My dearest friends and dutiful readers, I am overjoyed to be communicating with you once again via Gossip Stone!
My associate, Shad and I are elated to announce that we have completed another sum of reasearch and analysis and offer to you this third episode as a supplement to our previous two. As before, we feel it to be the closest approximation of the actual events, though there are bound to be some things which history simply does not speak of. We are, however, interested in presenting you with as smooth and complete a telling as possible, and to that end we offer this final episode for your perusal, post haste!
Ah! Shad has just reminded me to tell you of our other two episodes, dutifully compiled. If you have not read the first two episodes of our account, please refer to the section of the library labeled
heroofgeeks.blogspot.com
Then do, please, return here to read this final episode.
Please choose a volume from the bookshelf at the left and peruse to your heart's content.
Dearly and Dutifully,
the Hero of Geeks
PS ~ Ah, yes! Master Shad has just reminded me once again that I have failed to tell you the title of our work. We have named it The Legend of Zelda: Shadows of the Past! With no further ado, enjoy!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Introduction to Shadows of the Past
A few words to begin: I do not claim the names and situations of these characters as my own. The Legend of Zelda, Link, Zelda, the Triforce, Hyrule, and all other related names are property of Nintendo. In no way do I intend to profit from these properties, nor do I expect any to regard the following as my own invention. While I do claim the characters and situations which are unique to this story (please see the Timeline in the appendix), let it be known that as for the rest I am taking artistic liberties with someone else’s ideas; poetic license with someone else’s plot. This story is purely for amusement purposes only.
With the legalities firmly established I do wish to say that I have embellished greatly upon the original story, and not unrealistically so, I hope. It is my hope that this story be seen as a complement to the games, a fleshing out of the background stories, if you will, in an attempt to resolve some of the hidden connections between characters and provide one perspective as to how the games fit with one another. I submit that many fans may disagree with my placement of the games, but for reasons of my own—which are no less thought out than anything else I have done here—I have placed them where I have. Please, enjoy the story as it is. I sincerely hope you do.
Thank you for reading my work,
—Wm Jay Carter III {HHE, HG}
For those who wish to understand my thought process as I put this together or for a chronology of events, please see the appendix at the conclusion of the story. The contextual game progression is understood to be:
MC, OoT, MM, FS(A), TP, ALttP
Other games could be placed within this context, but I am drawing upon these for the purposes of the current story.
With the legalities firmly established I do wish to say that I have embellished greatly upon the original story, and not unrealistically so, I hope. It is my hope that this story be seen as a complement to the games, a fleshing out of the background stories, if you will, in an attempt to resolve some of the hidden connections between characters and provide one perspective as to how the games fit with one another. I submit that many fans may disagree with my placement of the games, but for reasons of my own—which are no less thought out than anything else I have done here—I have placed them where I have. Please, enjoy the story as it is. I sincerely hope you do.
Thank you for reading my work,
—Wm Jay Carter III {HHE, HG}
For those who wish to understand my thought process as I put this together or for a chronology of events, please see the appendix at the conclusion of the story. The contextual game progression is understood to be:
MC, OoT, MM, FS(A), TP, ALttP
Other games could be placed within this context, but I am drawing upon these for the purposes of the current story.
Episode III ~ The Lingering Shadow
Being the third of three episodes composing the work "Shadows of the Past," which chronicles the events surrounding the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
In the first episode Ganondorf Dragmire, King of the Gerudo Thieves, comes to Hyrule Castle Town to seek an audience with the King of Hyrule...and swear his allegiance. The tale follows the Sages of Hyrule, wise representatives from each of Hyrule's races, as Ganondorf visits them seeking their "support."
In the second episode, Link returns from the future to warn Zelda and the royal family of Hyrule of Ganondorf's imminent attack. The Sages of Hyrule lay a trap and prevent the Evil King from achieving his goal, but at a tragic price.
This, the third episode, begins with Link, the Hero of Time, in Termina, a land on the brink of extermination endangered by a suicidal moon.
In the first episode Ganondorf Dragmire, King of the Gerudo Thieves, comes to Hyrule Castle Town to seek an audience with the King of Hyrule...and swear his allegiance. The tale follows the Sages of Hyrule, wise representatives from each of Hyrule's races, as Ganondorf visits them seeking their "support."
In the second episode, Link returns from the future to warn Zelda and the royal family of Hyrule of Ganondorf's imminent attack. The Sages of Hyrule lay a trap and prevent the Evil King from achieving his goal, but at a tragic price.
This, the third episode, begins with Link, the Hero of Time, in Termina, a land on the brink of extermination endangered by a suicidal moon.
Prologue ~ The Mask Keeper: A Terminan Myth
In the legends of the people of Termina there are tales of four ancient tribes, chosen of the Gods, who lived in a symbiotic balance. Each tribe’s magic was imbued into a ceremonial mask representing their patron deity. These Masks of the Gods were used in moonlit dancing rituals which called upon the Gods to aid the people in some way, whether to gift them with power over an enemy, wisdom in council, courage to overcome a hardship, or a timely harvest according to their need. Over time it was said the bearers of the Masks of the Gods became possessed by the spirits of the Gods themselves and they acquired powers far superior to even the most experienced tribal shamans.
But then one day, during a ritual dance, the bearer of the mask of the God of Power, a child named Majora, went mad and cursed his entire tribe. As the members of Majora’s tribe could not control his magic they were forced to fight the child, and very nearly killed him. With the child in a weakened state, the tribal shamans saw their chance and sealed the soul of the child within the mask.
Soon after, the same circumstances were reported in the other tribes—the bearers of their masks went insane and attacked their own villages. Each tribe was compelled to fight their respective Mask Bearers and seal their souls within their masks.
None could agree why the mask bearers had suddenly turned on their own people. Some said the bearers were unworthy. Others claimed a member of the tribe had committed some act of ill will against the Gods and the whole tribe had been punished. Regardless of the actual cause, Majora’s Mask was hidden away in shadow by the shamans and its use was forbidden. The other Masks were kept safe by their respective tribes. All, that is, except the mask of the God of Courage—called the Mask of the Fierce Deity—which was lost. Though many sought them for the power they contained, the Masks of the Gods were never found again.
Then unnatural storms arose, thick fog covered the land, and the cursed tribes began to suffer terrible fates. Many died when the seas became treacherous with whirlpools and the mountains spat scalding water. Others perished at the bottom of gorges that opened in the east and yet others when the swamps in the south became tainted. Many claimed that these disasters were the curse of the Mask Bearers being fulfilled.
Whether the curse was real or imagined, however, it was certain that the tribes were dying out, and always in unspeakable ways. Soon they were gone, and as time passed these events faded into oral tradition, colored by those who told of them. Some claimed they saw the mask bearers fighting one another in various locations, but these accounts were given little credit. Eventually the stories of rampant mask bearers were only a means of scaring little children.
According to one story, a member of the Tribe of Wisdom survived as a mercy from the Gods. This lone tribesman thanked the Gods for his life and pleaded with them that the Terrors of the Masks would never occur again. In return, the man was blessed with immortality, but the Gods granted this boon under two conditions. First, he must care for the Masks of the Gods, never allowing them to fall into evil hands. Second, he must appease the sorrows of the dead. The tribesman agreed and the Gods entrusted him with the masks of the four tribes. They also taught him a sacred healing song which would condense the troubles of the deceased into mask form. The tale concludes as the Keeper of the Masks of the Gods goes off in search of sorrowful souls to comfort.
None in Termina know for certain whether any of the tribes survived, where the Masks of the Gods might be, or if they even exist. But then, this is only one of many stories told about the ancient tribes. In any case, one thing is certain: those Terminans who survive the death of a loved one ask the Gods to send the Mask Keeper to come and ease their sorrows.
But then one day, during a ritual dance, the bearer of the mask of the God of Power, a child named Majora, went mad and cursed his entire tribe. As the members of Majora’s tribe could not control his magic they were forced to fight the child, and very nearly killed him. With the child in a weakened state, the tribal shamans saw their chance and sealed the soul of the child within the mask.
Soon after, the same circumstances were reported in the other tribes—the bearers of their masks went insane and attacked their own villages. Each tribe was compelled to fight their respective Mask Bearers and seal their souls within their masks.
None could agree why the mask bearers had suddenly turned on their own people. Some said the bearers were unworthy. Others claimed a member of the tribe had committed some act of ill will against the Gods and the whole tribe had been punished. Regardless of the actual cause, Majora’s Mask was hidden away in shadow by the shamans and its use was forbidden. The other Masks were kept safe by their respective tribes. All, that is, except the mask of the God of Courage—called the Mask of the Fierce Deity—which was lost. Though many sought them for the power they contained, the Masks of the Gods were never found again.
Then unnatural storms arose, thick fog covered the land, and the cursed tribes began to suffer terrible fates. Many died when the seas became treacherous with whirlpools and the mountains spat scalding water. Others perished at the bottom of gorges that opened in the east and yet others when the swamps in the south became tainted. Many claimed that these disasters were the curse of the Mask Bearers being fulfilled.
Whether the curse was real or imagined, however, it was certain that the tribes were dying out, and always in unspeakable ways. Soon they were gone, and as time passed these events faded into oral tradition, colored by those who told of them. Some claimed they saw the mask bearers fighting one another in various locations, but these accounts were given little credit. Eventually the stories of rampant mask bearers were only a means of scaring little children.
According to one story, a member of the Tribe of Wisdom survived as a mercy from the Gods. This lone tribesman thanked the Gods for his life and pleaded with them that the Terrors of the Masks would never occur again. In return, the man was blessed with immortality, but the Gods granted this boon under two conditions. First, he must care for the Masks of the Gods, never allowing them to fall into evil hands. Second, he must appease the sorrows of the dead. The tribesman agreed and the Gods entrusted him with the masks of the four tribes. They also taught him a sacred healing song which would condense the troubles of the deceased into mask form. The tale concludes as the Keeper of the Masks of the Gods goes off in search of sorrowful souls to comfort.
None in Termina know for certain whether any of the tribes survived, where the Masks of the Gods might be, or if they even exist. But then, this is only one of many stories told about the ancient tribes. In any case, one thing is certain: those Terminans who survive the death of a loved one ask the Gods to send the Mask Keeper to come and ease their sorrows.
Chapter I ~ Half a World Away
Four guardian giants held the moon in the sky, stopped in its suicidal careen toward Termina’s Clock Town. The inhabitants of Termina cowered in fear, hiding in the furthest reaches of the swamp, the most remote recesses of the mountains, under the greatest depths of the sea, and nestled within the hidden crevices of the canyons. Meanwhile, on the face of the suicidal moon, Link, the Hero of Hyrule, was battling the source of their fear: the incarnation of an ancient evil, trapped long ago within the shape of a cursed mask.
Majora’s Incarnation thrashed its tentacles, whipping them past Link’s head. Link dodged deftly, analyzing his enemy. He had donned the mask of the Fierce Deity—in appearance he resembled a huge man with pointed ears, wearing a tunic and cap of white and a breastplate that bore two symbols; a crescent and a triangle. In his hands he wielded a sword composed of two intertwining blades. As he avoided the snapping tendrils of his enemy, he twirled his sword around in sweeping arcs, clipping the red-veined limbs from Majora’s body. Majora shrieked, sounding the shredding of warped steel.
The cry echoed off the walls of the psychic prison Majora had imposed on the Hero of Hyrule. It was a hexagonal room with a floor, walls, and roof made of multicolored light, all hard as marble and utterly impenetrable. There was no entrance except as Majora had drawn Link in—and no exit, Link knew, unless Majora was vanquished. Though the battle had not been long, it demanded presence of mind and quick thinking. And then there were Majora’s mind-bending shrieks. Under any other circumstances the sound would have made Link cringe, but while he wore the Mask of the Fierce Deity he felt nothing could harm him. He simply circled his opponent, watching for its next move.
The torso of Majora’s Incarnation resembled the heart-shaped wooden mask it had once inhabited. The mask had wicked red eyes and was traced with tribal markings. Out from behind its serrated edges had grown powerful legs and coiled red arms with long tendrils. Perhaps most disturbing, however, was the creature’s red-veined head. It had a gaping mouth full of crooked teeth, protruding from the lipless jaw at wild angles. There were hollows where two eyes should have been, but instead one piercing lidless eye protruded from its forehead. The eye was red and bloodshot, staring intently at Link as it repeated its grating shriek.
The crazed Incarnation spun in place, flipping its tentacles menacingly. Link had to roll to one side to avoid being lashed. “Tatl,” bellowed the Fierce Link in a resonant voice, “the eye!” And from somewhere near Link’s shoulder flew a yellow ball of light supported by delicate dragonfly wings. Deftly, the light swerved between Majora’s whipping limbs, bobbing up and down before the eye of the Incarnation. Majora’s arms came up to its face, its tendrils flailing in a mass before it in an attempt to bat the fairy away. Then Link seized his chance. Swinging the double-bladed sword like a hammer, Link twirled around and around until his weapon came to bear on the crazed and shrieking Incarnation. Then a burst of light shone from the sword as it clave through the one-eyed head, sinking deep into its torso. Link raised himself up—planting his feet firmly on the thing’s chest—and launched himself away, drawing the sword out as he flipped backward.
Like a crazed lunatic, the Incarnation thrashed on the floor, a shriek of psychotic fury issuing from its throat, past the crooked teeth of its broken jaw, and it fell limp. Then, like a marionette with a convulsing puppet-master, it was raised into the air shaking and trembling violently. In moments, the incarnation of Majora disintegrated, suddenly bursting into nothing. Then a half-cloven heart-shaped wooden mask fell to the floor; all that remained of the ancient evil that had raged only seconds before.
As Link considered the innocuous cloven mask, he felt a presence leave him. Then he exhaled, staggered, and fell to the ground. The last thing he saw was a little yellow light hovering over his head.
* * *
The sun winked under the eyelid of a passing cloud. The tall-grass of Hyrule Field tossed in a soft breeze, brushing against the knight’s face, begging him to get up. ‘The enemy lurks!’ it seemed to say. ‘Awake, lest you perish!’
The knight rolled to one side, pushing his body away from the earth. He rose, pressing on through the strain of his muscles, the bruises on his arms, legs and chest. He rested upon his sword for a moment to summon his strength. His lips hung open, and he spat. His shield hung heavily on his shoulder, the shield which bore the crest of the Hylian Royal Family. His white tunic, which also bore the crest, was torn in many places. The chain shirt he wore, however, was still whole protecting his flesh underneath. Despite his internal wounds he was not beaten yet.
But neither was his enemy.
The creature snorted as it hoofed the soft turf of the field. It was as big as a cow, and smelled many times fouler. The beast’s thick black hide was covered in wires of short hair. This hide had deflected the knight’s sword again and again. The knight began to wonder whether it had any weakness. It was not an animal natural to this part of the land, or any part of Hyrule as far as he knew. He could not conceive of where the beast had come from, unless it was one of the many islands of the far off sea.
But presently, he had little time to think of remote islands. The beast stretched its squat porcine neck and charged. Just in time, the knight’s shield came between him and the white tusks that curled from under its snout. The knight gasped, let out a feeble cry of pain, and his arm went limp. The beast leapt over him and stopped many yards away on his other side. The knight’s shield swung languidly from his arm as he stood. He could see the creature’s small, beetle-like eyes sparkle with intelligence in the mid-day sun. It was toying with its meal.
The knight sloughed off his shield. It had saved his arm, but without a new strategy it would not do so indefinitely. He sheathed his thick-bladed sword on his back. Standing up to the full of his height, he evened his gaze at the creature. Inhaling as far as his damaged lungs would allow, he yelled at the top of his voice and bolted toward his foe, chain mail flashing dully in the sun, his tunic flapping pitifully behind him. In response to its challenger, the boar grunted and squealed, shaking its mane. Then it lowered its tusks and charged.
The knight halted and planted his thick leather boots into the turf, crouching and leaning into the creature’s weight. They connected with a crunch, the knight raising up, grasping its tusks with both hands, the beast’s snout huffing great bursts of stench into the knight’s face. Resisting the urge to retch the knight heaved with his good arm, the beast’s front legs flailed in the air and then its whole body teetered, bent, and fell to the side. Quickly the knight pulled his sword from its sheath and fell upon the creature’s black underbelly. Mercifully, the sword sank in to the hilt. The knight stepped back, watching as the beast flailed, squealing and grunting, slower and slower. Finally it lay still.
The knight exhaled, staggered, and fell to the ground.
Minutes later, from over the hill creaked an empty cart drawn by two quarter horses. Coming in view of the boar, the cart picked up speed and swerved in a large circle around the beast. Then, suddenly, the cart stopped. Out of the cart stepped the driver; a medium-sized man with a larger-than-medium-sized belly. He was wearing overalls and a loosely-woven straw hat. For a moment nothing moved. Then the driver approached the scene.
The knight awoke to a pair of thick hands shaking him brusquely. He looked up into a bushy black mustache over which a bulbous nose protruded.
“Come on now, pardner,” said the driver, patting the knight’s cheek. “Talk to me—tell me yer name.”
“Aft—,” began the knight, and he fell unconscious.
Majora’s Incarnation thrashed its tentacles, whipping them past Link’s head. Link dodged deftly, analyzing his enemy. He had donned the mask of the Fierce Deity—in appearance he resembled a huge man with pointed ears, wearing a tunic and cap of white and a breastplate that bore two symbols; a crescent and a triangle. In his hands he wielded a sword composed of two intertwining blades. As he avoided the snapping tendrils of his enemy, he twirled his sword around in sweeping arcs, clipping the red-veined limbs from Majora’s body. Majora shrieked, sounding the shredding of warped steel.
The cry echoed off the walls of the psychic prison Majora had imposed on the Hero of Hyrule. It was a hexagonal room with a floor, walls, and roof made of multicolored light, all hard as marble and utterly impenetrable. There was no entrance except as Majora had drawn Link in—and no exit, Link knew, unless Majora was vanquished. Though the battle had not been long, it demanded presence of mind and quick thinking. And then there were Majora’s mind-bending shrieks. Under any other circumstances the sound would have made Link cringe, but while he wore the Mask of the Fierce Deity he felt nothing could harm him. He simply circled his opponent, watching for its next move.
The torso of Majora’s Incarnation resembled the heart-shaped wooden mask it had once inhabited. The mask had wicked red eyes and was traced with tribal markings. Out from behind its serrated edges had grown powerful legs and coiled red arms with long tendrils. Perhaps most disturbing, however, was the creature’s red-veined head. It had a gaping mouth full of crooked teeth, protruding from the lipless jaw at wild angles. There were hollows where two eyes should have been, but instead one piercing lidless eye protruded from its forehead. The eye was red and bloodshot, staring intently at Link as it repeated its grating shriek.
The crazed Incarnation spun in place, flipping its tentacles menacingly. Link had to roll to one side to avoid being lashed. “Tatl,” bellowed the Fierce Link in a resonant voice, “the eye!” And from somewhere near Link’s shoulder flew a yellow ball of light supported by delicate dragonfly wings. Deftly, the light swerved between Majora’s whipping limbs, bobbing up and down before the eye of the Incarnation. Majora’s arms came up to its face, its tendrils flailing in a mass before it in an attempt to bat the fairy away. Then Link seized his chance. Swinging the double-bladed sword like a hammer, Link twirled around and around until his weapon came to bear on the crazed and shrieking Incarnation. Then a burst of light shone from the sword as it clave through the one-eyed head, sinking deep into its torso. Link raised himself up—planting his feet firmly on the thing’s chest—and launched himself away, drawing the sword out as he flipped backward.
Like a crazed lunatic, the Incarnation thrashed on the floor, a shriek of psychotic fury issuing from its throat, past the crooked teeth of its broken jaw, and it fell limp. Then, like a marionette with a convulsing puppet-master, it was raised into the air shaking and trembling violently. In moments, the incarnation of Majora disintegrated, suddenly bursting into nothing. Then a half-cloven heart-shaped wooden mask fell to the floor; all that remained of the ancient evil that had raged only seconds before.
As Link considered the innocuous cloven mask, he felt a presence leave him. Then he exhaled, staggered, and fell to the ground. The last thing he saw was a little yellow light hovering over his head.
* * *
The sun winked under the eyelid of a passing cloud. The tall-grass of Hyrule Field tossed in a soft breeze, brushing against the knight’s face, begging him to get up. ‘The enemy lurks!’ it seemed to say. ‘Awake, lest you perish!’
The knight rolled to one side, pushing his body away from the earth. He rose, pressing on through the strain of his muscles, the bruises on his arms, legs and chest. He rested upon his sword for a moment to summon his strength. His lips hung open, and he spat. His shield hung heavily on his shoulder, the shield which bore the crest of the Hylian Royal Family. His white tunic, which also bore the crest, was torn in many places. The chain shirt he wore, however, was still whole protecting his flesh underneath. Despite his internal wounds he was not beaten yet.
But neither was his enemy.
The creature snorted as it hoofed the soft turf of the field. It was as big as a cow, and smelled many times fouler. The beast’s thick black hide was covered in wires of short hair. This hide had deflected the knight’s sword again and again. The knight began to wonder whether it had any weakness. It was not an animal natural to this part of the land, or any part of Hyrule as far as he knew. He could not conceive of where the beast had come from, unless it was one of the many islands of the far off sea.
But presently, he had little time to think of remote islands. The beast stretched its squat porcine neck and charged. Just in time, the knight’s shield came between him and the white tusks that curled from under its snout. The knight gasped, let out a feeble cry of pain, and his arm went limp. The beast leapt over him and stopped many yards away on his other side. The knight’s shield swung languidly from his arm as he stood. He could see the creature’s small, beetle-like eyes sparkle with intelligence in the mid-day sun. It was toying with its meal.
The knight sloughed off his shield. It had saved his arm, but without a new strategy it would not do so indefinitely. He sheathed his thick-bladed sword on his back. Standing up to the full of his height, he evened his gaze at the creature. Inhaling as far as his damaged lungs would allow, he yelled at the top of his voice and bolted toward his foe, chain mail flashing dully in the sun, his tunic flapping pitifully behind him. In response to its challenger, the boar grunted and squealed, shaking its mane. Then it lowered its tusks and charged.
The knight halted and planted his thick leather boots into the turf, crouching and leaning into the creature’s weight. They connected with a crunch, the knight raising up, grasping its tusks with both hands, the beast’s snout huffing great bursts of stench into the knight’s face. Resisting the urge to retch the knight heaved with his good arm, the beast’s front legs flailed in the air and then its whole body teetered, bent, and fell to the side. Quickly the knight pulled his sword from its sheath and fell upon the creature’s black underbelly. Mercifully, the sword sank in to the hilt. The knight stepped back, watching as the beast flailed, squealing and grunting, slower and slower. Finally it lay still.
The knight exhaled, staggered, and fell to the ground.
Minutes later, from over the hill creaked an empty cart drawn by two quarter horses. Coming in view of the boar, the cart picked up speed and swerved in a large circle around the beast. Then, suddenly, the cart stopped. Out of the cart stepped the driver; a medium-sized man with a larger-than-medium-sized belly. He was wearing overalls and a loosely-woven straw hat. For a moment nothing moved. Then the driver approached the scene.
The knight awoke to a pair of thick hands shaking him brusquely. He looked up into a bushy black mustache over which a bulbous nose protruded.
“Come on now, pardner,” said the driver, patting the knight’s cheek. “Talk to me—tell me yer name.”
“Aft—,” began the knight, and he fell unconscious.
Chapter II ~ The Gerudo Waste
The western extension of the Death Mountain chain separated the fields of Hyrule from the bleached sands and dry, scorching heat of the Burning Desert. A young boy clothed entirely in black crept hurriedly into the fissure carrying a clinking bundle. The fissure was wide enough for a man on his horse, but no more. There was little about the surrounding mountains to suggest that anything could live among them—there was no shrubbery, no life of any sort. Surely nothing could live in the burning heat of the desert; nothing except the Gerudo, that band of all-female thieves whose leader was the Black Thief Lord, Ganondorf Dragmire (which by interpretation meant King of the Enchanted Thieves). The Gerudo people had little to offer the rest of Hyrule and so they were forced to steal and plunder for their sustenance.
The boy came to the edge of a wide chasm. Far below, the waters of a treacherous river flowed. To the north the source of the river’s flow could be seen: a monumental waterfall that was fed by a number of other small rivers, in turn being fed by the Great Waterfall at the height of Zora’s Domain far to the east. The irony of this place was that the waters below were too far and too treacherous to make use of, and so they just mocked those that passed over the bridge spanning the chasm. The desert waited ahead, the fields behind. The boy pressed onward.
As the boy cleared the far opening of the fissure the complex of dwellings that served the Gerudo as both home and fortress came into view. Set back into the concave wall of the mountains, perched on a ledge like a hungry vulture, was a veritable beehive of century-old adobe dwellings. The face of each mud brick house was block-like in shape and built firmly on the dwelling below it. Higher dwellings were accessed by ladders, and rickety balconies were all that kept one from falling. Mounds of dirt had been thrown up in front of the complex and long tattered triangular flags undulated torpidly in the dry desert air. The flags may once have been red, but now the sun-bleached banners were light beige with only hints of their original hue. Countless cloudless years had drained all color from the landscape, as it had long ago bleached the color from the flags, and the scene had been subdued to a drab light brown monochrome.
But splashes of color marched among the monochrome like an army of ants. Dozens of swarthy scarlet-haired Gerudo women were climbing up and down among the dwellings. Guards swathed in purple gauze carried wide-bladed spears as they paced the flagged embankments. They were watching intently for something, each of them peering toward one opening of the fissure, then the other. The boy halted when he saw the foremost of the guards. When their eyes met the guard halted, pointing her wide-bladed spear at the startled boy. He froze, nearly dropping his precious, clinking bundle.
“Freya!” barked the guard, “call the king; we’ve found him!” And in moments another purple-swathed guard was climbing one of the ladders.
* * *
“Test him, I say!” barked the wizened, red-haired man. He was garbed in stiff leather armor, flexible at the joints and dyed black. A cloth cape hung from his bent shoulders. The cape was fraying at the edges but it was otherwise well cared for. At the man’s feet was a crumpled sheet strewn with broken glass and a fresh pool of white liquid which was now disappearing quickly into the parched ground. The boy’s lip trembled but his eyes were dry as the desert, retaining every precious drop of moisture. Instead he wore an angry visage, fuming with spite for the aged man.
“Lord, he is too young. He has not even finished his training,” said the guard, a young scarlet-haired woman. She folded her arms, her silver bracers flashing in the light of the setting sun like the defiance in her eyes. She wore a short sandy-white velvet vest, ballooned pants made of layers of light gauze, and velvet shoes with points curving up from the toes.
The red-haired man’s ancient, sparsely-whiskered mouth twitched with malicious glee. “Do you challenge me, Raean? It has been long since our last bout. I could use the exercise…”
“Some of us still follow the training routines, Lord King; I have had all the exercise I need. Besides, old man, you would kill yourself, whatever your pride might say.” She paused, seeming to have come up with an amusing joke. “Do you remember when you first tested me…?”
“I have tested all of my daughters, Raean, at least until I became too old to produce any more of them.” The old Gerudo male pressed backward against his curved spine with visible effort. When it had cracked twice he sighed satisfactorily and hunched forward again. “I can hardly remember which of my concubines birthed you. I only remember your name because you seem to constantly stand in my way. Now open the gate and test that foolish boy or I will have you banished to the Waste!” He glanced down at the young boy and rounded again on Raean. “And don’t let him pass unless he finds all of the keys—every last one.” He pressed the tip of one crooked finger into her shoulder. “I’ll have none of your cheating for this one.”
“Wouldn’t think of it Lord King,” Raean said, brushing his hand away. The boy thought he saw something in the guard’s hand, but he could not see what it was. She turned to him and winked.
The old man did not seem to notice, but scowled and stormed off with a sweep of his cape. She watched with mild sufferance as her king hobbled toward the center of the mud-brick complex, glancing over his hunched shoulder at the guards patrolling the embankments. She could hear him shouting at them to get back to their stations. Then she noticed the boy in black looking up at her, blinking as his eyes fought the sight of the waning sun.
Raean sighed theatrically. “That’s the seventh time he’s threatened to banish me to the Wastes this week,” she said. “It’s a good thing he can’t remember much more than my name.” The boy silently toed the sand, his small jaw clenched. Raean lowered a silver-braced arm and folded it around the boy’s small shoulders. “Come on,” she said, turning him to face the gate. “We may as well get started.”
“No!” said the boy. And he ran to the gate of the training grounds, punching and kicking it with childish consternation. This drew the attention of the closest guards.
“Hey, kid, what’re you doing?” said Raean, glancing around at the spear-bearing women. “Stop, stop…”
The boy shoved his face at Raean. “Why does he hate me?” A scowl made lines from his nose to his mouth.
“He doesn’t hate you, kid. He’s just a senile old man. And he’s very busy…”
Then the boy became even more furious, thrusting his fists into the ground and screaming. “I hate this place, I hate it!”
Raean withdrew a silver key from her girdle and took it to the gate of the training grounds. Turning the key in the lock she opened the gate. The young boy watched her indignantly. “He’s crazy. He’s crazy because of me, isn’t he?” he demanded, staring into the tunnel that led deep within the mountain. “He wants me to die.”
“No, kid. It’s just the way it’s always been.” Raean put her hand on his black shoulder. “You ready?”
The boy threw her hand off of him. “No. I’m not going…What’s in there anyway?”
“You’ll find out. You won’t die. Just do your best.” A muted reptilian shriek echoed out of the cave. He looked up at Raean with wide eyes.
“Here,” she said, “take this. But don’t tell him I gave it to you.” She pressed a large ring into his hands. It was fine silver, worked to resemble hexagonal crystalline shapes, and in the center was a six-sided blue stone that appeared to be frosted over with condensation. He rubbed the stone with his thumb, but the frost returned immediately.
The boy let the ring rest in the palm of his hand. “It’s too big, stupid. How’m I supposed to wear it?” he said.
“Don’t worry about that; it’s just because his fingers are so thick. Here; you put it on the first finger of your left hand.” She slipped the silver ring onto his finger. The ring shrank until it fit his finger perfectly.
He looked up at Raean, seeming to have changed his mind about how intelligent she was. “Alright, so how does it work?”
“Just keep it on that finger, next to the tip of your arrows before you loose them. It won’t get you through everything in there, but it’ll help you with the nastier things.” She turned him to face the cave. “Go on, now.”
“I told you I don’t wanna,” he said.
Then she grabbed him by the neck and threw him in, locking the gate after him. “And risk getting the back of the big man’s hand? I don’t think so. He’ll cut off my water rations.”
The boy rose himself up and rattled the gate. “Let me out, I’m ordering you!”
“Oh, no. It’s not like that yet, kid. Get in there. If you come back out we can talk about who’s giving orders.” When it looked like he wouldn’t move she approached the gate, just out of his reach. “Look, I gotta put on a good show, kid. Do just like you did in training, right? No sweat.”
The boy looked over his shoulder. “But are there really…dead people in there?”
“Just get going. If you never find out you won’t be any the wiser.”
Finally giving in, the boy walked into the darkness a few paces. Turning, he said: “Raean, if I die will you come get me?”
Raean smiled sympathetically. “Sure thing, kid. And don’t lose the ring; if you come back without it I’ll kill you myself.” A grateful smirk crossed the boy’s young face. Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
“He’s bound to be like his father, you know,” a female voice said. Raean turned like a startled cat, brandishing a short dagger from some unseen place at her waist. She stopped her blade short of the speaker’s neck.
“Nabooru, I hate it when you do that,” said Raean, replacing her dagger. The young woman, no more than seventeen years old, was unruffled. She was dressed like Raean but her costume was a coral pink hue and she wore arm-sleeves that stretched from her elbows to her knuckles. A large red stone rested on her forehead and another hung from a choker on her neck. Her long red hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and a short veil covered the lower half of her face.
“At least it keeps you on your toes,” Nabooru said. She crossed her gloved arms. “I haven’t seen you lately; I have to do something to keep you alert. If you don’t come to training there’s no way you’re ever going to beat me.”
“Look, I’m not going to challenge you again, so if you want the satisfaction you can forget it…” Raean crossed her arms, flashing her silver bracers, “…unless you want to scrap right here?”
“I think you would have a slight advantage just now,” she said, eyeing Raean’s silver bracers, “but in any case I don’t think you have time. The Matron wants to see you,” said Nabooru.
Raean’s murderous glance changed into one of sincere displeasure. “I’m managing the Training Grounds just fine! What more does she want?” Nabooru raised her eyebrows and gave Raean a look of tolerance. Raean rolled her eyes again. “I hate it when she does this. This is the third reassignment since the waning crescent.”
“You won’t want to keep her waiting,” said Nabooru. “The other attendants are crossing the Waste soon.”
Then Raean’s displeasure melted into delighted disbelief. “The Shrine?”
Nabooru nodded. “I wish I could go myself, of course, but Koume and Kotake requested your presence specifically.” She grinned behind her veil.
Raean’s eyes widened. “You little dung beetle. You know I’ve wanted to serve at the Shrine since I was old enough to be tested. You could have told me!”
Nabooru shrugged. “What are sisters for? Now get going, they’ll be leaving soon.”
“But who’s going to watch for the kid when he comes out?”
“You mean the King sent him in? He’s hasn’t even finished training! He’ll be…”
“Don’t worry; I gave the kid his Lordship’s ice ring. He’ll be fine,” assured Raean. Nabooru gave her sister a look of impressed disbelief. Raean just smiled. “Took it from him while he was poking at me with his gnarly old finger.”
“Well, I guess I could take a little time off from drilling the guards,” Nabooru replied in mock exasperation.
Raean threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her forehead. “You really are worth something, I suppose,” she said.
“You’re going to be late,” Nabooru said, pressing Raean away firmly. “The Matron’s chamber is all the way on the other side of the fortress.”
“Thank you,” Raean said, pressing the silver gate-key into Nabooru’s hands. “Tell the kid I said goodbye.”
“Yeah, by the time you see him again you’ll be calling him Lord Ganondorf.” Nabooru said, and Raean turned and ran toward the western fissure, blinking as the light of the glowing sun peeked out from behind the mountain wall.
* * *
“My Lord Ganondorf, are you well?” Abrum asked. He set the pile of dry brush he had gathered on the ground away from the fire. The sun was setting somewhere west of the Burning Desert. Gerudo Fortress was just on the other side of the mountains from the small camp. Asera was assembling their triangular tent; just big enough to accommodate the three of them. The twilight air was thin, dry and bitterly cold. Ganondorf peered into the fire and drew a deep draught from his water skin.
Asera looked up from the long stake she had just driven into the hard, dry dirt. “The tent is up, Master. Will you come and rest?” Ganondorf stared at her blankly. “Come, Master. We have been traveling for days; you need rest if we are to enter the fortress tomorrow.” The black thief stared into the fire again and drank from his water skin. Asera and Abrum each caught the other’s worried glance. Ganondorf was only very quiet when he was thinking about something terrible he had done or wished to do.
“Lord, what is it?” Abrum pressed.
Without looking up, Ganondorf responded. “I will tell you, Sheikah whelp, if you will cease your insufferable questioning.” Ganondorf stood, pouring what liquid remained in his skin over the fire, reducing it to a puddle of muddy ash.
“What are you doing!?” Abrum’s face broadcast his astonishment. “We’ve not been able to conjure water since the Hylian witch summoned those light-horrors to take away our magic; that was the last of our reserves! And you just snuffed our fire!”
“Wipe that shocked look off your face, boy. We are warm enough and the fire will attract attention this close to Gerudo lands. Anyone foolish enough to build a fire outside the mountains is no fool, but somewhere they ought not to be. Now sit and I will tell you something.”
Abrum sat by the smoldering embers in indignation, rubbing his hands and tucking them under his arms. Asera came to sit in front of Abrum. He made room for her, wrapping his arms around hers.
“All settled, then?” Ganondorf sneered. When the others made no response he continued. “When I was a boy I would come to this spot to watch the outside world,” Ganondorf began, jutting his chin in the direction of the fissure just to the south of them. “Inside that stone prison it was always the same. ‘You must train, young man, for one day you will be king.’ ‘Do not go outside; they will not understand you there.’ And then there were always my father’s rants about how all of Hyrule would one day be his. It was my place to finish what my father started, they told me. I would be expected to keep the Gerudo people alive.”
Ganondorf turned away from the fissure and looked down at Asera, his cold, black eyes twinkling in the growing dark. He lowered himself to one knee before her. “There were times when I thought about the women of my tribe…” he continued. He reached one strong hand toward the female thief. She lifted her chin, baring her slender brown neck. “I thought about what it would be like…to be king.” Ganondorf’s hand closed lightly around Asera’s neck, his glossy black eyes shining.
Abrum pulled Asera closer to him. Ganondorf saw the malice on Abrum’s face and sneered, releasing his grip on her. “But I never hallucinated that I would ever succumb to the feeble, debilitating curse of what they called ‘love’,” said Ganondorf. He bent forward, as if to tell a particularly good secret. “Some of the tribeswomen came to me when I was older. I learned very early in my life what it was to be loved by a woman…” He became serious: “but only a fool would love one in return.” Ganondorf stood again. Abrum’s hold on Asera relaxed marginally.
On the other side of the spitting coals, Ganondorf lifted his face to the inky blue sky. Little pinpricks of light were showing now. “One day I duped my trainer into believing there were snakes in her bedchamber and I was able to get a moment of peace from her incessant drills. I came here.” He did not turn; it was as if he could see the scene in the stars. “That was when I saw them: a man and a woman riding in a wagon, heading south. They were obviously afflicted with ‘love’ for each other, no doubt on their way to make a little day of the lake. But the oxen could smell me, and they stopped. Then fortune smiled and the desert’s breath came from the fissure and toppled the sick fools to the ground. While the man was cradling the loathsome red-haired woman like a feeble baby I stole what was left of their unspoiled cargo: four bottles of milk. The sentimental fools never knew I was there.
“I had never had milk before, so I drank one bottle on my way back to the fortress. It was far different than anything I had ever tasted.” In his voice was an eerie delight; so innocent, yet laced with greedy pleasure. “The water that was available to us Gerudo was putrid, stale and never without a little sand that found its way into the barrel—just like it found its way into everything else. But this milk was rich, thick and nourishing.” He lingered on the words as if they were sufficient to recreate the memory. “This, I thought…this was something fit for the king of the Gerudo. But the moment my trainer saw me she went and got my father.” Ganondorf kicked a toe of dirt on the fire and fell silent.
Asera was quiet, watching her lord. “What happened?” Abrum asked tentatively.
Ganondorf turned to stare at him resolutely. “You will hear no more from me tonight, boy; perhaps tomorrow when we enter the desert for the last time.” He stood and walked past the fire to the tent.
“What do you mean ‘the last time’?” Abrum asked, twisting to watch Ganondorf pull open the flap.
Ganondorf ignored him. “I will sleep alone tonight, I think,” he said conversationally. A distant howl drew their attention southward, toward the lake. “Give my regards to the wolves,” Ganondorf said, and chuckled to himself as he ducked into the tent, drawing the flap after him.
The boy came to the edge of a wide chasm. Far below, the waters of a treacherous river flowed. To the north the source of the river’s flow could be seen: a monumental waterfall that was fed by a number of other small rivers, in turn being fed by the Great Waterfall at the height of Zora’s Domain far to the east. The irony of this place was that the waters below were too far and too treacherous to make use of, and so they just mocked those that passed over the bridge spanning the chasm. The desert waited ahead, the fields behind. The boy pressed onward.
As the boy cleared the far opening of the fissure the complex of dwellings that served the Gerudo as both home and fortress came into view. Set back into the concave wall of the mountains, perched on a ledge like a hungry vulture, was a veritable beehive of century-old adobe dwellings. The face of each mud brick house was block-like in shape and built firmly on the dwelling below it. Higher dwellings were accessed by ladders, and rickety balconies were all that kept one from falling. Mounds of dirt had been thrown up in front of the complex and long tattered triangular flags undulated torpidly in the dry desert air. The flags may once have been red, but now the sun-bleached banners were light beige with only hints of their original hue. Countless cloudless years had drained all color from the landscape, as it had long ago bleached the color from the flags, and the scene had been subdued to a drab light brown monochrome.
But splashes of color marched among the monochrome like an army of ants. Dozens of swarthy scarlet-haired Gerudo women were climbing up and down among the dwellings. Guards swathed in purple gauze carried wide-bladed spears as they paced the flagged embankments. They were watching intently for something, each of them peering toward one opening of the fissure, then the other. The boy halted when he saw the foremost of the guards. When their eyes met the guard halted, pointing her wide-bladed spear at the startled boy. He froze, nearly dropping his precious, clinking bundle.
“Freya!” barked the guard, “call the king; we’ve found him!” And in moments another purple-swathed guard was climbing one of the ladders.
* * *
“Test him, I say!” barked the wizened, red-haired man. He was garbed in stiff leather armor, flexible at the joints and dyed black. A cloth cape hung from his bent shoulders. The cape was fraying at the edges but it was otherwise well cared for. At the man’s feet was a crumpled sheet strewn with broken glass and a fresh pool of white liquid which was now disappearing quickly into the parched ground. The boy’s lip trembled but his eyes were dry as the desert, retaining every precious drop of moisture. Instead he wore an angry visage, fuming with spite for the aged man.
“Lord, he is too young. He has not even finished his training,” said the guard, a young scarlet-haired woman. She folded her arms, her silver bracers flashing in the light of the setting sun like the defiance in her eyes. She wore a short sandy-white velvet vest, ballooned pants made of layers of light gauze, and velvet shoes with points curving up from the toes.
The red-haired man’s ancient, sparsely-whiskered mouth twitched with malicious glee. “Do you challenge me, Raean? It has been long since our last bout. I could use the exercise…”
“Some of us still follow the training routines, Lord King; I have had all the exercise I need. Besides, old man, you would kill yourself, whatever your pride might say.” She paused, seeming to have come up with an amusing joke. “Do you remember when you first tested me…?”
“I have tested all of my daughters, Raean, at least until I became too old to produce any more of them.” The old Gerudo male pressed backward against his curved spine with visible effort. When it had cracked twice he sighed satisfactorily and hunched forward again. “I can hardly remember which of my concubines birthed you. I only remember your name because you seem to constantly stand in my way. Now open the gate and test that foolish boy or I will have you banished to the Waste!” He glanced down at the young boy and rounded again on Raean. “And don’t let him pass unless he finds all of the keys—every last one.” He pressed the tip of one crooked finger into her shoulder. “I’ll have none of your cheating for this one.”
“Wouldn’t think of it Lord King,” Raean said, brushing his hand away. The boy thought he saw something in the guard’s hand, but he could not see what it was. She turned to him and winked.
The old man did not seem to notice, but scowled and stormed off with a sweep of his cape. She watched with mild sufferance as her king hobbled toward the center of the mud-brick complex, glancing over his hunched shoulder at the guards patrolling the embankments. She could hear him shouting at them to get back to their stations. Then she noticed the boy in black looking up at her, blinking as his eyes fought the sight of the waning sun.
Raean sighed theatrically. “That’s the seventh time he’s threatened to banish me to the Wastes this week,” she said. “It’s a good thing he can’t remember much more than my name.” The boy silently toed the sand, his small jaw clenched. Raean lowered a silver-braced arm and folded it around the boy’s small shoulders. “Come on,” she said, turning him to face the gate. “We may as well get started.”
“No!” said the boy. And he ran to the gate of the training grounds, punching and kicking it with childish consternation. This drew the attention of the closest guards.
“Hey, kid, what’re you doing?” said Raean, glancing around at the spear-bearing women. “Stop, stop…”
The boy shoved his face at Raean. “Why does he hate me?” A scowl made lines from his nose to his mouth.
“He doesn’t hate you, kid. He’s just a senile old man. And he’s very busy…”
Then the boy became even more furious, thrusting his fists into the ground and screaming. “I hate this place, I hate it!”
Raean withdrew a silver key from her girdle and took it to the gate of the training grounds. Turning the key in the lock she opened the gate. The young boy watched her indignantly. “He’s crazy. He’s crazy because of me, isn’t he?” he demanded, staring into the tunnel that led deep within the mountain. “He wants me to die.”
“No, kid. It’s just the way it’s always been.” Raean put her hand on his black shoulder. “You ready?”
The boy threw her hand off of him. “No. I’m not going…What’s in there anyway?”
“You’ll find out. You won’t die. Just do your best.” A muted reptilian shriek echoed out of the cave. He looked up at Raean with wide eyes.
“Here,” she said, “take this. But don’t tell him I gave it to you.” She pressed a large ring into his hands. It was fine silver, worked to resemble hexagonal crystalline shapes, and in the center was a six-sided blue stone that appeared to be frosted over with condensation. He rubbed the stone with his thumb, but the frost returned immediately.
The boy let the ring rest in the palm of his hand. “It’s too big, stupid. How’m I supposed to wear it?” he said.
“Don’t worry about that; it’s just because his fingers are so thick. Here; you put it on the first finger of your left hand.” She slipped the silver ring onto his finger. The ring shrank until it fit his finger perfectly.
He looked up at Raean, seeming to have changed his mind about how intelligent she was. “Alright, so how does it work?”
“Just keep it on that finger, next to the tip of your arrows before you loose them. It won’t get you through everything in there, but it’ll help you with the nastier things.” She turned him to face the cave. “Go on, now.”
“I told you I don’t wanna,” he said.
Then she grabbed him by the neck and threw him in, locking the gate after him. “And risk getting the back of the big man’s hand? I don’t think so. He’ll cut off my water rations.”
The boy rose himself up and rattled the gate. “Let me out, I’m ordering you!”
“Oh, no. It’s not like that yet, kid. Get in there. If you come back out we can talk about who’s giving orders.” When it looked like he wouldn’t move she approached the gate, just out of his reach. “Look, I gotta put on a good show, kid. Do just like you did in training, right? No sweat.”
The boy looked over his shoulder. “But are there really…dead people in there?”
“Just get going. If you never find out you won’t be any the wiser.”
Finally giving in, the boy walked into the darkness a few paces. Turning, he said: “Raean, if I die will you come get me?”
Raean smiled sympathetically. “Sure thing, kid. And don’t lose the ring; if you come back without it I’ll kill you myself.” A grateful smirk crossed the boy’s young face. Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
“He’s bound to be like his father, you know,” a female voice said. Raean turned like a startled cat, brandishing a short dagger from some unseen place at her waist. She stopped her blade short of the speaker’s neck.
“Nabooru, I hate it when you do that,” said Raean, replacing her dagger. The young woman, no more than seventeen years old, was unruffled. She was dressed like Raean but her costume was a coral pink hue and she wore arm-sleeves that stretched from her elbows to her knuckles. A large red stone rested on her forehead and another hung from a choker on her neck. Her long red hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and a short veil covered the lower half of her face.
“At least it keeps you on your toes,” Nabooru said. She crossed her gloved arms. “I haven’t seen you lately; I have to do something to keep you alert. If you don’t come to training there’s no way you’re ever going to beat me.”
“Look, I’m not going to challenge you again, so if you want the satisfaction you can forget it…” Raean crossed her arms, flashing her silver bracers, “…unless you want to scrap right here?”
“I think you would have a slight advantage just now,” she said, eyeing Raean’s silver bracers, “but in any case I don’t think you have time. The Matron wants to see you,” said Nabooru.
Raean’s murderous glance changed into one of sincere displeasure. “I’m managing the Training Grounds just fine! What more does she want?” Nabooru raised her eyebrows and gave Raean a look of tolerance. Raean rolled her eyes again. “I hate it when she does this. This is the third reassignment since the waning crescent.”
“You won’t want to keep her waiting,” said Nabooru. “The other attendants are crossing the Waste soon.”
Then Raean’s displeasure melted into delighted disbelief. “The Shrine?”
Nabooru nodded. “I wish I could go myself, of course, but Koume and Kotake requested your presence specifically.” She grinned behind her veil.
Raean’s eyes widened. “You little dung beetle. You know I’ve wanted to serve at the Shrine since I was old enough to be tested. You could have told me!”
Nabooru shrugged. “What are sisters for? Now get going, they’ll be leaving soon.”
“But who’s going to watch for the kid when he comes out?”
“You mean the King sent him in? He’s hasn’t even finished training! He’ll be…”
“Don’t worry; I gave the kid his Lordship’s ice ring. He’ll be fine,” assured Raean. Nabooru gave her sister a look of impressed disbelief. Raean just smiled. “Took it from him while he was poking at me with his gnarly old finger.”
“Well, I guess I could take a little time off from drilling the guards,” Nabooru replied in mock exasperation.
Raean threw her arms around her sister’s neck and kissed her forehead. “You really are worth something, I suppose,” she said.
“You’re going to be late,” Nabooru said, pressing Raean away firmly. “The Matron’s chamber is all the way on the other side of the fortress.”
“Thank you,” Raean said, pressing the silver gate-key into Nabooru’s hands. “Tell the kid I said goodbye.”
“Yeah, by the time you see him again you’ll be calling him Lord Ganondorf.” Nabooru said, and Raean turned and ran toward the western fissure, blinking as the light of the glowing sun peeked out from behind the mountain wall.
* * *
“My Lord Ganondorf, are you well?” Abrum asked. He set the pile of dry brush he had gathered on the ground away from the fire. The sun was setting somewhere west of the Burning Desert. Gerudo Fortress was just on the other side of the mountains from the small camp. Asera was assembling their triangular tent; just big enough to accommodate the three of them. The twilight air was thin, dry and bitterly cold. Ganondorf peered into the fire and drew a deep draught from his water skin.
Asera looked up from the long stake she had just driven into the hard, dry dirt. “The tent is up, Master. Will you come and rest?” Ganondorf stared at her blankly. “Come, Master. We have been traveling for days; you need rest if we are to enter the fortress tomorrow.” The black thief stared into the fire again and drank from his water skin. Asera and Abrum each caught the other’s worried glance. Ganondorf was only very quiet when he was thinking about something terrible he had done or wished to do.
“Lord, what is it?” Abrum pressed.
Without looking up, Ganondorf responded. “I will tell you, Sheikah whelp, if you will cease your insufferable questioning.” Ganondorf stood, pouring what liquid remained in his skin over the fire, reducing it to a puddle of muddy ash.
“What are you doing!?” Abrum’s face broadcast his astonishment. “We’ve not been able to conjure water since the Hylian witch summoned those light-horrors to take away our magic; that was the last of our reserves! And you just snuffed our fire!”
“Wipe that shocked look off your face, boy. We are warm enough and the fire will attract attention this close to Gerudo lands. Anyone foolish enough to build a fire outside the mountains is no fool, but somewhere they ought not to be. Now sit and I will tell you something.”
Abrum sat by the smoldering embers in indignation, rubbing his hands and tucking them under his arms. Asera came to sit in front of Abrum. He made room for her, wrapping his arms around hers.
“All settled, then?” Ganondorf sneered. When the others made no response he continued. “When I was a boy I would come to this spot to watch the outside world,” Ganondorf began, jutting his chin in the direction of the fissure just to the south of them. “Inside that stone prison it was always the same. ‘You must train, young man, for one day you will be king.’ ‘Do not go outside; they will not understand you there.’ And then there were always my father’s rants about how all of Hyrule would one day be his. It was my place to finish what my father started, they told me. I would be expected to keep the Gerudo people alive.”
Ganondorf turned away from the fissure and looked down at Asera, his cold, black eyes twinkling in the growing dark. He lowered himself to one knee before her. “There were times when I thought about the women of my tribe…” he continued. He reached one strong hand toward the female thief. She lifted her chin, baring her slender brown neck. “I thought about what it would be like…to be king.” Ganondorf’s hand closed lightly around Asera’s neck, his glossy black eyes shining.
Abrum pulled Asera closer to him. Ganondorf saw the malice on Abrum’s face and sneered, releasing his grip on her. “But I never hallucinated that I would ever succumb to the feeble, debilitating curse of what they called ‘love’,” said Ganondorf. He bent forward, as if to tell a particularly good secret. “Some of the tribeswomen came to me when I was older. I learned very early in my life what it was to be loved by a woman…” He became serious: “but only a fool would love one in return.” Ganondorf stood again. Abrum’s hold on Asera relaxed marginally.
On the other side of the spitting coals, Ganondorf lifted his face to the inky blue sky. Little pinpricks of light were showing now. “One day I duped my trainer into believing there were snakes in her bedchamber and I was able to get a moment of peace from her incessant drills. I came here.” He did not turn; it was as if he could see the scene in the stars. “That was when I saw them: a man and a woman riding in a wagon, heading south. They were obviously afflicted with ‘love’ for each other, no doubt on their way to make a little day of the lake. But the oxen could smell me, and they stopped. Then fortune smiled and the desert’s breath came from the fissure and toppled the sick fools to the ground. While the man was cradling the loathsome red-haired woman like a feeble baby I stole what was left of their unspoiled cargo: four bottles of milk. The sentimental fools never knew I was there.
“I had never had milk before, so I drank one bottle on my way back to the fortress. It was far different than anything I had ever tasted.” In his voice was an eerie delight; so innocent, yet laced with greedy pleasure. “The water that was available to us Gerudo was putrid, stale and never without a little sand that found its way into the barrel—just like it found its way into everything else. But this milk was rich, thick and nourishing.” He lingered on the words as if they were sufficient to recreate the memory. “This, I thought…this was something fit for the king of the Gerudo. But the moment my trainer saw me she went and got my father.” Ganondorf kicked a toe of dirt on the fire and fell silent.
Asera was quiet, watching her lord. “What happened?” Abrum asked tentatively.
Ganondorf turned to stare at him resolutely. “You will hear no more from me tonight, boy; perhaps tomorrow when we enter the desert for the last time.” He stood and walked past the fire to the tent.
“What do you mean ‘the last time’?” Abrum asked, twisting to watch Ganondorf pull open the flap.
Ganondorf ignored him. “I will sleep alone tonight, I think,” he said conversationally. A distant howl drew their attention southward, toward the lake. “Give my regards to the wolves,” Ganondorf said, and chuckled to himself as he ducked into the tent, drawing the flap after him.
Chapter III ~ Of Pigs and Swine
The first thing Link heard was an oddly jolting, unsettling laugh. Strangely, when Link awoke the yellow light had been joined by one of deep purple. Link stared up at a sky of a quickly lightening dawn and he thought for a moment that he might still have been on the fields of the moon. Then he heard sniffing sounds and realized someone was bending very close to him. As he opened his eyes further he saw what looked like a small child made entirely out of twisted branches. It wore shabby brown clothes and set on its head was a tattered peaked hat. Orange eyes glowed behind a sharp beak-like face.
“Hello,” said the wooden boy. “You smell like that kid that I met in the woods awhile ago.” The wooden boy shifted his shoulders up and down as he considered Link further. “I remember—he taught me a song! Do you know any songs?”
“Yeah.” Link sat up. He recognized the wooden boy from the Lost Woods back in Hyrule. He had only seen him a couple of times, but Link remembered selling him a mask that looked like a skull once, and he played him the song Saria had taught him on another occasion. Recently the wooden boy had also been the puppet of Majora’s Mask. Now that Majora’s Incarnation was destroyed…Link wondered whether he was completely himself again.
“Yeah, Skulki, that was me,” Link said shaking his head dazedly.
“Oh!” said Skulki, his head popping up from his shoulders. “Why so it was!” And the wooden boy tilted his head back and laughed. It was the jolting, unsettling laugh, but it was no less happy than any other child’s.
“What happened?” Link asked. He had his gilded sword still strapped to his waist and the mirrored shield on his back. “Are we home?” But as Link looked around, the world answered his question for him. He was lying in Termina Field near a giant hollow stump. Forests spread out before him and beyond that were the swamps. Just then he heard a familiar neigh behind him.
“Epona!” Link cried, standing up. Epona was nibbling grass near Clock Town’s southern entrance. He ran to her, throwing his arms around her neck. “You didn’t run off! I’m so glad you’re okay…” She nuzzled Link and he began to stroke her muzzle, but then he realized that something very large was standing over him.
A gigantic brown foot rose up from the ground somewhere to Link’s left, and then another shifted off to his right. Link quickly mounted Epona and kicked her into a gallop, toward the swamp. Skulki followed, accompanied by the yellow and deep-purple lights. When they were far enough away, they turned to see the forms of four gigantic men turn to look in their direction. Each appeared to be a gargantuan bulb of wood with beards made of long vines and enormous green leaves. From the head sprouted long, thin arms and legs which ended in hands and feet the size of wagons. These were the giants of Termina who had caught the moon in its suicidal descent. Strangely, thought Link, the moon was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a bright, clear rainbow. This was the first reassuring sign of hope Link had seen in many, many days.
The giants raised their heads in unison and let forth a deep throated drone, like a chorus. The drone was wordless, but somehow the wooden child seemed to understand them.
Skulki’s head was bowed. “You mean you didn’t forget about me?” he said. “You still think of me as a friend…after all those things I did?”
Link considered Skulki with pity. He had stolen Majora’s Mask from the Mask Salesman, it was true. But he had not chosen to do all those evil things to the people of Termina. “It’s alright, Skulki. I don’t think they blame you,” Link offered.
Skulki’s eyes glowed under the brim of his peaked hat. “Really? I sure am sorry for stealing that mask…” he said meekly. Then he turned his face toward the giants. They raised their heads and droned again. “Then you’ll forgive me?” said Skulki, happily. “Thank you, friends! Thank you!” Link thought for a moment that Skulki might cry, but he wasn’t sure whether he could.
The giants bellowed wordlessly again, and then they raised up their great feet and walked in their respective cardinal directions; one wading deep into the western sea as if it were a shallow pool, one climbing the northern mountains as if they were little hills, another stepping over the chasms in the east like narrow cracks, and the last disappearing into the fog of the swamps to the south.
“So, you’ve finally found my mask, haven’t you?” said a voice nearby. The speaker was a pale man with greasy, straight red hair, parted perfectly down the center. He wore a purple coat and upturned shoes. On his hunched back was a pack that was far too large for him. It must have been full of masks, for masks of every variety were dangling from the outside of the pack. Link even saw one that closely resembled the kind of boar that was prevalent in the Koroki woods. Most startling, however, was the smile that never seemed to leave his face.
In his hands, the Mask Salesman held a heart-shaped wooden mask that had been cloven half-way through. “The curse has left it, it seems. Yes, thank you for retrieving it for me,” he said. “And now I must return to my travels.” The Mask Salesman began waddling away, toward Clock Town, but then he stopped. “Shouldn’t you be returning home, too? All of you…?” He scanned the five of them with his squinty eyes; two fairies, a wooden child, a horse and a Hylian boy. “You do not belong here. Now that you have saved this place, this people, you must leave them behind. For when there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow.” Then the Mask Salesman’s eyes glinted and he smiled even more widely. “How long that parting might last is up to you…”
But as he walked away, the Mask Salesman faded; his form blurring, drifting about as smoke, and then disappearing entirely. Link looked over at Skulki, wide eyed. Skulki looked back, his orange eyes glowing adventurously.
Then suddenly a series of loud explosions echoed out over Clock Town. For a moment Link thought something had gone wrong, and he drew the gilded sword at his waist. Then he realized the explosions were only fireworks—the Carnival of Time had started, and on schedule no less.
A voice came from the yellow ball of light. “Well, now that we’ve all got what we wanted, maybe you should go, Link. I think Tael and I will stay and enjoy the Carnival.” The deep-purple light hovered near Tatl.
“Yeah…okay,” said Link, disappointed. Having Tatl around was almost like having Navi back. He still hadn’t found Navi in all this time and he was certain that if he hadn’t found her by now, he would never know where to look. That parting, he thought, might last forever.
“Hey,” said Skulki, in hushed excitement, “cheer up! When we get back to the Lost Woods we should…do something. Maybe we could play some music on the way, just like we used to!” Link could think of nothing to say. He wished he could just go to sleep and wake up in Hyrule. For a moment he felt that he might never know what it was like to be home again. He knew the road he had to travel; all that remained was to travel it. Link adjusted the mirror shield on his back and urged Epona forward forlornly. They were going home.
* * *
When the knight opened his eyes again, he was laying in a bed far too small for him, his head propped up by three or four mushy feather pillows. The bed sat in the far corner of a small room which was illuminated by the light of a window somewhere to his left. The plaster walls were bisected by wide wooden beams. The knight stared at the wooden beams supporting the ceiling and realized he did not know where he was. He also suddenly realized that besides his breeches he was not wearing any clothing.
Rolling to his side, the knight saw a red-haired girl sitting on a stool in the center of the room, smiling at him. The knight jerked back, crying out, and thrust his head into the wall behind him. The girl raised her hands to her mouth, her eyes widening. She slid off the stool and approached the knight like a mother would a wounded child. He pressed his bare back against the cold plaster wall. “Oh!” she said, through her hands. “That didn’t happen last time.”
“Last time?” he asked, his head buzzing.
“Oh, did you hurt yourself?” she said through a puckered frown, reaching for the back of his head. He let her massage his smarting skull, though his eyes would have said he wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea.
“I…I thank you,” he finally managed, relaxing.
A man’s voice came from somewhere on a lower floor: “Are you a-trying to nurse that poor man, Malon?”
“No, Poppa,” Malon said, hollering so her father could hear her, still looking at the knight. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she mouthed and nodded slowly, smiling. She teased the thin strands of his blonde hair with her small fingers.
“I think I can manage, now,” he said, gently pulling her hand away from his head. She backed away, sitting on her stool again. Malon was apparently not distracted by the fact that he was not wearing a shirt, which meant he did not mind it either. “Pardon my inconvenience on your hospitality,” he said, “but what…happened?”
“Poppa found you and brung you here,” she said. “We been takin’ care of you since yesterday noon an’…well, you slept so long I just figgered I’d keep an eye on you, make sure as you didn’t die.” She had said it so naturally it was clear to the knight that she must have seen things die before. He had the sense they must have been sick or maimed animals.
“Well, I think you’ve done very well,” said the knight, hesitating slightly on the last word as he raised his hand to the back of his head. “And I owe you a debt of life. If there is anything I might do to repay you…”
“What’s your name?” she asked, looking as if she had wondered all her life.
“Afton,” he said simply.
“Huh,” she said, looking disappointed. The knight was perplexed by this, but he did not have a chance to think on it further as the cart driver had just entered the room. He was wearing the same clothes as before, which told the knight the man must work in them.
“Mally, I’m needin’ a bit o’ help with the tanning if…well! Looks like our visitor’s up an’ at ‘em right shiny.” The knight stood immediately when his benefactor stepped forward.
“Poppa, this is Afton,” Malon said by way of proper introduction.
“Well met, sir,” said Afton taking the man’s hand. “I am in your debt for the service you have rendered me. If there is anything I might do to repay that debt, you have but to ask. Might I be honored by my savior’s name?”
“Well, that’s a lot of talk for a ‘how d’you do’. If’n it please you sir, I’m Talon—head of this here fine ranch.” Talon stuck his thumb at his daughter. “Me an’ my Mally take care o’ things together, since the missus, that is.”
Malon nodded. “We bin introduced proper,” she said, curtseying.
“I am sorry to hear of your wife, Faroe rest her,” said the knight. “Has it been long?”
“Bin a couple years, now,” Talon said soberly. “Funny how time goes…”
“I remember her singing,” Malon said. “It was beautiful, like what flowers sound like.” The knight listened with respect.
“Yessir. She did sing right purdy.” Talon wiped the wetness from his eyes with a single thumb and sniffed. “But you’ll be wantin’ what fer t’eat!” He smiled briefly and motioned to the door.
The knight did not press the subject. “Of course, sir, if it please you,” he said, bowing his head. “But perhaps I ought to dress.”
“Right, right-cha be,” Talon said. “Mal, go on an’ git the man his duds, I’ll git the fire started.” Malon smiled at the knight and slid off her stool, running out of the room. Turning to the knight again, he said, “when yer all gussied up jes’ come on down, we’ll have supper ready in no time.” Talon left the room.
Malon returned with the knight’s tunic—well stitched—and his shirt, both clean and folded neatly together. On top of the pile was a new pair of wool socks. She also carried in his belt and boots. “I did up yer overcoat,” she said, obviously waiting for something.
Understanding, the knight took the bundle of clothes and unfolded his tunic, pulling it over his head and smoothing it out so the repaired parts were clearly visible. They were patched together with cloth that was slightly more yellow than the white of his tunic, but the stitching was fine and appeared strong. “It is well done,” he said, smiling.
Malon smiled back. Then her eyes fell on the Crest of the Royal Family on his chest. “What does that mean?” she said, looking for the second time like she had wondered all her life.
“The crest?” he asked. Malon nodded. “The crest is a symbol of the royal family. It is a bird—an owl—to represent wisdom. The owl’s head is made of three triangles, one to represent each of the Goddesses. The large triangle made by the three is the Triforce, symbol of the Goddesses. It stands in place of the owl’s head to show that the royal family is led by the Goddesses in all that they do.”
The girl took this all in seriously. She looked as if she was going to ask another question, but was reminded of something instead. “Oh!” she said, “I forgot.” And she left the room, leaving the knight standing barefoot, wearing a patched tunic but no shirt. Within seconds she returned bearing a bucket of steaming water which she placed next to the door. “For warshin’ up,” she said, pointing to a shallow metal bowl with a flat bottom on the bed-table. He thanked her and she left the knight alone with one final wave of her hand.
* * *
The ranch house had two stories; the upper one had three rooms—one occupied by Malon and another by her father. The third (and smallest) was reserved for their ranch-hand, Ingo. The lower floor had a large sitting room, which took up almost half of the level. The sitting room led into the dining room, and then the kitchen, which opened into the back yard. Surrounding the house were large masses of rock that jutted up from the landscape. One mass of rock nearby had been built up into a stone tower that served as a silo and shed. Talon had built high reinforced wooden fences connecting one rock mass to another so that the whole ranch was secluded. Within the fence was a wooden barn topped by an iron weathercock, a stable, a track circumventing a horse-pen, and a chicken coop as well as a few trees. Currently, the shelter in the horse-pen was being used to house the tanning rack upon which was stretched the hide of the beast the knight had slain the day before.
That afternoon the supper table was spread with homemade bread and freshly churned butter, milk, cheese, roasted chicken and potatoes. The knights normally dined in the mess hall of Hyrule Castle unless they were abroad. Then they lived on rations and what they could hunt. Despite this, however, the knight relished the rancher’s meal, thinking it was a very satisfying repast (and he said so). Presently, the talk turned to the beast he had fought the day before.
“You brought it back?” the knight said, aghast.
“Well, it was a right good bit o’ strong leather,” Talon said, shrugging. “An’ seein’ as how it were already dead…Say, d’you think so much as the meat could be roasted up?” asked Talon, tearing a hunk of chicken from the bone with his fingers.
“I wouldn’t know,” said the knight, helping himself to more potatoes. “I have never seen its kind before, though if it is much like the usual boar, it may be palatable.”
Malon licked the milk from her upper lip. “You don’ know where it comes from?” she asked.
“No. And so far no one can say, or at least no one that has reported them. I only knew about this one because a man that frequents this area told me of it. They are appearing all over Hyrule. We knights were sent out to hunt them down.”
“Was he running?” asked Malon.
“The boar?” said the knight.
“No,” she said, smiling. She scooped some butter out of a small dish. “The man who told you.”
“Oh, yes. Fellow ran up to me as soon as he saw me and darted away the moment he was finished speaking,” said Afton.
“He likes to do that,” Malon said, still smiling. “He could be a right proper mail-man, fast as he runs. I doubt that beast could beat him, even if it tried.”
“Well, we’re much obliged for the one you did git,” Talon said. “We seen it afore an’ done stayed away from it, though it almost got the cart a couple o’ times. Nearly knocked Mally out once.”
“I wonder as to whether they could be tamed,” Malon said, becoming animated.
The knight was sure that she would certainly try, if given the chance. “I sincerely doubt it, my lady. Though if one could be tamed, the rider of such a beast would find herself in as dangerous a spot as any who got in its way.”
From the sitting room came the sound of the front door opening and closing. Talon’s face screwed up as if he were trying to remember something very important. “Talon!” a brash male voice called from the sitting room. Then Talon’s face lengthened and his eyes appeared is if they might pop from their sockets for as big as they got. His cheeks flushed and he pointed a toothy, innocent smile at a tall, thin man that entered the room.
The man wore overalls like Talon’s and wore a similar straw hat. His long, thin nose ended in a large well-trimmed handlebar mustache. The man’s dense eyebrows slanted down sharply toward the middle of his face and made his small beady eyes look like they were set too close together. He carried a flat bladed hoe on his shoulder and a tin bucket in his hand full of something that smelled like the beast the knight had vanquished. A small cloud of flies seemed to have followed him in. Malon grimaced at the smell. The man glared at Talon with a flat expression and looked as if he did not intend to move.
Talon spoke, “I, uh…I was plannin’ ter git you a right bit o’ help with that tannin’, Ingo,” he began.
“But you thought you’d catch a bite with the visiting royalty, is that it?” Ingo said in his brash voice.
Talon’s innocent smile widened desperately. “I had ter git him somethin’ fer t’eat,” he said, thrusting flattened hands at the knight.
The knight stood. “I am the cause of Master Talon’s negligence, if there be any. He has done me a great service by caring for me, and any hardship it has caused I would seek to alleviate.”
Ingo regarded the knight, eyeing his patched tunic and clean face. “I’d expect as much work out of you, pansy-boy, as I would out of that lazy no-account Zelda what comes to visit Malon an’ takes her away from her chores.”
Malon’s grimace turned into a hateful scowl. “You take that back! He’s right nice,” she hollered, threatening Ingo with a finger, “an’ that’s Princess Zelda to you!”
But Ingo pressed on, turning to Malon. “An’ who do you think does all those chores? Right along with all the others he’s got to do?! But seein’ as how Pansy-boy expects to put hisself to use…” He thrust the bucket of foul-smelling something into Afton’s hands, reminding the knight vividly of the beast’s breath. Ingo walked past him into the kitchen and out the back door.
For a moment nobody knew what to say. It became clear from the pained look on the knight’s face that he did not know what to do with the bucket, and did not wish to hold it any longer than he had to. “Master Rancher…?” he began.
But Malon got up from her seat still wearing her scowl and took the bucket from the knight. She silenced his protests with a raised hand and carried the bucket through the open back door. Seconds later there came a commotion from the backyard that sounded like a splat, and then a yelp, a clattering of tools, and a resounding thud as something big hit the bottom of a large metal basin.
Malon entered the kitchen with an empty bucket, which she threw back out the door. “You ought t’be ashamed o’ yerself!” she hollered, and kicked the door closed with a slam. As she stamped past the table the knight could hear her saying something about having to go ‘warsh up.’ She left through the front door.
Talon could not help but chuckle. “That’s my Mally,” he said. “Man who marries her might be in a better fix tryin’ ter manage one o’ them beasts.”
* * *
The morning light crept through the fissure into Gerudo territory. Ganondorf strode confidently through the familiar passages, taking in the cloudless desert sky far above; the dry, cragged rock face. He pondered the traitorous river as he crossed the bridge that spanned it. Finally, he had just come into view of the sun-bleached triangular flags when he was suddenly stopped short.
“Ganondorf Dragmire, you are under arrest.” Six Gerudo guards had their spears pointed at the Thief Lord. The speaker emerged from the shadows. It was Nabooru, looking murderous. She wore the ceremonial costume of the tribe Matron: a blue gown over her usual Gerudo clothing and a crown of white feathers splayed like the crest of a bird. “You betrayed our honor by turning on the Hylians. As second-in-command of the Gerudo people I hold you accountable to our laws.”
“You greet your king so? Don't stand in my way, Nabooru. Second-in-command must still bow to her rightful ruler. I go to the desert pyramid to pay my respects to the Sand Goddess. Surely you cannot deny me that.” Ganondorf stepped past the guards and made for the Wastes. The guards hesitated.
“You respect no one, Ganondorf,” said Nabooru, standing before her king in defiance. “You shall not pass. It has been forbidden. We will deny you.” Eight more guards emerged from their hiding places behind her and formed a barricade with their spears. The guards behind him likewise barred his retreat. Ganondorf was surrounded.
“Come, come, now,” said Ganondorf, grinning. “Can you really expect me to back down?” Nabooru was steel-faced. His grin became a scowl. “I never back down.” With a flick of his chin his reinforcements sprang out of their hiding places. In moments Asera and Abrum had disabled the six guards from behind and Ganondorf was joined by his minions. Abrum turned a stolen spear on Nabooru. “Deny me then,” said Ganondorf, folding his arms.
“Your father would never have let you do this,” sneered Nabooru.
“A shame he isn’t here, isn’t it?” snapped Ganondorf.
“Yes, shameful indeed,” answered Nabooru. “Shameful that his son is yet more wicked than he. Yet wicked as he was he would never have seen a Gerudo thief in league with the likes of this Sheikah dog.”
Abrum reacted quickly, thrusting the spear at the Gerudo Matron over and over. Nabooru was too quick for him, however, dodging his thrusts until she batted the spear from his hands, knocking it to the ground. In another quick movement Nabooru had curled her toe under the weapon and then it was in her hands, the tip pointed at Abrum’s heart. But Asera was already at Nabooru’s neck with her scimitar. They were at an impasse. Slowly, each backed away. The commotion had drawn a small group of Gerudo tribeswomen to the edge of the embankments.
“And now we can all see you have brought the very Gerudo against themselves,” Nabooru called, loud enough for the other tribeswomen to hear. “We are not blind, Ganondorf. We know you have recruited yet others of our number to your cause. What of them? Or are they all captured and dead at the tip of Hylian swords.” Nabooru stood erect with her spear held like a royal scepter. “Some of us have seen through your greed these many years, Ganondorf. Some of us know what happens to the women who don’t bow to your every command. Your two little witch-aunts take them off to the Shrine and have them brainwashed. That’s what you did with my sister, wasn’t it? Raean refused you and you had her mind wiped; made her your own little slave.” Ganondorf sneered. “You’re bent, Ganondorf. We may be thieves, but at least we are loyal to our oaths.” Then Ganondorf’s sneer twisted into a scowl. “You have no honor. Your Father would never have approved of…”
“My father’s crimes were no better than mine!” Ganondorf finally roared, vehement. “He sent his only son to die!” Ganondorf turned to the crowd of Gerudo women. “He had never spoken to me before that. No matter how many times I asked for him, he never came.” Then he rounded on Nabooru. “I brought him milk, if you remember. Such a precious gift as three bottles of rich milk would surely mean I could see him; speak to him. And he could not deny my part in the thing; I had brought the milk, not my trainer or anyone else. If any deserved reward it was I.” Now the guards from the rest of the fortress were gathering.
“But do you know what that milk bought me?” Ganondorf continued. He held up his forefinger. “One glance from my father. And he wasted it; smashed it on the ground. He said I had endangered the tribe by going outside the mountains and risking the knowledge of our location—said I was a disgrace, trying to undo what he had spent so long trying to accomplish—said I was never his son. Truly none else deserved the reward, and none else deserved the punishment.”
“For someone who hadn’t finished their training it must have been an honor for the Lord King to consider you ready to be tested,” said Nabooru.
“For someone who hadn’t finished training it was a death sentence! I had to fight my way in with no weapons but a shoddy bow I plucked off the last fool who failed. My father put me in there to die. I fought my way out, but by the time I did, he was gone. They said he had gone off to the pyramids in the deep desert, but I knew the truth; he abandoned me. Only then did I realize how much I hated him. I was nothing to him; a thorn in his side, someone who would only ever just take his place. He was never ‘paying his devotions.’ He was avoiding me, scorning me. No, Nabooru, don’t delude yourself—the man was as apathetic about the Goddesses as he was about his own people.”
Nabooru stood tall, robes sweeping. “And what will you do about it, Ganondorf Dragmire? Now you are all the Gerudo have…”
Ganondorf laughed at the phrase for spite with a wicked red laugh. “I am all the Gerudo have…and what am I to the Gerudo…?”
“As king you are the father of many…”
“Well I only ever had one father!” Ganondorf bellowed tersely. “And to him I never existed! And you all played along like it was a game!” Asera’s stance shifted as she glanced at her master, livid and tense. “We have only ever had what we could steal,” he continued, gesturing broadly toward the crowds of women, some of whom had young daughters with them. “I only ever had what I could take for myself. But the one thing I could never have was him. He was yours, or theirs,” he said gesturing broadly again, “but never mine…”
“Ganondorf, see reason,” interrupted Nabooru. “Now you are all the Gerudo have. If you leave this place our people will be no more. We will die, our ways will die…”
“I am done with this people and its ways!!” bellowed Ganondorf, mere inches from Nabooru’s face. The guards behind her brandished their spears, but Ganondorf ignored them. “Deluded fools, all of you. You begged your king to appease your thirst and he gave you filth to drink…”
“It was all we had, Ganondorf, you know…”
“I am not finished!” Nabooru clamped her mouth shut. “You begged him to give you sons and…”
“And he gave them you, Ganondorf…” she blurted.
“Obey and be silent, woman! I am finished with the Gerudo! Curl up in your caves and rot. I am no longer Ganondorf, king of the Enchanted Thieves. Now, I am only Ganon!”
And on the last word the Dark King drove his fist into the ground. There was a flash of purple and the earth shook violently, throwing Nabooru, the soldiers and most of the crowd off their feet. Where Ganon’s fist had struck a growing crack crept through the rock with thickening fingers. In moments it had reached half-way up the embankment. Then something else began to happen; from within the mud-brick dwellings issued shouts of alarm followed by clouds of dust. The mountain groaned and the complex of mud-dwellings folded inward—Gerudo Fortress was collapsing.
Nabooru responded immediately, commanding the guards into the fortress to help the injured. One after the other all of the adobe dwellings crumbled, burying those inside.
“Accept your punishment, fools!” Ganon barked. “Asera, Abrum!”
Called out of their shock and awe, Ganon’s minions followed their master as he strode, apathetic, past building after crumbling building. Not even when they reached the other extremity of the Gerudo Fortress did he turn to look on the place where he had become a man, crumbling to dust.
Nabooru hauled a young girl from under a pile of rubble. Dust caught in her throat. She only just caught the sight of two hunched figures riding their broomsticks out from among the rubble over the mountains toward the barren Waste.
“Sianna,” Nabooru called out when her voice was clear enough to speak. A Gerudo guard came to her side. “Get me the Silver Guantlets.”
“But mistress Nabooru, I…”
“Listen to me!” she said, grabbing the vest of the guard. “Our king is gone. I am your Matron. He will send his witches to retrieve the Gauntlets and use them for his wicked scheme. Do as I say or I will punish you and anyone else who crosses me! Get me those Guantlets now!”
“But they are in the Desert Shrine…the Waste is too treacherous to cross…”
“I know of a way—retrieve my sitar…”
“…but the entrances are far too small for…”
“…then this child shall do it!” Nabooru barked. “I will not allow my sister’s bracers into the hands of that criminal. Take her and return to me with them at once.”
“It shall be done.”
Nabooru knelt before the young girl. She wore a brave expression over her worried face. “What is your name, child?” The girl said her name just loud enough. “Din, is it?” said Nabooru. “That is the name of the Goddess herself! Did you know that, Din?” The little girl nodded her head. “Well, then. You must be very powerful to have a name such as that. Will you go with Sianna and retrieve my sister’s treasure?” The girl nodded again. “Thank you, Din. May your namesake protect you with her flaming arms and bring you back to us.” And when Nabooru had kissed her cheek, the girl left with Sianna to retrieve Nabooru’s sitar.
* * *
Abrum glanced behind him, aghast as the mourning wails of young children reached their ears. “Master, they’re dying…you’ve destroyed your own people…”
“A fitting end to a prison; I have set the captives free,” he said, and marched into the desert, a wall of sandstorms waiting to greet him. Asera and Abrum followed wordlessly. In moments two venerable figures arrived riding broomsticks.
“Hello,” said the wooden boy. “You smell like that kid that I met in the woods awhile ago.” The wooden boy shifted his shoulders up and down as he considered Link further. “I remember—he taught me a song! Do you know any songs?”
“Yeah.” Link sat up. He recognized the wooden boy from the Lost Woods back in Hyrule. He had only seen him a couple of times, but Link remembered selling him a mask that looked like a skull once, and he played him the song Saria had taught him on another occasion. Recently the wooden boy had also been the puppet of Majora’s Mask. Now that Majora’s Incarnation was destroyed…Link wondered whether he was completely himself again.
“Yeah, Skulki, that was me,” Link said shaking his head dazedly.
“Oh!” said Skulki, his head popping up from his shoulders. “Why so it was!” And the wooden boy tilted his head back and laughed. It was the jolting, unsettling laugh, but it was no less happy than any other child’s.
“What happened?” Link asked. He had his gilded sword still strapped to his waist and the mirrored shield on his back. “Are we home?” But as Link looked around, the world answered his question for him. He was lying in Termina Field near a giant hollow stump. Forests spread out before him and beyond that were the swamps. Just then he heard a familiar neigh behind him.
“Epona!” Link cried, standing up. Epona was nibbling grass near Clock Town’s southern entrance. He ran to her, throwing his arms around her neck. “You didn’t run off! I’m so glad you’re okay…” She nuzzled Link and he began to stroke her muzzle, but then he realized that something very large was standing over him.
A gigantic brown foot rose up from the ground somewhere to Link’s left, and then another shifted off to his right. Link quickly mounted Epona and kicked her into a gallop, toward the swamp. Skulki followed, accompanied by the yellow and deep-purple lights. When they were far enough away, they turned to see the forms of four gigantic men turn to look in their direction. Each appeared to be a gargantuan bulb of wood with beards made of long vines and enormous green leaves. From the head sprouted long, thin arms and legs which ended in hands and feet the size of wagons. These were the giants of Termina who had caught the moon in its suicidal descent. Strangely, thought Link, the moon was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a bright, clear rainbow. This was the first reassuring sign of hope Link had seen in many, many days.
The giants raised their heads in unison and let forth a deep throated drone, like a chorus. The drone was wordless, but somehow the wooden child seemed to understand them.
Skulki’s head was bowed. “You mean you didn’t forget about me?” he said. “You still think of me as a friend…after all those things I did?”
Link considered Skulki with pity. He had stolen Majora’s Mask from the Mask Salesman, it was true. But he had not chosen to do all those evil things to the people of Termina. “It’s alright, Skulki. I don’t think they blame you,” Link offered.
Skulki’s eyes glowed under the brim of his peaked hat. “Really? I sure am sorry for stealing that mask…” he said meekly. Then he turned his face toward the giants. They raised their heads and droned again. “Then you’ll forgive me?” said Skulki, happily. “Thank you, friends! Thank you!” Link thought for a moment that Skulki might cry, but he wasn’t sure whether he could.
The giants bellowed wordlessly again, and then they raised up their great feet and walked in their respective cardinal directions; one wading deep into the western sea as if it were a shallow pool, one climbing the northern mountains as if they were little hills, another stepping over the chasms in the east like narrow cracks, and the last disappearing into the fog of the swamps to the south.
“So, you’ve finally found my mask, haven’t you?” said a voice nearby. The speaker was a pale man with greasy, straight red hair, parted perfectly down the center. He wore a purple coat and upturned shoes. On his hunched back was a pack that was far too large for him. It must have been full of masks, for masks of every variety were dangling from the outside of the pack. Link even saw one that closely resembled the kind of boar that was prevalent in the Koroki woods. Most startling, however, was the smile that never seemed to leave his face.
In his hands, the Mask Salesman held a heart-shaped wooden mask that had been cloven half-way through. “The curse has left it, it seems. Yes, thank you for retrieving it for me,” he said. “And now I must return to my travels.” The Mask Salesman began waddling away, toward Clock Town, but then he stopped. “Shouldn’t you be returning home, too? All of you…?” He scanned the five of them with his squinty eyes; two fairies, a wooden child, a horse and a Hylian boy. “You do not belong here. Now that you have saved this place, this people, you must leave them behind. For when there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow.” Then the Mask Salesman’s eyes glinted and he smiled even more widely. “How long that parting might last is up to you…”
But as he walked away, the Mask Salesman faded; his form blurring, drifting about as smoke, and then disappearing entirely. Link looked over at Skulki, wide eyed. Skulki looked back, his orange eyes glowing adventurously.
Then suddenly a series of loud explosions echoed out over Clock Town. For a moment Link thought something had gone wrong, and he drew the gilded sword at his waist. Then he realized the explosions were only fireworks—the Carnival of Time had started, and on schedule no less.
A voice came from the yellow ball of light. “Well, now that we’ve all got what we wanted, maybe you should go, Link. I think Tael and I will stay and enjoy the Carnival.” The deep-purple light hovered near Tatl.
“Yeah…okay,” said Link, disappointed. Having Tatl around was almost like having Navi back. He still hadn’t found Navi in all this time and he was certain that if he hadn’t found her by now, he would never know where to look. That parting, he thought, might last forever.
“Hey,” said Skulki, in hushed excitement, “cheer up! When we get back to the Lost Woods we should…do something. Maybe we could play some music on the way, just like we used to!” Link could think of nothing to say. He wished he could just go to sleep and wake up in Hyrule. For a moment he felt that he might never know what it was like to be home again. He knew the road he had to travel; all that remained was to travel it. Link adjusted the mirror shield on his back and urged Epona forward forlornly. They were going home.
* * *
When the knight opened his eyes again, he was laying in a bed far too small for him, his head propped up by three or four mushy feather pillows. The bed sat in the far corner of a small room which was illuminated by the light of a window somewhere to his left. The plaster walls were bisected by wide wooden beams. The knight stared at the wooden beams supporting the ceiling and realized he did not know where he was. He also suddenly realized that besides his breeches he was not wearing any clothing.
Rolling to his side, the knight saw a red-haired girl sitting on a stool in the center of the room, smiling at him. The knight jerked back, crying out, and thrust his head into the wall behind him. The girl raised her hands to her mouth, her eyes widening. She slid off the stool and approached the knight like a mother would a wounded child. He pressed his bare back against the cold plaster wall. “Oh!” she said, through her hands. “That didn’t happen last time.”
“Last time?” he asked, his head buzzing.
“Oh, did you hurt yourself?” she said through a puckered frown, reaching for the back of his head. He let her massage his smarting skull, though his eyes would have said he wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea.
“I…I thank you,” he finally managed, relaxing.
A man’s voice came from somewhere on a lower floor: “Are you a-trying to nurse that poor man, Malon?”
“No, Poppa,” Malon said, hollering so her father could hear her, still looking at the knight. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she mouthed and nodded slowly, smiling. She teased the thin strands of his blonde hair with her small fingers.
“I think I can manage, now,” he said, gently pulling her hand away from his head. She backed away, sitting on her stool again. Malon was apparently not distracted by the fact that he was not wearing a shirt, which meant he did not mind it either. “Pardon my inconvenience on your hospitality,” he said, “but what…happened?”
“Poppa found you and brung you here,” she said. “We been takin’ care of you since yesterday noon an’…well, you slept so long I just figgered I’d keep an eye on you, make sure as you didn’t die.” She had said it so naturally it was clear to the knight that she must have seen things die before. He had the sense they must have been sick or maimed animals.
“Well, I think you’ve done very well,” said the knight, hesitating slightly on the last word as he raised his hand to the back of his head. “And I owe you a debt of life. If there is anything I might do to repay you…”
“What’s your name?” she asked, looking as if she had wondered all her life.
“Afton,” he said simply.
“Huh,” she said, looking disappointed. The knight was perplexed by this, but he did not have a chance to think on it further as the cart driver had just entered the room. He was wearing the same clothes as before, which told the knight the man must work in them.
“Mally, I’m needin’ a bit o’ help with the tanning if…well! Looks like our visitor’s up an’ at ‘em right shiny.” The knight stood immediately when his benefactor stepped forward.
“Poppa, this is Afton,” Malon said by way of proper introduction.
“Well met, sir,” said Afton taking the man’s hand. “I am in your debt for the service you have rendered me. If there is anything I might do to repay that debt, you have but to ask. Might I be honored by my savior’s name?”
“Well, that’s a lot of talk for a ‘how d’you do’. If’n it please you sir, I’m Talon—head of this here fine ranch.” Talon stuck his thumb at his daughter. “Me an’ my Mally take care o’ things together, since the missus, that is.”
Malon nodded. “We bin introduced proper,” she said, curtseying.
“I am sorry to hear of your wife, Faroe rest her,” said the knight. “Has it been long?”
“Bin a couple years, now,” Talon said soberly. “Funny how time goes…”
“I remember her singing,” Malon said. “It was beautiful, like what flowers sound like.” The knight listened with respect.
“Yessir. She did sing right purdy.” Talon wiped the wetness from his eyes with a single thumb and sniffed. “But you’ll be wantin’ what fer t’eat!” He smiled briefly and motioned to the door.
The knight did not press the subject. “Of course, sir, if it please you,” he said, bowing his head. “But perhaps I ought to dress.”
“Right, right-cha be,” Talon said. “Mal, go on an’ git the man his duds, I’ll git the fire started.” Malon smiled at the knight and slid off her stool, running out of the room. Turning to the knight again, he said, “when yer all gussied up jes’ come on down, we’ll have supper ready in no time.” Talon left the room.
Malon returned with the knight’s tunic—well stitched—and his shirt, both clean and folded neatly together. On top of the pile was a new pair of wool socks. She also carried in his belt and boots. “I did up yer overcoat,” she said, obviously waiting for something.
Understanding, the knight took the bundle of clothes and unfolded his tunic, pulling it over his head and smoothing it out so the repaired parts were clearly visible. They were patched together with cloth that was slightly more yellow than the white of his tunic, but the stitching was fine and appeared strong. “It is well done,” he said, smiling.
Malon smiled back. Then her eyes fell on the Crest of the Royal Family on his chest. “What does that mean?” she said, looking for the second time like she had wondered all her life.
“The crest?” he asked. Malon nodded. “The crest is a symbol of the royal family. It is a bird—an owl—to represent wisdom. The owl’s head is made of three triangles, one to represent each of the Goddesses. The large triangle made by the three is the Triforce, symbol of the Goddesses. It stands in place of the owl’s head to show that the royal family is led by the Goddesses in all that they do.”
The girl took this all in seriously. She looked as if she was going to ask another question, but was reminded of something instead. “Oh!” she said, “I forgot.” And she left the room, leaving the knight standing barefoot, wearing a patched tunic but no shirt. Within seconds she returned bearing a bucket of steaming water which she placed next to the door. “For warshin’ up,” she said, pointing to a shallow metal bowl with a flat bottom on the bed-table. He thanked her and she left the knight alone with one final wave of her hand.
* * *
The ranch house had two stories; the upper one had three rooms—one occupied by Malon and another by her father. The third (and smallest) was reserved for their ranch-hand, Ingo. The lower floor had a large sitting room, which took up almost half of the level. The sitting room led into the dining room, and then the kitchen, which opened into the back yard. Surrounding the house were large masses of rock that jutted up from the landscape. One mass of rock nearby had been built up into a stone tower that served as a silo and shed. Talon had built high reinforced wooden fences connecting one rock mass to another so that the whole ranch was secluded. Within the fence was a wooden barn topped by an iron weathercock, a stable, a track circumventing a horse-pen, and a chicken coop as well as a few trees. Currently, the shelter in the horse-pen was being used to house the tanning rack upon which was stretched the hide of the beast the knight had slain the day before.
That afternoon the supper table was spread with homemade bread and freshly churned butter, milk, cheese, roasted chicken and potatoes. The knights normally dined in the mess hall of Hyrule Castle unless they were abroad. Then they lived on rations and what they could hunt. Despite this, however, the knight relished the rancher’s meal, thinking it was a very satisfying repast (and he said so). Presently, the talk turned to the beast he had fought the day before.
“You brought it back?” the knight said, aghast.
“Well, it was a right good bit o’ strong leather,” Talon said, shrugging. “An’ seein’ as how it were already dead…Say, d’you think so much as the meat could be roasted up?” asked Talon, tearing a hunk of chicken from the bone with his fingers.
“I wouldn’t know,” said the knight, helping himself to more potatoes. “I have never seen its kind before, though if it is much like the usual boar, it may be palatable.”
Malon licked the milk from her upper lip. “You don’ know where it comes from?” she asked.
“No. And so far no one can say, or at least no one that has reported them. I only knew about this one because a man that frequents this area told me of it. They are appearing all over Hyrule. We knights were sent out to hunt them down.”
“Was he running?” asked Malon.
“The boar?” said the knight.
“No,” she said, smiling. She scooped some butter out of a small dish. “The man who told you.”
“Oh, yes. Fellow ran up to me as soon as he saw me and darted away the moment he was finished speaking,” said Afton.
“He likes to do that,” Malon said, still smiling. “He could be a right proper mail-man, fast as he runs. I doubt that beast could beat him, even if it tried.”
“Well, we’re much obliged for the one you did git,” Talon said. “We seen it afore an’ done stayed away from it, though it almost got the cart a couple o’ times. Nearly knocked Mally out once.”
“I wonder as to whether they could be tamed,” Malon said, becoming animated.
The knight was sure that she would certainly try, if given the chance. “I sincerely doubt it, my lady. Though if one could be tamed, the rider of such a beast would find herself in as dangerous a spot as any who got in its way.”
From the sitting room came the sound of the front door opening and closing. Talon’s face screwed up as if he were trying to remember something very important. “Talon!” a brash male voice called from the sitting room. Then Talon’s face lengthened and his eyes appeared is if they might pop from their sockets for as big as they got. His cheeks flushed and he pointed a toothy, innocent smile at a tall, thin man that entered the room.
The man wore overalls like Talon’s and wore a similar straw hat. His long, thin nose ended in a large well-trimmed handlebar mustache. The man’s dense eyebrows slanted down sharply toward the middle of his face and made his small beady eyes look like they were set too close together. He carried a flat bladed hoe on his shoulder and a tin bucket in his hand full of something that smelled like the beast the knight had vanquished. A small cloud of flies seemed to have followed him in. Malon grimaced at the smell. The man glared at Talon with a flat expression and looked as if he did not intend to move.
Talon spoke, “I, uh…I was plannin’ ter git you a right bit o’ help with that tannin’, Ingo,” he began.
“But you thought you’d catch a bite with the visiting royalty, is that it?” Ingo said in his brash voice.
Talon’s innocent smile widened desperately. “I had ter git him somethin’ fer t’eat,” he said, thrusting flattened hands at the knight.
The knight stood. “I am the cause of Master Talon’s negligence, if there be any. He has done me a great service by caring for me, and any hardship it has caused I would seek to alleviate.”
Ingo regarded the knight, eyeing his patched tunic and clean face. “I’d expect as much work out of you, pansy-boy, as I would out of that lazy no-account Zelda what comes to visit Malon an’ takes her away from her chores.”
Malon’s grimace turned into a hateful scowl. “You take that back! He’s right nice,” she hollered, threatening Ingo with a finger, “an’ that’s Princess Zelda to you!”
But Ingo pressed on, turning to Malon. “An’ who do you think does all those chores? Right along with all the others he’s got to do?! But seein’ as how Pansy-boy expects to put hisself to use…” He thrust the bucket of foul-smelling something into Afton’s hands, reminding the knight vividly of the beast’s breath. Ingo walked past him into the kitchen and out the back door.
For a moment nobody knew what to say. It became clear from the pained look on the knight’s face that he did not know what to do with the bucket, and did not wish to hold it any longer than he had to. “Master Rancher…?” he began.
But Malon got up from her seat still wearing her scowl and took the bucket from the knight. She silenced his protests with a raised hand and carried the bucket through the open back door. Seconds later there came a commotion from the backyard that sounded like a splat, and then a yelp, a clattering of tools, and a resounding thud as something big hit the bottom of a large metal basin.
Malon entered the kitchen with an empty bucket, which she threw back out the door. “You ought t’be ashamed o’ yerself!” she hollered, and kicked the door closed with a slam. As she stamped past the table the knight could hear her saying something about having to go ‘warsh up.’ She left through the front door.
Talon could not help but chuckle. “That’s my Mally,” he said. “Man who marries her might be in a better fix tryin’ ter manage one o’ them beasts.”
* * *
The morning light crept through the fissure into Gerudo territory. Ganondorf strode confidently through the familiar passages, taking in the cloudless desert sky far above; the dry, cragged rock face. He pondered the traitorous river as he crossed the bridge that spanned it. Finally, he had just come into view of the sun-bleached triangular flags when he was suddenly stopped short.
“Ganondorf Dragmire, you are under arrest.” Six Gerudo guards had their spears pointed at the Thief Lord. The speaker emerged from the shadows. It was Nabooru, looking murderous. She wore the ceremonial costume of the tribe Matron: a blue gown over her usual Gerudo clothing and a crown of white feathers splayed like the crest of a bird. “You betrayed our honor by turning on the Hylians. As second-in-command of the Gerudo people I hold you accountable to our laws.”
“You greet your king so? Don't stand in my way, Nabooru. Second-in-command must still bow to her rightful ruler. I go to the desert pyramid to pay my respects to the Sand Goddess. Surely you cannot deny me that.” Ganondorf stepped past the guards and made for the Wastes. The guards hesitated.
“You respect no one, Ganondorf,” said Nabooru, standing before her king in defiance. “You shall not pass. It has been forbidden. We will deny you.” Eight more guards emerged from their hiding places behind her and formed a barricade with their spears. The guards behind him likewise barred his retreat. Ganondorf was surrounded.
“Come, come, now,” said Ganondorf, grinning. “Can you really expect me to back down?” Nabooru was steel-faced. His grin became a scowl. “I never back down.” With a flick of his chin his reinforcements sprang out of their hiding places. In moments Asera and Abrum had disabled the six guards from behind and Ganondorf was joined by his minions. Abrum turned a stolen spear on Nabooru. “Deny me then,” said Ganondorf, folding his arms.
“Your father would never have let you do this,” sneered Nabooru.
“A shame he isn’t here, isn’t it?” snapped Ganondorf.
“Yes, shameful indeed,” answered Nabooru. “Shameful that his son is yet more wicked than he. Yet wicked as he was he would never have seen a Gerudo thief in league with the likes of this Sheikah dog.”
Abrum reacted quickly, thrusting the spear at the Gerudo Matron over and over. Nabooru was too quick for him, however, dodging his thrusts until she batted the spear from his hands, knocking it to the ground. In another quick movement Nabooru had curled her toe under the weapon and then it was in her hands, the tip pointed at Abrum’s heart. But Asera was already at Nabooru’s neck with her scimitar. They were at an impasse. Slowly, each backed away. The commotion had drawn a small group of Gerudo tribeswomen to the edge of the embankments.
“And now we can all see you have brought the very Gerudo against themselves,” Nabooru called, loud enough for the other tribeswomen to hear. “We are not blind, Ganondorf. We know you have recruited yet others of our number to your cause. What of them? Or are they all captured and dead at the tip of Hylian swords.” Nabooru stood erect with her spear held like a royal scepter. “Some of us have seen through your greed these many years, Ganondorf. Some of us know what happens to the women who don’t bow to your every command. Your two little witch-aunts take them off to the Shrine and have them brainwashed. That’s what you did with my sister, wasn’t it? Raean refused you and you had her mind wiped; made her your own little slave.” Ganondorf sneered. “You’re bent, Ganondorf. We may be thieves, but at least we are loyal to our oaths.” Then Ganondorf’s sneer twisted into a scowl. “You have no honor. Your Father would never have approved of…”
“My father’s crimes were no better than mine!” Ganondorf finally roared, vehement. “He sent his only son to die!” Ganondorf turned to the crowd of Gerudo women. “He had never spoken to me before that. No matter how many times I asked for him, he never came.” Then he rounded on Nabooru. “I brought him milk, if you remember. Such a precious gift as three bottles of rich milk would surely mean I could see him; speak to him. And he could not deny my part in the thing; I had brought the milk, not my trainer or anyone else. If any deserved reward it was I.” Now the guards from the rest of the fortress were gathering.
“But do you know what that milk bought me?” Ganondorf continued. He held up his forefinger. “One glance from my father. And he wasted it; smashed it on the ground. He said I had endangered the tribe by going outside the mountains and risking the knowledge of our location—said I was a disgrace, trying to undo what he had spent so long trying to accomplish—said I was never his son. Truly none else deserved the reward, and none else deserved the punishment.”
“For someone who hadn’t finished their training it must have been an honor for the Lord King to consider you ready to be tested,” said Nabooru.
“For someone who hadn’t finished training it was a death sentence! I had to fight my way in with no weapons but a shoddy bow I plucked off the last fool who failed. My father put me in there to die. I fought my way out, but by the time I did, he was gone. They said he had gone off to the pyramids in the deep desert, but I knew the truth; he abandoned me. Only then did I realize how much I hated him. I was nothing to him; a thorn in his side, someone who would only ever just take his place. He was never ‘paying his devotions.’ He was avoiding me, scorning me. No, Nabooru, don’t delude yourself—the man was as apathetic about the Goddesses as he was about his own people.”
Nabooru stood tall, robes sweeping. “And what will you do about it, Ganondorf Dragmire? Now you are all the Gerudo have…”
Ganondorf laughed at the phrase for spite with a wicked red laugh. “I am all the Gerudo have…and what am I to the Gerudo…?”
“As king you are the father of many…”
“Well I only ever had one father!” Ganondorf bellowed tersely. “And to him I never existed! And you all played along like it was a game!” Asera’s stance shifted as she glanced at her master, livid and tense. “We have only ever had what we could steal,” he continued, gesturing broadly toward the crowds of women, some of whom had young daughters with them. “I only ever had what I could take for myself. But the one thing I could never have was him. He was yours, or theirs,” he said gesturing broadly again, “but never mine…”
“Ganondorf, see reason,” interrupted Nabooru. “Now you are all the Gerudo have. If you leave this place our people will be no more. We will die, our ways will die…”
“I am done with this people and its ways!!” bellowed Ganondorf, mere inches from Nabooru’s face. The guards behind her brandished their spears, but Ganondorf ignored them. “Deluded fools, all of you. You begged your king to appease your thirst and he gave you filth to drink…”
“It was all we had, Ganondorf, you know…”
“I am not finished!” Nabooru clamped her mouth shut. “You begged him to give you sons and…”
“And he gave them you, Ganondorf…” she blurted.
“Obey and be silent, woman! I am finished with the Gerudo! Curl up in your caves and rot. I am no longer Ganondorf, king of the Enchanted Thieves. Now, I am only Ganon!”
And on the last word the Dark King drove his fist into the ground. There was a flash of purple and the earth shook violently, throwing Nabooru, the soldiers and most of the crowd off their feet. Where Ganon’s fist had struck a growing crack crept through the rock with thickening fingers. In moments it had reached half-way up the embankment. Then something else began to happen; from within the mud-brick dwellings issued shouts of alarm followed by clouds of dust. The mountain groaned and the complex of mud-dwellings folded inward—Gerudo Fortress was collapsing.
Nabooru responded immediately, commanding the guards into the fortress to help the injured. One after the other all of the adobe dwellings crumbled, burying those inside.
“Accept your punishment, fools!” Ganon barked. “Asera, Abrum!”
Called out of their shock and awe, Ganon’s minions followed their master as he strode, apathetic, past building after crumbling building. Not even when they reached the other extremity of the Gerudo Fortress did he turn to look on the place where he had become a man, crumbling to dust.
Nabooru hauled a young girl from under a pile of rubble. Dust caught in her throat. She only just caught the sight of two hunched figures riding their broomsticks out from among the rubble over the mountains toward the barren Waste.
“Sianna,” Nabooru called out when her voice was clear enough to speak. A Gerudo guard came to her side. “Get me the Silver Guantlets.”
“But mistress Nabooru, I…”
“Listen to me!” she said, grabbing the vest of the guard. “Our king is gone. I am your Matron. He will send his witches to retrieve the Gauntlets and use them for his wicked scheme. Do as I say or I will punish you and anyone else who crosses me! Get me those Guantlets now!”
“But they are in the Desert Shrine…the Waste is too treacherous to cross…”
“I know of a way—retrieve my sitar…”
“…but the entrances are far too small for…”
“…then this child shall do it!” Nabooru barked. “I will not allow my sister’s bracers into the hands of that criminal. Take her and return to me with them at once.”
“It shall be done.”
Nabooru knelt before the young girl. She wore a brave expression over her worried face. “What is your name, child?” The girl said her name just loud enough. “Din, is it?” said Nabooru. “That is the name of the Goddess herself! Did you know that, Din?” The little girl nodded her head. “Well, then. You must be very powerful to have a name such as that. Will you go with Sianna and retrieve my sister’s treasure?” The girl nodded again. “Thank you, Din. May your namesake protect you with her flaming arms and bring you back to us.” And when Nabooru had kissed her cheek, the girl left with Sianna to retrieve Nabooru’s sitar.
* * *
Abrum glanced behind him, aghast as the mourning wails of young children reached their ears. “Master, they’re dying…you’ve destroyed your own people…”
“A fitting end to a prison; I have set the captives free,” he said, and marched into the desert, a wall of sandstorms waiting to greet him. Asera and Abrum followed wordlessly. In moments two venerable figures arrived riding broomsticks.
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