Chapter 12

Zig watched the still waters of lake Terminia intently, his white eyebrows furrowed together, and his eyes squinted against the distant, rising sun. Scarlett and the others had been gone for nearly a full twenty four hours, and since that time Zig had not left the deck of the Crimson Stalfos. He sat there, working diligently at the reconstruction of his clockwork arm, and gazing out at the open water for any sign of life.

"Acting Captain!" a pirate had appeared at Zig's side, saluting him. Zig waved his hand to signal an 'at ease' and the crew member relaxed.

"Report?"

"Sir, there has been no sign of Nyarlath or any Hyrulean forces approaching," replied the pirate, "Engines are running steady, and with present fuel reserves we can remain airborne for seven days before a return trip to refill our coal stock is necessary. No sign of Captain Scarlett or her landing party off the starboard."

"They've been down there for nearly a whole day," replied Zig, still watching the peaceful lake, and wondering darkly about what might be going on beneath its tranquil surface, "I don't like it. There's something wrong."

"Should we go down after them, sir?" asked the pirate, peering over the edge of the deck at the deep water.

"Even if we knew where exactly to search for them, we can't," said Zig, "There aren't any more Zora Tunics. We wouldn't even be able to get close to the lake bottom. We don't have a choice. We just have to sit and wait for as long as we can."

Zig scanned the horizon one more time before dismissing the pirate. He scooped a screw driver up from the top of the barrel beside him, and went back to adjusting his clockwork arm, which now had the appearance of a full upper arm of tarnished brass, ending in a slightly morbid skeletal forearm and hand. Somewhere in the distance a seagull cawed.

Kef had never been the kind of pirate anyone paid much heed to. He was exceptional at what he did. He was sneaky and he was agile, he was dexterous and he was level-headed. There was a certain pension for horseplay and practical joking in him, but after all he was barely in his twenties, not that most people noticed. His gruff appearance and thin wisp of a goatee made him have the generic appearance of a person perpetually in his early thirties, and the grizzly scars on his arm and across his chest and neck which he had picked up from a wolfos several years ago only added to the illusion.

As he sat on the steps of the stairway of the pod room, somewhere deep down in the Temple of the Mind, he did a quick personal inventory of his belongings: One pouch of pipe tobacco, soaked, unusable. He hadn't meant to bring that. One serrated dagger, stolen off a merchant in Kakariko village, his favorite. Thirteen rupees, a lucky number, if you're a pirate: Never go ashore with less than 13 rupees in your pocket. One silver flask of deku-barrel rum, medicinal, needed at the moment.

He untwisted the cap of the flask and let more than half the amber liquid go sliding down his throat. It burned marvelously, warming him from his core. He hissed at the acidic feeling, running one hand through his messy brown hair. He had discarded his bandanna a while ago after Scarlett, Gwen and Zelda had left.

He settled back on his elbows, wincing at the pain shifting positions caused in his hurt ankle. He laughed miserably at the feeling, knocking back the rest of the rum in one swig.

"Well, Kefforo, looks like your number is up, bud," said the pirate to himself, "It was a good run. Always said you'd die young. Guess it wasn't just bold talkin', huh?"

The sound of footsteps came echoing from above. Kef twisted as far as his torso would let him without moving his bum leg and looked back up the stairs. A Zora soldier appeared at the top of the stairs, silvery trident in hand.

"Here's one!" said the Zora, pointing the trident at Kef. A whole battalion of the spear wielding fish-men came clamoring down the stairs, and they promptly made a circle around them. Kato the Kelp Forest Marshal was among them. The tall Zora approached Kef with his trident held out threateningly, staring down his scaly nose at the pirate.

"Treacherous thief," said Kato, "Where are your fellow criminals and the traitor Princess Zelda?"

"Stuff it in your blowhole, bottom feeder," spat Kef, "You aren't getting anything outta me."

"Seize him, bring him up to the King," said Kato, "We will press on immediately and Locate Zelda before she can further defile this sacred temple."

Two Zora grabbed Kef's arms and wrenched him upwards, but the Pirate could not stand. He yelped painfully as his leg buckled under him, and the Zoras let him fall back to the ground.

"He is injured, Marshal!" said one of the Zora.

"Then leave him," said Kato, "He can't go far. We'll move ahead and capture Zelda and then we will come back for him."

There was a sudden, reverberating boom which shook the walls of the temple and made dust of coral come tumbling down from the ceiling. The Zora broke out into a cacophony of murmurs in both Hylian and their own strange, aquatic language, until Kato called for a hush. The group huddled there for a moment in silence, until another boom shook the temple around them violently.

"Goddess alive, look at that!" cried Kef, having spotted the source of the disturbance. The Zora followed his gaze, and looked on in terror at the monster in the water above the overhead windows.

It was like a giant black octopus, purple veins of eldritch energy running in webs over the surface of its midnight skin. Sickly purple suckers the size of barrel kegs slid across the glass. Another tentacle came crashing down beside the first one. –Boom! The glass began to crack.

"It's about to get real wet in here real fast," said Scarlett, turning to Zelda, "Princess, you hang on to that boy no matter what happens, you understand?"

"Yes," said Zelda, nodding vigorously.

"Ms. Gwendolin," said Scarlett.

"Captain!"

"When that thing comes down here we won't have much time to act," said Scarlett, "Its only vulnerable point is likely that eye in its mouth. We have to find a way to hit it there. Whatever ye do, don't let those tentacles get ahold of you. I don't think it'd take much for 'em to crush ya!"

"Aye, Captain!" shouted Gwen, Kef's cutlass clutched tight in her white-knuckled fist.

Overhead, the hideous eye of Nyarlath gazed down upon them, its purple glow mixing toxically with the emerald green of the eerie temple. The massive tentacles of the giant cephalopod were wrapping tightly around the glass overhead, blocking it out, and deep cracks were now running back and forth all along the surface. In several spots, jets of water under pressure were already shooting through, falling endlessly to the black depths of the pit below.

"Princess Zelda!" at the other end of the walkway which led back out into the circular room where the pods had dropped them off, a Zora had entered with trident held high in the air. A sizeable group of Zora soldiers were behind him, and they were enough in number to completely block any egress. Scarlett turned to face them.

"When you first arrived here, I took you for pirates. It turns out that I should have trusted my first instincts," said the Zora, who Scarlett could now see was Marshal Kato, "You will not be suffered to defile Zora holy grounds. You will die here in this temple alongside the corpses of our gods!"

"You're mad, Zora," yelled Scarlett, "Do ye not see what looms over yer own head? Look up, you fish-brained idiot!"

"That creature is the result of your meddling," said Kato, "It would not be here if not for you. The gods are enraged at your presence. I will kill you, and it will please them."

"So it's like that, is it?" said Scarlett, "Alright, Ms. Gwendolin, prepare to repel boarders!"

The Pirates went rushing forward at the Zora who rallied to meet their charge. Tridents and cutlasses clashed with the glint of steel against steel. Gwen and Scarlett fought fiercely, and due to the narrow walkway which would only allow two to stand abreast safely, the pirates were able to hold off the Zora advance for the time being.

Zelda got on her knees, lifting link into her lap part way, and clasping his hands in hers. The Princess closed her eyes, and began to chant a prayer under her breath.

"Lady Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, hear my plea. Peril seeks to harm one who journeys forth in thy name and that of thine sisters. I invoke thy love, protect him!"

A prism of blue light began to form around Link and Zelda, the electric energy lifting them up into the air. Soon they were capsuled in a diamond of electric blue, its shimmering magical walls a barrier between them and the violence outside.

Zelda wrapper her arms around Link, pulling his head close to her chest, and the Princess whispered in the boy's ear, "Link, please hurry."

The dragon cut through water like air, the powerful fluke tail behind it whipping frantically and its fans of lacy-finned wings pulling them forward in broad strokes. It plowed through the fierce currents of the tunnel as if they were mere gentle breezes in a mostly windless sky.

The tunnel went down a long ways, but finally Link could see that up ahead it leveled out. Not all was well with that, however. The surface of the huge passageway curved gently away from the direction of Jabu-Jabu's chamber, and as it leveled out it became suddenly densely populated with life. A hoard of giant lobsters, many even larger than the one Link had encountered before, carpeted the floor of the tunnel so densely that little of the coral which comprised the structure could actually be seen.

The dragon dove in over the crustaceans, stretching wide its cetacean jaws, and Link felt a tingling sensation in his arms and at the tips of his toes. There was a blinding flash, and the dragon discharged a bolt of golden lightning from its throat, the shock of energy cutting a swath through the creeping monsters below. Several of the lobsters fell dead.

'Alright, boy! Let 'em have it!' thought Link, urging the Dragon to dive lower and deliver another attack. Pincers nipped at the pair of them angrily, but the dragon opened its mouth once more and let fire another arc of brilliant lightning. It sizzled and crackled through the water, keeping its charge in a focused beam through the dragon's magic, but where it struck it dispersed like a bomb of electricity, rending dead anything within about thirty feet of its mark. The lobsters writhed and shuddered as the electric current spread through them, their shells shooting hissing jets of air into the water as the heat caused their insides to boil up with excess pressure.

Link squinted through the carnage and flashes of electric light to see further down the tunnel. Several hundred feet ahead, the passageway sloped upwards and disappeared, rising for an indeterminate distance back toward the ceiling of the massive cave which housed the temple. Link dug his heels in to the dragon's side for added grip and willed the thing to power forward with his mind.

It glided over the crowd of angry crustaceans, blasting away again and again with fresh jolts of yellow lightning. Ahead, some of the Lobsters were piling up on each other, climbing over one another in a desperate, animal attempt to avoid the coming carnage. The pile of crustaceans was blocking their path forward, and the Dragon tried to turn, but the pair was moving too fast.

They crashed into the pile of crustaceans hard, sending several tumbling through the water. The dragon wheeled, and Link felt as though everything around him was spinning. A blue armored claw clutched at him, and the dragon flung its neck back to bite the thing. He caught the pincer in his mouth and crunched down hard, just before the horrible vice-like claw could snip Link clear in two.

A second claw was raised from the tumult, and gripped the dragon's wing, clipping it hard. Crimson blood went billowing in clouds into the clear water. The lobsters, smelling the gore, became invigorated with a fresh sense of rage. Link could feel their pincers just out of reach, and hear their snapping claws through the dense liquid all around him.

The dragon spread its wings wide and opened its mouth. The light of the tunnel seemed to dim briefly, and the whole world seemed to grow silent with the anticipation of the creature's inhale. There was a deafening crack, the thunderous sound ringing in Link's ears, and electric energy went surging away from the dragon and his rider in a spherical field of incredible force.

All at once, the water was full with the squealing of cooked lobsters, their shells expelling whining jets of air in a swarm of angry bubbles all around. Link and the dragon were free again! The boy's mount wasted no time in sweeping clear of the crowd of dead crustaceans, the blood still trailing off its fin in little streams. The creature seemed to care little for its injury though, and it pressed on at full tilt, driven by the fire of Link's determination.

Up, up they went, streaming through the next tunnel with all the energy of a charging stallion. There was shining light somewhere up ahead, and it gave the boy a surge of hope. They would reach it in mere moments. Closer, closer they came until –Splash! The boy and the dragon burst forth from the surface of a sparkling pool, finding themselves in a high tower room far up above any level of the temple Link had yet seen.

Here there was a pedestal which floated above the water as if held there by magic. The dragon came to rest alongside the thing so that Link could dismount and stand upon it. There, held in brackets of stone, was a shining azure crystal made of three pentagonal stones set in a golden clasp. Link tried to read the inscription which encircled the thing, but found the dialect of the runes too old for him to grasp the meaning of.

"Well, the last time this thing responded to Zelda's blood, right?" said Link. The dragon hooted approvingly.

"Well," said Link, "Impa said I have the blood of the chosen in me too, right? So maybe my blood will work just as well as hers."

Link looked at his shoulder where the coral had gouged his arm during his tumble down through the temple on the back of the giant lobster. Wet crimson still stained his tunic there. He reached up under his sleeve with his other hand, feeling the sting as he dipped his fingers in the wound. He smeared his own blood across the runes like finger paint, and they began to glow.

The azure stone on the pedestal rumbled and vibrated with energy, and then the gemstones began to crack and splinter. The entire stone shattered into a million pieces, and at its core revealed a silvery shard of blade which Link knew to be the temple's treasure.

"Yes!" cried Link, "We did it, boy! Now to get back to Zelda…"

The dragon clicked warily and growled a low, guttural growl. Link looked back at the thing, prepared to scold it for its sour attitude, when he saw that its shining eyes were fixated on the glass of the windows which Link now realized comprised the walls of this high chamber. Link peered out into the sparkling water of the Dreamworld lake beyond. What he saw made his heart stop.

Out in the cool blue water, a massive octopus the size of a large building was spreading out like a great umbrella over the lower levels of the temple. Link looked down, and saw that the gargantuan cephalopod was positioned directly over the domed glass ceiling of the chamber he had left his own sleeping body in.

"No!" cried Link, "We have to get out there!"

The dragon leapt into action at once. Its mighty jaws were flung wide open, and a tremendous crack of thunder issued from its mouth as another bolt of lightning struck the glass. The window pane exploded, sending water flooding into the chamber. Link stuffed the shard of the treasure into his pocket, and leapt astride the dragon; even as the rushing whitewater came swirling all around him. Then dragon and rider went diving back into the breach, their sights set on the goliath monster down below.

Zelda held the spell as chunks of glass from the ceiling above came crashing down like a sparkling rain of dagger blades. Scarlett and Gwen fought the Zoras like mad women, their cutlasses running red with the blood of fallen soldiers. Scarlett had driven Kato back almost to the double doors which led into the chamber, and many of his Zora had already fallen to the incredible skill of the pirate's blades.

The Marshal lunged forward, but Scarlett caught the tip of his trident with her sword, and pulled the fish-man in to pummel him with the back of her free hand. The Zora staggered, blood bursting forth from his nostril as Scarlett's fist smashed into his face. He lost his grip on the trident, and it clattered to the ground.

"Give up, fish-man!" cried Scarlett, "You can't win this. In mere moments, that beast up there will come crashing down upon our heads, and if we're too busy fighting each other to deal with it then we all die."

"I will never bow down to a pirate like you!"

"Then I'll kill you," retorted Scarlett.

Suddenly a great chunk of glass came loose from the ceiling above, and a waterfall of incredible force was pouring down upon them.

"Captain!" shouted Gwen, pulling Scarlett by the back of her tunic, just narrowly avoiding the deadly torrent of rushing surf. Their path to Kato was cut off, and the Zora disappeared somewhere behind the wall of boiling white.

"That's it," said Scarlett, "Brace yerself, Gwendolin. That ceiling has had it. It's gonna cave!"

The tree-trunk sized tentacles came bursting through the glass with a pounding crash and the shatter and tinkle of the falling glass and the rush of the roaring water was all that they could hear. The huge, obsidian beak of the Octopus broke through the dome overhead, it's awful jaws stretching open to reveal its sickly purple eye. The wall of water was too much, and the chamber was filling completely now. Gwen and Scarlett were swept away somewhere in the depths and out of Zelda's sight.

All the while, the Princess trembled with the will of concentration, her eyes streaming with tears and Link pressed dearly to her chest. Through the shining walls of the prism shield she could see the mammoth beast descending upon them like an angry black storm cloud. The water came rushing in, and the walls of white crashed around the diamond barrier in a chaotic flurry of bubbles. When the tumult had cleared, all that she could see was that eldritch purple eye, close enough to reach out and touch through the walls of the spell, and she knew that the monster's jagged beak was closing all around them. The magic shield sparked and hummed with electric energy as the crushing jaws of the beast made contact, but Zelda held strong. Now she was all that stood between her and Link and impending annihilation. She clutched the boy tighter.

"Link, you have to wake up! Please!"

Link and the dragon went jetting through the water as fast as they could go. The dragon swept around the head of the gargantuan cephalopod, and dragged a bolt of searing lightning across its side. Even through the distortion of the water, the sound the beast made was terrible.

Immediately, massive tentacles swung their way in dire protest. The dragon had to swim with considerable agility to avoid the suffocating grasp of the reaching appendages.

Tirelessly they fought the monster, dipping and dodging under the clumsy flailing of its mighty tentacles. Each strike of fiery lightning rent deep gashes across the body of the beast, and shriveled deadly tentacles to withered husks, but it seemed that no amount of damage could deter the malevolent monstrosity. There was an audible crash and the sound of water rushing and stone crumbling as the beast at last caved in the ceiling of the structure below.

Link winced, fully expecting that at any moment he would blink out of existence as the monster devoured his waking form, but nothing happened.

Link willed the dragon to dive lower, and it took him down below the groping tentacles, where he could see the shrine which had once held Jabu-Jabu crumbling away to dust and shards of broken glass. There was no sign of Link's sleeping form anywhere.

Suddenly a swinging tentacle caught them off guard, slamming hard into the dragon's side and nearly knocking Link away. He clung to the dragon desperately. More tentacles appeared, wrapping around the dragon's tail, and gripping its flowery wings, crushing them under its impossible weight. The dragon wailed in pain.

"No!" cried Link, but his words were lost as bubbles in the void. He felt himself panicking. What could he do? He had come all this way, and retrieved the shard, but it would mean nothing if none of them made it back to the surface alive.

The Octopus was rising through the water, and as it drifted upward its hideous black maw of obsidian stone came into view. Link saw something there, clutched in the creature's beak… a twinkling thing, like a star shining through the depths. There was a figure at its core, a girl… Zelda!

Link could see her, her hair flowing with the static electric energy of her mysterious magic. She was looking right into the sickly purple eye at the center of the awful mouth, gazing right into the jaws of her destroyer as it devoured her. She was clutching someone tightly to her chest.

It was Link! He suddenly realized why he had not died when the temple had caved in. Zelda had him, sealed inside of some kind of spell. He was actually in the monster's mouth right now! This realization was horrifying, but it gave Link an idea.

"So I can't hurt you from the outside?" said Link, reaching into his pocket, "Let's see if I can hurt you from the inside."

He brought the Sleepstone in front of his face and held it up. "Awaken!" shouted link. The bubbles of his speech made contact with the stone…

…and his eyes were open!

"Awaken!" he was still shouting as he came to, which startled Zelda terribly. For that split second the Princess' concentration had been broken, and the jagged jaws of the beast cracked the shield in several places. In mere moments, the protection of the spell would break, but Link knew it no longer mattered. He pushed Zelda off of him, feeling bad for being unable to explain, but there was no time. He pulled Scarlett's dagger from his belt, leapt forward through the walls of the protective spell, breaking it, and plunged the tiny blade as hard as he could into the eye of the beast.

There was a terrible, otherworldly scream.

Up above the Lake, Zig had given the order to scan the center of the body of water. It was the place the Captain had said would be the most likely site of the temple, and the best place to look for any signs of Scarlett and her crew. He stood at the bow of the ship, watching with hawk eyes for any strange occurrence on the surface of the water, but the lake remained maddeningly peaceful. Zig had been fighting down a foreboding feeling for hours now, and cursed his inability to do more to help his Captain.

It should have been him down there, not Kef and Gwen. The other pirates were young and spry, filled with fight. Zig was old, and weathered, and if he went out in a fight that would be just as well. After his careless defeat in the Temple of Life, he was sure that it wouldn't be long before his age caught up with him, and magic wasn't there to save his life.

Suddenly, something caught the old pirate's eye just off the coast of a large island on the lake.

It started as bubbles on the surface, but quickly it rose to the point that it resembled a rolling boil in the water. Zig called out to the wheelhouse, giving the order to bring the Stalfos around alongside the anomaly. For a long while the pirates waited, watching the rumbling below with intense expectation. Eventually, something came bobbing to the surface. It was a body!

"Keep her hovering low, and prepare to retrieve survivors!" cried Zig, and then in one stride he stepped forward and dove into the crystal water below. He landed with a splash, shooting several feet under the surface of the lake.

A scene of destruction was splayed out before him.

At the bottom of the lake, a thousand coral structures lay destroyed, and on the shelf of the island as many pock-marked caves had crumbled in upon themselves. The bodies of countless Zora drifted lifelessly across the deep, and blood clouded the water in murky billows like rolling smoke.

Zig resurfaced, paddling over to the body which he'd spotted. Coming closer, he realized that it was Kef. He rolled the figure over on its back.

The pirate sputtered and coughed,

"Ziggardun," said Kef, smiling weakly, "You're dead too?"

"Kef!" said Zig, clutching the younger pirate to him in a one-armed bear hug, "Where is Scarlett? Where are Zelda and the others?"

There was another splash as two more bodies came to surface nearby. Zig made sure that Kef could float on his own before striking out with swiftness more than impressive for a one-armed swimmer. He found the other two bodies to be Scarlett and Gwendolin, unconscious but still alive, in no small part thanks to their shimmering Zora tunics.

Zig threw his arm up in the air and signaled to the Stalfos. Immediately, more pirates came bounding over the side of the ship, landing in the water. They encircled the survivors, dragging them above the lapping surface of the lake, and pulling them to spots where harnesses of rope were being lowered from the Stalfos' cargo bay.

"That's three," said Zig to himself, "Where are the other two?"

The surface of the lake broke once more, but this time the figure which emerged was still kicking, still treading water. Zig swam over to meet the new arrival, and was pleased to see that it was Link with Zelda on his back, her arms clasped weakly around his neck.

"Boy!" cried Zig, "What happened?"

"It's a long story," said Link, "For now, let's just get everyone on board the Stalfos and get as far away from this lake as we can."

"Aye," said Zig, with a nod.

By candle light they all sat in the warmth of Scarlett's cabin, all but the Captain swaddled in warm blankets and sipping cups of steaming tea. They had listened silently as Link recounted the tale of his journey through the temple, his retrieval of the shard, and his defeat of Nyarlath's terrible aquatic avatar. On the coffee table beside Scarlett's lush couches the two shards glinted in the flicker of the candles, and somehow the shining things felt like mere trinkets in the wake of all that had transpired.

"I can't believe it," said Zelda, solemnly, "The entire Zoras Domain, destroyed. I had never meant for this to happen."

"Well, if the idiots had listened to us in the first place it wouldn't have happened," said Scarlett.

"Don't talk like that!" said Zelda, "They're dead now. Most of them anyway. There's no point in insulting them. They were a noble people. All they were guilty of was trying to protect what was sacred to them."

"Aye," said Scarlett, "Not so different from any of us, I suppose. Still, there's no room for sentiment in times like these."

Zelda had no words for Scarlett. She was too tired to argue with the pirate. Her eyes went to Link, who returned her gaze with a kind of sympathetic sadness. Did he understand how she felt? Just by showing up they had doomed the Zora's entire civilization. There was no telling how many of the fish-men had died by Nyarlath's hand as he descended in the form of the giant octopus into the depths of the ancient lake. If not for Link, they would have been his victims too.

"Sitting around sulking is doing nothing good for us," said Gwen, standing up, "Come on Zelda, and let's get you to bed. We have to get an early start tomorrow. Zig, Kef, get below deck and make sure the crew is resting up. We make way for the Temple of the Heart in the morning."

The pirates rose and left the room, Gwen taking Zelda with her. Link stood to go, but Scarlett's hand caught his shoulder. The crimson-eyed pirate towered over the boy, the devil's gleam re-kindled in her gaze.

"Well, boy, that's twice now ye've saved my arse from a tight spot. I'd like to thank ye, but the truth is it makes me furious," said Scarlett, smirking, "You go down and get some rest, but know this: tomorrow you and I are havin' a little chat about how ye've been traipsing between two worlds at your whimsy, understand? And I don't want to hear no lies outta ya, or ye'll be goin' right back in the lake to join those damnable Zoras."

Link stared right back at Scarlett's fiery eye, and he found that the pirate, for all her rage and violence, no longer scared him.

"Goodnight, Scarlett," said Link.

The boy left, and Scarlett locked the door behind him. The Captain waited up that night, lost in her own head, and never did her gaze leave the shards of the treasure they had risked so much for until the morning cuccoo could be heard crowing to the rising sun.