Chapter 29: Biographers Are Stalkers

…

"'Became a Royal Engineeh an unknown amount of yeahs afteh the Spirit Tracks weh restohed, although he lateh resigned from the Royal Engineehs befoah the Royal Family of Hyrule declaihed the sky as the new seat foh the kingdom. Still, in spite of his shoht-lived careeh, he is noted as having invented a numbeh of devices used on steam trains today. Of note, he is responsible foh the hydraulic braking system which allows the transfeh of brake poweh to all cahs, the ash collectoh which filtehs unbuhnable ash from the fiahbox, and the pressuah-release valve for venting excess steam.'"

"Personally like the firebox idea." Link, Cale, and Madame Seilon looked at Luggard as he held his fork between his teeth, his face over Cale's shoulder. Catching the pause, he leaned back and asked Link, "Wha'?"

"There's no eatin' in the Library," Madame Seilon told him.

Luggard took the fork out of his mouth and set it, along with the plate, on the table in front of Cale. "Finished two books ago, actually. I can' believe it took so long jus' t' find 'im."

"It's a ratheh imprecise aht, finding the right book," Cale said. "We wouldn't have had a clue if not foh the pictuah."

"Is there anything about airships, though?" Link asked.

Cale shrugged. "It's a book about trains. I don't think they had that paht of Ryain's life in mind."

Link stood up straight and pressed his hands into his face. "This is turning out harder than I thought."

"Yeh could try readin'," Madame Seilon said.

"Ghof!" Link breathed when she thrust a book into his stomach.

"There anymore?" Luggard asked as he leaned next to Cale again.

Cale shuffled away from him. "It's… only a primeh, actually." He closed a finger in the book to show Luggard the cover. "'Introduction to Famous Train Engineehs'. It was the tenth book I checked eahliah."

Luggard pinched one open corner of the book, eliciting a pained look from Cale. "Bu' it's thick."

Cale wrenched the book from Luggard's fingers. "Theah weh a lot of engineehs."

Luggard crossed his arms. "Easier t' jus' ask 'nother engineer. Tha's the kind o' 'istory we is s'pose t' know, we is."

"You didn't mention anything concehning the Ahchitects befoah," Cale pointed out.

Luggard leaned forward so that his nose nearly touched Cale. "Ya. Didn'. Ask."

"Then do yeh know anythin' abou' Ryain?" Madame Seilon asked.

"'Bou' as much as ya. No' really a very exci'in' life. Improved a lot o' stuff, bu' mos'ly jus' a snore."

"That book said that he resigned from the Royal Engineers before the Royal Family moved to the sky," Irleen said. "I thought they disappeared after the Royal Family left."

"It says here that he actually didn't want to be a Royal Engineer," Link spoke up, eyes blazing across the pages of the book Madame Seilon gave him. "He was an inventor from Aboda Village who did some work on trains. When he started improving on the technology which drove trains, the Royal Family recruited him to do more work exclusively on trains."

"'Recruited'?" Luggard scoffed. "Ya mean they drafted 'im. Engineers isn' s'pose t' be soldiers."

"Bu' if tha's the case," Madame Seilon said, craning her neck to glance at the pages Link read, "then 'e migh' be willin' ta give yeh a hand, Link."

"Assuming his still alive," Irleen added.

"Positive, isn' ya?" Luggard said.

"It says that he still spent most of his time inventing for things other than trains," Link continued. "He probably got involved with building airships just to keep his mind off a job he didn't like. Even if he died, we might still be able to find inventions for another airship."

"An' tha's why we should all help," Madame Seilon said, holding a book out to Luggard.

Luggard took the book and sat down next to Cale. "Wha' is we s'pose t' look for?"

"Anything that says where Ryain might have gone after he resigned," Irleen answered, jumping from Link's book to Luggard's.

"Would he not simply retahn to Aboda Village?" Cale asked her.

"Apparently not," Link said. "This book says that he never returned to the village; that's where the other engineers went to look for him. They checked all of the towns in the realm."

"In this realm?" Luggard asked. "There's more than one."

Link shook his head. "It doesn't really specify."

"I guess that means we know wheah not to look," Cale said.

"Yeah, nowhere with a population," Luggard said. "Tha' could still be anywhere."

Cale leaned over. "Luggahd, you ah holding the book upside-down."

Luggard flipped a page. "I only read upside-down. It's 'ow me parents taugh' me."

"To read upside down?"

"Didn' say they wasn' strange like tha'."

"Focus, boys," Madame Seilon said. "Gonna be a long nigh' if yeh don' ge' ta readin'."

…

Indeed, it turned into a long night, even when all four of them read while Irleen bounded from one to another trying to collect information. Link's only indication of the night was the dwindling number of people visiting the back room of the Library. Granted, that was not very many people in the beginning, but they stopped coming in pairs, stopped coming at regular intervals just to see if they were replacing every book they took out, and finally just stopped coming. From whatever rooms were on either side of their reading room, fresh candles had been slid into the glass bulbs mounted over slots cut into the old castle's walls. This only served to keep any sense of time Link had developed during the sum of his stay on the surface confused to the point that he believed he had been awake until midnight on seven separate instances of realization. He muttered these realizations to himself, but his companions heard him anyway. And none of them really had the heart to tell him that it had fallen well past midnight before the first time he had said something.

Luggard had been right about Ryain's life. Not many details existed beyond what the first few books told them. Other than a surly, short-lived career as a Royal Engineer, he had spent time as a fisherman, a logger in Whittleton, a mailman, an excavator in the Fire Realm, and a deep-sea diver after inventing a water-tight suit and an air pump that will allow a person to stay underwater at potentially dangerous depths. He had been middle-aged by the time the Royal Family recruited him as a Royal Engineer, but he still continued his work in other areas. Of particular interest to him appeared to be navigation; one of the texts Cale found indicated that he had challenged the Lost Woods to the west five times before successfully navigating to Diggerton using the Spirit Tracks and a kind of compass which had not been affected by the curse on the woods. Unfortunately, this was towards the end of his career, and the compass he had put together never saw any sort of production beyond what Ryain had put together.

"It says heah that he put togetheh some of the composite materials which ah used in constructing trains as well as Goron items," Cale said at one point.

"I the only one disturbed by the 'moun' o' detail these book go'?" Luggard asked.

Madame Seilon shrugged. "Biographers go' ta be detailed. Tha's how books are written in the firs' place."

"Yeah, well, I think I'd like t' go through life 'nonymously. Tha', or kill whoever follows me."

Irleen let out a high-pitched yawn. "But for all the creepiness of these authors, no one knows where Ryain disappeared to."

Link shook his head, trying to refocus his eyes on the text in front of him. "We must be missing something. Maybe we're just too tired."

Madame Seilon closed her book and set it aside. "Well, wha' do we know, boys?" she asked as she laced her fingers together.

"Tha' biographers is stalkers?" Luggard asked.

"Well, Ryain hated his job," Irleen said. "In fact, it seems like he'd rather have been doing everything else rather than work on trains."

"I remembeh a biography on a man called Linebeck the Foahth," Cale said. "He had taken over the Linebeck Trading Company from his fatheh, but he seemed ratheh opposed to the idea. So he hiahed wohkehs to run the company while he stole away. But no one knew what Linebeck did because he was a recluse."

Luggard shrugged. "So?"

Cale stuttered for a moment. "Wha, uh… I-I am just pointing out that, if Ryain behaved in a similah manneh, he might have simply gone into hiding to get away from othehs."

"Okay, so he went into hiding," Irleen said. "Where?"

Luggard snapped his fingers. "'E pu' a lo' inna deep-sea divin'. Maybe 'e lef' somethin' in the ocean?"

"Hmmm… that may be too fah away," Cale said.

Link blinked at the text for a moment. Although he was only half-focused on the conversation and losing a battle with sleep, something in the book he was reading set off a signal in his mind. He rubbed his eyes and re-read the passage which had caught his interest.

"Wha' abou' the Snow Realm?" Madame Seilon asked. "It hasn' seemed ta have been the only place he did anythin' in."

"But then, we still have the same problem, Madame," Cale said. "It is much too fah."

"S'pose tha' leaves out the Fire Realm," Luggard said, setting his book down. He planted his right elbow on the table and cupped his cheek in his hand. "If 'e's 'ere, where is 'e?"

"He was an excavator in the Fire Realm, right?" Link asked, one hand waving at Cale for attention.

"Jus' ruled ou' the Fire Realm, Link," Luggard told him with a tired drawl.

"No, I know. But did any of your books mention what he discovered in the Lost Woods?"

Looks passed among the others. "Ostensibly, the Forest Temple," Cale answered. "Although its existence is not entiahly unknown."

But Link shook his head. "Yeah, he found the temple. But he also found some kind of crypt on the temple grounds."

Luggard nodded as he picked up on Link's train of thought. "Tha' makes sense. If 'e did more excavatin' after 'e go' ou' o' the Royal Engineers."

"And he nevah allowed the compass he invented to go into production," Cale added. "What bettah place to hide than a place no one else can navigate?"

Madame Seilon clapped her hands together. "An' we have an answer!"

"Wait, wait!" Irleen said. "If he took the only means of navigating the Lost Woods… well, how are we supposed to find this place?"

Link joined in the fresh round of confused looks shifting around the table. "Uh…"

Luggard threw his arms up, accidently slapping the back of Cale's head in the process. "Tha's it! We're through!"

"Maybe he left behind instructions to make anotheh," Cale suggested, rubbing the back of his head.

"Ya mean in the stuff we's s'pose t' be lookin' for?"

Cale let a pained look flash across his face. "Right."

Madame Seilon put a grin on her face. "Don' yeh boys think yer overthinkin' this whole Los' Woods business?"

"No, we's definitely screwed," Luggard told her. "Withou' tha' compass, might as well be walkin' through those woods blind."

She tilted her head. "Yeh can' tell me tha' the Los' Woods confuses everythin'."

Luggard started counting on his fingers. "Compasses, dead reckonin', instinc', sunligh', maps, markin's… ya can' make markin's on trees b'cause even they ge' los'."

Cale's eyes darted between Link and Luggard in the brief silence. "H-how do—"

"It's a curse," Luggard said. "No' s'pose t' make sense."

"Wha' abou' the Spiri' Tracks?" Madame Seilon asked.

Luggard's face twisted into stupefied realization before he smacked himself in the forehead. "O' course! Ya can' ge' los' if ya jus' follow the Tracks. If ya jus' go slow 'n keep track o' how far yar in, ya can' ge' tha' los'."

Link snapped his fingers. "That's right! Ryain did it using the Spirit Tracks. Even without the compass, it might be possible."

"But… we don't have a train," Irleen said.

Link groaned and let his forehead hit the table in front of him. "Right, that's gonna be a problem."

"I migh' be able ta hire someone for freelance work," Madame Seilon said.

"Ya is gonna 'ave a 'ard time findin' someone who wants t' go through the Los' Woods," Luggard warned. "'E'd 'ave t' be pre'y crazy." Madame Seilon stared at him, a smirk slowly growing across her lips. Cale followed her gaze and caught on to her idea. Link rolled his head to look straight at Luggard. Even Irleen turned in his direction. After a moment, Luggard snapped out of his thoughts when he found his companions making their latest suggestion apparent. "Whoa, now, wai' a minu'e!"

"Yeh do freelance, don' yeh, Mister Luggard?"

"And, quite cleahly, you ah a navigatoh."

"It'd be for a pretty good cause."

Luggard waved his hands. "No, no, ya don' understan'. I can' jus' switch t' freelance. I go' a rou'e t' follow!"

Irleen hovered closer to his face. "Please, Luggard? If you don't help us find the Architects, I might be stuck in this form forever. I need to return to my people in the sky."

Luggard sighed, raking a hand through his thick, black hair. "Well, I s'pose I can let me boss know I found me some freelance work… Bu' I take twen'y-two 'undred in advance."

Madame Seilon nodded. "I can draw up the funds an' have yeh paid later in the mornin'."

"Madame, how ah you going to justify this to the Boahd?" Cale asked.

"The same way I justified bringin' Link ou' here," she told him. "In the name o' research."

Cale indicated Link with a hand. "But, he is not a reseahcheh heah, noh a student."

"No, he isn'," she agreed with a nod. Then she pointed at him. "Bu' yeh are."

Cale gave an audible gulp. "M-me?"

"Yeh migh' wanna have yer writin' supplies ready fer t'morrow, Cale," she said. "Yeh'll be goin' with Link."

"B-but… c-couldn't we find anyone moah qualified? Like Bixley?"

"Nope. He'd never make it pas' the door."

"W-what about Valley?"

"Ou' sick. I's yeh an' no one else, Cale."

"B-but… what about… Oh, no." Cale planted his elbows on the table and hid his face in his arms.

"Look a' it this way," Luggard said, nudging Cale with his shoulder. "Ya ge' t' ge' ou' o' the Library for a bi'."

"You ah not helping," Cale groaned through his arms.

"I'll have yer assignmen' drawn la'er," Madame Seilon said to Cale. Then she turned to Link and asked, "Do yeh have a place ta stay yet?"

Link sat up straight and shook his head. "I only came in on the train this afternoon. I haven't had the time."

"Do either of yeh have some space ta lend him?"

"'E can have me passenger car s'long 'e don' snore," Luggard volunteered. "Me boss don' like people sleepin' in there."

"I may be able to ask my landlohd foh a spaeh cot," Cale suggested. "I have the room. Do you have any needs, Lady Ihleen?"

"Not really."

Madame Seilon rose to her feet. "Well then, all o' yeh, better ge' off ta sleep. Yeh'll have a busy afternoon."

…

~~Day 10—Well, Day 11 now

~~I met Meilont's mother and one of her students, Cale. We spent most of the night and a good part of the morning trying to find everything we could about the Architect Ryain. It has probably been the only time I've ever been grateful about not knowing how to tell time down here. Even as I write, I keep drifting off. I'm staying in Cale's place on the east side of Library Town near the Eastern Platforms. He lent me some of his writing stuff while he's out talking to his day-sleeping landlord. Irleen collapsed only a moment ago; I'm using her light to write with since Cale doesn't have any more candles.

~~I'm surprised by the amount of luck we had tonight. I fear that, if Luggard hadn't let us into that tavern, our finding out about Ryain would have been much further into the future if even at all. Unfortunately, the revelation that Ryain may have spent his last years hidden in the Lost Woods has caused me some misgivings. I want to be confident that Luggard will navigate us safely to this crypt on the temple grounds, but I'm daunted by his claims of what the Lost Woods do. He said that dead reckoning was one of things that gets lost in the woods, but that, and the hope that the Spirit Tracks can't become lost, are our only means of making it through. If it's a puzzle, I hope it has some kind of solution before we find out just how many of the stories Luggard has heard are true.

~~Again, I've found myself torn between the idea of going home and of just staying on the surface. I think it might have something to do with Meilont. When I saw her as the train left, it felt as if I was leaving her to misery. Maybe it was just my own illusion. But if it wasn't, was it possible that I might have hurt her?

Link frowned at the page. He dipped the pen again, but his hand hovered above the page as he considered that last statement. His need to write lost, he sighed and set the pen down with the nib over the inkwell. He left the journal open, staring at the page.

The door groaned, and fresh, yellow light crept into the room. "Does the pen wohk?" Cale asked as he entered, a candle inside a cup-like holder cradled in one hand.

"Yeah, it's fine."

Cale closed the door and crossed the room to his desk. "My landlohd lent us a candle so you could write."

Link's hand swept the journal closed. "Actually, I'm already done."

"Oh, I see." He indicated the bed at the end of the long, narrow room. "If you like, you might find the bed moah comfohtable."

Link shook his head. "I don't want to run you out of your own bed, Cale." He nodded at the wood-framed cot they had set up earlier next to the desk. "I'd feel better on the cot anyway; I used to sleep in a hammock when I was the captain's assistant on the Grand Sails."

"The Grand Sails?" Cale asked as he moved towards the bed.

"The largest vessel of the Skyrider Company."

Cale started pulling his robe over his head. "You mean that theah ah companies in the sky kingdom, too?"

"I guess it's standard for transportation nowadays."

"It also makes reseahch much easieh. Most train companies down heah allow public access to theih recohds foh… well, a numbeh of things, I wageh. Public inquiry does not come up too often; they mostly just let us of the Library copy them foh safe-keeping."

Link stood and unfastened his belts. "Would something like that be helpful to us?"

Cale dumped the robe next to his bed, revealing a white, stained, sleeveless chemise and loose trousers of dark green wool. He heaved a sigh. "It is ratheh nice to be rid of the robe at the end of the day."

Link shook his head as he took off his tunic. "How can you stand wearing that heavy thing all day? Doesn't it get hot?"

"I do not experience much physical activity during the day. And the Library manages to keep itself comfohtably cool during even the day."

Link started emptying his trouser pockets. "Especially since the sun never shines on the surface."

"Yes, it is ratheh troublesome," Cale said as he began to take off his chemise. Then his eyes fell to Irleen's illuminated form on the desk next to Link's journal. "Uh… is-is she…?"

"She's asleep."

Cale nodded and continued to pull the shirt off. "When she spoke to Luggahd, she indicated some kind of problem."

Link gave a slow nod and started talking in a lower voice. "When we fell from the sky, something caused her to change into a fairy. She's actually a member of an older race known as the Sorians. I think they populated the skies before Hylians arrived. They've spent many years confined to Forelight Island. That's where I met her."

Cale stared at Link in silence. Then he climbed onto his bed. "Fascinating. I should like to see the sky kingdom sometime."

Link leaned over and blew out the candle. Then, by Irleen's light, he found the cot next to the desk.

"So do I."

…

He watched as the blue-clad young man hung against the bulwark, his grieving form shaking. He wanted to step forward, to say something to comfort the airman. But knowing that a sword lay ready to run him through at a moment's notice gave him cause to hold back his urges. He felt his own need to grieve, watching through the lightning as the distant shadow fell through the Sky Line and into oblivion below. He had only known the captain of that vessel for a couple of days, and now that captain's life was forfeit.

Line's form rose slowly, his back facing the crew gathered on the weatherdeck. His fists clenched and unclenched. The wind tossed his red hair about. When he spun around, it aided in the wild appearance his face took as rage overwhelmed him.

"You sonova—"

Line's charge at the creature standing near the mast came to a halt when Flower and one of the Sorian airmen suddenly grabbed him. "Chief, cool your head!" Flower shouted. "Come on!"

"Killing one of my shipmates wasn't enough for you!?" Line continued as he struggled to slide out of their grip. "Come on, you bastard! Let's see how tough you are man-to-man!"

"Let him go," said a cold, male voice from the dark creature Line accosted. "He is eager to try his luck with me."

He could see the scowl form on Flower's profile by the light of a lantern above. "Don't tempt me, freak," the airman growled. "If any one of your crew is going to die before we're all slaughtered, I guarantee it's gonna be you."

Then, in a lower voice he could barely hear, Flower said to Line, "You can hate my guts later."

Just as Line turned to question Flower, one of Flower's fists drove into Line's stomach. Line's body jerked, and, like a puppet relieved of its strings, dropped to the deck in an unmoving heap.

To his left, there came the sound of Captain Koroul's even voice. "Was that necessary, Airman Flower?"

Flower's eyes remained locked on the dark creature as he replied. "Sorry, Captain. But some of the damnedest things get said in anger. It's not an airman's duty to condemn his whole crew in a moment of carelessness. I don't know how you Sorians do it, but we Hylians just don't work that way."

"Hylian?" the creature asked. "Is that what you call your naked race?"

Leonard stepped closer to Flower, prompting his captor to tag his shoulder with a curved blade. "This 'naked' race will see justice by the end of this idiocy. Your order is now your call for death."

"And when the Sorians, along with this creature—" A single, scaly finger pointed through the darkness at him. "—are corpses to be swabbed from the deck, what will you do?"

Flower balled one hand and cracked his knuckles. "You fill in the blanks."

He knew it, too, that both airmen would attack. So he held up a hand. "Leonard, Flower, please don't do this."

"Agreed," Captain Koroul said. "Threats will do nothing for our situation. Would your captain be so inclined to have you die like this?"

"You know he would not," he said before either airman could speak up. "Captain Link is not the kind of person to turn towards violence in this situation."

"Yeah, well, Death's blade will not find us cowering in a corner when the time comes, Your Highness," Leonard said.

"Nor should it expect such," he agreed. "However, now is not the time for a fight."

Flower turned and walked over to him. The airman's height intimidated, but he held his ground as he waited for Flower to say something.

One hand latched to his upper arm. Suddenly, he felt fear as it seemed that Flower would strike.

Link suddenly sat upright, inhaling hard as if he had not been breathing at all this whole time. His surroundings were almost pitch-black save for a single, green light hovering nearby. Sweat coursed across his face. He used one hand to wipe his forehead.

"Linca?" the light above him asked. "Con tùkħah?"

Link let out a sigh. He sat up and leaned forward with one hand reaching across Cale's desk. When his fingers found the gemstone Irleen had given him, he leaned back and asked, "What were you saying?"

"I was asking if something happened," Irleen said. "You suddenly jerked awake; you scared the hell out of me."

Link groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead. The memories of the dream still felt fresh in his mind, but he was already losing his grasp on them. "I-I don't know. I think I just had a nightmare."

"What kind?"

But Link only shook his head. "I don't know. I… I think I saw something."