7

As the day continued, my spirits heightened with each passing mile. Despite my initial shock at the depth of Hyrule's problems, I found it impossible to remain upset. The world felt different here on the highway. The spaces seemed more open and all the sensations were sharper. I came to enjoy the clean, gentle air and unfiltered sunlight. I could see for miles from atop the wagon, the grasslands stretching out from the road in every direction. The day became hot and vaguely humid.

Everything served to remind me that this was indeed a living, vital world – and not at all like any video game. Every sound, every shape, and every scent hammered against me until I was paradoxically numb with it all. This was real, so real, and it drew me into a kind of pleasant trance.

So much to see and smell and experience! So much to tell me that I was awake and alive and moving through a startlingly new world.

A bronze-shelled beetle the size of a robin lighting on the roof of the wagon to rest its wings. A swath of flowers the size of several football fields, dancing with the breeze in waves of pearlescent white and deep red. An intricate covered bridge that arced over the course of a shining river twice the width of the highway. Steeples and slate rooftops, glittering in the distance.

Unfortunately, the fugue was transitory. Reality – as is its wont – gradually lost its charm. For every strange, jewel-like insect there was a patch of open sores on the face of a passing farmhand. For every whiff of summer and flowers carried on the breeze, there was the slow realization that no one in my party was wearing deodorant. Even Malora, who had carried with her a kind of earthy musk, started to smell a bit rank as the sun climbed the sky. More than a day out from a shower, I wasn't exactly a fine rose myself.

The more I became accustomed to Hyrule not as some dreamlike ideal, but as a blunt and immediate reality, the more I had to face the fact that I had to interact with it. Directly. There was no controller here, no handy interface and inventory screen.

And no continues, I realized darkly. When my thoughts turned back to Karrik and his moblins, the watchtowers that dotted the highway, and the tales of Ganon's war, I sobered quickly. I tried to focus on more immediate things.

And so I turned for a time to observing my comrades, in an effort to know them more fully. It was all too easy to distance myself from them, after all. I looked at Malora and Tash and saw a pair of figures as strange and pale as ghosts. I found myself averting my eyes from them at points during our journey, if only to banish the pounding sense of cognitive dissonance that they summoned within my head. A plump, jolly man and his gregarious daughter. Oh, there were differences – many differences indeed – but these were, on the surface, carbon copies of the same people I had met through a television screen when I was only a teenager. I tried repeatedly not to think about, because the thought made my stomach do greasy somersaults.

It helped to focus on all the things that set them apart – those things that could remind me that I was dealing with honest flesh and blood. Little details: Body odor. Strands of Malora's hair as they caught the breeze and tickled against my cheek. The uneven dye-work on the blue threads of her dress. Grass stains. Old acne pockmarks across Tash's cheekbones. A white, almost invisible curl of scar tissue on Malora's chin.

And then there was Ingo.

The more I watched Ingo, the more he subtly terrified me. There was a cold, calm cruelty to his movements. He took in everything with eyes that were at once expressionless and judgmental. Unhurried and unflinching, his manner was as solid as a drill sergeant. When I thought back to his counterpart in the video games, my guts did more than just clench – they seemed to retreat entirely, off into some cavernous void beyond my spinal column.

After the dour turn that it had previously taken, I tried to keep the present conversation as light as possible. Over the next two hours or so, I listened as Malora and Tash bandied anecdotes and factoids back and forth, only raising my voice to ask an occasional question. Now that they knew just how ignorant their new acquaintance was in the ways of the world, my companions were fairly enthusiastic in pointing out and explaining any odd thing that happened to catch their attention. Tash took to the task especially well – though in such strange and sudden bursts that it was hard to keep up.

Here was a road leading to a brewery, and there was a bush whose berries were poisonous unless first soaked in milk. Over yonder stood a copse of trees called nomad spruce; back yonder was a sign pointing the way to a country temple. That there road led to a village named Ballysong, and beyond that was a lake that some men said was haunted.

And so on. I caught as much as I could, hoping against hope that I might hear some clue about the larger questions that dogged me. None came.

As the sun reached its zenith, we stopped the wagon in a depression just off the highway and ate a meal of bread, cheese, and salted beef. Not half-bad. I shared a canteen of water with Malora and accepted a sip off a bulging leather bladder passed to me by Tash. It contained a strong, sour wine that made my head swim the moment I swallowed a mouthful.

Caught in the unexpected rush of the spirits, it took me a moment to realize that the conversation had turned to stranger – and weightier – tidings.

"Did you hear the news from Lowen Town?" Tash nodded to Ingo.

"Aye," Ingo mumbled. "Ingo heard."

A few feet away, sitting with her dress spread out on the grass, Malora nodded soberly. "Goddesses, we can only hope . . ." she sighed.

"Don't go thinkin' it were real, child," Ingo said. He chomped at a chunk of bread, chewed aggressively, and continued, "If it weren't really him the first time or the second, likely it ain't him the ninth or tenth."

Malora sighed, "You probably have the right of it . . ."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

The redhead's eyes flicked to me nervously. She played with the edge of her dress as she spoke. "Just gossip, really. It's nothing."

I grinned. "C'mon. Tell me."

Across the little clearing, Ingo's expression darkened. He sipped at some water and said nothing.

Making an attempt at a smile and failing, Malora said, "Oh, the usual. Someone in Lowen Town – that's down south on the River Lepsis, if you don't know – claims that they saw the Hero a month or two back. They claim he's out lookin' for the Lost Woods, an' the Master Sword with 'em."

Stones tumbled from one side of my stomach to the other. I managed to keep a straight face. "So he's around too, huh? Link?"

A honking, dismissive laugh drew my attention to Tash. "Ah, who knows? We've been waitin' for him to appear for goin' on five years and so far all we got is lies an' rumors. A few fools have all but stood on top o' the mountains and yelled it to the realm, but in the end they were all pretenders. Every once and a while you hear somethin' real promisin' and get to hopin' that the Hero's gonna go north and tear down Ganon once and for all . . ." Tash seemed to deflate as he let loose a weary sigh. "But the armies o' Hyrule still sit along No Man's Land and don't move. An' Ganon's raider's still come south to plunder. So your guess is as good as ours regardin' the Link."

Since the talk was leaning that way, I asked, "You know what I don't get? Why is his name always 'Link?' I mean – how does that happen? He shows up a hundred times over the, uh, centuries, and every fucking time he's named 'Link?'"

Malora fell back as if struck, roaring and snorting delighted laughter. When at last she took control of herself, she crossed her arms and said between giggles, "Oh, you're silly. That's just – heehee – very silly."

"What?" I asked indignantly.

Malora grinned. A small dark chunk of jerky stuck out between her incisors. "His name isn't 'Link!' That's the title. The Hero's title. Haha. Like 'Sir' or 'Count' or 'Lord.' The Hero is literally connected to the Triforce." She seemed to grow more serious. "The will and the power of the goddesses flow through the Hero. He is the Link to the Triforce. He bears its mark and heralds its glory. So when the tales call him 'the Link,' it's not his name. They all had different names – just lost to time."

I nodded slowly. "That . . . makes sense, I suppose." Never mind that my tales had left out the operational "the" of the title. But no matter.

"We mostly just know 'em by their adventures, anyway. They say that every time he rises, the Hero comes from low birth, does great deeds, defeats Ganon, and then disappears. So we know 'em only by the times they lived in and the things they did. An' some are more famous than others. You heard of the Hero of Time, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, of course. He's the most famous o' the bunch! An' you probably know the Hero of the Darkness, the Hero of the Winds, and the Hero of the Sleeping Bride. But there were others. Hundreds, maybe.

"My ol' teacher Uma said that history is funny. Mostly it gets murky the farther back you go, but there are also patches o' fog along the way. People just . . . forget things. So we only know the titles o' some of 'em. There's the Hero of Twilight and the Hero of the Dust, for instance – nobody I ever asked knew who they were or what they did. They say that the most recent Link was called the Hero of the Tower, but all anyone knows about him is that he defeated Ganon somewhere in the east."

"But this one, well, has to be around, right?"

Everyone shrugged. Ingo made an unfamiliar, weak-handed gesture with three clenched fingers against his temple. Fuck if I know, it seemed to indicate.

Malora shifted her weight and placed her hands on her knees. "You could say that every man, woman, an' child wants to know that, Linus. It's said that only the Link can defeat Ganon . . ."

I shook my head slightly and said, "Seriously, though. Are people really just sitting around and waiting for the Hero to show up and save the day? That's, uh, not a very fucking efficient use of your time."

Malora winced.

Tash murmured, "Aye, it's true. King Daphnes ain't makin' many friends with this 'wait an' see' policy o' his. Bu it ain't as if there's no one willin' to step up and fight the good fight." He gestured with the mouth of his wineskin. "Even though the legions don't do much fightin' these days – just sittin' and holdin' – a few still cross the lines to knock Ganon in the jaw."

"How's that?" I asked.

"Wellll, there's Sull Cooper an' his crew. They say he runs food n' clothing to the few folk still livin' in the occupied provinces. Then there's Captain Almadan – a smuggler before the war, they say. Since Ganon don't have no navy to speak of, Almadan makes raids up an' down the Torn Coast and whittles at the mobs from the east. It's said that Sir Enton Lomax ain't come back across the lines since the Battle o' the Titan. His men have dogged Ganon's troops even worse than the raiders hit us. Same with Count Brasco, the aeromancer – but now that I think about it, he's mostly in the west, around the Stony Vales."

"Tch," Ingo grunted. "Mercenaries and glory-seekin' fools. Ain't a proper soldier in the bunch, save Sir Enton."

Tash ignored his friend, continuing to tick off names by rote memory. "The lads o' the Fifth Legion make raids across the foothills, so I hear. An' then there's a fellow – a bandit, some say – that folk just call 'The Shiekah.' Heard a rumor that he took the head o' one o' the mob generals this summer. Ooh! And they say that there's a band o' zora led by one o' their princes – Lum or Tum or whatever fish-names those lot have – who swam upriver during last year's rains and have been drawin' blood ever since!"

This seemed to amuse him immensely. He laughed throatily, slapped his belly, and took a long swig from the wineskin. Tash proffered it to me as he wiped his lips with the back of a huge hand. I declined.

Shortly after the noon meal, I learned the proper use of a chamber pot. It was a humbling experience.

When we embarked again, I insisted on walking beside the wagon for a time. I needed to clear my head a bit after only a few pulls from that wineskin, and I figured a brisk walk would do the trick. After all, I was no stranger to traveling distances by foot – even though it had been some years since my days running cross-country.

Despite the wagon's decidedly ponderous pace, it still turned out to be a struggle to keep up. The duffle bag was not designed to be hauled great distances by hand and bumped awkwardly against me whenever I changed my stride. Eventually, I had to beat back my apprehension and hand the bag up to Malora so she could stow it beside her. Within fifteen minutes, the long-ignored muscles in my calves and feet began to tingle and ache. It was a dull, familiar pain that brought to mind running shorts, group drills, and cool autumn mornings. A face: Slim, tanned, and smiling. Jennifer.

Don't be a pussy, Linus. I bobbled on my heels as I went, trying to resurrect the old exercises and fall into proven movements. This was only walking. This was just a determined hike. How many miles had I moved at once in high school? How many miles of marathon had I run that first semester of college? This was nothing. This was just a smooth, nearly-level stroll through the countryside.

Then why did my Achilles tendons burn? Why did my hamstrings ache? I gritted my teeth as dust puffed up from the road with each footstep and powdered my already-filthy jeans. The plains rolled past me. I sweated and cursed the last four almost completely sedentary years.

After a time, the initial shock of stretching muscles evened out into a long subtle throb. My footsteps grew surer and more precise. Good. Good. This was good.

About an hour and a half after lunch, a low, churning rumble began in the north. At least, I thought it was the north – we had been following the highway so faithfully that I might have been fooled by its many curves and small turns. The sound grew with every step. At first, just a formless bass din, like the kind of thunder that never matches up with a flash of lightning . . . and then rising, approaching, and resolving itself into a storm of individual sounds: Horseshoes slamming hardpan; hot breath snorting out flared nostrils; the toneless metallic rattle of jostled steel.

I, the wagon, and our whole curious crew passed over a stunted rise in the road. Below, the highway dropped lazily into a shallow bowl dotted with ponds. About a half mile away, a column of horsemen charged down the highway toward us, growing larger and larger by the second. Though I kept moving, I watched intently as they came. I felt my steps grow slow and wooden.

I don't remember if I got a full count of the men that galloped past on their sleek, wiry mounts. Thirty, perhaps forty men at most. When their outriders saw us in the road, it only took a barked command to almost instantaneously reform the column into a tight, spear-like line down the opposite side of the highway. At their forefront rode a man in ornate plate armor covered in enameled scrollwork. A pole rose from a bolted sconce on the back of his armor, and from it fluttered a long, pale green banner. It followed him like the plume of some immense, fantastic bird of legend.

All of the other riders wore mail under doublets or padded tunics. A dozen shades of light green flew past. They carried spears and halberds, immense longbows, and quiver after quiver of arrows. I saw boomerangs, bolos, and snares attached to belts and hanging from their saddles.

Within the space of less than a minute, they were past.

"Were those . . .?" I craned my neck back to watch them pass over a rise in the road, hooves thundering.

"Light cavalry!" Ingo shouted. He walked backward now, in order to track the last of the riders as they disappeared. "Bearin' Lord Eldin's banner, too. Probably out lookin' for the same buggers that set on us yesterday."

The cloud of dust the riders had kicked up still lingered over the road. Light sparkled and danced among the falling motes. I stared after the vanished soldiers, wondering suddenly why I hadn't flagged them down and handed them the sword in my duffel bag. Here you are. You fuckers need this more than I do.

Soon after, Ingo called a short stop and I decided to retake my spot atop the bucket seat for a time. I relished the rest and laid my head back in blank-eyed silence.

Just as they had the day before, gray storm clouds grew on the horizon like the caps of some godlike fungus.

"Do you think it will rain?" I asked as I gazed west.

"Certainly hope so," Tash said. "It's gettin' on toward autumn an' the monsoon's late in comin'."

It was later, perhaps two or two-thirty by my vague reckoning, when I caught sight of the creature as it sunned itself atop a high rock. We were passing through a flat, open expanse of prairie whose surface flowed and rippled like a green tide. Shoots of grass as tall as a twelve-year old crowded to the edge of the road and seemed to sway in homage as we passed. Round blue flowers bobbed atop stems even taller than the wagon itself. Huge outcrops of banded gray stone stabbed up through the sea of green at random intervals. One of them, a jutting formation that looked like some snaggle tooth or talon, stood very close to the road. I didn't even notice the animal perched on its apex until it shifted position.

When it did, sunlight caught its pitted gray shell and summoned bands of strange, iridescent color. They played over its sharp curves and shone like foxfire, disappearing in an instant. About the size of a large cat or runty dog, the creature had a squashed, crablike appearance. A striped, tapering abdomen extended from the back of the main shell and looked more like the hind portions of an insect or spider than any crab that I knew.

As I cocked my head and leaned forward, two subtle plates of armor at the base of the creature's shell pulled apart and revealed a big, staring eye. At this distance, I could only see its hot, sapphire blue expression of interest. I suddenly was sure – absolutely certain – that its pupil would be bifurcated. A single, baleful eye in a bed of wet flesh. Some kind of octorock?

The wagon drew closer. I watched as the creature quivered and seemed to shrink back on itself. Plates of shiny gray chitin closed over its curious eyeball. It twitched. The creature's whole body shuddered, and I watched as eight powerful legs unfolded, flexed, and sprung. And at once, the creature was launching through the air, sailing in a graceful calculated arc, a mere silhouette against a porcelain sky. It fell like a skydiver, limbs spread out in some bastard semblance of exultation. There was a soft swish as it passed through the surface of the ocean of grass. And then it was gone.

"Holy shit . . ." I whispered. Beside me, I heard Malora stifle a giggle. She was getting better at it.

Not an octorock. Familiar, though.

I struggled for the word. Tektite. Yes. Tektite. Pixilated versions of what I had just seen danced and leapt through my mind's eye.

"Was that . . ." I licked my lips and cleared my throat. "Was that a tektite?"

When I turned back to receive my companions' answer, I was greeted with looks of soft confusion. Malora still grinned slightly, as if she had just recalled some long-forgotten joke.

"Don't know what a tech-tie is, son," Tash said. "You have those about your parts? That there was a gohma. Maybe 'tektie' is another word for that?" He smiled encouragingly.

I felt my lips twist into a frown without even thinking about it. After a moment, I forced my face back into a more neutral expression. At least I knew what he was talking about, more or less.

"Oh, a gohma," I said, slathering mock realization over my voice. "Yeah, I heard about those. Like I said, it all mixes together. Don't know much about the animals here. We, uh, don't see many things like gohmas where I'm from. Mostly just, uh, coyotes and shit."

"What about tektites?" asked Malora. Hungry curiosity perked her features.

"I said I was thinking of something else," I said brusquely. Too brusquely: Malora's eager expression collapsed like a swatted house of cards.

Fucking hell, you're terrible at this. Damage control, shithead.

"Uh, which is to say," I bumbled, "I'm really interested in hearing more. What the hell are they? Spiders?"

A familiar look passed over Malora's features. For a moment, I couldn't place it . . . and then realized that it was the same one she had given me the night before, when I had lost my shit under the demon face of the moon. "Not really," she said coolly. As she spoke, she seemed to relax a little. "They're more like octorocks or silver-skimmers. Do you know those?"

Unwilling to complicate things, I nodded.

"You don't see 'em much alone," Malora continued. "They mostly run in packs and stick to the river lands and hill country. That one didn't look so big. Probably young. Maybe a lone gohma, runnin' without a clan to call its own." For a single inscrutable moment, Malora's eyes narrowed. Her face went hard and solemn. She suddenly leaned back and rolled her neck, her hair drifting away in a red flood as she did. I heard something make an unsettling pop. When she opened her eyes and faced me, her voice was much cheerier. "Anyway, they're pretty harmless on their own. We have trouble with 'em on the ranch from time to time – comin' in at night an' makin' off with one o' the calves or the old milk cows. Two summers ago they got one o' Springleaf's newborn foals. Poor thing."

"Bunch o' buggerin' monsters. If I ever catch the one that did that, I'll dig out its eye with a hot poker – I swear to Din," Tash seethed. Obviously not a fan.

"What do you think about them, Ingo?" I asked, probing.

Ingo shrugged. "Ingo thinks they're right tasty. Especially with a bit o' cracked pepper and butter." His half-glimpsed smile summoned goose bumps across my forearms.

The rain passed over us mid-afternoon, turning the dusty highway into a stroke of moist clay. Even though the drizzle was warm and brief, it slowed the wagon's passage and covered my tennis shoes in drying brown splotches. I was walking again when it came, and hoisted myself back up onto the wagon when it became obvious that it was best to avoid the wet road. Ingo soldiered through it.

As thorough as the storm had been, its meager duration concerned Tash and Ingo. I listened to them banter back and forth about the possibility of a drought while marveling at the intense greenness of the surrounding plains. You want to see dry? Come to my part of the world, fellas. Come see the great concrete desert.

The highway, red and wet as an endless serpent's tongue, wove on. The air tasted of wet grass and strange pollen. There was a curious smell on the air – one that I associated with late summer in Minnesota.

A caravan of ten wagons crossed our path, moving through a small junction west to east. They bore the same green banner as the earlier cavalry. This one showed a device on its field of hazy green – a black falcon, one wing extended and a bundle of arrows clutched between its talons. One of the drovers tipped his wide-brimmed black hat to Tash and smiled toothlessly. And then they were on their way, and so were we.

It was a short time later that I noticed the next in the day's long line of small wonders. The marching lines of clouds between the sun and the horizon had given the light a soft, dim hue. Despite the fact that it was only beginning to edge toward late afternoon, everything east of the highway seemed bathed in twilight. The plains in that direction worked themselves up in grudging folds, forming the periphery of what appeared to be a sparsely-wooded bit of hill country. As I looked that direction, distant clouds must have parted and let loose the sun's full bounty. I stared in amazement.

Graceful, rounded shapes rose just above the eastern horizon. Their sides glimmered shades of wet green and deep gold in the light of afternoon. The road took a turn and climbed, directing the wagon toward this sudden apparition. The shapes gained depth and focus, resolving into exquisitely sculpted towers and sleek ramparts. They jumbled and flowed together seemingly at random. Every surface shimmered as if it were covered in a thin layer of water.

As the strange structure grew larger and larger, I heard Tash mutter, "Good. Good. Not far now."

I was slightly disappointed when the highway swung back and dropped into a northerly line between the hills. Though the jewel-like towers stayed in view, it was obvious that the road wouldn't take us directly past them.

Before I could ask what I was looking at, Malora piped up. She was starting to anticipate my blank moments. "That's a fairy colony out there. Which one is it, father? I can't remember the name."

Tash grumbled, "Bruuvas Colony, was it? I think that's the one. Means we're not that far out from Oloro."

"Fairies?"

"Aye. If we're lucky, we'll make it down the – oh bleeding bloody hell."

Up ahead, a trio of glowing orbs floated gracefully through the air. They swooped down the road toward us, coming fast. I blinked, and suddenly they were almost on top of us. Ingo swore beneath his breath and Malora groaned.

They were all a pulsing blue, each a different shade and intensity than the others. The wisp in the center had a curious green tint to it, like sea foam. It traveled above a huge dark object that I had somehow missed – perhaps in the instant of shocked recognition as they had first appeared. It took a moment to realize what that object was: A heavy wooden trunk, lacquered black and gold. Two of the balls of blue light hovered on either side of it, its handles outstretched. I blinked again, heard the oxen grunt and chuff in irritation, and before I knew it that dark trunk floated no more than four feet from where I sat. It bobbed back through the air in perfect synch with the still-moving wagon. Soft neon light shone along its painted edges.

"Hello sirs!" a smooth, quick voice called, "And hello, maiden! Pujho Pyal is the name, and fine crafted wares are my game! Care for a souvenir from your visit to fairy country?"

I realized that I was gaping like an idiot. Up this close, the air around each incandescent orb shimmered like a heat mirage. When I looked directly at them, the shifting blue light dimmed considerably. Within those fields of starry blue and rippling green, I saw . . . tiny men. Each stood perhaps five or six inches tall – larger than they first seemed. They had thin, spindly bodies and vague faces that were featureless but for large, dark eyes. Crystalline wings sprouted from their shoulders and beat the air in furious silver-white blurs.

Fairies. Real fairies. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle! The grin came on unbidden. I felt light-headed.

"Urrr, nothin' for us, thank you kindly," I heard Tash say.

The two fairies to either side of the traveling case were, so far as I could tell, naked. They each held one of the trunk's leather handles in their tiny arms. Their wings fluttered more or less lazily, as if it didn't take much effort for either of them to keep their cargo afloat and to match the pace of the wagon. Tufts of gossamer hair sprouted from their heads. Both watched us with emotionless, alien eyes.

"Oh, sir! You don't know what you're missing!" Pujho Pyal purred. He was the third fairy – the one hovering above the trunk. When I turned my eyes to him, I very nearly burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Pujho Pyal was as ostentatious as the two other fairies were unadorned. At the heart of his radiant field of blue-green, he wore what looked like a set of doll's clothes. A black suit hung off his delicate frame, threadbare at the seams. A little black cravat wrapped about his neck. Most absurdly, a teeny-tiny top hat perched on his head at a jaunty angle. His skin was smooth, lustrous silver and his eyes were pools of liquid gold. When he spoke, I saw small lips part as if from behind a wall of television static.

"Good sir! Fine sir!" he barked. "You don't want to miss out on these amazing deals. Why, let me show you . . ." The fairy darted forward with a low, airy hum. The brass clasps on the front of the trunk popped up even as Tash was making an unintelligible noise of disapproval. Pujho pulled back the lid of the trunk to reveal an interior lined with patchy red velvet and filled to the brim with an incredible (and incomprehensible) array of knickknacks.

Clutching his top hat, Pujho dove into the open case and emerged holding what appeared to be a clay disc, painted green and stamped with the same falcon symbol we had seen on the banners of the caravan. "How about one of our famous 'Eldin Charms,' sir?" he said enthusiastically. "Also available as a pendant! Perfect for warding off shades and ghasts. I'm givin' it to you for my special out-of-towner price – eight rupees!"

"No, no," Tash said exhaustedly.

There was something . . . peculiar . . . about the way the fairy spoke. He began to swing in and out of the chest with alarming rapidity, emerging with some trinket or another. His voice was loud, strong, and slightly boyish. There was a soft, almost inaudible buzz to it, especially around the consonants. But, the more I concentrated on the words, the more a sliver of pain began to work its way into the space behind my eyes. I found that the effect increased as I stared hard at the fairies themselves, taking them in from head to almost-invisible toes. Along with the pain came an eerie sensation – like staring into the sun too long, or squinting at one of those hidden 3-D pictures.

"Dude, it is not too late to check out our awesome line of merchandise!" Suddenly, Pujho Pyal bobbed about a foot from my face. He held out a necklace of stone beads on a coiled hemp string – the kind of thing that would not be at all out of place in any den of pot smoking hippies.

"What?" I managed.

"We have some fantastic shit here, amigo. You should check it out!" The fairy seemed to lean back, pleased with itself.

"What did you just call me?" I murmured.

"Amigo? You look like an 'amigo,' man. Like a pretty cool dude."

My skull suddenly felt about three sizes too small. My vision swam. I ran my fingers through my hair. Suddenly I was back in California, haggling with the owner of the local head shop.

"Naw," I finally croaked. "Naw, I'm good. Don't have any money on me, anyway."

The fairy in the top hat fluttered upward and considered me with golden eyes. "That's a fuckin' shame, brah. But it's cool. It's cool. Just come back and see me next time you roll through!" Pujho Pyal tossed the necklace back in the trunk, slammed the lid shut, and turned to his fairy companions. "C'mon," he hissed. "These deadbeats can't see a good deal even when it's shining in their faces."

He bowed in midair, then took off across the road with his comrades and his trunk in hot pursuit. I twisted around to watch the three of them become spheres of colored light, sailing back down the highway. Soon enough, the road curved around a hillside and they were gone.

A few minutes of uncomfortable silence later, Malora ventured, "First time with fairies?"

I rubbed my forehead. A phantom ache still crawled somewhere between the bridge of my nose and my hairline. "Yeah."

She smiled wanly. "They take some getting used to. Anything as magical as they are does." She paused, pursing her lips. "You look like you seen your mother crawling out of her grave."

Best just bite the bullet. I said, "He talked just like someone from . . . from my part of the world."

Malora nodded. "Aye. Don't fret over it, though. Everyone hears fairies a bit different than everyone else. It's part o' their magic. Uma told me once that they can't speak normal Hylian. Not really. So they use some kind o' magic to make it sound like they do." She grimaced a bit. "It's a bit unnerving the first time."

No shit.

Tash hunched over and made a sour expression. "Nayru take those bugs. Bunch o' cheats and liars, the lot of 'em. I always feel like somethin's walked over my grave after talkin' to 'em."

"Oh, father," Malora sighed. "They aren't that bad." She didn't sound as if she was very committed to what she was saying.

The sky was just beginning to pull the cloak of sunset over its shoulders when we came in sight of Oloro Town. The plains evened out and began a slow climb up to a distant ridgeline. Spikes of black rock sprouted along the highway, twisting and clawing into the air like petrified gouts of fire. When the wagon reached the top of the rise, I felt my breath catch. I let it out through my nostrils in a thin whine.

A great, circular valley stretched for miles below a curved ridge of volcanic rock. Its relatively flat bottom was divided by roads, fields, and the green tufts of flowering trees. At the center of the valley sat an ovoid blob of buildings, hemmed in on all sides by a rock wall and slapdash stockades of raw timber. Tendrils of smoke and steam rose from tiny chimneys. From here, it all looked like some kind of half-assed diorama or matte painting.

It needed no introduction: This was the day's destination. Tash said a few brief, exhausted words, consulted with Ingo, and then started the wagon down a series of switchbacks. It was about a five or six hundred foot drop from the top of the ridge to the bottom. The highway narrowed and wound its way past snarls of volcanic glass and cracked basalt boulders. Hardy trees spread from the valley wall like daredevil climbers. When we passed beneath their ropy canopies, I smelled something thick and vital, like pine sap mixed with oleander.

The floor of the valley was much vaster than it had appeared from above. Once we hit bottom, it seemed to open up and yawn out from horizon to horizon. Smaller roads and tracks branched off the highway, stabbing out toward the dark, distant ridges. There were stone silos perched above elevated fields of swaying wheat and barley. Some miles from the road I saw perfect lines of trees that had to be orchards. The sun shone yellow and umber across the surfaces of what looked like vast rice paddies, sunk away below the roads.

"They seem to grow a lot," I said dully.

"They do. It's good soil. Very good," Malora said, nodding

"Too bad they gotta divert all their water from rivers outside the valley!" Ingo grumbled.

Malora made a face at his back.

The town grew as well. Those toy buildings suddenly stood up to heights of three and even four stories. The ramshackle wall surrounding the town, all timber palisades and huge blocks of quarried stone, took on a more forbidding face as we approached. It suddenly stretched much farther than I had first thought. The highway cut right into the middle of it, disappearing between two rough but spectacularly thick gates. I saw the faces of sentries prowling the walls and watching with vultures' eyes from half-hidden watchtowers.

No wonder: Among the rows and roads were the black, moss-dappled skeletons of buildings that had burned down to their foundations some time ago. One of the great silos on a side road was pockmarked and half-collapsed. I didn't need to ask the Lons to know that Oloro town had known the touch of Ganon's southern raiders. Now they were taking no chances.

Below the walls of Oloro, to either side of the road, were yet more of the flooded rice paddies. Down in the paddies, women in broad straw hats worked in even, regimented lines. They stood up to their thighs in bright water. Their instruments rose and fell in neat procession. The sun saturated the waters and painted their silhouettes with fire. On our approach, I heard a raucous gale of laughter, the quick and unintelligible babble of delighted conversation. Still the tools arced and fell, black lines on liquid flame. One of the voices suddenly rose above the others and I caught words – sung words – and quickly lost them. All that was left was their music.

And soon enough, other voices joined the first – uncertain, then in harmony. Some smooth as olive oil and others growling and toneless. Some shrill, some melodious. In the end, they all wove together in a single sinuous tongue, familiar and yet so foreign. It rose up and flowed over the highway – inundating it, smothering it, swallowing it.

The wagon neared the town. About us, the highway grew crowded with people eager to end their day within the Oloro's walls.

At first, I thought a pair of squat alabaster gargoyles flanked the gates. It was only after a half-minute of surreal study – and when one of them blinked – that I realized that I was looking at two immense, gray-white gorons. Both of them stood over six feet tall and had faces like monuments abandoned during the early stages of their sculpting. They wore nothing but dusty loincloths and gripped lances that were half-again as tall as they were.

Goron bodies were strange things. On their backs were banded, iron gray shells that resembled nothing so much as bloated pill bugs. That same chitinous material spread in patches across their shoulders, knees, and underbelly. Their skin – if it was, strictly speaking, skin – looked like pale patent leather that had recently had a thorough oiling. There was something about them that felt papery and sterile.

Above the tumult, the women's song rose and conquered. As I stared bug-eyed at the goron sentries, its melody surrounded me like a warm shroud and made me go pleasantly numb. When one of the huge guards nodded at me with eyes as utterly black as crude oil, I smiled dreamily and returned the gesture.

With the work song still flowing back and forth in my ears, we passed through the gates and into Oloro Town.