Despite the amount of *life* that has happened since I first started this story, I'm still determined to finish it. Some of these chapters have been written with years in between them; I've tried to clean up any inconsistencies, but please forgive and point them out if you find any. Y'all are awesome if anyone's reading, and if not, I'm still excited for upcoming events. I'm going to try to hold myself to an update every two weeks. That's doable, right? Even if I work 60 hours a week? Sigh.


That morning, there was silence around the camp. Everyone was thinking of yesterday's disastrous events, and even the twins' father, who was normally enthusiastic about digging up the past, seemed not to want to go any further.

"I don't get it..." said Adelsa quietly to Link. The two were sitting next to each other in a circle of silent men. "The Ocarina that the Hero played should have been in his final resting place. Or with the Princess. So... where is it?"

Destroyed, probably, was Link's guess. He too was downhearted, the weight of his thoughtless deeds in the dark temple heavy on him.

Adelsa rolled her eyes and smacked him gently. "Don't let one failure get to you, or you're a bigger wimp than I thought. Come! Think! What would the Hero of Time do?"

The words stirred something in Link, and he sat a little straighter. What would the Hero do? Assume the Ocarina really did exist and wasn't destroyed or lost forever. Might... he have had descendants? Passed it on to them?

"There, that's a start," said Adelsa encouragingly. "Or, he could have hidden it from evil. The legend does say that the Ocarina of Time was one of the keys to the Sacred Realm."

That didn't help them very much, though. There was no way to trace the genealogy of the Hero of Time, and they had not the foggiest idea of where to begin searching if he had hidden it. The layout of the land had changed so much since the great flooding of the world.

"Well, all we would need is a map of the old world," said Adelsa practically. Link looked blankly at her. She made it sound as if maps of the land three thousand years ago could be found around the nearest corner.

But Adelsa snapped her fingers. "Where did you get the legend of the Ocarina of Time in the first place? Who else do you think collects so many treasures from the ancient world?"

Realization dawned on the elfin-eared boy. Of course. The ancient woman who had told him about the Ocarina in Skyhaven would surely know something about that.

By now they realized the rest of the group was listening eagerly to their conversation, as their voices rose with excitement. A tentative smile blossomed on Link's father's face.

"The woman who told you of the cure, you think she can help again?" he asked eagerly.

Link nodded. Adelsa smiled reassuringly.

"As much as I hate to admit it, she knows a lot more than I do," she admitted. "The best thing to do would go back to her. Maybe..." Her face darkened. "She might even know about that... thing... in the tomb," she finished in almost a whisper.

Diron grew somber. "All right, it's decided. We will return to Skyhaven."

Link looked up. We?

His father nodded firmly. "I won't abandon you. This time I'll come with. The men can stay. I trust you," he said to his fellow teammates around the circle, "my son will be safe with you." They smiled and nodded. He added, "You are free to continue excavating as you please, and will be compensated accordingly."

There was a bit of nervous shifting at that, and mutters that they would prefer to make important discoveries while their leader was here.

Link's mouth twisted in a bitter smile. They had learned their lesson about delving into dark unknown places all too well.

Diron stood then, stretching briskly. "There's no time to lose. Pack and we'll be off at once."

It did not take them long to get their things together. Soon they were off along the path that Link had taken only a few days before, headed once more to the valley of commerce.

They met no one on the road they took to Skyhaven. Soon the sounds of the market, cries of hawkers and squabbles of bargainers, reached their ears, and soon after the smells hit them, meat cooking, bread baking, people sweating, and animals working. It was a somewhat pleasant mixture of sensual stimulants that no other place in the world could produce. There were no towns that Link had visited that were bigger than this.

Link had changed out of his green clothes from before, so as to avoid attention to those who might still remember the shadow-beast that chased the young man in green, and now simply wore a soft white shirt, buckled with leather and black breeches. Adelsa beside him had on a pale pink dress that reached below the knees, sleeveless, the kind a farmer's wife might wear on a fine day to the market. Diron sported a lightweight navy blue jacket over a white shirt and brown leggings. All wore well-worn walking boots. So it was that they attracted no particular attention as they entered town.

Adelsa directed them over to the potions shop, but it was closed. Frowning, Adelsa instead headed for Mrs. Bakura's house. She knocked curtly on the old wooden door.

"Mrs. Bakura? Sorry to bother you... it's Adelsa. I've returned. We need your help."

There was no answer.

She tried again. "Mrs. Bakura?"

Still nothing.

Exasperated, she tried the door and found it open. The blond-haired girl stuck her head in and peered around the gloomy room.

"Are you all right? Where are you?"

"Should we go in?" asked Diron.

"I'll go in. You two stay here," ordered Adelsa as she slipped through the doorway. They waited a moment in silence. Then suddenly the door opened wide, and Adelsa stood there, looking stunned.

"She's... she's..."

In dread, the two passed through the door, and she, as one sleepwalking, led them to a small bedroom.

There lay the old woman on the bed, eyes closed, as if she was sleeping peacefully. But her chest was not rising and falling, and she did not move at all.

"Oh no..." whispered Diron. Link bowed his head.

"We were too late..." whispered Adelsa. "She was old..." She turned away.

As Link lifted his head, though, he noticed something. Although there was no expression on the old woman's face, he noticed that her hands gripped the edges of the bed tightly, even in death, so hard that her fingernails had torn some of the sheets. He pointed this out to his father.

His father looked grim. "It might not have been a natural death, then. She was clearly frightened, to be holding on so hard..."

Though she paused long, as if she could not bring herself to acknowledge what had happened, Adelsa bent examined the body carefully and respectfully.

"No marks..." she said at last. "I would rule out poison, because most I know would make you convulse in the end, and no one hit her, so... I would guess magic, black magic of some sort." She stood abruptly and looked away.

Link looked around guardedly. Would the killer still be here? His hand gripped the hilt of his sword.

"I doubt it," said Diron after a tense moment. "Since we stepped in unawares, the murderer had plenty of time to get us, or perhaps set a trap. But we have been here long enough and nothing has happened."

"We must still be on our guard," said Adelsa. "Whoever killed her did not want her telling us something. Or perhaps they knew that we were coming. The bed is still ever so slightly warm."

That sent a chill down each of their spines.

"We should get out of here," Diron muttered, glancing warily at the suddenly forbidding shadows in the room.

Not until they'd gotten what they'd come for, insisted Link, although not without a tinge of unease. They had to find the map.

"Right," said Adelsa, a little too loudly, and led them quickly outside the room, going to one of the many dusty cabinets that littered the foyer. Her motions were almost frantic, almost overdone. She opened a drawer at random and sneezed.

"Here are some—ah-CHOO!—papers we could look through." She pulled out the entire mess and tossed it haphazardly to the floor, shoving the drawer shut and pulling open another. Link and Diron were soon on their hands and knees, rifling through the ancient parchment in the dim light and scanning each leaf to see if it held any clues.

"Adelsa, slow down!" coughed Link's father as the girl yanked open yet another set of drawers on a desk. "This is valuable history! One hasty move could rip and destroy entire centuries, or worse, the map we're searching for."

She took a deep breath, and forced trembling hands to slow.

It was Diron who found it first with a triumphant cry. "Here! In Hylian script it reads: A Map of the Blessed Realm of Hyrule." His eyes widened slightly. "So, even back then it was of the same name… history repeats itself…" he murmured. Spreading out four large parchments, the three bent over the map.

They could make out the outlines of an ancient and glorious land. Faded green covered the eastern edges, marking a sprawling forest south of a region of winding rivers. To the north tall peaks were scratched in, surrounding a tiny village, and further west a central city stood marked. On the western plains they noted a wide desert, bordering cliffs and a waterfall that ran south to a huge lake. All these surrounded a vast open plain. Beyond each edge, the map was blank.

"So this is Hyrule of old… does the map have a date?" asked Diron, scrutinizing the page closely. "Huh… aside from the runes bearing the legend, there appear to be no labels at all… we can't know the names of the places sketched here."

"Do you think we're still in the same land, just changed a little?" asked Adelsa, an interest breaking through the dullness in her eyes as she traced the outline of the map.

Link reasoned that the mountains, at least, were in the same place. But they would have to get a more recent map to compare it with.

"Not a problem. Goodness knows we have plenty enough back at the dig site." Diron stood up and brushed dust off the front of his pants. "Is that all?"

Link fished through the pile of papers they had left until he found the one he had seen earlier. Holding it up, he showed the other two the chilling drawing depicted upon it. A rotting, skeletal creature, almost exactly like the one they had encountered in the tomb, leered out from the parchment.

Diron's hand trembled as he took the scroll. "L-let me see…" He studied the runes with tight eyes and a faint, shaking revulsion. At last he spoke, "It says… that these creatures were undead animated by pure malevolence, cursed to forever walk in darkness while their spirits could not pass on. If… if an… u-unwary traveler met them, the undead would freeze them with their gaze, leap upon them, and…. s-suck out their soul."

Adelsa couldn't scream through jaws clenched tight enough to break bone. But her eyes were as wide as they would go.

"Only a song of light would stop them, allowing an adventurer to defeat them without getting frozen… the name of this fell creature is scratched out." He dropped the sheet like a burning coal.

Link stood. They had enough. It was time to leave.

Adelsa stood jerkily without a word, eyes still wide, and headed towards the door.

"One… one second!" Diron hastily began gathering up all the papers they had thrown upon the floor. "I must take these back to study…"

Link reached the door one second ahead of Adelsa, and grasped the handle. But the door swung open of its own accord.

They both jumped backward, Adelsa uttering a little scream. Two shadows filled the doorway. Link's hand leaped to his sword and had it halfway drawn before a deep voice commanded, "Stop!"

All three froze. Emerging from the sun into the dimmer light of the house, the first shadow resolved itself into the hulking form of a city guard, his armor providing the majority of his size as it hung, clanking slightly, on his muscled figure. The large feathered plume on his helmet and the wide red sash he wore on his waist, however, denoted him the captain of the soldiers. The shadow at his side formed another guard.

"Please, stand, all of you," he said, with a hint of steel in his voice. Link did not relax, but Diron stood shakily.

"I am investigating a report made by several townsfolk that you three were seen entering here without invitation."

Instantly Adelsa stammered, "T-that's… well, t-technically true, but Mrs. B-Bakura didn't answer. We were w-worried."

"So you entered her house—finding the door unlocked?"

She nodded.

"Very well, then what?"

"We… we found her…" Adelsa's voice trailed off into a whisper, and she could only gesture towards the bedroom. The captain nodded to his subordinate, who marched into the indicated room. A moment later he ducked out, his face grave.

"The old woman is dead," he pronounced solemnly. "Recently, too. Sir, it seems made to look natural, but it doesn't… feel right."

The captain strode towards the room and scrutinized the soldier's assessment. He turned to the three, and his face could have been chiseled out of stone.

"I am afraid… I am afraid I will have to place you three under arrest for breaking and entering, attempted thievery, and murder."