On the other side of the desert lies the sea.

So he had read, but it was difficult to believe. The only way to know that such a miracle truly existed was to see it for himself, and the only way to cross the desert was underground.

Ganon trailed his fingertips across the glyph-inscribed lines running along the wall of the tunnel. When he hummed a simple melody, they glowed with a bright blue light. Symbols representing waves hovered above the racing lines that illuminated the pitch darkness. The signs would remain lit for a few minutes before fading, at which point he would reactivate them. It had taken him hours to internalize the timing, but now he refreshed the magic almost without thinking.

He had been in the tunnels beneath the desert for days. The slope of the passage he followed had been gradually rising, and lime deposits had begun to appear along the creases and corners of the walls. Ganon had no doubt that, if the material used to build this passageway were capable of oxidation, then it would have rusted away long ago.

The dusty stillness of the lower corridors had eventually given way to occasional swarms of eyeless arachnids. They were the size of rats, or larger, and he cleared them from his way with a wave of his hand and a spell that sent them flying. He did not wish to entertain speculation on how they fed themselves, but their presence was proof that he was close to the surface.

Navigation had presented no hardship. Most of the tunnels were long and straight with no branches. Ganon surmised that the grooves laid onto the otherwise flawlessly smooth floor must have once been a cradle for a set of rails, but the planks and ties had been swallowed by the aeons. Ganon's compass was strongly affected by the indentations, leading him to wonder if they themselves somehow functioned as the rail. He could find no words or melodies to stir the grooves to life, and so their nature remained unknown to him. It was not important; the original purpose of these immeasurable tunnels was nothing more than another mystery lying deep beneath the sand.

The old maps of the desert, preserved by the dry air, had made the existence of this system of underground passageways plain, yet Ganon had spent years searching for an entrance. The dunes were forever shifting, as were the oases and the routes between them. The only constants were the mountain peaks stretching up to the cloudless sky over Fort Lanayru, but distances to all points west were difficult to measure; a road open to travel one day might be buried and untraceable the next. Every Gerudo child could read the cardinal directions by the stars and the slant of the shadows cast by the burning sun, but there was little need to venture far into the desert. It was too large, too empty, and too haunted by the ghosts left behind by the lost and forsaken.

Ganon had finally realized, after countless forays over the sand on foot and on horseback, that there was another landmark spared by the ravages of time. The Temple of Din was not marked on any of the ancient maps, but the site possessed great power, and it stood to reason that the current edifice had been raised over something much older.

In the caverns below the temple proper were hexagonal pillars several stories high. When touched by the right songs, these stone columns would explode with garbled and corrupted glyphs. Ganon had returned to them over and over again as a boy, trying out every spell he learned, as well as several of his own invention. It was when he finally thought to rotate the structures that passages groaned open in the rock foundation. Beyond the portals were two parallel tunnels descending into the earth. Both had steps running down their edges. A simple six-note spell was enough to illuminate their outlines and call a muddled mess of glyphs onto the walls.

Ganon had ceased making pilgrimages to the Temple of Din with his aunts and sisters, and when he first stood at the top of the twin passageways, he had been alone. He would need to consult the elders and organize an expedition before making an earnest plunge into the darkness, but no one would begrudge him a few steps down into the cool underground air, which was strangely sweet on his nose.

The first few steps became a ten-minute climb. The illuminated lines and markings along the narrow stairs did not dim until he reached their base. In the eerie light he could see the exit of the other tunnel but not much else. He traced his fingers along the wall to the side of the doorway, whistling a few notes and searching for a catalyst to summon more of the glowing lines. When he located the trigger, zigzags of light flared along the wall before shattering into chaos and flickering back into nothingness. Ganon waited for the starbursts to clear from his eyes, thinking that whatever it was that governed the glyphs must have broken in an age long past.

He removed a small torch from his satchel and lit the oil, but its meager light illuminated nothing more than the floor at his feet, which appeared to be constructed of a dark marble foreign to the desert. Its surface was strewn with rubble upon which the dust of ages lay thickly. Kneeling, Ganon traced several glyphs within a circle and then sang the call for light, sending a bright beam upward.

What he saw was an impossibly large chamber whose crumbling ceiling was supported by pillars even more massive than those in the caverns above. Beyond these pillars were the gaping throats of even more tunnels, some of which appeared to have collapsed into themselves. At the very edge of his range of vision was a gargantuan bridge lying over a black abyss like a line of chalk drawn onto a slate. Ganon walked toward it, his footsteps echoing weakly into the darkness. The air was fresh, and he could even feel a breeze on his skin. As he drew nearer to the bridge, the faint roar of water caressed his ears. This sound stirred him so deeply that he could not resist running to the edge, only to have the seemingly solid floor crumble at his feet. He leapt back and waited for the falling debris to raise a splash. It never came.

Ganon made his way back up to the temple and rode to Fort Lanayru, the hooves of his horse flying. He wasted no time in making a report to the elders. Refusing to sit quietly through their admonishments, he cut through their objections with a curt and decisive rationalization. The next morning, his curious sisters and an assembly of spearwomen accompanied him below the temple, but his discovery was dismissed as unworthy of further exploration. There were innumerable ruins buried under the desert sand, and most were disappointingly void of utility. The matter was ultimately dropped and largely forgotten. Ganon was appointed king as tradition dictated, and his attention was soon directed elsewhere.

His chief concern was water, forever water. His people made do with very little, having learned to draw moisture from the very air, but the old wells had run dry generations ago. To make matters worse, the waters of Lake Hylia had recently become tainted and foul. The Gerudo possessed knowledge of their own secret arts, but not even magic could produce water from the arid sand. As if to mock his reign, even the showers blown over the desert by the autumn winds had turned sour.

Seeking answers in the past where none existed in the present, Ganon returned to the books and scrolls of his childhood, which once again captivated his imagination with accounts of an endless sea upon which sailed ships larger than castles. He would try the tunnels once again, as his research indicated that they stretched through the desert under thoroughfares that had disappeared beneath the smoldering sands. The musky scent of old paper was like a whispered promise delivered to him from the past, and the prospect of delving deeper into the lost world beneath the desert thrilled him.

If the glowing writing on the walls was correct, he was close to the end of this particular route. The way forward was blocked by a cave-in, but air was sucked inward through minuscule cracks in the fallen walls. All he needed to do was reverse the flow of this current. Ganon sang to the breeze of clear skies and freedom, seducing it even as he stirred it into a state of agitation. To the earth he sang of rest and submission, relaxing and calming the stones that lay before him. He repeated the refrain of his song until he could feel the blockage thrum with potential. When he had aligned the elements to his will, he closed the chord and raised his hand. A funnel of wind rushed past him, blasting the tunnel open. On the other side of the wreckage was a small but perfect circle of light in the distance.

Beyond the tunnel was sand, and beyond the sand was the sea, a vast stretch of shining cerulean ending only at the horizon.

Ganon made his way across the dunes and stepped into the water, allowing the shallow waves to break over his boots. The wind that swept across the beach was tangy with the flavor of brine.

He dipped his fingers into the waves and then raised them to his mouth. The water tasted of salt.

Ganon's heart was heavy as he stepped away from the waterline and walked along the shore, desultorily gathering driftwood as he went. When he had accumulated enough, he crouched down and drew an interlocking set of glyphs into the sand, binding them within a circle upon which he arranged the wood. He whistled sixteen quick notes, and the small pyre burst into flame. Ganon rummaged within his satchel and withdrew a handful of dried Hyoi weed. He tossed it into the fire so that the bitter smell would anchor him. The birds hopping along the water were nothing more than common gulls, but they would suffice.

Ganon sat beside the fire and allowed his mind to drift.

Almost before he realized it, he could feel wet grains of sand underneath his scaled talons. At the rush of an incoming wave, he spread his wings and allowed the wind to lift him.

The weightlessness was exhilarating. Ganon momentarily forgot himself as he soared in circles along the rising air vortex before diving down to skim the surface of the waves. His purpose floated forward in his thoughts, so he once again rose into the sky, casting his sharp eyes over the ocean. Aside from a few emerald islands scatted along its surface like beads haphazardly sewn into an unfinished embroidery pattern, he could see nothing more than water and sand stretching without end in either direction. As he reached the edge of the range of his spirit, the smell of roasted Hyoi filled his nostrils, and he was once again rooted to the ground.

Ganon grudgingly assembled silk moisture traps within holes he scooped into the sand. He would need a store of potable water before he made his way back through the tunnels.

Although he had known full well what to expect at the far western edge of the desert, he had still dared to entertain hope. He felt its loss as keenly as he felt the thirst burning in his throat.

Ganon sat amid the dunes, watching the sun set over the sea as the salt wind rolled in over the waves. Although he was loath to admit it, this journey had been intended mainly to delay the inevitable. He was left with no other choice if he wished to restore the water needed to sustain his people – he would have to go directly to Hyrule Castle.