Chapter 25

Once again Link's young eyes were wide with wonder as he gazed upon the strange and alien landscapes of a whole new world. It was marvelous!

The blackened tarnish of ancient fire was gone, the evil clouds had rolled away, and Kadath's towers stood shimmering and silver against the turquoise gulf of the bay beyond. Strange ships of unfamiliar design drifted lazy in the harbor, their sails like sheets of sparkling fairy light and sleek and steely water paddles churning behind them. The sickly green of the lamps had faded to cool blue and the sun was out in force. Atop the tallest tower, the eldritch emerald light had become a shining silver star. The tower itself had shaken off its obsidian darkness and stood white as bleached bone, like a citadel of pure marble pointed to the gods above.

Link had slipped unnoticed from the guard-house, finding it deserted, though the empty halls were now well furnished with desks of strange wood and metal from sources unknown to him. Murals covered the walls and in them were depicted people dressed in snow-white robes and wearing wooden sandals. They walked streets of silver, alongside gliding robots similar to those which had first deposited the boy and his friends in the small prison back in the Waking World.

Outside in the streets, he found the inspiration for those smiling figures in the colorful murals. People packed the streets as densely as had the zombies in the Kadath of the Waking World. Children were laughing and playing, women were sweeping the dust from the front of shops, men were leading horses by silver reigns and guards in silver-scaled armor were patrolling dutifully. It was as if the ghost of Kadath had risen up from the grave of the black necropolis, appearing to Link like a spectral window into the ancient past.

"Woah," said the boy to himself, stepping out into the street. He looked out over the slope of the road descending to the tall white tower in the distance, mesmerized by the beauty of the star that shined on its top. The magnificence of the white city was so captivating; he didn't see the horse and buggy trundling towards him.

"Hekba! Nintala el jura ur!" cried the driver.

Link's head snapped around just in time for him to see the galloping horse coming at him. He leapt forward, trying desperately to get out of the way. The animal's powerful chest struck him heavily in the side, knocking him to the dirt in a daze. He heard the sound of something made of glass skittering across the smooth pavement, and his hand went to his pocket automatically. The Sleepstone had fallen!

Link felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, which helped him to ignore the pain as he pushed himself up onto his knees and began to frantically search the street for the little stone. His eyes scanned about in a panic. Without the Sleepstone, he was stuck in the Dreamworld. He had to find it!

At last, he spotted it. It had rolled several feet away, but its blue lightning interior made it shine against the white pavement. He scrambled for it. It was mere inches away when the careless footfalls of a passerby crossed its path, kicking it further down. Link barreled after it, knocking into a man who swore loudly at him in the indecipherable dead language. He shoved his way through the crowd, frantically searching for the fallen stone. After a moment, he breached the wall of pedestrians, coming to a place where the street corner turned and the road went down at a steep incline towards the distant tower. There was the stone, resting peacefully on the corner. His face lit up, he made a beeline for it.

There was the sharp sound of a raven's caw, and a momentary shadow. The bird descended like a falling missile, its sleek black claws grasping the little stone with expert precision. With two powerful beats of its obsidian wings, it was aloft once more. Link dove after it, scraping his belly and elbows on the pavement, but the devious beast slipped right through his fingers. The boy watched helplessly as the bird grew more and more distant, becoming nothing but a speck in the sky, gliding purposefully towards the bone-white tower.

"No!" cried Link, "You won't get away from me that easy!"

He raised his fingers to his lips and whistled as loud as he could, "Here boy!"

He paused for a moment. Nothing happened. He tried again, "Here boy!"

He glanced around at the open sky. It was empty, save for a few flocks of ravens, like dark clouds whirling in the air. Where could the dragon be? Then, suddenly, he remembered.

"That's right," he said, turning his gaze down at the white stone beneath him, "Nyarlath killed you, didn't he? Everything has been so crazy since the Temple of Heart, I didn't even think about it. I didn't know you could die…"

Link felt a stinging in his heart, and he winced as a pair of silvery tears trickled from his blue eyes. He clenched his fist. No! Sadness could come later. Now it was time for action.

"Fine," said Link, "I will get it done myself!"

Determination in his eyes, the boy pulled his cap down snug on his head and went sprinting down the road in the direction of the white tower.

She'd watched her mother rope a Loftwing once. She supposed it must basically be the same thing. After all, wings were wings. Moths and birds couldn't be too different.

The thing must have only just emerged. She had walked the length of the gorge, cresting a small ridge and finding herself looking down on the form of a giant insect with wings the size of mainsails, the color of a cloudy, turquoise ocean. Its shoulders were midnight purple, and a stripe of the same color ran in ridges from the top of the wings to the tip, framing the cooling sea-green. Around its head it wore a mane of silver-white, and two antennae crowned it, their bobbing lengths bristled with wispy hairs, giving the impression of a bottlebrush plant. It turned to look at her, and its massive legs were the same midnight purple, and its eyes were giant pools of deepest black. Its face was imploring, docile and mouthless. This was a Gorgoru Moth, and behind it rested the shredded remains of its cocoon.

"Ok, easy there, girl," said Scarlett, approaching the thing with her hands held out flat, "If you're a girl. Whatever ye are."

The furry head tilted quizzically, its antennae swiveling about like rabbit ears. It flexed its wings, stretching them to full length and then raising them up so they stood vertically off its back. She saw the moonlight hit the wings, making them glisten wetly. They were still covered in a coat of viscous fluid from the inside of the cocoon.

Scarlett took a few steps closer, her arm outstretched carefully towards the beast, her eye watching the subtle twitching of its antennae with cautious interest. She was almost close enough to pat it on the soft tuft below the eyes where a nose might have gone on a more conventional face. She shuffled just a little closer, and laid her palm flat upon the hairy surface. It was soft as a goose-down and felt cool and clean like fine silk.

Suddenly, the thing withdrew, letting forth an airless snorting sound, and rounded on its spindly legs to show Scarlett its backside. It fluttered its massive wings, causing a small gust and spray of viscous wetness, but it could not take to the air. Its brand new wings were still wet and heavy, and it needed time before they would become the hardened, paper-thin sheets which gave such creatures flight.

It was perfect! If the moth couldn't get away, then Scarlett had some time to get it used to the idea of carrying a passenger. She started toward the thing again, laying one hand on the surface of its purple leg. The beast shifted its wings again, and Scarlett could feel the soft purple hairs bristle at her touch, but the moth did not move away. She stepped closer to the thing's massive thorax, never letting her hand leave the beast. She hoped that moths, like horses, would be less likely to spook if they knew exactly how you were approaching them.

Very wary, very slow, she touched the abdomen of the thing, feeling its sturdy exoskeleton beneath its hairy coat. It was a few feet taller than her, and she would have to use its own knee as a stoop to climb on its back. She lifted her leg, holding her breath as she tentatively placed her foot upon the upper segment of the furry leg. To her relief, the moth did not move.

Scarlett kept pretending she was mounting a horse to keep herself calm, as she leapt astride the giant insect. She was straddling its back now, its silvery mane fluffed out around her like a shaggy pillow.

The moth moved. She nearly lost her balance as the spindly legs trundled around, and the thing shook and reared back to try and dislodge her. Its wings beat frantically, and she could feel the power in its massive shoulders. She gripped the silver hair tightly; used her free hand to pat the creature in a way that she hoped was reassuring.

"Woah there, easy now!" said the pirate, "It's okay. There ya go. Good girl. It's okay."

The thrashing insect spun around in circles several times, flapped its wings in a few sporadic flutters, and then settled again. Scarlett let out a sharp exhale, relieved that the motion had stopped. Her head spun, dizzy with the moth's erratic twirling.

After a moment, it seemed the moth had settled down. Scarlett relaxed her grip, allowing herself to rest a moment and enjoy the pleasant softness of the silvery mane around her.

He was panting for breath by the time he reached the tower, and had to lean against the strange white stone wall around it while he regained himself. He had never run for so long without stopping. It had felt liberating. He felt as if he was outrunning his problems, pulling further and further from the desperate reality of his situation. The truth was he was scared as hell. Would he be stuck in the Dreamworld? Would Zelda and the pirates die in that dismal little prison while he slept? It was embarrassing to admit how vulnerable he felt. He had been so sure of his own ability as of late, with everyone calling him hero and insisting it was he that was the key to finally realize their dreams. Now, with neither sword nor Sleepstone nor dragon to carry him, he felt little more than the keeper of some strange tools now lost and powerless without them.

Once his chest no longer burned, and the sweat on his brow had cooled and dissipated, he did not allow himself a chance to brood on his misfortune. Ever the optimist, Link decided at once to set himself to the task of inspecting the strange wall around the tower for some weakness he might exploit to gain entrance.

He ran his fingers along the cool white stones. They were smooth to the touch, and felt as though they were covered in liquid, although when he withdrew his fingers he found them quite dry. Most peculiar was the lack of seams or grout lines, as though the entire curved surface was cleanly carved from a single stone. It was white and unblemished, and though the myriad ravens were crowded thickly about its top, there were not the streaks of excrement that were common among the gambrels of the lower, less pristine structures.

Also of note was the emptiness of the marble street which ran around the circumference of the wall. A mere block away, Link had seen the streets populated by joyful people and playing children, the district around the tower being apparently mostly private residences and small temples dedicated to strange and forgotten gods. At the wall, though, there were no people. In fact, as the boy went along he began to notice that all the structures on the street faced away from the tower, so that their faces opened out onto streets at least one over from the smooth and unblemished path that circled it.

Then Link saw a man standing in the road some distance ahead of him. A single raven cry split the air, and the boy felt a chill of inexplicable horror rise up his spine. There was something horribly unnatural about the man- nay, the thing which stood before him.

It wore blue robes with black trim, and upon it were drawn strange symbols which Link had spotted before on the packs and flags of Gerudo travelers on the road to castle town. It was a kind of wavy diamond, its centerpiece a shape which reminded Link of a double-sided crescent wrench with a dot in the center of each crescent. This symbol was borne on the belt buckle the being wore, which was extremely large and ornate, made out of a kind of metal which shone with the rainbow quality of an oil spill. Its hands, which it held clasped together with fingers interwoven, were spindly with slender digits, with one extra knuckle on each finger. Upon the fingers were many rings, all of silver. Its skin was jet black, except for one spot on the forehead, which bore a symbol like a crescent moon whose tips clasped a star as one might pinch a marble between their fingers. The symbol on its forehead was glowing seething hot white, so that it hurt Link's eyes to stare at it directly. Neither could he look the being in the eyes, for there shone voids like the starry gulfs of space, and looking into them gave the boy a nauseating sense of vertigo. Upon the crown of the black being's head, the horns of a ram curled from beneath the midnight blue pschent* it wore.

To Link's horror, the creature began to approach at a slow pace, taking long, deliberate strides towards him. Its hideous eyes were locked upon Link. The boy tried to move his legs, tried to run, but there was no strength in him. It was as if his muscles had permanently locked. His own heart was pounding in his ear, and behind it was a dull ring which echoed off the inside of his skull like the aftermath of an explosion. The raven cried again, and it sounded like the shrill scream of a woman being murdered.

He swallowed his saliva, finding his mouth becoming dry and cottony. His eyelids were stretched so wide, he thought they would never close. He felt the veins in his neck throbbing and the hairs on his neck standing on end. It was a bristling, sick feeling, like a spider running across his body.

As the horrible thing approached him, he saw that it was farther off than he had initially surmised. He had been tricked by perspective. The thing was Hylianoid in shape, but it stood nearly fifteen feet tall, taller than even Boro the Goron had been. Link could see its feet as they occasionally kicked from the bottom of its robe as it walked, and they were not like the feet of Hylians. They were more akin to a goat, cloven hooved, but massive and demonic, with wicked barbs like claws protruding from all sides.

The horror came very near to him. Held by its glamour, he was unable to retreat. As he looked up at the towering beast he thought of the fabled re-dead death gaze, and wondered if this was at all how its victims might feel before they are consumed.

The monster stooped low, inspecting Link more closely. Its hideous, void-filled eyes felt as though they might pierce a hole through him. He wanted desperately to turn away, but it seemed that the creature's supernatural hold on him grew with proximity, and even the small muscles in his eyes and his neck had become immobilized.

"Ibn sur amenhoten," snorted the creature, and its voice sounded like many voices laid one on top of the other, in a blasphemous parody of normal speech, "Al hazre Nyarlathotep ibn sol. Sursur nintala?"

Link felt the muscles in his throat relax, and knew that the beast wanted him to speak.

"I…" Link stammered, "I don't know what you are saying…"

"Sursur nintala Nyarlathotep ibn sol!?" barked the beast, showing Link its rows of teeth like jagged diamonds, and its purple tongue which forked like a serpent's. Its breath was like the terrible stench of ancient death, and Link could swear he felt the grainy feeling of sand in his throat.

"Yes, I want to see Nyarlathotep," said Link, "Are you his servant? Can you take me to him?"

The creature once again stood to its full height, sneering down its long nose at him. It raised one of its unnaturally long arms, and for a moment Link thought it would strike at him, but it extended the limb rigidly towards the wall, pointing one spindly digit at the smooth stone.

Upon the wall, a glowing symbol appeared the exact duplicate of the star and moon on the creature's forehead. The hot white seared and sputtered sparks, like a metalworker's torch. Soon, the symbol was accompanied by a square which bordered it, segmenting the wall with a space large enough to become a door. Once the shapes were drawn, and burned the brightest white they could, the light began to cool and all that was left were black scars of mathematical precision. The creature took two striding steps towards the wall, and braced its black palms upon the stone. Then, effortlessly, it pushed forward; the block of wall it had cut sliding cleanly inward towards the tower.

Link felt his muscles relax. He turned so he could better see into the new opening the creature had created. Shadow gaped at him from within. There was no sign of the mysterious being.

"Hello?"

Link called into the cut door, but no response came. He approached the opening, gripping the side of it with his hand, testing the stones to make sure that the strange things he'd seen were real.

Solid stone and darkness was his to behold.

The gap was impossible. The wall could not have been thicker than twenty feet, but illogical darkness stretched indeterminately away from him into some shadow realm beyond. The mocking ravens hooted and squawked from the wall above, but no more words came to the boy, even in the dead language. He was left alone to determine his next move.

"Well, this is the Temple of the Soul, right?" he said himself, or to the ravens. Neither had an answer.

His heart was racing. He felt a kind of anxiety he had never experienced before. The nearest feeling he could compare it to be was the horror of watching the great black octopus descend upon the Temple of the Mind. He stood on the threshold, contemplating entrance into the unknown void before him.

If he didn't go in, he would never find the treasure, and he would never leave the Dreamworld again. He would never see Zelda again. His blue eyes narrowed. His fists were balled. He gritted his teeth.

I am not afraid!

Stalwart and brave, Link went into the dark passage. He had gathered all his courage to him, and found, much to his own surprise, that he did not feel so useless after all. He didn't even notice the glow of the triangle on the back of his left hand.

*The Pschent (/ˈskɛnt/; Greek ψχεντ) was the name of the Double Crown of Ancient Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemti (sḫm.tỉ), the Two Powerful Ones.[1] It combined the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt.