Chapter 42: The Three United

A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

~Ecclesiastes 4:12

Though his eyes were closed, his hands drifted over the keys deliberately, producing a melody that resonated through the tower, down into the rest of the castle. Yes, it was true that his army had failed, but it didn't matter. The real object of his desire would be achieved before the day's end; part of that desire was imprisoned in this very room, and the other was coming to him of its own free will.

As his fingers continued their slow dance, he spoke to the figure unconscious in the crystal above him. "As a child, you were foolish enough to believe your plans could be hidden from me—yet I saw through your deceptions in the end. In a way, I had hoped that after seven years, your ability to challenge me might have improved. But in revealing yourself to that boy, you showed that you are still the girl who thought she could prevent me from entering the Sacred Realm."

The figure stirred but did not fully wake. A moan escaped her lips. "Link…"

"Your greatest mistake was to trust in the guidance of Din and her sisters. Look at where that has gotten you." His voice was deep but expressionless. "The goddesses, if they exist, care nothing for Hyrule. That was clear when your grandfather betrayed my people, and it was clear when I conquered Hyrule Castle Town. If they cared, why did they not interfere?"

Again, he heard her moan, but this time, her words were more direct. "Goddesses…have interfered. They…don't stop…pain. They…carry us through."

He did not contradict her in words, but the force of each finger on the keys of the organ increased until the sound of the music had nearly doubled in strength. He heard her sigh as if the effort of her own words had exhausted her; after that, no other sound came from the crystal while the two of them remained alone in the room.

They were not alone for long. As Ganon's mind reached out through the halls of the castle, he felt the presence of the Triforce of Courage, first as Link entered through the gate and later as he found his way to the tower.

Slowly, a smile spread its way across his face.

"Another staircase," Link said. "I don't suppose I could borrow your wings for a while?"

"It's not so bad," said Navi.

"How would you know?"

They had encountered little resistance since entering the castle, but the dead quiet, rather than calming Link's anxiety, had only served to foster it. He had been ready to fight all the way to Ganondorf if he had to. What he hadn't expected was a mind game.

It started with the music. One minute, there had been complete silence. Next, a melody seeping through the air like mist rising out of a swamp.

At first, he couldn't be sure where it was coming from. Above him? Beneath him? Both at once? Whatever the case, it seemed to follow them as they made their way through shadowed corridors and dank stone hollows, ever nearing the center of the fortress.

Some time later, they reached a large round chamber with catwalks and stairways that stretched for hundreds of meters in every direction. They could have taken any number of paths from there, but the only one that mattered was the one directly ahead of them.

It was a doorway in the shape of a mouth. Eyes of stone glared down, and the ever-present melody, majestic and horrible at once, became louder as if trickling out of the creature's throat.

In through the mouth, up flight after flight of stairs, Navi and Link had made their way here, to another staircase. These steps, lined with plush red carpet that muffled sound, curved around a central column that plunged beneath the foundations of the castle. On their right, the outer wall of the tower gleamed with stained glass windows.

"Link?" Navi paused. "Are you okay?"

He had one foot on the next step, and he was leaning forward with his face pinched and his eyes closed.

"It's him, isn't it?"

He shook his head, slowly. "It's like him, only…stronger. I think it's the Triforce of Power. There's something else there, too. It reminds me of…her."

"Princess Zelda?"

He nodded. "All three of them are growing."

"What do you mean?"

"The Triforce." He flinched at a sudden tingle in the back of his left hand. "They're coming together."

As soon as Ganon heard the door opening behind him, he lifted his hands from the keys. For a moment, he allowed his hands to dangle over the organ as if he would begin the melody all over again.

"They are combining into one again." Though he spoke in a whisper, he knew the boy would hear him. "The two Triforce parts that I couldn't capture seven years ago. I didn't expect they would be hidden within the two of you."

Link had paused just inside the door, glancing around for dangers. Like the rest of the castle, Ganon's hideaway seemed empty except for its massive stained glass windowpanes and the organ with its stately golden pipes. There was no wall per se, only the glass separating them from the elements and a long plunge into oblivion.

"They'll never be one if I can help it," he said.

"Fool." A low growl built in Ganon's throat. "They are already one. Each part may have its own function, but the three can never truly be separate. Each calls to the other, and they are inevitably drawn together. It has always been so."

"So." Link waved the Master Sword. "Here I am. Let her go."

With a flourish of his red cape, Ganon turned around to face them. He had been sitting on a stool in front of the organ; suddenly, he was hovering in the air, leering down at them.

"The Triforce of Courage is too much for you. Return it at once!"

It was just like their first encounter at the drawbridge seven years ago. Link stood beneath the man, feeling helpless as a tunnel of electric energy spewed down at him from the back of Ganon's hand. This time, instead of throwing him backward, the energy tugged at his body, pulling him—and the Triforce of Courage—forward. He tried to block the energy with his shield, to no avail.

"Link!" Navi's voice came from behind him. "He's forcing me back. I can't be with you this time. I'm sorry!"

Link snarled and threw up the back of his hand so that the Triforce of Courage and the Triforce of Power were aligned. "You won't throw me aside this time. I've come for you, and I've come for Zelda. Let her go!"

Her mind swam in a sea of dreams broken every so often by pain. She thought she heard voices, but were they voices from her past, or was she hearing them in the present? Ganondorf had been taunting her; that seemed real enough. What Link had said to her in the forest: that was real, too, if only a memory.

"Let her go!"

Her body ached, but she fought to regain consciousness. Slowly, she perceived what was happening beneath her, in the tower.

She saw the two of them facing each other, their hands interlocked across a stream of energy. She saw the fairy behind them. She saw the look on Link's face and even the sweat on his brow as he struggled against his inner and outer adversary.

If I could break this… She slipped a hand up against the crystal, willing herself beside Link. When she felt the blackness closing in on her again, she leaned her neck back and prayed with her lips facing a sky far beyond Ganon's castle. For the safety of Link. For the safety of Hyrule!

The last thing she saw was two silhouettes closing in on each other with terrible speed, their blades crossing in the first blows of combat.

When Link and Ganon slammed together, the Triforce marks on the backs of their hands blazed, and that light bounced off the glass all around them. The Master Sword met the blade of the Evil King with a toll that echoed through the Sacred Realm. Even those observing the tower from the ground outside, though they could not possibly have heard the sound, glanced up at that moment.

For Link, there was only Ganon, cape and armor and sword bearing down on him with a look that was half-fury half-grin. He wanted to keep his eyes on Ganon's face, but the demands of combat forced him to keep his attention on Ganon's sword instead.

Their exchange began all brute strength and passion with little concern on either side for forms or skillful footwork. In the flesh, each had scarcely spent more than a few minutes in the other's presence; but seven years of budding hatred were consummated in those first few strikes, sword on sword.

One clash saw the two of them pushing against each other with their blades, faces almost touching. Ganon's fist swung down at the top of Link's skull, but Link dove back, allowing the blow to fall on his shield. Bone cracked on metal, and the force of it burned through Link's arm. Neither seemed concerned by the pain.

This went on for what felt an eternity to Navi, with both men making wild cuts and using fist or shield in an attempt to catch his opponent off-guard with a secondary attack. Gradually, both realized that only strategy could end the fight; thus, the longer it lasted, the more calculated their movements became.

Link soon found that Impa's training, critical as it had been, would only take him so far. She must have known it all the time, he thought, sweat spinning from his forehead as he knocked away a thrust aimed at his midriff. No one could have prepared me for this.

Suddenly, Ganon spun around, flinging his cape at Link's head with the tip of his sword. The heavy fabric obstructed his view, if only for a moment—the time it took to slice the cape in two with the Master Sword—but when Link could see again, Ganon had gone.

"Link, behind you!"

He heard the sound of the oncoming energy and knew there wasn't time to turn around, so he bent his elbow back to try and catch the brunt of it on his shield. It did hit the shield, but the blast threw him onto his stomach with his arms splayed behind his back. He tried to rise and felt Ganon's boot strike the elbow of his shield arm, breaking the bone.

"Imagine," Ganon said, his sword point resting over Link's jugular. "The same sword stained with your death to kill Princess Zelda. The life's blood of Courage and Wisdom mixed on the blade of Power."

Link spat and tried not to flinch at the pain in his broken arm. "The only reason…you've got that power…is because the gods let you have it for a while. I don't know why they did, and I may never know. But…it's over. Hyrule will be ruled by wisdom, not tyranny."

With a cry of rage, Ganon raised the sword and plunged it downward again, his attention completely on the ecstasy of the killing blow so that the barrier surrounding the room opened for a split second.

"Don't you touch him!" Navi tunneled into Ganon's left ear, throwing the blade off so that it pierced the floor instead of Link's heart. By the time Ganon had hurled her from the room again, Link was already on his feet, wielding the Master Sword with his good arm. The broken arm he hooked behind his right hip as he fought facing Ganon like a fencer.

Ganon, still able to wield with both hands, slashed down with a two-handed swing, driving Link back towards the pipe organ.

It had been hard enough when he had both his hands. Now, with one doing the work of attack and parry, counter and thrust, Link swooned, blinking droplets of blood from his eyes as a cut he'd sustained on his forehead ran down his face. By now, the Kokiri tunic was all mud and sweat and blood of monsters and men.

Ganon, as if sensing his triumph, increased the fury of each swing all the more without returning to the senseless passionate fighting they'd started with. Link's response time dwindled until he could scarcely block and parry at the speed they were going.

Finally, with a side-swing at Link's hands, Ganon sent the Master Sword clattering to the floor. He couldn't dive for it; Ganon's sword would cleave his body before he touched the blade again. He breathed out, expecting to die but refusing to give in.

Ganon followed up immediately with a diagonal cut that should have bled Link from his right shoulder to his stomach, but his own foul play proved to be his undoing.

Link dropped to his knees, picked up the pieces of Ganondorf's cape, and lobbed them at his face, tangling the blade amid the fabric. Before Ganon could correct his aim, he grabbed the Master Sword and whipped it around his head in a circle. With his eyes closed, he waited for his end.

That end never came. Instead, he heard a wet choking noise and saw blood on the floor and on Ganon's armor, spilling down from a gash in his neck wrought by Link's wild swing.

The one was hardly more stunned than the other. Link stared at his sword as if to ask, That's it? Though Ganon didn't speak, the expression on his face was a combination of rage and humiliation. Beaten by a boy, it seemed to say.

"Look," Navi said in a low voice. "The Triforce of Power…"

He looked. The Triforce on Ganondorf's hand faded one moment and brightened the next, like a heartbeat or a firefly.

Suddenly, the Evil King's hands were lifted up toward the ceiling, and a cry of defiance escaped his throat. The Triforce of Power was so bright then that it made his entire body appear to be glowing. The cry went on for a half-minute, then died out. His breath spent, Ganon fell to his knees with hands still reaching for the heavens. Finally, he collapsed on his face.

A crash and a tinkling sound greeted Link a moment later. He turned, and there was Zelda, lying unconscious by the organ with the pieces of her prison all around her. One would have thought she had been lying there for hours. There was blood on her dress, but the Triforce of Wisdom on her right hand still sparked with life.

"She's alive." His voice broke. "She's alive, Navi!"

Casting the Master Sword aside, he knelt and pressed the fingers of his left hand to her throat. No, his eyes hadn't deceived him. Her chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of life.

"Ganondorf," she murmured, her eyes still closed. "Pitiful man."

Cradling the back of her head with his good arm, Link lifted her to a sitting position and waited for her to come to. When she did, and her eyes had found his, there was silence between them—but it was a silence louder than words.

"Go ahead," Navi said. "I won't let it bother me this time."

Link fixed his eyes on the blood staining Zelda's dress. "Did he—"

"No," Zelda said quickly. "He never harmed me except by his lies. The crystal cut me as I fell."

Link nodded, offering his hand. She took it with quiet thanks and stood beside him, gazing at the body of Ganondorf.

"This isn't how I thought it would feel at the end," he said. "I hated him for killing the Great Deku Tree, but I think I'm beginning to understand where his hate came from."

"Perhaps he only used the atrocity our ancestors committed as an excuse to seize power for himself," Zelda said. "He enslaved the Gerudo to his law—not the law Din gave them. That is why so many have deserted him."

"I hate to interrupt," said Navi, "but when are we getting out of here? And didn't Rauru say the Sages were going to put Ganondorf in prison?"

"Yes, Navi." Zelda smiled at the fairy's agitation. "We are getting out of here."

The tower shuddered violently even as she finished her sentence. At the same time, the three of them gasped.

Ganondorf's body had vanished.

Before they could understand it, a pane of glass shattered overhead, raining down sharp edges. Link sheathed his sword and covered them with his shield as much as he could, but the glass still cut them. Worse, the whole castle had begun to tremble as if at an earthquake.

"Hurry!" Zelda pulled them towards the door they had entered through, but they never reached it. With a groan, the tower collapsed, leaving them—along with the rest of the debris—to plummet while their friends and allies on the ground looked on in horror.

Broken elbow or no, Link wrapped both arms around Zelda as they fell to ward off stones and glass and other bits of the castle that scarred his own body. If only he could have guaranteed her a safe landing, he thought.

Even as he thought this, he felt the cool wind against his flesh and heard a sound like a clap—and he saw that they were drifting over the bridge created by the Sages, about to land at the far end of it. It was some time before the smoke cleared enough for them to take in the full extent of the castle's destruction.

It was gone, and not just one tower or courtyard. The entire structure of the fortress had collapsed, leaving a few sections of the outer wall and fragments from some of the towers.

"What happened?" said Navi.

Zelda folded her left arm around her stomach and held the other hand beneath her chin in thought. "With his last breath, he tried to crush us in the ruins of the fortress. Dying meant little, as long as he thought we were dying with him."

Link shook his head but said nothing. A company of Gerudos and the few Knights that had survived the battle earlier rushed forward to offer aid, but he motioned for them to stay close without setting foot on the bridge.

Zelda bowed to the Knights and their allies. "I thank all of you for your courage. I am grateful so many have survived."

Arswaine bowed even more deeply. "To find the gods have spared you, Highness, is the greatest reward we could have asked for."

Link took Zelda's right hand with his left. "That was you that brought us down on the bridge, wasn't it? Impa did something like it in the Shadow Temple."

She nodded without explaining and turned to watch the smoke rising from the ruins of the fortress. He saw a tear gleaming in her eyes as she whispered, "It's over. It's finally over…"

"No," he said, but he was looking at her, not at the fortress, when he said it.

Navi stirred. "Something's not right."

"What is it?" His heart beating fast, Link stared at the ruins until he could see what had caught the fairy's attention. He heard some of the others murmuring behind them.

Stones and bricks trickled from one of the piles of rubble like at the beginnings of an avalanche. Inside the pile, something shifted.

Zelda's expression changed from pleasure to fear and finally to resolve. "There may be far more to the Triforce of Power than any of us realized."

With a strength that sent the rubble flying in all directions, Ganondorf burst into the air where all could see him holding up the back of his hand. They could hear his breathing, and they could see his eyes even at a distance, because they glowed with a sickly yellow light.

Link drew the Master Sword and took a step toward the ruins.

"Wait." Zelda touched his broken arm. "You shouldn't fight like that."

She closed her eyes, keeping hold of the limb while she whispered words that left him shivering and strangely relieved. After that, he no longer felt pain in that arm, though the break hadn't been healed entirely.

"There are two—" She lowered her voice. "Three of us now. This is our fight; it would be too dangerous to involve any of the others."

He glanced at the Knights. "You think you can keep them back?"

She waved an arm toward the crowd standing at the edge of the bridge, and instantly something shimmered, like a wall, that hadn't been there before. Seeing it, some tried to step onto the bridge and were stopped short by a visible jolt.

One of the Gerudos shouted as Link and Zelda began crossing the bridge again. "Are we merely to watch while you decide your fate and ours on your own?"

Arswaine answered calmly. "You forget. Ours was a fight against enemies that are slain by mortal weapons. Theirs…is a fight amongst gods that we can have no part of."