Chapter 6: Old Friends and New Faces
Link stared up at the front gates of Hyrule Castle, his mouth dry.
It was six weeks ago that I stood here last. Yet it feels like only a couple of days ago.
He remembered Zelda transfixed by the gates as he was now, lost in the past. He could almost hear an echo of his voice, his feeble attempt at reassurance. "He's not here."
But the Calamity was here – or, at the very least, something similarly evil.
"We defeated him."
They hadn't defeated the corpse.
"You're safe – Hyrule is safe."
Certainly, he felt confident that Zelda was physically unharmed. But the determination in her voice when she spoke to him and the echo that had healed some of his corruption sent conflicting messages through his soul. He felt just as confident that, mentally or emotionally or spiritually, she was not safe. Something was wrong.
And as for Hyrule itself, he had seen the Gloom erupting from Death Mountain. The kingdom was undoubtedly no longer at peace.
He swallowed thickly, heaved the iron-wrought gates apart enough for him to slip through. They closed with a resonating clang behind him.
"Hey!" an angry voice exclaimed, and Link saw one of the newer monster control recruits jogging down the path towards him. "This area is off-limits while we conduct our search for Princess Zelda and – oh!" His face turned red. "Link, it's you! Sorry about that; I didn't know you'd returned!"
"I only just got here," Link assured him. "Purah put me straight to work."
The soldier grimaced. "Well, good to see you," he said firmly. "Does… does this mean we don't need the search party anymore?"
"Not quite," Link answered. "I'm here to join them. Princess Zelda is still missing." He managed to keep his face calm, despite the ache in his heart as he uttered the words.
"You'll want Colonel Hoz, then," the soldier said. "He's up at the first gatehouse, overseeing the efforts."
"Good – thanks," Link nodded, continuing past the man up the wide road winding up around the base of Hyrule Castle. What once had been the castle, at the very least.
The rain had stopped for now, but the clouds remained, thick and heavy, obscuring the highest reaches of the castle's spires and casting dark shadow over the grounds. Link wondered if it was perhaps a result of the clouds that he didn't notice the black mist at first – tendrils of wispy darkness tinged bloodred, drifting up from the ground and dissolving as they ascended. He shivered when he noticed them, remembering something similar below Hyrule Castle. The not-quite Gloom. He rubbed his right arm absently between the coppery bands encircling it.
The mist looks like blood in the water – it moves in that same eerie, flowering way.
He half-jogged up the lonely, weathered stone road. Memories that felt more like dreams told him of parades that once marched up and down this road, colorfully-dressed civilians crowding the sides, cheering loudly. In some glimpses of the distant past, he was one of the children watching the knights; in others, he was one of the knights. He could imagine the roar of the crowd, the clatter of hoofbeats and the tramp of soldiers' feet.
No longer.
His were the only feet on the stone. There was silence but for a light, lonely breath of wind. Banners hung in filthy tatters, their red, gold, and blue only barely discernible beneath a century's worth of grime and neglect. Hyrule Castle was a broken-down, haunting shadow of what the kingdom had once been. Now with its position lurking even higher above its subjects, it was that much harder to forget the evil that once had been chained there. Evil that remains… somewhere.
Link rounded a bend in the road and froze in his tracks, ice gripping his spine. He didn't know what he had expected to see in the region beneath the castle – perhaps uneven ground with a few holes in it revealing the tunnels he, Zelda, and the treasure hunters had wound up in. Maybe a divot in the earth, or simply a lake.
He did not expect the massive, gaping hole in the earth, ragged at the edges, as wide around as the castle itself had been, spewing bloodred tendrils of mist like bile from a giant's maw. He didn't expect that the hole seemed to reach down forever, disappearing into darkness and showing few signs of narrowing. He certainly didn't expect that, unlike the sky islands, Hyrule Castle wasn't actually floating – it was supported by a single massive stone pillar rising up from the depths.
"Goddesses save us," he muttered, staring at it in numb horror.
A startled yelp nearby had Link jumping nearly out of his skin, and his heart lurched as he noticed a man with arms pinwheeling on the edge of the cliff. Link sprinted to his aid, grabbing his arm and pulling him safely back from the edge.
"What were you doing on the edge of a cliff?" Link exclaimed.
"What were you doing, sneaking up on a man on the edge of a cliff?" the other man shot back indignantly. "These chasms are nearly bottomless! And, personally, I do not want to hit the bottom of a nearly bottomless chasm!"
Link held his hands up placatingly. "I wasn't sneaking," he defended himself, raising an eyebrow. "I walked up here like a normal person. You need to be more aware of your surroundings."
"I…" the man floundered for a bit, a hand in his hair. "Y-yeah, I guess…"
"And you should probably watch from further away," Link went on, gesturing to the meager few feet between them and the descent into the abyss.
"Yeah, I guess," the man nodded reluctantly. "It's just… even though it scares me, I can't stop staring into it. It's… it's morbidly fascinating." He winced. "I don't know how we're going to find anything down there. The Gloom is so thick… for the Princess' own sake, I hope she's not down there."
Link grimaced. "Yeah," he murmured. "I hope not." He clapped the man's shoulder and continued along the path, up towards the first gatehouse. He must be very new – he's the first one so far that I haven't recognized.
The gatehouse held several tents and crates of supplies. There was a makeshift wooden rack of weapons – weapons that, Link noticed, had blackened and mottled blades. He scowled at them, anger stirring within him. I was right, then. The same thing happened to them as happened to the Master Sword. He glanced at his arm. Without quite as much vehemence, it would seem. The end result is the same – our weapons were destroyed.
He unsheathed his new sword, made from a blue lizalfos' horn, and studied the transition between the wood and steel of the handle to the sharp, shiny surface of bone, or whatever lizalfos horn was. He could see where horn merged with the other materials, could see hints of wood grain and steel weaving through the base of the horn, along with paler streaks of the horn's color winding around the hilt's guard.
My ability to Fuse has to be more effective than whatever other method they're using, he thought. But… they're managing well enough already. I could help them make slightly better weapons – but my priority needs to be Zelda.
He nodded to himself and looked around the gatehouse, searching for Colonel Hoz or anyone else from the monster control unit. The gatehouse interior was empty save for the tents and supplies, but he could hear a murmur of voices from above and noticed a ladder propped up against one wall. He scaled it quickly and glanced around the second level, finding two men gazing out across the castle grounds and the chasm at its center.
"Sorry, I'm in the middle of something," one of the men said absently, waving a dismissive hand in his direction as he stepped nearer.
"Colonel Hoz," Link called, recognizing the red gambeson and matching feather plume of the man's helmet.
Hoz went suddenly stiff and turned around slowly, his eyes wide as if in disbelief. "By all the Goddesses," he whispered, staring at Link. A wide grin spread across his features. "It is you! You're alive! And all in one piece, it looks like – more or less." He glanced briefly at Link's arm and shook his head in wonderment. "I feared for a moment it was your ghost coming up behind me. After the Upheaval, I… we… we didn't know what to think. Maybe we were looking in the wrong place this whole time – does this mean Princess Zelda is safe too?"
"I… no, unfortunately," Link said, his heart heavy as he explained it all again. How many more times will I have to go through it all?
Hoz was frowning, rubbing his chin thoughtfully by the end of Link's story. His companion didn't react outwardly, maintaining a watchful gaze over the castle and its grounds.
"I… I see," Hoz murmured, his brow deeply furrowed. "Er… maybe I don't. I'm a bit confused."
Link sighed. "I know it's weird," he nodded sympathetically. "I'm confused, too. I thought… maybe if I returned to where it all started, I could start finding some answers."
Hoz hummed in agreement. "Well, we've been searching what we've been able to reach of the castle for over a month now," he said. "We haven't found anything. No trace of you or Zelda. We sent a couple teams down into the chasm looking for the tunnels you went to investigate, and we found some old ruins that looked like they were once part of the castle. It was about then that we realized the Gloom was spreading through those ruins, and we had to withdraw. We've since focused our efforts on the region directly surrounding the chasm, and the ruins of the castle we still have access to."
"Any… ancient corpses?" Link asked, his throat tight as he spoke. "Mummified corpses, specifically?"
Hoz gave him a curious look. "No, nothing like that," he murmured. "You're talking about the corpse that did that to your arm? We haven't seen it. But now that I know it's out there, I'll post a special perimeter around the castle keeping an eye out for it. Sounds like bad news – nothing any of us would want wreaking havoc out in the world."
I think it's too late for that, Link thought grimly, thinking of Death Mountain.
"Colonel!" the scout at Hoz's side shouted at once, pointing. "Colonel, it's Princess Zelda!"
Link's heart skipped a beat, and his gaze snapped in the direction the scout was indicating. Squinting, he could just barely see her in the distance, in the same strange apparel she had worn in the Temple of Time. She was standing on the ramparts across the chasm from them; it was difficult to make out from the distance, but it seemed as if she was looking directly at them. His heart pounded violently.
"Princess Zelda," Hoz gasped in relief. "She's safe!"
Link cupped his hands around his mouth. "Zelda!" he shouted. "Stay where you are – we'll come get you!"
Even as he spoke she turned her gaze skyward, and to his astonishment began rising up into the sky before a flash of light consumed her; she vanished into a small orb that drifted steadily upwards before disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. Link watched in shock, feeling a surprising sting in his chest, surprising hurt.
"What…?" Hoz muttered, incredulous. "You… you saw that too, Link?"
Link nodded. "I've seen her do that before," he murmured. "It's a transportation spell. She used it to get me from within Hyrule Castle to Hyrule Field, when we fought the Calamity."
She… she just left. Why would she do that? We've been trying to find her – she told me to find her! And now she's gone again, and there's no way to know where she went…
"How strange," Hoz muttered. "Why would she leave without saying a word to us? This… this is an emergency. Purah needs to know. I'll have my troops withdraw, get that perimeter set up to watch out for the corpse you mentioned. But that'll take a while; we're all over the place right now."
"I'll go ahead and report to Purah," Link said grimly, fighting a rising tide of bitterness. "Zelda's… not here anymore." Again.
The walk back to Lookout Landing felt all the more lonesome and dreary for having seen Zelda, only for her to once more disappear. Link heard the distant shouts and crisp commands issued by the officers of the monster control unit comprising the search party as they organized their retreat slowly fading away, obscured by the light trickle and patter of raindrops as the heavens opened up once again.
He didn't pay much attention to where he was going, replaying in his mind the moment where Zelda looked to the sky and ascended. She had been too far away for him to make out her expression – was she angry? Disappointed? Or was she smiling gently, patiently, waiting for him to put the pieces together and find her again?
Why the indirection? he asked her longingly in his mind. Why couldn't you just… tell me what's going on, what you want me to do? Whatever it is, I'll do it – you know that. His heart felt cold and empty. I'd do anything for you, Zelda. Please, just – just talk to me.
He swallowed, absently kicking a stone rendered shiny by the rain down the road. His sandaled feet splashed into a puddle. He ignored the cold, as he had grown accustomed to over the past day.
Is… is there a reason you won't talk to me? he wondered painfully. Something you're… upset with me about? His heart twinged painfully as he thought at once of their encounter with the corpse. The nightmarish sight of her falling beyond his grasp even as he reached for her with his ruined arm. I… I didn't catch you. But – but I couldn't have! The room was collapsing around us; I was falling too! I… it wasn't my fault!
…Right?
Purah was waiting on the ramparts of Lookout Landing when he returned, evidently not at all concerned that the rain was making her hair buns soggy and drooping. "So clearly something happened," she called as he neared. "I was watching from my telescope."
"Did you see her, then?" Link asked grimly, climbing up the staircase to join her.
"Who?" Purah's dark red eyes went wide. "Zelda? You actually saw her? I just saw a weird flash of light, and then all the soldiers went haywire!"
"They're withdrawing," Link said wryly. "It's more organized than it looks."
"Pfft! As if I'd know a thing about 'organized' when I saw it," Purah smirked. Her grin quickly faded. "So… what all happened, then? Please, tell me everything."
"Zelda was there," Link said with a heavy sigh. "Far apart from everyone else, but it was definitely her. She used a transportation spell, similar to something I saw her do when we fought the Calamity – it turned her into light, and then she disappeared."
"Your stories are always so wild," Purah said with a rueful chuckle. "But I believe you, of course – it matches the flash of light I saw. So Zelda was at the castle, and then she left… sounds like it's time for a change of approach." Her eyes narrowed, searching the skies as if for answers about her dearest friend. "She could be anywhere," she murmured. "And that's… not necessarily a good thing. Could be, of course, but… Hyrule's in a lot of peril at the moment. Not a safe place for anyone."
Link met her gaze. "I saw Death Mountain on my way here," he said somberly. "I'm… guessing that's not the only thing."
"No," Purah answered with a wince. "There's trouble everywhere you look, and of course it all started at the time of the Upheaval. On a clear day, you can see the storm system over Tabantha – there's a thick blizzard and a fierce cold snap over there. We haven't seen or heard from the Rito in… too long. A few expeditions tried to get supplies out to them. They haven't returned." She exhaled shakily, crossing her arms and leaning over the railing as thunder rumbled ominously overhead. Link felt a cold feeling in his chest. He had several friends among the Rito – Kass, a beloved traveling companion who had helped him out of many a sticky situation in his travels to free the Divine Beasts. And the children of the Rito… Notts had tried her best to teach him to sing, and he'd spent hours shooting bows with Teba and Tulin at the Flight Range.
"You say you saw Death Mountain," she continued. "You didn't see the worst of it, I'm sure. I mean, the crazy evil magic eruption is bad enough, but almost worse is the change in the Gorons. It's gotten dangerous for travelers to go near them. They've completely changed as a people – swindling, unfriendly, and downright hostile, from the reports I've heard."
"The Gorons, unfriendly?" Link couldn't help but ask in shock, his stomach clenching. It was an oxymoron – there was no friendlier or more welcoming people in the kingdom. Bludo could be a bit gruff, and certainly the Goron children loved their pranks, but… unfriendly and hostile? Dishonest? Never.
Purah nodded sadly. "No one can even get close enough to ask why without either being pushed out or swindled out of all of their money," she said. "And it keeps going, Link. Zora's Domain is being poisoned by this icky stuff they're calling sludge falling from the skies. They can't swim in it, and it's so thick and… and sludgy on the ground that it gets carts stuck. We've tried to get shipments of fresh water up to them and they just get bogged down on the mountain road. We'd need a Rito if we actually wanted to deliver – and the Rito are all snowed in. From what little word we've gotten from them, the Zora are holding on for now – something to do with Prince Sidon having some sort of powerful water magic that's just barely enough to keep them afloat. But it's still a disaster."
Good on Sidon, then… trust him to find a way forward, although this probably puts a damper on his plans with Yona. Link frowned, dread pooling in his gut like ice as he noticed a continuing trend. All of these disasters… they're isolating us. They're actively preventing us from coming to each others' aid. "There's… more?" he asked hesitantly.
"Yeah," Purah sighed, slouching low against the rails as she glared at Hyrule Castle. "Wicked thunderstorms in Faron. Carry anything metal in there and you'll get zapped. Which is a problem, because even though we're getting pretty good at making weapons that aren't metal, there's still things like belt buckles and buttons, and they'll get you zapped just as easily. It's prevented us from sending any aid to Lurelin after it got sacked by pirates. Fortunately most of the villagers escaped before the thunderstorms, but they're all scattered to the winds now, some of them living in tents because they have nowhere else. Mubs here, she's the one who set up our little market stall – she was there when the attack happened."
Link swallowed thickly. Pirates – never something we've had to worry about. What happened to Hyrule while I was… asleep?
"And, last but not least," Purah said. "The Gerudo are trapped in a sandstorm. They're calling it the 'sand shroud,' actually. Like a funeral shroud. Like the Rito, no one's been able to get to them with supplies or anything else – they've all gotten lost in the storm, or die to the extreme elements. A few Gerudo have made it out, but they were barely alive and wandered for days in the storm before making it out."
Link rubbed a hand wearily across his face. Mattison won't be able to get there in those conditions, he thought, remembering the giggling little girl catching frogs with Zelda, daring him to taste it. She's been so looking forward to it… It's not even safe for her now. It's not safe for… anyone.
He felt cold, realizing how brittle it all was. The Rito and Gerudo would survive only so long as their emergency stores of supplies lasted. The Zora, it seemed, would hold out as long as Sidon persevered. The Gorons… well, hopefully they would not grow more hostile. They alone had the sheer physical strength to destroy any of the other denizens of Hyrule – Rito, Zora, Gerudo, and Hylian alike.
And when the Rito and Gerudo run out of food and water… when Sidon's strength gives out… if the Gorons become actively aggressive towards the rest of Hyrule…
He closed his eyes, his throat tight, feeling acutely that they were all on the brink of mass destruction.
"So… yeah," Purah murmured, her voice small. "Welcome back to Hyrule, Link. Everything's gone to hell."
"I can see that," he responded, his voice hoarse from the weight of it all. "I – I'm sorry I… took so long to get back."
"It's not like that's your fault," Purah reminded him, glancing at his arm. "We've got you back now. That's the first bit of good news any of us have had in… a long time. Besides, it's not like there's anything you could do, anyway. We've tried – we've sent out scouts. We've gathered up supplies. We've worked around the clock trying to help, and nothing has worked. That's why we refocused our efforts here, at the castle. No pressure or anything, but we figured… if anyone could fix this, it would be you and Zelda."
Link grimaced.
"And now you're back, and we saw Zelda," Purah continued. "I'll get the monster control unit to send out another group of scouts. Maybe we can try again to unbury the Lucky Clover Gazette in Tabantha – I have a friend there, Traysi, who's got her nose in everyone's business. I think she might be helpful. The point is, if we can figure out where Zelda went, maybe that'll give you a direction – maybe she'll open a path for you, somehow."
"Maybe," Link nodded weakly. I hope so.
"In the meantime, I'm… sure you saw that big ol' pit where the castle used to be," Purah sighed. "Turns out, there's more of them – a bunch more. We're calling them Chasms. They lead down to the Depths below Hyrule, and there's honestly not much that we know about them. That's what Josha's researching right now, trying to figure out if there's some connection between them and the things going on up top."
"Ah," Link said. "So that's what she wants me for, then?"
"Something to do with it," Purah said with a fond chuckle. "Inasmuch as you and Zelda were going down when you disappeared, the Zonai Survey Team has put a lot of effort into seeing if there's a connection. Unfortunately, they're… rather difficult to traverse. Lots of Gloom, monsters, super dark and hard to see…" She stuck her tongue out, making a disgusted face.
Link raised an eyebrow at her. "So you want me to go down a giant pit in the ground," he clarified. "And do… what, exactly? How do I get down safely? How do I get back up?"
"Well, I've got that figured out – partly, at least," Purah said, snapping her fingers and gesturing to the massive tower next to her study. "See that? It's a launching platform of sorts. The intent is that we could use them to get up into the sky, possibly reach the sky islands, and survey the land below. There's… sixteen of them? Hudson Construction helped me set them up everywhere, in addition to building Lookout Landing."
Link shook his head slowly in amazement. "He really did a lot," he noted. "I'm… surprised."
"Are you?" Purah asked pointedly. "When I talked to the man to get it all set up, well… it was plain as day that the man cares about you like you were his own son or something. He wanted to do what he could to help the search for you and Zelda. And he's a crazy good and crazy fast construction worker guy, so… here you have it. Lookout Landing and the Skyview Towers."
Link nodded slowly, his heart feeling warmed by Purah's words. He gazed at Lookout Landing in a new light, touched. Hudson did this… for me? "He's… pretty good about helping me when I'm in a bind," he murmured. "Sorry, Purah – I didn't mean to distract you."
"Link, I don't need your help to get myself distracted," she grinned. "I do that all by myself. So I was talking about the Skyview Towers… oh! Yeah, so that's your way up. As for your way down, I've been holding onto a particular paraglider that no one here has the guts to try and use. And that's your way down. If you're willing to help me out with gathering data from the Skyview Towers, it's all yours."
It'll be good to have a paraglider again, he thought, remembering the painful impact into water from the Great Sky Island. A paraglider would be exactly the thing to make skydiving enjoyable instead of mostly terrifying. "I'm good for it, I think," he said. "What data do you need?"
She reached into his pouch and snatched the Purah Pad. "Don't worry about it – I'll handle it all on this," she said. "Sheesh, this thing's been through some life! Take better care of it!"
Link raised an eyebrow; it didn't look any different to him, but she spat on the smooth surface at the top and rubbed it furiously with her sleeve, cleaning it off. "At the end of the day, everything said and done," she said, studying it critically, "you'll end up with a lovely detailed map of Hyrule stored in this thing, and at the same time it'll send all that map data back to me, and I can then use it to help us figure out where to focus our efforts. Sound good?"
"Sounds good," Link nodded, taking the slate as she handed it back to him with a warning look. "That tells me how I'll get up to the sky, and down to pretty much anything else. But how am I going to get up out of the Depths?"
"We'll worry about that later; Josha's got a solution," Purah said with a dismissive wave of her hand, turning at last away from the railing and sliding the door to her study back open. At once she was once more digging through piles of books and papers and obscure Zonai-looking relics. "But I've waited for a month to try out the Skyview Towers, and now that I've finally got access to someone with a backbone, I'm not waiting another second! Don't worry Link, it'll be fun!"
"Who said I'm worried?" Link asked, watching patiently as she sorted through her trash. A thought occurred to him. Unless she thinks there's a reason I should be worried. Something she's not telling me. "…Is it going to explode?"
"No, there's no explosives involved – just a lot of compressed air," Purah huffed, pulling out a wooden frame with canvas draped across it. She grinned widely and held it out to him. "Ta-da! The paraglider! Remember how it works? Good! Let's go!" She grabbed his arm and all but dragged him towards the tower, much to the visible amusement of the soldiers on duty. Link heard their sniggers and sent them all good-natured withering glares as they enjoyed the sight of Purah picking on someone else for once.
Oblivious, Purah slid open the door to the bottom of the tower and set the Purah Pad against a small glowing orange pedestal within. After a moment she handed it to him. "This'll activate the launch procedure for each one you visit," she told him. "We have… twenty seconds. Okay, okay, quick! Get on the glowing circle!" She pushed him and the Purah Pad into the blue ring on the floor and then all but leapt out of the way herself.
Link stared at her in amusement and then yelped in shock as several segmented spidery legs ending in claws sprang up around the circumference of the ring. One snatched his left arm, another his right, unhindered by the copper brace; two more grabbed his legs, effectively pinning him in place.
"It's best if you don't struggle!" Purah called chipperly, safely outside the tower.
"Purah, what in Din's name –" He cut himself off as another of the legs clipped a spool of some sort of coated wire to his belt, and the sixth placed the Purah Pad, attached to the end of the wire, in his right hand.
"You have the paraglider, right?" Purah asked, and then there was a sudden sound like a shot through the air and at once the circular platform beneath Link's feet was rocketing skyward. His heart leapt to his throat and his stomach dropped to his toes and the breath was snatched from his lungs as a small circle of light above him grew bigger and bigger and bigger until it engulfed him entirely and there was nothing but sky and clouds around him, and still he felt himself soaring higher, thrill and adrenaline coursing through him, until the clouds were below and the evening sun shining warmly above and he was shooting through a fluffy ocean of gold. Quickly he stretched out his arms and legs, assuming the skydiving position he'd developed earlier, enveloped by the sky.
The Purah Pad emitted a soft sound in his hand and he blinked, remembering what he was doing up here. Of its own accord a small cone of blue light flashed from its outward-facing eye, and a stream of orange light trickled from its plugin down the wire he was still connected to. Blue light streamed back up, into the slate, before going dark again. The wires disconnected themselves from him and the Purah Pad, drifting back down to the ground and leaving him untethered, free in the sky.
Link exhaled softly, wind rushing all around him, and took a moment to simply appreciate the thrilling weightless sensation of being surrounded entirely by sky. He passed once more through the clouds, water soaking him from head to toe, and when it cleared he could see Lookout Landing far below.
No water to catch me this time if I mess this up, he thought, some of the elation fading away. He snapped the paraglider open from his waist and it caught the air, bouncing a little on an updraft and making his insides feel as if they'd jumped a foot.
He glided steadily, safely down to Lookout Landing, and managed to land mere yards from where Purah stood waiting proudly, her arms crossed over her chest. "Check it!" she sang, pumping a fist in the air. "That couldn't have gone any better! Perfect! And now we've got this lovely map of the region and the skies above it… not much in the sky above us, actually, which is a shame. Guess I'll just have to wait for you to get to the other towers." She beamed at him. "Thanks for your help, Link! And now you know how to get up into the sky, if you ever need to – and you have a way back down."
Link chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Thanks for the paraglider," he grinned, breathless from the flight. He folded the paraglider back up and hooked its buckles around his belt.
"Meh, I probably would've given it to you anyways," she shrugged. "But I really do appreciate your help with all this. And now you have a way into the sky, should you need one."
Link nodded, frowning as his thoughts turned to the Rito and Gerudo. Could I get to them from the sky?
"Anyway, it's getting late," Purah said, glancing at the sky. It had been overcast all day, but the shadows were beginning to deepen, revealing the oncoming night. "Josha will drag you out of the barracks at dawn, more likely than not. You should get some rest."
"Not a bad idea," Link said, exhaling heavily as he realized that only this morning, he had been on the Great Sky Island speaking with Rauru. He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling heavily as a deep ache settled between his temples. What a lot of day. "Good night, Purah."
"Sweet dreams," she called after him, already turning to head back into her study.
Link retreated to the emergency shelter and headed to the barracks, peeling off his sodden cloak and robe and hanging them up to dry on the nearest bedpost before lying down, wearily closing his eyes.
It wasn't nearly as comfortable somehow as the Shrine of Light had been. He lay awake for some time, listening to men come and go as their shifts changed, hearing their low murmuring as they discussed the happenings of the day – Link's return and the sighting of Princess Zelda at the castle. At long last he drifted off to sleep, only to dream of a bloodred moon in a blackened sky, Zelda standing before a field of monsters.
"Hey! Swordsmaaaan! Don't make me dump a bucket of water on your face! Time to get up!"
Link cracked a bleary eye open. Purah's assistant – with the appearance of a miniature teenaged Purah herself, down to the overlarge glasses – stood glaring at him with her hands on her hips. A few soldiers were standing nearby, looking on curiously at the altercation. He closed his eyes again, already exhausted. Josha huffed in frustration.
"I'm not kidding about the water!" she vowed dangerously.
"She's not," a soldier whispered warningly, and his companions laughed.
Link grit his teeth and sat up, biting back a snappy retort. Josha brightened at once. "Perfect!" she grinned. "Meet me up top in five minutes, swordsman!"
"I have a name," he grumbled, reaching for his robe. He winced slightly – his body felt stiff and a bit sore. He wondered glumly if he'd slept on his neck the wrong way.
Josha tilted her head. "Isn't that what you soldiers do, call each other by your station and all that? Everyone says you're 'the swordsman,' so that must be your station. Either that or they call you the hero, and I'm not going to go around calling you 'hero.'"
Link frowned. What is my station? He was an odd case; that was as true now as it was the century before. He had created the monster control unit, but when the time came to appoint a General, he had refused – and hadn't found a spot anywhere else in the chain of command, either. 'Knight' had been the previous term used, but… knights weren't really a thing nowadays. I guess… 'swordsman' it is.
Josha skipped away as he finished getting dressed. He followed not long after, grabbing a roll from the kitchen and climbing the ladder up to the surface.
It was a beautiful clear morning, not a cloud in the sky even though the cobblestones were still damp from the previous day's storm. Link scanned the fort, looking for Josha's distinctive bushy ponytails; he spotted her in a small workshop underneath Purah's balcony, arguing fiercely with a familiar diminutive Sheikah man whose wild hair made up most of his height. Huh. Figures he'd be here too.
"C'mon, Goggles!" Josha exclaimed. "I even have an escort now – look! See? Here he comes now!"
Robbie turned in Link's direction and smiled widely. "Ah, good morning, Link! Sorry I missed you yesterday, I was out by the – ooh!" He darted forward, his goggles focusing intently on Link's arm. "So this is the arm… I overheard Purah talking about it. I… see. Yeah, it's pretty weird alright…"
Link took a step backward, gritting his teeth tightly to keep a frustrated response in his head. Goddesses… I must've slept really bad last night, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose and drawing in a deep breath. I haven't felt this agitated in a long time.
"Goggles!" Josha huffed, stomping a foot. "We were talking about my Chasm expedition!"
"Sorry; you were saying?" Robbie said, matching her sassy tone of voice.
Josha scowled at him. "I was saying – oh, forget it! If you're not going to listen to me, I'll just go jump down a Chasm myself! Let's go, swordsman!"
Robbie yelped, wildly throwing his hands up and rushing to block her in a panic. "Nonononono, you can't do that! No way, no how! I'm not about to allow our young prodigy to go wandering around somewhere so unknown, so foul! Purah would have my head!"
"Well, too bad for you – I'm going," Josha snipped, crossing her arms. "Purah told the swordsman he has to work with me today, so I have protection – I'll be fine! I have to get more information on that figure. It could be the key to understanding the Depths!"
Link rubbed his temples wearily, their arguing a strain on his already badly frayed patience. "What figure?" he grit out.
Josha grinned at him. "Right – let me get you up to speed, since you'll be my guard for the day. A while back, our survey team brought back some artifacts from the depths. One of them caught my eye – a piece of slate with a strange figure on it." She jogged to a table near the back of the workshop and picked up a small slab of stone.
"Josha," Robbie whined. "What have I told you about handling ancient artifacts?"
"It'll be fine," Josha said with a roll of her eyes. "It's been fine for thousands of years, hasn't it? What could little old me do that hasn't been done to it already?"
"Plenty," Robbie muttered. "Teenagers."
She held it up for Link to see. It depicted a highly stylized figure with an animal's snout but an otherwise humanoid figure. "See that guy with the arm raised up? I have a theory – I think it could be evidence of a mysterious people who once lived in the Depths!"
"Like… the Zonai?" Link said. The snout reminded him a bit of Rauru.
Robbie laughed at that, and Josha looked a bit put out. "Well… it could be something different!" she defended. "Something new! After all, every other piece of evidence tells us that the Zonai came from the sky, right? This came from the Depths! So that's why I want to go down there. I want to see for myself if I can find any more depictions like this one!"
"And I say it's too dangerous, and you can't go!" Robbie grumbled, crossing his arms.
Josha glared at him. "Thanks, Goggles," she huffed sarcastically.
"Oh, come on, Josha," Robbie sighed, running a weary hand over his wrinkled face. "Tell you what – I'll go down myself to see if I can find anything like what's on the slate. And I'll take Link with me, because he has the Purah Pad! And because, er, the security detail, and whatnot. No better guard than the Hero of Hyrule, after all!" He swallowed. "But mainly because of the Purah Pad."
"So you'll bring me back a picture?" Josha sighed, looking put-out. "Great. Hope I can make out what the picture's of with all the graininess."
Link frowned, fishing the Purah Pad from his pouch. "It makes pretty good pictures, actually," he assured her, flipping to the pictures Zelda had taken of the Zonai statues below the castle. His chest tugged at the sight, and he pressed his lips firmly together, trying to ignore the feeling.
Purah lowered her glasses and inspected the pictures carefully. Her eyes widened. "Oh," she said in surprise. "These are… actually decent!" She looked at him curiously. "Where did you take these?"
Link clenched his jaw. "Princess Zelda took them," he answered, forcing his voice to stay level. "Before the Upheaval."
Josha blinked and pushed the slate back at him. "Sorry," she said uncomfortably. "Well, okay, Goggles. Sounds like a good plan." She crossed her arms firmly. "But you told me it was too dangerous, so you better not get yourself in trouble down there!"
"Of course not, of course not!" Robbie grinned, rushing out the door. "We'll be back, kid! With pictures of the Depths!"
"Goggles, wait – oh, forget it," she grumbled. "I thought people get slower the older they are."
"Not always," Link chuckled, scratching the back of his head. I'm a hundred and twenty-five, and I'm not any slower. He decided not to blow the poor girl's mind with such a tidbit.
"So why are you still here?" Josha asked. "Goggles wants you to go with him."
"Because Purah said you have a way to get back up from the bottom of the Depths, and I need to know what that is," Link said. "I'll catch up to Robbie."
Josha's eyes went wide. "W-well, actually, you might not," she stammered, all at once rushing around the workshop and grabbing a satchel, stuffing it full of small glowing bulbs. "See, he – he's flying – that's the way out! After the Upheaval, a bunch of things we've been calling 'Zonai devices' fell from the sky. We made hot air balloons with them – basically, they're balloons that rise up based on how much fire there is, and someone decided that Goggles could have his own, so he's probably already gone – aha!"
She snatched something else off of the shelf and shoved it into the pouch. "Sorry, swordsman! But, anyway, that's the way out is to use the hot air balloons. We've also seen a couple weird structures like big pillars going almost all the way to the bottom of the Depths and I think it's some sort of elevator but I don't know how it works – here!" She pressed the satchel into his hands and shooed him out of the workshop. "Go, go, go! I don't want Goggles to be all alone down there, he's old! And bring me back my pictures!"
Scholars, Link groaned inwardly, setting out at a quick jog through Lookout Landing, scanning the skies. Sure enough, he could see an odd teardrop speck in the sky, illuminated by occasional bursts of orange flame. How did he get so far ahead already?
He quickened his pace, offering a quick goodbye to the guards at the gate, and rushed out into Hyrule Field, keeping a careful gaze on the balloon. It wasn't long before it started descending, Link noted with relief, rushing after it before it disappeared from view. His stomach jolted as he reached the crest of a hill jus in time to see the balloon disappearing into a mass of bloodred tendrils and pools of Gloom splattered across the ground surrounding a hole in the ground, and his heart plummeted to his toes.
A Chasm, he thought with dread, his spine prickling at the sight. A foul place, indeed.
Uneasily he jogged nearer, wincing at the ongoing soreness throughout his body. It seemed as though moving around, far from alleviating the discomfort by loosening up his muscles, was actually making it worse –
Oh. Oh, no. Not that again.
He stopped some distance yet from the Chasm, safely far from the pools of Gloom, yet close enough that he could hear a low, ominous murmuring sound seeming to come from the vibrant tendrils of bright red mist. He swallowed thickly. Goddesses willing, I really did just sleep poorly, he thought earnestly. I'll find a Shrine of Light tonight, just in case. It… it'll be okay. Besides, I can't just leave Robbie alone down there!
He exhaled shakily, his pulse pounding harder, faster at the memory of the agonizing pain that had made it nearly impossible for him to move at all. I'll be fine, he told himself firmly, breathing deeply. It'll be fine.
Link walked closer to the edge of the Chasm. His right arm twitched as he passed by the pools of Gloom, a sensation so fleeting that he didn't know if it had actually hurt at all. I'm fine – it'll be fine. I'm just imagining things now.
Leaning over the edge of the Chasm, he could see nothing but darkness. It went on and on and on – it certainly looked to be nearly bottomless, as the man on the search and rescue party had said the previous day. He couldn't even see the flame from Robbie's balloon anymore.
Nothing for it but to jump, he thought, wiping his suddenly clammy palms on his robe. Taking a deep breath, as if in preparation for a dive underwater, he leapt into the void.