THE LEGEND OF ZELDA:
SHADOW DAWN
Foreword
This is the second set of author's notes for The Legend of Zelda: Shadow Dawn. Know now that this is the third part of a very long tale. As such, if this is your first time here, I highly suggest that you click on my profile and start everything from the beginning with The Amber Twilight. From there, read The Green Horizon and you'll be right as rain.
If you simply must plow forward – certain to stumble out shaken and confused – know that this story concerns Linus Olsen, a young man raised in the legendary city of Los Angeles. As a result of many adventures and misadventures, Linus finds himself trapped in the increasingly unfamiliar climes of Hyrule. With the legendary Master Sword at his side, Linus has overcome many trials and tribulations to claim the title of Hyrule's fated Hero . . . the Link to the Triforce.
Unfortunately, being the prophecied savior of the world has more than its share of downsides. For instance, Linus finds himself destined to eventually do battle with Hyrule's eternal enemy: Ganon, the Old Darkness. After nearly dying in battle with Ganon's forces, Linus has discovered that something even more terrible than an immortal monster lies at the heart of Hyrule's problems. Now, he must figure out a way to overcome the unstoppable Hell bearing down on his adoptive kingdom.
For a time, I honestly thought that no one would ever read this. After all, there was a period of more than a year in which The Green Horizon saw no update. It's strange to finally be moving into the third part of this incredibly overstuffed saga. As a procedural note, there are five planned parts to the entire tale. We still have a long way to go.
Many thanks are due to all my readers and reviewers – especially those who have stuck through since that dimly remembered beginning. Your patience, support, and candid criticism are appreciated more than you can imagine.
PART III:
BEYOND THE BLUE FRONTIER
1
"Are you ready?"
"Yeah."
"Truly ready?" she asked, ever skeptical.
"Of course. I was born ready."
"It will not be easy. It may not be very pleasant at all. You may pull out whenever you wish."
"Let's just get on with it, all right?"
"As you wish," Zelda said. "Follow my lead."
I pointed at the darkened doors and growled, "Let's jam."
With an exasperated roll of her eyes, Zelda gestured to the legionary guardsmen flanking the exit. One extended a gauntlet and pulled open the heavy door. A sigh of chill, wet air slid about us. There came sounds of drums and laughter.
With Zelda al-Imzadi at my side, I marched out into the glorious night.
We stomped down the front steps of the Imperial Palace's Guest Wing, shivering slightly and squinting into the distant steel-gray of the sky. A tide of echoing voices swam over the open spaces of the palace's vast grounds. Boyish shouts and lusty singing rang against the arches and darkened spires of the many annex buildings.
Two more legionaries waited patiently at the bottom of the crumbly brick steps. Their elaborate, heavy plate armor reflected ceremony rather than necessity. When our boots touched ground, the guardsmen took position – one to each side of us, lances slung over their shoulders almost casually.
"Sir Olsen. Miss Imzadi. Are we away?" the man to Zelda's left asked.
"We are indeed," Zelda said.
The guardsmen fell into lockstep beside us. They would follow our route all the way to our eventual destination. I knew neither of them, and in turn they spoke no more than a few terse words as we made our way. They strode as silver-limbed phantoms through the blooming tumult of the night.
Paper lanterns were strung throughout the shade trees of the Guest Wing's gardens. Flickering globes of lavender and lime and creamsicle orange. We passed beneath their undulating lines as if they were the gates to a strange and storied age.
I couldn't suppress a tremor of mixed cold and anticipation as it flowed down my spine. Tonight promised to be as strange and saturnine as any I'd yet experienced. As they might say, it was the first night of the rest of my life.
Of course, nothing could compare to the dread and awe I had felt just hours before, on the cusp of the ceremony that had forever altered the course of my life. When I had woken that morning, warm and sweat-bound and aching, I had simply been Linus Olsen – born of Earth, bred of Los Angeles, and then nearly broken by Hyrule. One momentous ceremony later, I was no longer simply Linus. Now, I walked resolutely as Sir Linus Olsen the Link. To all men and creatures of Hyrule, I was none other than the Hero of the Triforce himself.
Well. In name, at least. Even now – so splendidly attired and about be toasted by the whole of Hyrule's royal court – I could not banish the last, whispering streamers of doubt.
But at that moment? The gelatinous fingers of my own self-loathing couldn't touch me. Every step felt buoyant. Every breath was fresh with water pooling on granite and the rich odor of saturated grass. My head could barely contain the whirling enormity of the day behind and ahead of me. Even as my lingering injuries throbbed and grumbled, I swaggered as one intoxicated by the stupendous scope of the future. My body swung loose, tingling with hope and exaltation.
It was hard not to succumb to such a trance. After all, I was far from the only one who had given in to an atmosphere soaked with celebration. As the afternoon storms ended, the festivities had begun.
Rain had fallen on the capitol of Hylium in bone-chilling fits and starts for about a week. The unpredictably sodden weather had cast an odd pall over my return to the city. Not necessarily dreadful or melancholy, but it had lent the past three days a stark and sometimes funereal air. The weather had continued even into today, wetting down the streets as I had looked on from my carriage. During the knighting ceremony, sheets of rain had pattered over the Great Temple of Hylium like the beating of a snare drum.
Now the evening wavered damp and cool as the mouth of a well. Lawns glistened like beds of tawny green crystals. Puddles spread slickly over stone paths. Tree branches shed icy droplets in a serene chorus. Though the drizzle and downpour had abated hours ago, the sky was still an impenetrable gray ceiling.
None of this had kept the palace gardens from filling up with revelers. We loped now into a busy wonderland of bright colors and darting, giggle-laden silhouettes.
Lamp poles hissed hotly above the grounds. In their bright alchemic glow the lawns, groves, gazebos, and walkways were divided into high-contrast pools of light and shadow.
Vertical pennants were hung on poles all along the rambling paths. Each was some variant of Harkinian purple, Eldin green, Lanayru blue, Baeleus crimson, and many other colors whose significances I couldn't identify. They flapped vibrantly even in the soggy half-darkness.
Everywhere there wandered people in a state of happy, stuporous celebration. Even as we exited the bowl-like depression housing the Guest Wing and mounted a shale walkway, random and seemingly spontaneously generated figures emerged from shadows to romp past us.
Apparently, I had missed the most manic partying as it had torn through the city the day after the Battle of Kerneghi Gorge. From Norburg to Midtown, West Side to Easterly End, the sprawl of Hylium had filled with wave after wave of near-riot celebrations. According to what I had overheard, the city's Civil Militia had spent a full night working just as hard as the day the capitol had erupted into panic at the news of the Protectorate incursion.
They apparently never did anything half-assed, these folk of Hylium.
Given the citizens' apparent predilection to burst into fiesta at the slightest provocation, I had no doubt that further – hopefully more manageable – revelry now filled the streets of Hylium proper. Ensconced as the Isle of Kings was within the waters of Lake Hylia, it was difficult to tell what was going on in the surrounding metropolis. Beyond the palace walls, only the red and amber watch-fires atop the city's highest towers were visible.
Here, though, a climate of festival reigned. The open spaces of the palace had become a milling fairground of drinking, joking, carousing, and impromptu performance. As the four of us marched with grim stoicism toward the central keep, we crossed paths with drunken couples, rushing servants, and off-duty guardsmen dancing gaudily between the manicured shrubberies. I detected wood smoke on the air and could just barely make out the glow of a cook fire on one of the distant, stately verandas.
They were a curious bunch, these garden partiers. I suspected that more than half of them were actually just idling between destinations – much as we were. With the grand occasion about to occur in the central keep, most of the palace's servants had been recruited to make sure everything went as planned. I had heard tell that even stable boys and maintenance workers had been roped into double-duty that night as porters, go-fers, messengers, and brute physical labor. Who, then, were these many dozens who strolled and danced about the night-licked grounds?
Surrendering to curiosity, I commented, "Geez. Ton of people out tonight."
Zelda didn't so much as shrug. "I suspect that many of them are from the retinues of the gathered Houses."
Ah. She had an answer for everything, Zelda did.
Children scurried everywhere. Some came over-bundled in cloaks and wrapped blankets, while others shot to and fro as bare-limbed as if it were high summer. Lavender ribbons were tied in their hair or about their forearms. They laughed raucously, chanted nonsense rhymes, and chased after one another in the midst of unknowable games.
The kids' play crossed borders of gender, ethnicity, and even species. Among their careening forms I spied what I was certain were the first juvenile gorons I'd yet seen in Hyrule. Runty, glitter-eyed creatures with pallid skin and greenish shells that appeared far more pliant than their parents'. Shiekah children with rhinestone eyes and incongruously huge ears flashed past like visions from a fairy tale.
Heck – I had to wonder if the flickers of neon light I beheld in the garden depths were fairy young . . . if there even were such a thing.
Over the hedgerows there came a sound of sibilant voices. Unseen men raised their voices in jaunty song.
"Oh the boys of Kokiri are brave roaring blades
And if ever they meet with the nice little maids
They'll kiss them and coax them and spend their Rupees
Of all towns in Hyrule, Kokiri for me
And of all towns in Hyrule, Kokiri for me
Fal de ral de ral de ral de ral lal ra la la lo!"
Rounding a corner of the walkway, we came upon the song's source: a trio of dapper-looking men in slightly rumpled suits and tricorner hats. They belted out the ditty in a style that could only be described as barbershop.
"In the Town of Kokiri there runs a clear stream
In the Town of Kokiri there lives a pretty dame
Her lips are like roses, and her mouth much the same
Like a dish of fresh berries smother'd in cream
Fal de ral de ral de ral de ral lal ra la la lo!"
None looked to be a professional singer – rather, it was as if three highborn friends had simply collided in a moment of spontaneous lyric. They lingered on the edge of a wide, open space waiting in the teeming heart of the palace grounds. It was a rolling parkland of pristine lawns, groves of groomed trees, and clusters of upright statuary. Stone and gravel pathways cut mandala patterns through it all. Upon this promenade milled an uncountable swarm of people.
I could tell that it wasn't so much the official site of the party as it was a de facto space into which wandering revelers had landed en masse. They lounged on blankets and shared food picnic-style. Others strolled idly upon the paths and beneath canopies of leaves still heavy with rainwater. In the hands of almost every adult (and, I couldn't help noting, a few of the kids) were gripped foam-rimmed mugs, dented tin flasks, and wooden goblets overflowing with burgundy and gold.
There loitered cooks, guards, handmaids, and valets. Aggressively garbed contractual mercenaries relaxed in the company of sages and seamstresses. Ambling through the crowd were ostentatious buskers and women bearing baskets of steaming food. A teenage boy in patchwork motley grinned intensely as he concentrated on the task at hand: juggling an array of apple-sized, silvery spheres. The objects whirled perfectly through the air. Each would flash a different, phosphorescent color at the apex of its ascent.
And the singers crowed:
"Her eyes are as black as Kokiri's large coal
Which thro' my poor bosom have burnt a big hole
Her mind like its river is mild and pure
But her heart is more hard than its marble I'm sure
Fal de ral de ral de ral de ral lal ra la la lo!"
Our passage through the spontaneous carnival produced a subdued wave of stares and harried whispers. I wondered if anyone would have outright approached me if the two guardsmen hadn't been giving everything in our path the stink-eye. As it was, I listened to the quiet chirp of, "It's him!" and, "Off to the big hoo-rah, no doubt," and, "I thought he'd be shorter, truth be told."
A pair of young boys dashed up beside us and began to keep pace with our deliberate strides. Both bore shaggy dark hair and immense, gap-filled grins. Neither could be more than seven- or eight-years-old.
"Sir Link! Sir Link!" they cried in tandem. "Teach us how to fight! Teach us!"
The legionary to my right growled, "Away with ya'!" He swatted the air above the children's heads and they took off cackling, out into the expanse of grass and shrubs.
Fully, forcefully, finally:
"Kokiri's a pretty town and shines where it stands
And the more I think on it, the more my heart warms
For if I was in Kokiri I'd think myself home
For it's there I'd get sweethearts, but here I get none
Fal de ral de ral de ral de ral lal ra la la lo!"
As we silently crossed the parkland, a new strain of sound joined the humming singers. First came the twang of strings, then the increasing bass urging of heavy drums. At another side of the promenade, beneath the feet of a robed figure wrought in granite, was a ragtag band of amateur musicians. Chief among them was a fellow who strummed an instrument that wasn't quite a sitar and wasn't quite a banjo. Beside him, a pair of young women crouched with hiked skirts and hair tied back. They pounded on big, rough hand drums that resembled homemade bongos. One bore hair the color of a robin's egg; the other, dyed skin like a ripe mandarin orange.
The man on the stringed instrument was so old that he could have been the great-grandfather of the girls slapping the drums. Nonetheless, his fingers nimbly skittered over the object of his present vocation. Its sound was at once whimsical and dolorous; lively and introspective. Whatever it was, the wizened fellow played it with effortless skill.
As for his accompaniment . . . well. Their enthusiasm outmatched their ability. However, after a short period of uneasy noodling, the old man began to match their full-bore rhythm. Their clomping, rollicking, jazzy music swept us from the gardens and on toward the high black walls of our destination.
The multitudinous, glowing windows of the Imperial Palace's central keep twisted above us. Amber candle- and lamplight crept about the building's columns, spires and crenellations. Shapes hurried within like glimpses of some otherworldly ant colony.
We approached one of the larger side-entrances to the keep, which lay up a short flight of stairs and was flanked by yet more legionaries in ceremonial attire. Torches snapped hungrily along the steps.
Before we could mount the entrance stoop and plunge into the baroque labyrinth of the keep, Zelda abruptly stopped. I turned to her with an abortive question on my lips. In the deepening darkness, it was difficult to make out her expression beneath the heavy cowl of her cloak. Her mouth was pursed in what looked like sudden thought.
Finally, the handmaiden gestured to our two confused escorts and said, "Gentlemen – if you do not mind following my lead, I shall show you a quicker route through the keep. No need to press against the crowds in the main corridors."
A flicker of hesitation passed between the two guardsmen. Then the legionary to Zelda's left said, "As you wish, Maid Imzadi."
Without missing a beat, Zelda did indeed take point. I now found myself in the increasingly familiar position of following her violet-edged shadow into spaces unknown. We took off across lawns and around the gray balustrades of garden walls, following the flank of the massive keep. The sounds of laughter and music slipped into muted, almost dreamlike murmurs.
We came to another entrance into the building – this one a huge, round portal lined with stairs that led downward past the castle's foundations. A whole goddamned squad of legionaries lingered about this doorway. They stood in functionally appropriate armor and appeared ready to take arms at any moment. It was obvious that wherever this entrance led, the heads of palace security didn't want any kind of riffraff getting in. These dozen-or-so armed men grunted in terse greeting as they saw us approach. Even though they let us take those uneven steps down into the cellar-depths, they watched even our escorts with wary discomfort.
Zelda led us through a bright receiving chamber, down an incredibly narrow adjoining hallway, and out into a vast undercroft. Here was a great, gloomy tunnel plunging off into the distance. Arches of sweating stone swept above us. The damp here crawled about my shoulders like an impatient cephalopod. Pale bubbles of lamplight illuminated the subterranean road in shimmering patches.
We were far from alone here, in this behind-the-scenes space of the keep. Disembodied voices echoed down the basement byway. As Zelda hurried us along, doors on either side of the passage opened to disgorge scurrying maids and stone-faced porters. Burly men with sacks and boxes pressed against their shoulders duck-jogged past us with brusque entreaties for us to move the hell out of the way.
Suddenly, Zelda took a hard right turn and pulled us into a brick alcove. Ahead of us, a pair of stocky young men in white uniforms tarried about a huge iron door. They passed the fraying remains of a hand-rolled cigarette back and forth. Both gazed at our approach with a sneer.
"Open it," Zelda hissed.
Both kids blanched at the iceberg implacability of her voice. One coughed, nodded shakily, and pulled open the door with considerable effort. A fragrant fist of hot air billowed out and slapped away all notions of the clammy night beyond the keep's walls. Zelda was on the move even before the door was fully open. I followed as if on an invisible leash.
Into a heart of steam and smoke we strode. A din so tumultuous it rattled my brain senseless. Tens of voices scrambled rowdily, slipping and pressing over one another in a futile struggle for dominance. Pots and pans and steins and spoons crashed together in an idiot symphony. Here was the furious thwop of dough slapped against a butcher's block; there was the irate sizzle of batter as it met a hot griddle. A place of furious, beautiful chaos.
I had no idea that the Imperial Palace's kitchens were such a mad, gigantic place. This was a dukedom of ovens like blast furnaces and stoves like open forges. In the shrouded walls were grand fireplaces, each filled with glowing coals that must have been burned down from bonfires. Within these piles of blazing embers there waited cast iron pots and Dutch ovens massive enough to feed whole army regiments.
Delicate-looking men wielded knives and cleavers with the grace of assassins. Women with arms like knotted cordwood piled loaf after loaf onto open platters. In one alcove, a pair of weathered old women pulled squirming octorocks from casks of water. The shelling instruments in their hands were like medieval implements of torture.
Sweat ran openly on every brow. The cooks wore masks of smeared flour and wood ash. Nearly every expression was as grave as if the kitchen were preparing for war.
A short, gnarled man moved through it all shrieking commands. His eyes were like a rabid animal's and his chef's whites were spattered with blood and sauce. When he caught sight of our movement through the titanic kitchen, he appeared ready to howl like an enraged dog. Then – perhaps at some unseen signal from Zelda – the wildly gesticulating little man stilled, calmed, and then smiled delightedly. He called out, "Maid Imzadi! And Sir Olsen, I presume! You know that I don't let just anyone wander through my kitchens!"
Without stopping, Zelda shouted back, "Aye, Mister Temal! I beg your pardon – we run late for the banquet!"
Cooks' faces turned to follow both the exchange and our progress. The sudden appearance of interlopers was apparently a rare occasion indeed.
Temal – who I would later learn had long been the master of the Imperial Palace's main kitchens – cackled, "Do as you must, Miss Imzadi! I will, however, soon enough require a favor in return!"
Zelda simply shook her head and pressed forward between the carving blocks, spitted carcasses, and roaring towers of flame. I caught the barest sliver of a smile cross her taciturn face.
It appeared that both of our escorts had never been in this portion of the keep before, as they seemed just as flabbergasted as I was by the scope of the place. All three of us goggled at the size of the ovens and the heap upon heap of food that they produced.
Zelda called over her shoulder, "Do hurry along, Sir Olsen."
"Yes, mother."
"Really, Sir Olsen."
Sometimes I truly did think that the woman was made of marble. You try to walk through a nigh-tactile wall of such wonderful odors and not slow down. I waded through a sea of searing beef, roasting fish, crisping fowl, and slowly rising bread. Piles of pastries fragrant with fruit and meat passed within inches of my saliva-soaked lips. Tall glass jars full of pickled carrots and olives were being uncorked in one corner. Ladles of spicy-smelling sauces poured over platters of rare beef. Great cauldrons muttered and bubbled, emitting plumes of steam so savory that to pass through them was to taunt my empty stomach mercilessly.
Unfortunately, even these small joys had to come to an end. Zelda's odd tour took us through a back door and into a passageway so cool it felt arctic after the seething kitchens. How many fucking basements could this place actually have?
Many, it turned out. Many.
Through another formidable set of doors and down a slip of crumbling stairs. Now there came a cloud of odor both stupendous and nauseating – an oak-lined tempest of fumes that stirred within me both yearning and revulsion. Rich, sour, sharp, and just slightly rotten.
An earthen chill saturated this new place. It was a dark, vast, candlelit gallery. Ancient pillars held up low ceilings of tessellated brick.
Buried among the damp stones of this particular catacomb were so many casks and kegs that a man might drink them for a lifetime and never reach their end. Granted – given the contents of those barrels, bottles, jars, and vats – this theoretical man's lifetime might not be very long at all.
Evidence of their contents floated on the air like a fog. The rancid acidity of spilled beer. Wine so sour the smell of it puckered my tongue. The sting of a dozen liquors mixed together so thickly it was almost intoxicating just to breathe.
Like a grim-eyed order of monks, a cadre of servants moved through this fantastic mausoleum. Their arms and backs were pressed down with sloshing cargo. I watched as two men – a brawny, black-skinned goron and a guy like a human stick-insect – rolled a wine cask the size of a hippo down an intervening aisle of the undercroft.
I began to wonder whether this route was actually a shortcut, or if it was simply a way for Zelda to hammer home how much labor was going into the event.
The handmaiden's already relentless pace doubled. We passed through the gray purgatory of the wine cellar so quickly that it felt like a hallucination once we had mounted the stairs leading out. Despite the cool weather, I felt sweat slicking the back of my neck. The narrow steps curved upward through gloom and cobwebs. Ahead of me, Zelda abruptly pushed through a door so small I hadn't even noticed it.
When I followed – our escorts puffing and cursing quietly behind me – my eyes flooded with bright, golden light. I found myself in one of the exquisite main arteries of the central keep. Floors of freshly polished marble resounded beneath my boots. The warm glow of lit chandeliers and wall-mounted lamps bathed everything in near-daylight.
I glanced behind me as the perspiring guardsmen heaved their way up the last few steps. It turned out that the door to the stairwell actually molded seamlessly with the smooth white walls of the hallway. When shut, the door was all but invisible to a casual observer.
"Goddamn!" I muttered. "That really was a fucking shortcut."
"Come along, please," Zelda's voice echoed.
Man, keep your frilly purple panties on.
I turned to find my attendant's violet eyes staring daggers at us. She gestured impatiently with a lithe, gloved hand. Down the corridor we tromped. We didn't have far to go.
At the end of that hallway waited a pair of great, burled double doors. From behind this formidable entrance seeped the susurrus of hundreds of mingling voices. Silent guardsmen lined the hall like silver idols.
Zelda sashayed past me and pressed her palms together before our escorts. With flat cordiality, she said, "Many thanks to you, gentlemen. You may take your leave now."
Thus, the two men – still panting from Zelda's taskmaster pace and the weight of their armor – said terse goodbyes and peeled off. Just Zelda and I stood before the doors and under the unnervingly quiet gaze of their sentinels.
The Shiekah handmaiden stepped to my side and brushed some unseen bit of lint from my shoulder. With exacting fingers, she tightened the fresh linen of the sling supporting my left arm. I endured her ministrations with resigned amusement. At last, she stared point-blank into my eyes. Her jeweled gaze bored into me like an awl.
"Are you truly ready, Sir Olsen?"
I said, "You keep asking that. Are you worried that I'm going to fart in front of the King or something?"
(Truth be told, I was kind of worried about that exact possibility.)
Zelda let a sphinx-like smile play about the corners of her mouth. "All of Hyrule's nobility waits for you in that room, Linus. Most men would be made nervous by that."
"And if I am?"
She said, "Know that I am here to aid and serve you tonight. I can assist you with anything you need"
Well, there were certainly enough of those. I shrugged as best I could, sending a tepid ache through my left shoulder. "Okay," I said. "Let's do this thing."
Zelda nodded, reached into the folds of her voluminous garments, and produced a small silver bell. With a delicate flick of her wrist, she rang it three times. Ah – the familiar cricket chime. I knew that somewhere past those doors, a twin of that alchemically created instrument was ringing in tandem.
A strong, confident voice cried out incomprehensibly. The boiling mutter of the banquet hall began to subside.
Zelda murmured, "Do not fret. I will follow behind once the introduction is complete."
Yeah. Okay. Here goes nothing.
I heard the hinges of those doors begin to squeal. A crack of light grew between them. There was a creaking shudder as the immense wooden portal slowly opened.
I strode to the threshold. A dazzling star-field of lamplight unveiled itself as the doors swung wide. A gigantic, collective breath seemed to be held there.
A boom of staves on stone tile! A blast of curling horns! A haughty, familiar voice shouted like the herald of the gods!
"Ladies and gentlemen! Esteemed members of the Court and Council! I present to you Sir Linus Olsen the Link – Hero of the Goddesses!"
I swallowed what felt like a gulp of sand. My fingers scrambled tensely at the cravat about my neck. With a blink and a sigh, I started forth.
I stepped into the ballroom beyond as if I were diving into the inky, glacial surface of a flooded quarry.