Chapter 17: The Most Frightening Place in Hyrule Chapter 19: The Land of Sand
Chapter 18: Held by Bandits
He was standing on the centre of a giant drum. Two huge, corpse-like hands were drumming around the edge, and in the shadows… yes, he could see it… a diseased, flower-like head with a single red eye. It reminded him of the giant spider under the Deku Tree. It vanished.
“Navi! Show me where it is!” He could hardly keep his feet with all the bouncing. He was launched into the air every fourth beat, and landed uncertainly each time. With the Lens of Truth, he could see the creature. Link grabbed his bow, slipped, hopped up again, shot, and landed unsteadily. The head was too heavily armoured, so he shot a hand, and it began shaking like it had been burned. The other whizzed at him, intent on doing him bodily harm, so quick as thought, he shot it, too. Both hands clenched, the eye in the body opened, and rushed him. He shot that, and it collapsed, very like the spider.
Putting away his bow and drawing his sword, he charged, stabbing as fast as he could. The cuts brought it out of its stupor and it reared up and away from him, closing the eye again.
Although the drumming threw him off violently, he managed to do the same thing several more times, before his magic power was drained from using the Lens.
He was still hitting it when he realized he had struck its death blow. It shook violently, and then dissolved into a black, gooey puddle that evaporated.
Waiting while the blood stopped rushing in his ears, he walked slowly towards the warp that appeared.
Impa rose out of the purple podium in the Temple of Light. “Well done, boy.”
“Where were you?” Navi asked.
Impa frowned at her and did not answer the question.
“I am the last of the Sheikah… for years we have been sworn to protect the King of Hyrule, and his family. I remember you when I had to take Princess Zelda away, and we saw you, and your friend Rana, looking so alone and forlorn. I helped her protect the Ocarina of Time…” Impa ceased her reminiscences and looked directly at Link.
“Soon, you will meet Princess Zelda, and she will explain everything you do not already know. For now, take the Medallion of Shadow. Please protect the Princess in my place!”
“Wait!” Link cried, reaching up to take the Medallion, and reaching his left hand out towards the muscular bodyguard woman. “Where is she?”
The Sheikah raised a hand in farewell as the warp crystal formed around the Hylian.
“Drat,” said Link, appearing in the graveyard. “I need answers. Where’s Sheik?”
No one answered him.
“Drat,” he said again. “I was hoping he’d drop in out of nowhere and respond. Where’s the last dungeon?”
“The desert, I think.”
“Right.” He walked through the town and caught some sleep in a corner. When he woke, it was still very dark. He rose, called Epona, and rode across Hyrule Field as the sun dawned.
Epona galloped faster and faster, charging down the narrow canyon on the eastern edge of Hyrule. Link gave her her head and let her choose her own path, straight towards a broken bridge over the deep, deep canyon through which the Zora River flowed down to Lake Hylia. Link leaned forward, trusting her.
With a soaring leap, she jumped the gap and trotted to a halt. Link dismounted and patted her trembling flank. Letting her jog around in a circle, he walked over to the one man standing there. It was the old carpenter from Kakariko he had met once, a little whiter, and little balder, but the same who had built an archery range in the centre of town. A small tent was erected beside him.
“Hey! Hey, ki- er, young man!” The carpenter bellowed in a voice used to projecting above the roar of construction work, but echoed like a bass drum in the empty canyon.
“Yes?”
“Are you going to the Gerudo’s fort?”
“Yes.”
“Well, er, you see… my workers all ran away. They said that being carpenters wasn’t any fun, and ran off to become thieves. Would you, er…”
“Go and round ‘em up?” Link asked, smiling.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“That’s all right with me. Can you tell me anything about the Gerudo? I haven’t been in this part of the world before…”
“The Gerudo are an all-female robber band. Did you know that?” Link nodded. “That’s about all I know.”
“All right, then.” Link shrugged and set off down the canyon.
Around two more corners, he was slammed painfully against the rocks of the canyon by three woman with spears, scimitars, and long red hair. They were dressed in desert-like clothing.
“Come with us, boy. You’re trespassing. Don’t argue and don’t struggle, and we won’t have to kill you.”
Link complied silently, trudging after the Gerudo.
No one said anything until they took him up a tower and kicked him through a trapdoor. “Hey!” Link yelled, startled.
“Idiot boy! We don’t want men around here, you got that? We’ll decide what to do with you later, so just relax! You can’t get out of there!”
The door closed. Link sighed and looked around. The cell was bare. There was one window with… it looked like a wooden shutter…
Link sent Navi to see where the guards were. Then he fired his hookshot. It caught in the shutter and let him down on the windowsill. He looked around, but no one seemed to notice him. He jumped down to a courtyard and ducked inside a door. He crouched behind a box and snuck past several guardwomen, and went out another door. His heart was pounding. This was a deadly kind of hide-and-seek.
He found a wide room with two barred cells covering one side. One was empty. From the other came a loud whisper.
“Hey! Young man! Over here!”
Link trotted over to the fat carpenter in the cage. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ichiro the carpenter. Have you come to save me? I wanted to join the Gerudos, but they locked me up instead. It’s no fun! I want to go home!”
“Okay, I’ll let you out.”
“You need a key.”
“Ye-“
Navi gave a stifled shriek. Link whirled and ducked the pair of scimitars heading for his head. The Gerudo woman was breathing heavily after her surprise attack, but otherwise made no noise. He parried, and blocked, and ducked, a rather fierce grin curling one corner of his mouth.
Suddenly he lunged, tore both scimitars from her hands with the Master Sword, and knocked her down with the Hylian Shield. She glared, panting.
“Do you have a key to that lock?” he asked, also breathing a bit harder than he would have wished.
She flung it in his face, but Navi caught it, leaving Link free to wrestle with the Gerudo. Somehow, the fairy opened the door, Ichiro lumbered out, and Link shoved the guard into the cell.
“I’m sorry,” Link told her, “but I’m on a mission and I can’t have you tripping me up.”
“Sir? Sir? What do I do now?”
“I suggest you run as fast as you can back to the bridge. I don’t think you should hang around here,” Link said to the carpenter. “If you get caught again, I’ll see what I can do, but please don’t.”
“Right! Fabulous fighting!” The carpenter took off at a faster speed than Link would have thought possible.
“You… you…” the Gerudo growled.
“I’m sorry!” Link said sincerely. “I’m serious.”
“I know that! However, you’re messing up my mission!”
The Hylian cocked his head to one side. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to prove myself to Nabooru, and I can’t do that if I fail to guard this idiot! I’m garbage now, you… you… pig! Who are you, anyway!?”
“I’m the Hero of Time,” Link said quietly, smiled at her, and left.
Link wandered, very softly, until he found a carpenter named Jiro. His guard was a little less certain than the first one. She kept away, darting in sometimes to execute whirling, heavy attacks. Link eventually waited until she was against the wall on the other side of the room, whipped out his bow, and sent an arrow into the wall on either side of her head. She dropped her swords, trembling.
He got the key, sent Jiro on his way, and then locked up the girl with a few words explaining who he was and what he was doing. “I’m Link, the Hero of Time, and right now I’m getting these carpenters out of here. I’m also going to the Desert Temple. Don’t look so scared, okay?”
The girl curled up dejectedly in a corner.
“I’m sorry,” Navi said. “We have to do this. It’s… for the good of the world.”
“If you like,” Link said impulsively, “we can explain it all to this Nabooru person when we get back.”
At last the girl looked up. “Fine. Go.”
Sabooro was the third carpenter, and just as slothful and fearful as the other two. He told Link that the carpenters’ names were Ichiro, Jiro, himself, and Shiro.
“Only one more, then!” Navi said happily.
Link grinned back at her. The game of hide-and-seek-with-angry-redheads-trying-to-get-him was actually becoming rather fun, though much more scary than usual.
Shiro was hard to find. Link wandered all over the complex twice until he found a door he hadn’t been in yet. On the way, he saw how the buildings were all square, built of mudbrick, sheltered above by a huge overhanging cliff. A small natural wall separated the courtyard from the vast desert, and was pierced with one gate of heavy logs.
At last, Link found the last carpenter. After defeating the guard, and pushing her firmly into the cell, he heard a light cough behind him.
He spun, his shield up. The Gerudo stared at him pleasantly, making no move to go for her swords, and Link slowly relaxed.
“You’re quite an impressive young man. We all used to think that all men, besides the great Ganondorf, were useless, but now we think differently. As soon as we found those wimps were escaping, we conferred at once, and we think it best that you join our group, Hero of Time.”
“Um…” Link gaped blankly. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means that we will not stop your progress on your… mission. If you want to go to the Desert Temple, we will open the gate for you.” She leaned forward and winked. “Plus, if you want to settle down here, we’d welcome you warmly! You’d make the greatest thief ever! Infiltrating a thieves’ hideout… your entrance could use work, but your exit was spectacular. Oh, and can you let Anada out now?”
Link let the girl rush from the cell and away down the corridor. “Well.”
Journeying across the desert was difficult and time consuming. The Gerudos lent him many waterbottles and a sort of sunscreen – they were all well tanned, but still used lots to keep from burning horrendously. Link accepted these gratefully.
The first obstacle between him and the Desert Temple was a river of sinking sand. Only the Hover Boots saved him, letting him wade back to the surface after he sank to his waist. The second obstacle was the vast uniformity of desert in general; there was too much sand in the air to see the monolith that he was aiming for. He had seen it from the Gerudo’s gate.
A friendly spirit showed him the safe path. Navi showed him; she had the Lens of Truth.
Suddenly they burst into the sunlight again, out of the storm.
Chapter 17: The Most Frightening Place in Hyrule Chapter 19: The Land of Sand