The boat rose and fell smoothly through the dim light, and had it been anywhere else, the ship and its tinkling bells might have been relaxing. The man and the boy stood with weapons drawn, and for good reason; they had not gone very far before two more Stalfos dropped from the ceiling and charged them.

"Hey, you fleshless pile of garbage!" Murray snapped at the nearest one.

"What…is…it…doing?" Ganondorf demanded of the talking skull, between swipes of his sword.

"Confusing them…it worked last time…" Zelda said, but the words died in her throat as the eyeless sockets in their skulls glowed red. "Uh oh…I think you made them mad…"

Her shriek echoed throughout the chamber, adding to the ring of swords, as one of them charged her. Link scurried after it and drove his sword into the creature's hip bone, crippling it.

They all suddenly felt an odd feeling, like the bottom had dropped out of their stomachs. "The ship's sinking!" Zelda exclaimed.

"There, a platform!" Link shouted, pointing, dodging under the Stalfos's slash. "Quick, jump!"

All three leaped forward, Ganondorf steadying Zelda as she had her arms wrapped around Murray. They all watched with a stunned silence as the ship sank without a sound, down into a dark abyss, the two Stalfos still aboard.

Murray finally broke the silence. "Well, good riddance," he said. "Look around; we're here."

They turned to see a huge door on the other side of the room, a large fallen pillar bridging another wide gap between them and their destination. With some effort, each of them picked their way over the pillar, holding their breath a little as it nudged back and forth slightly with Ganondorf's weight.

Link tried to open it, but could not. "It's locked," he announced. "And I don't see any keyhole."

"You don't need a key; it's locked by a password," said Murray. "Open sesame!"

To their surprise, the door opened.

Ganondorf shut his open mouth, then turned to Murray with a scowl. "That's a stupid password."

"Hey, it's a great password - no one would ever guess that's what it really is."

"Wait a minute," Link cut in. "How could we have gotten in if we didn't have you with us?"

Murray thought. "I've no idea. Lucky I decided to come along, huh?"

"Indeed," Ganondorf grumbled.

The chamber, like many of the ones they had seen, was enormous, dimly lit, and apparently empty. Of course, they had been doing this far too long to trust this room not to hide some hidden danger. In fact, as they crept forward, they all waited expectantly for something to appear.

It didn't take long. Before they had gone fifteen paces, a bright light nearly blinded them, and in the middle of the room a giant purple fireball flamed to life. The flaming ball took the shape of a great, slavering, fanged monster, glaring down at them all with eyes of hellfire. It let forth a great roar that nearly split their eardrums, then shouted in a voice that seemed to shake the whole room:

"Who dares enter the sacred chamber of the Spirit of Shadow? I am the Darkness that walks beside the graveyard tombs, that steals the breath from the sick, that chills the heart of the bravest hero! I am Death, Pestilence, and War! I am the Nightmare of the Goddesses, the antithesis of Light, the Doom that all mortals fear!"

"I know that voice," Murray muttered, his teeth clacking slightly as Zelda trembled around him.

"I am Ganondorf of the Gerudo," the big man shouted with equal challenge, but his voice seemed swallowed up by the darkness. "I am the descendant of the Evil King. I fear no shadows!"

"I am Link, the descendant of the Hyrulean Hero," the boy piped up, his voice small and thin in comparison. "I…uhhh…eat shadows for breakfast!"

Ganondorf gave him a disapproving scowl, but Link made Zelda smile and she managed a soft, thin introduction of her own. "I am Zelda, Princess of Hyrule. All on these lands are subject to me, shadow."

"Fools! Go back! Triforce Bearers you may be, but this is Dark Magic far beyond even your comprehension! If you wish to live, turn back, for in all my ages I have never seen defeat!"

"Now I remember that voice! You disgusting piece of filth!"

All heads turned to Murray, their eyes wide with shock. "Yeah, you heard me!" Murray let forth a blast of rage toward the gigantic floating monster. "You erased my memory again, didn't you? Admit it, you half-bit charlatan!"

The huge fireball disappeared in a puff of smoke, and below it a wizened old man appeared. "Oh, good heavens, Milton," the old man said, shaking his head. "My, you always could spoil a party."

"Party my arse! You old fool, you always did have a twisted concept of fun."

"Now, Milton…is that any way to speak to your King?"

"King!" Murray sputtered. "I'll give you King, you…" Here he degenerated into a series of vulgarities that made the two younger ones' ears burn.

Ganondorf turned to the old man. "Excuse me," he said in a voice that did not seek any kind of excuse, "but who are you, and what is going on here?"

"Ah, forgive me. It's been so long since I've spoken to the living." He gave them a small bow, really only a slight nod of the head. "I am King Linnaeus Daphnes Hyrule the Third."

Zelda drew in her breath. "That's going back a long time," she said more to herself than anyone else. "Wasn't your grandfather the one who built the Temple of Time?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes, it was he who built the gateway to the Sacred Realm, a Temple of Temples to keep the Triforce out of evil hands."

"So…" Link frowned up at King Linnaeus. "What are you doing here, of all places?"

"Here? Why, I built this place." He swept his arm across the room with a proud flourish. "I built the Shadow Temple, and I was the one who started the partnership between the Shekiah and the Royal Family."

"I'm sorry that your Temple has fallen so far into darkness," Zelda said meekly. "I'm sure it was once a beautiful place."

Murray made a series of spluttering sounds, remarkable because he had neither tongue nor lips. "Beautiful! This dungheap was always like this. Linnaeus built it this way…as the torture chamber from Hell."

Zelda turned pale; Link and Ganondorf regarded the old man with looks of pure disgust. "Oh, now, don't judge," said the former King. "You don't know what times were like back then, the need for a strong hand on the throne…"

"Gee, you think you might have gone a little overboard? Just a bit?" said Murray, his voice a study in sarcasm.

The King sighed, and for just a moment they saw a flash of strain and malice in the kindly old face. "Well, the Temple probably didn't need as many traps as it has, but Hyrule has certainly benefited from its pact with the Shekiah." He straightened, as well as he could, and looked the Triforce Bearers in the eyes. "In life, I was a cruel King, a sadist, a torturer. But there was a grain of virtue in me, and that was the quest to ensure the Triforce did not fall into evil hands. That is the burden of the Royal Family, and some handle it better than others."

He turned to Zelda. "The man who has taken the throne from your father is not evil; he is merely a coward. Guarding the Triforce is too much for him; he believes that by burying it in ignorance, he can prevent the inevitable from happening. But the Triforce is the lifeblood of Hyrule; eventually the Triforce must be cared for, or it will wither and die, and Hyrule along with it. The Goddesses gave us this gift for a reason. It is a hard burden to bear, but we cannot live without it."

Zelda dug into her pack and retrieved one of the last two medallions. "Will this help?"

"Ah, the Shadow Medallion." As he took it from her, he said, "It is far too late to help me, but I believe I can help you." Shuffling over to the altar, he said, "Your grandmother had the gift of Wisdom, and she knew something would go terribly wrong soon after her life ended. Therefore, she had this brought here secretly, and a replica made to take its place in the Temple of Time."

Linnaeus placed the medallion on the altar. It glowed deep purple for a moment, then both medallion and altar sank into the ground. The bright light from below nearly blinded them in that dark place, but as they squinted through the glare they could see something rising up to take the altar's place.

Rubbing his eyes, Link could see the dull glint of light on a blade. Zelda made a small sound of surprise. "The Master Sword is here?"

Link stepped forward to claim his birthright, grasping the odd purplish hilt. But he stepped back, frowning. "It's too big. I don't think I can use it."

The King nodded meditatively. "Yes, your ancestor could only wield it after he had grown seven years and several more inches. But we have no time to put you in a seven- or even year-long sleep." He turned to Ganondorf. "All three of you have vital roles to play…but in this lifetime, it will be you who wields the sword."

Ganondorf stared at him, incredulous. "Me? I doubt I can even touch the thing."

Linnaeus smiled slightly. "Ah, afraid that you are tainted by your ancestor's blood? Contrary to what you may have heard, the sin of the father is not necessarily the burden of the son. If you truly believe that your ancestor's ghost rules your destiny, then you can turn back and try to win this fight without the essential tools. But that would be a bit foolish not to even try, don't you think?"

Ganondorf said nothing for a few moments. "You speak the truth," he said at last, and reached out for the hilt of the sword.

He pulled it with ease from the stone in which it had been thrust, hefted it high in the air, swung a few passes in front of him and to the side. The grace and quality of the weapon took him aback. It was finer than anything his people had ever made, anything that had ever come out of the Goron's forges. Older than either the Evil King or the Hero, who had made it?

"How did…" he began to say, then realized that he, Link, and Zelda were standing outside the Temple, back in the graveyard. The daytime sun flashed on the naked blade in his hand.

Zelda looked down at her hands and made a sad little sigh. "Oh…I thought I'd be able to keep Murray."