Chapter 27: The Fire Temple

Link trained with Impa for three weeks. From dawn until noon, they fought in the Kakariko graveyard, then took lunch with some of the villagers. Four hours of conditioning followed, and by the time they broke for supper in the evening, Link was exhausted.

At the end of each week, they returned to the cliff where they had spent the first night, and they dueled, perfecting every technique until one of them dropped from fatigue.

Link hated it at first, but the long hours finally paid off at the end of the third week when he pinned his mentor at the edge of the cliff after their most grueling fight yet.

"Well done," Impa said after he had helped her to her feet.

"Thanks." He sat down by the fire she had started and wolfed a slice of bread. "Go again?"

"No."

"Afraid of losing?"

A faint smile touched her lips. "No." She held up the pack that had carried their supper.

He cocked an eyebrow. "I've got more than I can carry already."

She flipped the pack open. "Inside."

Link stuffed the last piece of bread in his mouth and leaned in for a close inspection. "What's this?" He reached inside the pack and pulled out a tunic much like the tunic he was used to wearing, except that it was red.

"Heat-resistant," Impa said. "You will need it to survive the crater, for that is where you will discover the entrance to the Fire Temple."

"Why are you giving it to me now?"

"Tonight will be our last night together."

Link folded the tunic beneath his arm. "But there's so much I haven't learned."

"Less than you may think, perhaps." She lowered the pack to the ground. "Our time is short, and Hyrule's cry for redemption urgent."

He stood, draping the tunic over his shoulders. "Thank you."

She nodded. "Remember that Ganondorf will attack not just your body, but your soul as well. You are the greatest threat that lies between him and the final subjugation of Hyrule."

"He'll have to get through me, too," Navi said.

Impa frowned. "You must guard your heart, Link. He knows your weaknesses."

Link shuddered. "I know. I know only too well."

With the morning light, Link left the campsite and stole into Goron City, wearing the heat-resistant tunic Impa had given him. The steam rising from the vents in the rock made it far more difficult to see than he remembered. The sound of rocks being crunched underfoot echoed through the cavern, but as he listened, he thought he detected more than the sound of his own passage.

Navi zipped beneath his sleeve. "What was that?"

A stone struck Link's knee hard enough to leave a bruise. He winced but resisted the urge to draw his sword. "Is someone there?"

"We're not here to hurt you," said Navi. "We're friends of King Darunia!"

The reply was faint and trembling. "Be gone, servant of Ganondorf. My father isn't here."

Link strode forward cautiously. "You're King Darunia's son?"

"I am Link of the Gorons, named for the hero who rescued our people from the Dodongos seven years ago. Hear my name and tremble!"

Link stepped a little further into the mist and saw a young Goron cowering behind a pile of rocks. "Link. It's me. Your father's Sworn Brother."

The trembling ceased as the child examined his face. "You're him? The legendary Dodongo Buster?"

Link knelt and placed a hand on his namesake's shoulder. "Where are the others?"

The delight in the child's face wilted. "They are…they are prisoners of the dragon."

"What dragon?"

"You do not know the stories?"

Link shook his head.

The child's trembling returned in force. "When the Gorons built this city, they did not know that a great dragon lived inside the mountain. Volvagia would eat any Goron who came too close to his home in the crater. One day, a strong one arose from the city and crushed the dragon's skull with a hammer. That one became our king, and only his sons were allowed to be king after him."

Link smiled. "Then your father is one of his descendants?"

"Yes. The good part is that we are taught these stories from the time we are born. The bad part is that so many think they are stories for children. But they found out the dragon was real, didn't they? My father and I were the only ones who escaped. The dragon took the rest of them to the Fire Temple."

Link glanced around at the cavern. "Your father. Where is he now?"

"He said he was going to rescue them and kill the dragon."

Navi squeaked. "Then he'll need our help!"

The Goron hesitated. "You're going, too?"

Link stood to his feet. "Can you show us how to get to the crater?"

"We meet again, Hero of Time."

Link swung about and had almost cut his shadow's throat before recognition stayed his hand. "A warning would have been appreciated."

His shadow stepped into the light, most of which was given off by the lava gurgling below them. "Tell me. Why are you here?"

Link didn't bother to hide his surprise at the question. "To wake the Sages."

"That is what you are here to do. I ask only why you are here."

Link shrugged. "For a friendship." What kind of answer does he expect?

"Indeed."

The sound of a harp string being plucked filled the air. Link wiped away sweat with his arms and retrieved the Ocarina of Time. Without the heat-resistant fabric, the temperatures in the crater certainly would have overwhelmed him.

"It is something that grows over time: a true friendship." Sheik's voice began low, increasing in volume as his fingers moved over the harp. "A bond that can be strengthened by shared hardship until it blossoms into a power to defeat evil. This is what the Bolero of Fire, a composition of Din herself, reminds us of. It is a song dedicated to the power of the heart."

Without realizing it, Link had been following the notes on his Ocarina. He lowered his arms and stared at the instrument and then at Sheik. "Why not stay?"

"It would be unwise for both our sakes."

"Wait." Link tried to step forward, but a jet of superheated gas exploded from a nearby cliff, blinding him. When his vision cleared, the crater was deserted. The encounter had begun so quickly and ended so abruptly that he wondered if it had happened at all.

He was about to ask Navi what she thought when Link, their Goron friend, came rolling at them from the edge of the crater, not stopping until he had almost run into them. Finally, he unfolded himself.

"Why does he keep doing that?" Navi whispered.

"I found it." The Goron child waved his arms. "The entrance to the Fire Temple!"

Hundreds of carvings and sculptures filled the interior of the crater, all of them formed from the natural rock. The child led them to a ladder descending through a hole in the floor. The stench of sulfur and brimstone coming from below was palpable.

"Let's go." Link slid into the hole and began to climb.

The Goron tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you hear something?"

"I hear it, too," said Navi.

A blur of wings surrounded Link before he had the chance to cry out. Something singed the bare skin of his arm, forcing him to release his grip on the ladder. He fell and would have hit the ground had he not snatched at the rungs and regained his hold six feet further down.

Bats. When one of the creatures flew into his field of vision, he discovered where the heat had come from. The bats were on fire. "Oh."

"Link, are you okay?" The Goron shouted at him from the top of the ladder.

"I think so." Holding on with one hand, Link drew his sword with the other and stabbed at one of the bats, severing a wing. Some of the others scattered, leaving him with a better view of what awaited below.

He dropped to the bottom with a clamor, leaving the panicked Goron behind.

"Look," said Navi.

There was a door a few feet away. It had a face at the top of it, molded in stone, staring at him. He entered with only a slight shiver.

The next room was even larger. Three iron furnaces shaped like heads guarded the top of a stairway at the back of the room.

More doors to the left and right of the furnaces offered him a choice he scarcely knew how to make, but the bats diving in on his right flank made it for him. They chased him up the stairway and forced him to head for the door on the left. He yanked it open with a squeal of rust and slammed it behind him just as several bodies collided against it.

"Too close." Wiping more sweat from his forehead, he blinked as his eyes adjusted to their surroundings. A boiling lake of magma lay just a few short steps away.

"Who's there? Is that you, Link?"

He jumped at the unexpected shout. Such a voice could hardly be mistaken, and it had clearly intended to address him. He peered farther into the cavern, across the lake, until he could discern the form of the speaker.

King Darunia beat his chest with a thunderous laugh. "How long has it been, Brother?"

Link smiled at the memory of their first meeting. "Seven years."

"What kept you away for so long?"

"Sleep, mostly." He shrugged at Darunia's puzzled expression. "It's a long story."

"I guess you've heard about the dragon by now."

Link nodded. "I met your son."

"And did he tell you about the hammer?"

Navi brightened. "You mean the hammer that defeated the dragon the first time?"

"That's it. We've kept it here for centuries—and now it's gone missing!"

Link frowned, trying to pierce through the blank look on Darunia's face. "You've given up looking for it, haven't you?"

"I had to, Brother. If I don't kill the dragon soon, my people will perish. But it may be the only weapon that can kill him. That's why I need you and your fairy to find it while I go on ahead."

Link glanced at Navi. "We can't let you face him alone."

"You can and you will, because it's the only choice we have." Darunia hurled something across the lake that gleamed as it flew.

Link caught it. "A key?"

"Only three of those exist. You can use it to open any lock inside the Fire Temple."

Link pocketed the key. "Stay alive, Brother, and we'll be back with the hammer."

"I know you will."

The giant lizard barked, a humorous sound that belied its true nature. Turning away from the cell, it flapped an arm to summon reinforcements.

The Master Sword cleaved the outstretched limb at the elbow, severing it from the rest of the body. Clutching at its stump, the creature screamed as black blood gushed over the floor.

Navi squealed as she dodged the lizard's teeth. "That'll teach them not to pester people."

Link swung his sword over his head with both hands as if chopping wood. The blade sheared through the lizard's snout and drew a wide black gash down the center of its chest.

Two bodies now littered the floor at his feet, both lizards. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, curbing his adrenaline as Impa had taught him.

The Goron in the cell approached the bars cautiously. "You carry the shield of a Knight of Hyrule. I thought such skill with a blade had disappeared."

Link unlocked the cell with Darunia's key and offered his hand. "Barough?"

The Goron stared. "That is my name, but how do you know it?"

Navi giggled. "He's Link, the legendary Dodongo Buster!"

The Goron's face lit up. "Link. The boy who shared a Tektite with me once. Have you returned to help us again?"

"I've already seen Darunia," Link said. "He asked us to find the hammer that defeated the dragon."

"Why didn't he come with you?" Barough found the answer to his question in the sorrow on Link's face. "No, he can't. Not by himself. Not without the hammer!"

"You know him better than anyone. I would have gone with him, but…"

"But his skull is harder than a granite sandwich."

"Something like that."

In the course of their search, Barough and Link freed many of the other captives. A few refused to leave their cells until they were certain the dragon had been killed. Some offered their help, but Link sent them back to Goron City to prepare a defense in case he and Darunia failed in their efforts.

Of course, not all of the captives could be persuaded to leave. Link reluctantly accepted the company of Barough's sons, Stonethrower and Mountainfoot. With the two younger Gorons behind him and Barough and Navi leading the way, he covered the better part of the temple in a matter of two hours, with still no sign of the hammer by the end of it.

"Some of the monsters have been carrying weapons," said Stonethrower. "Maybe one of them took it."

Mountainfoot, munching on a stone, grunted. "Maybe we should separate."

Link shook his head. "Too dangerous."

A series of inhuman growls and hissing brought the party to a halt. Three lizards of the same species that had guarded Barough's cell had stepped out of a side room to block their way onward. All three carried hammers.

Link nodded. "What about those?"

"I have never seen the hammer," Barough said, "but there is a way to find out."

Barough and his sons charged straight into the lizards, each giving a battle cry that begged Din's vengeance for their people. When the lizards came at them with clumsy hammer blows, each Goron grabbed his foe's weapon and battered the monster to the ground with it.

Barough turned the bloodied head of his hammer over several times before looking up. "This is good iron, the work of a Goron craftsman."

"But it's not the hammer." Link knelt by the bodies, a look of wonder on his face. "I still don't understand what makes it different. Couldn't we use one of those instead?"

"They say the craftsman who forged the hero's hammer had some of Din's Fire in his arms. If one of these had been it, you wouldn't be able to recognize your enemy's remains."

"Gross," said Navi.

More hissing and growling came from the direction of the side room. Link drew the Master Sword and fitted his right arm through his shield's straps while the others fanned out in a half-circle around him. A horde made up of lizards and several undead skeletons like the ones he had encountered in the Forest Temple poured through the doorway.

Navi squealed. "Do you think they'll recognize our remains?"

Link ignored her as he slashed a lizard across the neck and turned to carve a bloody diagonal line on the chest of another. There was very little time to think, and he quickly became separated from the others.

The sound of metal scraping metal and the thump of hammer against flesh filled the air, but it was the smell of the monsters' blood and breath mingled that proved the most distracting.

A hand flew past Link's cheek. He spun to find Stonethrower contending with a skeleton much larger than himself. A giant hammer filled the skeleton's arms, slowing it down.

With his shield, Link smashed the teeth of a lizard that was trying to gnaw on his head. With his sword, he cut beneath the shield and opened the lizard's stomach. Pushing the body out of his path, he worked his way over to Stonethrower.

The skeleton now had a clear shot at Stonethrower. The Goron, about half the height of his assailant, waited until the skeleton had lifted the hammer above its head. Then he crushed its wrists with his smaller hammer.

The head of the giant hammer dropped, shattering the skeleton's cranium. A lizard tried to grab the hammer as it fell, but someone else snapped the lizard's elbow before it could get at the weapon.

Barough caught the hero's hammer with both hands and turned it on a gang of lizards. One unfortunate creature, unable to leap back in time, took the full brunt of the hammer on its jawbone.

The other lizards held back, too wary of Barough to notice the threat from their rear. Mountainfoot managed to crack one of the lizards' skulls with his hammer before the rest of them scattered, some throwing themselves at Barough, some attacking Link or Mountainfoot.

Link finished the lizard with the broken jaw before it could claw Barough in its death throes, but the Goron was already in the middle of a brawl over the hero's hammer. Four lizards had jumped on him, two grabbing at the hammer while the others bit at his neck.

Link threw down his sword and shield and seized the hammer as it rolled away from beneath the lizards' legs. Though the strain drove the breath from his lungs, he whipped the hammer around and slammed it into another lizard without wounding himself in the process.

The remaining lizards, under the combined onslaught of Link and the two younger Gorons, soon fled, died, or fell wounded. It was Link who landed the final blow with the hero's hammer, pulping the face of one lizard that had sunk its teeth into Barough's neck.

"Tell Darunia I will save the best rock in Din's realm to share with him when he gets there."

"Don't be ridiculous." Link pressed his hands to Barough's neck, hoping he could slow the bleeding. He turned to the wide-eyed sons. "Do your people have a healer?"

Stonethrower answered without looking away from his father's body. "Several of our people have great skill, but I don't think they've seen anything like…like this."

Mountainfoot clenched his fists. "I will search for one among those in the city." He peered at the hero's hammer lying on the ground beside Link. "You will help us best, Dodongo Slayer, by bringing the hammer to Uncle Darunia."

Link glanced at both brothers, the one a picture of dejection, the other a picture of courage. Both reminded him of himself. "Your father will survive," he whispered. "I know it."

"And what will that matter," said Mountainfoot, "unless you and Uncle Darunia kill the dragon?"

I know at least one of you out there is a LOTR fan, so you'll appreciate my releasing Chapters 26 and 27 on the birthday of Frodo Baggins and his uncle, Bilbo ;-). Incidentally, my own 27th birthday was yesterday, too! Yay, extra rupees!

I hope it's safe to say that if you've made it this far and enjoyed yourself, you won't be disappointed with the rest of the story. The additions get a little more, shall we say, imaginative as the story goes on, especially after the final temple. But I hope you will never find anything here that's untrue to the spirit of the legend we all love...

Until next time!