Pedestal of Time

The Pedestal of Time is a magical pedestal of stone that serves as the holder of the Master Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, when it is not in use by the Hero of Time or his successors. It is usually depicted as a pedestal of grey stone, usually with the symbol of the Triforce on it, sometimes along with texts of ancient Hylian. The Pedestal of Time also serves as a lock that seals the portal leading to the fabled Sacred Realm that is located in the ancient Temple of Time where the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword are both housed.

Origin
The Pedestal of Time was crafted to hold the mighty Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword, when it was created by the Ancient Sages around the time of Hyrule's creation. The Pedestal was infused with all sorts of magical powers as well as an immunity to wear or damage from the elements. The mighty Temple of Time was then built around the Pedestal of Time, the Master Sword having been infused into it to seal the gateway between Hyrule and the Sacred Realm. The Pedestal and the Master Sword were both sealed within a private chamber, the Chamber of the Master Sword, by the magical Door of Time, a mighty stone door that could only be opened when the three Spiritual Stones were gathered and placed upon the altar in front of the Door and the "Song of Time" was played using the magical instrument known as the Ocarina of Time. For many ages, the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword it held lay undisturbed behind the Door of Time, awaiting the time when the prophesized Hero of Time would come to claim the Master Sword as his own and take up his role in Hyrule's history.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Pedestal of Time is believed to makes its first appearance within the series in A Link to the Past. The Pedestal of Time, in this game, is found in the Sacred Grove, in the heart of the Lost Woods. While there is no sign of the Temple of Time, the Pedestal still holds the Master Sword and is engraved in ancient Hylian with the following inscription:

The Hero's Triumph on Cataclysm's Eve, wins three Symbols of Virtue. The Master Sword he will then retrieve, keeping the Knights' line true.

Many believe this inscription refers to the story of the then-future game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and tells the story of the Master Sword's first master, the Hero of Time, who won the three Spiritual Stones on the eve of the event known as the Great Cataclysm and is thought to be descended from the Knights of Hyrule. The Pedestal of Time in this incarnation has been enchanted to never release the Master Sword unless the three Pendants of Virtue are presented by a worthy person.

Link, the hero of the game, seeks a way to defeat the dark wizard Agahnim, who has seized control of Hyrule and is attempting to break open the Dark World in order to fully release his alter ego, Ganon. Upon learning that the Master Sword is the only weapon capable of slaying Agahnim, Link discovers the three Pendants of Virtue scattered around Hyrule and travels deep into the heart of the Lost Woods to find the Blade of Evil's Bane. Once there, he uses the ancient Book of Mudora to translate and read the Pedestal's inscription before presenting the Pendants of Virtue and removing the Master Sword from the Pedestal of Time once again. Link then uses the Master Sword in his quest to free the descendants of the Seven Sages, the Seven Maidens. He then uses the sword to slay both Agahnim and the Dark Lord, Ganon, reuniting the Triforce and restoring both the Sacred Realm and Hyrule to peace. At the end of the game, Link returns the sword to the Pedestal of Time, where it was noted to have slept forevermore.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Pedestal of Time is for the first time referred to by name in Ocarina of Time. The Pedestal is found in the Chamber of the Master Sword that lies just beyond the fabled Door of Time in the ancient structure known as the Temple of Time.

In the game, the Hero of Time collects the three Spiritual Stones and the magical Ocarina of Time in an attempt to enter the legendary Sacred Realm and receive the ancient Triforce before the evil Gerudo King of Thieves, Ganondorf. After opening the Door of Time using these items and the "Song of Time", the hero finds the Pedestal of Time just beyond the Door, infused with the Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword. The Hero pulls the Master Sword from the Pedestal of Time and opens the sealed gateway between Hyrule and the Sacred Realm, which results in his being sealed away in the Temple of Light that resides in the Sacred Realm (and is connected to the Temple of Time) until he is old enough to properly handle the Master Sword. This results in Ganondorf accessing the Sacred Realm and seizing the Triforce in an event known as the Great Cataclysm, giving him the Triforce of Power.

The Hero of Time awakens seven years later and is returned to the Chamber of the Master Sword, right in front of the Pedestal of Time, by Rauru, the Sage of Light. The hero then learns that the Pedestal of Time possesses the power, when re-infused with the Master Sword, to return him to his childhood seven years in the past, allowing him to effectively travel through time to accomplish his goal of defeating Ganondorf, the King of Evil. At numerous points throughout his quest to save Hyrule from Ganondorf, the Hero of Time returns to the Temple of Time and uses this power of the Master Sword and the Pedestal of Time to perform tasks both as a child and as an adult. After the Hero of Time and the Seven Sages seal the King of Evil in the tainted Sacred Realm-turned-Dark World, the hero returns the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time and closes the Door of Time, ending the conflict known as the Imprisoning War.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Pedestal of Time is thought to make another appearance in The Wind Waker. After Link, the Hero of Winds, gathers the Pearls of the Goddesses and conquers the trials of the Tower of the Gods, he is able to open a portal that takes the King of Red Lions and himself to the bottom of the sea, where they find the ancient land of Hyrule frozen in time inside an enchanted air chamber that has kept the water from the Great Sea from destroying the land. Inside Hyrule Castle, Link solves a puzzle involving the Triforce and opens the way to the castle basement hidden beneath a statue of the Hero of Time. Inside the basement, Link finds a chamber decorated with stained glass windows depicting the Seven Sages from Ocarina of Time as well as the sealing away of Ganon. In the center of the chamber, inside a floor depiction of the Triforce, rests the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword. Link pulls the sword from the Pedestal of Time and realizes he has broken an ancient seal placed upon the Pedestal and the sword that kept Hyrule in its slumber. All around him, the statues of the Knights of Hyrule above him tilt their swords together overhead and color creeps back into the world, reawakening the land of Hyrule from its age-old slumber and reawakening Ganondorf's army as well as his full powers.

After Link restores the Master Sword and uses it to defeat Ganon atop his tower, the land of Hyrule is destroyed at the wish of the King of Hyrule, Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, who reclaims the one true wish-granting Triforce shortly before the final duel with Ganondorf and wishes for the kingdom to be washed away along with Ganondorf and himself, realizing that both he and Ganondorf are bound to Hyrule and that the world above would never be free of Ganondorf's threat as long as Hyrule remains intact. The King then sends Link and Princess Zelda to the surface and remains at the bottom of the sea with Ganondorf as the land completely floods, presumably washing away both the Master Sword (still stuck in Ganondorf's head) and the Pedestal of Time in what is known by most Zelda fans as the Adult Timeline.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Pedestal of Time is amongst the few things that remain intact from the Temple of Time seen in Ocarina of Time in what is known by most Zelda fans as the Child Timeline. In this game, the Temple of Time is seen to have fallen into deep disrepair over the course of a century and has overgrown with botany. The area is shown to have fallen out of mainstream public knowledge and has come to be called the Sacred Grove, deep in the heart of the Lost Woods.

After Link, the new hero of the game and theorized descendant of the Hero of Time (having inherited the Triforce of Courage), is cursed into the form of a wolf by the Usurper King of Twilight, Zant, he is forced to seek out the Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword, to break the curse. After traveling to the entrance of the Lost Woods, Link is forced to chase and battle a Skull Kid, a spirit of the forest that guards the way to the Sacred Grove where the Temple of Time once stood. After besting the Skull Kid, it opens the way off the ruins the pair battle in that lead to the ruins of a grand temple, the Temple of Time. Link is then put to the test by a pair of statues that guard the meadow that was once the Chamber of the Master Sword, and he is forced to guide the statues back to their original places. Upon doing so, the hero is granted access to the Master Sword's meadow, where Link finds the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword right where the Hero of Time left them a century earlier. The Pedestal is shown to have an inscription on it that when translated from ancient Hylian reads "Master Sword." Link approaches the Master Sword and the Pedestal of Time, only to have the evil magic binding him broken, returning him to his Hylian form before he removed the enchanted blade from the Pedestal of Time once again. The Pedestal appears to be protected from the elements and wear by ancient magic, along with the Master Sword itself, as both appear to not have taken any damage over the decades in the elements.

The Pedestal of Time plays another role later in the game when Link is forced to return to the Sacred Grove in search of one of the lost fragments of the Mirror of Twilight. Temporarily restoring the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time removes a statue blocking the former door to the temple (thought to be the Door of Time due to an ancient Hylian inscription which reads "Time Door"). Link steps through this door and is transported back through time's flow, back to when the Temple of Time stood tall in the days of the Hero of Time. Returning to the Chamber of the Master Sword, Link once again restores the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time to reveal a staircase leading up to the window behind the Pedestal of Time, revealing a much larger portion of the temple that had previously been hidden. After Link completes his quest to defeat Zant and Ganondorf, he returns the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time in the Sacred Grove, until the time it would be needed to once again battle evil.