Chapter 8: With Those Who Know Secret Things

The problem with reading all day was just how difficult it was. Day after day, Zelda would lay on her bed then when her back grew stiff she moved to her chair and desk, and back to her bed. Each time straining to find a comfortable position, first flat on her back. Then laying over the books, then twisting over on her side. And each new comfortable position would quickly reveal some small issue that would require her to move again. Unfortunately, this wasn't the largest issue that got in the way of her studies, that had the misfortune of being her tutors.

"This is not even close what we're supposed to be covering today," Sister Fellitia had conjoled.

"Why are you wasting your time on these old legends? How will this help you manage a household, much less a kingdom?" Sir Espard asked.

"While I admire your dedication to history and the goddesses, perhaps we should focus your efforts on the more practical?" Professor Norworth mused.

After she had enough of their disruption, Zelda challenged each of them to stump her with questions she was supposed to learn in their lessons each day. She had beaten them all in less than an hour. As her reward they left her alone and she could continue with the research that was actually important.

The last and greatest of the gifts Nayru, Farore, and Din gave to us they gave no name. For it formed when the Three Goddesses departed this world to spread life and blessings throughout the stars. Three triangles as gold as the goddesses themselves and touched by their power. Scholars have taken to calling it the Triforce.

"Yes, I know," Zelda muttered at the book. Every book on the goddesses and old magic mentioned the Triforce. She had heard about it during sermons from bishops and had eaten cakes shaped like them during the sky festival every year.

But none of the books said anything about finding them. Just that the holder needed to possess a courageous spirit, a wise mind, and the power to control it in equal measure. And what was that even supposed to mean? How can someone even compare how much courage they have to their wisdom? And power wasn't gold coins to be counted and balanced against the others.

It all just seemed like nonsense, the Goddesses must have some part in it. That was the only explanation that made sense.

She skimmed the next few paragraphs and found nothing she had not learned from any of the other books she'd read on the subject. If someone without a balanced soul the parts of the Triforce will shatter apart and find three others to wield their power instead.

And so the sages locked the Triforce away until it was next needed.

"Where?" Zelda yelled at the book. "Is it so hard to write down a straight answer?" She put her hand on the page to keep her place and then shut the book, searching for the author. "Siroc! Well? Is it?"

But the book managed to keep its arrogant silence even against her fiercest glares. Finally, admitting to herself the book would probably not change its text to satisfy her, she reopened it to her page and continued.

The next page was something new: an illustration of a door, thick and chiseled from stone. A sphere stood three-quarters of the way up the door, with wings and beams of sunlight radiating from it.

Above the sphere three colored stones where given a great deal of detail by the illustrator. One green, one blue, and one red. Each with gold inlay, the green stone had gold spun around like a branch of a tree, the blue with gold binding it together, and the red had it surrounding it's back and base like a throne. Beneath the sphere an inscription in Old Hylian. Zelda squinted at the image.

She had learned the rudiments of Old Hylian years ago, but it wasn't something she used with any frequency. She had to work her way through each of the words, to get their meaning.

You stand here at the precipice of Time and the Sacred Realm

She looked back at the last page, then the ahead to the next. "What is it?" she again asked the book. And just as before the stubborn pages refused to answer. It just skipped from the illustration to something completely different, a fanciful tale about a kingdom in the sky and a demon.

"Euuugh!" Zelda slammed the book shut. "May Hylia curse you, Siroc!"

The door, she read something about a door. She got up and went to the pile of books she'd worked through the day before, which she had placed near her door for Impa to return them when she visited. Was it in Vespard or Sir Gaepora? She could check both. She picked up Gaepora and flipped to the middle.

The Door of Time became the foundation of the temple. Our oldest temple built on land, it stood guard for many wonders. Long hours have I sat staring at it's design, or enjoyed the company of the sages that cared for the temple. Though in truth I found the priesthood there a little tentative to show all their secrets.

Yes, but where was it? The only other thing on the page was some monk's scribbling of a little music along the lower edges of the page. Minister Potho just called it the Temple of Time, but there was no Temple of Time. Who worships time?

"It's not healthy," came a deep voice from behind Zelda's door. "A girl her age should be out playing. Enjoying the sun. Giving me ulcers when she asks questions about boys."

"If you remember, sire," Impa's even tone responded. "It was you who had her locked in her room in the first place."

"But I didn't think she'd enjoy it." Her father sighed. "How is she? I had Sister Fellitia near pound my door down at how Zelda dismissed her. I couldn't tell if she was more angry or proud of how talented her student was. And the Professor tried to claim Zelda's quick study was all his doing and tried to get extra coin for his good work."

"She is well, but perhaps it would be best if you went in and talked to her. Instead of waiting to ambush me at her door."

"Hmm," was all her father said for a long moment. Zelda found herself holding her breath. She hadn't seen her father except for meals for days, and even then they had acted cold toward each other. "No." He finally said. "If I ordered her out of her room and go do something she'd just hate me more. I can't- just follow your best judgment Impa."

"As always, my king."

Zelda walked to the door and opened it. "I can hear you."

Her father looked down at her, his jaw set. "Princess Zelda."

"Your grace." She matched his glare as fierce as ever. She could play this game, and win.

But they did not match glares for long. All too quickly he nodded to her and turned back down the hall toward his own chambers.

Impa looked down at Zelda then turned watch the king walk away and sighed. "May the Three save me from stubborn royalty." She walked into Zelda's room, carrying four more books. "Every day, you remind me more of your father."

"What? No I don't, everyone else says I favor my mother."

"Then everyone else is a fool. You have her hair and perhaps her wit. But your heart? I knew Queen Zelda for three days and I could tell you she was a conciliator to her bones. You and your father would rather be right and miserable, than accept that sometimes you made a mistake and apologize."

"But I am right," Zelda said.

Impa gave Zelda a withering look. One that could tame a wild mare or make a moblin back down in fright. Zelda hated to admit it, but it almost did the same for her. "Where do you want these?"

"Over by my bed, please. Did they find it?"

"No," Impa said as she set the books down. "Sir Mesihoff, his squire, and all his attendants helped me look through the entire library including the back rooms that no one uses. The Prophecies and Songs of Nayru are not there. Only Mesihoff had even heard of the book."

"It has to be there!" Zelda groaned. "It's been referenced by the other texts half a dozen times, placed in the most protected library in the world. Where else could it be?"

"I don't know, princess. Perhaps the words of a goddess come and go with the divine's wishes."

"That's…" she hadn't thought of that. Could they do that? Zelda couldn't think why not. The Three Goddesses created everything that eye can see day or night. They certainly could move a book around if they wished. "Regardless, I have to keep looking for it. It's important, I think it's the key to everything."

"As you say, I left instructions for Sir Benihoff to keep searching for it. Though I don't think it will do any good. We were quite thorough." Impa stood over Zelda as the princess grabbed the first book from the pile. A ponderously large tome with a gilded script that read The Musings and Wisdoms of the Most Illustrious Vaati the Wind Sorcerer, by The Most Illustrious Vaati. Who calls themselves the 'Most Illustrious'?

She flipped through some of the pages and frowned. "I read this one already. No. He just copied Potho word for word here! Ugh, scholars."

"So do you have an answer for your father?"

"Answer for what?"

"Finally something she doesn't know! I must go tell your tutors at once."

"Impa."

"Fine, I thought you heard our entire conversation. A Gerudo messenger arrived this morning, tomorrow they will return from their hunting trip. Your father wishes to know if you will make a formal apology to Ganondorf. Then they will hash out the details of their aqueduct project. He wants you to be there, beside him."

"Did he say that he wanted me to be there?"

Impa sighed, "No. He did not actually speak the words out loud. But I believe you heard enough of our conversation to know that it is true."

"Hmm," Zelda said as she looked back down at her new book. If she said yes, she'd look the mature adult. She could perhaps get close to Ganondorf. And if she said no, she'd look like the worst sort of child. Exactly as stubborn as Impa thought she was. But there was no way the Gerudo would let her get close to him. Besides, she already suspected she had his plan figured out. Use prophecies and legends to find a powerful artifact and use that to overthrow her father. It was simple really. Exactly the kind of plan a barbarian brute would think is clever. While before her was more information she could read through faster if she did not have to deal with her father or the affairs of state for a few days. "I will not apologize to that thug." She said not taking her eyes from the book. "Tell my father that."

"Fine, Princess. Have it your way." She moved toward the stack of books to return to the library."

On the page 'the most illustrious' Vaati seemed to skip from copying Potho and went straight to copying Gaepora. She only continued reading it in the hope perhaps he copied some scholar Zelda had not yet read, maybe one lost to time.

The Door of Time became the foundation of the temple. Our oldest temple built on land, it stood guard for many wonders.

Our oldest temple. That was a thought. Oldest temple.

"Impa," she looked to her governess already half out her door. "When you return, could you also bring back the maps of Hyrule? And Castle Town? All of them, but especially the oldest."

"Princess, after this I am going to tell your father your decision like a common courier. If you want more books today, do as your father says: get off your rear and get them yourself." And with that Impa shut the door.


It had taken her a day and a half to go through all the maps and descriptions of Castle Town she could find in the oldest sections of the Library. After that she just had to wait. Supper was called, some servants brought her a meal, Impa kissed her on the forehead and went to go eat with everyone else.

They weren't locking her in her room anymore, apparently they trusted that she wouldn't be an issue since she was staying inside on her own accord. More fool them. She devoured the meal as quick as she could and headed out into the halls with a great grey cloak over her. From there it was an easy enough path to get out of the castle.

There was a window she could get through when she needed, it led straight out onto the road that passed by the east entrance to the castle. Fortunately, Weston and Borra were the guards stationed there, and they were always the easiest to distract. It took one gold coin to a kitchen hand to deliver the two food. Zelda made certain the deliverer was a servant named Selli. Borra fancied her, if anyone would get him talking it was her. Then she just needed to leave through a window and wait until her distraction arrived and she could walk down the road right passed the guards with no one the wiser.

From there she walked down to Castle Town. The largest city in Hyrule and yet it kept the name Town from its earliest days. And that was not all it kept. It was said that Castle Town kept the history of Hyrule in its bricks and stones, and after Zelda poured over the maps for the last day she believe them.

There were so many buildings that she had passed her entire life and never really stopped to consider the history of them. The bank that was she now knew was once built over a slave pen. A disgusting practice she was glad her kingdom was well rid of. A marketplace that moved about a mile from where it originated due to how the city shaped itself over time. The most expensive and elegant inn that overlooked the whole eastern part of the city, that used to be a barracks back when Castle Town actually was a town and the old kings and queens of Hyrule relied on their soldiers to maintain order far more directly than they had to now.

But in all those changes, and all those buildings that developed over the centuries there was one that didn't change at all.

The temple was not particularly large, as temples go. The Temple of Hylia that she and her father patroned was by far the grandest in the city. It's facade dripping with color and decorations, with towers and spires that brought awe to all who beheld it.

This temple of the Three Golden Goddesses had the large doors, and solid stonework and even a steeple of a normal temple. But it was smaller, older, less elaborate in its design.

Zelda walked up to the doors and knocked. After waiting some time, she knocked again. She did not bother to knock a third time. She was, after all, still a princess. And a single unlocked door would not get in the way of what she wanted.

"Hello?" she called as she pushed the massive wooden door open. Once it got moving, she managed to push it with ease, but that initial part of getting the thing to budge required all her strength. She was actually sweating when she finally got the thing open. Maybe her father had some small point that she needed to get out more.

"Is someone here?" There clearly was. The prayer candles were lit beneath the statues of the three goddesses. Of them, Farore had a decent amount, there were always people who were about to perform some task they were worried about and needed to bolster their courage. Din had the most, as usual, it seemed everyone wished to become more powerful. But of the three, Zelda favored Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom and her statue only had one candle beneath it.

That just wouldn't do. Zelda picked up one of the unlit candles from the wooden tray that stood between the statues. She lit the wick with the other candle then placed hers beside the first. She stepped back and knelt before the statue.

"Great Goddess Nayru, who's wisdom surrounds the world like the mighty oceans. I kneel before you, begging your guidance. An evil man wishes to subvert your will. I think I have him figured out, but I need to find your words. The Prophecy and Songs of Nayru that you left before you departed. Please let it be here, let this be the Temple of Time, and the most protected library in the world."

She bowed her head to finish the prayer before she stood back up. Alright, now time to see if my suspicion is correct. She went to the back of the chancel, past the statues to where the priests usually gave their sermons. In a corner there was a door, closed but not locked.

"Hello?" she tried again as she went inside. There was a hall with four doors, two on each side and ended in a great stone wall. "Hello?" She walked to the first of the doors and opened it. The room was pitch black, but it seemed to be a rather large passage, where the light from the hall entered she saw the edge of a table with a bowl placed atop it. This must be where the priests ate or prepared food for themselves.

The next door on that side of the hall proved not to be very big at all. A closet with a broom, bucket, and some bowls with grimy looking cleaning cloth atop them. She was about to go back up the passage to open the doors on the other side when she stopped. The temple wasn't particularly big, she knew. But it was bigger than this.

She moved to the wall at the back of the room. She pushed against the stones. It felt solid enough. But as she looked over the stones it didn't seem right. There. As close to the edge of the wall as they could get it, for a natural disguise. A simple straight line where the edges of the stones aligned. If this was a real wall that would be a pointless weakness, but if it was a door...

She pressed on each of the stones trying to see if one was loose or could be pushed in. None of them felt any different, even the ones she had to jump to reach didn't show any signs of being a hidden trigger.

It had to be something else. A password, maybe? "May the Three grant me entrance?" She asked the door. It didn't move. "I seek the Door of Time."

This was pointless, she couldn't just guess at what combination of words would open a door. She'd be here until the Goddesses returned. It had to be something. She thought back on all the books and scrolls she read that made mention of the Temple or the Door. "You stand here at the precipice of Time and the Sacred Realm?"

Still nothing. "Ugh," She paced in front of the door. "Just open up, door!" What else was there? Just descriptions of the power that lay within it. There had to be something more, something she was missing. Her mind wandered to the scribbled little tune written at the bottom of the page. "No," she muttered. "That can't be it." But the idea had lodged itself in the back of her mind. Why not? She had tried everything else.

"Ahhh-" she sang a note, it sounded terrible. "No that's not it. Ah-hah-ha. No." She took a breath, and tried once more. Visualizing everything about the page and the song. Her voice was shaky and uneven, but she hit the notes.

Nothing. Thank the Goddesses no one had been here to witness that.

Around her a note sounded, the same one she had tried to sing. But it was clear and beautiful. Other notes matched it, three female voices singing in perfect harmony. A simple tune that seemed reach through Zelda and lodge itself in her soul. Then they stopped singing and three instruments one a drum, another had a stringed twang of a harp, and the last the winds of a flute or pipe.

The music came from nowhere, and everywhere. It filled her ears and made her think of the long march of eons. Of the sorrows of death as time ground down, but of birth and growth as well. Of the continued circle of the world.

Then one of the voices returned to her, not quite singing but warm and well-spoken. Like a scholar or grammarian getting each syllable perfectly timed and keyed. "Enter, my precious gift."

The stone door creaked open and revealed a stairway down and a light well below her. Her eyes went wide and a small giggle escaped her lips before she could stop it. She got it right! She figured it all out!

Of course, she got it right. As if she could get this wrong. She almost skipped down the stairs before she remembered her station. A princess should not skip, not when she was about to make the greatest discovery of her life.

The stairway spiraled down, well below a floor or even two. But eventually she came to its end into another passage. This basement was old, the floor had a grove in it down the middle where millions of steps over thousands of years ground away the stones. Several braziers stood along the ground but the light in them wasn't fire. Unnatural light of green and red and blue lit up the room.

And all of them led toward a door. A massive stone door that looked exactly like the illustration from Siroc. Only except for three colored stones along the top there was instead three empty circular slots.

As she drew closer to the door the three voices returned. Quiet this time, but just as beautiful. And with each step toward the door of time, they grew louder. Until all that she could see was the door and all she could hear was the singing. And what came from it. It was like nothing she ever felt before.

Of all things it reminded her of the dark energy that surrounded Ganondorf. But where his made Zelda feel an uneasy foreboding, this was delight. This was when Impa hugged her tonight, or when her father used to watch her play when she was a child. This was if everything she ever wished to learn was right at her fingertips. All she had to do was open the door.

Her hand reached out for it. She closed her eyes, and let the singing surround her.

Something grabbed her hand and yanked her. She opened her eyes to see a balding sweaty man with a hug mustache that hung around the side of his face until it met his sideburns. "Are you deaf, child?" The chubby man said. "How did you get down here?"

Zelda pulled her hand free of him. "Do not touch me."

"Then don't enter places you don't belong. How did you get down here?"

"I-" The singing was gone. She looked back at the door and there was nothing. Not the feeling of warmth, not the music. Just a regular -if admittedly rather large and ornate– door. "I came to find a book. One that I am certain is under your protection."

"A book," the old man said. "My child, go back upstairs. Forget you saw this place and go home. Return in the morning and I will help you look for a book."

"No. I need to find the Prophecy and Songs of Nayru, Now!"

The man stopped, and frowned. "First point, the Songs aren't a book. They're a set of scrolls. And second, we do not house the scrolls."

"What?" Zelda said. "No. They have to be here. I consulted every book in the library. The most protected place in the world. This has to be it! I read every map of castle town through the centuries. I've looked up the records of fires and floods and every other sort of disaster. Even what was destroyed when Castle Town was raised a hundred years ago. This temple always stands here. This must be it. It has the Door!" She waved wildly at it.

The old man sighed. "You certainly are knowledgeable. The truth of the matter is we had the scrolls, until the Interloper War. One of our order joined the rebels and stole the scrolls away. My forefathers hunted him down, of course. But when they found him, he no longer held them." He shrugged. "Wherever they went, they did the Interlopers no good. So we believe they never reached them."

"No!" Zelda shouted. "Eugh!" It had all been for nothing. All her research, everything she had worked for that brought her here and she still had nothing to show for it. What good was a door that could not be opened?

"What is wrong, my child?"

"I'm not the only one after them! The Gerudo King, he knows everything I know. And he's circling around. If he hasn't figured out the Door is here, already he will soon enough."

"The Gerudo King already visited us, not too long ago. Days before he went on his hunt. He found nothing, and if he had reached down here as you, he would be just as disappointed. The Scrolls of Nayru are not here. There was a rumor that they had been uncovered by Queen Zelda before she… I am sorry, princess. That was tasteless of me."

Zelda frowned. "How do you know I'm Princess Zelda?"

The man gave her a quizzical look then burst into a laugh that caused his gut to shake "My dear, who else could you possibly be? What other eleven year old girl would dare barge into a temple, uncover secrets centuries in the keeping, and then make demands as if she was in charge? That cloak can hide your hair, but not you."

Zelda felt her neck grow hot. That was it. Being discovered by a barbarian king infamous for his own deceit and cunning was one thing. But when some old man who she had never met before could discover her just as easily, she clearly needed to get Impa to teach her how to actually hide herself. "Regardless, finish your thought. I have had many years to deal with the grief of my mother's loss."

"It was nothing, there was a rumor that she and her personal guard found Nayru's scrolls just before she defeated the Gerudo King. But after the battle her body and all her belongings were brought to the capital and it was not among them. It was only a rumor, there have been hundreds over the years. Of great men and women who find some lost artifact of the goddesses only to lose it again before anyone can verify them. They are to be investigated, and once the investigation is over, they are to be ignored."

Zelda's mouth fell open with realization. "He must have them." It was the only thing that made sense. That was why that brute could stay one step ahead of everyone. That must have been what her mother was defending at Kakariko. That must have been what Ganondorf had wanted so badly that he nearly doomed his army. The only reckless action he took in the entire war. He got them and he retreated. He didn't care if he lost a battle. The monster wouldn't care about any of it. He just wanted the scrolls and he got them. Zelda paced in front of the door and the priest. "Ganondorf has them! The Scrolls of Nayru, he has them! He has them!"

The priest stepped back. "Princess? What are you-"

"Shush, I'm thinking." If he had them already, why didn't he already implement his plan? It must not have everything in them then. Just enough for him to get his plan started. He needed to find the Door first. And of course he did, right under the nose of the priest. He found this temple and the Door then he went on his hunting trip.

Why?

What did the hunting trip do? It got him away from Hyrule, and it was an excuse to have none of the Hylian Knights and attendants with him. Just his loyal servants, who would follow him even into damnation. And what did he return with? The stones to open the Door of Time? That's the obvious answer. But if he did get them, why didn't he just march straight here and open the Door?

"You, priest."

"Ruaru, if it pleases, your highness."

"Ruaru then. What protection does this Door have on it. Right now."

"In truth, no one else had ever gotten this far your highness. I know that there are powerful magics in place to keep the Door safe. There is a reason why this Temple has survived so long untouched as you discovered yourself. But beyond that it is difficult to say. To most the wall upstairs will not open, even if they did know the order of levers."

"Order of levers? You mean the song."

"I beg your pardon, your highness, but I do not. To open the door requires one move several items in the nearby rooms in a specific order. If you don't, then even if the wall was smashed down there would not be a stairwell. Only a small gap between the stones of the room and the outer wall." He rubbed his chin. "What do you mean, song?"

"I didn't fiddle with any levers. I didn't even go in any of the rooms. I just sang a song. And then I heard three voices continue the song and, well, the door opened for me."

"Three voices," Ruaru sounded as though he was going to choke. "Can you describe them?"

"Um, not well. They sounded female, and it was beautiful. I had never heard such music before. The way their voices blended together then drifted apart again. I can't believe you didn't hear it, they were so loud."

Zelda did not like the way the old priest looked at her. He trembled, his shoulders visibly shaking. "What else?" his voice was a whisper.

"One of them said, something like, 'Enter my precious gift.' I thought this was it. This was the gift. As if they were giving me entrance, or something." In truth she hadn't thought too much about it. She had been more focused on her discovery.

"No, your highness," Ruaru said. He reached out to her, his hand shaking even more than his shoulders. But he stopped just short of touching her. "You are the gift." His hand dropped to his side. He turned away from her, and he wrapped his arms around him.

"What does that mean? I'm not a precious gift, I'm not a gift at all." Her own father refused to speak with her. She'd angered her only real friend with how stubborn she had been. Spoiled brat was a description she had heard more than one servant whisper when they thought she couldn't hear. "Ruaru, I am speaking to you!"

The man released himself from his self embrace, and stood up tall. He turned back around and wiped at his eyes with a finger. "I never thought it would be my lifetime. I had hoped, but, the foolish hope of a child who wished to live in interesting times. O Goddesses, I don't know if I'm worthy."

"Worthy for what?"

He took her hands and stared directly into her eyes. It was uncomfortable, but she did not feel endangered by the man's familiarity. "Princess Zelda, you are one of the Chosen. Follow me." He released her and bound away.

"The Chosen? What am I chosen for?"

But the old priest had already walked to the stairs. But instead of going up them he moved around into a back room that she had not even noticed when she entered. "Hurry Princess. There is so much I need to show you."

"You can start by just telling me what's going on." She raced after him.

He moved quick for a chubby old man, he seemed to bounce with every step with a nervous excitement. In the back room was another small hall, this time with only one additional door. Ruaru stopped at it, pulled out a key he had hanging from a string around his neck and with a click of the lock, opened the door.

What lay inside took Zelda's breath away. That transcendent sense of magic fell over her again, not quite like the door or Ganondorf, each weaker. Far weaker. But they all came together with different feelings and senses. A spiky mask that crackled with madness. A golden harp that seemed to sing in her head with it's own wondrous voice. A silver bow and arrows that seemed to shine with the light of sun. And scrolls and books, her eyes searched each of them. They had titles she had never heard before, and each was placed on an individual desk, all cleaned spotless. Untouched by ravages of time. Magic all of it pure magic. All calling to her.

"What is all this?"

"Did you think one set of scrolls and a door were the only things worth protecting here?" Ruaru said. "Chosen of the Goddesses, I believe it is past time we begin your education."