Spirit Tracks (Object)


 * ''This article refers to the train tracks that serve as the shackles of the Demon King Malladus. You may be looking for the game of the same name, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

"With their remaining power, they buried the Demon King's spirit in the ground. They built shackles to imprison him, and a tower that acted as a lock. These shackles cover the land to this day."

- Spirit Tracks prologue

The Spirit Tracks are a series of special train tracks that span in four directions across the land of Hyrule that also serve as the titular object featured in the game of the same name, Spirit Tracks. Not only do the rails of the Spirit Tracks provide a means of transportation for Hyrule's people, but they also serve an even larger purpose as the chains that bind the evil Demon King, Malladus in his prison, as the Spirits of Good were not able to destroy him. They carry through their rails the energy that sustains their existence and powers the Tower of Spirits at the center of Hyrule that is generated from four special temples located all across the land.

A century after the land the Demon King once terrorized was re-branded as the re-established kingdom of Hyrule, the Spirit Tracks begin to mysteriously vanish, causing Hyrule's Princess Zelda to suspect one of her officials, Chancellor Cole, of a plot to destroy the rail system to set Malladus free upon the land once again. These suspicions are confirmed when the Chancellor waylays the princess and her close friend, Link the newly-minted Royal Engineer, after their escape from Hyrule Castle. He then shatters the Tower of Spirits that serves as the central hub of the rail system and rips Zelda's spirit from her body with the intention of using her body to serve as a vessel for Malladus and return him to his former strength. Link is accompanied by the princess's spirit across Hyrule in a race against time to restore the Tower of Spirits, prevent the Spirit Tracks from vanishing completely, and ultimately stop the revival of Malladus.

History
The Spirit Tracks have a long history behind them dating back even before the reinstatement of the kingdom of Hyrule in the land of the legendary Spirits of Good. The first settlers of the land lived in harmony under the protection of the Spirits of Good for some time, until an evil entity known as the Demon King, Malladus, rose to power and threatened the land with destruction and ruin. The spirits engaged him in a long and bloody conflict for the fate of the land and its inhabitants. After realizing they did not possess the strength to truly kill him, the spirits devised a way to halt his reign of terror, by locking him away in an underground prison. This prison would have a unique system of shackles and a central lock. Those shackles, a large set of train tracks that would come to be known in time as the Spirit Tracks, would span all across the land in four directions, so as to chain Malladus in his prison, with the Tower of Spirits acting as the lock. So to this end, the Spirits of Good used their last remaining power to drive Malladus deep underground and crafted the tracks and the tower to seal it, bringing the war to a successful end. The spirits, their powers greatly depleted, departed for the heavens, giving the land over to the Hyrulean settlers led by the Hero of Winds and Tetra (who rechristened the land as the reborn kingdom of Hyrule) and leaving their servants, the Lokomo, to guard the land and mankind against the return of the Demon King.

Appearances
Thus far, the Spirit Tracks have only made one appearance in the series, in the game of the same name, Spirit Tracks. Here they appear to cover all the realms of Hyrule with their central hub at the Tower of Spirits near the center of the kingdom, making constant appearances as Link uses them to travel on his adventure to save Hyrule.

Spirit Tracks
In Spirit Tracks, the titular Spirit Tracks are revealed in the introduction to have been a creation of the Spirits of Good to bind the Demon King Malladus in his prison deep beneath Hyrule. By the time of the main events of the game a century later, the tracks have taken on another purpose as the primary source of transportation for Hyrule's people, who have developed transportation by trains in the interim period. However, by the start of the game, the tracks have mysteriously begun to vanish, weakening the seal on Malladus's prison. It is around this time that Link is ready to graduate as a Royal Engineer and attends his graduation ceremony at Hyrule Castle, presided over by Princess Zelda herself over the protests of the kingdom's chancellor, Cole. Zelda later confides in Link in secret that she suspects Cole of being the one behind the disappearance of the Spirit Tracks due to his devilish nature, and she requests Link to take her in secret to the Tower of Spirits to investigate the disappearance of the tracks and consult with the sage that guards the tower, the Lokomo known as Anjean. After successfully escaping Hyrule Castle, the pair board a train with Link's mentor Alfonzo and set a course for the Tower of Spirits. However, the section of the Spirit Tracks they are traveling on suddenly vanishes, bringing their train to a screeching halt in the field that separates the tower from Hyrule Castle. They then witness the fragmentation of the Tower of Spirits by dark magic and the release of the Demon Train before being confronted by the Chancellor and his minion Byrne. The Chancellor reveals his true nature as a monster masquerading as a human and reveals his plan to release the Demon King from his prison and the fact that Princess Zelda has a part to play in this. Cole has Byrne knock Alfonzo and Link out cold while he uses his dark magic to separate Zelda's spirit from her body before ordering Byrne to carry the princess's vacant body to the Tower of Spirits.

Link eventually discovers Zelda's spirit wandering the halls of Hyrule Castle and accompanies her to the Tower of Spirits, where they meet Anjean, who reveals what is really happening: the Spirit Tracks are disappearing because something has happened to the four temples that sustain them and send their energy through the tracks into the Tower of Spirits, thereby providing it with the energy that powers it. Without this energy flowing into the tower from the temples, the Spirit Tracks have gradually begun to vanish and the Tower of Spirits has been weakened to the point that Cole was able to shatter it. The wise old Lokomo tasks the pair with retrieving the sacred Rail Maps found throughout the tower to reach each of the temples and reactivate their energy beacons in order to fully restore the Spirit Tracks and the Tower of Spirits to their original states. Zelda discovers she can possess the bodies of the tower's corrupted guardians, the Phantoms, and is able to assist Link in recovering the Rail Maps from each section of the tower. Each realm's guardian Lokomo sage is able to restore much of the Spirit Tracks in their respective realms by means of a Lokomo Duet with Link, who wields the Spirit Flute. The tracks go all over the land, across fields, through snow, under the ocean waves, over mountains, and even into the Dark Realm. With each temple the pair succeeds in cleansing, the Spirit Tracks of each of the realms are restored and one of the fragmented sections of the Tower of Spirits is re-fused with the base. Eventually, the duo succeeds in cleansing all of the four temples and ascends the Tower of Spirits to reach the Altar of the Demon King at the top of the tower, the one place Malladus can be revived. In the chamber just beneath the altar, they confront and best Byrne in battle before pursuing him to the Altar of the Demon King on the rooftop chamber of the tower. After Malladus is successfully infused into Zelda's vacant body by Cole, the evil duo betrays Byrne and escapes to the Dark Realm aboard the Demon Train to await the time when Malladus will have full control of Zelda's body.

Though the tracks are restored and the tower rebuilt, Malladus has escaped and once more is a large threat to the land. Link and Zelda seek a way to purge Malladus from Zelda's body and restore her spirit to it. To this end, Anjean tells them of the sacred Bow of Light kept in the Sand Temple across the desert of Hyrule. Anjean helps them get there by giving them a Force Gem that restores more of the Spirit Tracks in the Sand Realm (other additional sets of the tracks can be restored in this manner through the giving of Force Gems) and allows them to reach the Sand Sanctuary, where one final Lokomo Duet fully restores the Sand Realm's Spirit Tracks and allows them to reach the temple. After retrieving the Bow of Light, Link and Zelda are in need of a way to reach the Dark Realm to confront Cole and Malladus, and though Anjean is unable to help here, Byrne reveals the existence of the Compass of Light, which can reveal the last section of the Spirit Tracks that leads to the Dark Realm. With one final trip into the highest floors of the Tower of Spirits, the duo succeeds in recovering the compass, causing another section of tracks to appear leading to a small island off Hyrule's southwestern coast a short distance away from Aboda Village. Using the island's portal, the pair enter the Dark Realm. After a long battle across the Dark Realm and ending back in Hyrule, Zelda is restored to her body and Cole and Malladus are felled. With this, the Lokomo depart for the heavens as they are no longer needed to guard the land, leaving Link and Zelda to guard it in their stead along with their descendants now that the threat of the Demon King is no more. It is presumed that the Spirit Tracks remained as a very important part of Hyrule thereafter, though now solely functioning in their role for transportation, as evidenced in one ending of the game showing Princess Zelda running to her window in Hyrule Castle at the sound of a train whistle, presumably to greet Link, who chooses to remain a Royal Engineer in this ending.

Trivia

 * The age of the Spirit Tracks is not made entirely clear in the game due to conflicting statements from a few citizens of Hyrule. It is implied that the tracks predate the reinstatement of Hyrule, though exactly how long before this is disputed. An aged Niko implies that the Spirit War and the establishment of the tracks took place not long before his arrival with Tetra and the Hero of Winds, as evidenced when he states that following the war, the land was given over to them.