Negative Forces 5
The Truth about the Triforce
The house by the sand was occupied by an old man who appeared to be sour and grouchy, but took the two in for the night regardless. He eyed them suspiciously, frowning at Link and avoiding eye contact with Sky despite obviously staring at her head. After some time had passed and darkness settled over the sky, the old man made some tea and asked what they were doing travelling so far from civilization so late in the day, without somewhere to stay.
"We're looking for an island. And the Hand of the Ocean" Link explained frankly, hoping the old man might know something about them. An aged, white eyebrow raised, accompanied by a dry cackle.
"You don't know what yer talking about, I suggest you both run on home before real trouble finds ye."
Sky prickled slightly at the dismissal, but was cut off before she could retort. Link explained in simple terms what their mission was, what they already knew, and what they still needed to know. The old man's face crinkled with worry.
"You pair are awful young for such a dangerous pursuit. But you say you already know about the four faeries?"
Sky and Link perked up, the man was taking them seriously now.
"Yer almost there, but for a few details. You know the shape of the triforce don't ya? Oc course ye do, everyone does. The three pieces represent Nyaru, Din and Farore, the three great faeries, or Power, Wisdom and Courage. However ye choose to look at it."
Link unconsciously rubbed the back of his hand and sat up straight to listen. Sky pulled out the parchment she had in her bag and readied herself to take notes of anything that could help them.
"History is written by the winners, and there are things folks aren't meant to know, for their own happiness. But you two need to hear the truth. Think again on the shape of the triforce, and the space in the centre of it. Ye see, in the beginning, there were four great faeries. All four pieces together created a solid triangle. The fourth faerie was stripped of her power and left to die, after trying to use the exact artefact you two are looking for, to become a sole eternal ruler."
Link and Sky looked at each other, as if to ensure they were both hearing the same story. Sky wanted to believe this was just the ramblings of an old man, but there was conviction in his raspy voice. Link obviously believed it completely, and looked nothing short of betrayed.
"Fire, Wind, Water and Earth," continued the old man, "the faerie of the earth created the mountains, and the old legends say she was buried deep under the earth she created, as was fitting for her after her death."
"Why isn't this in other books?" Sky interjected, seeing the obvious distress on Link's face was upsetting her, "there's THREE great faeries, and a TRI-force, everyone knows tha-..."
"NO," crowed the curmudgeon, slamming his teacup down on the table "like I said to ye, history is written by the winners. The fourth faerie was eradicated from the legends except in the small mountain villages where she was worshiped hundreds of years ago before she fell."
"How would you know? I'm from the mountains, and I've never heard of her!"
"Of course you haven't, yer too young little girl! My family moved to the coast from a tiny village by name of Sennohe more than 400 years ago. My own ancestors diaries are the records and proof of my tale."
Dumbstruck, Sky shut her mouth and stared wide-eyed at the old man, who pulled old tombes from his shelves and opened them in front of her and Link.
"Sorry" she whispered...
He grumbled to himself and looked to Link, who hadn't said a word.
"Nobody ever mentioned anything like that..." the boy in green said hollowly.
"That's what I'm tellin' ye. Some things are kept quiet like, for the greater good."
Later, as they were supposed to be sleeping, Sky heard a gentle whisper in the dark,
"He said his family came from sennohe," Link turned on his side to face her, "do you really know nothing about the fourth faerie?"
"N..no. If I'd known anything I would have told you! Honestly I would"
He believed her, and nodded, before turning onto his back and falling asleep.
Sky didn't sleep much that night. She racked her brain for anything at all that she had been told or seen that could be to do with this new information. There was another song, another nursery rhyme, that she couldn't quite remember, and old books in the very back of the library that might have said something useful. If only she'd done more reading than playing around maybe she'd know more. No, that's not right, this information was kept from everyone, there's no way she could have found it by accident. Eventually she fell into a restless sleep.
Clouds covered the sky the next morning. Link took his sword and the telescope and set out along the coast to look for the island they'd come to find. Sky was prepared to go with him until the old man stopped her,
"you stay here, I'd like to talk to ye, mountain-folk to mountain-folk you know?" he assured Link she'd be quite safe, and he turned to Sky,
"See you when you get back then" She said confidently.
Link set off along the sand, periodically looking out to sea with the telescope. Clouds made the view difficult, but with time he was sure he'd find something.
Inside the old man's house, Sky was asked to sit down,
"your friend out there was mighty disturbed by the truth about the hole in the triforce," he began. Something about the way he said that rang a bell in the back of her mind. "he doesn't know we Sennohe folks are descended from her does he?"
Sky felt her blood run cold.
"What?"
"You didn't know either? The old legends really have been buried then. It's true girl, we're all part of the bloodline she started when she was stripped of her powers and left to wander her earthen mountains. Well, it's up to you to tell him or not, but I wouldn't expect a warm reception judging by the look on his face last night!"
Sky's heart sank. It was true enough, he hadn't been particularly friendly towards her since hearing the old man's story. But she didn't want to keep it from him either. Then again, the truth was often kept hidden, for the sake of other's happiness. The other thing clawing at her mind was the 'hole in the triforce', she'd heard that somewhere before.
"Where was she buried?" Sky asked the old man,
"The graveyard in the mountains, just beyond Kakariko village. Don't be fooled by its size, the surface is new, but the real tombs stretch out long and deep under the mountains. And they say she took a dragon, to protect her treasure even in death."
They looked at each other for a moment before the old man continued, "that's where you're headed isn't it?"
Sky nodded. It occurred to her where she'd heard of the hole in the triforce before too. From Link himself! She packed up her things, and what few of Link's things he'd left behind and left the old man's house. She stumbled across the sand, uneven footing and unbalanced weight slowing her down.
"LINK? LINK!" She called across the sands, and ran along the edge of the water until she could see him in the distance. He deftly deflected a rock, spat by a grotesque sea creature, turned to look towards her and waved.
"THE OWL. IT WASN'T THE WHOLE OF THE TRIFORCE, ITS THE HOLE OF THE TRIFORCE. THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE, OR THE SPACE IN THE MIDDLE IS THE FOURTH FAERIE'S POWER, TAHTS WHAT IT MEANT!"
She cried across the sand, running breathlessly towards her friend, and collapsed to her knees in the sand in front of him. Her lungs burned from shouting. Link helped her back up to her feet and took his own equipment back from her to lighten the load on her back. It made sense, what she'd said about the whole, or rather, the hole of the triforce.
"So it's the fourth faerie's power that activates the immortality charm..." he looked at Sky's flushed face, her chest heaved from breathing so roughly, "how did you figure that out?"
"The old man, he told me. He also told me where she was buried... beneath the mountains, in the graveyard beyond Kakariko village... with her dragon."
They shared a look, as 'typical', ran through Link's mind. There's always something toothed and dangerous wherever he wanted to be going wasn't there?
"Let's go there then," he said confidently, "there's too much mist out there for the island to be seen today anyway. Better not to waste time, and come back later."
Kakariko village was in a sorry state compared to the way Link remembered it. He's last left it peaceful, and thriving. Now, the soldiers from the mountains had worked their way down and were patrolling the village regularly. Every few minutes, one would come into the village from the graveyard, do a full circuit of the place, and go back out among the headstones. This done, the next one would do the same. They would have to avoid them if they wanted to get through the village safely. At first it was simple enough, stay on the other side of town from the guard that was patrolling. But they walked fast, and soon caught up to them. Hearing the clank of armour, Link ducked out of sight as a guard passed him. He turned to Sky, and his heart skipped when he realised that she wasn't there.
He heard a tapping on something wooden, a little way along the street from where he was hiding and looked gingerly around to find its source. Sky was quite safe, out of sight, under a crate that had been left there.
'How?' he mouthed silently at her,
She pointed to a hole in the wall opposite him and made a wriggling motion with her hands that he took to mean there was a tunnel of some sort. He motioned to her to wait where she was and crawled into the gap she'd pointed out. There was a tiny alley, barely big enough to squeeze down, but completely out of sight. Sky met him at the far end of it, unfurling herself from the box she'd been under.
"Not bad little one,"
"The hard part will be getting through the graveyard won't it?" Sky asked shakily, already knowing the answer to that was yes.
The dark soldiers were everywhere. Up close like this, their true nature became more and more apparent. It wasn't so much their appearance that gave them away, but their smell. The putrid stink of rotten flesh against their steel armour hung in the air like a poisonous miasma. None of the soldiers were 'complete', for want of a better term, they all had bits missing. Some were missing arms or legs, some were missing just an eye or their lower jaw. Some were missing their skin. They shuffled around the graveyard, attacking anything that moved, even each other if their paths crossed, and otherwise dragged their sorry selves around and around the path ways. These soldiers were already dead.
"Is this the power of the fourth faerie?" Sky asked, in a choked voice. "Since she has fallen, her Immortality charm can easily be used for evil..."
"It must be," Link whispered back. He had a good idea of who was behind this too, and it made him sick to the stomach to think about it.
As quickly and quietly as possible, they crept between the headstones, keeping out of sight from the hideous undead soldiers. They followed a wildly erratic pattern, but a pattern none the less, which once worked out allowed the pair easier progress across the graveyard.
"I think this is it" said Sky suddenly, when the two were ducked between a tomb almost completely buried in the mountainside,
"you think so?" Link seemed surprised,
"yeah, look," Sky kicked the ground around them and it crumbled lightly. "It's all dry and cracked, and sinks down. There's nothing under here" she said, kicking it away chunk by chunk, as quietly as possible. Pausing only for a minute to stay still as a corpse in armour dragged past them, at such close proximity that the smell was almost unbearable. Sure enough, with a few more kicks at the ground, a stairway down under the mountain became apparent and they wasted no time ducking down inside, away from the creatures on the surface. The smell down here was not much better, and they hadn't done far before a blood curdling shriek split their ears and the very air around them. Sky froze in terror, the ghastly thing in front of them was nothing but a charred skeleton, and it was staggering towards her with its loose teeth chattering.
As quickly as it had appeared out of the darkness, it was in bits on the stone floor.
"Re-deads" said Link, having chopped the creature from behind "poor souls, horrible to fight. Stay close to me." He pulled Sky to his side and held on to her. She shook like an autumn leaf and the colour had drained completely from her face. The re-deads eyes would surely have sucked the soul right out of her body if Link had been even a moment later in killing it, or rather, re-killing it.
Sky held tightly to his right hand as they made their way deep under the mountain. The whole dungeon was a huge burial ground, tombstones of hundreds or even thousands of years old made up the floors and walls. The whole place was swarming with spirits, some malevolent and some kind, all disturbed.
"Duck!" Link pushed Sky's head down and she covered her eyes, hearing the same stomach-turning shriek as before. That wouldn't have been so bad, but it was the second, and the third similar cries that set her teeth on edge and made her shake uncontrollably. She was curled into a tight ball, hat over her eyes and ears when Link patted her shoulder and tried to gently ease her back to her feet.
"I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this" she chanted to herself, utterly spooked. Link held her for a minute in the now empty room to calm her nerves.
"Come on, I've got your back, we can do this. We just need to get to the bottom of this dungeon, grab the treasure, and then we can leave as fast as we possibly can, okay?"
Sky nodded, pressed against his chest. She took a few deep breaths to try and stop the trembling and let go of Link's waist. They took each other's hands and plunged further on into the darkness.