A Note from the Author: Sorry for the long wait on this one. I had very little time to work on it while we were in South Africa, though I suppose in the end I did manage to get the whole first half of this done while I was in Cape Town and didn't get much time after then. I still have many reviews to respond to (thank you!), but you can rest assured that I have at least already read every single one of them. Anyway, though, this is a gem of a chapter, though at first I didn't care for it, and it has had a lot of work put into it, with some phrases dating back even to July, while others having been just written this morning as I re-read the chapter and added some finishing touches. So please enjoy, and don't forget to review when you are done (please)!

Zelda stuff (c) Nintendo
Original stuff (c) Me


Part II ~ The Truth

An ominous silence surrounded me, wrapped around me like a cool shell that blocked out every little sound that could ever be uttered. Everything was so...quiet. It was as if all the horrors, all the excitement, the rush, the deaths, were all a distant memory. In the black, mute void, brought by nothing but my own shut eyes, it seemed absurd that King Zora had died just a few days ago, right before me, or that Darunia was nearly devoured by a dragon a week before that, or that Saria had almost been sent to oblivion by a ghost. It seemed ridiculous that an army could invade Kakariko any second. How could anything happen in such peace? I wondered, was this what it was like before the madness that was this campaign began? I could hardly remember now how life felt before Navi came to me and the Deku Tree died. I hoped that it had been like this. It really was wonderful.

I was lying on my stomach; I rolled over onto my back because my nose was feeling rather squished. I didn't lift my head, though. The cold, smooth tile was so comfortable, I might have chosen it over a bed. After all I had been through, a good night's sleep was really all I had needed...hey! I was asleep! Kakariko could already have...

Idiot! What was I doing sleeping!? My eyes shot open, and with a jolt I scrambled to my feet, almost slipping on the stark white tile as I rose. It was easier than I expected to stand; after that nap I felt light as a feather, and my center of balance was so off-set that I wobbled for a moment just trying not to tumble back down. When I finally stabalized, I had to draw my arm to my eyes to shield them from the bright glare of the temple, the light from the many giant windows in the room reflecting off the tile and straight into my gaze. As soon as my eyes adjusted, though, they widenned. Instead of the ghostly white covering my arm that I had come to adjust to, I found myself looking at soft, yellow-peach skin, dully reflecting the same heavenly light beaming in from the windows. My arm and, as I soon discovered, my other arm and hands were completely bare. Peering down, my leggings were gone too, and my legs were just as bare as my arms. "Navi, did I miss something?" I demanded, wondering whether I should be more concerned with myself or with Kakariko. The moment I spoke, I gasped and clutched my neck; my voice was so high! Yet on examination, my throat felt alright...

"Link!" Navi gawked, bouncing up and down in front of me. She had still been asleep, until my voice woke her, and now she was staring at me with great surprise on her tiny face. "You're... You're a child again!"

"What?" I examined as much of myself as I could, and she was right. From my lighter (if slightly less muscular--slightly) arms to my just-starting-puberty un-mentionables, I was seven years younger. "Talk about witchcraft," I groaned. "Or, on a far more rational scale..." I glanced suspiciously back at the Master Sword, sparkling in the sun's rays, clutched tightly by the Pedestal of Time. "Do you think putting the sword back took us back to before my coma?" Hah! That actually sounded more irrational than the possibility a spell had been cast on me. Time travel; that was a ridiculous concept, right?

Navi took a moment to think, the wheels in her itty bitty head whirring like a waterwheel, then nodded her itty bitty head. "That's what it looks like."

I shook my head half-heartedly. "Yeah," I chuckled edgily, "but that's impossible, right?"

"Well," my fairy companion offered, "this is the Temple of Time. Nayru's blessing isn't stronger anywhere else but Labyrinna. If there was anywhere in the country that it could happen, it's here, right?"

I scratched my head under my now-green hat, feeling my silky blond hair part wherever my fingers touched. My brain certainly was in the here-and-now, post-coma, Ganondorf's-gonna-get-ya time period, whether I was in the past or not. I could still remember all that had happened in the future. On top of things, I could still comprehend those complicated subjects that I could never figure out before the coma, like the ideas of love, remorse, and responsibility. "Strange," I muttered, half to myself and half to Navi. "I still think like an adult... But then again, I never got much far from talking like a kid anyway. So I suppose I was a kid in adult's shoes, and now I'm an adult in kid's shoes." I shrugged. "Confusing."

As my senses woke up the veil of silence lifted, and I suddenly became aware of a haunting tinkling in my ear, every note rattling my brain as if, despite it being very quiet, it were louder than thunder. The melody wasn't sad, nor truly spooky... Yet, without words, it sung of the night, of darkness, and of the uncertainty of things to come. I struggled to place what the sound was coming from; and then it hit me like a Megaton Hammer. "Navi," I exclaimed, "is that a...a clinker?" I ran out of the chamber and into the main hall of the Temple of Time. Sure enough, against the back corner of the was a large, black table standing on three legs. Behind it sat a Hylian, pushing down small white things Saria called "keys." By pushing down the keys, a tinkling sound came out of a small gap on the top of the table. I thought it was a pretty nifty device; we didn't have any clinkers in Kokiri Forest, but one of the newer Skull Kids was able to play a small one that he got lost with. I saw these bigger ones when I first arrived in Zora's Domain; there had been a Zora playing a song he called "Ballad of the Wind Fish" on it. The Hylian sitting behind the clinker was a thin, frail woman who appeared to be in her fifties. She was almost deathly pale, and seemed so involved in her playing that she hadn't even noticed me. "Hello?" I requested, sinking back when my voice boomed through the temple, not truly loud at all but magnificently louder than the clinker. "What day is it, do you know?" I added in a whisper.

The woman barely gave me notice. "The day of darkness," she stated flatly, her tone ominous and cold. She spoke with such a voice that she sounded like a messanger of the gods, somebody wiser than any mere Hylian, yet a mortal like everybody around her. Her words, voice, and appearance all mixed then and there to send shivers up my spine, and she became less of a Hylian in my eyes and more of a phantom of warning, like the three ghosts in the Christmas Carol, a story Saria used to read to me. "The day where we go from good to evil. That is what today is." That seemed to be all she cared to say, but when I gave her a questioning look she continued. She spoke slowly, as if she had given up hope and was just lamenting, and she never looked up from the keys. "Trouble is brewing in Hyrule. The Princess and Impa have fled to I-don't-know-where. Gerudo women have invaded Hyrule Castle. We're all fine in town, but, I ask you, how long shall that last? The goddesses have left us to the Dragmire Clan, we have little hope left. I am taking my final days before moving to Kakariko to play my beloved piano."

I peeked around the clinker and saw she had no sheet music. "What are you playing?"

The temple seemed to get a degree colder. "The anthem of the Shiekhah," the woman answered, "the Nocturne of Shadow. It sings about how death and life go hand-in-hand, and how they must preserve that balance with their souls. Most of all, it sings of the House of the Dead, where all the royal blood of Hyrule is said to have been stored. Neither good nor evil, the House of the Dead is the final resting place of Hylian kings. In the song, the Shiekhah call out to the House of the Dead to give them guidance when they have lost their way."

I recalled Shiek giving me a paper with the Nocturne of Shadow. Feeling in my pocket with my hand, I found I still had it. Shiek had said she didn't know where the nocturne would take me. Perhaps this strange woman knew? "And does it give them guidance?"

The woman did not answer directly. "A plague of darkness looms over Kakariko, you know. It has, for years. It has always been the last place in the day to be touched by light. Moving there, I fear, shall force me to sell my soul to its curse like so many others before me. You seem puzzled, child? Nobody is the same after moving to Kakariko. The gods abandon them, allowing them to be led by darkness instead of light. Perhaps the House of the Dead holds the answer, the key to shine holy light onto these dark creatures. It is a temple, a temple to command the shadows and keep them in check."

Bingo. "Where is the House of the Dead?"

"Only the Shiekhah knew. The Nocturne of Shadow's end encourages them to seek the house, but never to reveal its location to outsiders." The woman stopped playing her clinker and rose. She towered over me; I really realized how short I was in that moment, or at least how tall she was. She stared down at me suddenly like I was vermin, and her body took a protective stance. "Why are you so curious about the Temple of Shadow?" she demanded fiercely all of the sudden, looking deep into my eyes as if searching for something. "Have you been cursed by the plague too?"

I was taken aback. "No, ma'am." What was she babbling on about?

"Get out!" she cried, flinging her arm in the air. "Get out of the Temple of Light! Light has no patience for darkness! Away, being of shadow, before I call the exorcist!"

"Ma'am, I'm not a--"

"Don't lie!" she screeched, flinging an arm out to seize me. I narrowly dodged away from her grasp. "I can see it! There's darkness, all around you! Get away, before you doom us all!" There was no stopping her. It was scary, and it wasn't because I was seven years younger. I ran out of the Temple of Time, from her and her clinker. I didn't know what she was talking about, but somehow, it really made me worry... And anyway, I had business to attend to. I had to pay a visit to the owner of the Kakariko Windmill. As I crossed through Hyrule Castle Town, awing at how it was still bustling despite the danger (and possessing the dark knowledge that perhaps within days it would be a bloodbath), I saw a Zora, alive and well. And suddenly I knew I was home.

-

I was immediately overwhelmed by the sweet smells of violets and loosestrifes and the obnoxious hum of countless bees. The combination of the two gave me an odd, bitter taste in my mouth. Kakariko Village was instantly recognizable by the massive amounts of purple, aromatic flowers in the gardens and windowsills of every house on every street. Even the arch signalling the entrance was surrounded by flowers with such a strong scent that it quickly made you wish you were somewhere else. A lot of things made you feel that way in Kakariko--it wasn't known by Hylians as the queerest place to live in the entire kingdom for nothing. In a way, walking across the bridge and into Kakariko Valley was like stepping into a new world. Built by the now-extinct Shiekhah long ago, the village was loosely cluttered with a charismatic and colorful array of buildings too few in number to possibly house a single family per home out of the booming population. The quirky style of the architecture mirrored the assortment of strange people who owned them. Each with their own charming eccentricities, everybody had a story.

There was Anju the Cuckoo Breeder, the woman who would meet me seven years later on a bench. Though she talked non-stop about her poultry livestock and never let them out of her sight, Anju happened to be highly allergic to the very Cuckoos she worked with. When they escaped, which they did often because low wooden fences don't hold in flying animals very well, she was utterly and completely helpless at catching them. One touch, and she'd break out in hives. This meant she often looked to her fellow villagers for help, and almost the entire village had heard of the Cuckoo breeder who should have been a hotel clerk. Anju was a very grateful person, however, and helping her never left one empty-handed.

Professor Shikashi, who taught at a university in Hyrule Castle Town, had his home in Kakariko as well. His subject was Vraiology, or the study of Shiekhahs and their history, so he was well-informed on Kakariko's past. On weekends he'd stroll about the village, eagerly cornering individuals and imposing his knowledge onto them. Waved off as an old man who didn't know what he was talking about, only a few people took him seriously in the village. Those who did, however, hailed him as a genius, and he was indeed known throughout Hyrule, Holodrum, and Labyrinna for his superior wisdom as a vraiologist. In his spare time, he was also said to study the "Lost Race," the Twili, who were said to worship Majora as their patron diety before they mysteriously vanished. Skeptics wish Professor Shikashi would disappear mysteriously too.

Another lively character was Guru-Guru, owner of Kakariko Village's most prominent feature: the Kakariko Windmill. Said to be linked with the supernatural, the windmill could be seen from anywhere in the village, high up on the hill overlooking the Kakariko Graveyard. Guru-Guru happened to be a skilled and devoted organ grinder--his main source of income--but was a very poor and equally devoted music composer. He'd sit up in his windmill day and night, just trying to come up with a song about his windmill that went "around and around and around." There were rumors around town though that Guru-Guru, like the Happy Mask Salesman I came to dread in Hyrule Castle Town, was manic and quickly went from jolly and musical to a sour, furious, begrudged demon to be feared. He was the fellow I was supposed to meet; yikes.

The loudest mouth in Kakariko was a man who I knew only as the Carpenter. He and his armada of carpenters were in charge of the construction of any new buildings or any repair of old ones in town. His many workers typically slacked off, and it wasn't unusual to hear him loudly scolding them somewhere nearby. When I went into my coma, the carpenters were working on a brick building in front of Shady Hill; when I woke up seven years later, I discovered it was an extension of the Archery Shooting Gallery set up in Hyrule Castle Town.

The Carpenter had a son, Grogg, who I'd only seen at night. He was a shady sort of character, and was so skinny you could have called him a Stalfos. The irony was that seven years later, an unfortunate visit to the Lost Woods would truly turn him into one. Though he was a very depressing person to listen to, Grogg had a few friends; they were, however, just as shady as he was.

Speaking of shady folks, there was nobody more suspicious than the village's #1 wanted man: Blind, a masterful thief who always pulled his jobs at night because his sensitive eyes couldn't see in the daylight. Blind's hideout was somewhere in the village; it was sometimes said that he had the ability to hide in another dimension, while others said he hid in Kakariko Well. Though nobody has actually set eyes on Blind--let alone me--he always left a calling card whenever he stole something (I say "he," but in all honesty, he was just as likely a woman as he was a man). Nobody ever went out at night in Kakariko Village; with all the frightful stories about Blind, I wouldn't either.

The mayor of Kakariko Village was none other than Impa, last of the Shiekhah. She was a tall, imposing figure whose voice was loud, firm, and never questioned. Despite her rather intimidating appearance, with her bulky muscles, great height, and rather frightening attire, Impa had a heart of gold. Kakariko Valley used to be the exclusive home of the Shadow Folk until Impa opened Kakariko Village up to the outside world following her people's extinction. She seldom frequented Kakariko nowadays, being Princess Zelda's au pair, but in seven years' time she'd be a village hero.

Or at least, that's what I'd like to say. Seeing Kakariko now, it seemed so hard to believe that in seven years, the people would turn against Impa and cause the whole village to come to the brink of extinction. Impa tried to be a hero; she tried to save Kakariko. It was a shame it all had to go wrong. But not even I could have predicted it (until now).

Kakariko was built in such an incline that no matter which fence one looked past, all one could see were far away hills and the Dragon Roost Mountains, with the prime exceptions of Impa's manor and the Kakariko Windmill, which were both built higher up than the rest of the town. Making use of the enclosing mountains, every structure in the village was built out of brick and stone. They were so unworldly that they looked like something out of a children's pop-up book. Crooked and quite spooky in the shadows, the only thing they had in common was their violet roofs--purple was a very common theme in Kakariko Village, before the days of Ganon's rule. The unique buildings were a common tourist attraction, or so I heard; because it was the only remaining Shiekhah village, it was the only place left in the world to see the disturbing Shiekhah architecture. Walls were painted with red markings like bloodstains, engraved with screaming faces, and some were decorated with murals depicting voracious eyes and body-less hands strangling the Shiekhah with twisting strings, as if they were puppets doomed to be destroyed. But the paintings always ended with a valiant Shiekhah man sending the eyes and hands down into a hole in the ground much like water going down a toilet. I didn't know what to make of it, and quite frankly nobody could (except for Impa, of course, but she wasn't one to tell secrets). Eyes were almost as common in decorations as purple was in colors; they were everywhere, whether they were painted on walls or printed on signs or simply an arrangement of buildings that, if viewed from above, which was always possible in Kakariko, resembled an eye. It was impossible not to feel like I was being watched. But who--or what--was watching? I didn't want to know.

Looking up, the sky was a patchwork of blues and whites, drifting above the Dragon Roost Mountains long past their welcome. The warm morning brought with it a nipping sense of urgency, shadows so well-defined that there was no room for grey error. I had no idea whether a delay in the past would affect the future, but I didn't want to take the chance. When a beaver in the Lost Woods gnaws a tree, does it consider whether or not the tree will fall on it?

King Hyrule's plight had fallen on deaf ears in Kakariko. Business was as usual, and there was a happiness that I truly had missed after awakening from my coma. Children were playing in the streets, parents were outside doing laundry, roadside salespeople were calling advertisements to people in horse-drawn carraiges, and of course nobody got within three yards of the lonely House of Skulltula, because it was viewed as bad luck to get close to it. As I paced through the dark shadows of the village, keeping on the sidewalk to avoid the many carraiges passing by with their giant eye insignias burned into their sides, I once again looked over the paper Shiek had given me. "Play the Prelude of Light;" I had done that bit. Next thing to do was play the Song of Storms for Guru-Guru. Something special was supposed to happen, if memory served.

It wasn't too hard to find the Kakariko Windmill, which loomed over the rooftop of every house and store like an owl keeping an eye on its prey. It wasn't hard to know a few facts about the windmill; there wasn't a postcard in Kakariko that didn't picture it, and there were so many informational booklets on it that it wasn't at all difficult for me to pick one up to look at while ascending the winding road up Shady Hill to the dark castle. On one hand, the windmill was the marvelous pride of the people of Kakariko, a masterful work of engineering that pumped water out of the Kakariko Well and into the plumbing system of every house in the village, guarunteeing clean, pure water for all. On the other hand, its ominous shadow eclipsed the entire village at sunset, inducing Kakariko with dark, chilly evenings so cold that you could see your own breath. A great eye, the largest in all the village, was painted on its conical roof, spying on the villagers throughout eternity. It was thought by some to be linked closely to the graveyard behind it on the same hill, and sightings of Poes on Halloween around the windmill have been reported since Impa opened the village to Hylians. Nobody actually ever entered the windmill except for Guru-Guru, though on one occasion the Happy Mask Salesman was seen leaving the windmill carrying a bizarre mask shaped like a bird. Many legends roamed Hyrule, whispering about mysterious, dark secrets hiding in the windmill's rafters; even the Skull Kids remembered some rumors, though they never made their way to my ear.

Apart from the powerful gusts of wind that made Shady Hill such an ideal place for a windmill, everything was quiet as I climbed the old stone steps toward the windmill's door. To my right, the mossy, ancient slabs of stone lining the outer hull of the windmill echoed the sounds of my boots tapping against the stairs. How old, I wondered, was the windmill? As old as the Temples of Power? Some Skull Kids whispered of a temple to the north of Hyrule Castle, atop Gale Mountain in the Snowpeak Mountains. There was one rumor about the windmill, actually, that I not only heard but, now looking at the windmill, could believe. The windmill was said to be constructed out of the same stone as the purported Wind Temple, blessed by the gods Zephos and Cyclos, whom which the windmill was believed to be a shrine for. The windmill's turbine, as the rumor continued, was made of the same strange metal as the fans inside the Wind Temple were. Looking at the Kakariko Windmill, I could see how foreign the stones were compared to the rest of the village's buildings. The windmill was a special place indeed, though the extent of which I could never have imagined and would continue to disbelieve for years to come. Opening the rickety old wooden door at the top of the stairs was like opening the door to a world of forbidden magic. There was no stepping back, and the road ahead was blacker than a moonless night.

I felt an unending chill the moment I shut the door. I shivered, now regretting my lack of heavy clothing instead of awing at it. Such a cold place... My nose tickled me relentlessly until I had no choice but to sneeze. The sound echoed over and over again off the dark, antique walls. Closing my mouth left me with a foul, dry taste in my mouth as if I had just devoured a plate-load of wood chips that had just spent a week in Zora's Domain seven years in the future. Light was blockaded by the door, and the darkness was broken only by the small cracks in the wood. What sort of man could exist in such a gloomy place, devoid of anything remotely cheerful?

But then it came. Focusing so much on my other senses, I had neglected my hearing. But as my brain got used to the unneighborly cold and the inhospitable taste and smell of wood, I gradually began to hear the relentless churning of thousands of gears, cogs, and wooden axels, scratching each other as they spun. The sound of wood scratching against wood was one I never enjoyed, and I was quickly finding this windmill to be the most repulsive place I had ever set foot in. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the unsavory machinery became increasingly visible, as if the creaking, screeching noise was nothing but a greeting from a rude host. The wood was visibly rotting, and it wouldn't be long before its decay pushed it into disuse; perhaps another eight years would do the trick?

As absurd as it sounds that this was not the first thing for me to notice, the final thing to come to my attention was the music. A small, short, revolving melody, repeating over and over until it made me dizzy, resonated throughout the windmill as if they were one in the same. It bounced off the axel, the walls, even my own skin, until it certainly seemed to play over itself and every note was struck at the same time. It spun with the woodworks, completely in tempo, never missing a beat. Both haunting and strangely fitting, I found myself stumbling dazedly and shivering at the same time.

As I drew closer to the giant, spinning wheel at the bottom of the axel, a small man came into view. Lurking in the darkest shadow in the entire windmill, he was hunched over virtually like a hunchback. In his hands he held a medium-sized box with a lever coming out one side and a large cone spinning out of the top. With one hand he held the box; with the other, he cranked the lever. It was from this strange device that the music came. The man seemed absorbed by his song, and did not pay any attention to me as I approached him. His bearded, otherwise-bald face stared up at the ceiling, eyes shut, and his mind seemed to be far from reality. Thanks to the rather-loud conversations in town, I knew who he was before I even spoke to him, though I didn't want to believe it: he was Guru-Guru, the owner of the windmill that I mentioned before.

I shuffled in my pocket and pulled out the paper Shiek had given me. It was hard to read it, requiring me to read off of Navi's light and the light from the door, but I gradually realized the song I was to play, the "Song of Storms," almost identically matched his song--just without the strange second melody that turned the beautiful first melody into a sour pile of musical garbage. I cleared my voice; he still didn't notice me. "Um, excuse me?" I yelled over the music. "Are you Guru-Guru?"

"...around and around and around and around. My song must go around and around, around and around and around. Around around around around--"

"Hello? Mr. Guru-Guru?" I waved my hand in front of his face.

"--around around around around around around--"

"HELLO!?" I shouted.

Guru-Guru's eyes shot open, his blood-red eyes nearly glowing in the shadows. His face started turning red, and he grinded his organ faster than a Goron rolling down a flat, steep slope. "Stupid dumb children, may Majora rip apart your souls! How dare you interrupt me, I should curse you and all those like you, may the gods desert you, may everybody desert you, stupid foul lousy filthy rotten children!!!!!" he screamed. His voice had been so quiet moments before, it seemed impossible that somebody could have such a mood change. I backed off. "Away with you!!!!"

My hands shaking, I hastily rose the ocarina to my lips and played the song on the paper. I was right; it was virtually like Guru-Guru's first melody, albeit with nicer notes that weren't flat. Guru-Guru stopped playing and stared at me, stunned and nearly speechless. "You... You played my song? The... The Song of Storms?"

I couldn't reply. The windmill rumbled and shook, as if the whole place was coming down. There was an ear-splitting crack that ripped across the air. It sounded like the roof of a wooden house being split in two, or a wooden mast of a large galleon cracking off its base and tumbling into raging waters. "The windmill!" I screamed, "It's coming down!"

"No," growled Guru-Guru, grinding his teeth furiously. "It's a thunderstorm! You've caused it, you monster! You're ruining my song with those blasted changes, look what you've done!"

I dashed outside and suddenly found myself pouring wet. "I...did this!?" I exclaimed with a gasp. The sky was covered in the blackest of clouds, and bright purple lightning flashed in the air, illuminating those accursed eyes all around town. Purple... It was like fire. I was briefly reminded of the chaos of Kakariko seven years in the future, but was knocked back into the present when the ground rumbled, and before my eyes the dark water in the Kakariko Well beneath the windmill began to lower, until the water level was so low I could no longer see it. In that short moment, I realized where it was I would have to investigate to fulfill Shiek's instructions. Part of me wished I could go somewhere else, somewhere safe, to leave all these troubles behind. Another part, though, was called by the well, and wanted only to descend its rusty ladder. I had no choice but to surrender.

-

The bottom of the well was almost pitch-black. Even Navi's light seemed to be absorbed by the impenetrable darkness. The echo of the countless raindrops pounding the damp stone was so loud that it could have been mistaken for wind howling through a dark pipe. As I hopped off the ladder, which had proved to be absurdly long (not to mention slippery from the rain), I wiped the water and silt off my bare hands, not used to direct contact with the environment after having done so much with gauntlets. The only light of any significance, the light beaming down from the top of the well whenever lightning struck, illuminated the bottom of the well's floor. The stone floor was filthy, covered in even more grime, of which was sticky so that there was a sickening slurping sound whenever I pulled my boots off the floor. I stuck my tongue out and groaned in disgust as a foul, musty, putrid smell rose into my nostrils. Even where we were now, the pouring rain I had created continued to pound down onto us with such quantity that I had to lower my head to allow myself to breathe without sucking rainwater into my lungs like a glass of water. My clothes were soaking wet, and it was no different than if I had jumped into Lake Hylia fully dressed in my Kokiri Tunic and never dried myself afterwards. My boots, with no leggings to seal them, were beginning to fill up with rain, and I was sure that my sockless feet, trapped in my boots (for I certainly would not remove them and set them down on the slimey, mucky floor), would be lost to pnemonia in a few hours. I wanted to be anywhere but down there at that moment. "Down here is the supposed 'truth,' Navi," I reminded my companion distastefully, spitting out the raindrops that rolled like a waterfall into my mouth as soon as it opened. "I guess we should figure out what this 'truth' is and how it can help us." Whatever the truth was, I hoped we'd find it soon. All the same, though, I hoped it would stop raining before we had to climb back out of the well; it was a slippery nightmare descending the wet, round, metal bars without falling, but in such weather it would be suicide to climb back up. Navi only nodded to my words, huddling inside my dripping tunic collar in a vain attempt to avoid being pounded by the rain drops; she looked cold and frightened--quite frankly, I was cold and frightened too. We both shivered in the damp gloom for a few minutes, allowing our eyes to adjust to the darkness. As they did, we both gasped. A long tunnel of carved stone stretched out from where we stood and into the earth surrounding the well. "Navi, there's something down here," I whispered. There was a quiet moaning sound echoing out of the tunnel, drowned out by pitter-patter of torrential rain and the slurping and sloshing of the water being drained deeper in the tunnel by the windmill. I couldn't tell exactly what it was saying, or if it was saying anything at all, but it sounded a lot like a "Beware." I had no choice, though; it was obvious we were meant to go down the tunnel, no matter where it led us. "Come on, Navi," I nudged. "You first."

It was a great relief to get out of the rain in the beginning; but the filth continued down the tunnel and the cold, stuffy air combined with my drenched, drippy, sloshing clothes quickly turned the experience right back into a horrid one. My boots were half full, my feet partially underwater, and the sound they made when they fell onto the sticky slime coating the floor, coupled with the horrendous feeling of suction as I yanked my boots back out of the slime while trying not to lose them and only pull my foot up, not to mention the atrocious stench that swarmed my nostrils in droves whenever I even tried to take in a tiny breath, was so wretched that it made the inside of Jabu-Jabu's stomach seem like a clean, polished palace tended to by an army of high-work-ethic, insomniac, energetic, perfectionist, obsessive-compulsive, clean-freak maids that worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no breaks, and which's voracious diet consisted only of grime and sludge, so that they cleaned when they ate. At first the tunnel seemed to be an empty abyss, going on for what felt like mile after repulsive mile. Where was it leading us, and why did it go so deep? I found myself repeating these questions, hoping that we weren't condemning ourselves to wander the god-forsaken well for eternity. But eventually Navi's light illuminated something pale against the wall. "Link, I think I found something!" she called, her voice echoing off of the stone walls as the sound travelled down the corridor. I slowly shuffled through the mud we were standing in (which, I must add, reached almost up to the top of my boots) towards the pale object to get a better look, and as I did there was a crunching sound. "Uh-oh," Navi whispered. I gulped and bent down to look at the object, and sure enough, it was a skeleton. Navi turned green, though whether it was from a discovery or from disgust I couldn't tell. "Link, it's saying something to me," she explained with a tremulous voice.

I rose an eyebrow and looked at the bone pile's skull warily. "What is it saying?" I asked nervously.

"It says... 'The mysteries of the Shadow Folk... I ventured down here for glory, but I died for the truth, and could not find the answers... Beware the creature within...'"

"That doesn't sound good," I mumbled. The bones were almost browning in age, and they crumbled as soon as I laid a finger on them. Perhaps the warning was an old one. I stood up and wiped my hands on my shorts, both to get the mud on my finger off and to get the dust from the crumbled bones off my shorts. "Let's carry on, Navi," I sighed. "We don't know how long this tunnel is; I want to get out of here as soon as possible." She nodded.

There were more bones the deeper we traveled. We passed by large wooden crosses with chains hanging from their ends and pools of old blood coating the floor beneath them. Blood was splattered on the walls even further in, and soon the foul smell of rotting flesh filled our nostrils even more than the filth did. The moaning began again, though this time it seemed to come from the floor. I don't know how many hours passed as we sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss.

I was walking at some point when there was a loud splash and my boot landed at the bottom of a shallow pool. Though the sudden plunge gave me a surprise similar to that experienced when taking a step forward and discovering you are on a staircase, I figured we'd hit water sooner or later, so continued to trudge onwards, albeit repeating to myself desperately that the water was less filthy than the rest of the well and trying not to consider what diseases I might get afterward. As I waded through the pool, though, it became harder and harder to lift my legs. As I reached the end of the pool--or at least, what my eyes told me was the end, I sploshed one newly re-drenched boot onto shore and started pulling my other leg out when it stopped and wouldn't come out. I suddenly felt something cold and clammy wrapping itself around my skin and pulled again; however, my leg still wouldn't come out. That was when I looked down, and I let out a scream. A dark, decaying hand was sticking out of the bottom of the pool, and was dragging me down into the water. It's grip was so strong that when I yanked my leg over and over again I still found myself sinking back towards the water, from which the moaning was coming from. "Join us," the moaning said. "Join us."

"Help, Navi!" I cried, desperately struggling with my leg without success, and watching in horror as another hand reached out for my other leg.

"Link, your sword!" Navi instructed.

I tried swinging my sword at them, but their arms were unharmed by my blade. "Navi, I don't want them to take me away," I sobbed, feeling the arms strengthen their grasp around my legs. "What am I going to do?"

"I don't know what else to do!" Navi answered, at a loss for any ideas.

I felt my feet slipping through the ground at the bottom of the pool. "Join us," the pool moaned, as hands reached out for my arms.

"HELP!" But I knew Navi couldn't do anything. I could feel my knees being swallowed up by the earth. Soon my head would be underwater. I struggled to pull my arms out of the hands' grasp, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get away. Another hand reached out and snatched Navi. "No, Navi!" I was waist-deep in the ground, and I quickly sucked in air before my mouth went under the water. The water was ice-cold, and seemed to drain the life right out of me. I struggled with all my might, pulling and yanking, but the hands dragged me deeper and deeper into the soil, farther and farther from the shore, until a hand rose and covered my mouth, pulling my head down, and as the wet mud began to cover my face I went limp, for I knew there was no way out. In seconds, I was lost to the world.

-

And suddenly, I was alive again, bent double-over on the cold, wet floor, coughing water out of my lungs. Navi lay beside me, behaving similarly. "Navi, are you okay?" I asked. She nodded. I felt relatively okay too, albeit a bit dizzy. I wobbled onto my feet and looked around, and was quick to note that I was in a completely different place. A great chamber surrounded me, with one end reaching out into a black expanse that extended so far into the distance that it was engulfed in such darkness you would have thought it the end of existence. From the darkness was a low rumbling sound and a clanking noise, as if the wind were struggling against chains. A bit closer to home, a ring of long, bony, pale arms with splotches of blood on them rose from the ground like sunflowers and quivered in the air, their red-clawed hands reaching up for the ceiling.

Such a curious thing, those many arms! I approached one to get a better look, sword ready in case they were dangerous. The skin on the arm I approached, on closer inspection, was decayed and clammy, as if it hadn't seen the light of day or had a breath of the living for centuries. "Zombie hands?" I asked myself, inching a little closer to get a better look in the dim light. Suddenly, the hand lashed out at me and grabbed the top of my head. "Hey, what's going on!?" I cried, searching with my hand for my sword handle to chop the arm in half. It wasn't too difficult to slice the arm, and to my relief it let go just milliseconds before being cut in two. But the moment it dropped me back onto the floor there was a loud boom, and chunks of the floor (which, on inspection, I realized to my horror was layers and layers of bones) went flying. I turned around to see a large man, bent over like a hunchback, and covered in the same skin as the arms. It had no legs--it was partly buried in the ground, like a decaying blob. Its arms were stubbly and each only had a single finger on the end, but its head was large and carried a pair of vicious jaws. Its eyes were non-existent, and there were holes where they should have been.

"Who are you?" I demanded, pointing my sword at the bizarre creature.

The creature replied in a dry, raspy voice, so that it sounded like the oldest man ever to exist, so old that he should have died, and probably did but was rejected by the gods for his oldness. With every word its skin quivered, as if it clung to its bones delicately and may have ripped off with the slightest pull. I noted the large bloodstains covering its body like spots, and the red stain on its razor-sharp teeth. "My name is of no importance in the world of the dead, young master," it answered, dust practically spewing from its throat. "You shall know me only as the Hand of the Dead, or Dead Hand, if you so prefer. I am the gatekeeper of the underworld, and it is my duty to bring those who foolishly wander here to their graves. My infinite hands pull people to their dooms."

"Did you bring me down here, then?" I demanded. "Are all these hands your's, pulling down anybody who comes here?"

Dead Hand nodded, and I noticed how his neck was impeccably long and thin, like a narrow branch. "It was all my pleasure. Your screams were delicious, heh heh heh."

There was more clanking from beyond the darkness. "And what's that sound I keep hearing, down that way?"

"That," Dead Hand explained, "is also of no importance to you; or, perhaps, it is of utmost importance. My master, Lord of the Dead, is where the light never touches. He was imprisoned here by those dreadful Shiekhah, but I loyally await here for the day he escapes and returns to his fortress." Dead Hand, I was suddenly aware, was moving closer to me at an increasingly rapid rate. There was a vicious scream of rage that emitted from the darkness, and Dead Hand paused to glance in its direction, though only for a second. "But now isn't the time to talk, young master. My master bids you welcome to the world of the dead; and he wishes you safe journey. I'm afraid we must end this conversation, young master; it is time to die."

Dead Hand immediately lunged his head forward to sink his vicious teeth into my face, but I side-stepped him and stabbed his body with my sword. Nothing happened to him; he just turned to look at me, licked his lips, and started pulling the sword into his body, closer and closer, so that I too approached him. "Do you expect to kill me, young master?" he snickered. "I apologize, but I am already dead!" I gasped and yanked my sword out of him and backed up to put some distance between he and I. Despite the obvious signs, it had slipped my mind that he was a zombie. I'd never fought a zombie before, not even the horrid things called ReDead.

"Navi," I demanded, "how do I kill something that's already dead? You can't even crumble him like a Stalfos!"

"Fire," Navi suggested. "I've never seen it in action, but in all the Kokiri stories fire gets rid of zombies. I'm sure it's worth a shot!"

"But what do I have that's fire?" I asked, just narrowly dodging another lunge.

"Have you forgotten? Din's Fire!" Oh yeah. I had used them so little, I had completely forgotten the two spells I had been taught by the Great Fairies. One, Farore's Wind, was a spell that could take me back to the entrance of any temple or cave I was in; the other, Din's Fire, was a spell that unleashed a ring of fire around me. If anything was going to work, it was Din's Fire for sure.

"Thank you, Navi," I grinned. I cupped my hands so they made a little ball. Then I swirled my hands around, tucked them by my hip, and flung them into the air. "May the energy of seasons and power give me might, bring a fireball tonight!" I recited. A great ring of fire rose from the ground and engulfed Dead Hand.

"By Majora's Wrath, what have you done!?" Dead Hand cried, writhing in the flames. "What have you done!? You cannot defy death with this witchcraft! Death cannot be defeated!" The monster began to sink into the ground, along with his many hand-stalks. "You have not escaped me!" he cried, watching in his own horror as his arms turned into ashes. "I shall return one day, mark my word, I shall return! You cannot, will not, bring death to the dead!"

I watched for a few more seconds as the last of Dead Hand fell to the bone-covered floor in ashes. His last dusty breath sifted out of his motionless nostrils and rose to the faraway ceiling. It then sank back to Navi and I, twirled around us, and collected itself on top of a particularly fearsome-looking skull. There was a dim flash of light, not at all bright enough to light up the chamber, and in the dust's place was a small purple looking glass, with a red lens that looked almost like an eye. I cautiously picked it up and looked it over. There were letters engraved on the handle, and I could read them only with Navi fluttering mere inches away from it. "'The Lens of Truth: Whom-so-ever bears this eye will be able to see beyond illusions and view only the Truth.' Ah, Navi! This must be what Shiek was talking about when he said the 'Truth!'"

"Why don't you try them out?" Navi offered. "Look through the lens and tell me what you see!"

I nodded and peered through the looking glass. All at once my eyes locked with a single, massive, red eye, so bloodshot and furious that it sent shivers down my spine. It was the most horrific thing I had ever laid eyes on, pulsing and writhing as if it itself were about to explode rivers of blood and kill everything it passed in a blind rage. I realized I was looking at the eternal darkness before us; I could see nothing there, and yet looking through the Lens of Truth I discovered there was a terrifying monster less than half a mile away from us--and that was too close. I adverted my eyes from the lens. "Navi, I don't know what I saw... But whatever it was, it was never meant to be seen. Let's go, now! We have the Lens, we need to go back to the future."

"Can we do that?"

I nodded. "Sure, I bet Nayru understands that I can't go through the coma a second time." I halted movement for a moment, wondering how we were to escape the bottom of the well, with its ferocious prisoner behind us. But then I decided Farore's Wind would do the trick. I kneeled down and flourished my hands and body into the air like a flower blooming. "May the energy of courageous secrets come into the day, show me how to find my way!" I recited. A green ball of energy materialized above us, and I felt a pulling sensation like the wind dragging us towards it. Reality bent for a moment, and when the ball vanished Navi and I were standing at the top of the well.

"A house used to stand here." I nearly jumped a foot in the air. Impa stood next to me in the cool, dark night, looking down into the well with a mixture of respect and hatred. She did not turn her head to look at me, though I knew she was speaking to me. "Blind was the owner's name; a decrepit, hunch-backed man who knew only of greed. Yes, I speak of the same criminal that is whispered of to this very day--but those are only ghost stories." Impa paused, but I dared not speak. She seemed so wise, so proud, that I instantly found it hard to come up with anything to say at all. In a way, I thought it best I not utter a single word. Acknowledging my silence, Impa continued. "He dug a tunnel beneath his house," she explained, "believing there to be riches beyond belief. He was never seen again. Eventually the old house was torn down, and we Shiekhah constructed a well in its place to help bring water to this dry land. Or at least, that's what we tell Hylians." She sighed a very deep sigh. "There was another reason, a secret reason, why my ancestors built this well. There was a monster far beneath the earth, so terrible that even Death Mountain trembled in its might. For many days after Blind's house fell, the monster, neither man nor phantom, but something in-between, brought chaos to our valley. Warrior after warrior was sent to slay the beast, but it had powers beyond comprehension, and turned them against one another. Finally, my great grandfather managed to imprison the beast back in the confining darkness of the underworld, and the well was built to contain it for eternity." Now Impa turned to look at me, and I saw her face was puzzled. "I do not know why you have come here instead of to the Temple of Time, nor why the Master Sword is not yet in your hands, but I will not question your actions. Zelda is safe, so now I must protect my people from the Dragmires and their Gerudo army. I trust that your reasons were virtuous, but I cannot allow Kakariko Well to be left open as you have left it. That creature must never escape, or the fate of the entire world may be at risk."

I nodded, shaken but awed by her brief tale. Thank goodness she hadn't asked; I think if she had questioned why Ganondorf wasn't dead yet, I wouldn't have had an answer. I should have lifted the Master Sword and saved Hyrule, but instead I was in a coma in the Light Temple. Nobody ever knew... I bowed and quietly replied, "I understand, and I thank you for allowing my reasons to remain untold." There was a painful feeling in my stomach. All that stuff that would happened in Kakariko in seven years--was it related? "But I have to tell you something, Impa; about Kakariko, I mean."

Impa shook her head and frowned. "Time is a strange thing, young swordsman. To bring knowledge from the future and reveal it in the past... The gods never meant for that to happen. I'm sure whatever you have to say is of great importance; but if it means changing the future, I must decline on your offer." My jaw dropped. How did she know? Impa quickly changed the subject. "I am sure your time must be short, Link. Whatever it is you are doing here, I urge you to hurry and seize the Sword of Evil's Bane and bring an end to Ganondorf before it is too late. I apologize, but if things are all wrapped up here, I must seal the well for good, and find a way to undo what you have done."

I nodded. "Good luck, Impa. I don't know if it will take me seconds, or even seven years, but I promise you Ganondorf will not survive."

She smiled. It was a warm, proud smile. "I am glad to hear it." Very few additional words were said--they didn't need to be, everything was settled then and there.

Impa and I parted ways, she to seal the Kakariko Well, and I to return to the Temple of Time. I wouldn't see her for seven long years after that moment, at least if you ignore time travel, and it wouldn't be until Kakariko's fate came into question that we'd cross paths again. It was to that moment that I now had to return; for better or worse, the Lens of Truth would bring me to the House of the Dead, where my gut feeling said the solution to Impa's plight lurked in wait. What I'd find there, not even I could have imagined. But wherever I stepped, since that fateful night, I never felt alone. I'd wake from my coma, travel Hyrule, and wind up in Kakariko, but something would forever follow me, lingering in the shadows wherever I stepped, and no matter how much I struggled, it never let go. It all started with the well.


A Note from the Author: I love some of the sensory details in the well; those were some of the ones I added this morning. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'm quite excited to write the final one as soon as I can. Please don't forget to write a review, I read and respond to every one I get.