in anger and passion, and her grin was maniacal, but the Princess knew her own face when she saw it.

The older version of Zelda came traipsing around the bed, all the while holding out that pointing finger, until it was close enough to touch the younger her on the nose.

"You were not strong enough. You could not protect him," said the older Zelda, "Now he will die all alone, and you have done nothing to stop it!"

"No!" cried the little Zelda, "No, I will not let him die. He cannot die!"

"He is already dead, pathetic girl!" shouted the older, "He is dead, and he is not coming back, and now you are all alone. How will you be Queen? Sniveling little scared brat. You should be worrying about your people and your kingdom, and instead you sit whimpering in the shadows pining after your poor daddy. You are a disgrace to the Royal Family. It is a blessing on your father that he does not have to live to see you lead his beloved Hyrule into the ground!"

"It is not fair! I did not even have a chance to learn anything," cried the younger Princess, "He just left me. How am I supposed to just become a Queen all of a sudden? I am just a little girl. I should not have to do this yet…"

"That is right, little Princess. Make excuses. Cry. Blame your poor, sick father for your own shortcoming," the older Zelda scowled, "You could not even get the Zora to give you the treasure you need to save him. If it were not for those miserable pirates, you would be long dead. You are useless."

"Pirates," said the younger Zelda, trying her hardest to remember, "Pirates! Scarlett and Gwen! Link!"

"You cannot help them either," urged the older, "You only screw things up. They are better off without you. Better you should just die now and get out of everyone's way!"

"No," said the younger, "No! I will not die like this! It is not my fault that my father was cursed! It was Nyarlath, that horrible traitor. I will not rest until I take back my kingdom from him! I will not give up!"

Suddenly Zelda was alone again, and the King's bedroom had faded away. She was no longer a little girl; she was the teenage version of herself which had been scowling at her. The memories came flooding back, and suddenly she could see the temple deep under the waters of the Zora lake, and she remembered Link, lost somewhere in those murky depths.

Reality seemed to come back in a bright green flash, and she was being expelled from the liquid confines of the pod Scarlett had thrown her into. She choked air into her lungs, and the burning sensation that ensued told her that she had not been breathing normally inside the pod. Rubbing the strange liquids from the pod's interior off her eyes, she caught her first glimpse of the room she was in.

It was a circular room, its ceiling a low glass dome and its walls lined with many small doors of solid stone. At one end of the room, a set of massive double doors stood wide open. Taking a look at the wall behind her, Zelda assessed that she had been expelled from a strange coral tube protruding from the ceiling. She looked around for any sign of Scarlett or Gwen, but there was none.

After a moment of panicked wondering and trying to decide if she should wait or go on without the missing Pirates, a blazing green light appeared at the mouth of another one of the coral tubes, and seconds later it spat forth a glob of the glowing, viscous green liquid which Zelda had been engulfed in upon awakening. Zelda rushed over to find the wet and suffocated form of Scarlett lying limp on the ground. The Princess pushed the pirate onto her back, and Scarlett woke with start, sputtering thick globs of the mucous-like substance onto the ground. Her hand went to her cutlass, and Zelda had to duck as the pirate swung the weapon wildly.

"Get back!" screamed Scarlett, "You hear me, you old witch! Get back! I won't go out like this!"

"Scarlett!"

Zelda's scream had startled the pirate out of her maddened daze. Scarlett peered around the room with the wonder of a newborn seeing the world for the first time. Her grip on the cutlass relaxed, and the weapon went clattering to the ground. Scarlett fell on her knees and began to whimper pathetically.

"Scarlett, what happened?" gasped Zelda, coming to the pirate's aid. She tried to lay her hand on Scarlett's shoulder, but the Shiekah lashed out violently, making the Princess stumble backwards.

"Get away from me!" screamed Scarlett, "Don't touch me."

For a moment they sat there in silence, the only sounds Scarlett's ragged breathing. The silence was broken only by the arrival of another green glow at the mouth of one of the tubes. Gwen came sliding out, covered in the same emerald slime as the others had been.

"Oh," Gwen tried to push herself to her feet, hacking and coughing against the gross, "Oh, Goddess. I'm alive."

The pirate got to her feet, and it took her a moment to take in her surroundings. Her eyes met Zelda's and all the Princess could do was nod at Scarlett. Gwen caught sight of her captain, kneeling near the center of the room, and she went bounding up to her side.

"Captain," gasped Gwen, taking Scarlett's arm and forcing her to rise, "Captain, get up. We have to keep going."

"I saw her, Gwendolin," said Scarlett, reaching out to clutch her first mate's collar, "She was right there in front of me."

"I know, Captain. I saw her too," said Gwen, "It was all in our heads though. It's gone now. We have to keep moving."

"Right," said Scarlett, clasping Gwen's hand, "Of course, you're right. Okay, let's go…"

The Captain glanced around to get her bearings.

"Okay, that way," said Scarlett, pointing, "That way, through the double doors."

They followed Scarlett's directions, crossing the circular room and emerging through the double doors into the vast chamber where Link had found the podium and the skeleton of Jabu-Jabu. The room was already brightly lit by the eldritch glow of the emerald runes, but it did little to penetrate the absolute darkness of the pit below or the lightless depths of the lake past the skylights overhead. Zelda saw one thing which the lights did illuminate, however, and when she spotted it she went running.

The fallen shape of Link, slumped up against the podium, had given Zelda a heart attack, but she sighed with relief as she arrived at his side to discover he was still breathing steadily. Gwen and Scarlett were only seconds behind her.

"He's asleep again?" said Gwen.

"Aye," said Scarlett, examining the runes on the podium Link was resting against, "Much how I thought he would be. Somehow this whelp is able to enter the world of dreams and return from it at will. He has gone into the Dreamworld to find the shard, I'd wager."

"So what, he's just been laying here having a nap this whole time?" said Gwen, "What if something had come along and found him."

"Something did," replied Scarlett, "Us. And we're gonna wait here and protect him until he wakes up, because it's our best shot at making this hellish trip worth it."

"That's it, we just wait?" said Gwen, "What about the Zoras? What if they catch up to us?"

"Then we'll fight 'em to the last," replied Scarlett, determined, "And if we die, at least we die with a sword in hand."

"I do not think it is the Zora we need to be worried about," said Zelda. Scarlett looked at the Princess, and her eyes were locked in horror on the skylight overhead. The pirates followed her gaze, and saw what made her tremble in terror.

Extending like vines of pulsing flesh through the darkness of the water, tentacles the width of redwood trunks were snaking around the glass. Huge, purplish suckers gripped the surface of the skylight, and a monstrous beak of obsidian stone went gliding through the sunless void. The hellish maw of the beast opened slowly, showing a glowing light beneath, and as it widened to its full extremity it revealed a giant, sickly eye which was alight with eldritch purple magic. Its grip on the dome of glass overhead tightened, and a splintering fissure erupted along the smooth surface, running the whole length of the room.

"That thing!" cried Scarlett, fear in her voice, "Its Nyarlath! He's found us!"