Though the way back to the museum was short, it was quiet enough so that Zant could think. He trudged along, contemplating the man he had just cursed. At first he was pleased with himself, sure that his demonstration of power would induce Byrne to obey. A seed of doubt crept into his mind, however. It was the look in Byrne's eyes—no respect dwelt there, not even out of fear. Only terror and hatred lurked behind those eyes when they had looked at Zant, and as he considered this, his earlier elation quickly melted. Nobody against him or Midna would respect his authority; there was precious little of it even among those neutral to his cause. For certain, Byrne would be enraged rather than intimidated when he recovered, guaranteeing that he would blabber to the individual he had called...who? Zant stamped his foot crabbily as he realized that he hadn't bothered to take in the name that Byrne had slipped. This, combined with the definite possibility of antagonism toward his cause, put Zant in an incredibly sour mood. [b]I should have silenced him.[/b]

It didn't take Midna two seconds to sense this when he approached her back on the main street. A few genial words had been on the tip of her tongue, but when she saw the familiar yet alien visage of Zant's chameleon mask, they spirited away to be replaced by worry. “Zant,” she hailed tonelessly. “Why are you wearing your mask.”

A hand flew up to Zant's face, almost as surprised as Midna was. He had quite forgotten that it was on. Once this became apparent, it was the work of a moment to collapse it once again. The rain pattered against his smooth, pale features. A look of childish unhappiness inhabited his face as he responded, knowing that he couldn't hide the truth. “Found the fool spying on us. I...tried to persuade him to leave us alone, but he won't take the hint.”

Midna rested her face in a hand despairingly. She did not need to guess how Zant had tried to 'persuade' the poor person. “That was a very rash decision on your part. If this spy incriminates us, we could be finished. I thought I could trust you to control yourself.”
“I can!” Zant's voice was now a shrill shout.
“You can't solve every problem with force.”
“I know! I'll be more discreet in the future! Stop throwing axioms at me.”
“I'm keeping a perfectly normal voice, Zant.”

All of a sudden, Zant became lucid to what he was doing: making a spectacle of himself. The chaotic energy left his sunset-colored eyes, and he hung his head. When Midna began to walk off, her headdress, cloak, and body getting damp in the rain, he followed suit.

-=-=-

After a little while, the parchment in Link's pouch had sufficiently dried out to become crisp and, more importantly, readable once more. When examined, the scrap of paper could be seen to contain an illustration rather than writing, though a fragment of a sentence at the top of the illustration compounded the notion that it had been severed from the rest of the text. This sentence read, [i]”ished into a dark void as punishment for their crimes using an artifact called the Mirror of Twilight. This fabled Mirror has since been lost to time, though some still tell of a curious looking-glass resting atop a grand mausoleum in the Gerudo Desert.”[/b] The illustration depicted a glowing golden figure, clearly feminine, in the foreground, and three dark figures attempting to resist being pulled into a tunnel composed of concentric white magic circles.