Chapter 15

The newly ascended deity kept himself quietly hidden from his peers for the time being. Stealth was a skill he used often in his adventures as a mortal, and one he had learned could be useful in the immortal realms as well. There were places in between dimensions of space where one could secret himself away from other immortal senses. He occupied one of those now. In the three mortal dimensions of space, he remained not far from his mortal wife's hospital room. But there were seven other dimensions which could give him all the distance he needed from the two others that had been watching over them both and were now searching for him. It was a technique that only a very few of the ascended thought to use, though all were aware of it. His peers simply wouldn't think of the need for stealth from one another.

And, he needed time. One would think that an ascended being would have all the time they needed, but he only had a little over two weeks until the dark blighted cancer spread and killed his beloved Hylia in her mortal form. That was how long he had to figure out how to help her, now that he once again had the power to help her, without the others knowing. They still had the power to make him mortal again by force if he didn't play by their rules.

He needed to know exactly what those rules really were. He could sense something wasn't right within seconds of his return to the ascended plane, and he needed to know what and why. He couldn't just pry into the minds of the Three, but those mortals they spoke with, now that was a different matter altogether. Now that he was ascended once more, he was aware of everything the mortals knew, all except the mind of the Sage who was shielded in the protective time displacement field of the Temple of Time. This included the conversations his sons had with his mother and mother-in-law.

Something seemed wrong with them. No, something seemed very wrong with them. He could see clearly his wife's last conversation with her mother from Zelda's own mind. There was something very different about the ascended being who spoke with her then and the one who spoke to his son, Daphnes earlier that day. Gaepora's conversation with Farore was deeply concerning to him. The woman and deity he had known all of his existence loved Hylia like her own daughter. She would never have blamed or found fault with her like that.

After he had ascended, his first thought had been to assist Zelda like he had planned. He had seen the obstructions in her brain keeping her from ascending. He had seen that they could be unblocked with certain events or realizations triggering them, but he couldn't tell exactly what those were supposed to be. Then the wealth of information gleaned from the mortal minds hit him and he knew his plans had to change. If he interfered now, he risked condemning them both.

Daniel had to have sensed something was wrong too, he surmised. He wished he could communicate with Daniel as Daniel did with him, but that would alert the others to his whereabouts and possibly endanger Daniel as well. So be it. He was on his own for the moment. It certainly wasn't the first time that had happened. He knew his friend would be there when he needed him just as much as he knew he would be there for Daniel when the time came.

He wanted very much to communicate with Zelda, but he knew the others would be looking for him to do just that and there would be no way he could conceal it from them like Daniel did, not while she was up and conscious and not with them watching her and looking for him like hawks. He knew that she understood and trusted his reasons whatever they might be from her words to Malona and he was thankful.

He also knew his boys' current plan for saving their mother, and if he knew, so did the others. The real question wasn't how the mortal guards or Talon would respond to their quest, not that they were going to ask for permission, but how would the others respond? Normally, they wouldn't interfere with the choices made by mortals, but his instincts were telling him that nothing about this was normal.

Another question which remained to be answered, where was Din in all of this? Not even her own Sage had seen or had any contact with her for a long time. He knew this from seeing her life open to him. The Three never acted in judgment unless they were agreed. It was something they had done even when they were mortal project leaders doing their research on this world. Both Nayru and Farore had claimed that all three were in agreement, but Din, the one who made the final decisions, remained strangely silent through all of this.

Finally, the thing which told him that something was truly wrong was that both Nayru and Farore had claimed that they wanted to ensure that his wife had let go of needing to protect this world and would remain ascended before she would be allowed to return. That was a bald-faced lie.

None of them could truly know for certain what the future would hold for Hyrule. There were too many variables and unknowns to make accurate predictions, even for the ascended, especially where Hyrule was concerned because it was the nexus of belief and reality with the Sacred Realm at its beating heart. None of them could know what circumstance might arise that would change everything again.

Neither Nayru nor Farore would ever come to the conclusion that this world shouldn't be protected from others that wanted to enslave the mortals. When they had first been re-incarnated, it was by agreement of all the ascended in order to stop Demise. The only reason why the Three hadn't fully joined in the fight themselves was because of the need to maintain the balance and stability of Hyrule from all of the minds which now inhabited it. They had been his close family since the beginning and he knew their minds well enough to know they would be so unreasonable..Zelda and he had more than met Nayru's original conditions.

He had looked into Zelda's mind. He could still see into Zelda's mind clearly. She had let go. She had let go of the instinct to interfere with this world decades ago. She had been content with just being a wife and mother and living her life for a long, long time now, and she had neither the intention nor desire to resume her "interference." Once she gave up the life and responsibilities of a royal, she had found a peace she hadn't known for millennia. He could see it in her heart and mind as clear as day, and the others, especially Nayru, had to have seen it too. Her whole life was an open book to him and to every other ascended being in this galaxy.

If Nayru and Farore were under some kind of dark influence, he reasoned, they were trying to hide it from the others, which meant they weren't going to interfere with mortal affairs any more than would be normal so as not to arouse suspicion. That meant they shouldn't directly interfere with Daphnes and Gaepora's mission to the Temple of Time, even if they were concerned by it. So his boys should be safe from them for the moment, and he knew they could handle getting to the Temple on their own, even on no sleep. They were his boys after all. The bigger issue would be how Fi would respond to them. He would have to speak with her before one of them tried to touch her hilt. That could be done with some discretion. He didn't know if their plan would really be necessary, but at this point he would keep that option on the table until he got to the root of the problem. He couldn't use it himself, but his children could.

After debating on where to begin for some time, he settled on one of his first questions. Where is Din? His instinct told him that somehow the strange absence of the goddess of fire, seasons and power was the key to all of this. But it wasn't a question to which any mind he had free access to had an answer. Could she be in hiding like he was? If so, why? It was as if she just vanished from their reality.

And then he realized, remembering his and Hylia's own colorful history, maybe that's exactly what happened. Then, he knew where he needed to start looking for answers.

Talon hadn't slept since... He couldn't remember. It was some time in the last few days. He knew he had taken a nap at some point in time since the Lady had taken ill, in a chair in her room he was pretty certain. As a Sage he didn't always need the same amount of sleep a normal Hylian did, but the effect was beginning to wear on his seventy something year old body and mind.

After working with his younger father's meditation and practice, he had left him with the Lady alone to give them some peace and time to work. The guards were instructed that no one but immediate family, including himself, was to be admitted to the room with the exception of hospital staff that displayed the highest credentials. And then he went to investigate the thing which was troubling his heart the most.

"Why?"

His faith in the plan of the goddesses had been absolute, and he was certain that his Lady just needed the time to focus and meditate. Then he learned the goddesses had placed obstructions in her mind to keep her from ascending, and he still had faith that once his Lady had let go and released her burden that nothing further would stop her.

But the last time he had been in the room, he had probed her mind to check up on her. He was willing to admit his ignorance on many things pertaining to the will of the divine, but his Lady had been in the proper state of mind for several hours prior to his arrival. She should have ascended before he brought his father in. No one had removed the obstructions.

He loved the Lady. There was no question as to that. He loved her in the same manner that he had loved his own mother who had been her sister in a former life. He would easily give up his own existence if it meant preserving hers. He admitted his lack of objectivity in the matter to himself and tried to work through it again with faith in mind. But the feeling that something was wrong when he realized the blocks were still there wouldn't go away no matter how rational and objective he attempted to be. There was simply no reason for her to still be on the mortal plane. His father... Talon knew he still had many issues to work through before he could take advantage of the gift his friend had given him, but he had faith he could do it. But his Lady, there could truly be no question. She was deliberately being prevented with no just cause that he could see.

He had returned to his mother's tomb to spend time in quiet meditation himself to work through his developing crisis of faith with instructions left to several guards to allow no one access to that area of the royal cemetary. He hated to disappoint the schoolchildren he knew would be expecting to visit the great Queen's tomb, but he needed to draw from his mother's strength alone today as he sat in contemplation. There were times that he had wished she had, in fact, ascended so that he could seek her counsel, but he knew quite plainly that it was only wishful thinking. His abilities as the former Sage of time allowed him to see his mother's final moments in death, and he knew her remains had lain unmoved in the stately, magnificent tomb for over two hundred years.

For the last several hours he had been using those abilities to probe into the recent past. He couldn't see into the immortal realms, but he could see every time one of the ascended had interactions within normal time and space with mortals once they became a part of the past. He had seen the interactions his half brothers had with the goddesses, and his concern for the situation grew exponentially. The goddesses should have been able to see in his Lady what he had seen. Either they were somehow blinded, though he couldn't fathom how, or else they lied. In either event, the outcome was the same. They were going to just let her die, and no matter his faith in the plan of the goddesses, he couldn't accept that. Not for his Lady.

And then he turned his attention back to his father, and he found that he was no longer where he left him. He was no longer anywhere. Looking back through the hours of the day, he could see that his father had in fact been able to ascend, and he was glad, but then... nothing. He was just gone, and this troubled him immensely. He would have assumed his father's first act as an ascended being would be to remove the blocks from his wife's mind so she could join him. But she still remained in the hospital room with his half sister, Malona. Nothing could have stopped the man whom he had talked with the day before from delivering his wife from oblivion. Nothing, except perhaps the other ascended.

So, the question remained, why were the Three preventing the Lady Hylia from returning to her rightful place? And why did they ignore the facts of her release which were plain as day to him as a mere Sage? He didn't have a good answer. He couldn't find one. And the answers that did come to his mind were nothing short of heresy.

The Three are losing their minds.

He didn't know if an ascended being could lose their mind. But that was a more comforting answer than the alternative.

The Three are under the influence of some dark power that seeks vengeance against the Lady and her Hero.

There were list of names of beings with that kind of power and vendetta that came to his mind was incredibly short. Those that did were already destroyed and were not returning from their shallow graves. He searched through the ages of Hyrule's past to discover who it might be, but continued to come up empty. Demise was dead in a foreign reality. The outsider Xehanort was dead by Talon's own hand, his remains incinerated by Din's fire. The other dark wizards and witches of Hyrule's past that he could see... None of them ever held the kind of power that could turn the mind of a god. This led him to another disturbing conclusion.

If the Three aren't losing their minds, then there was yet another dark power from outside of Hyrule's reality, and it was trying to kill the Lady Hylia and the Hero permanently.

That couldn't be allowed to happen. Not while Talon still drew breath.

He needed more information. He focused again on Daphnes and Gaepora and saw their most recent conversation in time. Under other circumstances, it would have been his Sacred Duty to try and stop them. But now...

He sent out a mental call to Mr. Impaz, giving him new instructions to assist the brothers in any way possible. He received back a questioning thought.

"Do as I ask." He replied to the former secretary with the special mental connection only the Sages could know. "Our Lady's very existence may depend on it."

Then he returned to his senses and the world around him and rose from his seated position. He had a call to make to the guardsmen at the Sacred Grove, and a woman to see.