"The false King will likely have spies and even ordinary citizens out looking for you," said Darunia as they stood at the entrance to the Goron city. "Link and Ganondorf, you may keep the protective clothing I gave you if you think it will help disguise you."
"Thanks, but no," Ganondorf said as he pulled off the tunic. "Red is not really a color meant for hiding."
"You should keep it, though," Darunia said to Link. "The legends always say that the Ancient Hero wore green; it's not much of a ruse, but if you give them pause it may be the difference between life and death."
"What about me?" Zelda asked. "I was never given a princess' garments, but I still wear noble's clothing."
"We can get you some more suitable clothes in the village below," Ganondorf said, pointing to the settlement at the foot of the mountain.
"It's probably dangerous to go in the shops of Kakariko," Zelda warned. "They're very closely connected to the Royal Family."
"Then we won't go in the shops," Ganondorf said pointedly. Link opened his mouth to ask a question, then shut it.
"Good luck!" Darunia called after them as they hurried down the mountain.
Halfway down, Ganondorf motioned to the others to stop, then kneeled down and pressed his ear to the ground. "There are horsemen coming," he announced.
"My uncle may have sent messengers to Darunia," Zelda told him. "Darunia would not betray us, but how can we get to the foot of the mountain without running into them?" She motioned toward the steep, winding, narrow path upon which they walked. "There is hardly room for us to hide."
Ganondorf stared up at the cliffs above them. "I can climb," he said. "But I would rather stay here and hide the two of you, to find out just how much the messenger knows about us."
"I'll stay here," Link offered, taking off his hat and ensuring that no green peeked out from underneath his borrowed tunic. "They've got to be suspicious of a Gerudo man if there's only one in all the country. I'm the least conspicuous of all of us."
"Very well." Ganondorf offered his hand to Zelda and helped her climb up on his shoulder. He dug his hands into the cracks of the cliff and stood on footholds that the other two could not see. Link marveled as the huge man quickly pulled his heavy bulk a couple dozen feet above him.
He chuckled inwardly at the simplicity of the trick, as he watched the King's messenger troupe trudge slowly up the mountain. The head messenger, and all the others on horses, merely stared straight ahead. Those unlucky knights that walked on foot stared only down upon the ground. If any of them merely raised their head they could have seen Ganondorf.
Keeping his head bowed, Link waited for the messengers to approach. Finally he heard someone yell "Hold!"
"Boy," said the head messenger, "we are from Hyrule Castle. We are looking for two fugitives and a girl they kidnapped. One is a Gerudo man; he's very tall, and dark-skinned, with red hair. You can't miss him. The other is a young man who looks much younger than he actually is, dressed in green with blonde hair. They've kidnapped a young noble girl, about your age. Have you seen any of them?"
Link kept his eyes on the ground, not wanting to give the messenger any reason to look up. "No, sir, I haven't seen anyone like that." He tried not to smile at the assumption that the 'kidnapper' must be much older.
The messenger sighed. "Very well then. Take note, boy, there's a large reward offered for their capture. Not that you could collect it." The rest of the troupe laughed. "But pass it on to any adults you know." He took up the reins as if to start forward again, then paused. "By the way, boy, what are you doing all the way up here?"
Link thought fast. "I'm an apprentice to a bomb-maker, sir. I was sent to the Goron city by my master to deliver a request."
"Oh. Well, get along with you, then. Tell your master what I told you so you don't get into trouble for dawdling." He tapped his horse's flanks and the procession moved up the mountain once again.
"What did they say?" Zelda demanded as she climbed off Ganondorf's shoulders, once they were back on the path.
"Exactly what you thought. C'mon, let's hurry!"
--
A few hours later they struck out across Hyrule Field, shrouded in the darkness of the new moon and with the two children clothed in garments Ganondorf had "borrowed" from the village. They stayed close to the thin river that ran along one side of the fields, following it to its beginning in the Zora's Doman.
At first, Zelda managed to keep up with the other two. But she had never been allowed to walk very far, even when she wanted to. Link saw her lagging behind first, then offered to carry her on his back. But he couldn't keep up with the extra weight, and called for Ganondorf to slow down.
"Why didn't you say something earlier? I could have carried her easily," he said as he picked Zelda up.
Zelda reddened slightly. "I'm sorry, I just…wanted to pull my own weight, that's all."
He gave her a surprised look, then said, "Think nothing of it. It's not your fault you're slower than us."
Finally the river thinned to the point that it was a small waterfall emptying into a brook. "Well, here's the beginning, where are the Zora?" Ganondorf demanded.
"The passage is hidden," they whirled round to see a female Zora guard standing in the shallow water behind them. "You are the three that just came from Death Mountain, correct? Darunia sent a message that you were coming. I will take you to our King. Follow me."
She slipped behind the waterfall and the others followed, with some difficulty. They emerged with expressions of surprise, as they stepped into a huge cavern with an enormous pool in the center. A small waterfall flowed on the opposite side, and Zora of all sizes and ages stopped what they were doing to stare.
"You'll have to excuse them," said the guard. "We don't get outsiders very often."
She brought them to the Zora King's throne, in a sparkling mineral pool that spread the little light in the cavern over the ceiling and walls. He looked much like the others, perhaps a little stronger, but save for the crown they could not have picked him out from the rest. Zelda wondered if it was merely the fact that they did not use clothing to define their station.
"Welcome, travelers and friends of Darunia," said the King. "I had heard rumors that the Hidden Princess had escaped from the false king, but I had no way of knowing if they were true."
"So then you are familiar with our quest?" Ganondorf asked, getting straight to business.
The King nodded. "The Temple you seek is not far from here. But there are some things I must tell you before you go." He motioned toward a servant, who gave him an ornately carved box. "In better times, we would escort visitors to the air pockets of the Temple ourselves, but I will not allow my people to enter. A malevolent phantom lives there, one which has somehow taken the form of a Zora and even created more of itself somehow. Those of my warriors who have gone in and managed to return all speak of a phantom Zora, and have reported fighting the same one in different places at the same time - impossible, unless there is more than one."
"Is there something in that box that will help us?" Link asked.
"Not with fighting the creature, but with entering the temple." The King opened the box and displayed a set of silvery fish scales. "These are scales from our guardian deity, Jabu-Jabu. They have magic properties, and while you carry one you can breathe underwater." He held the box out to the three travelers, who each took a scale.
"Do they help us swim too?" Ganondorf asked, staring doubtfully at the scale.
The King shook his head. "I am sorry, but no. However, you do not need to be a powerful swimmer to move about the Temple. The scale will prevent you from drowning, the biggest danger besides the phantom itself. Good luck!"
--
"You can't swim?" Link demanded of Ganondorf as soon as they were out of earshot, following the river again to Lake Hylia.
Ganondorf scowled at him. "Where do you suppose I would learn, living in the desert?"
"It doesn't matter," Zelda cut in. "I can't swim either. I can't run, but I made it through Hyrule Field. We'll help you if need be."
Ganondorf looked as if he would seriously consider drowning instead.
When they reached the shoreline of Lake Hylia, they all simply walked in. Ganondorf and Zelda walked along the bottom, slowly and with care as the water made them buoyant, but not enough to float. Link paddled above them. "Showoff," Ganondorf muttered.
The Temple's entrance actually stood halfway between the bottom and the shoreline. Link dived down toward the doorway, while Zelda and Ganondorf climbed up, using the brick structure to pull themselves upward.
Zelda smiled broadly. "Being underwater makes climbing so much easier, even I can do it."
"I don't like it," Ganondorf grumbled, unused to the push and pull of the water. "Let's find an air pocket."
As they entered the main temple, they saw that they were in the middle of three floors, and that the entire thing had been submerged underwater. Ganondorf jumped out toward the tall building in the center, floundered for a while as he slowly sank, then grabbed hold and inched upward as Zelda followed and Link swam to the surface.
"You find air yet?" Ganondorf demanded.
Link stuck his head back in the water. "Yeah, but I don't really see much of anything other than a couple doors. It looks as if most of the Temple is underwater."
"That doesn't make sense," Zelda said as she pulled herself closer to the surface. "The Zora King made it sound like they used to bring air-breathers here, but it would be impossible to hold one's breath this long."
Ganondorf broke the surface and hauled himself out of the water, then helped Zelda up, for her fabric had taken on several more pounds once wet. He glanced around the room. "I can't say for sure, but it looks as if the water level in this place can be altered." He pointed to a Royal Seal on the far corner. "Surely Hylians must come here, if they've planted their seal on it."
Link surfaced from another investigation into the middle building. "There's a bunch of openings and doors in the structure we're standing on," he said. "I think there's a way to change the water level in there, but I have no idea how it works." He nodded to the Royal Seal. "There's another one of those in there, and it said something about playing music to make the water level change."
"Music?" Ganondorf looked skeptical. "How does music move water?"
"There are many old tales that speak of doors being sealed by magical instruments," Zelda told them. "It was a fairly efficient locking system…not only did you have to play the correct instrument, but you had to know the correct tune as well." Zelda dug into her pockets and pulled out a tiny silk bag. She opened it and showed them an even tinier fragment of what looked like blue porcelain, with the mark of the Triforce painted on it in gold. "This was important, once, but I'm not sure what it was other than some kind of musical instrument. An oboe, maybe. Or some kind of flute. It was hidden in my tower…with a note saying it had been of the utmost importance once, but it had been destroyed like so many other fragments of the past."
Ganondorf took it, turning it over in one hand. "It definitely has the feel of old magic about it," he said, and handed it back to her. "But it's got no use for us now in it's current state, I'm afraid."
Link shrugged. "We can still get around in the temple, with the scales that the Zora King gave us. The only question is, which way first? I've counted nine doors in this place, not counting the ones going into the building we're standing in now."
As if in response, they heard a loud clicking noise behind them. Whirling round, they found that one of the locked doors had mysteriously opened.
Zelda frowned. "Is that an answer, or a trap?"
"Gotta start somewhere," said Link. "Besides, we've gotten through a lot so far."
"Don't get overconfident, boy," Ganondorf warned. "The old magic of this country may have waned, but that doesn't mean that there aren't still dangerous things hiding in the dark corners of this world."
Zelda wrung her hands. "Let's just get it over with. Nothing saps courage like being cold and wet."
With Link's help, they paddled to the opposite door and entered. They found little of interest, some old rusty traps and a few dark creatures that had taken up residence in the absence of a priestess to tend to the Temple. Ganondorf insisted on going back, but Link stated that they should make sure there was nothing there first.
They stepped into another room, this one apparently empty except for a lone dead tree in the middle of the room. "Who plants a tree in a windowless Temple at the bottom of a lake?" Ganondorf asked, a rhetorical question. They splashed through ankle-high water to the other side, and as they did, a thick fog began to form. Ganondorf halfheartedly tossed a magic ball at the ceiling, wondering if perhaps it was an illusion and they were really outside.
The fog went from thready to pea soup in a matter of seconds. Link put his hand on the cold, damp door. "It's locked," he said.
"Then we'll just have to find a key elsewhere," Ganondorf grumbled.
Suddenly they heard a yelp of fear from Zelda; but when they whirled round, they could not see her or each other.
"Zelda!" Link called, his voice getting thinner to Ganondorf's ear by the syllable. "Zelda, where are you?" "Link? Zelda?" Ganondorf felt as if he had cotton stuck in his ears; the sound of his own voice did not seem to travel past his skull. He lit a small fire in the palm of his hand but it gave off about as much light as an orange cat.
He heard footsteps behind him, too large and heavy to belong to either of the children. Drawing his sword, he bellowed out a challenge. "Who's there?"
A shadow emerged from the fog, and nothing more than a shadow; an inky black being with red eyes. That alone was remarkable enough, but what made the air catch in Ganondorf's throat was the fact that it looked exactly like him.
"What's the matter?" the phantom hissed, in a voice frighteningly similar to his own. "Cat got your tongue?"