Isa: Hi guys! I am SO sorry it took me this long to update! I was busy with school and drama. I just finished preforming in "Arsenic and Old Lace." I was Aunt Martha! It took up all my time. Sorry. But now here is the fith chapter for anyone who wants it. Enjoy!
Chapter Five: In which the evil spreads
Night covered the Death Mountain trail like a thick blanket, and Link started a fire while Sheik bounded the horses to a near by tree. The hot embers brushed against Link's face and danced into the bleak sky. He wiped the sweat from his brow and stood.
"Ow, my back is killing me, do you know how uncomfortable it is riding in a saddle all day long? man...I'm so tired" Link sat on the ground and kicked off his boots, "why couldn't Death Mountain be a little closer?"
Sheik rolled his eyes. "Uh, you're so conceded"
Link looked up sharply, at that instant Sheik didn't sound like Sheik, but someone else, like, like a girl.
"What?" Link asked stressing the word. Sheik shook his head rapidly.
"We-we shall travel where we're needed, that' all that matters, so quit your complaining"
"That's not what you said" Link muttered, pulling out his Ocarina. That's not how you said it ether, he added bitterly to himself. Sheik sat across from him on the sandy ground, they had risen in altitude and any spot of green was a great find. The Sheikah pulled out his harp and struck it once with his fingers.
A clam and peaceful melody poured into Link's ears as Sheik began playing. Link swayed to the music a few times, and when Sheik finished, Link played a song of his own. The song he had learned as a child in Kakkriko Village.
Sheik listened intently and tried the melody on his own instrument. He played it back just as if he had know the whole song all his life, and if he had, that didn't surprise Link. There were many things he didn't know nor understand about this strange boy, many things.
Link nodded in approval and started to play Zelda's lullaby on his Ocarina. With Impa gone as a Sage, Link had to be a master at this song, because the Princess, even at the age of seventeen would refuse to fall asleep without it being played for her ears.
Sheik's eyes twinkled in the dim light, almost as if he was smiling. Link couldn't tell with the tick bandana he wore around his face. Sheik followed along on his harp, and together, the Hylain Hero and Sheikah Rouge, played the song of the Royal Family. Which reached the ears of one person, lurking far away, shielded by the cloak of darkness.
Navi the fairy circled the trees of Kokiri Forest in a mad rush, searching high and low for her young elfin companion and his Princess. Both nobles had vanished within a single night and both Hyrule and the Eastern Desert was in an uproar with the past events. Even the Kokriri children, who usually never took interest in the world outside their own, gossiped rapidly. Navi came to rest on a tree limb in the main village of the forest.
The Forest Sage, Saria, sat on a cool moss covered rock, twirling a strand of her short green hair on her finger as she listened to a Kokiri boy with orange bright hair and flaming emerald eyes talk viciously with another flaming hared girl.
"I told you he was a fraud!" the boy cried holding up a small fist, "but did you listen? NO! You give that guy a second chance and batta-bing, batta-boom, kills a hundred Gruedo women and bags off with the Princess!"
The girl put a hand to her mouth.
"Do you really think so?" she squeaked and Saria's jaw dropped, "Gosh golly, he seemed like a nice mister"
"They all do" the boy replied crossing his arms and biting down hard on his lower lip.
"Enough Mido!" Saria spoke up suddenly, her face cross, "you know Link would never kill anyone. You say these things about him, because you are jealous!"
"Mido's jealous?" the girl questioned, with a puzzled look. Saria nodded.
"I'm afraid so, Katya" she gave Mido a dagger sharp look and he rolled his eyes.
"He killed Ganondorf, he killed Onox, he killed the Greudos," Mido replied, his eyes cold, "he's going to kill us all! You watch! Link of the Triforce is a murder!"
"Watch your tongue!" Saria snapped and hopped off her rock, "Ganondorf was an evil man, so was Onox and evil had to be stopped, if it weren't for Link, we'd all be slaves to the King Of Evil. As for the Greudos...I don't believe it was him"
Mido snorted. "Your feelings for the traitor blind you, it had to have been him, no one else can wield the Master Sword! and no one else has the magic of the flaming blade"
"Evil has many forms" Saria said, struggling to keep her voice even and calm, "it can work in many ways. Obviously, it's tacit at the present moment is loyalty. This is just meant to through us off, to pit us against one another and raise up against one of our most loyal friends"
The other elves nodded in agreement, but Mido squelched.
"Your loyalist friend" he muttered. Katya turned sharply to him, her small mouth in a tight frown.
"You never liked Link! You always hated him! and made fun of him!" she screamed, "why should we believe you?"
"Because I speak the truth" Mido shot back and disappeared into the trees. Navi watched him go and shook her head in disapproval. But what he said had made sense. Who else had that kind of power? and if it wasn't Link who else could it be? the only person with power equal to the Triforce Hero was the Princess, or Ganondorf. Ganondorf was dead, and the Princess surely wasn't responsible. Still...it seemed very odd that Link would disappear at the same time the Princess did. Just after the tragedy at Greudo Fortress.
Navi shook her head rapidly. She was foolish to think such thoughts. Link would never do anything this horrible. He had to kind a heart. No this was definitely the work of the Dark Forces. But this was evil at it's greatest.
Another blow had struck, this time at the Zora River. Chaos had erupted in the palace as Princess Ruto sped down the castle halls. Trying to avoid the torrents of panicked Zoras flooding the passageways. The Immortal Zora Elder had fallen ill, and that could only spell doom for the protectors of the water.
The Zora's were a very superstitious people, and stayed true their myths and legends, and had many Guardians. The Elder and the Great Jabu-Jabu were two of them. Princess Ruto had always thought them childish fairy tales, until now.
The Elder had lost the Staff of Immortality, a totem that allowed him to escape the grasps of death and live on forever. According to legend if the Staff was ever stolen the Immortal along with all the other Zoras would perish.
Well, the staff was not stolen, but broken, and the Elder had fallen ill, and the Princess couldn't help but feel a little weak herself.
At last the Princess reached the healing rooms, were the Immortal lay on a thick red bed, lined with pillars that slinked out smoke in a blue marbled room. Her father, the King Zora sat by the fireplace, his huge bulk nearly taking up the entire room. Some of the palace servants stood by, chanting the death ritual.
Ruto pushed through the crowd of people until she reached the Elder. His eyes were squeezed shut and Ruto grabbed his hand in hers.
"Elder, I am here now, just as you requested" she spoke softly.
The Elder's eyes fluttered and opened slowly.
"Oh...your Highness..." his voice was forced out of his mouth and was very faint, "thank goodness you've come"
"What happened?'' Ruto asked. The Elder coughed.
"I-I don't know. I was on my way to the Water Temple when I was attacked"
Ruto's eyes narrowed. "Attacked? by whom?"
"I...can't really describe him, but he was wearing a black tunic, with a hat of Korkiri style"
Ruto raised an eyebrow, what the Elder was saying did not make sense.
"Are you saying it was a Korkiri who attacked you?"
"No, he was a young man, "he wheezed, "I'd estimate he was about seventeen, but he wore Kokirish clothing. He jumped on me, and split my staff in two with a firey blade"
Dead silence spread through out the room, and the air became grave. Even the servants had stopped their chanting and stared at the old Zora. Ruto's heart sank to the pit of her stomach. She blinked, No, she thought, no, I must have herd incorrectly.
"A firey blade?" she repeated, glancing at her father, ''are you certain?"
The Elder nodded, then was swept away in a lengthy cough fit. After he got a chance to speak he said, "I am, there's no mistaking it"
"Impossible" Ruto herd a servant mummer and she agreed.
"I'm sorry you must be mistaken" she said gently.
"I know what I saw!" the Elder hissed and wheezed dangerously.
Princess Ruto sighed. No way, she thought, but the Elder wasn't one to lie, and the Princess had no choice but to except the truth.
"I don't believe you" the King spoke up and everyone gasped and turned sharply to him. The King nodded firmly and shut his eyes.
"That lad is very kind hearted, I know him myself and he would never do a thing like that, he doesn't have the heart too"
"Maybe..."the Elder droned on, "but I saw what I saw..." He coughed loudly and breathed in his last breath, wheezed once and was still. Princess Ruto felt as if a sharp spear had pierced her heart, and her head throbbed with a dull pain.
"Traitor" some one muttered, and Ruto recognized it as the same voice before. She searched the room and stood, clutching her hand into fists.
"Link would never bring such evil upon us" she said, fighting back tears, for she had loved him once, and it pained her to hear such dishonor tied to his name, "he bares the symbol of Courage, and will remain loyal to the last! Perhaps he is not the only one who can control the Blade of Fire"
The Princess left the room, hurrying to her quarters where no one could see her cry. Her thoughts turned to Link and how he had saved her from that horrible monster inside Jabu-Jabu's belly. He was so brave, and only a child at the time. When she was sent off as a Sage, she thought she would never experience a greater pain then having to break her engagement to him, she was wrong.
The fact that Link had been called a traitor didn't bother her, what bothered her was that many of her people, even as she laid by her bedside, were becoming ill and dying, and there was no cure.
And that she had Link to thank for it.