Chapter 4
Remember
The roar of the rain outside grew more insistent, now punctuated by cracks of violent thunder which sounded in the distance. The ceiling of Telma's Bar had begun to leak, and Dark stopped his story long enough to help her search around the room for buckets or jars to catch the stray drips. "It's the cheap mortar," Telma explained, positioning a clay jar beneath a particularly nasty leak. "I had to have half the ceiling replaced during the reconstruction, and it's never been the same since. I've been meaning to have it fixed, but you know how it is."
Dark nodded to show that he indeed knew how it was.
"Anyhow, this story of yours," she continued. "I can't wait to hear the next bit."
"It isn't as scary as the first bit." said Dark.
Telma laughed. "Well, you tell it well enough, anyhow. So what happens after…?"
But she was cut off as the door slammed open, and a flash of stark white lightning illuminated the silhouette of a man standing against the rain-washed doorway. The man looked much the same as Dark had, drenched and caked with mud, like some creature out of a horror story, but when he spoke, it was in a smooth, oddly accented voice: that of a scholar. "It's raining like the Goddesses weep out there. How in blazes I even managed to find this place in all that deluge is beyond me."
"Hello, Master Shad," said Dark meekly.
The man named Shad pulled off his round little rain-streaked spectacles and gaped. "I know that voice… Derek of Ordon?" He squinted, utterly blind without the glasses he was hopelessly trying to clean on his grimy coat. "It is, isn't it. I haven't seen you in months! As a matter of fact, I still can't see you. Telma, have you got anything clean I could wipe these on?"
"I'm going to have no towels left by the time this night is through," Telma muttered good-naturedly. "Come sit down, and how many times do I have to remind you to shut the door. You're letting the rain in."
The shadow cast a glance at the leaky ceiling and refrained from mentioning that the rain was already in.
"Really, Shad," she was adding as the scholar found a seat at the bar, "You could have just sent me another pigeon. You didn't have to come all the way over here in the rain."
Shad shook his head. "I sent copies of your letter out to everyone else, and I didn't have a bird left over. Anyhow, in answer to your message, I haven't seen Ilia and I'd like to help search for her."
"Fine then," said Telma, smiling. She still didn't seem at all worried about Ilia, confident perhaps that one of the others would have seen her. Dark didn't share her assurance. He fidgeted nervously while the two of them spoke, possessed by a kind of childlike reluctance to interrupt. "If no one else knows where she is, we'll spread out and search," Telma finished. "In the meantime, Derek was just telling me the most exciting story."
"Were you, Derek?" Shad asked. "Well, while we wait for the others to arrive, I'd love to hear it. Mind if I listen in?"
Telma shot the young scholar an amused look and stated, "Well, I've already heard the first part, and he's not repeating it."
Shad merely smiled. "Don't fret on my account, Telma. I'll try and keep up."
Dark looked from one beaming face to the other, a bit thrown by their mutual belief that Ilia was just fine. "I… forgot where I left off," he apologized. "It was in the dungeons, wasn't it?" Telma gave confirmation, and he continued. "Well, Ilia came running in and she found me and Link: both of us covered in blood. I think she assumed the same thing Link did; that I was one of Zelda's soldiers, and she asked me… begged me, actually, to help her get him aboveground before he bled to death."
Shad let out a low whistle of awe. "I can see I came into this tale at an inopportune time. Are you sure you don't want to fill me in?"
"No." Telma snapped. When she turned her attention to Dark, she was all syrup and smiles again. "You're voice just isn't loud enough; if you don't speak up Shad'll keep interrupting till doomsday."
"I do not interrupt all the time!" Shad interrupted.
"My point exactly," the barkeeper said slyly. "Show Derek some mercy and keep your mouth shut for once." She sat back thoughtfully for a moment and listened to the rain outside. "Well, go on, Derek, what happens next?"
Despite how worried about Ilia he was feeling, a feeble smile still crossed Dark's face. "Next was Ilia of Ordon."
{oOo}
It's not fair. Against the silence of the night, the wagon's rumbling wheels sounded far too loud as they rattled against their shafts at every pothole in Hyrule Field's ill-kept dirt roads. Ilia wanted to clap her hands to her ears, to block out the horrible noise and let herself sink into silence, and at the same time didn't know why something as simple as a sound could have her so upset.
She wanted to cry, or to scream, or to do… something; something other than sit here and listen to the vibrating wagon wheels that seemed to jeer at her with each jolt of the cart. It wasn't the wheels she was upset at, but there was nothing else to take out her misery on, and so she focused it all on that terrible noise in the hopes that in being angry at something, her anger would somehow lessen.
Ilia sat wretchedly against one of the canvas sides and stared in hopeless silence out at the night darkness and the deserted road panning out behind them. Up front, Rusl held the reigns of the horses loosely in one hand, the other resting on the hilt of a sword at his belt. Hyrule Field may have looked peaceful, but it was the prowling ground of a number of deadly monsters. When she turned to look in his direction Ilia could just see him through the gap in the canvas. An unconscious Link lay wrapped in blankets beside her, unresponsive save for the low moans of pain that escaped him every time the wagon hit a bump in the road. Ilia ran a sympathetic hand through his golden hair and continued looking out into the night.
And again she thought that it wasn't fair. That it shouldn't have happened like this. She had done all she could, hadn't she? She had managed to bring him out of the dungeon, up into the open air where already the reds and oranges of sunset were painting the western sky. Somehow, although how she had managed to think clearly enough through her panic to do so she would never know, she had half-dragged, half-carried Link to the doctor in East Castle Town, hoping beyond hope that there was still enough blood left in his body to necessitate bandages.
She had left him there. It had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her entire life, but she had left him there and run with streaming eyes through the darkening streets of Castle Town, thoughtless of footpads or street thugs, to Telma's bar on South Street, where she and Rusl had rented rooms for the night. She needed to find Rusl. She needed help, because she was too frightened and hysteric to be of any use on her own. And of course Rusl had held her against the thick wool at his chest and let her vent her misery, and stroked her hair like her father used to do when she was little, while murmuring into her ears that everything would be fine, but it wasn't, it wasn't fair…
And all the while she was terrified that Link would be dead before she got back.
That stupid, stupid doctor. She hated him. She hated the way he had stood there in that sterile, canvas-partitioned office that stank of potions and bleach and looked her calmly up and down as if everything was normal, as if the world hadn't ended.
The danger was past, the doctor had said. Link would recover, given time. The wound in his chest would leave an ugly scar, but it would heal, and he would live. But that arm -Link's left arm with the horrible gash half-severing it at the shoulder, splitting the muscle and hewing the bone- would never wield a sword again, indeed, would probably never move again, and that was stupid and untrue and not fair.
Link would be fine, she knew it. He'd show them all; he'd be back to his old self in no time, practicing his sword techniques against the old scarecrow in front of his house. He had to, because Ilia didn't want to imagine the look on his face when he finally regained consciousness and she would have to tell him why he couldn't move his arm. It would have to be she that told him, because she knew for a fact that the whole thing was her fault. If she had only been faster in breaking the sealing curse, or had brought him to the doctor a few minutes sooner, or done any number of things differently, then she was sure it never would have happened this way. It wasn't fair!
And those awful wheels rumbled on, drilling their noise into the inside of her skull and making it impossible to think. Her hands clenched in her lap.
Another hand, its skin dark as the night outside the wagon, reached over and rested gently on her own. Ilia looked up and blinked back the tears that she hadn't realized were pooling unshed in her eyes, and stared at the boy sitting across from her in the wagon. The young man she had found with Link in the monster's chamber peered at her through long, unkempt bangs of black hair. His eyes glinted red against his dark skin while the rest of him seemed to melt into the shadows, invisible.
A small, hesitant smile crossed his face as their eyes met, so like that of a child that all of Ilia's anger and frustration seemed to melt away at the sight of it. Had it not been for his help, Ilia knew, she would never have been able to carry Link out of those dungeons, and for that she owed him a debt of gratitude. Had he not promised to stay behind with Link in the doctor's house while she ran to find Rusl, she never would have been able to tear herself away, and would have stayed there without a familiar face to comfort her until the grief ate her away from the inside out, and for that she owed him her sanity. And she didn't even know his name.
"I never said thank you," she murmured, looking away and feeling oddly aware of the slight pressure of his hand on hers. Was that faint, quivering sound really her voice? "So… thank you."
He remained silent, and it occurred to her that she had never heard him speak.
"I'm Ilia, by the way," she added. It felt good to talk. If nothing else it at least drowned out the noise of the wagon wheels. "Ilia of Ordon. That's Rusl driving the wagon. And this," She ran her free hand through Link's hair again. "is Link. He's famous, you know. He killed Ganondorf and rescued princess Zelda." And he could do it all over again, she told herself, because his arm will be just fine. Though she wasn't sure she would want princess Zelda to be rescued; after all, she was the one who had sent Link into that dungeon to die in the first place. "I guess it was rude of me not to ask before, but what's your name?" she asked the boy, and he seemed to hesitate for a long time, as if unsure, before responding. When he finally spoke it was in a soft, tenor voice, as disarming as his smile.
"Dark."
"Derek?" she repeated, unsure of whether or not she had misheard. Dark wasn't a real name, was it?
The boy mouthed the word a few times, testing the feel of it between his lips. "Yes. Derek."
So she had misheard, after all. She nodded and smiled encouragingly at him, far more optimistically than she really felt. "Nice to meet you, Derek."
The wagon rumbled on for a while, but its wheels seemed to have lost some of their power over Ilia. She sat in the darkness and let her eyelids grow heavy, feeling the exhaustion of the day finally settle over her like a warm blanket that muffled sound and made her head feel as though her thoughts were wrapped in cotton. Link's moans had ceased; he had finally passed into a deeper, painless sleep, and for that Ilia was thankful. As her thoughts drifted she was vaguely aware that she and Derek were still holding hands, but she did nothing to stop it. He was her friend now. They had been bound together by mutual fear and pain, and then once again by a simple sharing of names in the back of a wagon on a dark road headed for Ordon Village. Besides, his hand felt nice.
"Derek?" she murmured sleepily, and he stared unblinkingly at her with those strange red eyes. "Can… can I ask you something?"
No response, but it wasn't as if he had denied her the question, and so she continued.
"How did you end up down there in the dungeons? Did Zelda send you to kill the monster?"
He was silent for a long time, but this time Ilia could tell it was because he was thinking very deeply about something. Already she was beginning to detect a pattern in the way he spoke and interacted with her, which seemed strange considering he had only said a total of three words to her since they'd met. It seemed to her as if every time he spoke he had to stop and consider beforehand, as if trying very hard to find the right words, or indeed, any words at all. As if with every word he said he had to relearn that he possessed a voice. There was a sense of recognition there, although Ilia couldn't place exactly why his behavior seemed so familiar.
After what seemed like an eternity, Derek spoke again. "Don't… remember."
"You don't remember how you got there?"
A long pause, and then, "No."
Ilia wondered whether he had truly forgotten or simply didn't want to remember; if his own battle with the beast had turned out similarly traumatic results, and he had no desire to talk about it. Understandingly, she let the subject drop. "So, Derek, where are you from?" she asked instead, trying to force some lightheartedness into her voice. It felt strange to be making small talk after everything that had happened that day, but she still felt terrible and talking to Derek seemed to created a veneer over some of that pain, masking it just enough to keep her from drowning in her own anxiety. "Do you live in Castle Town?"
Derek looked away with something akin to shame in his eyes, and Ilia was surprised to feel his hand tighten almost imperceptibly over her own. He spoke with the air of someone admitting to a wicked secret. "Don't remember."
Her heart sank in her chest as she suddenly began to realize exactly why Derek seemed so familiar, and she asked with an anxious, uncertain voice, "That blood all over you is Link's, isn't it? How did…" Oh, goddesses, did she dare ask this? "How did it get there?"
Even before he answered, she already had an idea of what that answer might be.
"Don't remember."
His hand was gripping hers so tightly that it almost hurt. When he finally looked at her again there was dejection in his expression, and she realized that he was frightened. She squeezed his hand comfortingly. She knew what that fear felt like.
Not so long ago, before Ganondorf had taken over Hyrule and imposed twilight upon the world, peril was already finding its way into peaceful Ordon Village. It had seemed like such a beautiful summer day; that fateful hour when she and Link and some of the Ordonian children had been splashing around in the Ordon spirit spring just north of the village. Right up until the moment when a couple of boar-riding rouge Bublins charged into the clearing and started wreaking havoc…
Ilia could remember screaming and turning to run, hearing the taught twang of a bowstring and feeling the fire-sharp pain of a barbed Bublin arrow piercing her back. Falling, falling for what seemed like an eternity before finally hitting the water, and painfully pushing herself upwards just in time to see a second Bublin riding just behind the first on the boar's back raise a heavy wooden club in the air and bring it down on Link's head with a crack. The pain finally overwhelming her, and the world fading into darkness…
That was what had sent Link on his quest to begin with; the Bublins had taken her and the children captive, and he had set off to free them. But whatever had happened -and she truly wished she knew what did happen- between the time she was captured and the time Link had found her again had been far too traumatic for her to deal with as alone and scared as she was. And because she wasn't ready to deal with it yet, some inner switch in her mind had simply shut itself off. When Link finally arrived to rescue her, she had stared at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes and hadn't even remembered his name.
Oh yes, she knew exactly what that kind of fear felt like.
"Derek," she whispered, and he shuddered slightly. "Derek, what do you remember?"
Again that pause, and finally he answered in garbled, broken Hylian, "Water. Pretty water. Someone walking… The dark and the pain and the red mist and the pain." Now his grasp did hurt, but Ilia made no move to dislodge his hand, recalling the time when her own mind had been broken, and how much she would have given to have someone's hand to hold on to, to keep her anchored to something solid and real in a strangely unfamiliar world.
"Derek, do you have a… sickness of the mind?"
"It hurt…" he whimpered. "Still hurts. Hurts… Make it not hurt…" He put his free hand to his temple and closed his eyes, and Ilia pityingly squeezed his hand again.
"It's alright. You're not the only one, you know. I've been there too." And she was still there, though in a different way, because her pain was on the inside right then, and until Link woke up again it would stay inside and no one could make it not hurt. "I think the trick is to remember that it won't hurt forever."
"Il'ya?" murmured Derek. It was the first time she had ever heard him speak her name.
"Yeah?" Her answer sounded tired and slurred. Perhaps her voice was giving out as she was lulled by the motion of the wagon and sleep finally claimed her. What an odd group we make, she thought. Rusl up front staring straight ahead with his hand at his weapon, and Link lying unconscious on the floor and looking for all the world as if he were already dead, and me and Derek sitting here in the darkness and feeling alone… Only not so alone as we might have been, because we're alone together.
But Derek didn't say anything more, and it seemed to Ilia like the canvas sides of the wagon were melting away into the night, and the rocking motion caused by its jostling wheels melded seamlessly into the rise and fall of waves on the sea, and before she even realized that she had closed her eyes she was already drifting off to sleep.
{oOo}
A few hours later, as the sun rose and threw Hyrule Field into a haze of pale morning light, the wagon finally reached the green-gray shadows the canopy of leaves that marked the boundary of Faron Woods. Rusl glanced back through the canvas to see Ilia still sleeping peacefully. She had curled up next to Link on the wooden floor of the wagon, her head resting in Derek's lap, and the shadow was running a gentle finger over the curve of her jawbone as if mesmerized by the shape of her face. He stirred and looked up when Rusl's eyes passed over him.
Rusl smiled disarmingly. He had of course heard the previous night's conversation between Derek and Ilia, but it had seemed rude to interrupt that kind of moment. Now he simply greeted the boy with a friendly, "Hello there, Derek. My name's Rusl."
Derek smiled tentatively back at him.
Rusl hadn't expected an answer, and so he continued. "This place is called Faron Woods. There are a lot of beautiful places in Hyrule, but I personally think that this forest is one of the best. Want to come up front and see?" Derek cast a questioning look at Ilia, and Rusl laughed and added, "She'll be alright. That girl can sleep like a stone when she's tired enough. Come on, then."
He moved aside on his seat to allow the boy to scramble through the gap in the canvas and join him. Derek immediately took to staring around at the forest canopy with enthusiasm. High above, the trees made a pattern of green and gold light through which birds and insects flitted in great, graceful arcs. Wind shook the leaves and made a rush, rush sound to mingle with the high-pitched warble of bird-calls and chirrup of cicadas and crickets. It was indeed beautiful.
They remained this way, sitting side-by-side in silence, with Rusl guiding the horses and Derek staring with awe at the leafy canopy above until at last they reached the outskirts of Ordon village, lit with a peaceful golden glow in the morning sunlight. From the look on Derek's face, Rusl could tell at once that it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.
{oOo}
Link slept for a long time, and as the days passed the people of Ordon had to wonder if he would ever awaken. His wounds were healing, true, but from the deathly pallor of his skin, who was to say there wasn't something wrong with him internally, something the Castle Town doctor had missed? All anyone could do was wait and see.