Chapter 20

They had not returned to the little room Link woke up in. Instead, they took a mid-sized cavern of no peculiar design, which led off of one of the markets on the lower levels, passing some residences and rounding a corner to find themselves facing an unceremonious dead end. The passageway ended in an alcove of rounded stone, a statue of a Goron standing sentinel-like against the wall. Boro had approached this, gripped it by the arms, and shoved it aside as easily as if it had been made of feathers. Behind it, a single dark staircase descended into unknown blackness, its passage so narrow that Boro would likely have to go in sideways.

"There are a few secret entrances to Gorgoru throughout the city," said Boro, "There's a trick to each one, but most Gorons know them. I'd hardly even call it a safety measure. It's more like good fun."

"Looks dark," said Link.

"Oh yeah, most definitely. No point in keeping lights burning when hardly anyone goes down there," said Boro, "But don't worry, I can see just fine. Just keep close to me and take it slow, there'll be lanterns at the bottom. Zig, why don't you wait up here for the Captain and Ms. Gwendolin? I'll take these kids down to see the highway."

Zig nodded to the Goron, crossing his arms and taking up a post leaning against the statue.

Boro descended ahead of them, sidling along through the narrow stair, Toro and Doro creeping along at his heels. Link went ahead of Zelda, timidly testing each shallow step with the toe of his boot. The princess gripped his hand tightly as he led her, and he could hear her shaky breathing in the cool darkness.

"You okay, Zelda?"

"Yes, of course, I am fine. Why do you ask?" said the Princess, a little too quickly.

"Are you sure?" persisted Link, "You sound kind of weird."

"I have no idea what you are talking about. I certainly do not sound weird!" said Zelda, firmly, "I just am not fond of darkness. That is all."

"Oh, you're afraid of the dark!" said Link. Then he gave a little chuckle, "Don't worry, Zelda. I won't let anything happen to you."

"I am not afraid of anything!" huffed the Princess, withdrawing her hand from the boy. "It is merely inconvenient to be unable to see, I find it irksome, but I am not afraid!"

Somewhere up ahead, a terrible howl sounded in the dark, its fluted trumpeting suggestive of alien vocal cords. Zelda shrieked, suddenly throwing herself into Link, who tripped over his own feet from the unexpected impact. They tumbled in the darkness, hitting Boro's back, which stopped them like a wall of solid stone.

"Oof!" said Link, pushing himself off Boro. His back had impacted Boro directly, and Zelda had collapsed against his chest, hugging him as though her life depended upon it. "Not scared of anything, huh?"

"What was that?"

"Settle down now, brothers," said Boro, "There's nothing to worry about."

"Is that it dad?" said Toro, "Is that the Gorgoru?"

"Sounds like it," said Boro, "Now remember, kids, Gorgoru can be extremely dangerous. Stay close to me all the time, and don't try and touch its mandibles."

"Mandibles?" said Link.

"We're almost to the bottom. Three more steps if memory serves. Yes, here we are. Okay, brothers, you wait here. I'm gonna go turn the lights on!"

They listened with bated breath as Boro's footsteps disappeared into the abyss of pitch darkness up ahead of them. Zelda was still clinging to Link, his hand gripped tightly in hers. She seemed to have forgotten about being unafraid of the dark. Boro was gone for what seemed like a long time, and the pair of them began to grow restless with anticipation.

"Where has he gone?" hissed Zelda.

"I don't know," replied Link, "Turn the lights on he said."

"Should we call out for him?" whispered the Princess.

"And get whatever has mandibles all riled up?" said Link, "I don't think that's such a good idea. Toro and Doro wouldn't bring us here if it weren't safe, right? Let's just wait."

There was a pause before the Princess broke the silence once more.

"Link," said Zelda.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to tell you I am sorry," said the princess.

"What for?" said Link, "I just don't think we should shout in here, that's no reason to apologize."

"No, not that," said Zelda, "For before. At the Goron mine. For getting upset with you. I do not know why I even got upset. Things have just been so difficult since we left the castle…"

"Don't worry, Zelda," he squeezed her hand reassuringly, "It will be fine. We'll fix everything. We'll get the treasure, we'll stop Nyarlath, and you'll be with your father back at the castle again, just like before. You'll see."

"When you say that it almost sounds true," said the princess. She was smiling to herself in the dark, though Link could not see. Somehow just talking to the boy served to alleviate her worried mind. The past week had been difficult without Link. Gwen and Zig were pleasant enough to her, but Scarlett's influence always came first to the pirates, and Zelda felt powerless to contend with Scarlett without Link there. It wasn't that the princess was helpless, but Scarlett was a particularly exhausting person for her. Zelda was no stranger to worry. The question of her place among her people had weighed on her every moment since she had been labeled a traitor. Now the very people she most desired to protect saw her as nothing more than a villain. Trying to stay positive in the face of such stress and trying to deal with Scarlett's hard-hearted attitude was a nearly impossible juggling act for the lonely princess. Except when Link was there, that is.

The boy gave her strength. He did not simply refuse to focus on the negative, he was wholesale unaware of it. The thought that things might actually go bad for them hadn't even crossed Link's mind. Or at least that was the way he acted. Did the boy know how to anticipate the worst? Was he just that good at keeping his fears to himself? She hadn't really asked him. She didn't really know who Link was at his core, or what kind of emotions shaped him into that person, but she had decided she would very much like to know.

"Link, if we do get back from all of this- When we do get back from all of this, there was something I wanted to ask you," said Zelda, her voice nearly failing her. She could scarcely form the words she wanted. She couldn't believe she was actually doing what she knew she was doing.

"What is it?" said Link.

"Well, it is just that you said you have been living in the forest, yes?"

"Yeah," said Link, "For the last three years. It's not so bad."

"Well, when things are normal again, I was just thinking that maybe, if you wanted to…"

There was a small explosion in the darkness, and then the rumbling of a turning engine. Fires roared from the deep, and light assaulted them suddenly. The world came into view, and the room around them was a sight to behold!

The nearest thing Link could put it to was the Royal Train Station in Castle Town, where the freight trains from the mountains came to deliver ore and coal and pick up sundries from the factories. It was a long, stone platform, forty feet wide and more than three hundred feet long. Pillars held up the high ceiling of natural stone, and rocks with flat, polished surfaces sat like benches here and there. On the ceiling overhead a network of metal pipes fed into braziers hanging at regular intervals, feeding gas into them which was sparked into a brilliant flame to light the room. On either side of the platform, pits dropped off into sheer darkness some unknown distance below. A couple of feet from the platform on either side were cylinders of stone, running perpendicular to the platform and continuing past visual range in either direction. Clinging to one of these horizontal cylinders, gripping the surface of the stone with a million insect legs, a giant, hairy caterpillar, one hundred and fifty feet long, was munching something messily from a metal trough hung in front of it by a harness on its back. Its tufts of hairy bristles were black, banded with white rings at regular intervals to mark the segments of its massive body. It raised its head from its munching and turned to look at them. Three unlit oil lamps were strapped to its head with leather straps. Twelve beady eyes gleamed at them from atop a chomping maw of jagged edges. The little pink things it was eating writhed manically, squirming as if to escape their gruesome fate. It opened its jaws and squawked at them in a high pitched, trumpeting squeal.

"What the heck is that thing?" said Link.

"A giant bug, how hideous!" exclaimed Zelda.

"This," said Boro, coming up from a manhole in the stone floor, "Is a Gorgoru caterpillar, a species that lives underground for the first three-hundred years of its life cycle, only emerging to the surface for a week at the very end of its lifespan in order to mate. They eat cave moss and the larvae of smaller subterranean insects, but don't let their diet fool ya! Those mandibles are hard enough to clip an average sized Goron's arm right off."

"Wait a second," said Link, "You aren't telling us that this is the Gorgoru highway, are you? We have to ride on the back of this big bug?"

"'Fraid so!" said Boro, happily, "It's the only way to get to the Necropolis from here. Even faster than by airship, since the route is a bit more… eh… direct."

"What's the matter, boy?" the words were punctuated with the click of boot heels on stone. Scarlett, Gwen and Zig were descending the stone steps behind Link and Zelda. The captain sniggered at him as she brushed passed. "Afraid of a little bug?"

"That's not exactly little," said Link, gesturing to the mammoth caterpillar, "How do you even ride that thing?"

"It takes some practice," said Boro, "See, there's the feeder in front of it. It refills itself as the caterpillar moves, scraping the naturally occurring moss and larvae off of the track it's harnessed to. When it's in the resting position the caterpillar stops and stays put until its finished eating. You control the position of the feeder from the trolley on its back. Come on, I'll show ya!"

"Wow, I've never seen a catapilla so big!" said Toro, skipping along behind his father.

"It's fuzzy," said Doro, "I wanna ride it too!"

"Now settle down, the both of you," chided Boro, "You won't be taking any trips today. Our brothers have some dangerous business to deal with."

They approached the side of the massive insect. The beast had returned to its grazing, appearing to care very little what they were up to. Boro opened a grate on the floor near the creature's flank and pulled a retractable iron ladder from within. He lifted it into a standing position and then hooked the top of it onto the side of the big leathery harness on the caterpillar's back.

"Okay, brother Link, why don't you go up first?"

"Alright…" said Link, reluctantly. He slowly began to climb the ladder, privately dreading being on top of the wild-looking creature. At the top of the ladder, he found that the harness the beast wore was actually a kind of riding car with seats and everything, although they appeared less than comfortable. He lifted his leg into the car and plopped down on one of the seats. It was made of a kind of rough, brown material, hard like chitin. Link tapped it experimentally and found that it felt hollow.

"Settled in then?" Boro's head popped up over the side of the car, and the hefty Goron lifted himself into the cart. The harness swayed a little from the weight of the rock man, and Link noted how impressive it was to see an insect carry a Goron on its back. "Okay then, see those levers over there?" there were three levers protruding from a panel at the end of the car closest to the caterpillar's head. Link reached out a hand to grasp one curiously, but Boro shouted at him, "Don't touch 'em yet! That one there increases the feeder distance from the mandibles, and that one next to it decreases the distance. Now remember, too far and the caterpillar won't run straight, and you'll end up derailing. Too close, and he'll settle right down to eat and not even think about moving forward. You have to catch it in just the right spot to coax him into walking."

"What about the third lever?" asked Link.

"Good eye, brother," said Boro, "That's the most important one. That lever switches the direction of the track when you come to a fork. Even one wrong turn and you could end up hundreds of miles off from where you mean to be, so it's really important that you follow the directions Gorbu gave to your captain very closely!"

"How do you tell when a fork is coming?"

"Well, more often than not you can see the track ahead well enough by the front lamp, but the track has grooves that catch the bottom of the harness and ring a bell when a fork is coming," explained Boro, "Up on the lever sends you left and down sends you right. It's important that you pull the lever a few seconds early, or the harness won't catch the turn groove right and you'll end up going wherever the caterpillar pleases!"

"This sounds really complicated," said Link, eyeing the levers warily. He had never even ridden a horse on his own, much less conducted the movements of a giant caterpillar! The big bug let out another trumpeting squawk, making the boy jump a little.

"It's tricky, that goes without saying," said Boro, a stern look in his eye, "It would be preferable to have you practice a few times before making a trip this size all on your own, but the Brotherhood is pretty clear about wanting you out. There are safer routes to take, it's not too late for you to go another way, but if you must go to that accursed Necropolis then this is your only option save for flying."

"This'll do just fine," said Scarlett, mounting the ladder and vaulting into the car, "I'm sure the whelp and I can manage to keep her on course."

Zelda was next, reluctantly climbing aboard the beastly caterpillar, squeaking pathetically at the feeling of one of its bristled hairs brushing her hand. She selected one of the chitin seats nearest the center of the car, folding her arms in her lap and trying her hardest not to let the discomfort shine through in her expression. She did a poor job.

Zig and Gwen mounted the thing wordlessly, apparently undisturbed by the sight of the massive insect. Gwen sat down beside Zelda and elbowed the princess gently in the side. Zelda looked up with a scowl, but Gwen only smiled.

Boro went over the controls twice more and then made Link and Scarlett repeat everything back to him. The captain was noticeably annoyed by this, clearly antsy to get a move on. Link noticed that Scarlett had seemed to be unable to relax since he had seen her in Gorbu's hall that morning. Had she been that way since the battle at the Temple of the Heart? It made the boy thankful he had been unconscious for the bulk of their stay at Diamondhearth. Scarlett was a difficult person to get along with when she was in a good mood, and terrifying when in a bad one. He had no desire to see how she operated over long periods of restlessness or anxiety.

There was some of this reflected in Zig and Gwen as well. The other pirates had always been warmer to him than Scarlett was, and in the days leading up to their fateful ride through Kakariko Link had even begun to think of them as family, but something about their countenance in the past hours had seemed different. Could it have had something to do with the Crimson Stalfos? Link guessed that was probably it. He wondered how Kef and the other pirates were getting along without their captain present to dole out orders. In all the time he'd spent aboard the Stalfos, the vessel had not once stopped for fuel. Yet, the Stalfos ran on steam engines, didn't it? Steam required heat, and heat required fire. Fire needed coal to keep burning. How did the Stalfos acquire more?

He'd never heard the pirates speak of anything like a port of berth. Did the Stalfos ever touch the ground? He supposed that it must do so occasionally. Did that mean that the pirates had a home somewhere? Link tried to imagine people like Zig and Scarlett having homes and families. It was a difficult picture to grasp. However, supposing that the pirate ship did have a home port, then the Stalfos would be Scarlett and her crew's only tangible connection to that distant home.

His companions were so severe and battle-hardened; he had only just begun to think of them as real people. He mused on how selfish that sounded, even in his head. That was the whole point of being a pirate though, right? Link had spent a long time being an outlaw, and he knew the same thing all outlaws knew: you didn't get tough or street smart because it was fun. You did it because that's what you had to do. Pretty soon, no one could touch you because you'd gotten so good at making sure you weren't there to be touched. To show emotion was to show weakness, and it wasn't like anyone was going to coddle you and lick your wounds for you when you were all on your own anyway. Appearing tougher than you really were was a way to keep all the bad things on the outside where they couldn't hurt you.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to have to do that with more than just your own life at stake. What if you had a family, friends, people who counted on you? Then it wouldn't just be you against the world anymore. It would be you between the world and all of those things you needed to protect. Even hypothetically, the pressure was enough to make him anxious. He glanced at Gwen, at Scarlett, at Zig. They all wore the same weary, overdrawn look at the corners of their steadfast grimaces. Even as Gwendolin ribbed Zelda for her fear of insects, there was a plasticized quality in her smile. Worry was creeping somewhere under the mask. Link had heard Gwen describe the Stalfos as her home, but now that home was far away, and the pirates could not return there, could not even know it still existed to return to. Were they feeling that separation?

"Well, that's as good a crash course as you're gonna get I think," said Boro, "I guess there's nothing left to do but send ya off. Toro, Doro, come say goodbye to our brothers!"

The young Gorons came hopping up the ladder, smiling brightly as always.

"Hey good luck, brothers!" said Toro, waving, "Don't forget to come visit us after you're done saving the world, Mr. Legendary Hero!"

"Yeah," said Doro, "Bring us back any strange rocks you find. I've never tried foreign food before."

"The two of you be good for you father," said Zelda, sweetly, "You are very lucky to have him!"

"We will, Zelda," said the pair, in unison.

"Yeah, yeah, you take care of yerselves, you little doorstops," grumbled Scarlett, "Never lose that sense of family. Ye've got a good head for what's important, and that's hard to find in youngsters like yerselves."

The Gorons climbed back down the ladder, retreating to the center of the platform so they could watch the group leave from a safe distance. Scarlett produced a small stone tablet from her travel bag, upon which was etched the directions for navigating the complicated network of Gorgoru tunnels. Link settled down in the pilot seat, situated in front of the levers, and prepared himself to follow Scarlett's directives as they had planned on. Link, Zelda, Gwen and Zig all waved one final farewell to their rocky hosts- Scarlett merely scowled a little more cheerfully –and with the chime of a bell Link experimentally shifted the lever to bring the feeder further from the caterpillar's chomping mouth.

There was a scraping sound and the chink of chains knocking somewhere, and then the beast began to trundle forward in slow, lumbering steps, its body bunching and un-bunching, rolling the car around in a way reminiscent of a striding camel.

"Give 'er a little more sway!" called Boro.

Link tapped the lever a little more. The great worm began to inch a little faster, but its motions still shook the cart around violently. Link pulled the lever harder. Suddenly the trough lurched forward, and there was the patter of a thousand tiny feet skittering across stone. They were off like a shot! Link smashed a button on the control console just as they were descending into a dark cavern, and there was a sulfuric flash as the lamps on the creature's head burst to life. Soon, they were chugging along at an amazing pace, the cool cavern air whooshing all around them, tossing their hair haphazardly as they trundled along the track towards their destination.

"Not my first choice in travel plans, but I gotta admit that this thing can move!" shouted Scarlett to the wind.

"Where are we going, anyway?" replied Link, leaning towards the captain so that he could be heard over the passing gale.

"The City of Forgotten Souls," said Scarlett, "The ruins of a mighty city from a civilization older than any known in all of Hylia. The ancient sages chose the temple at the heart of the long-dead city to be the resting place for one of the shards of the treasure. It's a mighty safe place to hide something if you don't want it being found."

"Why is that?"

"It's a Necropolis," said Gwen, "Some sort of major catastrophe wiped out the entire population all at once. The whole place is like a mass grave, crawling with undead monsters. Re-deads, poes, deadhands, wallmasters… you name it."

"Most folk avoid the place like the plague," said Scarlett, "But we've never been a group to shy away from forbidden places, have we?"

"That's why Gorbu told us not to go!"

"Aye, that's right," said Scarlett, "Even the Gorons keep well clear of that cursed place. We'll likely be the first living creatures to set foot inside in thousands of years. Does that scare you, boy? Do you want to turn around and go home right now?"

"No," said Link, shaking his head, "No, I can handle it. We've come this far."

"Good boy," said Scarlett, "We'll make a real warrior out of you yet."