The Phantom Hourglass

III

He glanced back at the fairy. "I thought that was the entire reason you led me here," he said. "If you would rather wait outside, it's up to you."

He continued walking toward the entrance again.

"Link!" she exclaimed, zipping right in front of his face, "you don't get it! This temple is cursed! It literally sucks the souls out of anyone who enters!"

"Cursed cursed cursed," Link continued walking, "everything is cursed to the people here."

Link stepped into the temple.

Light streamed into the room from small collapsed parts of the ceiling. The room was rectangular, but it was almost like the floor was made of stairs, the four sides of the room descending to a stairway in the center. It reminded him of drawings of ancient stadiums. And like an ancient stadium, it had a tier at the back of the room, above the others, where a king would sit.

Link didn't see any route but down into the stairs. Ciela hovered close to him. She did not seem comfortable. He stepped on a root growing along the stone and it snapped, causing Ciela to shriek.

"Maybe you should stay outside," Link said. "Oshus wouldn't want you hurt."

"And let you go into that pit of doom all by yourself, without any light?"

Link paused in his steps. It would be awfully dark without a torch.

"Please," Ciela said, "just make sure we get in and get out fast."

"We'll be alright," he assured.

They descended into the deep, like the gaping maw of an ocean's whirlpool. Ciela's pale glow cast the stairway in a slightly eerie light. Link watched his footing carefully. In a place as ruined as this, it wasn't assured that stairs wouldn't have a weakened piece of stone.

The stairs kept winding downward, slowly curling in a spiral. All he could hear was the sound of his echoing footsteps and Ciela's nervous breathing.

Link stopped. He heard something.

Aughhhhhh...

A low moaning sound, coming from further down the stairs. Link didn't scare as easily after all he'd been through, but he had to admit, this was the creepiest place he'd been in a good long while. He drew his sword, and tentatively continued onward.

Nooo......

He wasn't hearing things. A surreal sound was echoing up the stairs.

"Hey Link," Ciela whispered, "I was thinking that maybe we could go back to the port. I'm sure that maybe some boat captain might help us, you know, we just have to ask them really nicely. Maybe -"

"Shh," Link quieted her.

He quietly stepped down a bit further. It was faint, but...

"I'm not one to be trifled with! I've defeated dark sea monsters! I've fought Jolene, the fierce lady pirate! I was the one who..."

"That sounds familiar," Ciela whispered.

"It sounds like Linebeck," Link said, "but what is he going off about?"

"I don't want to find out," Ciela said. "I don't want to even think about it."

"Well," he said, "like it or not, let's get him out of here."

Link quickened his pace, and the stairs ended in another large room. Torches burned in sconces on the wall, burning blue fire. And it was not the lapis hue of Nayru - it was an unsettling ghostly blue.

He tread the floor stealthily, doing all he could to mask his sound. The room here, like the one above, had a sunken in middle, though it was more like tiered floors rather than stairs. Link spied shelves lining the lower levels, holding many scrolls. This place felt ancient - older even then old hyrule.

Link heard a scraping sound, the sound of metal on metal.

He went down some stairs into the library. A symbol was inlaid into the floor. The symbols of power, wisdom, courage, and the tear drop one from the temple's exterior.

"You!"

Link looked up.

"You, over here!"

A hallway on the lower level led to another room. The room's entrance was blocked by a row of pikes extending down from the ceiling.

Link walked into the hallway, and saw a man in a blue jacket and red scarf.

"You, kid," the man said, "I don't know what in the name of the goddesses you're doing here, but help get me out!"

The man shook at the bars of the pikes, even though he'd already gotten Link's attention.

"Are you Linebeck?" Link asked.

"Right now I'm a very angry sailor!" Linebeck answered. "Why in the world would you come here?"

"I'm here to -"

"Oh I know!" Linebeck interrupted, "you're here for the treasure, aren't you! You heard that the secret path to the Northern seas could be found here, and you figured you wanted a part of the Cobble Kingdom's plunder, eh?"

"Uh, no actually," Link said. "I came here because -"

"Tell you what kid," Linebeck said. "You get me outta here, and you can help me find the treasure!"

"What?" Link asked in confusion. "I... whatever. Sure, I'll help get you out."

"Terrific," Linebeck said, "I got trapped in here as soon as I started searching their little secret chest, but I bet that there's some way to disarm the trap here somewhere. Now, move with all haste! I sprained my ankle trying to get out of the way as the spikes came up, and I need to get to the island's doctor! Otherwise I might be out of the adventuring business for months!"

"I'll disarm the trap," Link said. "I'll try to be quick."

"Don't try to be quick," he demanded, "be quick."

Link took a deep breath, and began to survey the room, stepping into the middle of it.

Link suddenly doubled over as fiery pain gouged at his body. He screamed, never having experienced anything so horrible. Of every evil force he'd come in contact with, he'd been able to face it in the physical world.

But this was something that could not be described as a simple evil. It was a force of pure darkness that clawed at his soul, that caused pain transcending that of worldly wounds.

Falling down to his knees, Link squinted through the pain to see spectral, armored figures standing around him.

For the first time in more than a year, Link felt that he was about to die.