Chapter 4

Creeping out father and farther, he didn't see any guards roaming this hallway. But Link was not naïve, he knew that they had to be somewhere. With the constant recruiting that has been going on lately, there had to be plenty of them. But as he kept walking past door after door, window after window, hallway after hallway, he never even once ran into a guard.

That's when he noticed it, a huge courtyard outside one of the windows. In the courtyard, still seemingly being nurtured into a full fledged castle garden, Link saw the oddest sight. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand soldiers were lined up in front of a golden cauldron radiating a strange glow of black. A large, muscled man seemed to be scooping the purple and red liquid from the pot and pouring it on top of the soldiers. But strangely, the liquid did not make the soldiers wet but seemed to soak into their skin and armor like acetone spilled on paper.

Link suddenly realized he was staring out the window in plain view of all the soldiers and quickly jumped onto his stomach and crawled to the floor. Hopefully no one had seen him, he thought. He knew he was close to the throne room, it was in the back of the enormous castle and when he looked out the window he saw he was nicely near the rear of the castle.

He decided to stay on his stomach for now, deciding that he is not quite experienced enough yet to take on hundreds of soldiers at one time. It felt weird though, sneaking around what he would expect is a friendly castle. But the girl told him otherwise. He knew he must follower her advice: kill anyone he is spotted by. So far he was in the clear, though.

Thankfully, he got to a door at the end of the hallway hopefully leading into the throne room. Doors are a strange thing, though. Only Nayru knows what is on the other side and he could very well push the door open right into a soldier, which it did swing outward unfortunately. But he knew he wasn't going back as a coward just because he was afraid to open a door. Once again, he slowly opened a door.

This time, there was no fire light greeting him but a seemingly soft red glow throughout the whole room. The walls were aphotic despite the bloom of light coming from an unknown source. He shut the door behind him only to see it disappear into the black walls. Suddenly, he noticed that his skin seemed to have an incandescence to it that slowly got brighter. He walked forward a bit more and heard a small click and noticed he had stepped onto some sort of switch on the floor.

He wasn't sure what had happened at first but slowly saw the red light grow brighter and brighter, almost blinding. Like a collapsing star, all the light abruptly condensed into one single spot floating in midair. Link wasn't sure if he was imaging it but it seemed that from the spot of light, a small droplet seemed to be growing from it. After a couple of seconds, he was sure of it as a droplet of purple and red fell from the light onto the floor making a small puddle of swirling black, red, and purple.

As quickly as the droplet fell, the puddle seemed to start shifting its shape, growing larger and larger taking on a vague humanoid shape but it was definitely anything but human. It seemed to smile at him, a disgusting smile of not teeth but purple gel covering the inside of his mouth. Swirls of the gel fell out of the mouth and molded with his skin making a design of elaborate twists of violet.

Link was in shock and still slightly blinded from the bright light. All of this had happened in little more than 5 seconds and gave him little time to respond as the creature launched himself at Link. He tried to dodge the monstrosity but the thing landed on top of his right shoulder and started knowing on Link's neck.

As quickly as he could, Link removed his sword from its sheath on his back while shaking the thing off his shoulder—he could feel a numb pain from his neckline but ignored it. He quickly whipped his sword around but the creature tried to dodge the blow and come at Link's neck once again. Swiftly, Link countercut the monster and watched as its torso tumbled off the bottom half, gel poured from both halves onto the floor casting itself into the floor. Rapidly, the body deflated and finally disappeared.

The gel had covered the whole room from ceilings to walls to floors. Finally Link came back to his senses from a ostensibly ultra-focused state. He put the sword back in its sheath noticing that it was glowingly slightly and not even a drop of purple coagulate was on it. He took a step forward and saw the purple crack under his feet and spread to the whole room which caused the whole of the purple to fall of in sheets like a broken mirror revealing the stone walls and a small alcove in the wall that the pitch black was hiding as well as a door.

Inside the alcove was a large chest with ornate decorations but it looked like it needed a key to get open so Link passed on it for now and went to the door. Finally, he felt the heat of fire again as he pushed it open. Finally, he could tell, it was the throne room – grand and bright.

He could see, as he pushed the door open more, the throne about 30 feet away with a regal old man dressed in purple and red robes with a large aurulent crown placed on his equally gold hair. His face was down in his hands but his ears seemed to move slightly when Link closed the door.

"Who's there?" The king said, "Who is it? What do you want? I've told you to stay away from me!" He lifted his head. Link saw the man's face completely in distress. Green eyes shone in dismay and grey was littering his golden beard. "Who are you?"

Link didn't speak. He didn't want to alarm the man too much.

"I know you. I've seen you before. You are the goldsmith correct? No, no. The goldsmith's son. Right, you are the town's metalsmith?"

Link nodded.

"What are you doing here? How did you get past the tocsins?" That's when he noticed the sword and shield on Link's back. "You… fought your way in? A lowly metalsmith battled his way through the tocsins? Your name is Link, correct?"

Link walked closer to the throne as the King continued to talk.

"You are not one to be underestimated, Link. So, what brings you here?"

Link shrugged in completely honestly.

"Oh, I see. Actually, I do know why you are here. I've been praying to Farore for days wishing for a man of courage. Well, Link, I need to ask you something. Something of great importance to Hyrule. You see, I am being held here. My family has been hidden from me and I fear the worst.

"I must tell you something, Link. Have you ever wondered what is past the high mountains to the east and the great desert to the west – what is on the other side of the great Kingdom of Hyrule? Well, Link, the whole of that side is a huge ocean of water but not just ordinary water but Kilrok's waters.

"The waters of Kilrok are the complete collection of evil within this world and it has found intelligence – sentience – and it is starting to act on its own and it has already taken this castle and will so take me but is unable because of this."

The King pulled up his sleeve and Link could see an imprint of a Triforce on the King's wrist and the top Triforce was gleaming gold.

"I have the Triforce of Power and Kilrok's Waters are powerless against me while I have it. You, Link, are much the same and have the Triforce of Courage. Please, Link, you must find my family. I am almost sure they have taken my family to the shores of Kilrok's Waters where the Dark Tribe inhabits. Please Link."

Just then, Link saw the angelic girl from earlier appear from the door Link had left open.

"Zelda!" the King exclaimed.