The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Part 9



Secrets of the Sand

A lone figure on horseback kicked his horse into movement at the bottom of a flight of steps, the creature moved slowly starting to pick up speed as the roaring light of the sun sank behind a wall and the cry of a wolf was thrown into the air and a silence took hold of the night. It moved faster over a small bridge and galloped onto short velvet like grass. The mount flew over the grass legs flying in long powerful strides, the rider rocking with every thrust of the legs of the creature, against the ground. The beast slowed into a walk, mane settling on its neck once again, rider returning to a sitting position as they passed through a gap in a fence, it turned right sharply and continued pacing slowly, its rider hanging his head with fatigue. The horse moved down a slope and onto a hard, gritty type of surface, on a surface above dead trees stood, leafless branches seeming to scratch and claw at the sky. The smooth sky above almost pitch black in colour, with only the milky white moon standing in stark contrast, began to lift its heavy veil of darkness slowly, almost resentfully. The rider took his head down again and nudged his horse into life again, and entered a place that few races had ever entered.

Link looked up at the sky with tired eyes and saw the light returning to the sleepy land, the sun rose in the sky once more and he took a moment to watch the glowing orange orb rise upwards. It was a magnificent sight, the sky turning from velvet blue into purple with a hint of red finally fade into a clear blue sky. He looked over at the broken bridge in front of him and moved Epona so that she was in line with it, he had no other option so he kicked Epona into a gallop she raced towards the bridge … and jumped. In what seemed like an agonizing eternity to Link, Epona jumped over the chasm in a graceful arc and Link glanced down at the swirling torrent of the river below him.

There was a sudden hard thud as Epona landed on the other side of the broken bridge and slowed to a halt at the top of the small ramp that led up to normal ground. Link looked behind him at the gap that Epona had jumped. He patted her on the neck and scratched her behind the ears before kicking her into a light trot forward into the Gerudo fortress.

It was sweltering here and the sun wasn’t at midday point even up properly yet it was only about 9:45 so it was still fairly cool around on Hyrule field. Link tapped the heels of his boots against Eponas sides to get her to walk slowly. The sky was strikingly blue here and the sun blazed overhead, the air was dusty and dry and there was little wind. Link glanced around at the fortress above him and kicked Epona into a light trot again as she moved up a slight slope into an open area in front of the dark stone complex. A Gerudo guard saw him however and screamed

“Halt. You kid. Over there”

The guards cry alerted the other Gerudos and they crowded around, their spears and zanbatous pointing at him.

“Get off the horse kid” one of them commanded. Link swung his left leg off from around Eponas back. He jumped onto the ground and immediately several Gerudo guards grabbed him by the arms and held him back. One of the Gerudos in the group that had encircled him walked forwards towards him and looked him up and done as if trying to guess his strength.

“He’s just some kid playing dares with his mates, probably thinks he’s tough for coming here and carrying a sword, he doesn’t look dangerous” she decided

A small chuckle and murmur ran round the Gerudos as they looked at Link.

“Don’t bother frisking him, just blindfold him and throw him in a cell” she told the Gerudos holding Link, she turned to Link himself

“You’ll have to learn some lessons about the Gerudos before you come here again kid” she stared at him for a moment before turning away, he watched her walk away until a cloth was put over his eyes and tied behind his head. He was turned in a direction and felt a spear tip press into his back as an indication to start walking. Link was lead into a building and then outside again, his blindfold was ripped off and he was pushed down a hole into a cell. He landed with a loud thud onto the floor.

“Get in there and stay quiet. Stupid Kid”

Link pushed himself up off the floor and he could hear the guard muttering something about Hylian teenagers as she walked away. Link brushed some sand off his tunic and walked around the cell looking for a way out, he couldn’t get out from the square hole at the top but there was an opening in the cell that had a wooden sill over the top of it. He brought out the longshot and aimed it at the sill, as soon as the arrow at the end embedded itself in the wood it pulled him up and he stood on the ledge, and took a moment to look at the Gerudo Fortress.

At that point Navi flew out of Link’s tunic to check out the situation

“You’re an idiot, you do know that don’t you Link?” Navi commented as she flitted around Link’s head

“Why?”

“Riding out straight in front of those Gerudos, you know they hate men and were bound to imprison you”

“So what would you have had me do?”

“I dunno”

“Exactly. Shut up and be helpful will you” he retorted

He spotted a Gerudo about a metre away from the bottom of the wall where his cell was and took out his bow and an arrow.

“I hope you’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do”

“And that would be?”

“Shoot her?”

“Yup”

“But Link you can’t!” Navi exclaimed hysterically

“I won’t hurt her, besides do you want us… me to be thrown back in”

Navi didn’t answer but let out a sound that sounded like ‘why is this boy insane?’. Link ignored her and took aim while the Gerudo was standing still; he pulled back the string and released the arrow. It hit the Gerudo in the back and she immediately fell to the ground.

“GREAT SHOT LINK. You’ve killed her” Navi screamed at him

Ignoring her, Link jumped from the ledge and landed lightly on the floor below and stealthily approached the fallen Gerudo. He dragged her behind the crates on the floor and put two fingers to her neck, feeling for a pulse.

“She’s fine Navi, just unconscious” He turned the Gerudo over and pulled the arrow out of the Gerudos back and put it back in his quiver and walked away, leaving the Gerudo on the floor

“You’re leaving her there, unconscious?” Navi almost screamed at him.

“What do you want me to do? Wait by her side until she wakes up and then say ‘oh good, you’re alright, excuse me but I shot you in the back, I do hope we can still be friends’”

“OK, good point, let’s go”

Link walked towards the nearest door quickly looked inside and then entered. It was pleasantly cool inside the fortress, although there was still some sand and hot air entering the complex from out side, Link stealthily made his way into a large room without seeing any Gerudos.

On the left hand side of this room was an alcove cut into the wall, with bars over the front of it making it into a cell, inside was a somewhat large man, he called Link over.

“Hey you there, young man over there”

Link walked over to the cell.

“I don’t how you managed to get past all the guards around hear, but you’ve got guts, me and my three carpenter buddies got thrown in here, if you can get all of us out, we’ll make it worth your while,

but you better be careful, there are sure to be Gerudo guards... Around... Here… somewhere.

Wow watch out!”

As the carpenter said that Link felt a searing pain across the small of his back, he turned around to see a Gerudo dressed in red instead of purple standing in front of him, her scimitars were drawn and one was dripping with Link’s blood. Link quickly drew the Master Sword and Hylian shield and raised his shield in defence. Without a word the Gerudo stepped backwards and the two warriors started to fight each other, backing off then coming in close again to attack. The Gerudo took a horizontal slash at Link, but he blocked it by bringing his sword up vertically, the Gerudo was stopped and Link took a quick swipe at her, slicing at her arm and leaving a trail of blood.

The Gerudo woman looked down at it, as if in disbelief that he had hurt her. She backed off again, holding one scimitar above her head, the other down by her knees, as she circled Link, she backed off further and Link stood opposite her, just watching. The Gerudo crouched down and pulled the scimitars back, then launched herself at Link in a spin attack. Link barely missed being caught by her blades, he stood behind her, but she was dizzy and didn’t know where Link was, against his nature Link took another swipe at her, cutting into the small of her back, she screamed and breathed heavily before turning around to face Link again. This process was repeated by Link again and again, but on the tenth injury the woman collapsed to the floor, looked at Link with terror and hatred in her eyes, dropped the key to the cell and jumped up and disappeared.

Link walked over to the key that was lying on the floor and picked it up. Inside the cell the carpenter was throwing up his arms into the air, while Link walked over to the cell opened the door and stepped inside.

“Whoa boy, you can fight, that was incredible. I’ve never seen any man take on a Gerudo like that before. By the way my name is Jiro; I’m one of the four carpenters. We were really interested in joining the Gerudo’s all female clan

“I bet you were” Link muttered under his breath, Jiro however seemed no to have noticed

“But when we got here” he continued “they threw us in jail just because we’re men. We’re not interested in joining them anymore, they’re so rude. Please free my other buddies” and with that Jiro ran out of the cell and out of the Gerudo fortress. Link followed the direction in which the carpenter had run and came outside again. He quickly ducked down behind the crates to his right and moved over to the door on his left and walked inside. Link continued to make his way throughout the fortress, fighting three more Gerudos and freeing three more carpenters. After the last carpenter had ran off, Link turned around to see a Gerudo warrior, again dressed in red, standing before him, outside the cell.

“You’re quite a fighter” she commented “I used to think that all men, besides the great Ganondorf, were stupid, worthless and useless, but now that I’ve seen you fight I don’t think so anymore” Link looked at this woman with surprise written across his face, she smiled at him and pulled off one of her gauntlets and brought out a piece of paper, she put her gauntlet back on and shook out the piece of paper and beckoned Link to come out of the cell. He walked towards her slowly, warily until he stood in front of her. When he reached her she handed a piece of paper with writing on to him. He took it off her and read it.

“This is a Gerudo membership card, it will give you access you all areas of the training grounds, including the haunted wasteland and Desert Colossus, which is where the spirit temple is situated” She informed him as he read it.

“Right… thanks” Link said as he looked up at the Gerudo

“Oh, and the Spirit Temple is the headquarters of the exalted Nabooru, who was second in command to Ganondorf, she left me in charge of the fortress, so if she asks you how you got the membership, you can tell her that Lyrana gave it to you”

“Right thanks again” he said again as he smiled at her and walked out of the fortress.

He jumped down to the ground from the top of the fortress and walked to the left, and headed up the ramp to see what was up there, as he reached the top of the slope he saw large wooden targets on a course with some crates and a wooden fence in front of them. He walked up to the Gerudo who was standing underneath a canopy, trying to shield herself from the sun, which now was at it’s high point in the sky. Link walked up to the Gerudo and she informed him that the course was the Gerudo’s horseback archery grounds, where the Gerudos came to practise their archery skills.

“When you learn to ride a horse come back and try your skill” she laughed. Link looked at her with a disgruntled look on his face that showed his annoyance at being treated like a child, so he turned around and took out the Ocarina of time and called Epona with it. She swiftly came galloping to him and he mounted her as soon as she stopped. Link then looked at the Gerudo.

“So you can ride a horse huh? Well, let’s see if you can hit any of the targets.” She ran down the line of crates, setting out pots on top of them then turned around and ran back.

“A hundred points for each pot you can hit, thirty for the outside of the targets, sixty for the next three lines in and another hundred for a bulls-eye. The current high score is two thousand points.”

She started to count down and Link brought out his bow and set an arrow to the string “GO!” She shouted and Epona took off, running flat out. As she neared the first pot Link let the arrow loose, smashing it, and quickly readied another arrow letting it loose as he quickly came to the next pot, he repeated this hitting eight of the ten pots and then facing forward and firing two arrows at the target in front of him one hitting a sixty the other hitting a hundred. He lowered his bow as he went round the back of the target and brought it up again, fitting another arrow to the string. He let it go as he approached the first target and grabbed another from his quiver the arrows he shot flew through the air and he shot two more as he came up to the last target.

“One thousand five hundred points” the Gerudo stated as Link rode up to her. “That’s really good, especially for a rookie, well, you’ve earned this” She turned around and rummaged threw a pile of crates before turning around and handing him a quiver.

“This is the biggest quiver made in Hyrule, it carries fifty arrows, use it well” She winked at him and went to sweep up the remnants of the pots and pull the arrows out of the targets.

Link turned Epona around and kicked her into a gallop as he headed down the slope and turning right at the bottom, then dismounted her and entered the Gerudo’s training grounds.

After about an hour and a half Link emerged from the training grounds, out of fairies but with the Ice arrows. He then mounted Epona again and steered her towards the gate and then slid off her back and climbed up the ladder, he briefly spoke to the Gerudo and she opened the gate for him and he slid down the ladder and walked under the arch.

“Hey” she called to him, just as he was about to enter the desert. “You’ll have to face some challenges first, to start with there’s a river of quicksand you have to cross, follow the posts we’ve set up there and they’ll lead you to a stone we’ve set up, where there’s a fairy’s fountain. After that you’re three quarters of the way through the desert, you’ve then got to either find your way to Desert Colossus on your own or you can find the phantom that hangs around there, but you need an eye that can see the truth to see him, follow him and he’ll lead you out. Oh, and one more thing, the winds there are really rough and the sandstorms never stop. I know that won’t stop you, but I thought you might as well know”

“Thanks for the info” he called up to her, and plunged into the sandstorm of the haunted wasteland.

It was hot and dry and windy in the desert, the sand stung Link’s eyes as he trudged through the sand, trying to make out the flag poles, he finally reached the stone in the middle of the desert and dropped down the hole and into the fairy’s fountain. He walked forwards a couple of steps and then sat down watching the water and the fairies, glad to be out of the sun, after a few minutes he stood up and walked towards the water, bottled a fairy, and with a sigh walked back to the pad and jumped outside. Link quickly shielded his face and brought out the lens of truth, and seeing the Poe in front of him, started to follow it towards Desert Colossus.

It was another hour before Link reached the Spirit Temple that was located in Desert Colossus, he ran as fast as he could to the temple and sat down on the steps in what little shade the temple provided. He panted desperately and pulled out a bottle of water from inside his tunic and drank it, barely stopping to breathe as he drank the whole bottle. He drank the last few drops and put the empty bottle back inside his tunic; he closed his eyes for a moment trying to block out the heat of the sun and wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his white undershirt. He stood up and as he did Sheik appeared, he spoke to Link for a moment before pulling out his harp and playing the requiem of spirit and then disappearing again, Link walked inside, savouring the cool air, however stale it was, ‘at least the air in here hasn’t got sand in it’ he thought as he walked towards the woman in front of him, who he guessed was Nabooru. He spoke to her and she mentioned something about a room, but she was too large to get into it and only a child could get into there.

Link turned around and walked away and was about to take the Ocarina out to warp back to the Temple of Time when Navi flew out of his tunic.

“Man it was hot out there, and the air is so stale in here” She commented, with dislike staining her voice

Link rolled his eyes. “It’s a desert out there, did you expect it to be refreshingly cool or something?” he asked, patronising her

“Anyway, we have to get back to the Temple of Time”

He took out the Ocarina and played the prelude of light and warped to the temple of Time. Upon reaching the temple he sprinted up to the pedestal of time. He drew the Master sword looked at it, and raising it above his head, slammed it into its slot. Blue light rose up from the floor encircling him and Navi.

Link opened his eyes again, as a child and walked down to the steps and into the main chamber of the temple, before checking his equipment and warping back to Desert Colossus.

The wind was blowing harshly again and the sand stung Link’s eyes upon his arrival to the desert. He ran across the sand and into the Spirit Temple, to get out of the heat. Once inside the Temple he ran to Nabooru and talked with her, he then entered the room and eventually collected the Golden gauntlets. He then warped back to the Temple of Time. When he returned to an adult he took a moment to look at the Master swords blade, it was perfect. It had lost none of its sharpness, and it still had no scratches on it, despite the battles it had been through, and its perfect silver colour was as bright and as magnificent as ever, regardless of the amount of blood that had coated it. It looked as though it was brand new, though it was probably about 1500 years old. Link thought about this as he looked at it, knowing that that was the last time it would probably be pulled out of the pedestal, if Link succeeded in his task, the Master Sword would be returned and it would never need to be used again.

‘But there’s always that probably’ Link thought. He then slid the sword into its scabbard and warped back to the desert. (How many Bloody times is he going to do this, it’s getting on my nerves). He entered the temple and made his way through, fighting iron knuckles, armos statues and other various monsters. He finally reached a long room; it was dark and eerie, illuminated only by the candles on the wall, six large pillars stood in the room, three on either side of the red carpet that ran up the middle. There was a door on the far side of the room which resembled a ying-yang like sun, but the door was barred.

“Looks like we’re going to have to do something in here” Link muttered, fatigue staining his voice

“And what gives you that idea, Link?” Navi asked, not without sarcasm

Link looked up at her, rolled his eyes and suddenly took a step back, his eyes widened as he looked at the sight before him.

A pair of gold armour clad legs had appeared in front of Link and the rest of the armoured being was quickly following. Finally, the golden, giant iron knuckle stood towering above Link, its large axe was extended towards him. It suddenly raised its axe up and brought it crashing down into the floor as Link jumped back.

“Oooohhhhh, shit!” Link exclaimed

“Link, manners please”

“Fine, KUSO!” He cursed again

“That means the same thing! Just cos’ it’s in Japanese, doesn’t make any difference” Navi scolded

Link however, was far to busy with the knuckle in front of him to be bothered about Navi. He dodged attack after attack, hitting back when he could, but his weariness was slowing him down, he was barely missing the attacks now. He dodged the axe again and dashed forwards hitting the Knuckle under the armpit, red blood started to trickle from the wound.

“Hang on!” Link thought “Knuckles don’t bleed”

He jumped back as the Knuckle raised it’s axe again and brought it down towards his right shoulder, his body though was tired and he needed to rest, he tried to step back and the axe hit his shoulder and dragged down a little, stopping halfway down his chest. Link screamed and stepped back once more. The Knuckle brought up its axe slowly and Link charged a spin attack up. Just before the knuckle slammed his weapon into the floor Link let the attack loose. He hit the knuckle just about everywhere that the sword could reach; Link staggered backwards shaking from his injuries, combined with fatigue and dizziness over the last attack.

To his amazement the armour fell off the knuckle and disappeared. Nabooru collapsed to the floor. She was the Knuckle!

Two witches suddenly appeared on either side of Link and Nabooru, both were dressed in black and on broomsticks, they also had hideously large noses and bulging eyeballs. However while one of the witches had a red jewel on her head, the other had blue.

It turned out that these two witches, named Koume and Kotake, had been controlling Nabooru. They cackled as they thought about the stunt that they had just pulled, their voices were high and squeaky and when they talked it sounded like nails being scratched down a blackboard.

Link winced as they cackled, loathing just about everything about them, from their grotesque features and voices, hunched shoulders and short backs, thin claw like hands to their actions and personalities, which were both exactly the same.

They suddenly summoned one ball of energy each, one blue, one red. By the time Link had recovered from the blinding light Twinrova had disappeared, along with Nabooru.

He collapsed on the floor for a moment, shaking with exhaustion.

“Link! This is no time to be sitting down on the job, get up and let’s go.” She hollered at him. Link slowly struggled to his feet, but his knees gave way again, leaving him crouching on the floor. Navi flew down to his eye level.

“Link, this is Navi, your partner” she said in a calm voice, then paused and proceeded to shout “GET A GRIP AND GET ON WITH YOUR JOB!!! WHAT ARE YOU, A YOUNG BRAVE HERO, OR A GIBBERING OLD MAN”

Link looked up at her, teeth bared. “Stop shouting at me and telling what to do” he growled quietly “I know what I have to do”

“THEN DO IT”

Link continued to watch her silently.

“WELL?” she shouted

“STOP IT NAVI!” he suddenly shouted, his temper was starting to fray because of his physical condition “You’re supposed to help guide me and generally help me out… why can’t you see that I’m trying as hard as I can?”

“You’re not trying though Link, you’re sitting on the floor doing nothing”

“I’m sitting on the floor Navi because I’m exhausted, I need to rest, I haven’t eaten or slept for two days in a row and I’m still finding the strength to fight, on top of that my injuries are slowing me down and I’m losing a lot of blood” he stopped, shuddering, trying to get his breath back

Navi briefly looked him over, his cheekbone and bottom lip were bleeding slightly from the force of an iron knuckle hitting him earlier, there was a large purple bruise underneath his left eye that took up almost all of the left side of his face, the gash on his right shoulder, which reached down to his chest, was deep and sore, blood flowing freely from the wound and soaking into his clothes and the rest of his body was still covered in bruises and cracked scabs from previous fights.

She gave a soft sigh a she looked at him, realising what he was being forced to do.

“Link… why don’t you use a bottled fairy to help revive yourself” she asked, anger suddenly diminished.

“I only have one left and I need it for the next fight, besides, I don’t think fairies are going to help here, I need to sleep” he spoke quietly and looked down at the wound on his shoulder then tore two strips off the bottom of his tunic and used one to clean the wound on his shoulder and the other to wipe his face. He sat for a moment and then slowly stood up, using the pillar beside him for support, trembling he made his way forward to the next room, and faced Twinrova.

The battle for Link was long, hard and utterly exhausting he battled as hard as he could, getting struck by Twinrova’s fire and ice attacks. After what seemed like an agonizing eternity to Link, Twinrova collapsed to the floor and disappeared into nothing, leaving behind a heart container.

He smiled briefly and walked into the light to talk to the sage, who turned out to be Nabooru.

‘So let the monsters beware!’ Link thought as he was transported back to Hyrule.

He then went to face whatever waited for him in Ganondorf’s ominous castle….