The ruins of the Sacred Grove breathed antiquity, an air of forgotten secrets and complex history wrapped serenely around them, mixed with the smell of moss and old stone. This just irritated Link further, reminding him of his own mystery that continued to sleep, dormant, in the back of his mind. The royal crest was everywhere. He turned his head away from the huge three-triangle seal on the floor of the ruins as if it pained him.
"Like I said," he muttered, swatting at ivy strands with his sword, "we've been here before. There's nothing here that stopped being important a hundred years ago."
He stomped up the cracked stairs to the pedestal where he had pulled out his sword. In anger and frustration he thrust the sword back into the plinth, as if in rejection of the ruin and all the secrets it held.
To his surprise, he heard a strange, low grinding noise coming from behind him. He pulled his sword back out and ran back on guard, wondering if some new foe would show its face.
It took a few moments for him to see what had changed. A statue at the top of the ruined grand stairway had moved. Hoping that it had a key or charm or some kind behind it, he scrambled up the fallen stones and looked behind it.
Snarling, he kicked it in frustration. "There's nothing here!"
"There's a door there," Midna spoke from his shadow. "See the doorknob?"
"Oh, what, you want me to open the door to nowhere? Maybe we can just pretend it leads somewhere!" He grabbed the knob and jerked it open.
A dazzling light, too bright to be coming from the sun in the grove, blinded him. He groped forward with both his hands and feet, hoping he could grab whatever it was that was giving off the light without falling through the door to the ground below.
Suddenly the light shifted, and he found he was standing on solid ground. He glanced around him and his jaw fell open in shock.
He was standing in the entryway of a magnificent temple, with elegantly carved marble pillars and stained-glass windows glittering multiple colors in the light.
"Where are we?" he asked no one in particular. Stunned, he realized that the temple's structure exactly matched that of the Sacred Grove ruins, right down to the three-triangle seal and the guardian statues. "This is…"
Suddenly he ran down the stairs, not shattered but brand-new, and turned around. There was a small alcove behind the stairs. He ran in and saw there a new chest…right where an old broken one had sat in the Sacred Grove.
He turned slowly and looked up around him in confusion and awe. "How…how can this be…?"
He walked around the huge entryway slowly, dazed, wondering if he was dreaming again. Had he visited this place in his dreams? No…but yet…there was something eerily familiar about it…
He stood, dumb-struck, on the seal in the middle of the room, trying to wrap his mind around this strange impossibility; his senses suddenly magnified, taking in the jeweled rays of light that drifted into the chamber with holy splendor.
After some passage of time he could not measure, his mind slowly began to function again and he walked up the small stairs to the plinth where he had found his sword. The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle, and he felt himself being drawn toward the plinth. He watched, with detached interest, as his legs carried him forward and his arms raised and thrust the sword back into it.
A stairway appeared out of nowhere, right in front of him, leading to a hallway that had not been there before.
"That wasn't supposed to happen." The sound of his own voice in that serene stillness startled him. He blinked, wondering just what it was that was supposed to happen.
His mind tapped within his skull, trying to draw his attention to something. Go up to the plinth, place the sword…what, what was supposed to happen?
"I…" He stood rooted firmly to the ground. "I've been here before."
"Of course you've been here before," Midna spoke from his shadow. "This is where you got the sword in the first place."
"No…I've been inside this place before…"
"Impossible," Midna snapped. "It started crumbling a hundred years before you were born."
He ignored her, frantically scrabbling inside his own mind for the memory, the answer.
I was here. Several times. I put that sword there. As a boy? As a man? But how….?
He stared as if blind at the open stairway, waiting with both anticipation and dread as the memories struggled to break free of the chains in the back of his mind.
Suddenly a thousand flying images assaulted him, more real than any dream and overflowing from the dark places in his mind, rushing, laughing, reveling in madness.
Struggling on the storm-tossed seas, salt water choking him.
Faces of people who begged him to recognize them, but whose names he could not remember.
The nodding evil face of the moon, seconds from disaster.
The inside of a palace long reduced to dust.
Princess Zelda's face before him, explaining something he knew he should know, but didn't.
A man, grotesquely disfigured by his own demons, stood over him as he lay on the ground, bringing his sword down with a final stroke.
"What is it?" Midna demanded as Link fell to his knees, tears streaming from his blank eyes. She reached out and zapped him.
He snapped back to reality, though still partly wrapped in fog. "What…did…did I die?"
"No, you just had an episode, is all," Midna said acidly. "Pull yourself together!"
"No, I mean…before…" Slowly the mist left his eyes, and he looked down to see his hands shaking. He pulled them into fists. "I'm close…so close…"
Midna just stared at him in exasperation.
Suddenly he stood, and unsheathed his sword. "This is where we have to go in order to get the next part of the mirror, right?"
She nodded. "Yes…let's get on with it, shall we?"
He gripped his sword hard and ran up the stairs. The old woman was right, in her own way…it just needed a trigger. I'm finally at the edge of understanding, and the further I go, the more I'll find…
-&-
The next time he needed to pick up supplies in Kakahiro Village, he stopped to speak with Ilia.
"Was the fortune-teller any help?" she asked.
"No." Link rifled through his knapsack, double-checking all his supplies. "She seemed to think that the moon dream might have something to do with an eclipse, but the little book she checked didn't mention anything like that."
"Well, I guess that makes some sense." She sat down on one of the few chairs at the inn that didn't have a missing leg. "People used to think that eclipses were harbringers of doom, until they began realizing that the sun and moon moved in cycles, and their movements could be predicted. The shaman told me that," she announced proudly. "He told me an old story about the sun and moon, too. Want to hear it?"
Link glanced up at the door, then thought better of it and sat down next to her. "Sure."
"Okay." Ilia settled in her chair and began, "Long ago, before even the time of the goddesses, a prince and princess lived in separate kingdoms, but had known each other since childhood and wished to be together when they grew up.
"But the Night Kingdom and the Day Dynasty were at war, and both monarchs forbade their children to see each other. They pleaded with their parents, presenting the argument that they two could bring peace between the warring states, but their parents held each other in such contempt they would not even speak to each other."
Link fought the urge to yawn. Most old stories, it seemed, sounded like this.
"So the Moon Princess and Sun Prince made a promise to each other. They would sneak out at a preappointed time, meet, and run away together.
"But when they did, they were together only a few minutes before spies from both kingdoms found them out. So they were forced to part, and return to their separate homes.
"Every few decades, the story goes, the Moon Princess and Sun Prince try again to meet, but when they do, even mortal eyes can see, because it disrupts the natural workings of the earth. So they try again and again, hoping someday they can stay together." She beamed at him, but her mouth collapsed into a frown upon seeing the look on his face. "Didn't you like my story?"
"It's a very sad story," he said, though he looked more grouchy than sad.
"Well, most love stories are, unfortunately."
"It's kind of ridiculous. I mean, why keep doing the same thing over and over again if it doesn't work? They should try something else, instead of leaving everything to chance, hoping one day it'll change."
"It's just a story." Her expression turned sour. "Some of us don't have the power over our destiny that you have, Mr. Grand Adventurer. Some of us have to take whatever fortune passes our way."
Link grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."
"Well, it doesn't matter." They sat silently for a minute, then Ilia jumped to her feet, hearing the teakettle whistling in the next room. She came back with a teapot and two cups. "I know you came here to talk to me about something besides the moon. What was it?"
"Oh, right. Did you remember," he asked as they sat together over tea, "anything at all when you lost your memory? Did you have any flashbacks, did anything even seem the slightest bit familiar?"
She shook her head. "It was like my mind was completely blank. Oh, not so much as if I'd forgotten how to eat or something, but I had no idea at all who I was, or who you were."
Link sipped his tea in silent contemplation.
"Why do you ask?" Ilia said.
"These dreams…it's like I remember something that happened to me, but they're so strange…so alien…and yet so familiar."
She rested her elbows on the table. "If you've been dreaming the same thing since childhood, it's going to seem familiar."
"Yes, but how would my mind even come up with these things? They must have come from somewhere." He sighed. "I do have a few leads, though. I'm going to speak to a few of the Gorons."
"Are you having dreams about them, now?"
"Not exactly…"
-&-
"Well, Death Mountain is your peoples' name for it, Brother," the elderly Goron explained as he sat comfortably in the hot spring. "We call it 'Fire Mountain'. Though I suppose if you're not careful, it can amount to the same thing."
"Where did the name come from?" Link asked.
"Well…you don't know this yourself? The Hylians believed that some evil force had made its home in the mountains, eons before our ancestors moved to this area. But if there was any trace of it, we never found it. We always figured that you called it that because of the dangers that go with mining…cave-ins, bad air, that sort of thing."
"So there's no truth to the story of an evil force."
"Well, something had been living here before us. The tunnels were too regular to have been created naturally. So there may have been someone here eons ago, but what type of person or people they were, I have no idea."
"What are you doing?" Midna demanded, leaving the sanctuary of the shadows to look over Link's shoulder as he scratched with quill on parchment, in the candlelight of the Kakahiro Village inn.
"Writing down a list of familiar things," he answered shortly, not bothering to explain further.
Midna examined his handwritten scrawls. They read:
Temple of Time
Death Mountain
Master Sword
Royal Seal & Three-Triangle Seal (Triforce)
Princess Zelda
Midna looked skeptical. "Those are all famous things in your world. You wouldn't need to explore much to be exposed to them."
Link glared at her. "How can I remember the inside of a temple that crumbled a hundred years before I was born? Or the way a sword in a hidden grove feels? Every sword is different. It felt like it was made for my hand."
He scraped the dry quill over a corner of the parchment, eyes half-closed in thought. "What's the evil pig supposed to mean?"
"I'd roll my eyes, but those muscles are tired," Midna grumbled. "Let's face it, sometimes a pig is just a pig. Maybe your parents chucked you in a hog wallow when you were a baby. It would explain a few things…"
Link swatted at her but she ducked out of his way. Turning back to his parchment, he dipped the quill in ink and started sketching toward the bottom. Midna peeked over his shoulder to see him drawing three triangles.
"Power, Wisdom, and Courage," he muttered to himself. "None is much good on its own. Unbridled power only causes destruction. Courage without knowledge or focus is useless. Wisdom cannot be put to use without the other two."
"Yes, well, that's why the Triforce only works properly when it's united," Midna said. "But it's been split for hundreds of years."
"The Twili were imprisoned in the Twilight World when they tried to use it…"
"Don't remind me," Midna grumbled. "And by the way, just because my ancestors did something wrong centuries ago doesn't mean we're evil."
"I never said you were."
Link rested his head on his hand and stood still for so long that Midna thought he had fallen asleep. She was just about to suggest he go to bed when he spoke.
"Midna," he said in a quiet, contemplative voice. "Your world is connected to mine by that mirror. Do you think…there could be other worlds out there, with doors that have yet to be opened? Or have since been sealed shut?"
Taken aback by the depth of the question, Midna replied, "Well…I suppose so…but I've never heard of any others, and I've been around a long time."
Link put down his quill, sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I can't do this anymore tonight. I wish I could ask someone, but there's no way I can contact anyone who would know anything useful…"
-&-
Link exited Malo's Castle Town store weighted down with several bottles of healing potion. "I swear, whoever makes this stuff must have made a mint since I started this whole adventure…"
His musings were interrupted when a pack of small children ran helter-skelter in front of and behind him, nearly knocking him over. Screeching and flocking like sparrows, they descended upon a small makeshift puppet theater close to the four minstrels. A horde of children was already sitting there, shrieking in delight at the drama unfolding before them.
As Link walked closer, he could see that the drawbacks of the tacked-together theater and moldy puppets were offset by the puppeteer's voice acting and enthusiasm.
"I am the great dragon Brimstone, from the flinty mountains to the north!" a gravelly voice roared as a green lizard bounced up and down on his strings. "Fear me, for I will turn your crops to dust and your homes to tinder!" With a chorus of boos, the children added to the drama.
"Oh, dear, whatever shall we do?" a paunchy doll with all its hair pulled out lamented in a creaky old man's voice.
"Dear Uncle, as priestess of this village, I can banish the dragon!" a stick figure in a dress announced, in such a convincing female voice that Link had to look twice at the puppeteer to insure it was a middle-aged man. "But then I, too, must leave this place!"
The old man cried and argued, amid threats from the dragon and pleading from the priestess. Then another puppet dropped down into the theater, wearing a green tunic and carrying a crude wooden sword. "Fear not, fair lady, for I will slay the dragon!" came the gallant voice.
From there the play devolved into slapstick, much to the delight of the children, who cheered when the hero smacked the dragon across the face and booed when the dragon sat on their hero. It ended, predictably, with the hero slaying the dragon and marrying the priestess.
The puppeteer, a balding skinny man wearing once-bright tunic, came from behind and bowed, then produced a begging bowl. "If you liked what you saw, then please, a small contribution will bring you more!"
The children, either not having any money or etiquette, scattered. The minstrels offered a few rupees, which the puppeteer took gratefully.
Link strode up and gave him what was left in his purse. The puppeteer looked up at him, eyes, twinkling. "I didn't know that knowledge of my work had spread to the warrior class." He grinned and thanked Link. "I love performing for children, bless their hearts, but they don't realize that it's an expensive hobby I have."
"You only do puppet shows for children?" Link was impressed with the man in spite of himself.
"Well, adults tend to be a little more discerning in the material I present." He began packing up his little theater. "Oh, and just for the sake of clarity, these are marionettes, not puppets."
"I didn't mean to…"
"It's all right! It's just…well, I choose marionettes because, if you're very skilled, it will seem to the audience's eyes that there aren't any strings at all, that they're living things. It's been a few years since I was able to accomplish that, especially since I haven't been able to afford new materials." He poked some of the "dragon's" stuffing back in. "I had children picking them up and waiting for them to move, they couldn't believe I was pulling their strings! Ah, well, to be young again." He finished packing and thrust the whole box over his shoulders. "Of course, it seemed to me kind of sad…to be a creature that could only move when someone made you. But I guess that's why I decided to live a carefree, if poor, life." He gave Link a little salute with his free hand. "Best of luck to you, young adventurer!"