The special suite on the top floor of the Cloud Palace Inn brought a dreamed about comfort to Link. If Sir Mawar's men weren't crawling all over the streets looking for him, Link could lie in the queen sized bed for days. Each exhale expelled a little bit of anxiety from his blood rush. What brought him the greatest comfort was not laying in luxury nor having his weapons and supplies lying within arms reach but the certainty that nobody, present company excluded, knew his precise location. The grandiose decorations did well to hide the drab color of the clay walls, the rot of the wooden framework, and the splinters poking through the floorboards, and the quiet setting provided excellent privacy for the two, acquaintances.
Her hair was tied into her signature twintail that swayed when she shook her head disappointingly and spoke with a soft, city accent, "Cica, you still have friends, you know." When Link first walked into the vacant inn suite, the first things his eyes caught were his longsword, his beloved home bag, the cape he dropped, ropeshot laid out across the bedcover, and the first thing he felt was massive relief. In one day, Link had acquired an undamaged longsword and a priceless ropeshot, two things that would have taken him a year and a lifetime respectively to acquire under normal circumstances.
Link shrugged off her comment, "It's hard to tell who's friend or foe these days." There was only one person he could fully trust… himself, and no one else. "Evidently, it only takes less than a day to turn from the first to the second," he said as a clear jab at the Ganford Twins' memories.
"Tch," scoffed Link's "friend" Nerachmuud, "I tried to tell them not to break their own rules. But they told me it would be of no consequence. So long as there were no repercussions to their reputation, they were willing to sell their honor for fifteen gold rupees. I could say no more to stop them."
Link nodded, "I don't blame you." Nerachmuud was not a fighter, merely a survivor like Link. She and each one of her sisters grew up in the brothel next door, where they were raised to please men until they finally earned their way out of that life. And while some, like the Ganford twins, chose the life of the blade they got out, others like Nerachmuud chose a peaceful profession. Disgusting as it was, cleaning up and washing the sheets from the prior night's activities, the job was still preferable to that of the woman being serviced in the rooms in anyone's opinion. In the face of two bounty hunters, there was naught more she could do with her head held high.
Far be it for Link to call Nerachmuud a friend, though. She was a receptacle for every rumor that passed through Gerudo lips and had made gossiping a notorious hobby of hers. No secret within both houses of the Gerudo capitol was safe so long as Nerachmuud was gainfully employed there. All flow of information passed through her ears, but prying them from inside her head was as next to impossible as a peasant marrying into nobility. Both suffered from the same exception though: rupees. Which then spiked Link's curiosity, why all the hospitality? But he was never going to ask that to his gracious host. Not today at least.
She walked to the sill and sat on it looking out into the open sky, "So, where to next?"
He had to take care not to divulge too much, "That's what I'm trying to figure out."
"And how will you get there?"
Link continued dodging her question, "I'm gonna figure that out next."
Oy, said Link mentally to grab Shoe's attention, How are you guys doing?
"They await your cue."
Link took a deep breath, Go ahead.
"Okay, a pair of watch are patrolling back and forth between the tannery and the guild house on Din Road. One archer is posted on top of a three story shophouse on Din Road west of Nayru. There is a traffic checkpoint to north of…"
The command initiated a stream of information that flowed from seven different directions and funneled into one recipient, who then listed out each observation slowly for Link to paint the mental map in his head. Smoxy was positioned about a hundred yards southwest, Kebas to the west, Tandry to the south, Siklayvin to the north, Marqo to the northeast, Mihayl to the east, and Rakayla to the southeast. The only direction he did not check wa s northwest, straight up the Royal cliff.
"Two watchmen patrolling on the east-west street by the south side of the warehouse. Three watchmen directing traffic at Zelda and Triforce. There's an archer on a balcony of a house three blocks west of Nayru. Tandry says there's a watchman posted on the northern street of a six-way crossing. Smoxy sees a watchman…"
"What are you doing?" Nerachmuud's sudden question almost dissolved his map in his mind, but with a strong, mental imprint, Link managed to retain the mental image.
"Silence, please." he said as he raised his finger.
"Hmph, you're no fun."
He did not know it, but with his eyes closed and his thoughts focused, Link looked like he was meditating deeply as he sat cross legged on the bed. The extra concentration required absolute silence to prevent him from erasing the mental map he drew in his head, but countless nights spent in Sanctuary trying to find his next move had chiseled the district's layout into his stubborn, short memory, from every street to every building.
Inside his head, he could visualize Nayru Avenue stretching north, eventually climbing upwards into the mountains, and south, all the way until it reached the end at Farore Road, which ran east from the castle barracks, looped around Valor Island, and ended at the Desert Oasis square. The next major east-west street south of the square, Din Road, ran east until it reached Farore Road's loop, and ran west, following the Royal cliff south west, until it reached the castle barracks. Behind the well-to-do shophouses that lined these major roads were the city bowels where Link was most likely going to traverse.
"An archer on top of the bakery on Zelda Street. There's three watch and a knight directing traffic around a smith two blocks east."
All his new fairy friends were doing was telling him the location of every royal soldier. Archers were posted on top of the buildings touching the major street intersection. Watchmen were littered all over the roads leading north and east; either they were going area through area, or they were redirecting traffic. So far, only two knights had been spotted: the one in the northeast overlooking the district and another assisting with traffic on Zelda Street.
The news that continued pouring in was not good. Sir Mawar had foreseen the boy's best potential exits and, with naught more than three of four men per traffic checkpoint, had dammed off the way north to the mountains, the way south to the city walls, and the way east to the peerage districts. With the majority of the moving crowd trickled down to a scattered few in the north and northeast domains beyond the roadblocks, Link would be easy pickings for the archers there.
Tell Mihayl to check the way south to the wall and Marqo to check the block behind the Desert Oasis. What does Tandry see past the south roadblock?
"One watchman is posted in the gap between a tavern and a tannery, and Tandry says just about every alley connecting Nayru has one watchman." It seemed like Sir Mawar was opting to spend his manpower by blocking access to the city bowels rather than risk men trying to search for him there. "And there's two pairs of watchmen patrolling through the avenue as well." As expected of the old man. He needed absolute certainty that the southern exit was gone.
Link also knew the city watch's manpower had its limits, Where do they stop patrolling?
It took awhile for Shoe to respond, but that meant Tandry was scouting beyond the communicable range, "Until Saria Street." The short street only three blocks north of the burnt blacksmith. Link would have to keep that mental note as he traversed through the slums.
Which only left the western route open, exactly what the Judge wanted. The westward segment of Zelda Street intersected with the north-south Triforce Lane, and Sir Mawar was kind enough to up a choke point at the southern end. The district north of Zelda Street was an affluent market for those who lived on the northern terraces, which naturally drew a heavy watch presence. His only hope was to find an alleyway that connected south into the Forest of Bowels, one of the largest shanty districts sandwiched between Din Road and Nayru Avenue, and also notoriously the most dangerous one of the slums in the city.
However, getting out of the slum was a problem to be solved later. Shoe, report from Kebas. Link still had to get in, and with Kebas having already identified a heavy archer presence on Zelda Street west of Nayru, he would have to rely on the traveling peasants to mask his way through.
"Past the roadblock, there's only a pair of archers posted on a balcony of an inn."
That was it? If Link could cross the Forest of Bowels just enough to slip past the traffic checkpoint, then the trek south on Triforce Lane would be an easy one. He could then turn onto Saria Street and then onto Nayru, and then following that road south would take him to the city walls and the refugee camps nearby. There was just one final piece of his plan that was amiss. Is there anybody watching the alleyway between the guild house and the cobbler on Zelda Street?
… "There's no one."
Yes! Link opened his eyes. Okay Shoe, tell everyone to assemble there. With his route mapped out, Link slipped the longsword onto his back and then slid both arms through the two leather straps attached to his home bag, on the run carrying his life on his back once again. He had a dangerous walk ahead of him, but this time, he had a ropeshot in his left hand and eight extra pair of eyes.
Feeling his stomach once more even though he had stuffed himself with bread and cheese only an hour prior, Link asked his generous host, "Nera, you don't mind grabbing me a loaf of that fine Gerudo bread and a piece of bacon before I go, do you?"
"Of course not." By the time Nerachmuud returned with the food, Link had emptied himself and was sitting on the window sill looking below, checking for watchmen.
"Thank you," said Link as he reached for the loaf of bread.
"But," she pulled the bread suddenly out of his reach, "answer me one question."
Link sighed, "Fine, what is it?"
"Where are you going?"
He knew what game she was playing. As someone who was known for knowing everything, she was never going to let Link leave without prying something out of his head, which meant had to deliberate an answer for that bread and egg. "North," he lied, hoping she would buy the story and spread it should she want to collect on the bounty herself. It was rude of him to answer falsely, especially to someone who had graciously went out of her way to retrieve the boy's equipment; however, survival prioritized honor in every situation in Link's mind.
"Hmph," she responded, slowly handing the food to Link, who scarfed the bacon down immediately and stuffed the loaf in his home bag through a small slit in the side.
"Nerachmuud," said Link as he faced the dangerous outside and pointed the ropeshot, at the Desert Oasis across the way, "thank you."
His mysterious host grinned and responded with the traditional phrase of accepting thanks which roughly translated to, "My pleasure."
Satisfied with their standing, he fired the ropeshot trigger and was on his way. Immediately, Link realized how much he overestimated the difficulty of reaching his intended destination. Sure there were archers posted on rooftops and balconies, sure there were watchmen coming through the streets, but none of that mattered so long as he had one friend to locate them and a ropeshot to maneuver wherever he wanted around them. With the firing of his tool, he could scale roofs over three stories tall within heartbeats.
The journey became even easier once he assembled with the rest of his group. "Spread out," he instructed his friends, "spot and identify every single person you see." There may have been no watchmen searching in the slums, but Link could take no chances with any of the vagrants that lived in these parts. Any homeless drifter in an abandoned shophouse could easily be a madman waiting to pounce his blindside, or worse, someone he managed to anger in the past. But with eight eyes hovering over and scouting the filthy squalor, Link could safely travel under the cover of wooden walkways just by knowing where the homeless slept. And if his path was blocked, there was almost no safe place to which his ropeshot could not whisk him.
Once he reached the alley exit just behind the Zelda Street roadblock, he dove into the southward traffic, flowing with the movement to the small market square connecting Zelda Street to Saria street. As he traveled with the moving crowd, Link's mind began to wander. His thoughts recalled the events of the past two nights, and the only things that stood out from his all his memories were the Protector's voice. After so many years. Why did his memory of her flash into his head so vividly two days ago? If the soft, glowing heat on the back of his hand was her method of communicating to the boy from the beyond the grave, what was she trying to tell him?
His mind was on the verge of playing back his last memory of her, when his heart suddenly dropped and reminded him with with a small taste of what emotion he was about to evoke. However, Link knew he needed to revisit this memory sooner rather than later. Every fight, every struggle, and every obstacle he encountered were somehow begging him to revisit his last and only memory of the Protector. And when he finally decided to conjure their last moment together, the details began creating a saddening pain that Link had to fight against.
Each time he pieced together the Protector's warm body resting in his arms, each time the fading life behind her blue eyes became clearer, each time his skin recalled the trickle of her warm blood down his arms, a growing urge welled from the bottom of his chest, wanting to expel his emotions through his eyes. He had never gotten this far in remembering the details before, but he knew his destiny lay somewhere in this memory.
Once Link rounded the corner onto Saria Street, he knew his destination was not too far. After only six blocks more of walking, he would soon reach the end of Nayru, and just beyond lay the many refugee camps that could provide shelter. No wonder why the city watch only went as far south as Saria Street, Mister Praetenmore's men-at-arms occupied the area around his old building block.
As he walked past House Praetenmore's men, he epiphanized a whisper from his memory: a name, the last name the Protector used to call him…
"LINK!" the voice triggered a sudden hot pulse from his scar travelling up his arm and through his body. He knew instantly to whom the voice belonged. If that stupid fairy's voice weren't so annoying, Link could have listened to every word Miro Miro said, "HELP! My, my friend is in danger!"
Link was already so close to the street crossing, where just over lay a community of people who didn't care if he was wanted. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved in someone else's mess, let alone die along the way. "Then call the city watch, now leave me alone."
"Please!" another hot pulse flashed up his arm. Instantly, the boy thought of his best friend that he lost. What was she trying to tell him? And why? Even more aggravating, why now!? "You're the first person I recognized! And, and, I don't know if a watchman's going to help me or capture me instead…"
He shrugged off her plea again, "Helping your friend is your problem. Not mine. Living another day is my problem. Not yours. So buzz off." Link was only a few steps away from the thick traffic of people squeezing their way past each other. On the other side of the road lay many refugee camps at which he could retire for the night. No one would bat an eye at a hungry Link living amongst them.
"I, I can't turn to anyone else!" she protested.
A final hot flash from his scar stopped him in his tracks, just before he was about to dive into the viscous traffic.
"Link, what are you waiting for?" screamed Mihayl.
"There's two watchmen approaching the crossing from the east! You gotta go now if you want to get to the other side before they get there!" warned Shoe.
The struggle between doing the right thing and doing what he promised to the Protector froze Link in place. Why was she asking him to do exactly the opposite of what he promised her? For many forgotten years, the Protector and the scar had stayed silent. And for the first time in years, ever since Link had met the pink fairy, it felt like his old friend was trying to communicate with him from beyond the grave.
But she was asking him to risk his life for a stranger.
"Link, it's now or never!"
A loud growl erupted from Link as he went against his conscience.