A big huge thanks to Nabooru'sapprentice, triforce theory, tri, and pou for reviewing! To the review reply mobile!

Nabooru'sapprentice: In reference to your question about Link and Hadiya: what a great question! My answer is 'I ain't sayin' nothin'!' Spoilers and all that ;-)

triforce theory: About your question, you'll find out soon! Also, I definitely agree with you about the Triforce not caring about good and evil. And ha! I used to love Courage the Cowardly Dog! ...Is that cartoon still going? Me and my brother used to shout "Watch where you're going, you fool!" to pretty much every single person we happened to see, lol.

tri: Great question! I wish a had a great answer! It's never really stated in any of the games that the Triforce ended up going back to the Sacred Realm after Wind Waker, so I sort of took advantage of that. My thinking was that the pieces just sort of floated around for a long while, waiting for the right time to return to their respective carriers. It was just one of those "mysterious ways of the goddesses" type things. So... yeah, not the best explanation, but it's what made this story possible so I went with it, lol! I also do like to leave some things open, for the readers to fill in with their own imaginations (I always think that's fun when other writers do that, so I've been trying to do the same lately).

pou: Where have you heard this? That sounds fascinating! Is that a rumor for the new Zelda game?

Chapter 36

Riddles

There were several precious artifacts within the room that Link had found in the old temple. Arlene felt like a little kid again as she skipped from item to item, cataloguing them in her mind even as her eyes were drawn to the next one. Vases, statuettes, even a few paintings; all lay scattered on the floor and on large tables in the center of the room.

The room itself was unremarkable, the walls, floor, and ceiling made up of the same stone as the hallway. There were a few torches high up along the walls that were already lit; according to Link, they had lit themselves the minute he stepped inside. Every so often they would sputter as a cloud of dust drifted into the flames, but they remained unextinguished and continued to send a warm light across the room.

"Take a look at this," Arlene said with wide eyes as she held up a vase. "Real Hylian craftsmanship. Oh!" she clapped a shaking hand to her mouth. "It's been so long since I've seen it."

Hadiya tilted her head as she joined Arlene, studying the item. "It is a bit... lopsided there."

Arlene glared. "It's done that way on purpose, girly! It's because... because... oh forget it. It's not the best quality, but it's still pure Hylian so knock it off!"

Hadiya raised her hands in a placating gesture, sharing an amused glance with Link. He was busy investigating the rest of the room, tracing his way along the edge of the walls and looking for another door. Orca soon followed suit, starting at the other end of the room.

Arlene gave another sigh of pure bliss. "Oh I've forgotten how much I miss this. Once this is all over I'm going to start my old job again."

Link smiled fondly but didn't stop in his search of the room's walls. "Planning another boat trip already?"

"You betcha!"

A smile began to slowly grow on Hadiya's face as well. "If you would require any help with traveling the ocean-"

"For crying out loud, girly, if you want to come along just ask!" Arlene interrupted. "Anyway, look at me, does it look like I could sail a boat on my own? Of course you can come! Linebeck, too. It'll be fun."

Hadiya clapped her hands together gleefully. "What of you, Link?"

"I think we should stay focused on the stuff that's a little more closer to the present for now," Link muttered distractedly, still searching the walls.

"Oh come now," Arlene scolded. "Just say yes. Nothing beats sailing around, looking for artifacts! You can even bring Hibiscus along for the ride. Archaeological expeditions are educational. Oh! Link, look at this!"

Link finally turned to look at her, only to find her holding up a long, dark green tunic and strange looking hat. He raised an eyebrow at it. "What's that for?"

"What do you mean, what's it for!? This is the traditional garb of the legendary heroes of old!"

Link glared at Orca when the man began to snicker from the other side of the room.

"It looks like it would fit you," Hadiya said with a large grin.

With a sigh, Link looked back to Arlene, who was still holding the outfit up and smiling at him.

"I think it would!" Arlene agreed.

"Yeah... I'm not wearing that. I'd look ridiculous."

Arlene began to pout. "Not even the hat?"

"...No."

"Oh fine. Be that way." She muttered something that sounded an awful lot like "spoil sport" before putting the old tunic and hat back where she had found them.

"Where did all this stuff even come from?" Beth asked curiously as she reached out to brush her fingers against one of the paintings.

"Don't touch that!" Arlene snapped suddenly. "The oils on your fingers might damage something."

"Sorry! Hey... you're touching everything!"

"That's because I know what I'm doing!" Arlene argued, but she set down the statuette she had been holding all the same. "But... in answer to your question... I have no idea."

Sturgeon suddenly looked rather smug. "I have a theory!"

"Oh?" Arlene asked doubtfully. "What is it, Mr. Genius?"

"The Hero of Winds! Or at least... one of his descendants. We know from Abril that her... was it her grandfather? Anyway, the man disappeared during Ganondorf's initial attack, so maybe he knew it was bad news and decided to hide as much stuff as he could."

"That's ridiculous!" Arlene replied, but her voice sounded uncertain.

"Maybe not," Link's voice interrupted their conversation.

Looking up, Arlene caught sight of the young man holding up a small book he had found.

"What is that, Ed?" Beth asked.

Link flipped it open and scanned over the first page it opened to. "A diary. Written by Abril's great-grandfather."

He moved to join the others, and as they quickly settled close to one of the torches Link began to read.

Hyrule has already fallen. Ganondorf's return was far too fast for anyone to do anything. The Tower of Spirits was all but destroyed. There is some magic left within to protect it, but by all appearances it is gone. I tried to use the Light Bow, but could not get close enough. There were far too many. I failed. I let a Gerudo get too close, and suffered a fatal wound because of it. I made certain my daughter and her family was safe, and now I have come here, to the Forest Temple, with as many Hylian objects as I could find. I suspect most will not survive, and if Hyrule ever manages to find a way to free itself, they will want some of its history.

The Light Bow... is here with me. No doubt I will be dead by the time you read this, but if you seek me, reader, you must prove your Hylian lineage. Find me, and you will find another piece of this land's history. I can only pray that it will still be of use to you.

And there lies your first clue. To find me, First you must seek the land's Heritage. Find that, and you are close.

Link looked up excitedly. "The Light Bow is here."

Orca, however, wasn't sharing his enthusiasm. "But there's a riddle. That's just great. What's Hyrule's heritage?"

Arlene tapped a forefinger against her chin. Link noticed her thoughtful expression and an idea began to grow in him. "You don't think..."

Arlene raised an eyebrow. "It could very well be."

"Would it even still work?"

Beth placed her hands on her hips. "What!?"

Arlene and Link looked at her, both their eyes burning with excitement. "A train."

Sturgeon cackled. "That's perfect! Most of the tracks are useless now, so of course now we find the stupid thing. Well... I guess we need to start looking for this temple's train station."

"Then let us continue searching!" Hadiya said excitedly. "Onwards to adventure!" As she quickly left the room, Link was briefly reminded of how the Gerudo used to be when they had first met. There had been that same excited glint in her eyes then, as if exploring the market by herself had been the most interesting thing she had ever done.

As the group began to follow after Hadiya, they didn't even notice that Byrne seemed to be frozen in place. He stared down at the diary before reaching out a small hand. His fingers brushed gently against some of the words, tears swimming in his vision as he read them. ...suffered a fatal wound...

"I think... I knew your ancestor..." the boy whispered. He clapped a hand to his forehead, his fingers curling into his hair and tugging harshly.

"Come on, Byrne!" Beth's voice shouted across the room.

Byrne's hand instantly dropped, and diary seemingly forgotten he quickly ran to catch up.

"...And all we have to do is find some train tracks and then follow them!" Sturgeon was saying as he scrambled over the door and back into the hallway.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Orca's voice replied from the other side. "How big could this place be?"

As it turned out, very big. After they returned to the dark hallway, they wandered down in the other direction. Before they even reached the door at the other end they passed several other doors, most of which refused to open for them.

Arlene was grumbling under her breath as she examined some of the doors they had already walked past. "Some of these look newer than others. I think there were more rooms added on after the original temple was built."

"Then..." Hadiya began. "We should only search the older rooms. Since the train station would have been built at the same time as the original temple."

Link gave a half shrug. "That narrows it down a little, at least." He kicked out at one of the doors. "This one?"

Arlene sighed. "Why not?"

As Link began to search the wall around the door, Sturgeon looked on with an annoyed expression. "There's no handles on this thing. How are we supposed to open it!?"

Link glanced over his shoulder at him. "The last door had a switch next to it."

"A switch? Why would they bother with that? Things like that break down! They should've just stuck with tried and true door handles! There's fancy high-tech and then there's just common sense!"

Link took a few steps back, away from the door. "I don't see anything like that here, though..." As he stepped back a little more he felt the floor underneath his feet sink slightly. "Whoa!" he quickly leaped away, but the floor remained depressed. A moment later the sound of gears turning echoed about the hallway, and soon the door before them began to lower.

Sturgeon scratched at his head. "What's the point of that?"

"Let's just be glad it still works," Arlene commented.

There was no light to greet them this time as the door slid to the floor. A musty smell escaped from the room and quickly surrounded them as they cautiously stepped into the dark room. The instant their feet touched the floor of this new room, several torches burst into flame. Their new lights revealed another hallway that was covered with cobwebs and mold.

This hallway looked much shorter than the first one they had been in, and there was only one door set at the other end. The group quickly made their way towards this door, stopping short when a scratching noise filled the hall.

"What is that?" Beth whispered, clutching tightly to Byrne's hand as the noise grew louder.

Orca just happened to look up to the ceiling when the noise stopped. Just above them was a large spider, its back shaped to look like a white skull. Orca's eyes met with the spider's for a brief moment, right before the spider suddenly swung down towards them on a long rope of web, sharp looking pincers clacking hungrily.

"Look out!" Orca shouted, jumping backwards to avoid becoming the giant spider's next meal.

The others scrambled out of the way just in time, and in the next moment they were blocked from the door by the large creature, whose bulk took up the entire width of the hallway. It continued to swing in front of them, clacking its pincers angrily as its eyes stared at them. Every so often it would shake its entire body at them, as if warning them to keep away.

"Ew!" Beth shrieked. "What is that thing, it's so gross!"

Hadiya and Link glanced at each other before pulling their guns from their belts and each firing a single shot at the creature. It gave a surprised squeal and then collapsed to the ground, curling its legs over its stomach stiffly. A second later it was perfectly still.

"That was disgusting!" Beth complained as the group carefully stepped over the giant spider.

Behind them they could hear a few more scratchings from other spiders, but they reached the door with no further interruptions. This door was easier to open, as the switch to activate it was in obvious sight on the wall. As they stepped into the next room, more torches lit around them.

The flames sprang up first next to the door, and then quickly spread along the walls, revealing a giant room. It was so large that it was impossible to see the wall at the far end; all they could make out was a few lights bobbing in the distance. The center of the room was much easier to make out, and it was that that instantly grabbed their attention. The floor dipped down, towards a set of train tracks that were covered in dust and rusting in some places. They led out of the room, down a long tunnel that seemed intact as far as they could tell. But there was more resting on the tracks than just dust. In the very center of the room lay a large train, with red, blue and green paint peeling and cracking along its surface.

"Oh my goddesses," Arlene said in awe, taking a step closer to it.

"Do you think it still works?" Orca asked excitedly, already running towards it.

Sturgeon quickly followed. "Let's find out!"

Hadiya looked about the room. "Over there is another door. Perhaps that is where the Light Bow is?"

"Worth a try," Link said, beginning to stride towards it. Arlene quickly followed as Hadiya joined him. They each managed to take a few more steps closer to the door before a loud explosion shook the entire room, shaking everyone still on the platform from their feet.

"What was that!?" Link shouted as smoke began to fill the room.

"Sorry!" Orca's voice drifted over to them through the thick smoke. "I think we found the cannon!"

"Would you... just..." Link began to splutter as he got back to his feet. "Quit fooling around over there!"

"Sturgeon did it!"

"Did not! He's lying! He did it, I saw him! Byrne, you saw right? Hey... where is that kid?"

Link's head shot around the room, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the kid was still there, on the platform with Beth. As the smoke began to clear, he noticed that Byrne seemed to be rooted to the spot as he stared at the train. Beth was equally oblivious to what was going on around her, but Link suspected it was for a completely different reason.

"You... you nearly killed me!" Beth finally shouted, pointing at the large hole in the floor that was next to her feet; it was the hole created from the train's cannon.

"Sturgeon did it!" Orca protested.

"Hey, Byrne," Link shouted across the room. "You alright?"

Byrne slowly turned his head to look at Link and though the expression in his eyes looked far away he nodded.

"We're going to check out the next room... You two, try not to kill anyone while we're gone."

"No promises!" Sturgeon replied, his voice filled with pure glee as he moved about the train's engine.

Link gave a grunt before opening the door to the next room. Once again torches lit at their presence, this time to reveal a room much smaller than the room they had just left. The room was completely empty save for an altar that stood in the very center of the floor. Approaching it they found a short message carved into it in Ancient Hylian, along with a a small plaque that had a bunch of circles on it, each one smaller than the other and inside the larger ones. Numbers were carved seemingly haphazardly on top of the edges of the circles, and as Link studied them he couldn't see any particular pattern rising from them. There were also dark lines etched across the circles, creating a criss cross pattern across the entire plaque.

Arlene peered around his side to read the inscription carved above the circles. "Arrange the circles to spell out their proper order, and you will find what you seek."

Hadiya poked at the largest circle and then quickly pulled back when it moved slightly. "What is their proper order?" she asked as she tested one of the smaller circles, finding that it was able to move independently from the other circles just like the largest one.

"Those numbers must be a clue," Arlene said. "They count up from one to seventy-five."

"But they're placed randomly," Link said. "And I don't see a way to get them in any sort of order."

"I guess we'll just have to fiddle with it for a while." Arlene clapped her hands together and began to rub them together eagerly.

Link stepped back and gestured her closer. "It's all yours."

With a small cackle, Arlene quickly took Link's place in front of the stone altar. She studied the message again and then glanced about the surface. "This looks like a button," Arlene said as she pointed out a small indentation off to the side.

Hadiya leaned over Arlene's shoulder. "I assume we press that when we believe we have the answer?"

"That's a safe bet."

"Perhaps these numbers must be placed in rows, so that when summed up they each equal the same number?"

Arlene slowly nodded. "That would make sense. We could make the rows go along the circle's radii. Now the question is, what's the sum we need to get?"

Link rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to keep up with their rapid conversation. "I'm gonna... go see how Sturgeon's doing. He might be able to help with this."

Arlene made a shooing motion with her hand, clearly not even hearing him or else she would have felt insulted that Link thought she needed Sturgeon's help.

While it was a bit difficult at first to convince the man to leave behind the train station, once Link mentioned they were stumped on a math puzzle the eldest man went scurrying off with a smug look in his eyes.

"That's gonna go straight to his head if he solves it first," Orca commented, watching him leave. "Probably make it grow another inch or so, too."

Link glanced over at Byrne, who hadn't moved since he had first spotted the train, and then climbed up into the engine room where Orca was working. The room was small, and most of it was taken up by a large, empty looking furnace, along with several differently sized levers around the front of the train.

"Do you know what any of these do?" Link asked.

"Well..." Orca pointed out one of the larger levers. "That does the cannon. We know that."

Link raised an eyebrow. "Anything else?"

"Hey, you try figuring out how to start up a centuries old, archaic vehicle and see how fast you can do it!"

Link gave a small sigh as he observed all the levers. "Where'd Beth run off to?"

"I sent her to the back of the train, to see if there's any coal. She just keeps on talking, I had to give her something to do." Orca suddenly turned to Link, a miserable expression on his face. "She doesn't shut up, Link!"

Link began to fidget with one of the levers, making sure not to put enough pressure on it to actually move it. "She just wants to be helpful."

Orca frowned. "Oh. Well... whatever. What do you think is up with Byrne, anyway?"

Link decided to pretend he didn't notice the sudden change of topic. He glanced back at Byrne and noticed he was now sitting down; still staring at the train, he had his head tilted with an expression of curiosity on his face, as if he were trying to work out something. "He's probably just tired. It's been a long day."

"Boy I hear you! I'm exhausted!"

Link smirked. "Yeah but you don't get a break."

Orca groaned as he went back to rotating one of the levers. "I don't see why I can't take at least a nap if Byrne gets to just sit around and do nothing."

"Because you're not eleven. He is."

Orca opened his mouth to reply but then shut it with a small click of his teeth. "Right." He glanced over at Link and then frowned with concern. "Maybe you should get some rest yourself. You look terrible."

Link raised an eyebrow at him. "Gee thanks."

"Oh you know what I mean!" He glared at Link and then sighed. "You still having those nightmares?"

Link grimaced. "I'm going to check on Beth. This place could still be dangerous."

Orca's eyes widened as Link began to climb back down. "Seriously!?" he pulled his gun from his belt and looked about him nervously. "Now he tells me that..."

Link hadn't seen Beth on his way to find Sturgeon, so he assumed that she was somewhere on the other side of the train. It only took him a short moment to walk down the platform, passing the passenger car that held moldy, cushioned seats and collapsed tables, as well as the empty freight car, finally reaching a stable part of the platform that wrapped around and led to the other side. As soon as he turned the corner he spotted Beth. She was collapsed on the ground, a small pool of what looked like blood collecting underneath her head.

Link quickly retrieved his gun from its holster as he raced towards her. "Beth!" he whispered, kneeling beside her. There was no sign of any threat anywhere, and it was possible that the girl had just tripped, but something told him there was danger about.

"Beth," Link tried again, shaking gently at her shoulder.

A small moan from the girl had him sighing with relief.

"Wake up. What happened?"

"Huh?" the girl asked as he eyes fluttered open. "Eddo? What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know..."

"Oh! I think someone hit me. With a brick. That's what it felt like, anyway."

Link helped her to her feet, looking around with alarm. "Did you see who it was?"

Beth shook her head and then winced. She placed a hand to the back of her head, her pupils contracting at the pain she felt from putting even the slightest pressure on it. "No. He hit me from behind, the big meanie."

"Come on, let's get to the others."

Beth nodded, but just as Link was about to turn around to head back her eyes suddenly widened.

Link didn't even have time to turn before he felt the muzzle of a gun at the back of his head.

"Don't even think about shouting for help," a gruff voice hissed at him. "Drop your gun."

Link chewed on the inside of his lip, trying to come up with a plan that didn't include him losing his only weapon. Beth was still in front of him, her eyes wide as she stared over his head at the person behind him. From the way she was craning her neck he guessed the man was rather tall.

"Drop it now!" the intruder said.

Unable to come up with anything in a timely manner, Link quickly opened his hand and let the gun fall to the ground. It landed with a clatter, and Link hoped that Orca had heard that.

"Now turn around... slowly."

This order Link didn't hesitate to follow, as he wanted to know who was currently threatening them. As soon as he turned he pulled in a startled breath. "Impal."

Thanks for reading! I hope you have a great weekend!