Chapter 7

Link ran all day and night. The dread was terrible but not knowing was far worse. He took every shortcut he could think of. He didn't even try to stay on the path. Any enemy stupid enough to mess with him found itself ripped into little pieces in less than a second. He sprinted across the bridge over the lake and into the North Palace.

The door to the basement was open. Oh, this was bad. What he found in the candle-lit room nearly made his heart stop. Impa was sprawled over on the ground, bruised and bloodied. To Link's horror and furry he saw the letters HLG carved into her forehead. She was semi-conscious and struggling to breath. She seemed to be a little more with-it when Link picked her up off the ground but he could tell she was in terrible shape. She had been beaten ruthlessly and without a speck of mercy and had several stab wounds to the abdomen. Such a tough old bird this woman was! At her age she was still clinging to life after an attack that would have killed a man in the flower of his youth.

"Link…. I can't see… is that you?" Tears streamed down her face. "I wanted you to be here, I wanted…"

"DON'T TALK!" screamed Link. "What happened?"

"You just told me…not to talk, you moron," whispered Impa with a grin. "They came. The Cult. Villagers from Saria. They wanted to mutilate Zelda. There is…no feeling, no part…of you that they won't exploit. They want to hurt you so bad. You would have been proud of me. I put a force field over Zelda so they couldn't touch her and wouldn't take it off no matter what they did to me. I wanted to…hold on until you got here. But the pain… oh heavens, the pain is so bad… you have to let me go now. I wish I had something profound to say…I wish…ungh…kill me…"

"WHAT! No!"

"Oh please Link, I'm suffering so horribly," moaned Impa weakly. "And I want to go by the hand of someone I love. I can't bear the thought of those bastards ending my life. Please. Oh please do this poor suffering old woman one last favor, I beg of you…"

Impa coughed up some blood and couldn't talk anymore but her whole body was shook by sobs. Link couldn't hold in the tears either. He placed her gently on the floor. He picked up his sword.

"I love you granny," he whispered. "I'm so sorry this is all I can do for you."

"DON'T DO IT!"

What was that? Link had heard the voice as plain as day. But where had it come from? Just then Link had a terrible thought. He ran up to the altar. To his shock, tears ran down Zelda's face as well.

Link had to make a decision right there and then. He knew it had been Zelda who had spoken through his heart. She didn't want him to do it. That was clear. But then she wasn't the one on the floor in agony either. But could he…

No! He couldn't! He'd never be able to sleep again. He picked up Impa and ran faster than he had ever run in his entire life; faster than he could have run without the 104 pound burden in his arms. He was racing towards the healer's house in Rauru as fast as he possibly could. He had left his sword in the palace and didn't dare waste time by taking the path but it didn't matter. No monster in the world could have caught up to him.

"What are you doing you numbskull?" asked Impa weakly. Link didn't answer. He didn't have enough wind in him to talk and run this fast. Impa grinned. "She stopped you didn't she?" Impa sighed. "It's OK. I can't feel anything now. I'm not suffering…"

"Impa?"

No answer.

"Impa?"

Nothing.

"IMPA!"

Link stopped and set her down. "DON'T DO THIS TO ME YOU OLD FART!" he screamed. She was unconscious and barely breathing. "WE'RE LESS THAN A MILE AWAY! NO! DAMMIT, NO!"

Link got no response. In a sudden rage he screamed so loud that the people in Rauru a mile away actually heard him. He was filled with a rage, a wild, dark, angry sadistic hate the likes of which he'd never even come close to feeling before in his wildest dreams. "They'll pay!" he snarled. He would go to Saria now. He would make them suffer more than they had ever imagined possible. He would annihilate every last man woman and child in that entire town. Kill! Kill! KILL! He laughed evily. He laughed…. Laughed?

How could he possibly laugh at a time like this? He came to his senses. What had become of him? Was this the hero of Hyrule? Was this the man who had been loved only to let his love turn to mind numbing hatred? He fell to the ground and wept uncontrollably. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry Zelda. I'm not like that! God? God can you hear me? Oh God please forgive me! I'll do anything! I'm not like that, I swear!" He struggled to breathe.

"MARCELLUS! Oh Marcellus, that God you believed in, let Him be real, oh please…" He was too weak to keep crying. Without a single sword or spear his very life had almost been lost and the thought was unbearable.

As he lie there face first on the ground he felt delicate fingers slowly and gently stroke his hair. He was shocked but not half so shocked as he was when he sat up and saw it was Impa who had done it. She was fully healed and smiling.

"How… how did you?"

Impa smiled and pointed up. Link saw a small fairy hovering above them both.

"Oh… oh Impa… I… almost…."

He started crying again and Impa dropped to her knees and hugged him. She sighed. "You really are a numbskull, you know that?" she whispered gently. "But I love you more than all the world."

There are moments in life words can't describe. They wouldn't do these moments justice anyway. Too many things to feel at once and far too intense, these feelings, well it happens sometimes. The two walked the last mile to Raruru where they checked into an inn and Link fell asleep and didn't wake up for two days. His dreams had never been more intense or more real than they were now.

Impa watched him slumber. She knew exactly what had happened. Forget Ganon, Link had fought the biggest battle of his life out there in the wilderness without picking up a weapon and he had won.

Not long after waking up, Link got sick. He had a bad case of the flu and couldn't leave his bed for days. While the women in Rauru tended to his every need, neglecting even their own families sometimes, Impa took the long road back to the North Palace accompanied by two knights. She retrieved the Magic Sword and expanded the force field over the entire palace. Only she and Link could enter now.

By the time she returned Link was feeling better but not good enough to get out of bed. He was very quiet. In Impa's mind he had won a great victory but in his own mind he was garbage.

"I want to apologize to you Link," said Impa. "I put you in a bad position. I never, ever in a million years should have asked you to take my life. It wasn't my time to die and I should never put that on you. Thank God you didn't do it."

Link didn't answer.

"I am such a hypocrite," she continued. "I used to say mercy killing was a bad thing but when it was me well… I'm just not so strong as I thought."

Still no answer.

"Come on Link, say something. Tell me what a senile old hag I am. Go on. I love it when you make fun of me."

"I think I'm gonna die," said Link at last.

"You're not THAT sick," smirked Impa.

"Yes I am," he insisted. "Sick in my mind, sick in my soul if it's still there. I actually felt what it was like to be pure evil. And you know what? I liked it. I LOVED IT! I got such pleasure at the idea of turning Saria into a giant graveyard, of torturing the innocent to make the guilyt suffer… I'm dead inside."

"Oh bullcrap," said Impa. She pinched him.

"Ow! What did you do that for you hag?"

"If you were really dead you wouldn't have felt that," she replied. "You shouldn't be surprised that evil is so tempting. Look at me. Out there in that field I abandoned the principles I've believed in all my life. But I can do better tomorrow. Did you think you were such hot stuff that you would never be overwhelmed by the vice within you? Talk about vanity!"

"Impa, I'm scared," said Link.

"It's OK to be scared," said Impa. "But you have to let your fears teach you how to protect yourself and how to overcome problems. It's when they paralyze you that they become a problem. You're being forced to mature at a rate that would take a normal person years. I mean you're the size and strength of a full grown man but you're only sixteen. Sixteen years old! Heck, you're still a baby! I wouldn't expect you to feel fine now. But you'll overcome before all is said and done. I know it."

"Why, because I'm the Chosen One?" asked Link with a grin.

"No, because I'll kick your ass if you don't," replied Impa. "Now shut up and get some rest."

"Yes, granny."

Link set out again three days later. He tried to fight off any feelings of fear or shame about what had happened. These emotions are tools of evil used to drag someone down and give up the fight. He couldn't let that happen now.

He reached the path above the graveyard. He wanted to go find Marcellus and tell him everything but he felt like he had to go now. He was scared to continue but to postpone this any further would be dangerous to the quest. He left the path and walked south to the graveyard. It was a bone chilling place. It, like Saria, had an aura of evil around it.

Link heard that high pitched noise again. A swarm of Moas attacked him. It was a difficult battle. Their movement was swift and hard to combat. Worse yet every time he moved they matched his movements perfectly. They moved almost as if the were actually…

That was it! He knew what they were! These Moas were the ghosts of Zolas! It made sense now. They moved like a school of piranhas, the orange ones gave off fireballs, and they smelled like fish. Link wished he possessed the upward thrust at this point. He moved as little as possible and let them come to him. If they got out of range he would walk a little. He could actually control them to some extent. He also battled a couple Red Darias but with the downward thrust they proved to be no challenge.

Link reached the center of the graveyard where he saw the largest and most elaborate of all the tombs. The monsters seemed afraid to go near it. An old woman was threshing the grass in front of it.

"What is this?" asked Link.

"Don't you know?" replied the old woman. "This is king's tomb."

Link looked at the headstone. So this was where Elezaar was buried.

"Are you alright out here?" asked Link. "I don't mean to frighten you but you are in the center of a haunted graveyard with monsters surrounding this place on all sides."

"They won't come near this tomb," she replied. "In about an hour, Marcellus will come here to escort me back to town. They know better than to mess with him."

"I can well imagine," replied Link. "Well I'd love to stay and chat but I've got things to do, places to go, and demons to kill."

"God be with you," said the old woman.

"I'm sure He is," said Link more to himself than to anyone else. He walked straight south from Elezaar's tomb as he had been instructed.

Suddenly he fell through a hole in the ground. As he fell he could see Lowders on the ground below. He used the thrust and fell faster rather than slower and slew one. The Sting spell destroyed the rest.

"AGRA!"

The ledge above him was too high to jump so he had to use the Fairy spell. After all the fairies had done for him and for Impa he would have felt wrong to be embarrassed about becoming one momentarily. The other enemies he encountered consisted of Lowders, Myus, and one Goriya.

Up on the surface he couldn't see the Palace. He was on one side of an extinct volcano and it was on the other. He walked around the edge of the rock sure that any minute something would jump out at him. Indeed he could hear monsters nearby but nothing ever happened. Within minutes he was at the front entrance of the Island Palace.

End Chapter 7