Poe Stories: Soldiers of the Depths

In the oppressive darkness of the Depths, Link climbed to the top of the rocky cairn, attracted to its zenith by an ethereal blue-green light. Compared to the sight of the muddy red pools of life-sapping Gloom in every direction, pursuing this beacon was at least a change of pace. While everything about the Depths was terrifying, with one horrifying monstrosity popping up out of the ground after the next, during Link’s excursions there he grimly knew it was up to him to explore its mysteries. No matter how much walking down there in the darkness, surrounded by enemies, frayed the nerves others assumed were solid as steel, he had to do this, to shed more light on the events of the Upheaval. He had to find Zelda. Nothing else mattered.

Standing up after clearing the precipice, Link found himself suddenly face-to-face with a specter even darker than his surroundings. The shape of its armor, the way the helmet rested on its head, the way the feet hung limply in the boots – it was all so familiar to him as a former royal knight. He was faced with what appeared to be a Hylian soldier from before everything had fallen to ruin over a century ago. 

Link sucked in his breath and found himself holding it as a constant groaning exhale filled his ears. Was that his lungs pushing out this grating verse? Or was it coming from this ghost… this shadow soldier? As he took it all in, Link felt like he stood in the middle of a rotating wind that didn’t touch his skin, but his soul. It was as if a human breath reached out to whisper in his ear, but stopped short of expelling its voice and disturbing the air around this face. He had thought the Gloom and its spawn were the worst part about this place. Maybe he’d been wrong.

He wrenched his eyes away from the shape before him and realized that this wasn’t the only blue-green light nearby. Another glowed in the distance ahead off to his right, and another further off to the left of that. He turned around, and saw more of the beacons winking all over, some so far away their color almost faded. This was similar, but different from the Poes dotting the landscape. Those he could collect with reverence, but dissociation. Those had no human shape to them. This was something different. How had he not noticed all these before?

Link shuddered and turned back to the shape before him. The soldier held outstretched arms towards him, in his hands resting a pristine, glittering soldier’s broadsword. It looked as sturdy and bright as its first day after being forged and polished. A thin, light-blue ribbon fluttered crisply in an unfelt breeze, tied to the hilt where the crossguard met the grip. Was this where all the land’s weapons had ended up, replaced by all the rusted, decayed implements he’d seen above? Or were these weapons something different altogether? The monster-control crews and small royal force on the surface would need weapons like these. They would still break eventually, of course, but they’d be better than the brittle swords and pikes they were working with now.

At the thought of all the other blue-green lights surrounding him, something felt like it was scrabbling for air, crawling up from Link’s chest into his throat. He swallowed hard to try to force it back down. If he visited each rock formation, what would he find? More Hylian soldiers who died during the Calamity… or just shapes that looked like them? Would he know each man standing atop each cairn? Worse… would he remember them? His memory was so fragmented and shaky from the time before. 

He tried placing a hand on the shadow soldier’s shoulder in front of him – surely that would bring back a memory if there was one – but his fingers just moved smoothly through a shimmering dark mist. He jerked his hand back, holding it in the other, a frosty film settling on his fingertips before melting away. The soldier’s shape swiftly curled back together as it was before, but not without rolling the shoulder forward in a twitching motion just slightly. A motion all too human. Had he seen that before? 

It has to be a trick of the darkness, Link thought. I can’t know him. I… the little creature in his chest was fighting to get back out again. It was a creature he’d fought before, ever since waking up in that chamber on the Great Plateau, though it had started out so small at first. In some ways, it was worse than any of the Blights, even Calamity Ganon itself; for this creature had survived that fight, and had been growing these past few years. It told him he’d left them all behind. Everyone he’d known. They had all died… and he couldn’t even remember most of them. Even Zelda has suffered for so long, because he’d left her behind. The creature within was sometimes so loud. He tried not to imagine its voice.

Ears ringing, Link tried to look up into the soldier’s eyes. Was someone really in there? The shape seemed to be standing at attention for him, blankly registering his presence. Did he dare take the sword? Was it right? Or did it even matter, if he didn’t even know if this spirit had a name? Josha would probably laugh and tell him it was fine when he got to the surface, that these shapes were nothing more than creations of the Upheaval meant to frighten those solving the mysteries of the Depths. She was a scientist, so surely she would know the right of it.

That has to be it, he thought. These aren’t real. These aren’t my friends. It’s ok.

Link could make out nothing in the deep gloom under the rim of the soldier’s helmet. There was a vague impression of a face, but no eyes. There were definitely no eyes. The groaning, breathing sound seemed to get louder as he leaned in to be sure, but he couldn’t make out if it was saying anything. Link inhaled deeply. He smelled nothing coming off this specter. His sense of smell usually helped his memory, and it was often a dispelling force against the darkness, and the scrabbling, screeching creature inside him. But there was nothing here to sense, not even decay. 

Link grunted to himself in determination, willing the blood in his veins to run hotter and his muscles to move. He’d just have to do what needed to be done, and not think about it. This sword might help Josha and the others figure out how to fix the weapon decay, or at least provide a justification for more exploration. He had to do this. For Zelda. 

Grimacing and shutting his eyes, Link grasped the hilt of the shining blade and lifted it out of the specter’s grasp towards himself. In his hands the weight was so real, just like the first time he had been issued his own blade. In the void behind his closed eyes, all the blue-green lights of the Depths popped up into his vision, first softly, but with increasing energy, vibrating, crowding each other, fighting for his center of vision. Before long it was like looking through a multi-colored haze… could there be that many of them down here? He had to block them out… he had to get out of here… 

The voice of the ghostly shape seemed to peak in his ears, the wind finally seeming to reach him. The beginnings of words stuck together in the taut whispering.

“Li –… my frien –…”

With a start, he opened his eyes again. He saw nothing left behind of the shadow soldier but a violent scattering of black powder in a disintegrating fog. Link was glad no one else had been down there to hear him scream.

---

The glittering soldier’s broadsword sheathed on his back, Link shook thoughts of his recent experience in the Depths from his head. Now in the light of the bright surface sun, he knew he must have been making those words up in the sound of the wind. 

It was just a vision made up by the Gloom, he thought. Once he brought the sword to the researchers and told them about his experience, he was sure they’d say the same. 

He slowed his horse to a trot and took in the calming breeze coming in from the not-too-distant sea as he climbed the slope into Hateno Village. The village always smelled like a wonderful combination of salty ocean air, the earthy ground of vegetable gardens, and the musty but comforting presence of cows and chickens roaming the fields. These pleasant smells gave him similarly pleasant impressions of his past life, although he couldn’t exactly place how they fit into his memories. It could remind him of something as deeply meaningful as his childhood home, or of something as mundane as just a brief visit to a local homestead while out on patrol as a soldier serving the realm. Even after these years since the Calamity, his 100 years of sleep still kept so much of the past locked away in remote recesses of his mind. 

“It’s Link!” one of the schoolchildren sporting braids shouted as he passed. She beamed brightly looking up at him, and the still-agitated creature in his chest calmed down. He knew when people saw him, they couldn’t see it trying to claw its way out and overtake him, and that made it retreat.

Link waved back and grinned, but he didn’t have time to stop, as much as he would have liked to stop in for another lesson with Symin and the kids at the schoolhouse up past Reede’s place. There was too much to do. He would gather some standard supplies on the way back out of town, and perhaps stop by his house to make a warm meal at his own table. His main focus on this peaceful visit in the midst of stressful excursions investigating regional disturbances, though, was to check in on Koyin. 

The last time he was in Hateno for the mayoral election, he had helped the excitable girl retrieve a bottle she had found from her great-grandfather, containing a cryptic message about some new unnamed Hateno speciality he’d been planning many years ago. She had vowed to see her great-grandfather’s dream through, and Link, ever the food enthusiast, had promised to return and give it a try. He had been looking forward to this visit since emerging from the Depths back to the surface. He knew he would need some help getting over the fright he’d had down there.

By the time Link plodded up to Hateno Pasture and jumped down from the saddle, word had spread through the village of his arrival. Koyin stood in the doorway to the ranch house, casually leaning against the doorway with one hand up in greeting. That was Koyin’s way, always trying to play it cool – as long as she hadn’t lost something in the pond or worked herself up watching monsters form up at the local beach. He smirked thinking back to the time she’d called him a creep for answering her note on the village bulletin board. She’d never admit to saying such a thing now, of course. 

“You look like you haven’t slept in a week, Link!” she said as he walked up. “But don’t worry, this new Hateno Cheese is going to perk you right up. That’s right, my great-grandpa’s recipe worked!” He followed her in to see her workspace filled with sharp-smelling yellow wheels, a few sliced up into triangles on the table. 

That smell… it suddenly brought back a feeling. It was hard to place. It was like a boisterous but familiar presence was once again by his side. He tried to push it out of his mind, but it was persistent. There was a voice wrapped up in the smell, too. 

“Link, you’ve got to try this!”

“I dare you, fastest to eat all this stew with peppers wins!”

“Come check this out, Link! It involves fermenting… hey, don’t look at me like that! I know it stinks now, but it just needs some tweaking…”

All at once Link’s head pounded, and something in his chest ached, too. His heart raced.

“Hey, Link?”

He looked up to see Koyin holding several triangles of the new food she called cheese in an open cloth ready to be tied up into a bundle for the road. Her eyebrows were furrowed in unusual concern. 

“You don’t seem like yourself. Want some tea?”

Link reluctantly nodded. It would delay his plans, but maybe that would at least make this headache go away so he could ride back out of town soon.

“You never admit it, but I can read your face,” she said.

“You can?” Link said, startled. 

“Sure! I know some days must be tougher for you,” she said, turning to put a tea kettle on the fire. “I wonder what it’s been like, becoming the Princess’ trusted soldier more than 100 years ago? You must be so worried with her missing.” 

Despite the truth of her words, Link relaxed. She didn’t really see what he felt after all. Koyin turned back to him while the water heated. 

“If I was chosen for something so important, my friends would be so jealous,” she continued. “Did your buddies ever hold it against you, being chosen?”

“Mmmm…” he vocalized, considering. It would be hard to say, but in his hazy memories of that time, he didn’t sense that kind of needling feeling from his brothers-in-arms. He thought he remembered the sound of sparring soldier’s blade against soldier’s blade in the practice yard. He thought maybe he remembered often facing an opponent who was very quick with the broadsword. But maybe that was just a collection of memories smashed together, or the remnants of dreams from his century-long slumber. Maybe it was just his brain still trying to make sense of it all. These days, he found he couldn’t trust much of anything that wasn’t right in front of him.

Thinking over all this made him roll his shoulder forward, as if something about all this tickled that part of his body. An image of a blue ribbon danced in front of his eyes and he found he was unconsciously touching the hilt of the new blade stowed on his back. It was the type of sword he used all the time before the Master Sword chose him. He finally shrugged in answer to Koyin’s question. She wouldn’t understand. He didn’t really understand it all either.

“Nah,” he said.

“What’s that there?” she asked, stepping up to get a closer look. She gasped excitedly, eyes wide. “Gosh, where’d you find that?! It looks really good compared to all the other metal tools I’ve seen lately!” She stood over him, marveling for a moment. She paused, her tone becoming more thoughtful as one fist settled on her hip and with the other hand she placed her forefinger and thumb on her chin. “Actually, it looks just like my great grandpa’s sword. Over there, on the mantel.”

Link followed her pointing finger to see a soldier’s broadsword mounted above the fireplace. Like other weapons since the Upheaval, it was in terrible disrepair, blemished by decay. The edges of the blade were chipped and cracked, as if something with jagged teeth had been gnawing away at them. All the surface’s weapons looked like this, even ones forged in the years after Calamity Ganon had been defeated.

“It’s such a shame. My family has taken such good care of it. It’s one of the only things my great-grandfather left behind for us, other than his recipe he buried in the pasture and a few journal entries he left behind when he built this place. But that was before he was called back to the Garrison when the Calamity broke out. It’s become a tradition for the head of the family to oil it and keep it nice and polished. It would have been my turn to take on the responsibility next. But the sword immediately rusted the day the Upheaval happened. It makes me sad whenever I look at it. I’m not sure we could touch it now without it falling apart.”

Koyin approached the fireplace to fetch the bubbling water and steep some leaves, and continued. 

“We only have Great-Grandfather’s sword at all because my grandpa Tokk snuck into the ruins past the Guardian patrols when he was a young man to retrieve his fallen father’s sword. He found it at the entrance to the Garrison, so my great-grandfather must have died as one of the first to defend his fellow soldiers. Even though the soldiers probably didn’t even get to make it out to protect the surrounding settlements, his sacrifice makes me proud.” 

Koyin brought the steaming pot and an empty cup to the table as Link gazed up at the sword over the mantel. 

“I’ve had my doubts of course, but my grandpa Tokk is pretty confident it was his father’s, anyway. His mother always told him that before my great-grandpa went off to fight and defend the land against the Calamity, he tied one of Grandpa Tokk’s baby ribbons to the hilt of his sword, so he’d always remember who he was fighting for. And even though it was soiled and tattered, there’s a ribbon tied to this sword, too. See?”

Link’s eyes widened as he took in the ribbon on the old decayed sword above the mantel. It was hard to tell what color it must have once been, but it was tied around the hilt, in the same exact place as –

He drew the new sword on his back and placed it on the table, his gaze frozen upon it. The creature in his chest started getting louder again. Unbidden, in his mind’s eye he saw a friendly face, peering out from beneath a shining soldier’s helmet as the two of them stood in the fields of Central Hyrule, watching Calamity Ganon rise above the castle. His bright, brown eyes, just like Koyin’s, met Link’s as the man turned to ride off towards Hyrule Garrison to rally the force stationed there. The man rolled his shoulder forward, like he always did when anticipating a good fight.

“Let’s give this beast hell, Link! Protect the Princess… I’ll see you again on the other side, my friend!” As his comrade rode off into the distance, a light blue ribbon flew in the breeze, flying from its anchor on the hilt of his sword.

No, Link thought, the creature screaming at him as it felt like it was mangling his insides. No, he can’t… I didn’t… what have I done?

“Koyin,” Link said as she poured his tea, showing no indication that she heard the creature terrorizing his mind. He couldn’t take the cup from her as his hands shook, hovering over the sword secreted away from that specter in the Depths. “Your great-grandpa…. what was his name?”

“Well… you know, actually, I don’t recall, myself,” she answered. “My dad might know, but my Grandpa Tokk doesn’t like answering questions about it much. All I know is, he was Great-Grandpa, and that’s all I need.” 

Their eyes met. By the way she looked brightly back at him, he had managed to keep his own face calm and subdued. 

Link downed his tea quickly despite the scalding temperature and stood up.

“You’re such a glutton,” Koyin said, rolling her eyes. “Always scarfing everything down.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I have to go.” He hesitated, his hand hovering over the sword hilt. Instead of taking it, he left it on the table and gently patted the ribbon-tied hilt.

“Why… don’t you keep this?” he said quietly as he turned to go. She regarded him, and then seemed to notice the ribbon for the first time.

“Well, wherever you got this from, it’s sure nice of you to make it look like Great-Grandpa’s. Did you talk to my dad or something?”

Link just smiled back, waved appreciatively, and walked out the door with his bundle of Hateno Cheese.

---

“So odd,” she sighed, sipping her tea. It was still too hot for her to drink, so she just watched him canter off on his horse, back down the hill. She breathed in the steam from her cup and allowed herself a smile. “Odd… but a good friend.”

That evening, folks around town were saying they had heard a commotion over at Link’s house. Some said it sounded like he’d been screaming. Others said it sounded like a beast howling. They had feared maybe there was a monster attack so the alarm was sounded. But when Mayor Reede and the fighting folk of the village had gone to check, no one was there. Link was gone.

Koyin didn’t see Link again after that, and she figured she wouldn’t until all this Upheaval stuff had blown over; but she stopped by his house every once in a while to drop off some Hateno Cheese, and whenever she did, the last batch she’d left for him had been taken, replaced with trinkets from Link’s travels, or supplies from other villages. The first time this happened, he’d left a note that these things were for her, to take or share with the others in the settlement as she liked. She wondered if he was any closer to finding Princess Zelda, and if he was staying safe. 

Slowly, she began to notice that whenever she dropped by, there were more shiny weapons that hadn’t decayed left leaning against the wall, piling up in the corners of the lower room, and even laying in orderly collections on the table and the bed upstairs. She would stare at them for a while whenever she visited, wondering where they had come from, and what it meant for the sword he had brought that he had made to look just like her great-grandfather’s. She thought about the sword he’d left behind at her house that time often. Why had he done that? 

Finally, her curiosity about the growing collection got the best of her.

She left a note on the table with her latest present of cheese, along with some tomatoes and wheat so he could make himself a nice treat the next time he stopped by in the midst of his travels.

Link,

What’s with all these pristine weapons? Can we use some of them? Where are they coming from?

Anyway, here are the ingredients for making a Pizza. I’ve left a copy of the recipe for you in case you need it.

Koyin

It was a few weeks before she got the chance to return, with the seasons changing, stock of milk and cheese in high demand, and the ranch in need of repairs for winter. But when she returned, she read the note Link had left behind:

No. Don’t use them. Can’t use. Will break. Can’t break. Too important. The weapons belong to them. 

I’m trying to remember. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? I have to remember them. I have to keep their things safe. You can’t use them, I’m sorry. I can’t let it out. They’re all down there, waiting. It will tell everyone. They need me. I can’t do this to them again. It knows.

I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry.

---

Do you enjoy a good ghost story around this time of the year? Have you got any Poe stories of your own? Let us know in the comments below!