Chapter 11

Well the boots worked. Link had no trouble leaving the maze now. He could walk right over the water ways. It didn't work perfectly. He couldn't seem to wade out too deep and wherever he went the water came up to his knees and walking was difficult. It was now nearly three in the morning.

Within a couple hours Link arrived back in Nabooru at the house where Impa was staying. He dreaded seeing her again. Their last encounter had been so unpleasant. What on earth could he say to her? When he arrived she was fast asleep. You would think he would have been relieved but Link wanted desperately to talk it over with her there and then. Had he really taken away her one and only reason for living?

Link had been through some long nights in his life but this one was the worst. Not that he had trouble sleeping. But his dreams were disturbing. Even before he woke up he couldn't remember what he had dreamed.

The next morning when he woke up he was in for the shock of his life. He was in Darunia! How on earth had he gotten there? He'd been known to walk in his sleep before but not that far and not through such dangerous terrain. If he could have seen himself he would have been even more shocked. He had demonic symbols painted all over his face in blood. Strange markings were drawn all over the ground. He looked all around but saw no one at first…

"AH!"

Everyone was dead! Bodies were all over the place. Every single one of them had HLG carved in their foreheads. The sight was beyond sickening. Men, women, and yes, children. From some tattoos he found it appeared some of them may have even been Cult members. What the hell happened? He could see from tracks on the ground that some of them had run out of town. Perhaps they had made it to safety.

Just then Link heard some soft whimpering coming from underneath an overturned horse trough. He picked it up and a little girl was hiding underneath.

"It's OK sweetie, I won't hurt you…"

The girl took one look and Link and screamed bloody murder. She tried to run but Link needed an answer so badly that he grabbed her. As he did he saw a puddle on the ground and in the reflection saw his own face grotesquely painted in blood.

"What happened?"

The girl continued screaming and desperately trying to pull herself loose.

"I won't hurt you, I just want to help."

The girl became more and more agitated.

"Answer me! Who did this?"

"YOU DID!" screamed the girl.

In his shock he let her go. The girl couldn't have been any older than seven but as soon as he let her go she punched him in the face hard enough to break his nose. While he was grabbing his face, she took off like an Olympic sprinter.

"No!"

It couldn't be true. Never in a hundred million years…

Link washed his face off in the puddles the best he could. HIS SWORD! His sword had blood all over it. How could this be? Link wondered if the world was ending. I couldn't do justice to what he was feeling at this point in print. Sorrow. Confusion. Fear. His whole world was falling apart.

Link looked all over but couldn't find any more survivors. But it seemed as though a lot of the people he had seen before had escaped. They were not among the dead at least. He couldn't possibly bury them all. The only thing he could do was to cremate the piles of bodies he found. The flames spread to the houses and burned those too. He hadn't wanted or expected that but at this point it didn't seem to make too much difference. He watched in misery as an entire town and everything it had been was reduced to cinders. This was a new low for him.

The long walk back to Nabooru was terribly disturbing. He tried to think about Zelda but for the first time he couldn't even remember what she looked like. He tried to pray but he didn't know what to say.

Just then he heard an angry shout. The next thing he knew, a man he had seen before in Darunia raced out from behind a pile of rocks and viciously attacked him.

"Traitor! Vile fiend!" he shouted. "We tried to help you!"

"It wasn't me!" yelled Link.

"Liar!"

The man was obviously a soldier and a very good swordsman but even he was no match for Link who easily disarmed him and knocked him to the ground.

"Go ahead," snarled the soldier bravely. "Kill me. Kill an unarmed man the way you slew all those innocent people last night. I hope it feels good, coward!"

At the word "coward" something unexpected happened. Link was seized by a sudden and terrible rage. He really did want to kill him! But he didn't too. It was as if he were in a death struggle with his own sword arm which seemed to desperately want to spill this man's blood. Thank God the sensible part of him won out. With an almost girlish scream, Link ran away into the woods as fast as he could.

By the time he got to Nabooru it was late afternoon already. He had washed all the blood off of himself and used magic to heal his nose. In the distance he saw a large crowd in the city streets. What was going on? He was scared to enter the town. Perhaps rumors had reached Nabooru already. Link got off the path and hid in the tall grass. No demons bothered him there. If they had the death they would have suffered would have been quite painful.

"It wasn't you."

Link nearly died of fright. He turned around to see Impa standing over him.

"I told all those people in Nabooru that you would never do such a thing," she continued. "I'm not sure they completely believe me. There are quite a few traumatized survivors from Darunia staying there."

"Impa, Impa my gosh I don't know what in the world is happening," stammered Link. "I have no memory whatsoever of killing anyone but I woke up and I was in Darunia and I was…"

"Shhhh," interrupted Impa. "You don't need to convince me. Whatever sort of evil we're up against is beyond anything we've ever even dreamed of. Everything now depends on the reunion of the Triforce. If that doesn't happen or if the Triforce falls into evil hands the world will be dead before two weeks have passed."

"How did I wind up in Darunia?" asked Link.

Impa sighed. "I don't mean to alarm you kid, but it seems as if the forces behind the Cult do have some sort of hold on you after all. Nonetheless, I refuse to believe you killed all those people, even under some sort of control. They may have gotten you to Darunia but they could never make you do all that. Which brings me to my next point…"

Here Impa grew quiet and found it hard to continue. "Zelda meant so very, very much to me," she continued at last. "I don't blame you for her death. If I really honestly did I would have tried to kill you right then and there. I was so grief stricken I thought I'd die. Can you ever forgive me?"

Link threw his arms around the old woman. "Of course I do. Who else do I have left? What would I ever do without my favorite granny?"

Impa got choked up. "I never got married. I never had any children to love me. I was so devoted to my art and to service to the king. When Zelda was born… Oh Link it was heaven!"

At this point Impa really did start crying but she continued. "I gave up everything to be her nursemaid and when her brother Fabian was born it was like I really was a grandmother. But that poor girl went through so much. And it was reprehensible her having to marry that pig. He did this to her, dammit! Whatever darkness she was feeling made her susceptible to some evil ideas that turned into obsessions. But she came around before she died. Thank God…"

Impa breathed hard. This was getting tough for her. "I'm OK," she continued. "If anything ever happened to you I don't know what I'd do. But I want you to know I'll go on no matter what happens. I can't put that weight on your shoulders. The weight of the world has already been placed there thanks to this whole quest thing. Any more and you'll break."

"I wish I knew what to do now," muttered Link.

"You'd better avoid the town," replied Impa. "I can restore your magic and you can use that magic to heal yourself. I'll sit on the path just south of Nabooru waiting. If you need me, I'll be there. I've done enough snooping to figure out that the next palace is on a small island to the east and there is a rock just to the north of it that has a heart icon."

She looked at the sky. "Night is falling. Maybe you should rest up and try it tomorrow."

"No!"

"What's wrong?" asked Impa.

"I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what will happen the next time I go to sleep. I'm afraid something could happen to you."

Impa sighed. "I don't know what to tell you. I wish I could promise you that nothing bad will happen but I can't. But I am a very light sleeper. If I so much as sense one movement from you I'll run like crazy. But I don't want to send you in there if you aren't fully rested. Now here, I got us some food and water from town."

The two of them ate and as the hours passed by Link grew drowsy. Impa refused to fall asleep before he did. He was afraid of falling asleep but he couldn't help it. Eventually he dozed off. Impa stared at him for several minutes. She too was quite concerned. When she was satisfied that nothing bad would happen she too lay down…

"After I kill this fool the very next life I take will be yours, Impa."

Impa sat bolt upright and looked over at Link. What she saw both puzzled and frightened her very badly. He was asleep, that was obvious. He was even snoring. But his eyes were wide open.

"Who are you?" asked Impa in shock.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Well you'll find out just as soon as the rest of the world does. Then you'll die."

Link's mouth had never moved but Impa had heard Link's voice as clear as day in her mind.

"Oh what's the matter? I thought you were going to 'run like crazy' if anything happened. Well no need. I won't strike again. Yet. But you say one word to Link about this pleasant little chat and come tomorrow night there won't be one living person left on this part of the island. I mean it. Sweet dreams."

With that Link's eyes closed again. Impa was terrified. She didn't understand what had just happened at all. What on earth was she going to do?

When Link woke up the next morning he saw Impa sitting nearby wide awake and as alert as a guard dog clutching a book of spells. Her eyes were bloodshot. It was obvious she hadn't slept all night.

"Oh no, what happened?" asked Link.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Don't ask me that question. Just don't. I can't answer nor can I tell you why I can't answer. But you'd better hurry. We may have much less time than I thought."

"Impa…"

"Don't talk! Just go!"

Link took one last look at her and hurried off. She watched him disappear over the next hill and promptly fell asleep.

In the meantime Link jumped off the cliff where the path ended into the water. There was no way he could have used a raft here. He trudged his way through the waters, first to the rock where the heart icon lay waiting and then finally to the palace. It was about seven in the morning.

End Chapter 11