Legend of Zelda:
The Ether Blade

By Link-Reborn


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.



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