Chapter 16

The throne room proved empty, and neither Link nor Tael could decipher the strange glyphs carved in the walls, so they pushed their way through the giant brass double doors into another long hall. Tall marble pillars lined the room. Each had several short metal arms holding working glode rocks.

The room was very similar to the throne room, but this one had more doors lining the walls, and there were balconies on either side. Link hurried across to the other end. His quick footsteps echoed through the vast hall and he kept imagining that Dark Link would jump out from behind a pillar. Fortunately that never happened. Unfortunately, what really happened was worse.

The doors at the other end of the hall burst open, and Link screeched to a halt as he saw several Moblins march through. With no time to hide, Link unsheathed his sword. The Moblins took on a surprised expression and then started laughing. It was then that Link saw how many there were: about seven. Each of them was fully armed with spears and axes. Tael shrieked and shot off through a gap in the railing of the balcony and disappeared into a passageway.

Link injured a few of the Moblins before they grabbed hold of his legs and right arm and held him off the floor like a struggling fish. They weren't laughing any more, and Link's situation was serious as well. Link's arm was released suddenly, letting his head smack against the warm stone floor, and he lost consciousness.

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Pyrobia, year 132

Shouts and screams rang through the gargantuan hall as the Moblins quickly destroyed all the servants. The king had already been disposed of, and since the Goron soldiers were gone, the battle was like water smashing against the seashore, washing away all the sand.

Something about killing all the innocent sentries and maids seemed wrong to Gruth, but his maniac side was taking over and he couldn't think straight. His axe hacked through a particularly fat Goron's neck and into a marble pillar, sending black fragments of stone splashing to the floor, disrupting his mirror image in the crimson puddle at his feet.

The ripples subsided, and for a moment he was terrified of the face he saw reflected in the pool. The feeling was jerked away as soon as it had come, and he turned away, ready for more action, only to come face to face with a blinding light.

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When Link came to, the first thing he noticed was a ceiling of iron bars eight feet above his head. He jolted upright, then squeezed his eyes shut and grasped his head, groaning at the sharp pain in the back of his head.

"Careful, careful! You have a nasty wound on your head. Please, rest."

Those words were too familiar by now. He couldn't rest, he had to find Navi; he had to - Link slumped back down onto the floor and kept his eyes comfortably closed. After a few minutes, he suddenly realized someone had spoken to him in Hylian, and made the mistake of thrusting his head upward again. It triggered another sharp pang, and his head would have thumped to the ground if it hadn't been for the many hands that grasped him and slowly lowered him.

"Relax. You can't get out, the only thing to do is rest," said the same rough but soft male voice.

"Who are you?" Link asked, examining the thin, heavily bearded man with light brown curly hair leaning over him. "Where are we?"

"My name is Horacio. I'm from Myrennia Castle Town, and I was captured here a few years ago while exploring the Amathar Mountains. I think this may be the ancient Goron city of Pyrobia, but now it's being occupied by Moblins. How they got here, I don't know."

"Do you know anything about the mines?" Link croaked.

"Mines? ...No, I can't say I have. Why?"

"That's where I just came from. There were more humans down there, and I'm not sure what happened to them. We were being fed to wild boars in front of a ton of Moblins, but I managed to escape and free the rest of them. Then I got lost in the mines and found my way up here."

A look of realization and horror crossed Horacio's face, and he seemed to lose so much energy it looked as if he had just thrown a boulder across a river.

"So that's where they take us," he said sadly.

"Sorry?"

"Every once in a while the Moblins take a group of us out of here, and we never see them again. It's always been a big mystery to me, until now."

"Don't they run out of people, though?" Link asked, turning his head sideways. He was shocked to see that besides the humans in the same cage with him, there were about two hundred more, in separate cages. They were lined up like barracks in the huge, rough brown cavern. There were humans of all ages, Link noticed...except there were no old ones.

"As long as they have a male and a female, no. When the number of babies grows thin...the Moblins hold a sort of 'convention' and force what they call 'participants' to..." Horacio trailed off, watching Link's eyes grew wide.

"You can't be serious!"

"That was my reaction as well. Now, if we could please drop this subject..." Horacio hid his eyes in his long sandy curls and was quiet. Link was silent for a minute as well.

"You were one of those 'participants' once, weren't you?"

"I said drop it!" Horacio yelled, rousing the half-asleep (and some completely out) occupants of the cage and others nearby. Link went silent again and cursed himself for bringing it up. To change the subject, he thought of a different question.

"How come none of the others know Hylian?"

"They were raised here, so all they know is the Moblin tongue. It can be quite annoying at times, the roughness of it all. That's why I was glad when you were put into our cage."

"I know what you mean. I had...a friend with me, but he ran off before I was captured." Link left out the part about Tael being a fairy, because he felt it might give Horacio false hope. If anyone could get them out of there, it was a fairy, but Link doubted Tael would be of any help. Where had he gone, anyway?

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Tael peered through the iron bars of the thick wooden door at the strange creature inside. It had a green scaly body, a large orange beak, small feathers poking out behind the holes where the ears should be, and webbed hands and feet. It looked like a mixture between a fish and a bird, yet it was the size of a human. Its eyes were closed, so it didn't notice Tael yet. If it was locked in a cell like this because of the Moblins, it couldn't be too bad.

Tael decided to find out at a safe distance, and shook his body in midair, creating a small dingle sound. The creature's eyes became black slits and then opened wide, exposing the shiny, inky orbs underneath the shimmering eyelids. Tael remained floating on the other side of the iron window, waiting cautiously for the creature's reaction.

"A fairy? What are you doing here?" The thing said in a rough, gurgling voice. He stood on his thick legs and stumbled over to the door. Tael backed up a little.

"My friend was captured by the Moblins, and I was hiding," Tael stuttered.

"You can't imagine how glad I am to see you! I've been waiting for someone like you ever since I was captured," the creature said excitedly, tears forming in his eyes.

"...How long would that be?" Tael said warily. After a small pause, the creature replied.

"Four hundred and forty-three years."

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