Chapter 76: What Do the Sought-For Seek?

…

Link returned to the Island Symphony not long after, although he had had to duck behind a warehouse to throw up at the memory of what he had seen before then. This had attracted Layna, who had spontaneously appeared behind him to offer a sympathetic pat on the back. And she had disappeared just as fast. Link had walked straight across the docks to the Island Symphony, ignored everyone trying to ask what had happened as he solemnly boarded, and closed himself in his cabin for a moment. Irleen's questions went unanswered for some time as Link tried to let his panic and nausea pass. For a while, he was not even sure he had heard any of her questions; he could not remember what she had asked him at first.

Then, she finally asked, "Did you find… did you find someone?"

Link, leaning against the window and trying to look through the frosted glass for answers, sighed heavily enough to put a layer of breath on the glass. He turned to find her hovering over the back of his chair. For a moment, he could feel the pit of his stomach squirm, and he swallowed back the bile that jumped into his throat. "N-not… not… exactly," he croaked in a dry voice.

"Holy s—Link, you're as white as paper!" she said as she fluttered closer to his face. "What happened!?"

He took in a breath to steady himself. "I-I found the crates."

"The crates from Autumn Island? What was in them?"

Link shook his head carefully, holding back nausea as he did. His words were slow as he responded, "They were destroyed. Someone broke them apart."

"And-and they were empty?"

He could feel bile rising again at the memory of what he had seen and tried to swallow it down. He wished he had something to drink. "Not completely." He hesitated, Irleen's gentle hover indicating a desire for an answer he did not want to give. "I… I found… I found someone's… someone's wing."

"A-a what!? A wing!?"

Link slowly nodded. "A Sorian's wing. I… I think it was cut off."

He could not be sure, but it looked like Irleen's light paled a bit as she backed away from him. "C… cut off… Gre… Great Elders…"

Link was mildly surprised to hear what probably passed for an expression of shock to the Sorians. He wished he only had the luxury of hearing about the wing as she did. He took a deep breath to help steady himself and let his head rest against the window. "I… I don't know what was in those crates," he told her. "But I think one of them might've held a Sorian."

"It would have to be an airman from the Horizon's Eye," Irleen told him, her voice empty as if the statement was just a thoughtless utterance.

Link nodded in agreement. "But what would it mean?" he asked. "A warning?"

"No, Link," she said, her voice now taking substance. In fact, it sounded a little urgent. "A Sorian's wing is only removed to prevent flight. There's only one group of people who would remove a wing from a Sorian like that.

"Cunimincus and his crew."

Even after coming to the conclusion before Irleen directly named them, he was still visibly shocked. "You… you think Cunimincus is here?"

"Cunimincus? Not likely, really," Irleen told him. "But it's not like his crew couldn't find their way here. The only things holding them in the storm are Cunimincus himself and his ship. They probably smuggled themselves off with the Horizon's Eye."

Link nodded and thought back for a moment. "The… the supervisor of the warehouse where I found the crates… he said that someone had broken into the building two days before the Sky Lines disappeared. I wonder…"

"You think they were breaking out, right?" Irleen finished.

"It fits just as well, doesn't it?"

Irleen bobbed up and down as if nodding. "Unfortunately."

Knocking interrupted their dying conversation, and Link glanced across the room. "Who is it?" he called in an even voice.

"It's Leynne," a muffled voice answered. "We'h back."

Link sighed and stepped to the edge of his desk. "Come on in."

The door opened, and Leynne, Cale, and Dholit filed in. "Link, ah you all right?" Leynne asked as Dholit closed the door behind her. "Dholit said you didn't look well when you retuhned."

Link nodded and said, "I'll be fine. Did you learn anything at the library?"

"Yes, actually," Leynne replied. "As it tuhns out, something quite interesting happened on this island. Theh was an eahthquake."

"An… an earthquake?" Link asked with a frown.

"It happened around the same time that the Sky Lines disappeahed," Cale spoke up. "In fact, the eahthquake was repohted to have happened just seconds befoah the local Sky Lines disappeahed."

"That's fah too close to be coincidence," Leynne said.

"Irleen?" Link asked.

Irleen responded with a sigh. "I can't say why the island would quake," she said. "But if the Sky Lines disappeared, it means that someone found the technoworks and shut them down."

"And we might know who," Link said.

"Y-you do?" Cale asked as he, Dholit, and Leynne put on surprised looks.

"Link found the crates from Autumn Island," Irleen said.

"They were smashed to pieces," Link continued. "And… I found a Sorian's wing in the wreckage."

"A S-S-Sorian wing?" Cale asked.

"We think that some of Cunimincus' crew is here on the island," Irleen said. "And it's possible that they turned off the Sky Lines."

"Cunimincus… that's the captain who shot you down, right?" Leynne asked.

Link nodded as he removed his jacket. "Yeah," he said.

"Why would Cunimincus oh his crew want to shut down the Sky Lines?" Cale asked.

"Honestly? I don't know," Irleen said. "I've already explained it to Link; the Sky Lines have nothing to do with the Storm of Purgatory, the storm holding Cunimincus and… well, now, part of his crew. If anything, they'll just wind up making things harder for themselves." She noticed the uneasy look on Cale's face. "Uh… y-you know… if they happen to get out."

"With as much trouble as that false princess has caused," Leynne spoke up, "the possibility is becoming unbearably cehtain."

"So… what happens now?" Cale asked. "Do we tell someone?"

"Tell them what?" Irleen asked. "That we believe that a bunch of demon outcasts have taken over the secret facility under the island and used it to switch off all of the Sky Lines around here? How do we not get laughed at?"

"There's no sort of police or knight authority on any of the islands except for Castle Island," Link said. "The only policing force here is the dockmaster's office, and I don't think they're equipped to handle something like this. The only other alternative is to tell the fake princess's navy."

"An altehnative we don't want to try," Leynne reasoned based on Link's tone.

Dholit stepped forward, a bright smile on her face. "So we do it," she said.

"Right, because… that's a betteh idea," Leynne told her.

"I'm going."

Both Leynne and Cale gave Link a surprised look while Dholit just continued to smile. "You… you ah?" Cale asked.

"Yeah," Link said with a nod.

"Why?" Leynne asked.

Link gave him a confused look. Then he said, "Someone has to."

"Link… that's a ridiculous reason," Leynne said. "It's one thing to fight something trying to kill you. But you'h talking about going afteh something you've neveh encountehed befoh and expecting to… what, kill them befoh they kill you? That's suicide."

"And how long do you suppose we'll last running about as we ah?" Dholit spoke up.

"I happen to think we've done quite well so fah," Leynne told her. Then he turned back to Link and said, "You've already told us that we have to keep moving."

Link cast his eyes to the surface of his desk, where his journal lay. Was it suicide to go after Cunimincus' crew? He thought back to the Tower of Spirit and his encounter with Byrne. He had called Link the "Hero of Journeys". He had also said that if he took the Lokomo Sword, he had promised to challenge Cunimincus when the time came. Up until now, he had completely forgotten about that promise.

Yet, Leynne was right. On the surface, Link had always found himself in trouble; he had not gone looking for it intentionally. As captain, he had a duty to command his crew through what had undoubtedly become troubling times. Taking on this calling would leave the Island Symphony and her crew vulnerable to discovery. But he trusted his crew to protect themselves if necessary. Could he not do that?

"Leynne…" Link took a moment to realize that that was not his voice. He glanced up to find that Cale had drawn attention. "I think… we should try," Cale told him.

"What?" Leynne asked, his voice skeptical. "You, too, Cale?"

"We hid from the Moon's Shadow befoah," Cale said. "Why can't we do it again?"

"This island is a lot biggah," Dholit added. "The Moon's Shadow would have to cahcle the whole island if they wanted to find us. And it's not likely they'll try; they could simply move on to the next island."

"And Cunimincus' crew?" Leynne asked. "How many will be going with you, Link?"

"Well, us Gilto, naturally," Dholit answered for him.

But Link shook his head. "No, Dholit," he told her. "You girls need to remain here to keep the ship crewed. Otherwise, it will only be Leynne, Cale, and Gold on deck, and we don't know how long it will take to find them."

"Well, I'm going," Irleen said. "I may not know the layout of the technoworks under the island, but I'm the only one here that can read Sorian."

"Why don't you take Layna with you?" Dholit suggested. Then her devilish grin returned. "I'm suah she'll enjoy wohking pehsonally with heh captain, My Captain."

"Why not?" Irleen replied with a voice only halfway full of sarcasm. "It couldn't hurt to have a trained killer with us."

"But… I-I'm not going to be able to talk to her," Link pointed out.

"That's okay," Dholit replied with a shrug. "Just point at something, and she'll kill it."

"What if Link happens to point to himself?" Cale asked.

"Well, then Layna will be pleased, foh I will give heh special instructions foh that," Dholit replied, clapping her hands together.

The glee in her voice caused all three Hylians to glance at each other with discomfort in their eyes. None of them were sure what Dholit meant by "special instructions", but Link could not really interpret it as a favorable situation, especially because it had come from Dholit. He felt that he might be better off if he just avoided pointing to himself.

…

Link changed into his tunic and equipped himself with the items he had found on the surface. He had exchanged his regular sword with the Lokomo Sword and had on his boomerang, the small spike hammer that Sello did not want back, both of Irleen's gems, his Rope whip, and the bow he had stolen from the Gelto with the six arrows Twali had made for him. With the addition of the flare gun, Link felt a little heavier than usual. He tried to stretch himself out a bit before leaving the ship, preparing himself for what was likely to be a long evening.

With Irleen hidden under his hat and Layna somewhere nearby at probably all times, Link ventured back onto shore and left the Island Symphony to meet him on the opposite side of the island, where he felt he would be when he was ready to be picked up. He used his boots to make sure no one saw him out in the open dock area wearing his tunic, worried that someone might react to him wearing it in public. He soon found that people were not really as bothered by it as he expected. Upon remembering how Captain North and his airmen had dressed, Link realized that it was possible that the layman, not as aware of company regulations as him, might not recognize that Link's outfit was actually a slightly outdated uniform used by the most hated company in Hyrule. He confirmed it later on when he simply ventured out into an open street in search of a public map. Irleen looked at it with him, and she explained to Link that the Sorians might have hidden the entrances to the technoworks so that their operation would continue uninterrupted. Then she added that the Sorian builders probably left an opening on a raised platform so that they could identify it from a great distance and have a decent landing place. Link understood the concept, recalling the architecture on Forelight Island, and identified a waterfall in the middle of the wilderness on the western side of the island. The waterfall occurred near a lake with a river that bordered the town, so Link used his compass to navigate in that direction.

The river skirted a region of the island dedicated mostly to a residential area, a place where land was divided into small enough plots for individual family homes. It looked healthy in spite of all the madness Link had seen lately, with children enjoying some outdoor activity like Link had never seen before. The peace surprised both him and Irleen, who had chosen to remain in the open. The river was blocked by a wall and had no bridge across it, but further exploration to the north revealed a short gate Link could climb over. From there, he followed the river into a thick forest what, as far as he had ever seen, was the most friendly-looking forest he had ever entered.

Link must have walked for two hours before a clearing revealed the waterfall to him. The western sky was just beginning its transition to gold, and the trees appeared to hold up the sun for that little bit of light he still needed. The waterfall before him looked about as tall as any mast he had ever seen, framed on either side by a sheer cliff. At the distance he stood, he could see the edge of another cliff on top. He could feel spray reach him from where he stood on the edge of the clearing, something which felt good considering he had not had the luxury of a bath in over a week.

"So?" Link asked Irleen. "What do you think?"

"If it isn't an entrance…" Irleen hesitated as she hovered directly over Link's head, trying to find a good response. "Meh. I'll eat your hat."

Link looked up at her. "But… you can't eat."

"Link, accept the sentiment and start climbing."

Annoyingly, Irleen's response ruined Link's admiration of the scene, especially since there was no clear, easy way to get to the top of the waterfall. He found this climbing experience much more comfortable even without partners strapped to him. The cliff was jagged, leaving Link plenty of handholds to use. He reminded himself of the climbing tips Leynne had given during their climb in the Iyuk Mountains. He was grateful that the rock face was dry and he was wearing his fingerless gloves, protecting his hands from sharp edges. Irleen, naturally, had an easy climb, but Link, when he paused to rest a couple times, did not see Layna anywhere. He was not sure why she was trying to maintain stealth, isolated as they were from most of the island's population. But he conceded that she might know about something that he did not.

Link pulled himself onto a plateau covered in grass, looking about as spacious as Irleen had suggested. He collapsed in the grass and lay still for a moment while he tried to catch his breath.

"It couldn't have been that bad," Irleen said as she hovered over his face. "You've climbed higher."

"Yeah…" Link huffed. "But that… that was still… whew pretty tough." He picked up his head and looked around. "Seen Layna?"

"Are you kidding? I can't even tell if she's been following us this whole time. If she has, then the way she sneaks around is just absurd."

Link sighed. "Well, that's about as much as I was expecting…" He got back to his feet and looked around. "So, if you were one of the Sorians who used the technoworks, where would you put the front door?"

"Seriously, Link? You have to think about it?" She hovered closer to the water's edge and indicated the waterfall splashing over the edge of the higher cliff. "It's behind the waterfall."

Link blinked at her for a moment. "I-I thought you said you didn't know where it was."

"We—I don't know exactly, but don't you think it's a little obvious?" She moved closer to the waterfall and bounced up and down in the air. "Look at that slope there. Doesn't that look like a path to you?"

Link had to tilt his head because she was blocking his view. She was right, though; between the cliff face and the edge of the waterfall, there was a small slope which appeared to lead up and into a small cavity behind the waterfall. The slope was narrow, and Link probably would not have noticed it without Irleen. "What makes you think there's an entrance behind here?" Link asked as he approached the slope.

"It's a classic, Link," Irleen explained, moving to hover near his shoulder as he walked. "Any kind of story would eventually use one. Adventures, operas, fables, romances… I was once in this play whe—"

S—tink!

"Holy crap!"

"Yikes!" Link immediately jumped away from the base of the slope when a silver disk sailed just a hair's breadth away from his left ear and embedded itself in the rock face behind the waterfall. He spun, one hand grasping the hilt of the Lokomo Sword on his back, and looked over the plateau for a moment. Then he said, "I don't suppose you saw where that came from."

"Give me a moment; I'm still suffering from severe terror," Irleen answered. She hovered close to Link's back, shaking. "Do you hear anything?"

"I'd think Layna would take care of anyone nearby," Link said.

"What was it?"

Link turned back and squinted to get a better look at the disk in the rock face. It turned out to be hard to see in the flickering caused by the waterfall playing with the last bit of daylight, but he at least partially recognized its dimensions. "La—Yah!" he suddenly shouted just after turning to look over the plateau again. Layna was standing directly in front of him, completely unaware of Link's need for personal space and nearly causing his face to bump into her petite (and possibly dangerous, considering he still did not know where she hid her weapons) bust. He backed away, but Layna's reaction was a confused tilt of the head.

Irleen fluttered back up to his shoulder and told Layna, "What is wrong with you!? You nearly sliced us apart!" Layna blinked and would not give a response in the moment Irleen gave her to explain herself. "Killed! You almost killed us."

"I didn't think she came that close," Link pointed out.

"Sharp thing flying at head, Link," she snapped at him.

"Just-just… calm down," Link told her, raising a hand to help keep her quiet. "Layna?" Layna looked at him, and he turned so that he could point at the object she had embedded into the cliff. She nodded, and he followed her up the slope so she could retrieve the item. He was amazed to see that the weapon she had thrown, once she had pulled it out, was actually not a complete disk. She noticed him looking hard at it, and she offered it to him in both hands so that he could inspect it.

Link found that the object was four steel blades held together by a single, black, disk-shaped centerpiece of a material Link could not identify. All four blades had the same curvy shape which allowed all four to fit together without overlapping and sported the exact same, swirly, dust-like engravings on each blade. He was amazed by the craftsmanship, never having seen such intricate details in anything but pocketwatches.

He looked up at her and said, "It's-it's beautiful." But Layna, stifled by their language barrier, continued to give him a confused look before sliding the weapon into one of the thick straps on her thigh. Or was that a pocket? Link could not tell, realizing how well the hiding space did its job. Even having watched her slide it in there did not allow him to see any sort of giveaway as to what straps and pockets concealed what.

Layna then pointed to her breastbone. Link nodded, gathering that she was referring to herself. She nodded as well before indicating the cavity behind her. Link's mouth opened as realization set in. "Oh, you want to go first," he said. He nodded and indicated behind her with a hand. "Yeah, go ahead."

"Link?" Irleen spoke up.

"Yeah?" he replied as he watched her slip inside.

"The angle she threw that from. She would've been standing close to where that bottom waterfall starts, right?"

Link glanced down the small stream bisecting the plateau and traced about where the throwing weapon had flown before hitting the wall. "Yeah, I guess."

"Sooo… where the hell was she when she threw that thing?"

Link blinked in amazement when he realized that, if Layna had thrown the weapon from the end of the stream, she should have been standing right out in the open when both of them had turned around. Even if she had just been climbing up the cliff behind him, how would she have thrown the weapon at the wall, ducked back below the cliff, and then simply popped right next to him the instant he had decided to call for her, all without making a single sound? Link found himself suitably uncomfortable. "Maybe… we should just assume she's that good and… move on," he told her.

"These Gelto are beginning to creep me out."

Link stepped up the slope and followed it into what turned out to be a deeper hollow than what he originally thought. The waterfall scattered light behind him, making it difficult to see much beyond the opening, so he signaled Irleen to fly ahead. She may have only provided a green glow, but it was enough to see the walls as well as find Layna in the dark. If she had been at the beginning of the hollow, at least. They found about ten paces in that the hollow cornered to the left. They followed and soon found Layna standing in front of an opening in the ground before her.

And unique about the opening was the soft, golden glow emerging from it. Link drew closer, but with the darkness around him, he had a hard time telling if there was more beyond the glow other than a ladder at their feet. So he asked, "Irleen, is this it?"

"Oh, yeah," Irleen said as she fluttered inside.

Layna mounted the ladder first and climbed down. Link followed and immediately found the ladder to be made of metal piping, something he had not seen before. He maintained focus on the ladder as he went, slowly feeling his exhaustion from climbing the cliff return. He was thankful for the ladder, making it much easier to descend. By the time he met Irleen and Layna at the bottom, he ventured that they must have traveled farther than the climb up the cliff, maybe just about double the height. But he did not have time to look back up and appreciate the height. As soon as he backed a step from the ladder, Layna grabbed a fistful of his tunic. He turned to see what was wrong and discovered a look of shock directed at the room around them.

A look Link shared a split-second later. The walls, floor, and ceiling all looked to be made of copper. "Looked" to be; Link doubted if actual copper would fluoresce between its natural orange-ish luster to shades of yellow and, in few places, light green before reverting back to orange. It was like watching an endless flock of small, brightly-colored birds fluttering from one end of the room to the other or… as soon as Link made the comparison, he realized the significance: the flow of color was like the glowing blue particles he always saw speeding by in the Sky Lines, perhaps a little more pronounced here than there. The floor was laid out in a checker pattern alternating between two different styles of tile: one bearing a spiral formed out of squares turning counterclockwise as they decreased in size, and the other sporting a soft, broken pattern like gentle ripples on a liquid surface. The walls were much larger, each "tile" as tall as a house and wide as any yardarm Link had traversed. Each wall tile had been debossed with a rectangle of a smaller side than and the same shape as the tile, and these rectangles sported smaller debosses of the exact same nature. Above the newcomers, two wall tiles high, was the only part of this room which had not been given such stringent design schemes as the rest. The ceiling, though jagged and uneven as expected of a cave ceiling, was still made of the same, copper-like material and sported the same fluttering coloration. With no discernible light source anywhere as well as weak shadows nearby, the group could only conclude that the light in the room was being produced by whatever this material was.

"Oh, wow…" Link breathed.

"I'll say," Irleen replied in a similar air. "What a wonderful invention color pictography was; those old pictures don't tell you a thing."

Layna shook herself out of her daze and put on a serious look. She tapped Link's shoulder to draw his attention. When he glanced at her, she indicated something on his right side with a finger. He followed the gesture and saw that she was pointing to a doorway that he had glanced over earlier. So he nodded at her, and she stepped around him. "Let's go, Irleen," he said as he followed her.

"Yeah," Irleen answered as she started to drift in Link's direction. "Okay."

The three of them crossed the room, but Layna halted Link and Irleen at the doorway as she slid past it. She lowered her body closer to the ground and slowly moved down the adjoining corridor with long, lithe strides. The change in posture alerted Link that she might have seen something, and he grasped the handle of the Lokomo Sword. But he waited to draw, wanting to see if Layna had really spotted a danger so soon or if she was being overcautious, like he felt she had been the whole time she was following. Then he watched her circle something on the floor, the corridor wide enough to still allow space between her and the wall as she took interest in something in the middle of the floor. Then, with her attention directed further down the corridor, she used a hand to probe around the floor before picking something up.

Link relaxed as she returned with a series of jumping sidesteps, designed to move her back down the corridor fast while she kept her eyes toward the unknown end. Satisfied that nothing was following, she turned to Link and held out a hand. Inside was something he recognized almost immediately.

"An identity tag…" he muttered as he took the small piece of metal in between his thumb and forefinger. Different from the ones he had seen before, this one had a very thin chain (so thin that he thought it was a string at first) looped through a small, circular cut in the metal. "Irleen?"

Irleen circled his hand before stopping right between him and tag. "'Airman Kaheel, Horizon's Eye'," she read. "This… this is probably the Sorian missing his wing."

"I don't get it," Link told her. "Why would they need to bring a Sorian with them? Wouldn't that just be a lot more trouble?"

"Maybe, but this one was special," Irleen replied, moving aside. "You see that triangle shape?" Link nodded, now taking note that the shape embossed underneath the Sorian writing was a feature he had not seen before. "That's how we identify magic users. They weren't taking a risk with him, Link.

"They were using him. I think… I think they're trying to use the technoworks for themselves."