Veil of Twilight

Chapter XV
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They saw the Arbiter’s Grounds first, rising above the horizon as the sun rose yet further behind it. It shimmered in the dark grey light of dawn, looking like a mirage.

Before the temple, circling it, was a camp, the flames of their fires still burning in the grey morning darkness. Link could see the shapes of the creatures down below, scurrying about in the sand; the creatures that had raided his village, or at least more like them. He felt the stirring of rage in his gut, but ignored it. There was too many of them down there, Midna scolded him. He’d have to be discreet.

He made his was down the sand dune, shuffling clumsily in the loose sand whipped around by the previous day’s storm. The encampment was surrounded by flimsy wooden barricades, most likely as shields against the sand, and Link used them to his advantage as he sneaked toward the stronghold. The sun seemed uneager to rise as Link continued his infiltration, and for that he was glad. The darkness provided him with more stealth then he ever would’ve had on his own.

He tried not to look around at the goblins as he worked his way through. They showed signs of their raids, carried trinkets from the villages they had burned. Two particular creatures were sitting in the sand, like children, playing with a charred wooden toy, one that had obviously been taken from some other child. Link felt his hand creep to the hilt of his sword, but Midna’s voice stopped him.

“Come on, Link,” she whispered to him. “It’s no use. We have to keep going.” They continued. Link tried his best to hurry while still remaining unnoticed. He didn’t know how much longer he could be in the camp without making himself known.

But finally, they neared the end. They passed the last barricade, and Link could see the Arbiter’s Grounds in the distance, the top of it peering over a large dune he would have to climb. He started towards it, taking one last look over his shoulder at the encampment. He stopped in his tracks, his gaze fixed on what he saw.

“Link?” Midna said confusedly, following his gaze. “What’s wro- oh, Link, no don’t!”

Link ignored her completely, sprinting back toward the encampment, drawing his bow, his eyes locked on his target. It was the ogre, the same hulking green giant, it’s beady red eyes now turned and focused on him. Link stopped less than twenty yards from the thing, firing as it spurred it’s boar, preparing to charge. The arrow hit the monster somewhere in the face; it’s hand reaching up immediately, dark blood gushing from between it’s large calloused fingers.

The giant roared, voicing it’s pain, and it’s kindred responded. From inside the camp swarmed a host of goblins, the tips of their arrows already flaming. Link knocked another arrow and fired, catching on of the things as it was about to fire it’s own projectile.

“Link, run! Let’s go!” Midna was visible now, and screaming at him to retreat. He ignored, his single minded intensity foregoing self preservation. These things destroyed his home. They’d hurt Ilia and the children. Everything was their fault. He fired another arrow. It missed, passing between two of the goblins. One of them fired in retaliation, it’s aim much better than Link’s. He dodged out of the way, losing balance and falling on his ass. He looked up to see the other goblin fire. The flaming arrow seemed to speed toward him in slow motion. He saw it come not ten feet from him, before it made a metallic clang, as if colliding with something, and changed direction. He looked up to see Midna floating over him protectively, her face set in concentration.

The rejected arrow hit one of the wooden barricades. Its surface, dried and weathered from the desert sun, combusted immediately. The whole thing was ablaze within seconds, the hungry flames jumping from barricade to barricade. Link could hear them groaning with strain as the fires devoured them, supports and all, and sense finally hit him. He heeded Midna’s advice and got up to run away.

He heard an inhuman bellow as he put distance between himself and the burning encampment. He looked back to see the ogre pursuing him, making it’s way to the edge of the camp, it’s face still covered in blood. It held an immense javelin over its head, ready to throw at Link. It cocked back it’s arm, about to throw, when there came another groaning sound, this one loud enough even for Link to hear a fair distance away.

The flaming barricades began to collapse, the first one falling right on top of the ogre, burying him beneath a wall of flames. The rest of the wooden walls followed suit, falling over, crushing the goblins running around beneath them. That made two close shaves within five minutes. Link took his good fortune while it lasted and ran.

He didn’t stop until he was at the very top of the sand dune, panting and sweating. From the top, he could see the Arbiter’s Grounds, the entrance just at the bottom of the dune. He turned around to see the monsters’ blazing fortress once more, sitting down to catch his breath. The sun was well into the sky now, and one could see the thick black smoke infecting the blue sky. Midna had retreated back to his shadow, now that the sun was up, her eyes still visible in her silhouette.

“Well,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “That was pretty dumb of you.” Link turned to her, his face irritated, but said nothing.

“You can’t do things like that, Link. It was really reckless. There’s a lot riding on the two of us.”

He was caught off guard by her tone. He was so used to her acerbic remarks. Her inflection now, however, was calm, understanding; perhaps even caring. Something about it frustrated him even more than the sarcasm, as if she were doing it on purpose to make him feel shameful.

“I don’t need you to mother me,” he said sheepishly. Midna scoffed, her usual tone returning.

“Oh, really? In case you forgot, I just saved your ass back there. Right after I told you to just leave, mind you. But no, you had rush back in there like some kind of superhero, trying to avenge your amnesiac girlfriend. If I wasn’t mothering you, you’d never stop acting like a child.”

“Don’t talk about her like that!” He shouted. “And what do you care what I act like?! I would’ve been fine down there! If I want your help, I’ll ask for it!”

Even as he shouted, he knew he was wrong. Midna was absolutely right. It had been stupid of him, and nobody could afford him getting killed. But he wouldn’t let her know it. He was thankful to see that she didn’t look hurt. Instead, she glared at him with a look of pure, unadulterated fury.

“Fine,” she said, her voice shaking with rage. “Have it your way, then.” With that, she disappeared, her eyes vanishing and Link’s shadow taking it’s original form.

…

It was dark in the Arbiter’s Grounds. There was torchlight to go by, and sharp rays of sunlight that sometimes made its way through the cracks of the age old architecture, but that was it. Link was almost completely alone in the blackness, having robbed himself of Midna’s presence. He wished desperately that he hadn’t now. He was surrounded by creatures; whispering, evil things that he was thankful he couldn’t see. They hovered, floated and slithered just out of torchlight, apparently afraid of or harmed by it. Ghosts or ghouls or giant insects; he didn’t really care to know which.

Even then, with the looming threat of the unknown specters around him, following him through the twists and turns of the decrepit tomb, he felt alone. All he had were his thoughts, a company he felt he might actually trade for the monsters in the shadows, given the chance. They would probably kill him quickly. His mind, on the other hand, was slowly eating away at him.

He was in over his head; he could no longer deny it. He was trying to save Hyrule, carry a whole kingdom on his shoulders, but could hardly take care of himself. He was no good with his sword, had terrible aim. He was clumsy and cowardly and childish. Yet he was all anyone would talk about it. He was selected to save everyone, by Goddesses that he’d never heard of. Nobody seemed to realize that, considering the Goddesses could make the mistake of creating something like a Triforce in the first place, they could just as easily give the pieces to the wrong people.

He certainly was not a prime candidate. He was nothing like the old hero everybody talked about. One that was brave and strong, and probably knew how to do more with a sword than flail it back and forth desperately. He simply wasn’t hero material. He remembered what the fairy had said to him, in those hazy moments before everything became a blur. His quest was going to end in failure, the way things were going. Zant was just too strong. Unless Link found a way to become stronger, then there was no chance.

Link turned another corner, still mulling his discouragement over in his mind. Before him, at the end of the corridor was a large stone door. A faint, dusty glow of sunlight had made its way into the hallway, and for the first time, Link could see the walls. They were covered in writing, along with the floor, and even the ceiling. He could barely read them. They were written in Old Hylian, something he was less than passingly familiar with.

He approached the door, feeling a little more high spirited in the light, with whispering threats of death left in the shadows. He realized, as he drew closer, that now that he was here, he had no idea what his objective was. He supposed he would have to reconcile with Midna eventually. He reached the door and pulled it open, the grating sound of stone against stone making his teeth clench.

It must’ve been the main chamber, looking at the inside. It was cylindrical and cavernous, with the roof at least a hundred feet overhead. All along the walls of the room, instead of writing, were giant grooved wheels, all interlocking with one another. There was a skylight in the ceiling, and Link could see the sun, red and setting. He had been in the dungeon all day.

The floor of the room, like many other parts of the dungeon, was covered in a layer of loose, sifting sand. In the center of the room, however, was a circular landing. Link was wary as he approached it. There was sunlight in here to protect him from whatever had been stalking him in the corridors, but previous dungeons had taught him never to be too careful.

The surface of the sandstone platform was ancient and fractured. Some of the hieroglyphed stones had been broken away, showing more interlocking cogs underneath. Protruding from the center of the landing was a decrepit looking hand crank. He touched it hesitantly, jumping back immediately, waiting for something to happen. It had to be a trap.

“Oh, just turn it already!” Link had to bite back a yelp as Midna’s order broke the silence. He looked over to see her, visible and floating by his shoulder, just out of the sun’s rays. Her arms were crossed, and she still looked irritated with him. She motioned to the crank.

“Well, what are you waiting for? The mirror’s just up there, let’s go!” She jumped back into his shadow.

Link had no idea what she meant by that, but he didn’t want to appear cowardly in front of her. He grabbed the crank handle deliberately, giving it a good push.

As soon as he did, he felt the entire room shake, loose sand falling from higher recesses of the room. Upon the wall, he saw all of the wheels turn in accordance with the crank, setting off a mechanism. The rumbling continued, and there was a sound of motion beneath him.

A hand shot out of the sand, buried from the wrist down. There was no skin on it, the dull, off white bone marred with cracks and chips, and the whole thing was large enough to wrap it’s fingers around Link’s entire body. He didn’t wait to see the rest of the thing pull itself out of the sand. He began turning the crank furiously, throwing all of his weight into it.

The platform rose as he did. Slowly, at first, but building up speed as he turned. Around him was the deafening sound of all the gears grinding against each other, the rumbling of shifting sand as the gargantuan skeletal hand pulled the rest of itself out of the dirt. Link felt darkness closing around him. He looked up to see the sunlight disappearing; the circular hole in the ceiling was closing, more and more so as the platform rose.

As he neared the top of the chamber, the platform came to a grating stop, the crank locking under his hands and knocking him over. Over the side of the platform came the grotesque hand, it’s dry bony fingers scraping piercingly against the stone. The other hand joined, and the thing pulled it’s face over the edge of the platform, a giant, barely humanoid skull, it’s snouted jaws gnashing and it’s empty eyes burning malevolently.

The platform began to descend as the creature put it’s weight on it. As it sunk, the sunlight returned, the disk eclipsing the skylight receding. Link connected the mechanisms through his terror: if he made it all the way to the top, the skylight would close, and he’d be trapped with the monster.

The skeleton snapped at him again, much closer with the platform lowering. It was careful to stay out of the light, though. Link used this advantage to jump back up, grabbing the crank and pushing the platform upward. He brought himself close to the top, the skylight almost completely closed, a crescent before a full eclipse. Once again, the sunlight receded, giving the skeleton more lenience. Seemingly determined not to let him get away, despite the waning route, the creature grabbed for him desperately, leaping and pulling itself upwards to loom over him and the platform. It was too big for the platform, and scrambled for balance. Now that it was fully visible, Link could see that it had no lower half, it’s body ending at the vertebrae. Still, it grabbed him easily, holding him above it’s head in victory, his panicked struggles futile against it’s hand, each finger as big as his body.

The platform lowered, the gears turning, and the lid to the room opened again, just above Link’s head. He grabbed it in vain, his hands over the lip of the cover, his fingertips warmed by the sunlight outside. He felt the pull of the creature’s weight on him, intensifying each second as the platform below him dropped lower and lower, making his fingers slip.

Then, miraculously, the platform stopped, with one huge crunching noise. Link dared a glance down below him and saw what was happening. The last vertebrae of the monster’s spine had caught between the teeth of two gears on the platform. It clawed at it’s spine pathetically with it’s free hand, an animal in a trap. Another horrid crunch resounded in the chamber, then another. The skeleton let go of Link, using both hands to try and free itself.

Finally, with a rending smash, it’s vertebrae smashed between the teeth of the cogs. The skeleton tumbled backward as it was suddenly freed from the gears, falling off of the now descending platform. It fell back into the wall, it’s arms getting caught in yet more networks of the interlocking wheels. There was too much momentum to save it this time, and Link turned away as it was slowly crushed into more grains of sand on the floor, hearing only the dry, splintering sounds as he pulled himself over the edge and out of the chamber.

…

Link rolled onto his back, the skylight and the chamber just beside him. He heard the circular stone cover slide all the way back, exposing the sands and gears below. There were support pillars around the edge of the floor he was on, signaling yet another floor above. As he sat up and looked around, he spotted the staircase that would take him to it.

The steps wound around the towering spire of the Arbiter’s Grounds, the wind blowing alarmingly. The view, despite causing vertigo, was breathtaking. He could see the desert fade into the horizon, the sand shifting and churning like a sea.

He reached the top, and Midna separated herself from his shadow, smiling pleasantly in the soft light of sunset.

“Well,” she said as they stepped off the staircase landing and on to the very roof of the tower. “We finally made it. This mirror is our key to the other side. We’re so… so… oh…”

She trailed off, her eyes fixed to the center of the room. The place looked like a coliseum, with tall pillars surrounding the edge. Each pillar had a large stone sigil upon it, except for one, that looked to be long since destroyed. In the center of the chamber was a large, unspectacular slab of stone, chains hanging nondescriptly from it. Before the stone was a large pedestal, big enough to stand on. It was to this that Midna’s gaze was locked. She left Link’s side and floated toward it, still speechless.

“Where is it…?” She finally said. Link approached the pedestal after her, confused by her behavior. “Where the hell is IT?!”

“What are you talking about?” Link dared, a little off put by her anger.

“The mirror! The mirror’s gone!”

Link caught up to her and saw what she was talking about. There was a large circular frame atop the pedestal. It was empty, save for one smallish shard of polished glass hanging to the inside of the frame, about one fourth the size of the entire circle. These developments all confused him further.

“What’s going on here, Midna?” he pressed. Midna ignored him completely.

“I-I don’t understand…” the anger had left Midna’s tone, and was no replaced by utter defeat. “I thought it was unbreakable… only I was supposed to be-”

“The Mirror of Twilight has not been truly destroyed, Princess of Shadows. Fear not.”

Link and Midna both wheeled around, facing the source of the mysterious voice. It was more than one person. Five figures stood around the pedestal, all of them identical to each other, except for the sigil on their robes; each one matched one of the symbols on the pillars.

The figures looked like old men, but had an ethereal quality to them. Link noticed after a moment that he could faintly see through their bodies. His heart skipped as a dark thought pervaded him: these things must be the ghosts that were following him through the dungeon. Now that the sun was setting, they were free to appear and close in on him.

“Fear not, Hero,” the voice came again. He heard it within his mind. It seemed to be all of their voices at once, perfectly synchronized. “We are indeed specters, but not of the malevolent sort.”

W-w-who are you…?” Link tried not to sound too alarmed by the fact that he had just had his mind read. He felt his hand tense, instinctively ready to grab the sword at his back. “What do you want?”

“We are the Ancient Sages,” they said. “We have long since passed, but our spirits live on to serve the will of the Goddesses.”

Link was about to speak again, before Midna cut him off.

“What did you mean the mirror isn’t destroyed?” She demanded. “Where is it?”

“Zant has predicted you actions,” the Sages replied calmly. “He has divided the Mirror of Twilight in fear of your using it. But do not fear, it cannot be totally destroyed, except by the-”

“But how did he do this?” Midna interrupted the Sages. They seemed completely unphased. “I thought it was invulnerable to anyone else’s touch? How did he put so much as a scratch in it?”

For once, the Sages showed some sort of emotion; hesitance. They looked at one another with their strange, set faces, before turning back to Midna an Link.

“Listen well, Saviors of Hyrule… and we will tell you of a dire mistake that was made long, long ago…”

Link and Midna nodded, giving their full attention to the wise men as they divulged their sad tale of the Evil King.

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A month later, the story is finally updated. Thank you "dave," for the review, and to anyone else who's been reading. I hope the boss fight was alright; I really liked the idea of the spinner in the game, but it seemed to unrealistic to put in directly, so I used a bunch of gears instead.

Next chapter will be a large one, I think. Hopefully I can speed this story up from one update a month. Anyway, please review and let me know what you guys think. Feedback is important. Until next chapter, read, rate, review, and enjoy!