Chapter 39: Metamorphosis
If nothing lets to make us happy both
but this my masculine usurped attire,
do not embrace me till each circumstance
of place, time, fortune do cohere and jump
that I am Viola.
Twelfth Night, 5.1.247-251
"Nabooru?" I blink and peer around the edges of the blue platform in the Chamber of Sages until I find her. "Why are you so quiet?"
She seems unable to look me in the eyes. "I must explain something to you that I should have explained before."
"What is it?"
"No doubt, you've noticed there are few men among the Gerudos."
"I'd say that was one of the first things I noticed about your people."
"Did you also know that only one man is born to us every hundred years?"
I clutch my forehead, trying to get my mind around that idea. "Are you saying that Ganondorf is the only male Gerudo alive?"
"Yes. When the male is born, he automatically becomes King, and the highest-ranking woman in our tribe becomes his wife." She trembles. "My mother refused."
Navi gently raises her voice. "What happened to her?"
"When I was seventeen—the year a woman is old enough to take leadership among the Gerudos—my mother was executed, and I became Ganondorf's second-in-command."
My stomach turns over at this. "He let it happen?"
"What he felt towards my mother was as twisted as it was sincere. When he was young, he cared for her, but when he found out she had married a Hylian in secret and that she had a daughter, he ordered her arrest and swore that she would die for violating his rights as King."
"But if you're still alive," Navi says, "that must mean you…"
The anger on Nabooru's cheeks shows up against the darker pigments in her skin. "I would never have agreed where my mother refused! After her death, Ganondorf altered the laws so that I could remain in my position without being forced to marry him. Of course, had I truly followed in my mother's footsteps by marrying a Hylian, he might have killed me as well."
I fold my arms as the clues fall into place. "Is that why he hates Hylians so much?"
"Because of my mother? No. He hated the Hylians and their city long before that. He had many reasons for hating them. Some of them were understandable."
I want to ask her what could be understandable about hate, but suddenly I'm reminded that my own heart has been filled with hate: hate for the man who destroyed Hyrule. "Why did he hate them?"
"He hated them because the same winds that blessed Hyrule Castle Town with life burned our land and killed our people. He felt the gods had favored the Hylians by giving them the best of the territories, and it made him furious."
"Why didn't the people just move?"
"Some did. Most were too poor to leave, so Ganon agreed to build them villages in return for labor and obedience to Gerudo laws. But he always coveted the gods' favor and the more comfortable existence of his enemies." She paused, closing her eyes at a painful memory. "When he began to obsess over rumors and myths about a power that could grant his heart's desire, I knew he would drown Hyrule in blood to find it if it existed."
I whisper that power's name. "The Triforce…"
"That's not the only reason, is it?" Navi speaks thoughts that are on my mind, too. "Didn't the King of Hyrule try to kill him?"
The line of Nabooru's jaw hardens. "Yes. The two of them wanted the same thing, because each was afraid of the other. Both were tyrants, but the Hylians were the first to shed blood. Many women who served my mother were killed in the King's attempt on Ganon's life."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugs. "Are you guilty of a thing that happened before you were born?"
"Maybe not, but I'm part of those events whether I want to be or not."
"As am I." She smirks, finding humor in the midst of horror. "I've always been part of it, and now I'm one of your 'Sages.' Just as well. Now I know I'll see the end of it one way or the other."
She spreads her arms apart until a ringing pierces the quietness of the chamber. A sand-colored Medallion plummets through the air until it lands in my outstretched palms.
Without warning, several spheres of light appear over our heads. There are five: one yellow, one green, one red, one blue, one violet. They hover over the pedestals that bear their respective colors around the edges of the platform. All at once, the spheres are replaced by the figures of the other five Sages.
Rauru, Sage of Light, is the first to speak. "The child of destiny has grown stronger. It appears he may soon be ready for the final test."
Standing at the center of the platform, I turn slowly, exchanging glances with each of the Six in turn. Physically, we're separated by only a few feet. I wish I had time for one more word with all of them, but the moment is too urgent for that.
"The time for the final showdown with the King of Evil has come!" Rauru's voice thunders from the depths. "Even now, the floodgates have loosed, and a final Darkness spreads across the fields of Hyrule. None can stop it alone—but we Six, with the Hero of Time, shall marshal what Light remains. After that, the Ancient Creators of Hyrule must decide its fate."
I bow on my knees to this man who protected me when I lost the years of my youth for Hyrule. Rauru steps off his Pedestal of Light and glides close enough to take the Master Sword from the sheath hanging at my side. Holding it in both hands, he raises it toward the roof of the Chamber and continues in a loud voice.
"May this blade forged by the First Sages fulfill its destiny in the hands of Link, Hero of Time. May the Power of Din, the Wisdom of Nayru, and the Courage of Farore be united in his heart. May these Three in One Heart banish the Incarnation of Evil forever!"
In the east of Hyrule, the fields surrounding Kokiri Forest echoed with the hacking of axes, the pounding of hammers, and the shouting of orders. Around a dozen men worked at the edges of the forest, assembling the branches and the trunks of trees into arrows and a battering ram. Every few minutes, other figures would leave the shadows of the forest, drop a pile of fresh branches on the ground, and reenter the woods.
In the west, the clouds had begun to gather over Gerudo Desert. At first, the men in the east assembling their tools of war paid little heed to this, assuming the clouds merely signaled a rainstorm that might, at worst, force them into the woods for a few hours while they continued making arrows and other smaller implements that required less room to assemble.
But after awhile, when some of them had paused for a rest, they took notice. Some clouds had moved ahead of the others. This would not have seemed unusual, except that the clouds in front were long and thin and spaced apart at equal intervals, five in all. Like fingers.
No one spoke, because there was nothing to be said. No matter the reason for those clouds, the Knights of Hyrule were there for a purpose, and that purpose would be carried out.
Soon after that, the men saw something that interested them far more than the weather over Gerudo Desert: a lone horse and rider, speeding across Hyrule Field from the west.
"The Hero of Time," some whispered amongst themselves, and indeed their words proved accurate when the rider dismounted at the outskirts of the camp.
Link eyed the preparations going on around him with a smile at first, but the smile soon faded when he realized how few were the men assembling the weapons they would use against Ganon and his army.
He placed his hand on the shoulder of one of the Knights constructing the battering ram. "Arswaine?" The man nodded towards the forest.
"I pray," said a voice from the trees, "that when you did not see as many of us as you expected, you did not assume the worst and lose your faith in the Knights of Hyrule."
Link shook his head. "I knew you would rather have died than fail."
Sabooro the carpenter grunted. "If we make it out of this, I'm eating nothing but steak and Lon Lon Milk for six weeks."
One of the Knights who had accompanied Arswaine chuckled. "Meet Spiro, Jiro, Ichiro, and their fool of a brother, Sabooro."
"That's the thanks we get for helping," Spiro said, carving the shaft of an arrow.
"Enough." Arswaine held up a hand for silence. "We may not be two thousand strong, but we are more than enough to challenge Ganondorf's iron grip."
Some cynical part of Link's mind had been wondering how twenty Knights and four carpenters could win against an army, even with the Master Sword at their head. But before he could reproach himself for the thought, he began to notice the other shadows in the forest.
A yell from somewhere near the battering ram startled him just as he was beginning to guess what those shadows might portend. He swung around, eyes widening as a Gerudo came at him with her scimitars slicing the air. Where had she come from? How had she snuck past the Knights?
He blocked her first blow with his sword and countered several more before realizing he was being toyed with. Instead of rushing to his aid, the entire company of Knights had remained in place, watching the exchange. Was this a way of proving he was everything he said he was?
Suddenly, the woman stopped and bowed with her scimitars crossed in front of her chest. "It was said you were an excellent swordsman. I see now the truth is greater than the rumors. I am A'idah, leader of this company."
"Company?"Link turned back to face Kokiri Forest and found that the shadows had become the flesh-and-blood figures of at least fifty Gerudo women. He took a step backward.
"I trust all these are friends of Hyrule," Arswaine said. "Had they intended to betray us, they would have done so without any need to aid our escape from Gerudo Valley."
"How—"
"I will explain further in private if you wish," Arswaine said, motioning for the others to continue their work, "then you must eat and rest. We will all need our strength before long."
A hand shook him awake in the darkness. While the others were cutting trees and shaping weapons at the edge of the forest, he had taken Arswaine's advice and settled into a fitful rest near his old house in the Kokiri village, deep in the woods.
"Who?" He blinked and tried to spy out his surroundings in the dim light.
"I have been waiting for you, Link."
"Sheik?" Link remembered the boy's promise: that when they met again, it would be for the last time. "Have you come to say goodbye?"
The boy's expression was unreadable. "In a manner of speaking."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Navi.
Sheik continued. "You have overcome many hardships and awakened Six Sages—and now you have a final challenge, a showdown with Ganondorf, the King of Evil." He paused, his tone of voice softening. "Before that, I have things I want to tell only to you. Please listen."
Link sat up with his back against a tree. "I'm listening."
"You should know that the Triforce is a balance that weighs the three great virtues: Power, Wisdom, and Courage. If the heart of the person who finds the Triforce has all three of these in balance, that person will gain their heart's desire. But if their heart is not in balance, the Triforce will separate into three distinct parts. Only one will remain for the person who touched the Triforce, the part representing whichever of the three virtues that person most believes in."
Link thought for a moment before replying. "What happens to the rest of the Triforce?"
"The two lost shards are held within others chosen by destiny." Sheik's voice had become a whisper. "Seven years ago, Ganondorf used the door you opened in the Temple of Time to enter the Sacred Realm. But when he laid his hands on the Triforce, the legend came true. The Triforce separated, and only the Triforce of Power remained in Ganondorf's hand."
"I'll bet he was mad when he didn't get the other two pieces," Navi said.
Sheik nodded. "To gain complete mastery of the world, Ganondorf needed the Triforce of Courage and the Triforce of Wisdom. He never found them."
The nervous feeling Link had experienced the last time he saw Sheik returned. "Go on."
"Link, you were the one chosen to keep the Triforce of Courage."
Link tried to swallow the lump in his throat, unsuccessfully. "And the other?"
"The other chosen one is the Seventh Sage, destined to become the leader of them all."
With a flourish, the last male Sheikah held up the back of his right hand, where a mark—small, but unmistakably the image of the Triforce—glowed in the skin. Link stared, but the sight didn't last long, for a terrible white light had filled the woods, and he was blinded to all else save the vision of Sheik's bare head as he removed his turban.
He gaped as the boy shook loose his blond hair and the strands fell down the back of his skull, rolling out to their full length like a waterfall of gold. The white light faded slowly, but at last there was a moment when Link could see the full transformation—clothing, figure, and all—from head to toe.
"It is I, the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda."
The original version of the scene you just read, as it unfolds in the game, is probably my favorite scene in the entire Zelda canon. That flash of white light and the panning of the camera to reveal Zelda standing in front of you in the temple...it might just be my favorite memory from any game I've played. I tried to do it justice, and of course there's more of that scene to come in the next chapter as Link reacts to the unexpected reappearance of such a significant person in his life. But it's so hard to transform those feelings into words.
Hey, listen! The final battle for Hyrule will begin with the next batch of chapters. Make sure your Life Meter is filled to the max...