Chapter 27

At the top of the stairs, Link was not surprised to see the horrifying raven-thing waiting for him. The beast was preening itself, which looked alien and horrible as done by a man made of ravens. As soon as Link set foot on the top step, its attention had snapped to him, and it threw open its black beak and let loose an evil squawk.

Link approached the thing, pushing its horrifying presence out of his mind. He wouldn't be bullied by any villain, no matter how awful it might be.

"There, I won," said Link, "What next?"

He watched the raven-thing, and it watched him back with dark and starry eyes.

"Another riddle, Courage of Men."

The raven-thing spread its blasphemous wings, and its wings spread their wings, and the myriad pile of otherworldly ravens spoke thusly:

"Sits on thrones,"

"Has no bones,"

"Lights the lamps and lifts the stones!"

"Always sought,"

"Seldom got,"

"Best serves those who want it not!"

Link knew this one. He had never been one for word games, and he didn't consider himself to be overly clever, but the words of the riddle seemed plain to him. He thought of Zelda, usurped from the throne of Hyrule, and Nyarlath, who coveted that throne. He thought of Scarlett, who would have killed an innocent child to reclaim a magical treasure, and of his dragon and his Sleepstone, the unwanted burdens which had delivered her from that early death.

"Power," said Link, "The answer is power."

The ravens tittered and squawked,

"Cheater!"

"Vile!"

"His eyes! His eyes!"

The head of the beast let out a massive screech, and silence fell over the fluttering legion.

"Power, yes, you have solved it, Courage of Men," said the raven-thing, "Now conquer power for yourself. Take up your blade and strike down your foe. Then come meet us on the upper level."

"I have no blade!" cried Link, "Those machines, which I suspect work for you and your master, took it from me. This test of yours is garbage! Show me Nyarlathotep, the black-hearted liar! I won't rest until I've met him."

The raven-thing seemed to sneer at him for a moment before saying, "The Black Pharaoh is not unfair. Folded steel for the Courage of Men, as it has ever been."

The beast leaned down till its face was inches from Link and he could smell its putrid breath. To his disgust, the beak opened, and he could see the slimy black tongue resting on the bottom of the mouth. Link watched as the bird began to heave, its gullet widening impossibly. Some solid object was stuck up in the throat of the beast, and with each sickly wretch a bit more of the thing protruded, until Link could see the pommel of a sword.

"Grasp it!"

"Clutch it!"

"Feed it blood!"

The legion tittered gleefully. Link glanced around himself, desperately wishing that all which had occurred was but a dream he could awake from. He realized how ironic this was as soon as the thought had crossed his mind. This was a dream… a nightmare. As he clutched the handle of the blade, which he thanked the goddesses was dry, he found himself wishing instead that he might never have to sleep again.

With one fierce pull and a sickly pop, the thing came free.

It was hideous, marvelous, evil and deadly. The blade was pure obsidian, razor-sharp and square, with an angular tip designed to cleave on one side. The other side of the blade was a horrendous saw, serrated and grisly with the stains of eons old blood. Oily-looking pearls were set in its cross guard, and its pommel was the petrified eye of a raven, locked eternally in a maddening, lidless stare.

Link lifted the blade, watching it gleam in the electric blue light. Holding the thing gave him a restless feeling in his arm. He felt as though the blade itself were willing him to use it. He had no sense of bloodlust. The few living creatures he had swung a sword at over the last couple of weeks he had done so purely to defend himself. He knew that swords were just objects and that they shouldn't have desires or personalities, but the weapon gave him the distinct impression that, for it, killing something would be joyful. He shuddered at the thought. Still, it was better than not having a weapon…

His thoughts were silenced for the moment as the raven-thing once again exploded into a thousand ravens and disappeared. He held his sword aloft, waving it around the room as the darkness he had expected began to creep over the place. Mists rose from the ground, and the floor beneath his feet began to squish with each footfall. He looked down, seeing that cool stone had been replaced with soft, loamy soil. The air became charged with an electric chill, like an evening in early fall when the forest would fill with mist and the trees would cast long and eerie shadows. Somehow, the whole temple had shifted, and there was no longer any sense of the walls and arched ceilings. Link couldn't see a thing through the thick veil of fog, but he knew something was there. His eyes narrowed.

Come get me then.

As if to answer his thoughts, a guttural moan split the misty air. Link snapped in that direction, his sword leading him like a dowsing rod. Through the mists, the silhouette of some hunch-backed figure could be seen, lumbering slowly towards him. The thing was a behemoth, to be sure. It had to be at least five feet taller than him.

He could see his breath coming in billowing clouds. The cold was intensifying. He gripped the sword white-knuckle tight in his hand. The creature was almost upon him, as it glided unnaturally forward through the mist. The obscuring fog was growing thinner… and Link saw what he could never un-see.

It was the head of a man, although emaciated and ghostly white. Red sores marked its face, and coagulated blood and puss oozed from the wounds. Its nose either had been removed or never existed. A skeletal pair of slits remained in its place. The eye sockets were sunken and nearly hollow, but for the evil red fires that burned deep within them, unlike any kind of eye. The teeth were horrible, like a mess of jagged shark teeth, arranged in broken row after broken row. The mouth was all teeth, and if there had been lips they never could have curled over all those fangs.

The way it held its head out in front of its shoulders seemed to defy nature. Its neck was long and ridiculous, craning from its hunched back. Its body was naked, the same ghostly white as the face, and covered in the same sores and putrid wounds. It grew progressively more rotund towards its base. It had no feet, but rather seemed to slide along the ground in the manner of a slug. Link did not want to imagine what kind of slime trail it might leave.

Perhaps most disturbing though were its arms, which it held out in front of it the way a begging dog does when it sits up on its haunches. The white-skinned, slender limbs ended in spiked hooks, which looked sharp and hard as steel and were caked in thick, red-black blood. It groaned again, and its voice was like ten men all grumbling in pain, their agony mixing together in a terrible kind of vocal harmony.

Link found himself stepping backward from the thing automatically, his eyes wide as saucers, his heart filled with terror. What horrible blasphemies were hidden within this place!

After a few steps backward, Link stumbled as he collided with the trunk of a tall, skinny tree. It felt strange. He reached back with his free hand, feeling the trunk, making sure it was solid. He felt cold, clammy skin under his fingers. Link yelped in fear, turning so he could see the tree for himself. It was not a tree.

An arm, hideous and impossibly elongated, was sticking up from the ground like the stalk of some horrible plant. Its skin was the same ghostly white as the hunch-backed creature which was slowly advancing on him, and at its wrist was a hand with slender fingers which ended in the same blood stained hooks as the small arms on the creature's torso. Link barely had time to scream. The towering arm bent at the elbow and came snapping at him like a bear trap.

It gripped his shoulder with impossible strength! Link felt a bolt of panic shoot through him. Screaming like a madman, he hacked at the grasping limb with his new sword.

The black blade was as sharp as it looked. Its razor edge cleaved through the stalky arm in two swift chops. Link threw the offending appendage away from him, feeling as though he could still feel it clutching at him. The ruined stump of the arm retreated sadly into the dirt, no blood coming from the wound, which looked thick and congealed.

Link rounded on the monster, sensing its chomping mouth coming closer. The thing had bent down, its long neck extending to provide it a better angle to bite him. He pointed his sword at it, stumbling backwards through the mists,

"Back off!"

The ground around the creature began to churn. White fingers with blood-red tips came groping through the soil. First one hand emerged, and then another, then another… it seemed there was no end to them! They scraped for him. Suddenly, his left foot felt planted to the spot. He looked down. One of the horrid things was holding his ankle!

"Ahhh!" he screamed, swinging his blade wildly. Even as he chopped the hand away, another grabbed his shoulder, then another shot up and gripped his other leg. He flailed madly, chopping a gash in the one on his shoulder, but failing to sever it completely.

The beast moaned at him again, slithering nearer and nearer with its jagged mouth opened wide. Link gritted his teeth, and twisted his body with all his might. The sword seemed to take over. He was thrown into the familiar whirlwind, just as he had before when fighting the Lizalfos or the Phantom of Nyarlath. A fiery red light erupted around him. His whole body spun like a top, chopping down the attacking limbs as if they were made of paper.

He came out of the spin just in time to give the creature one good slash across the cheek. It shot straight up, pulling its face away from the stinging sword with a horrible shriek.

The thing withdrew at surprising speed, slithering backward several feet before suddenly diving into the ground as though it were water. Link couldn't believe his eyes. He ran forward, searching the darkness for any sign of the beast. All that was left was a gaping hole in the soft earth. Eerie silence had returned to the misty void around him.

He was too smart or too jaded to believe that it was over. He brandished his sword once more and began to turn around and around in circles with the weapon pointed out in front of him. It was strange, but he didn't feel afraid. A voice in his head seemed to be urging him on, so that the only thought in his mind was attack.

Without warning, more phantom limbs sprang up from the dirt around him like so many sprouting weeds. Their vicious, bloodstained claws clutched at him. He swung the sword frantically, cleaving hand after hand, only for them to be replaced time and again by another. They were like a swarm around him, coming from all angles. He could feel their gross flesh, spattering and flying around him in messy globs, staining his tunic with their rotten blood and sickly puss.

One hand caught him by the collar of his tunic, pulling him onto his back. He rolled over, feeling the wet dirt mixing with the blood, caking his clothing and skin. He screamed defiantly, hacking at the limbs even as they piled on him, clawing, scraping, and pulling. His eyes were full of fury and mania, his battle cries growing fiercer and shriller.

From the churning soil around him, the gruesome head emerged once more. It roared like a demon. The ground around it began to sink, forming a kind of funnel with the creature's tooth-filled mouth at the center. Hands gripped his legs and his clothing wherever they could find hold. They were dragging him deeper and deeper into the pit, towards the gaping, blood-soaked mouth.

He screamed.

Scarlett winced at the intensity of the green star, which she could now see rested at the crown of an immense black tower. There was no mistaking it, she had found the fabled necropolis, and judging by the ever increasing intensity of the city's ghostly green glow, her crew had beaten her to it. She would have felt proud if she hadn't been so sure it was Link who had gotten them that far.

As the moth swooped low over the expanse of the dead city, Scarlett could see by the eldritch lanterns that lined the street the throngs of stumbling redead which crowded its alleys and boulevards. She shuddered at the thought of all those leathery, groping hands… she hoped her crew wasn't already on their backs in some corner street being devoured by the beasts. She wanted to have faith in Gwen and Zig, but the truth was these days that there was only one person she could count on besides herself to get the job done, and as much as it aggravated her to admit it, she was glad that he was with them.

Suddenly the moth jerked to the side, rolling in towards the tower. Scarlett felt her stomach drop as the insect dove, swooping so near to the glowing crown of the structure that she was sure it would crash.

"Hey, you idiot! It's just a light, leave it alone!"

The moth clearly was not listening. It swooped around for another pass, fluttering wildly. This time, its legs tapped the tower, and the momentary impact nearly threw Scarlett out of the saddle. She made the mistake of glancing down.

The tower was hundreds of feet tall, taller than even the high minarets of Castle Town. Its peak, she could see from up close, was made of some kind of cloudy crystal, arranged in curved spikes which seemed too symmetric to be naturally formed, though the idea of their fabrication was baffling. These spikes were curved in such a way that each one's tip formed a support for the shining green star to rest upon, which Scarlett could now see was not a star, but an immense, glowing gemstone.

"What the hell is that?"

The moth apparently shared Scarlett's curiosity. With a tremendous leap and a flutter it launched itself at the glowing stone.

The light was so intense! There was a strange feeling under the odd green light. Almost as though it somehow sucked the life and warmth right out of you. A radiating, visible feeling of cold. It reminded her of steam flowing off the surface of snow, like solid become gas right before her eyes. The moth crawled along the thing, its big black orbs reflecting the twinkle of the green gem dazzlingly.

"This is real dark magic," murmured Scarlett to herself, "What could it be for?"

The moth crawled around the thing, feeling its glowing surface with the frond-like tips of its bushy antennae. Scarlett leaned to stay mounted, but was unable to resist the temptation to stare down the height of the tower.

She noticed something she hadn't before: below the green gemstone, an intense beam of green light was emitting from the tower, striking the bottom of the stone full-on. So the stone was refracting the light! Could it be a signal? Like a beacon or a lighthouse? That meant the tower itself was producing magical energy. There was no doubt about it, the temple was inside. Scarlett had to find a way into that tower.

There was a sudden tremor which shook the city all around, causing the tower to tremble and quake. The moth was startled and suddenly reared back. Scarlett felt her grip on the silvery fur come loose. She scrambled to regain her hold, but it was too late. She felt herself falling.

Hard stone met her eight feet down. The moth had thrown her, but she had landed on the cloudy crystal surface of the tower's crown, her legs partially dangling over the ledge. She crawled backwards, wanting to distance herself from the hundreds-of-feet drop down.

The green light of the tower flared, and with it came a gust of chill wind which made the pirate shiver. She watched as the silhouette of the moth passed through the dark sky around her, the insect still fluttering uselessly at the shining green stone. From Scarlett's new position on the tower top she could see the beam of light more clearly. It was like a column of green fire, pouring upwards into the massive gemstone. It emitted from a hollow tube at the center of the tower top, and Scarlett could see that the passage was wide enough around that one might pass through it without entering the beam of green light, if one were very careful. She cursed the loss of her hookshot.

She inched towards the opening, huddling low to the ground and leaning over so she could peer down into the pit below. The green light was too blinding in the narrow tube for her to see the bottom, and the chilly feeling of the ghostly light was blasting out of the hole with tempest intensity. As Scarlett strained to see deeper into the pit, she was startled by the sudden eruption of a sound from within: a blood curdling scream, which was promptly stifled to a gurgle.

"Sounds like a party down there," said Scarlett, "Wonder why I didn't get an invite."

He could feel the chomping mouth inches from his boots. The awful clawed hands were pulling him ever closer, and in mere seconds he would become a meal for the blasphemous thing.

There was a violent tremor. The whole world around him seemed to quake. For a split second, the grip of the evil arms was loosened. It was all the time he needed.

He felt his adrenaline mounting. His eyes were wide. Intense heat seemed to travel through him in waves, from his core to the tips of his fingers. He swept the sword in a wide arc across the forest of arms, cleaving them all cleanly in one fell swipe. The boy sprang to his feet, now in a rage so pure and consuming that he was scarcely aware of his own actions. Blood and gore dripped off of him and his blade as he leapt into the air, throwing himself at the monster with no concern for his own life. The jaws of the beast were right in front of him. The fiery red eyes gaped at him like bottomless wells.

"HYAAAAAAAAA!"

He thrust the blade into the monster's mouth, sinking it down nearly to the cross guard. The beast seemed to wretch and cough, a syrupy flow of coagulated blood and bile pouring like chunky soup from the corners of the smiling mouth. It emitted the most blood curdling shriek Link had ever heard. He felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. His stomach felt weak and sick, and suddenly his temples pounded and his vision swam. The scream died to gurgles and sputters as the monster drown in its own gore, the forest of hands it had sprouted going limp and receding into the dirt, shriveling in the manner of salted slugs.

The scene began to change.

The body of the terrible creature was shrinking and dissolving more and more. The lights began to return, blue and electric, casting out the rolling mists. As the mist shrank away, it took the loamy soil with it, restoring the cool stones of the temple. Something like normality was returning to the world, but the filth and blood caked to Link's arms and tunic remained.

His adrenaline began to subside. His nostrils were suddenly assaulted with the baleful smell of decaying cadavers. He felt his hands begin to shake. The black sword fell to the floor with a clatter. In a moment, the boy was on his knees, vomiting painfully on the temple floor.

After a time, he rolled onto his back, watching through a haze of exhaustion as the pearlescent staircase came descending from the high ceiling. He laughed a little, but it made him choke on his own spit, causing him to hack and cough. He wanted to scream, to cry, but none of that seemed possible anymore. What was he becoming? He had never felt rage like that before, had never swung a sword so filled with hatred. The cursed creature he had killed was something that never should have existed to begin with, but he couldn't rationalize the feeling it had given him to slay it. It was as though his thoughts were not his own, as if he was a different person entirely. He had felt numb in the moment, as though nothing mattered, not even his own life. In the past, he had only attacked anything to defend himself or a friend, but this had felt different. It had felt good to kill the monster, and that terrified him.

Once he had caught his breath, the boy pushed himself up from the cold stone and dusted off as much of the residual dirt and gore as he could. It didn't do much good. He hated to admit it, but he needed a bath pretty badly.

"Well, one more to go," said the boy, turning his gaze to the spiral staircase. He nodded to himself, pushing any thoughts of terror or self-doubt away. There was more work to do.

He went to the stairs, gripped the bannister, and put his foot on the first step… but something kept him from climbing. He glanced over his shoulder at the black sword, resting on the ground nearby. It was resting in such a way that the raven eye in the pommel was pointed directly at him. It sparkled hypnotically, seeming to glare straight through him. He swallowed dryly. For a split second, he could have sworn he saw it blink.