The Prince of Pandemonium

Prologue

It was so cramped that he felt like he couldn't breathe, the cold sucked the feeling from his skin. His heart beat so hard against his breastbone that he was nauseous, and he didn't have enough air to scream, even when the part of his brain that hadn't gone numb already kept telling him that this was only in his mind. The murky darkness was the worst of it, not completely black and not enough light to see either, a twilight that seemed to close in on him.

There was air, there was even space to move, just a little further…

A sharp tug around his waist that seemed to carve his body into an hourglass reminded Link that he indeed had functioning lungs, but he wasn't so sure of his kidneys anymore.

"Why the hell are you dawdling, midget?!"

The booming voice was followed by hurried shushing and mumbling voices. Link exhaled carefully to ease the stinging in his midriff, where his pouch had almost dug into his solar plexus. Then he set his aching elbows onto the uneven stone again and crawled on, following the tiny draft of stale air.

Beneath him, far beneath him, Groose and Fledge began to argue in hushed tones.

"Please be quiet – if the Kikwis hear us, all of this was in vain…"

"Hunting is never in vain," Groose cut him off, and Fledge's voice flinched. "Don't call it a hunt, we want no harm…"

Link's icy fingers brushed stone and dragged his body forward. He felt the wetness of blood, but he couldn't feel where he had cut himself. Even as dirt entered the wound, he stubbornly crawled through the inky dark. The draft grazed his ear now.

"Like they need the damned lianas, they won't miss them!"

Fledge sounded decidedly nervous now. "You don't know, maybe they do, for their nests and such…"

Something hairy touched his hand and scurried over it with more than four legs. Link froze, his heart hammering again and forcing him to stay still and count to twenty. Mockingly, the draft caressed his cheek.

Almost there.

The thought entered his mind, and he crawled on, hauling himself through the choking passage.

"You're even more useless than goldilocks up there, aren't ya?!" Groose tugged at the rope that secured their climber, impatient and tense himself. "You stuck or what?!"

Suddenly, Link's hand grabbed empty air, and his breath caught. He had climbed up here to search for a nest of Kikwis, confident that the narrow fissure was the perfect hideout for the strange creatures and their valuable plants and seeds. The tunnel that he had squeezed himself into until even he fought panic couldn't simply end. It wasn't fair.

Link reached out again, risking angering a poisonous insect, but he couldn't wear his gloves if he was to remain agile. He groped for something, anything, that wouldn't prove this to be a useless effort-

"Link, are you alright?" Fledge sounded worried now, tugging at the rope again.

Link's thoroughly battered fingertips suddenly bumped into something smooth, almost glassy. He instinctively withdrew his hand to protect it from a sting, but he merely felt a subtle vibration, almost as if the stone around him sighed. Almost like-

A luminescent glow oozed from the surface, blinding Link for a moment before he could blink. It was the light of soft, moist moss that they had seen before in the ancient temple, though only in small patches. This was…

This was unbelievable. This wasn't a Kikwi nest, it was much larger. A chamber.

"Link?"

He grabbed the edge of the crumbly stone and dragged his body through the tunnel, then hastily untied the knot of rope around his waist and lowered himself from the opening. In his frenzy, Link hadn't considered that it had obviously been Fledge holding the rope now – who let go as the sudden weight yanked at his end. With a startled gasp, it gave way and Link crashed into the greenish twilight.

"I've had it, I'll blast this whole shit down now."

"Groose, no!"

There might have been a brief moment of unconsciousness: Link could not say it as he found himself lying on his back in a thick carpet of moss and staring stunned at the faded red of the ceiling. There was pain traveling through him, dull pain, maybe he had injured his back when colliding with the floor.

No, it was his hands. They were bleeding, he could smell it. Feel it.

Blood.

That was when the world rocked again under the force of a bomb flower, collapsing stone and spitting dust, and Link's vision snapped back into place, making him cover his head with his arms to protect himself from chunks and splinters of rock. He heard coughing and scrunching, and quivering torchlight crept into the chamber as the explosion effectively evened the way.

"I asked you why-… Holy Heavens!"

As Groose stumbled over the scattered stone, the light crept over the chamber, its even walls and the marble mosaic covering the floor. The air was moldy and dry, and dust had settled on the chipped spaces, and yet, the round room emanated a strange dignity. A low round platform rose in the middle, surrounded by shapeless relicts encrusted with moss and age.

Fledge yelped in horror.

"This is a tomb!"

Groose grumbled and lifted the torch, illuminating the dark corners with interest. "Can't be a tomb if there ain't a casket. You see one, fraidy-cat?"

Link scrambled to his feet, but to his relief, what he had landed in was a basin of wood that had immediately caved under the force of his weight and shattered. He could still see glimpses of intricate intarsia that had not yet been decomposed by moss and humidity. Whatever purpose this had served, it was not a sarcophagus of some sort.

"This looks like grave goods," Fledge objected anxiously, making both of them turn to him: he pointed at a long black saber exposed in an open chest. His fingers trembled when he reached for it, mumbling, "Just look now, there's a gem in the hilt, so it must have been some noble's-"

The moment when Fledge curled his fingers around the hilt to lift the saber, there was a faint creaking sound – and it crumbled to pathetic chunks of black substance that trickled from Fledge's trembling hand onto the ground.

"Now you've probably attached some mummy's curse to you," Groose scoffed, but gave his rapidly paling companion a hearty slap on his back. "Lucky for you this isn't a tomb, eh?"

Link's attention wandered as he dusted off his rough gear and let his eyes wander over the burial objects. He saw more of that black material that had crumbled under Fledge's touch, ruinous cloth that had kept little color, and more of that fluorescent moss. There was no clue about the purpose of the chamber, the mosaics remained mysterious and randomly arranged. In the middle of the platform, where the casket should have stood, there was merely a fissure as long as his hand and shaped like a willow's leaf. Too large for a switch of reasonable size and too small for a pillar, and there was no sight of anything like that.

"A sword," Link whispered tonelessly, his chest tightening with a steep dread.

"Another one?!" Groose scanned the chamber, then held out the shaft of the pickax he used for climbing and digging. "Catch!"

He scooped an object up with the worn wood and tossed it over, ignoring Fledge's squeal of protest. Link caught it on instinct; something cold and heavy with a round shape and a chasing that bit his battered hands.

Groose huffed in triumph. "That didn't crumble, now did it?!"

It was a bangle made from massive gold. Link lifted it, examining it gently, however, the blood from the cuts kept smearing dark blots onto the metal. It had a dull shine that betrayed its age, and Link didn't realize that he tried in vain to wipe the blood off, only greasing it even more.

It was cold in his hands, rifty and it felt as if it hummed…

"Link," Fledge's voice cut in, trembling slightly. "Please put that down. Let's just leave, this is a tomb, and we're not grave robbers…"

Groose sighed, waving the torch. "Fine, fine, we didn't come for those silly clay swords anyway. Get moving, and we won't tell a soul – Link, you wanna keep that or what?!"

As if he'd been caught doing something disrespectful, Link tossed the bangle aside and wiped his hands on his tunic. Suddenly, he remembered what they were supposed to be doing – and that Fledge had to be right about this place, what were they thinking? They shouldn't have come to the temple in first place. He shouldn't have come.

Link wasn't going to dwell on the strange excitement he'd felt in the tunnel, crawling in the stifling dark, the determination that went against reason. And the sight of his blood on the ancient gold.

Or the feeling that it had sighed when red life smeared it.

Master.

A soft, so soft chuckle as chapped and still smooth as old gold.

Oh, my master.

/

A/N: Welcome to this new project of mine, in case anyone made it this far! I finally got my hands on enough time to write this down; it will be a longer project again.

The setting is, as it is always the risk with me, AU-ish, set in a Hyrule that I will introduce to you in the following chapters. I earnestly hope that I will be able to capture Ghirahim's character better in this one and avoid having to twist the arm of plot convenience. As always, I cherish reviews very much, they are an important source of motivation. But I accept the skepticism against AU.

Other game-characters may appear during the story; and I do mean the rating. It's a given with Ghirahim.

I hope you will enjoy!