The Eyes of Death

All I was trying to do was to protect her from all those who wished us ill fate, of which there were many.

The dealings of the lords in their lofty stone houses are one thing, but what matters to the people and what the people think is quite another. And people didn't think well of Prince Kahen and his family. Nor did they think well of how all the chiefs of the clans had filled their purse with Hyrule gold, so as not to share a grain with them. Nor did they think well of the (once noble) Captain Link and his immense betrayal of his people. I had gone from hero to villain in a matter of seconds. I was the one who shot down the enemy, the one who sent the wretches who had killed little Bri fleeing in terror. And now I was the one who slept with the enemy every night.

There were some protests in Nightfall, in the villages of Fort Hawk and also in the Steppe. I was warned about it as soon as I set foot at home. Eve's father had lost his mind with Bri's death. He had instigated many to rebel against us, to come with fire and pitchforks to the wall of the Eagle's Nest, to kidnap my wife and take the law into their own hands. Dad said they would be appeased soon, that such protests would lead nowhere because men fear war. I knew how costly an accident could be. A stray arrow, a drunken barbarian. A reckless wife walking in the rain, feeling safe in the shelter of the forest. I could not allow any more accidents or misfortunes.

"Cheer up, Link, it can't be so terrible," Ardren patted my back.

"She's trying to disobey. Fridd found her in the Eagle's Forest, you know?"

"She wasn't doing anything wrong, she's curious like a squirrel, I find it attractive."

"You find everything attractive in the ladies."

"But let's see, have the threats reached her? Has anyone dared to come that close to the Nest? Does she know what you're doing all day out there chasing away exalted barbarians?"

"She doesn't know anything."

"Then it's natural that she thinks you're an evil hinox who keeps her locked up in the tower!"

"It's better this way, she mustn't know all this, I don't want her to be more afraid than she already is."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of me."

Ardren let out a laugh that echoed throughout Inn of the Winds tavern, and I drowned my discomfort in what was left of my beer.

"You're the least fearsome guy I know, Link. She can't be afraid of you."

"Our start hasn't been easy."

"Some are not."

At that moment Eve appeared and beckoned me to come and talk to her. It was all I needed, I felt a horrible discomfort, a melancholy in the pit of my stomach that choked me every time I had to deal with her. She had taken the news of my engagement and wedding very well, she was understanding, generous and strong. And that made it all the more painful.

She took me to one of the inn's warehouses, where we could talk in private. Where other times we had only come in to kiss alone.

"I've spoken to my father, Link. He hasn't much longer to come to his senses, I assure you. And the drunks in the tavern wouldn't dare come to your house to frighten your wife, they talk a lot and do little. They're cowards."

"What about the other villages? My Dad can control Fort Hawk, he wants to lower taxes, hold a big winter banquet, bigger than last year's, but what about the Steppe?"

"Their brains will be frozen before you can tell," she grinned.

"I don't know how to thank you; I don't know how to thank you for interceding for me after all I have done to you."

"You haven't done anything to me," she said, avoiding my gaze, "At first I was furious, you know, I wanted revenge. But I got over it, and my father will get over it too, you'll see. The only thing you've ever done for me and my family has been good. You're the kindest man I know, Link."

"I wanted to give that ring to you."

"But you didn't."

"No, I didn't."

That was the only crushing truth. An awkward silence settled between us. It felt weird. It didn't feel the same than before and that made me feel even guiltier. All had been a disaster.

"I just, I… it's silly, I know…" she hesitated.

"No, please, tell me."

"Just… Tell me again that you didn't want to marry her. I won't ask ever again, it'll be the last time, I promise."

"I didn't want to. I wanted to-

"That's enough for me. I get it. I understand what you did and why you did it. And… dear Or… I even admit I would have done the same if I were you…" she smiled, resigned.

"I wish I could fix it."

"Anyway," she took her finger to the corner of her eye, perhaps to brush away a tear, perhaps to erase the anguish moment between us, "the tavern will soon be filled with weary, thirsty peasants, I'll have to join them to teach them good manners. It'll be dark soon. Are you going back to the Nest?"

"No, tonight I'm traveling to Fort Hawk."

"Link... " she used that tone with which she rebuked me sometimes.

"You too? I've got enough with Ardren."

"I'm sure she's a good girl, give her a chance."

"I know she's not a bad person, but... it's complicated, Eve, you don't understand."

"You should spend more time in the Nest, let her know you a little more instead of leaving her alone for so long. I wouldn't want my unknown husband to leave me in a tower with nothing to do but watch the rain... you know I'd go mad in no time."

"I have to go now."

"All right, understood, grumpy Lord of the Nest," she let out a laugh, "I won't bother you with that anymore. Give the twins a hug for me, okay?"

"I will, don't worry."

I hadn't got any more messages from the Nest, so Ardren and I set course for Fort Hawk. Eve filled our canteens with fresh water and also gave us some food for the road, in case we were delayed.

Now I'll have to sing of what I wouldn't want to,

So much I regret that I am only his friend,

For I love him more than anything I'm allowed to,

But neither pity nor courtesy is worth it again…

"Stop singing that," I complained, grumpy. Ardren's songs used to be funny to me, but now he was devoted all his wits to torturing me with my new personal situation.

"How's Eve doing?"

"She's fine." I grumbled.

"If you sent me to watch your wife instead of Fridd, I would have composed a ballad for her by now. It could be something like:

The blond hinox locked me up in his tower,

I ran from him and got lost in the woods,

A singing barbarian rescued me with his power,

I gave him my love and… and…

"Uhm. It doesn't fit. I guess I need to work on the last sentence, just give me a minute…" he hummed the melody he just invented.

"That's why you're not in charge of watching her," I said, and I couldn't help to smile a bit.

"I should rename you, Captain, you could call yourself 'Linox.' For Or's sake, it's fabulous! Linox the hinox, it's so great!"

"Ardren..."

I would have had to continue to put up with his stupid ballads, which tended to get bolder and spicier as he took more and more sips from his skin of Hebra liquor, had it not been for two horsemen catching up with us from behind, riding at full speed.

"Fridd!" I exclaimed. A cold sweat run my spine, had the barbarians dared to attack the Eagle's Nest? I jumped off the horse.

"Captain Link," he also jumped down and helped slow down the reins of the other rider, who got off much more awkwardly, "this brat wants to tell you something."

"Mabet! What happened?"

"It's your wife, Captain Link."

"What happened?, have they attacked the fortress?"

Mabet waved his head and deviated his gaze to his feet.

"It's your wife. She started to feel bad this morning, we thought it would be the breakfast," the boy seemed distraught, even his voice trembled, "in the afternoons we usually take a walk in the forest and-

"I forbade her to do it! Wasn't that clear?"

"Calm down, let the boy explain himself," Ardren intervened.

"She fainted, Captain, right there. She looked very sick; Grandpa helped me get her to the Nest. She's got fevers, pains. She threw up everything in her stomach."

"Damn it... I knew. I knew she was too pale," I regretted.

"We think it was caused by this."

Mabet opened a sachet which hung to his belt and dumped remains of mushrooms in my hand.

"Are they poisonous?" Ardren asked.

"I... I don't know," I admitted, "it's very likely so."

"We don't know what to give her, Captain. She… she remains unconscious. She doesn't come back to herself," Mabet said.

There was only one way out. We were almost reaching Fort Hawk, I'd have to look for the seer, she was the person who knew the most about poisons and medicine all over the West. What if any barbarian had tried to kill Zelda? No one should know that this had happened, not until everything was cleared up, not until she was okay.

"Fridd, don't let anyone know we've come here. Ardren, Mabet... You two come with me."

Mopai had a hut on the forest further west, on the same border with Ikana. When she was younger she was a hermit, she spent long periods living in lost caves in the Hebra mountain range, hanging around villages in the West. After the years she settled in the forest and received fewer and fewer visits. I went in to look for her in desperation, without knocking.

"Mopai? It's Link! Mopai?"

There was an unpleasant smell inside, of cat piss, weeds, and damp. Thank all the goddesses she was there, she appeared dishevelled and more wrinkled than I remembered her.

"What is it?"

"I need your help, Mopai, it's my wife, princess Zelda, she's poisoned," 'They poisoned her,' I thought, but I didn't tell her this.

"You didn't invite me to your wedding," she grumbled, and she started stirring water from a cauldron, as if my desperation was invisible to her.

"It was... very fast, everything went very fast. I wanted you to come," I lied. The seer frightened me more than anyone else in all the lands of the west, I was afraid that... she saw the things that were in my dreams or in my head, "Look, we think she ate this."

Mopai looked sideways at the mushrooms and finally reacted when she saw what I was showing her.

"We must depart right now," she said, and he started putting all kinds of jars in a bag.

"Will she be saved?" I asked, drowned by anguish.

"Quickly, we can't delay," she replied.

We rode to the Nest as fast as the rain, the darkness, and legs of the horses allowed it. I've never thought the Nest was as far from Fort Hawk as it was during that harrowing ride.

We arrived and Mopai went straight to the kitchen with Frea, to prepare an antidote for the poison. I entered the fortress with Ardren and Mabet, Zelda was lying on a carpet in front of the small living room fire, with Manroy by her side. Zelda was sweating, burning with fever and completely unconscious.

"How long has she been like this?" I asked, placing my hand on her forehead.

"Hours. Sometimes she mutters some words in her sleep," Manroy said.

I asked him to help me to put her in my arms. I carried her up the tower stairs, to her quarters. They were the warmest and most comfortable of all rooms, she would be better in her bed. Manroy helped me take off her boots and robe, and I lied her in the bed. Seeing her pale and sweaty, I felt that someone had cursed me. That's right, someone had put a curse on me, and everyone around me was suffering some misfortune because of me.

"I'm glad you came so fast, Captain," Manroy said, "Zelda asks every day for you."

"Really?"

"She's a very good girl, she's like family," he confessed, dismayed, "I.. I couldn't even imagine that something like this would happen to her. We all live together, I've made sure she didn't miss anything, I swear on Or, Captain."

"I don't doubt that you've taken good care of her, I know that."

"If she doesn't recover... I don't know. Frea has been crying all day, praying to Or and even the goddesses of Hyrule. We've had no daughters, no granddaughters, she has affection for the girl." Manroy squeezed my wife's pale hand.

I too dealt with my own anguish and the fear of being too late to save her, but I was still surprised by everyone else's reactions.

Mopai soon appeared next to Frea, her face unhinged with fear.

"Take the pillow off, don't block her breath," Mopai asked me, "the poison is in her blood now, at this point the only remedy is to drink the antidote."

"How is she going to drink it?"

"We have to wake her up first."

She put a damp rag in a dark liquid under her nose, and Zelda reacted by waking up abruptly, filling her lungs with a gulp.

"Hold her, Link!"

I grabbed her as much as I could, she writhed in pain, and Mopai managed to open her mouth and drop the liquid inside. Then I held her until she was calm and fell asleep again.

"Now she needs to rest and let it work," Mopai said, "come on, everybody out of here. Link, you have to stay by her side. Keep an eye on her. If she wakes up, give her nothing but a sip of water, a sip! And let's pray she doesn't throw up what I just gave her."

I accompanied everyone out of the room, I just left Manroy watching her while I came back.

"What has she eaten?" I asked Mopai.

"Eyes of Death. It's easy to confuse them with other edible mushrooms, but... it's weird. Those mushrooms grow much further north."

"I see," I mumbled. Someone had given them to her to poison her, it was clear. "Is she going to be saved?"

"She must survive the night. That is key."

Frea burst into tears when she heard that, and Mabet trembled by her side.

"Link, I'll take care of Mopai. I'll take her to Fort Hawk if she needs it to look for more antidote or anything, you stay calm," Ardren said.

I let them go and went up a little knocked out towards the tower, when I felt someone was following me, it was Mabet.

"Captain Link, wait."

"Go to your grandmother, you must be with her,"

"It's my fault," he said, and two tears fell down his cheeks.

"Did you give Zelda the mushrooms?"

Mabet trembled from top to bottom and was unable to hold my gaze.

"She likes them very much. We pick mushrooms together in the forest, but... she… she's too smart. She always finds them. I wanted to show her that I could find them too, and I cheated, Captain. I bought these from a peasant."

"What peasant?"

"I don't know, I don't know him. It was in Nightfall, near my parents' house."

"We'll talk about that later. Mabet, it's not your fault, okay? You didn't know they were poisonous. You just wanted to please her, not to cause any damage." I held his shoulders, he was just a scared boy, a good boy.

"I don't want her to die, she's... she...— he sniffled tears from his nose and wiped them away with the sleeve of his robe.

"Go to your grandmother. You must protect her now, she needs you, understood? Go."

Mabet nodded and pulled himself together. Having to protect your loved ones always helped me, so I thought it would help him too.

Once in Zelda's quarters, I asked Manroy to leave us alone, rarely had I seen him so dismayed. He walked away praying and with his eyes glassy. What had my wife done with the Nest people? How had she earned them in such a short time with that temper of hers?

I stoked the fire in the room and tucked her in a little bit, I thought she had colder skin when I came over to check her out. The rain splashed the windows, the night got colder. I could only sit back and wait for the antidote to take effect.

The rain turned into a storm, and thunder roared outside, rumbling all over the walls of the tower. Zelda seemed calmer, I didn't know if that was good or bad, it could be good if it was because of the antidote, or bad if her strength left her. I moved closer to feel her breathing, it was faint, like that of a bird that has fallen from its nest, but it seemed to slowly fade. Startled by that faint breathing I put my ear to her chest, her heart was still beating, slowly but steadily.

"Don't die, please. Please…" I whispered, grabbing her hand. It was cold as ice, like in our wedding day.

I didn't get away from her, but at some point I must have fallen asleep. I had horrible nightmares, the black smoke from Hyrule Castle had moved to the Eagle's Nest and ascended the tower stairs, trying to surround and drown Zelda. I was trying to push the darkness away with my hands, with kicks... There was no sword this time, it was useless.

"Link..."

I rubbed my eyes; she had woken up. Some clarity was coming through the window, it was dawning.

"Zelda! How are you?"

"Water."

This time I put a big pillow under her head, so she could join in a bit. I helped her drink a few sips of water, no more than that, as Mopai had ordered. It seemed that the pink had returned a little to her cheeks, and I thanked Or and all the goddesses.

"Breathe, slowly" I told her. She wet her lips several times, I held her preventing her from drinking more when she pulled the bowl with water to her mouth.

"Thank you."

"You've scared us a lot, you know?"

"You can't let the princess of Hyrule die, remember? They would never think it's been an accident," she tried to laugh and coughed a little.

"Of course, hence my constant concern for you," I corresponded her joke. I felt almost weightless to see that she had made it through the night, that she had come to her senses with her strange sense of humour.

"What happened to me?"

"They tried to poison you," I couldn't keep hiding the truth from her, that could put her back in danger.

"Mushrooms...," she deduced immediately.

"Eyes of Death."

"Why?"

I sighed and got up. I opened a crack in the window, I felt that the air in the room should be cleaned a little, that she should breathe fresh air.

"That's what they've been trying to do since we got married, ever since we moved here. Many are against our union. I... I tried to appease all the protesting morons a little bit, but... I was afraid there was someone else trying to do something against us."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know," I sat next to her again, "I didn't want you to be afraid anymore. Not of… of me or anything."

She bowed her head and waved it a couple of times, I didn't know if dazed or what.

"I need you to talk to me, that... you… you talk to me, Link" she said then, and lay down a little, weakened by hours of fever and pain.

"Calm down, rest now. I'll tell you everything, don't worry."

I thought I'd prepare something light and warm for her, tea, boiled herbs… something. Something that had a minimal substance. I also had to warn the others that she had recovered, I was sure they'd spent a night as horrible as mine.

"Where are you going?" She asked, seeing me go to the door.

"To look for the others."

"How's everybody doing? Are they all right?" she was alarmed, making futile efforts to join.

"Everyone's fine. Very worried about you, that's for sure."

"What about Mabet? Did he eat the mushrooms?"

"No, luckily no one else has eaten them." She relaxed again, sinking a little into the pillow.

"And... and are you going to leave again?" She whispered when I was almost out of the room. I stood by the door, looking back at her. She once again looked tiny, helpless.

"If you don't want to, I won't. I can stay if you want."

"Stay, please."

"Okay."

"A few days."

"A few days, I promise."

She relaxed completely and closed her eyes again. I went down the stairs of the tower almost like I was floating, it was like flying, I don't think I've ever been so relieved by anything in my whole life. I found everyone in the main hall, many eyes full of worry and insomnia.

"By the sacred axe of Or, tell me that child is fine," Frea said, standing up as soon as she saw me show up.

"She's all right," I grinned, widely.

They all expressed their joy, they embraced each other. Frea cried again, this time of relief, and could understand her perfectly.

"I'm going to get drunk; I'm going to drink everything you keep in your lair, Linox," Ardren said.

"You were going to get drunk anyway, but bring a drink for me too, please," I asked him, chuckling.

While they were going for a drink to celebrate or striding up the stairs to see Zelda, I was looking for Mopai, our saviour.

"I don't know how to thank you, Mopai, I'm indebted to you," I said, grabbing her rough, aged hand.

"Your wife should keep a diet for a few days, until she has expelled every last toxin from her body. I'll tell Frea what to prepare for her." She growled, with her usual tone.

"Of course, whatever it takes. Is there... is there anything I can do for you? Because if so, you just have to tell me."

"I'll keep this favour for when I can charge you, but I'll warn you about one thing, Link."

"Tell me, please."

"As soon as I touched her, I noticed something about that girl. I don't know what it is, I need to look at my oracles and I can't do it from here. But I know it's not normal, there's something inside her that I'd only noticed in someone else."

"What? In whom?"

"In you."

I felt a shiver running down my spine. I remembered why I was always afraid about Mopai, always feared her since I was a kid, and it seemed that was never going to change.

Notes:

For this chapter I had to do a little research on mushrooms, poison and how their effects manifest themselves in the human body. It was really curious. Obviously the effects and consequences vary according to the type of mushrooms (there are some really deadly ones), the amount of poison, the physical state of the subject (obvious) and the speed of reaction to neutralise the poison. The first lesson is that the effects of the poison usually take time to manifest themselves and that is where the danger lies - it may be too late when you realise that you are poisoned. When talking about some types of poisoning mushrooms, the effects of the poison can take days to appear. This is because it is only effective when it goes into the blood, causing little effect on the digestive system, the poison directly attacks the brain and neural system causing global systemic failure. That's the example I used for the fanfic, and the reason why Zelda suffered pains in her body (especially in her arms and legs) and lost consciousness as a result. Anyway, the effects vary with the passing of the hours and the type of mushroom.

That's about the poison, as for the mushrooms themselves I based the "Eyes of Death" on a type of mushrooms that you can find in Spanish markets :) (hence in Spanish forests :)) These are edible, of course, and are known as "Trumpets of Death". The name is just because they look like scary black trumpets, they don't look nice but the taste is amazing. You will typically find them dehydrated in the food markets, and a dish I like a lot is the scrambled of these mushrooms with eggs and potatoes, although in haute cuisine the dish used to be cooked only with eggs. If you visit Spain, don't hesitate a second to ask for these dishes! :)

And the last curiosity, the first ballad of this chapter is not mine, I took it from a popular minstrel-lady of the Middle Ages, the Countess of Dia, she was Occitan and lived in the XII century. I had to adapt it from medieval French to Spanish first, and then from Spanish to English xD

This is the first turning point in the story, I guess you suspect from now on the things between Link and Zelda will become different...

See you next week.

-Juliet.