Chapter 3: A Vision of Things to Come

The seven lean and ugly cows…are seven years,
and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind
are also seven years of famine.

~Genesis 41:27

Still in shock over the events of the past twenty-four hours, Link slowly took in the details of the strange environment he now found himself a part of. Though he was well aware of the urgency of what he had been called to do, a sheer, overwhelming uncertainty began eating at him almost before he had stepped inside the Great Deku Tree. Pinpoints of light from the forest streamed in to illumine the surrounding area, but all he could see at first was the giant Skulltula web stretched across the center of the floor.

"Navi?" he said, feeling very weak as he pointed to the web. "Can you check to see if whatever made that is still around?"

"Me?" The fairy startled him with the volume of her reply. "I think I'll stay with you."

"You are checking this whole room until we're both sure there aren't any Skulltulas in it."

"Go stick your head in a Deku Bush." Flitting about like an insect, Navi spun around the perimeter of the chamber, uncovering nothing that seemed an immediate threat. Small beads of moisture slid down the bark that made up the walls, which rose upward for a distance that Link could only guess at. Vines snaked around in a network so full of life it was almost like a forest by itself.

Eagerness suddenly rising above his fears, Link rushed forward to take hold of a large cluster of vines skirting the edge of the web. In his hurry, he paid little attention to his steps, stamping a solid footprint into a patch of mud that swiftly melded him in place. The soil swelled and rose up around his heels, and when he tried to move, the suction tore away his boots before throwing him on his face. Annoyed, he pushed himself to his feet and ripped the boots out of the mud, using the stem of a nearby vine to wipe himself off.

But the vine bit him, for it was not a vine at all, and he fell to the mud with a shout. When he looked up, his cheeks became slick with the saliva of a plant that seemed determined to bite off his head. Its own head, blue and shaped like a melon, held a brain that contained only one command.

Eat.

Link jumped to his feet and slammed the broad end of his Deku Shield into the plant's head, preventing any further attempts to bite as he dropped to one knee and tore the stem from the soil in one fell stroke. He stomped the head for good measure.

Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all, he thought, gazing up at the vines and wondering just how many of those plants might be hidden among them. Unfortunately, the only way to proceed—other than going back—would have been to tear through the spider web behind him and jump down the hole it covered. Resigned to the inevitable, he sighed as he slipped back into the boots and eyed the filth covering both sides of his tunic.

Approaching the vines, he gave a firm tug on one and began a slow, cautious climb into the darkness. Thankfully, no plants sprang out to hinder his progress, and there was still no sign of whatever horror had formed the giant web. However, sweat soon trickled down his hands and arms, making it even more difficult to maintain his grasp on the vines.

"Hey! Listen!" Navi exclaimed, her bad timing startling Link so much that he lost his grip altogether, dropping several feet towards the floor until he was caught in a tangle of vines.

"Can't you keep it a little quieter?" he said. "Do that again, and I might not be so lucky."

"Sorry," she said, still too loud as he extracted himself and groped about until his hand found purchase on a nearby ledge. But no sooner had he pulled himself over the edge when she called again.

"Hey! Listen!"

A sound like the rustling of leaves had broken out somewhere nearby in the murk. Navi's light had peeled back a fraction of the blackness but was scarcely sufficient to reveal the noise's source. Sweating more than ever, Link inched forward.

Again the rustling echoed. This time, he dove forward, spreading his arms to act on a hunch that his enemy was near. His hands fell on a fat little creature with leaves instead of hair, wood instead of skin, and a squeal not unlike a rat in a trap.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch," the creature said, quaking in Link's arms. "Please forgive me, master!"

Link narrowed his eyelids to slits. "Tell me how to get through the web."

"If I give you a clue, will you let me go?" said the creature, its pupils shrinking from the strain of Navi's light.

Link nodded.

"When you jump off a high cliff, be sure to roll when you hit the ground. If you do, you won't get hurt from the fall." With that advice, the creature leapt from his arms and scurried off into the dark. Link followed its movement with raised eyebrows.

"What was that all about?" Navi said.

Stirring a hot bowl of Deku Soup, Saria sat alone upon her bed, trying to come to terms with reality but failing miserably. Her hands shook as she brought the spoon to her mouth, and her mind clouded with a storm of emotions that refused to allow her a moment's peace. She hoped for all the world that Link was safe, having prepared an extra serving in case of his return. But the silence and the loneliness went on, hounding her without end.

Outside, blue skies had shifted to bright evening orange and would soon fade away to deepest sapphire. Saria noticed none of this, ignoring all but the beat in her own heart, until a tearing sound alerted her that something had just uprooted her flowers. She slowly lowered the bowl to the bed and her feet to the floor and was about to investigate when the privacy of her home was suddenly invaded by an unwelcome visitor.

"Hey, Saria!" Mido leaned against the doorway with one hand behind his back and a stupid smile spread across his lips.

"What are you doing here?" she said, her own expression devoid of its standard warmth.

Grinning, he whipped a pair of tulips from behind his back, oblivious to the clusters of tightly-packed soil that still clung to their roots. He presented them with what little flourish he had, plopping them down right next to the bowl of soup intended for Link and letting the soil crumble and fall on the floor. And then, without waiting for her reaction, he began to recite the horrid poem he had prepared only minutes before.

"The trees in our forest
Are stunning and…um, glorious
But nothing compared to you.
Saria, with your hair,
So green and fair,
Make all of my dreams come true."

Taking her silence as a positive sign, he continued.

"I, the Great Mido,
Tire of watching
The pain you put yourself through.
Forget about Link;
He's not coming back.
It's now only me and you."

A smack resounded throughout the clearing, and before Mido knew it, he was on the floor in a pool of soup Saria had obligingly dumped on his head. Anger blazing in her eyes, she backed her hand away from the spot where it had met his cheek and leaned over to make sure her message was clear.

"Mido, if I ever hear you say another bad word about Link, I promise Farore it'll be the last thing you'll ever say!"

Totally unprepared for such a reaction, Mido salvaged what dignity he could and bolted out of the house, sprinting back to his own before his brain could invent new ways to dig the hole any deeper.

Saria collapsed to the bed, all pretenses having vanished like the warmth of the sun now yielding to the chill of dusk. Tears welled up and overflowed, and she spoke Link's name again and again until at last her weary soul yielded to slumber and knew no more.

Mido slammed his fists against the doorpost and paced around his room several times before snatching a Deku Stick and thumping it against the wall, where it snapped and fell to the floor in shards. Not content to leave it at that, he took another and swung it into a nearby jar. Both shattered.

"Who do you think you are? Saria belongs to me. You're no hero. You're not even a real Kokiri!"

Reaching under his bed, he withdrew his most precious possession: a sword shimmering in the faint moonlight, another treasure of the Kokiri on which he had long ago laid claim. He took it out of its sheath and held it, willing every frustration into its blade as he fumed over his bruised ego.

"Saria probably hates me now, but it doesn't matter. I'll never let him get all the credit for saving the forest!" He swore to himself as he dashed out to follow Link on the quest to break the curse.

Several minutes after receiving the strangest advice he'd ever been given, Link was still trying to figure out how rolling on the ground would save him if he ever happened to jump off a cliff.

"I hope these vines end soon," he huffed, inhaling in short gasps.

Taking the hint, Navi spiraled upwards. Faint skittering sounds had been echoing around them ever since he had begun the climb, and he felt sure his fingers had brushed past at least one insect, but poor light had prevented him from seeing anything not illuminated by the glow of his fairy companion.

His finger touched the cliff at the same moment Navi revealed it. Glancing to each side, he saw he had reached an opening on the edge of a thick ring of rock and soil that circled the top of the Great Deku Tree. That wasn't what caught his attention.

Skulltula webs clotted the area in nets so thick it seemed as if a mad weaver had strung dozens of white blankets together in rows that sagged over the outcropping.

Link grimaced as the webbing stuck to his fingers. He now had little doubt he would soon encounter the monster that had made these strands

"Hey! Listen!"

Tripping forward in surprise, Link fell right through an especially thick web, cutting his nose on a sharp rock as he landed in the soil.

"Darn it, Navi!" he said, spitting a wad of silk he had nearly swallowed. "I told you—"

A massive weight slammed into his chest, pitching him over the edge of the precipice. Too stunned to cry out at first, he groped and found a branch caught in a nearby web. The branch, in turn, found purchase in the flesh of his assailant, buying him time for a quick glance.

He screamed. The Skulltula's body was at least four feet wide and four feet long and capped by a plate of solid bone.

Link realized that only his hold on the branch prevented him from falling to his death. Unfortunately, his reflexes were beginning to give out on him.

"Link, I'm sorry!" Navi said as her friend plunged into the dark depths. "I was only trying to be helpful!"

In less time than it took to curse Link by every leaf on every tree in the forest, Mido blazed the route from his house to the Great Deku Tree, ignoring his fairy's protests as he bored through the clearing and in through the hole in the Tree's side.

Drawing his sword, he slapped the giant web with his feet and wailed his rage.

"Where are you, you coward? You can't hide forever. Come on and give me your best shot!"

Link's fall, timed perfectly with Mido's arrival, destroyed the web and knocked them both unconscious as they plummeted dozens of feet, into the underground pool surrounding the Deku Tree's roots.

Only Navi was aware the Skulltula had followed them, too.

Saria shivered in her bed, fighting for sleep despite cold, fear, and the soup that was now giving her cramps.

Against her own feelings, she had insisted everyone stay in bed to await the outcome of Link's task. She had to trust that the Great Deku Tree would never have asked anything of him that he could not accomplish.

Whether it all made sense was another matter.

Her heart rate rose and fell throughout the night, fluctuating with her stress until it all culminated in a dream involving both the events at hand and, though she didn't know it at the time, a vision of things to come.

She was standing upon a round platform of beautiful blue, feet placed on a pedestal shaded in the colors of the forest. Around her were five others, spaced equally apart on the edges of the platform. All stood upon a similar pedestal, each with a different color and design, telling much about that person and the land from which they hailed and for which they were responsible. These guardians, these Sages, were all staring upwards into the center of the platform, where a vision of events in another realm was taking place. One of them, the leader, whose platform radiated an intense yellow light, chose that moment to speak.

"The child of destiny grows stronger. It appears he may soon be ready for the final test."

She watched and waited, keeping her silence for the moment. Her concern for the person of whom their leader spoke was strong indeed. She had faith in his abilities but was assailed by a constant fear of seeing him fail. There was no one for her to turn to, no one who could truly relate to her dilemma. The closest she had was Ruto, daughter of the river, but she had once loved him too.

The vision to their eyes grew darker, and the whole land was shown before them. Out of the desert, a hand stretched forth, seeming to encompass and devour everything in its path. For seven years, there was no stopping it.

Then, out of the forest, there came a light.

This light collided with the force from the desert, and their battle raged on for an eternity. The life of every citizen in Hyrule seemed suddenly caught up in this war of titans.

"Power and Courage. Who will be the victor?" said the leader.

Author's Note:

I hope you enjoyed Chapters 2 and 3. These early chapters covering Link's adventures inside the Great Deku Tree are among those I spent the most time revising. Believe me, the first couple of versions were ugly. I don't remember what inspired the dream sequence at the end, but I'm sure those of you who have played the game will appreciate the foreshadowing of characters and events from much later in the story. Keep the reviews and comments coming in, and feel free to share the link to this story with others!

I have to say, this being my first publication on this particular website, that I'm excited by the number of international readers I've been getting. I see at least one of you is from New Zealand, and speaking as a total Lord of the Rings fanatic, I've got to say that's pretty cool. Props to those of you from the UK, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and Finland as well. Stay tuned for more in the weeks to come!