Chapter 16
The swamps are filled with flowers of all
colours and shapes. Some of them are hostile. One even bit me. The purple water
oozes and belches noxious gases into the air. Giant bugs thunder around the
canopy, filling me with dread. I cut my way through the bush with the Master
Sword, determined to get this done as soon as possible. I come to a clearing
and stop. There is an apparatus, shaped like a heart- an organ made of pipes
and gears, throbbing and pumping, sparking with electricity. On top of this
mechanism, sits a man. At least I think it's a man. He has bright colours
painted in warrior designs all over his muscular frame. His face is...flat an
almost wood-like. Feathers replaces hair, and bristle down his back. Red eyes
turn on me. He draws a sword lifts his striped shield and leaps down heavily.
He is eight feet tall. I ready myself.
"Leave now." Comes a doubled
voice that creaks like old oaks. "This territory belongs to the spirit
Odolwa!" he brandishes his sword and beats his shield. I charge. Our
weapons clash with a biting ring. I run thorough is legs, dodging a kick. The
blade nicks my shoulder. He throws me into a tree. I stab his arm. Purple blood
spills out but he doesn't cry in pain. He back hands me to the ground. My face
throbs. I roll just as the blade imbeds the ground. I stagger to my feet and
duck a swipe. He is too powerful, too big for me. I hold the Master Sword skyward.
Energy builds up the blade as I dodge. When it reaches its peak, lightening
from the giant heart leap into the sword. I feel the vibration as it crackles
and danced up the metal.
I fight hard with the white blade of
lightening. I climb the heart keeping Odolwa at bay. And with a sharp cry, I
leap at him and lodge my sword in his brain. Blood fountains into my face. He
disintegrates, blown apart by the lightening. I fall and just lie in the guts
too exhausted to do anything else.
Once I catch my breath, I sit up and look
at the mechanical heart. It is beating very fast as if with anticipation. One
of the valves has opened hungrily. I scoop up Odolwa's blood and pour it in.
Nothing happens. I pick up more pieces, cringing as I do so, and I drop the
gore inside. I hear a grinder within, juice the meat dry. Only when I have
dropped in all the remains does the valve close.
Then the swamp comes alive. The trees
whisper, the water gurgles, and all the birds go quiet. A deep whirring spread
through the earth like a water. It travels up my spine and fills me with fear.
Then it sings through the wood of the trees and the rush of the streams. A song
that dips to the earth's core then rises up to the clouds. It was majestic and
slow, sung by the swamp itself.
"Link. It wants you to play
it." Fi says. With shaking hands I hold up the harp. I begin to play. It
is easy to follow, like the song is already in my fingers. I strum harmony and
pluck neighbouring notes filling out the tune until I walk it to the highest
string.
The Swamp returns to normal as if nothing
happened. The heart glows a soft purple in its pipes. It moves more like a
living organ now.
"Call my brethren on the third
day." A monstrous voice speaks from the roots of the earth, with vocal
chords, so enormous I feel the vibration in my lungs.
***
In the cold of the mountain I stand my
ground. A great bull hunts me through the snow. With a cry it charges.
Lightening sparks between its horns. I roll aside and slice its leg open. It
turns and grinds me into the ice with his head. I stab the Master Sword deep
into his neck and the blood gurgles up with its breath.
I carry its head to the summit. The
mechanical heart valves swallow it whole. The mountain shudders with excitement
as the wind dances around me. Two more days.
***
Wearing the Zora mask, I walk on the
ocean floor. I follow the ticking and throbbing sound of the heart into a deep
trench. A Great Coloured Shark waits for me. Working my fins I evade his teeth.
I generate a sting in my fins like an electric eel. I kick and jab as we swim
our dance. I yell as one of the teeth imbed in my calf. I hide in a crevice to
pull it out. The Shark prowls and lunges, desperate to get another bite. But I
draw my sword and drive it deep into the roof of its mouth. One more day.
***
The Canyons are treacherous. The strength
of the Goron Mask runs in my veins as I climb. My vanity is thankful I don't
have the beer gut most Gorons do but rather a set of rock hard abs, quite literally.
At the top I enter the Stone
Towers, the entrance
looking like a screaming face. Inside the place is infested with two, colossal
centipedes. They drill and twist through the structure, building a nest for
more fiends. I stab at their many eyes and go running for my life in the
tunnels. They are nearly a mile long and thick as houses.
We play a dangerous game of hide and
seek. I chop off a leg, they eat the ground from underneath me. They never
attack yet I've sprained my ankle. They love to play. I can almost hear giggles
in their hisses. Out of mere chance I fall and stab one at the top of the
spine, ending its life. The other pursues me furiously until I turn and drive
my blade into its center eye. With them dead I feed the heart.
The Canyon hums with gratitude and I
collapse as if dead.
"Master?" I hear Fi appear
beside me.
"Hnnnm?" I groan into the
ground.
"Are you alright?"
I roll onto my back dazed.
"You did very well."
I smile.
"And I've been thinking about what
the mask salesman said." she adds, "The one in the Canyon swallowed
the Fierce Deity Mask's evil. I think he was saying the Giant of the Canyon has
it... inside him."
"I guess there is only one way to
find out." I breathe. Fi helps me to my feet. I bring out the harp and
play The Oath to Order, the song the Giant of the Swamp sang. The cluster of
gears and pipes that made up the heart quickened in pace. A sound like the sky
was creaking open echoed down the tunnels of the Tower. Bits of it fell and
crumbled around me. The tower was collapsing. I run out only to find the whole
Canyon is breaking apart. The inertia knocks me to my knees. I slide to the
edge of the cliff as it tips.
I cling on as the entire wall breaks away
from the cliff, taking me with it. I close my eyes ready to fall, but the
sensation never comes. I crack an eye, and both fly open at the sight. The Stone Towers
are lifted up as the entire Canyon itself unfolds and sits up. Enormous eyes
open just beneath the towers. They blink sleepily, then focus on me.
I find I'm at the end of one of his arms,
clinging to the edge of his wrist like a little leach. I quickly right myself, hoping not to be swatted. A
deep breath sucks all the air into the
Giant's stone nostrils and breathes it out in a warm dusty wind. I nearly fall,
even though I am sitting.
"It... has... been... long... my...
dear... friend." He speaks in a thundering voice like a grinding of stone
or claps of thunder. I just nod, half deaf. "You... have... come... to...
ask... me... of... something... no?" he speaks slowly like he has all the
time in the world.
"D...yeh-" I clear my throat.
"Do you have the Fierce Deity Mask?"
With a crackle he frowns.
"These...must...be...dire...times...indeed..."
he ponders. "Enter...if ye be strong...tarry not...lest you die." The
Giant straightens his arm slowly forming a bridge. He opens his mouth wide and
waits.
"You've got to be kidding me."
I say.
"Well the salesman did say he swallowed
it." Fi says sounding wary. Knowing there is little time and no other
options, I walk down the arm and enter the cave of his mouth.