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aclockworkempire · 7 years ago

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Chapter Two: The Castle, Part Three: The Keep

The keep’s corridors are cool, quiet, and creepy. I expected frenetic dashing and ducking out of sight of guard patrols, but it feels abandoned in here. The sounds of “divers alarums” from the outbuildings fade, and I creep along the passageways in my slippers, ears open for any sound. The natural light fades as I push deeper inside and is replaced by a diffuse network of eerie blue lamps. My sense of direction is good, and I make my way north.

Down a passage to my left, I hear the whirring of clockwork joints. My pulse accelerates; I flit across the junction but peek back around the corner. I see two automata, decorated much more elaborately than those in the raid on Midoro. They bear shields and lances, each with thick cables running into the machines’ elbows. These must be royal guards, not foot soldiers; their equipment, lightning powered like the soldiers’ truncheons.

I slip away and vanish down a side corridor. It leads down a short flight of steps into a larger room. No blue lamps illuminate the room, and it’s almost pitch dark. I pause to let my eyes adjust. It’s an abandoned kitchen; the pots and pans are well-used but clean, except their thin coat of dust. I carry on.

Most of the next hour is spent this way; seeing or hearing guards in the distance, ducking out of sight, keeping one turn ahead of them… By the time I’m through, I’ve memorized half of the guards’ patrol routes. I cut through unused guard stations, bunk rooms, ballrooms, and parlours without seeing a living soul, but the castle is constantly patrolled by these automata. It implies a staggering amount of paranoia. The king must expect assassins at any time and mistrust the humans he rules.

It’s hard to imagine the young Prince Link anywhere in this tomb of a keep. I think of his letters to the Archduke to petition his father, and wonder when last the prince last saw his father.

Based on what I saw of the keep from the outside, I must be near the northern face now but still too high for a useable exit. Though I have yet to encounter a single locked door, there were several scares when I peered around corners to find pairs of guards, perfectly still and silent, blocking doors to lower levels.

I’ve given up on finding a ground floor exit; right now, I will settle for roof access. Surely, I can find a way down the north wall. With that in mind, I work my way up floor after floor and find myself at a crossroads. From the west corridor, I cautiously peek up the northern way. It ends abruptly at a large and ornate set of double doors – watched by a double set of clockwork guards.

Ducking quickly out of sight, I am exceedingly grateful that their visual centers don’t recognize my tiny movements. As I try to think of a plan, I hear a strange sound – real, human footsteps. They come from the south. They sound heavy, like those of a large man. Resisting the urge to run, I sneak back to an alcove down the west passage and crouch out of sight. I put one eye to a gap in the archway’s decorative trim to see the walker.

The man who strides into view is huge and muscular. His long dark cloak and grey-brown skin make him almost wraithlike in the dim light, but a crest of flame-red hair highlights him. The cloak is trimmed with gold, and thrown back from a huge barrel chest covered by a rich burgundy vest. Light glints off a gold monocle as he glances down at a collection of papers held casually in one hand.

As he passes out of my sight to the north, I heard the whirr of clockwork joints. Are the guards accosting him? Surely not. Somehow, it’s impossible to imagine the vast confidence in that man’s stride being misplaced. He must be expected.

He might be my only chance to get through that door.

Heart pounding, I ghost my way forward again and peer around the corner. Two automata are bowing deeply to the stranger, while two more work an elaborate unlocking mechanism on the door.

“He’s become, if possible, too frightened. Too cautious. Perhaps a touch of assurance is in order…” the flame-haired man murmurs to himself, and the door opens.

The large chamber beyond gets barely a glance; enough to see a raised dais in the middle of the room, and flights of stairs sweeping around the edges to a balcony and door at the back. Pillars and a thick railing should give me cover to hide on the stairs, but my mind is all on the knife-thin path that gets me in the room.

The man strides into the room. I see the two automata that opened the door for him step into line ahead of him, as a sort of honour guard. The two left behind maintain their low bows.

I am a shadow; I am a magician’s assistant; I am not a character in this scene; I let this confident man be the main character and slink up the hallway. Five, six steps; I stop breathing as I slip behind one bowing guard. There’s less than a foot between it and the wall. I have to duck under the butt of its lance. It starts to straighten and the doors start to swing closed right in the middle of my crouch. As the weapon’s shaft arcs down with terrible, unconscious force, I plant my rear foot and dive forward into a roll.

Like a child’s fingers around a slippery minnow, the doors slam shut behind me. The sound covers my roll. I’m not two meters behind the man, but he keeps walking. I vanish behind a pillar and peer out through the railing.

With a clack, the guards go to their knees in front of the dais. (I use the sound to crawl forward, using the rail as cover, to the second pillar. The fifth pillar borders on the balcony, and my door northward out of this room.) The man bows low.

“Archduke Ganondorf Dragmire,” a deep voice rasps. It comes from a mound of sorts in the middle of the room, on the dais. I take a moment to parse what I’m seeing. A grand chair sits there, a throne. On it sits a huge man, thick white beard pouring down the front of his robes like a waterfall. He’s mostly concealed by masses of thick cables rising from the floor, entering his robes at the ankle, the wrist, the neck. Some flicker with blue light; others are tubes carrying liquids to and from the body.

“King Rhoam Calatia,” the Archduke replies, straightening. “Do I find you well? Are you comfortable?”

“As ever,” the king says. “Your ministrations leave me without pain in my body, and I thank you. My mind is aggrieved, though. I must know what befalls my people. Tell me what happens in the mists; are my citizens safe? Have the behemoths been seen recently? Do we yet have a plan to slay them?” His voice booms throughout the throne room, and yet he struggles to use it.

I carefully retreat to the wall, keeping the pillar between myself and Dragmire. The stairs are too narrow to hide me completely, but I should be virtually out of sight from below. I crawl up to the third pillar.

“Those few brave souls who must stay in the service of your military are securing more villages each week, highness,” the Archduke assures. “Just yesterday, Midoro was made safe. Its people endangered themselves and others with home grown explosives and invited lawless dissident forces to train them in a brutal, undisciplined form of warfare. All of these rogue elements are pacified, and we are treating them even now.”

Halfway around the room now, I am in Dragmire’s line of sight. The stairs narrow. Even lying down, I can see them through the railing. The guards remain kneeling, heads down; the Archduke seems intent on the king. With a shiver, I realize that the king must be nearly blind if he hadn’t seen me roll into the room. Ever slower now, conscious of every twitch of Dragmire’s face, I worm my way to the fourth pillar.

“That is welcome news,” King Rhoam says. “But what of the leviathans? It has been years now that they terrorize our air lanes. You tell me that they even dive beneath the surface of the mists, as though hunting for squid in the deeps. Our mightiest warships cannot pierce their hides with our largest cannons. What news have you on their actions? Tell me how we will defend ourselves!”

Behind the fourth pillar, I breathe deeply and slowly, try to release my body’s tension. Though I haven’t been spotted yet, it seems impossible for the Archduke not to notice the motion if I continue from here. I resolve to stay safely hidden until the audience concludes.

“Ah, the matter of these… these ‘wind fish’ as the people have come to call them…” Dragmire says with distaste. “One was sighted near Midoro before we could intervene. It didn’t damage the village, beyond, perhaps, scaring the locals out of what wits they had. Our cannons do harm them, my king; we drive them off, and none dare approach our island directly. The problem lies in killing one before it can escape. My researches continue. I am deciphering an ancient ritual to unseal a great power. When complete, I will have the power to keep our people safe from anything!”

“Is that… is that wise, my friend? That which is sealed by ancient magics was surely sealed for some reason…” The king’s voice falters now, weakening.

“I take every precaution,” Ganondorf soothes. “Leave it all to me. Aren’t you tired now, my king? I keep telling you, your body needs rest. My treatments can only do as much as you let them.”

“Yes… yes…” the king sighs. “That will be… very good…”

Archduke Dragmire stands there, attentive, expression stern, staring at the king through his small, gold monocle. Apparently satisfied, he turns… and begins to climb the stairs behind me.

I have an instant to react, as the pillars block his view. I scramble as quietly as I can up the last of the stairs. I hear his footfalls, measured, patient. Darting over to the door, I try the handle. It turns, unlatches with a soft click. With milliseconds to use, I throw myself through the door.

The hinges squeal loudly as it opens.

I slam it behind me and look for a lock. There is none.

The long hall I find myself in is lined with raised stands. On each stand, a glass case; in each case, a treasure. Skylights let in the cheerful morning sunshine, but even standing on a glass case, they’re too high to reach. Doors line each wall, and I dash for the nearest.

The door I came in flies open as if a hurricane were behind it. The door I ran to is locked.

I hear only two steps before a huge hand closes on the back of my head. I twist out of its grip, but he pulls me back by my hood and flings me into the middle of the room. With a crash, my dead weight topples a stand. The glass case atop it shatters on the floor. I tumble as I land, but can’t find my feet. I come briefly to rest amidst the broken glass, almost on top of the sturdy gauntlet contained in the case.

Ganondorf stands over me, grabs me by the collar, pulls me upright. I grab the gauntlet as he does, the only thing I can think of to use as a weapon.

“Who are you, little mouse?” His baritone washes over me. He didn’t even lose the monocle in our scuffle. “How did you get in here, and why are you spying on me?” His fingers feel like iron, and they start to reach up under my hood, around my neck.

It’s possible to win a fight with someone who is bigger, someone who is stronger. I’d been doing it onstage half my life. It might have been theater, but that didn’t mean it was staged. If I couldn’t outmaneuver the other performers, my part of the show ended early. If a strong man gets a grip on me, life becomes difficult, but I still have the twin recourses of flexibility and surprise.

The gauntlet slipped onto my left hand as if it was made for me. Flexing my fingertips into spearpoints, I thrust them into his armpits while curling my legs into my body, giving him nothing to hold but dead weight.

His fingers don’t loosen. He grins. I instantaneously feel his balance shift, feel him trying to fall forward onto me. I bring my arms around his, drive each elbow down onto his forearms. His muscular arms don’t bend, don’t react. We are falling. My palms slap together, fingertips join into a unified spearpoint aimed straight at his throat. My legs uncoil, and I land on my left knee, right foot planted.

I hope his weight crushes his throat on my hands. It doesn’t. With an implausible speed of reaction, he takes a half-step, catches himself.

We poise there for a second, his hands on my collar, my fingers to his throat, him bent over me on one knee on the ground. I see the back of the gauntlet on my left hand. The back of the hand has a triple triangle design in brass-on-silver, and there is a socket on the back of the forearm. It looks as though it once held a gem.

I take this all in at once. Time crawls by. Ganondorf tightens his grip with glacial slowness as I think.

The socket would fit my mother’s gem perfectly. The gauntlet seems ever so slightly warm, and familiar. It’s the same feeling my mother’s gem always gave me, and, I realize, the Sheikah wallet did as well. Grandmother said those were objects with their own magical potency; this gauntlet must be, as well.

I relax my right hand and pass it over the gauntlet. I let the white gem drop out of its shadow into the socket, where it locks in place with a satisfying clink. A sensation of lightness and wild freedom courses down my arm.

I look back to the Archduke’s face. His eyes are locked on the gem, left opened wide in surprise and right tightening around the monocle with furious focus.

“I am Zelda,” I cry. His eyes turn to mine, and he recoils. “Of Hyrule!”

I release the magic in the gauntlet. Left palm open and facing right, fingers straight. A great wind surges under me. Ganondorf’s grip weakens in surprise. I leap, straight up, pushed up by the gale. My left hand raises and shatters the skylight above me. I land, rolling, on the steep roof tiles.

Clockwork sentinels line the eaves of the keep like crenellations. The Archduke’s voice bellows from below for guards, and their heads turn, lock on to me. I run down the slope of the roof at them. Barely a stone’s throw worth of courtyard separates the keep from the outer castle wall, here. I can see the houses and buildings of Castle Town, built right up to the castle.

These automata are built like the royal guards inside, but with sure, steady feet built for the roofing tiles. I call on the magic of the gauntlet and gem. I make the same gesture, palm open and perpendicular to me. Mentally naming this maneuver a Gale Leap, I point my fingers forward and dive into the wind. It carries me horizontally, up and over the lances of the sentinels climbing to meet me. I travel over the courtyards, over the castle wall, and I’m falling, falling into the town.

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aclockworkempire · 7 years ago

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Chapter Two: Part Two: Rooms and Rooftops

There’s a chill in the air. The first tickle of dawn threatens to highlight me on the deep amber shingles. I determine two priorities: escape before twilight’s end, and find some warmer clothes.

I carefully follow this roof to the right, which I judge to be east. I manage a leap across a small cobbled courtyard onto another steep, shingled roof running north-south. From this new vantage, the castle looms high and wide to the north, all spires and turrets. To the south, a surprisingly low wall cuts off the buildings a mere hundred meters or so away from me.

I head that way at my best speed, keeping my eyes open for courtyards and windows, skylights and rooftop guards. I see none. Even the wall seems unpatrolled.

Scrambling up it, there’s no alarm. Giddy with excitement but suspicious of the ease of my escape, I flit across the stone walkway to the low wall and crenellations on the far side.

I suck in air and backpedal immediately. The wall, low on this side, is built on the top of a cliff. Below me, a vast, dark landscape of mists spreads out below me, dizzyingly far down. The ground, the marshes, are all invisible. Other steep outcrops of stone peek their heads above the rolling hills of cloud, each with their own Calatian city slathered across the top. In the hazy distance, the ring of mountains encircling the Calatian valley can be seen.

The wind from the valley is extreme on the edge. No wonder no guard walks these walls; it was all I could do to push myself to the edge in the lee of a crenellation. I don’t think I could jump off if I tried. I drop off the wall to a rooftop to think.

A faint clamour sounds from the halls and courtyards below. It occurs to me to wonder how, or if, grandmother covered my escape, and I realize the precariousness of my position.

I swing back onto the wall and push myself to the edge again for a moment. Instead of admiring the dark vista, I crane my neck to look east and west. The castle and cliff curve back north; this crag must be huge, larger than the curve of the castle wall that I could see from within. The town is north. I drop onto castle rooftops again.

Guards start to swarm from buildings and through corridors. With a Sheikah’s grace, I make a beeline due north, toward the towers and high halls of the keep. Here on these short buildings, I could be mobbed from all directions as soon as I’m seen; the steep roofs ahead should be impassable for anyone without my training.

One tower stands out, and I aim for it. Frequent arrow slits make for an easy climb, if your hands are small enough to fit. They also imply a heavy guard…

I scale the tower with urgency, almost flinging myself from hold to hold. I hear no sound from inside, and don’t pause to peek in. Circling as I climb to stay out of sight from the courtyards behind, I reach the top floor. Broad windows face out in all directions, giving the occupant a fine view of the castle grounds and distant peaks – a survey of everything but the town itself. One is cracked open to the morning breeze, and I’m in like a whisper to catch my breath and regain stamina lost to the climb.

A luxurious bedroom encases me. Wardrobes and bookshelves fill every corner, and a grand four-poster bed takes up nearly half the room. The bed’s curtains are drawn back, showing a shock of messy blonde hair under the green coverlet. I freeze.

The figure doesn’t move.

Slowly, I release my breath and thank my luck that this lordling is such a lazy boy.

I’m no thief in the night, but I’ve also never had any compunction against walking into strangers’ homes and looking around. Maybe it comes of being a nomad and entertainer. This might be a good place to find warmer clothes, and this princeling surely wouldn’t begrudge the loss of one outfit.

First, my curiosity carries me to the writing desk near the foot of the bed. In seconds, I scan a pair of letters on the desktop. They are between Prince Link and one Archduke Dragmire. Link inquired when it would be appropriate to go on a royal tour of the kingdom. Dragmire assured Link that he would bring the topic up with the king, but that it would take some time as there was much important imperial business that must take priority. A reply from the prince lies, barely begun, on top. This must mean that I am in the prince’s bedchamber! I can’t linger.

Several beautiful vases decorate the desk, and an irrational urge to smash them almost overwhelms me. Judging by the fragments in the waste bin, the prince had the same urge and couldn’t resist it.

Hurriedly, I dig through the nearest wardrobe. Near the back, I find something that will do very nicely: a deep blue riding outfit that seems hardly worn. Everything else in the wardrobe is a shade of green; perhaps this simply isn’t the prince’s colour?

With a speed born of a thousand costume changes, I slip out of the prison rags and into new clothes. I find a pair of supple leather slippers in a jumble on the floor of the wardrobe that will keep my feet warm and safe, while still letting me climb. Sturdy but flexible trousers in a serviceable earth brown go underneath a fitted, thigh-length tunic in midnight blue with swirling black embroidery. The prince must be quite slight, for it’s nearly a perfect fit. Over it all, I tie on a half-length cloak in the same blue, fine but not embellished. The cloak has a hood with a small, pointed peak. I don the hood and examine the effect in a full-length mirror.

Behind me, the figure on the bed rolls over, murmuring, and opens his eyes. Our gazes lock in the mirror, blue on blue. For several seconds, all is still. The alarmed sounds of guards ring from the courtyards below.

Without turning, I dash for the window. In the mirror, I see a flash of movement as he sits up, reaches a hand out to me. The north window opens; I seize the gutter and swing myself up and around onto the roof. With a running start, I plunge across the open space between this tower and the wall of the keep itself. A narrow window, hardly wider than the arrow slits of the prince’s tower, is just wide enough to admit my desperate, wriggling self into the cool darkness of Calatia Keep.

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aclockworkempire · 7 years ago

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Chapter Two: Part One: The Jail

Cramped in my cell, I have no idea where we are or what’s going on. Though cells line the narrow corridors tightly, it seems that Midoro and our troupe were too small to pack the three ships that came for us. Most of the cells around me are empty, and the awful rumble and screech of gears prevents any shouted conversations. I barely even manage to glimpse the people in the cells nearest to mine, but I can tell they’re Midoran. I can’t remember the last time I was entirely separated from the troupe.

The prison ship docks roughly. Us prisoners are decanted by our clockwork captors. The docking is so tight that we transition from claustrophobic metal corridors to the stonework ones of our destination – Calatia Castle Town, presumably.

Various indignities follow. I am frogmarched into a long room by one of many doors on the long side, which I’m pretty sure is south. I’ve always had an unerring sense of direction. I’m not one of those fools who needs to find a compass wherever they go.

Grim-faced guardswomen – human, as a pleasant change – methodically search me. My wrists are still bound and held in the automaton’s steel grip. My hands have lost all circulation, and I wonder with some fear if they have been starved of blood for too long to ever work again.

Other prisoners filter in from the other doors on my side of the room, to be met by their own sets of guardswomen. All the female-presenting members of our troupe seem to be coming through here, as well as the Midoran women. One of the teenage girls in our troupe, Cottla, turns her white, scared face in my direction. “Zelda! I’m so glad to see you! What’s going – “

A guard strikes Cottla in the face with what I recognize as the same type of electric bludgeon the soldiers were using. Fortunately, this one doesn’t seem to be active. “Speak only when spoken to,” the woman snaps. The girl starts to cry. I try to give her a reassuring look, but I’m sure it must come out looking sick.

The guards frisk me, remove anything valuable or dangerous or interesting. My pockets are empty already, even my pendant removed seconds before I was taken. My automaton releases my wrists, but stands by watchfully. They strip me, cutting my bonds to do so, and instruct me to put on grey, baggy pants and long-sleeved shirt. No shoes are provided.

I scan the room. Several of my less cooperative troupe members are beaten for talking, struggling, or simply refusing to cooperate. Our clothes and valuables are sorted into bins.

At a guard’s signal, the automaton takes me by one shoulder and walks me out the north side of the room. One of my two guards leads us through some winding corridors, unlocks several doors with different keys, and finally directs me into a tall cell in a high-ceilinged, drafty room. Several empty cells are on either side of mine, lining the western side, and high windows on the eastern wall let in a chill breeze and a faint light. They’re too high for me to see through.

I comply, and step into the cell. The guard locks the cell, and moves to walk away without a word.

“Wait!” I cry, moving forward and gripping the bars. “How long will I be held here? What happens next? What do you mean to do with us?”

She unclips the electric baton from her belt, thumbs some control on the handle. Arcs of blue light crawl over it and she taps it to the bars in the cell door. Instantly my muscles seize as lightning arcs through every bar in the door and through my body. She frowns in irritation at me and marches off, clockwork soldier in tow. By the time my jaw unclenches, she is gone.

I slump to the floor, not even bothering to scoot backwards towards the wall. My body aches from rough treatment, and my hands start to burn as feeling finally returns to them. My mind is sluggish from the sleepless night. I feel a deep sob building in my body, and close my eyes. Yes. Sobbing on cold stone in the fetal position sounds like the appropriate course of action.

Yet… I feel warmth. On my shoulder, on my back. My delirious brain is feeding me the sensation of being embraced from behind, just like my grandmother used to when I was a child with a bloodied knee. I take a deep, steadying breath. I can even smell her.

My eyes snap open. Grandmother chuckles. “No need to cry, my love. Things aren’t yet as bad as all that.” I half turn in her arms. Seated, I am only a head shorter than her.

“Grandmother?” I stammer in disbelief. “You’re here,” I point out dumbly.

“I’m here,” she sighs, and smiles. It’s a tired smile. She seems worn and thin. She sits herself beside me, cross-legged. Despite her years, she normally moves like an acrobat; for once, her movements are as old as I know her to be.

“What now?” I ask. “What were you about to tell me, back in the village?”

“I wanted to tell you what you need to know.”

“What do I need to know?”

“What you need to know.”

I sit and think about this. I’m not frustrated. It doesn’t even occur to me that she’s not giving me new and useful knowledge.

She seems to take my thought for confusion and goes on: “You need to think. You need to see. You need to learn. What have you seen tonight?”

My mind begins to stir. A gust of cold air bites down from above; I shiver, but the cold wakes me up. I think.

“Calatia brought a lot of strength to bear on one tiny town. Either their military is immense, or they had a lot to fear.” Grandmother nods. “The former seems likely, because the officers seemed bored. They do this sort of thing often. The guards – who must be castle guards, this stonework architecture obviously makes this Calatia Castle – knew the process well, so this has been going on for a while. Midoro, which is part of Calatia, had artillery, large-scale weapons. I stumbled into their ammunition greenhouse, and it was new. They used those weapons against some sort of… natural disaster? Giant flying ship, or creature? At a guess, Calatia is arming itself against some threat, but the capitol is at least as afraid of its own townsfolk as the threat itself.”

Grandmother quirks an eyebrow. “Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with the Midoran Elders, or is this lucky guesswork?”

I pause. The words and tone are skeptical, but there’s a twinkle in her eye. “Neither,” I assert. “I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but I have strong evidence and am comfortable with my assessment.”

She smiles, pleased with my confidence. Her tone still challenges as she says: “Comfortable, are you? I’m glad one of us is. What are you going to do with your assessment?”

In my state of shock, my experiences flowed off my conscious mind like water from a duck’s back. Now they rush in. My body starts to shake, and I stutter, “I…”

Grandmother leans forward, puts a warm hand on my knee. “What do you want?” she asks, tone soft. “This one isn’t a trick question.”

“I want to go home.”

“Everyone from our caravan is here. Home is wherever we are. What does your answer mean?”

“I want us all to go free,” I try.

“How will you do that for us?” she asks.

“I have no idea.” I hug my knees.

“While you figure it out, do what your grandmother wants you to do, then.” She pats my knee and removes her hand. Her eyes meet mine in solemnity.

“Anything.”

“I want you to go free. Tell me how you’ll do that for me.”

A moment of silence stretches long. The wind pours through the window, billows in our baggy prisoner’s clothes, gusts dry dust from corner to corner. As the shock fades, my mind opens again and important observations seep in. Words spill out of me, not a waterfall but a careful outlet from a dam.

“The ship was mostly held by clockwork soldiers, but the guards here are human. They all wear the same armor; a breastplate, vambraces, and helm of black steel over a black leather outfit. They all carry lightning batons on one hip. A thin cable connects it to a box on the opposite hip, presumably a power supply. The resulting kit is too bulky for our sort of acrobatics and mobility. If I could get out of their grasp, unbound, and escape to the rooftops, they could never catch me.”

Impa nods. “A simple plan, and one that plays to your strengths. I will share what I have noticed: some guards carry crossbows with heavy bolts that carry their own electric charge. Stay not only out of their grasp, but out of their sight.”

I stand and pace. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m still trapped in a cell. Are you as good a lockpick as you are an illusionist?”

“You don’t need to my help to get out of here. It seems I need to remind you not just to look at your surroundings, but see them.” She stares at levelly, still sitting, her mouth pursed in something near real disapproval.

I look. I see. “This cell… These bars are too widely spaced. I can walk out of here,” I say, shock in my voice. Who would build such a terrible cell? What prisoner wouldn’t think to turn sideways? “Who or what were these cells built for?”

Impa shrugs. I test my theory. It’s tight; Alfon’s chest would never fit through here, but my slender frame slides through with only a little squeezing. My eyes turn to the window, and see the same spacing between bars. I turn back to my grandmother.

“That wasn’t what you were going to tell me in Midoro.” It’s not a question.

“Of course not.” She struggles to her feet. I wince at how harsh her confinement has been on her. Or was she beaten? My chest tenses with anger, and I toy with ideas beyond mere escape.

Grandmother walks up to the bars. She reaches through and up to me. Baggy sleeves fall back to show her wiry arms all the way to the bicep. Her hands turn over twice, showing me empty palms and bare wrists. They flick in a strange motion, and suddenly she holds the wallet I was given as a tip in Midoro in her right hand, and my mother’s gem in her left.

I gasp. Even for her… to produce two obvious valuables after a strip search and clothing change…

“Impressed?” she cackles.

“You need to explain that trick.” I cautiously reach for the items. She gives me the gem, but pulls the wallet back.

“A magician never reveals their secrets,” she starts, “so it is good for you that I am no magician. Crouch down and watch from below.”

I obey. She holds the wallet in her palm, and slowly rotates her hand, holding the wallet from falling with her thumb. As it enters the shadow beneath her palm, she nudges it somehow into the shadow itself. Her thumb goes limp, and there is no wallet left to fall.

My brow is furrowed, my whole face wrapped around this impossible observation. Her right hand reaches out to my left, which holds the gem. With it held between our palms, she intones: “This is the cantrip of Twilight, the shadow pocket. By my power and authority in that realm and ours, I, Impa of the Sheikah, pass this ability to Zelda of Hyrule.” She twists my arm, hard, so that my hand is on top. Her hand pulls away. Instinctively, even before my fingers could think to grasp the falling stone, I tuck it into my shadow.

We freeze. My face is stunned, hers smug. I know the stone is with me, as surely as I know that I have two feet. If I reach for it, it will be there.

Grandma pats my cheek. “Don’t think about it too hard. You should know, though, the trick only works for small items with their own inherent magic. Could be gems, alchemically treated glasswork, certain trinkets…” With a wink, the wallet reappears, and she passes it to me. “I planted this ancient Sheikah wallet for you. It only holds 200 rupees, but you’ll never lose it.”

I slip it into the shadow pocket, still amazed. Just as I know I have ten fingers, I know that it holds ten rupees.

“Leave the castle, head into Castle Town,” grandmother continues, sitting back down. “Find an old friend of mine, Professor Quinlan, and ask him for his advice. I need to stay here to advocate for our people. Remember us, but don’t obsess over us. We’ll be free some day, and we’ll meet again. Do as we have always done; travel, learn, and better yourself.”

Something niggled the back of my mind, but I could hear the dismissal in her tone. I could also hear footsteps in the corridor outside. With a million questions half-formed on my tongue, I run at the far wall. I take three steps up, push off with enough leap to reach the wall above our cell door. The footsteps stop outside the cell room’s door. I jump off again, gain enough height to reach the high window. Keys rattle in a lock below me. I squirm awkwardly up and through the bars. As the door below me opens, I roll out onto a steep, shingled roof.

Only then does my first question form: What did grandmother mean when she called me Zelda of “Hyrule”?

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aclockworkempire · 7 years ago

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Chapter 1: The Circus, Part 3: The Raid

With a great tearing and swearing from above, the tent rips open. A bright white light pours down on me, and I hear the actors above scrambling as the support ropes snap and the backstage tips. For a confused second, I and the audience think it’s part of the act.

Most Sheikah catch the bundles of props, or the net itself, but some few fall screaming to the ground. It’s still not far enough to kill, but sure is far enough to injure. There’s no way this is grandmother’s plan, and in the sudden brilliance I can’t tell whether grandmother clings or falls.

“STAND DOWN,” a tinny voice bellows at a volume that puts grandmother’s trained voice to shame. “CEASE YOUR DRILLS AND STAND DOWN. PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS AND KNEEL IN THE NAME OF CALATIA. THIS WARNING WILL NOT BE REPEATED.”

I bolt. I can’t say why. I can’t say why any of this is happening. Interestingly, many of the crowd bolt as well. I run along the crowd’s shoulders and leap off outside the tent. There’s a sound like a roll of thunder from inside, and I look back to see a gigantic metal ship, raised a good eight meters from the ground on a pair of steel legs, peering into the hole in our tent. A second walking ship stands outside the tent’s other exit. This time I see the lightning that branches down, multi-armed, into the fleeing crowd. The Midorans are bowled over, electricity crackling across their bodies as they twitch, stunned, on the ground.

Not seeing anything better to do, I run for Alfon’s bar. I hear a boom behind me and look around in time to see one of the town’s cannon’s shot burst against the side of the second walker. It teeters dangerously in it’s footing in the swamp outside town, but rights itself. I see the spotlight of a third ship coming through the dark evening mists on the far side of town, towards the source of the shot.

I draw up short in wonder to see my grandmother already in the bar, conversing in a hurried whisper with Alfon. She looks up as I arrive, and beckons me over urgently.

“We haven’t much time, love. Give me your pendant and wallet.” I may have balked at such a request from anyone else, but grandmother’s are worthy recipients of blind trust. I pull the wallet from a pocket and fish out my mother’s white gem on its homemade necklace.

Grandmother is a legend of legerdemain in our troupe, and the items seem to vanish as soon as they touch her hand.

“Good. Now listen to me. I wish it weren’t so sudden, but you need to know – “

There is a crack of thunder, and blinding light. The pain is intense, as every muscle in my frame seizes against its neighbour.

The first land boat’s spotlight peers down at us. Soldiers in black armour block parts of it momentarily as they rappel down from above. Before I can regain use of my muscles they’ve landed on the turf, on the roof of the bar cart. I manage to turn my head and see one scoop up and bind my limp grandmother; Alfon raises an arm in token resistance as a soldier strikes him with a narrow black club which crackles with electricity. The electricity arcing over his body redoubles and he falls back down.

A soldier flips me over and roughly binds my hands behind my back. My face in the wet turf, I can just see her face. With a shock, I realize that she’s not human at all. What I took to be full helms are mechanical heads; smooth glassy fronts that look like visors, with no visible eyes at all. She pulls me roughly to my feet, and I find that I can stand. Her hand, hard and firm as a vise, never leaves my wrists. Her every movement is accompanied by a whirr of clockwork, different speeds at each joint.

With a great whining of gears, the ship settles itself down. The legs bend backwards and the rear of the ship splashes into the bog, while the keel crushes several wagons as it lands heavily on the town. Ramps are lowered onto solid ground, and automata start hustling prisoners aboard.

One or two more cannons have sounded, but they are still now. I can hear my brief friend the tomcat call out in the distance, and then only the ringing of clockwork soldier’s boots on the metal gang planks and deck.

My captor pulls me to my feet, and I walk obediently in front of her. The whole operation is eerily efficient. Midorans and Sheikah alike are lined up on a wide parade ground taking up the front half of the ship. Some stand, like me. Others are carried like sacks of potatoes. Grandmother is one such, two soldiers to my left.

Two men and a woman, refreshingly human, walk out from the cabins occupying the stern half of the ship’s deck space. They wear crisp red jackets with military insignia, white breeches, and tall black boots. I blink and shake my head to clear it. They look… bored. They walk down the lines of prisoners, inspecting faces. At my grandmother, they request that the automaton turn her around. With one hand around her hips and the other across her shoulders, it pins her to its front. Her head lolls like a rag doll’s, and one of the men grabs her chin to inspect her face.

“It’s her,” the woman says, consulting a clipboard. The other man uncaps a small vial of some red liquid and holds it beneath Grandmother’s nose. Her eyes flutter and her body tenses as she returns to consciousness.

“Impa of the Sheikah,” the first man says. “You and your troupe are under arrest for conspiracy to produce illegal weapons and illegal militia activity.”

“We’re performers,” she croaks out, disgust hanging off every syllable.

“You were seen conducting and demonstrating organized weapons training,” the man replies. Squinting, I recognize his insignia from a rather dull book I read two years ago and have since traded away. He’s the ship’s captain. The woman is his first mate, and the other man his second.

“It was so witnessed,” the first mate says.

“Seconded,” the second mate chimes in.

“Just happened to be in the neighbourhood, were you?” my grandmother asks. “Witnessed all this before tearing our tent in half, did you?”

“You will be processed in Calatia Castle Town jail,” is the captain’s only reply. He turns and strides away. Their party walks past me on their way back to the cabins, and I overhear him add “Honestly, the formalities to this job. The sooner this part is automated the better. It’s just a matter of facial recognition…”

Clockwork soldiers pull me away before I can form a question for grandmother Impa. Everyone is taken below decks and shoved into miniscule cells, lit by the dimmest of electrical glows.

The ship stands and walks away in sickening, lurching strides. The journey takes nearly six hours, and the less is said of it, the better.

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aclockworkempire · 10 years ago

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Chapter 1: The Circus, Part 2: The Village

The Sheikah have children in waves. I asked Impa about this phenomenon when I was young. Why were all the other children five years younger or ten years older than I was? She assured me it was by design. Our traveling groups are small, the conditions that make it the right time to have children are shared by the whole troupe, and so a generation of children is born within a year or two. When I followed up with the logical question – why was I the exception? – she took a long sip of tea, examined me through the steam, and told me what I already knew. My parents are from a different group.

Being an orphan is a life-long journey of discovery of the myriad ways you are different.

To the Sheikah’s extreme credit, all of my solitude is self inflicted. Right now, for example, I opt to explore rather than wrestle fifteen-year-old boys. Such a radical.

The hardwood houses of the village are built right up to the edge of the island. Bare meters – or less – separate walls from the reedy depths of swamp water around us. A sweet-smelling breeze does nothing to lift the fog; in the valleys of Calatia, there is nowhere for the fog to blow away to.

It takes just half an hour, rooftop to rooftop, to circumnavigate town. It fits the pattern of all the mire counties, tucked in the belly of the southern Foglands: a roughly circular blob of thick vegetation and sod, half floating and half sliding over the slick of water and infinite depth of mud that counts as terrain around here. By the time I get back to the nascent circus the island has slid away from the firmer territory that rings the eastern edge of the Calatian Foglands. We’re on our own in an ocean of sucking sludge.

Alfon has set up a bar, and waves me over as I return. “Want to find some cats?” There is a small cheer from the inebriated crowd. It’s another Sheikah tradition; do favours for locals by scouring their rooftops. It’s also a great excuse to get the lay of the land, and you sometimes get tipped a few rupees. I accept, and collect a mental list of objectives from the townsfolk; a cat on the roof of town hall, a roof on the northern edge of town that needs a minute’s mending, a missing wallet, etc.

I grin, bow, scamper onto the nearest roof, and do a flip on my way to the next building. The cat on town hall is the first item I check off my list. It’s clear to me he’s not really stuck. He’s just avoiding the crowds, and wouldn’t have any more trouble than I do jumping down from roof to roof. This village has narrow paths instead of streets. There are no carts, and not so much as a horse in the whole town. I join him for a while; the fat white tomcat purrs up against me, and I stroke his head, gazing out over the town and thinking.

Foglands commerce is a haphazard affair; if you bump into another island, you trade with them for as long as you’re stuck together, and say your farewells as you drift apart. There are some fogships, though barges would be a more accurate term. They’re another type of nomad, and one that we Sheikah rarely encounter. Islands themselves can be “rowed”, though most villages rarely bother. I look out to the edges and confirm the presence of giant oarlocks. I suppose the island worked hard to be at a rendezvous point with us. Grandma arranged it through some mysterious means.

My new friend bolts, and a second later I feel something as well. I stand up on the roof of town hall, hairs at the back of my neck pricking. The air pressure rises palpably. There’s a flush of panic, a sense that the sky is falling, and looking up I can see the sky suddenly darken. I hear cries from the circus, and a handful of villagers run back in to town. It seems they’re rushing to a few sheds at the periphery. Shelters, maybe?

Still ignorant of what’s coming, I look around for shelter. There’s a large, low building directly in front of town hall. The space it sits in probably used to be a square, or plaza. It looks brand new and unfinished. The A-frame roof doesn’t yet meet the square tops of the walls.

Another glance upward shows a colossal shape descending through the fog, directly towards the town. The villagers have emerged from the sheds, pushing small cannons. One goes off with a “THOOM”. Some small object shoots out and explodes against the descending wall.

I look down. It’s a long shot. The avenue in front of town hall is the only one in town wide enough to deserve the name, but in a rush of panic I take it. I fly from the peak of one roof across and down to the gap beneath the other. My hands slap into the roof’s support beams, find no purchase, and send me tumbling into the dimness beneath.

I land hard on my left side, wind forced out of my lungs. The roof rattles and I can feel a gust of air from one end of the building to the other. The sense of pressure and imminent doom fades instantly. Whatever leviathan passed by has only buzzed us. Several more cannons “THOOM” into the distance.

My eyes adjust to the shadows, and I look around. There are row after row of small plants in a hastily dug field. They are in flower, despite the shade, small bursts of yellow and green atop a large, dark blue stalk. The stalks might be fruits, actually; they are rounder than my head, and a little too big to hold in one hand.

I stand cautiously. The panic that came with seeing the sky fall has faded quickly. If only I had stayed outdoors, I could have caught a glimpse of the thing casting that shadow. Fortunately, the world presents me with a new mystery in these plants. I reach down to pick one, but they are very firmly rooted.

I pace up and down the rows. These plants have been planted deliberately in rows. The rows have been dug recently, but the plants look fully grown. A building was quickly erected over them, so they must not need sunlight to grow. The walls don’t quite reach the roof… so maybe they need partial light?

A villager’s footsteps thud up the road from the circus. I slip out in the opposite direction. Maybe this building is only abandoned because of the festivities, but it feels like I shouldn’t be here.

Besides, sudden existential threat and mystery plants aside, I still have a list of menial chores to perform. These tasks are aimed at the younger sheikah, who still have to learn the controls learn to control themselves, but the tips are nice.

I run two steps up the side of a house to reach the gutters, and swing myself to the roof. The revels from our encampment had stilled when I was in the plant house, but they are picking back up already. Encouraged, I follow the directions I was given and mend the damaged roof.

The wallet is a little trickier, but I’ve always had a knack for finding key items. They tend to be in the most difficult places to get to, yet be easy to spot once you’re there. I spy it leaning against the chimney of the tallest building in town. From the nearest building, I figure I can leap the alley and just barely grab the gutters. I push my earlier panicked fumble from my mind: I jump, grab, climb up.

This wallet is a beautiful thing, embroidered with black and white and bronze diamonds in a silky fabric. I can feel the weight of rupees in it, but once it’s in my pocket I can hardly even feel it there. I head back along the rooftops.

As soon as I land in camp, I am ambushed by a villager holding my tomcat friend. “You found my cat!” the woman gushes. “She must have been soooo scaaaared up on the rooftop alone! How can I ever thank you? Please, take this, and be happy!” I ignore her blatant ignorance of her cat’s gender identity and the cat’s mute look of appeal to be freed from his squealing captor, and pocket the ten rupees.

I find the villager with the mended roof, and get another ten for my word that it’s a job well done. She is much less shrill, so I steel myself for the strain of social interaction and ask her: “What was that thing in the sky a few minutes ago? You all seem… pretty unfazed by it.”

“Oh, yes, that. You wouldn’t have seen them before, would you?” She clasps her hands tightly, bites her lower lip. “It was a sky whale. The first spotting in Calatian skies was about a year ago. Some say they came from the skies over distant oceans, but no one knows why they’re here now.”

The man with no wallet is drinking at Alfon’s bar; I sneak up behind him and drop it on his lap. He jumps in surprise. “Alfon!” he shouts. Alfon raises his eyebrows from behind the bar, a meter away. “I can pay for my drinks after all!” The wallet gushes rupees onto the bar, which Alfon sweeps away with a fresh tankard for his patron.

“Here,” the walleted man says, turning to face me for the first time. “Take this as your reward,” he offers, thrusting the wallet at me. I take it without hesitation. “My tab just turned into credit, so I won’t be needing that any more.” He grins a red-nosed grin and turns back to the bar.

A bell chimes, as neatly timed as if it had been waiting for the completion of my last chore. The crowd of villagers ooooohh in expectation and flow toward the main tent. “Time for the main event, my dear,” Alfon comments, indicating with his agile eyebrows that I am to perform tonight. I tip my imaginary hat to Alfon as I climb onto his bar, onto his shoulders, on to the roof of the cart the bar is built into, and make my way along the tops of things ahead of the crowd.

Though haphazardly set up, the poles are laid out as acrobat’s steps. I carefully vault from one to another. To the bystanders, it seems as if I bounce along the canvas itself. Once at the peak of the cloth monolith, I fall gracefully through a gap in the fabric and land, bouncing, on a layer beneath.

Other performers collect here with me; acrobats descend from other roof entrances, while some labor their way up ladders from the floors below. I peek off the edge of this platform, our back stage, to see row upon row of chairs filling with milling guests. Grandmother, among others, circulates with tea and buns, cider and roast cucco legs.

Back stage is full of the chat and cluck of Sheikah. Some of the younger ones have nerves, but most are just excited. Huge netted bundles of props hang around our preparation area, lifted with pulleys. We are always ready for any type of performance, whether it be a play, a musical, or acrobatics.

A hush falls below. My peering eyes see grandmother climb the hastily erected stairs to our circular wooden stage. She beams out into the crowd until all chatter ceases, and announces in a practiced voice, weathered but not broken with age: “Friends, new and old! Esteemed guests, who are also our honoured hosts! I have determined the nature of tonight’s entertainment by the most noble and ancient art of the Sheikah: Eavesdropping on the crowd.” There is a round of chuckles. “I declare tonight to be a battle!” A huge huzzah rises into the evening air, fair more than I expect. Our stage fighting is fantastic, it’s true, and we sometimes appease an encore request with a staged duel, but most audiences prefer a bit of plot, dialogue, and character building. I shrug to myself.

“The theme,” grandmother continues, “is the one against the many, the small against the mighty!” The crowd roars. “Who better to be your champion and protagonist than the slenderest slip of a thing, the greatest of granddaughters – “ I start and turn to see my fellow performers grinning at me. “- the zesty Zelda!”

Grandmother raises her hands and reaches out to grab a dangling rope with one of them. Recognizing the cue, the pulley is loosed and grandma rushes upwards with a mad grin on her face. The netting bundle holding stage weapons plunges down, and many arms practically throw me off our platform after it. I ride the rope down.

With a great clatter of wood on wood, the bundle bursts and strews stage weaponry across the stage and off of it, to lie in piles on the ground. The band starts with an ominous strumming, building tension. I land in a catlike crouch and grab a small one-handed sword as I rise. The lights focus on me, and I strike my best heroic pose.

A pre-emptive smattering of applause is cut short by grandmother’s voice from above. “How will our heroine fare, beset on all sides? Her foes will be numerous, and fierce, and large!” A huge man of our troupe slides down a rope and grabs a great war axe made of some soft, light wood. The crowd laughs at his comic villain’s scowl. He contorts his face all the more, and sweeps the remaining weapons off the stage. “Armed only with her wits, her will, and what she can scavenge from defeated foes, she walks the edge of failure. One ring-out, and the forces of light are forever darkened. Can she last?”

I crick my neck, stretch left and right, and generally make a show of warming up. My opponent roars and stalks closer. This is not what I expected of the evening. This isn’t even choreographed! Yet, I’m sure that my grandmother has a plan, and it wouldn’t do to put a wrench in it. Besides, this is a lead role! The drums kick in, and the musicians play a hearty tune.

The crowd gasps as I turn my back on my opposition to stretch. I wink as I hear him wind up, and leap over the cruel-looking axe with a tight backflip. I land almost against his chest, and tumble through his legs. Before he can think to turn, I tap him on the back of the head with my weapon and push him out of the ring with my foot to his bum. He carefully lets his axe fall as he somersaults away.

I ram the small sword through my sash and heft the axe as a trio of younger acrobats descend from above. There’s no way I could handle a real axe this size, but the light wood makes it easy while the metallic paint on the head makes me look impressive.

The young acrobats spread out around me, hefting shields and small swords of their own. With mock serious expressions on their faces, they rush me all at once. They throw themselves dramatically backward and away the moment my axe touches their shields. They tumble gracefully off stage and I toss the axe after them.

A middle-aged woman lands across from me as I wipe sweat from my brow and flex my slender arms for the crowd. She flicks a long, straight stage sword at me and advances with careful grace. I attack, and she parries; her counter-thrust catches me in the stomach and pushes me back. She flicks the sword from my stunned hand, and the crowd gasps. I backpedal, backflipping and sidestepping out of the way of a series of stabs and slashes, which puts me with my back to the edge, only the balls of my feet on the stage.

She lunges; I roll forward and to my left, putting myself behind her sword arm. In the middle of my roll, eyes open, I see her sword slash down in a low strike and end my roll with a leap in the air over the blade. Her surprised eyes are inches from mine as I reach out, my left arm over hers. As she tries to step back and bring her blade to bear, I step forward with her and turn my whole body to the right, cinching her forearm to my side and bringing her elbow high in the air. Her spine contorts and she stands on her tip-toes to accommodate the grip; the sword falls listless from her grip. I march her a few steps forward and hip-check her off the stage to a wild round of applause.

With her sword collected into my sash, I rile the audience a bit more. Real sweat is on my brow now, and I’m warming to this game. Two more large men thump to the stage, each with a pair of handaxes, but I never learn what ploy they plan.

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aclockworkempire · 10 years ago

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Chapter 1: The Circus, Part 1: The Caravan

The caravan lurches to a stop. Light from the candle above me appears to swing crazily from side to side as my hammock swings gently. A stop means that we’re in town. A town means I must set up for the evening’s performance. It's a chore. There are too many books in the world to spend your life on chores.

Today's book is an odd book, an old book. It cost most of my tips from our last stop, bought from an irritating old man with a startlingly enlarged forehead. He claimed that the brain was a muscle, which is ludicrous. Sheikah are taught rhymes as toddlers to identify muscle groups, games to strengthen each for acrobatics, and the brain is nowhere in those. The book itself explains the uses and mechanics of electricity - the tame lightning of the Calatians. It is as fascinating as it is obtuse and frustrating.

“Zelda!” comes out of the flickering shadows amongst the clutter inside the caravan. I roll out of the hammock – with some difficulty – managing to replace my bookmark and deposit the book quietly on a shelf as I descend to the floor. “It’s time to make camp,” grandma reminds me gently, walking out of the sea of oddments, blankets, props, costumes, masks, and rigamarole of performance gear. Her feet creak on the rough wooden slats, and I wonder for the millionth time how I never hear that until she speaks.

“Already, grandmother? Don’t you and Alfon need to talk to the guards? Negotiate our way in, discuss taxes?” I stand up from my ready crouch in the corner. Already my hands work the knots to take down the hammock, fingers finding their way by habit even as my eyes search grandmother’s lined, brown face. She looks, as always, like an oak tree gnarled by centuries of smiling.

“Girl, we’re not in Calatia yet. Maybe we’re in their borders,” she shrugs, “but in a town they don't know about, eh? Midoro is on no maps. You would know that if you kept half an ear on our plans! Too deep in your book! Like a tree you must reach for the sky –“ at this she raises her shawl high above her head, like the wings of a bat – “while keeping your feet on the ground.” The shawl flaps forward and down; the candle sputters and goes out. Grandma creaks and cackles good-naturedly along the path between the cacophony of supplies, and out through the curtained door.

I finish with my hammock in the dark, taking time to let my eyes adjust to the near darkness. It must be gloomy outside. It’s always gloomy in the Foglands.

The caravan’s single rafter is right above me. I can’t see it, but I jump up and catch hold of it by memory. I swing once, raise my legs, and hook my knees over the beam. Once sitting on it, I push open the trap door and exit onto the roof.

The sun is shining today, so bright I can even tell where it is through the mists that always cover Calatia’s southern plains, and that is not a given. My eyes drink in a veritable vista of nearly a hundred meters of town before the fog cuts it off. It’s to the north, the direction we had been traveling. Midoro is a clean-cut place, all sanded wood in light colours, and roofs thatched with giant rhubarb leaves.

I’ve been here before, but I don’t make the connection until I look south over the small field. The rest of our group’s wagons slowly jostle into a circle around the periphery. I recognize the poles set up in clusters, ready to have our tents sprawled over and hung from them.

Alfon clambers up the corner post to join me. The wagon creaks and shifts alarmingly as his muscular bulk reaches the roof, and I discreetly move to stand on the opposite corner. “You look eager,” he misinterprets through a thick greying mustache. “They do too,” he says, gesturing into town. I turn and see he’s right – already a dozen people, many of them children, are chattering their way from town to be greeted by my grandmother, who has already set up chairs.

Our first act is about to begin.

“Shall I take the air crew and you take the ground this time?” Alfon winks at me.

“I don’t think I could stand to see Impa watch her son break his neck, uncle,” I smile back. “Just get the rope crew ready.”

Alfon’s leap from the roof sends me teetering back to the middle of the cart to restore balance. He lands and rolls with a grace that is shocking for someone of his age and build, and bounces up with a grin and a flourish. Our small crowd gives a susurration of surprise.

I stretch, wait, take mental inventory. My thin leather boots are snug, laces tight and tucked, and their dark blue dye is fresh. My leggings are baggier than I like for this work, but they look right and grandma insists I’ll “grow into them”. That seems dubious, at age twenty, but I suppose I still look like a teenager to her. I wear my performance gear – a snug shirt of the same dark blue as my boots and trousers, sleeveless, with gold brocade in the form of the Sheikah eye on the chest. The perfect sphere of a pure white gem rests under the pupil of the eye on a homemade necklace, the only possession passed on by my mother. A wide, bright orange sash at my waist gives some contrast and allows everything else to slide around without showing the crowd some belly. The performance must look seamless, after all.

Alfon gets all the middle-agers from the wagons together, oils stuck springs on one caravan’s spool of rope, has a backslapping reunion with a villager, checks canvas for tears, and generally gives the appearance of doing everything at once. He saunters back.

“Feeling limber, Zelda?” he booms, at ringmaster volume. Our crowd has grown.

“Like I could fly!” I reply. That is the other half of our starting cue. Every wagon roof is now populated with young Sheikah; they exchange nods and woops. I am silent and focused.

“Let’s put that to the test!” Alfon cries, and the crowd gasps as I fling myself into the air. As I leave the roof I push into a round-off. At the apex of my leap my head is down, hand outstretched to catch the rope end Alfon has flung up to me. In that surreal moment, with the ground far above and my feet in the sunlit mists, I notice that grandma serves tea in steaming mugs and wonder how she heats it.

The second half of my leap ends with my feet on the first pole, and I’m already crouching and running it through a metal loop. Alfon madly cranks the spool to give me the slack I need for the next jump.

As my hands secure the line and yank enough through for my next jump, I make eye contact with the boy one pole to my right. He nods back. I raise my eyes heavenward for a split second, and he nods again. This exchange is a quick code; it means we will trade places on the next jump, and I will go high so as to go over him.

Our band has set themselves up by this point, and my next take-off is marked by an explosion of drums. Again, I flip forwards in the air, but this time I tuck my head and roll into a ball. I carve a tall parabola through the air to give my partner room -

All the air is knocked out of my lungs as I collide, backwards and upside down, with the boy. I am a cannonball into the taut sailcloth of his chest. I hear the unhealthy “uhhh!” of a pair of lungs trying to expel more air than they contain, and then we fall. I was faster, he is heavier, and we descend straight down to the springy earth. In desperation my feet find his shoulders, I push off, and reverse my half flip to avoid a head first plunge. He lands on his back, me on my face, the golden Sheikah eye unblinking as my chest splats into the moist turf.

The crowd laughs, the music goes on, and Alfon booms “Up and at ‘em!” in an amused voice. Something along these lines happens every show. I read in a book once the phrase “the show must go on”. It seemed strange to me that it needed to be said. That’s what shows do. It’s not like anyone was hurt. The fall was barely three meters, and no one would survive childhood if a fall like that could hurt you.

I roll to my feet and offer my incompetent partner a hand up. “Why did you jump high?” I hiss as he struggles to his feet.

“You told me to!” he whispers back fiercely.

“That’s not how the code works!” I reply. He’s found his feet, so I put my hands on his shoulders and jump up into a handstand. The crowd coos appreciatively, and I roll over him so we stand back to back.

“Well excuuuuse me, princess!” he mocks. I roll my eyes. I don’t know where that nickname started, but it did, and it stuck. We take off running in opposite directions towards each other’s poles, and scale them with the deftness of long practice.

The intricate dance of the tents gets more and more complicated as more of us fall off, collide, or get out of step. There is a pattern the Sheikah are taught as children, a technique for the efficient and orderly set up of a circus tent. It has never happened that way in our entire history. When the band’s song ends several minutes later, a dozen muddy, panting performers line up to take our bow in front of a multi-coloured, misshapen boondoggle of fabric and moorings. It looks like a giant’s laundry pile.

The Sheikah youth scatter; it’s late afternoon, and we aren’t needed again until the evening’s main event. For now, our elders meet with their old friends in town and share stories to circles of villagers; our children disperse in uncontrollable glee to make new friends (and small enemies); the adults will mingle, trade, and set up. What do you get for hosting Sheikah? Free circus shows! What’s the hidden cost? Teenage acrobats running over your rooftops, playing tag up and down the village walls, wrestling and throwing each other off of high places.

In truth, that’s losing its appeal to me. I strongly consider going back to the caravan and picking up my book again, but there is far too much time for that when we’re on the road. I opt to circumnavigate the village instead.

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