Chapter 2

The Sword and the Dream

The first room beyond the threshold was a small antechamber with a wooden door on the far side. The door was old and rickety, but still stood firmly in its frame. The room itself had been left open to the ravages of time and the forest: a thick carpet of grass had sprung up under foot, and tree branches had pushed through the walls, above their heads. There was no glass in the high windows, and light came in through many cracks and holes in the walls, where the vines and moss had forced the stones to crumble.

They crossed the room in silence, moving as quietly as possible. Though it seemed as if they were the first people to see this place in centuries, they had an odd sensation that they ought to keep quiet lest they disturb anything that had made the temple its home.
The door creaked in its frame as Link opened it cautiously. It opened on to a short, narrow corridor. They walked quickly and silently to the end of the passage, which ended in a large aperture before a much bigger room than the first one they had entered.

The two children clutched the walls, concealing themselves in the shadows, as they surveyed the room. It was wide, octagonal in shape, and in the centre of the walls on the east and west sides stood a flight of stairs. Each led to an ornate wooden door in perfect condition, entirely unlike the door on the southern side of the room that they had entered through. Directly opposite them, a couple of steps led to a set of large double doors. These gave the impression of austerity unlike the smaller doors, and the kokiri felt immediately certain that what was beyond these was of particular importance.

The chamber itself was large, with a very high ceiling, and it was severely decorated, with little adornment to be seen. The carvings and images that could be made out high up on the walls were grim and seemed threatening to the child-like kokiri.

To this point, since entering the Sacred Forest Meadow, their senses had been beset by the magic that surrounded them, even more implicit in the thick air of the temple, but now they were instead overwhelmed by the awareness of time. The room spoke of something ancient and intransient, untouched by the passage of the centuries. The intervening years had taken their toll on the outside of the Forest Temple, the
antechamber and the courtyard, but this room was unaffected.

It was not the oppressing timelessness that held Link and Saria against the walls, though. In the centre of the room was a raised dais, with what looked like a square altar at its middle. On the altar, was what looked like an empty pedestal. At each of the four corners, though, was a torch, and each was burning brightly. There were no windows in the chamber, and no other illumination.

Hardly daring to breathe, Link and Saria stared into the chamber, their eyes scanning the room for any sign of people. Clearly someone had been here recently, for the torches to be alight.

Slowly, Link's fear of discovery gave way to curiosity at the light from the dancing flames, and looking properly at the torches, he realised that they were each burning with a different colour: red, purple, blue and green.

It seemed Tehl had noticed the same thing. He suddenly flew up, looking like nothing more than a ball of purple light hovering over Saria's head. "Those aren't normal torches," he said, and his small, high voice was surprisingly loud in the dark stillness. The noise broke the spell that had been casting itself over the two kokiri. They looked up at him inquiringly. "The flames are magic. They've been burning like that, inextinguishable, for thousands of years."

The fey fluttered forwards, and the two small figures stole after him, until they came to the edge of the dais. Nothing had happened, so far, and with growing confidence they climbed onto it. They examined the altar and the pedestal, but could not find anything else. There were carvings all around the base of the altar, though they could not make out what the writing said.

Any thought of danger had receded to the back of their minds, and their enthusiasm for exploring the temple was growing stronger again. They quickly agreed to see where the side doors led, put off by the severity of the double doors. Link led the way now, Saria creeping behind him, and they passed through the door that led to the west side of the Temple. They emerged in a dimly lit room with high windows.

The room was entirely unlike the room with the altar. That had been large and dark, filled with a sense of solemnity and sobriety. This, though, was brightly lit by large windows on their left, facing south, and the walls were worked with ornate designs and elegant carvings. On the far side of the room there were two doors.

The small explorers conferred in whispers and decided to proceed through the left hand door first. Upon opening it, they found themselves at the foot of a spiral staircase. Little windows were spaced regularly in the walls, giving plenty of light, and from these they could see courtyards far below them, similar to the one containing the entrance and the broken stairs. They noticed fountains and a well, and vine covered walls which enclosed the little areas and arboretums. As they ascended the stairs, they quickly realised they were in a turret at a corner of the building. They could see that the second door in the room they had just been in led to a little balcony and walkway, leading to other rooms and looking down on the courtyards.

They spent a long time exploring the temple. The spiral staircase led to an upper floor, and they found that the building was shaped with some level of symmetry, as they came down a similar staircase on the opposite side, coming back into the large chamber through the door in the east wall. They followed the balconies by the spiral stair case and found lots of old and empty rooms, some worn by the centuries and some seemingly immune to the passage of time. Then, they found their way into the courtyards, and spent the rest of the day playing amongst the moss covered features of the ancient gardens.

Eventually, the sky began turning orange as Din's Fire fell slowly into the west. The two had been sat in the unkempt grass of the courtyard with the well, on the west side of the Temple, looking up at the tall, three tiered building. Saria stood up and looked towards where the sun hovered just above the high wall of the garden.

"This is the Twilight Hour. The Deku Tree told me once that in this hour, just for a moment, our world intersects with another. This place, this temple, in the heart of the forest, it's closer to that other world than most places. I can almost feel it now.

"As the sun rises and sets, the world is changed, as it is bathed in light or the light is taken away. It teaches us of what may come to pass. The world will either be enriched or destroyed, flooded with light or with darkness.

"Link, my heart tells me that something is coming. This world will be tested, and soon."

Link stared at her. Her words filled him with some sort of anticipation. He knew what she was saying ought to scare him, and yet he instead felt enthralled, excited to find out what was going to happen. The more time he had spent in the vicinity of the Forest Temple and its spells, the more a feeling he had never known before overcame him. No longer did he feel scared of Mido's taunting or ashamed that he was not like the other kokiri. He understood Saria's premonitions; if something was coming, he wanted to be part of it.

He nodded, looking towards the sunset with her. "I've always loved tales of darkness and of light," he replied. "Now we'll actually be part of one." Saria turned and looked at him, and her smile was dazzling.

"You know, you're going to do great things, Link."

There was a final blaze of light, and turning together they saw the last ray of Din's Fire reach out to them, and then it was gone, below the wall, beyond the horizon.

***

It was a warm spring night, and they slept in the courtyard. The forest had forced itself through the walls at several points, and there was a clump of heather underneath the west wall which they curled up on. It was a more comfortable bed than they had had in many other parts of the forest when they had not returned to their village before night fall.

When they woke, the sun had risen above them in the east and was shining down on them. They splashed themselves with water from the well and drank from it; the water was clear and pure. Once they had taken a last look around the little courtyard they walked back up to the balcony where they had first seen the little patio and well, and re-entered the temple.

The time had now come to look in the room they had avoided yesterday. They had seen most of the temple, but had put off going back into the main chamber with the altar and going through the north doors. Their confidence was now high with the rising morning sun, and so they found themselves stood before the portal, looking at the heavy oak doors.

Link stepped forwards, still with a slight tingle of apprehension, and pulled the door towards him. They expected the room to be shrouded in darkness, but it was not. It was a room the size of a cathedral, and they immediately realised that everything they had explored yesterday was built to fit around this one, running alongside it. The ceiling was high above them, and there were many beautifully worked windows that revealed the bright blue sky above.

Pillars supported the roof of the temple, which had been formed in the shape of trees reaching upwards from the ground. Great stone trunks put forth carefully crafted limbs and branches, placed regularly along each side of the room. The lower branches intertwined above the kokiri's heads, and the higher branches held the roof in place.

The two walked reverently through the enormous room, feeling the majestic beauty that the creators had tried to capture. This temple had been built deep within the Lost Woods, and here in its centre had been built a homage to the trees and the spirits of the forest. They reached the far side of the nave and ascended a low dais.

A fresco was painted across the back wall. It was not a detailed picture but clearly showed small children dressed in green, followed by fairies, all moving towards a tree of great size and girth. Underneath, in elegant red runes, there was writing, though neither Saria nor Link could read it.

"The spirit of the forest is innocence, and in this place innocence endures," read Tehl. In the centre of the dais there was a plain chest, backed by the picture of the kokiri and the Deku Tree and surrounded by the depictions of the forest. Link and Saria looked at it. Suddenly hesitant, Link felt unsure whether or not they should open it, but Saria had already made up her mind, it seemed. She clicked open the lock and threw back the lid. The two kokiri and the fairy looked down into the open chest.

It contained a single item: it was a sword. Link's eyes widened as he took in the weapon, from the hilt and the pommel stone on the guard to the tip of its blue sheath.

"Take it," breathed Saria. Link glanced at her.

"Can I? It looks like it's meant to be here."

"It's the Kokiri Sword," Tehl interjected. "It's was hidden long ago to protect and defend the kokiri from danger. I think you ought to take it. If the kokiri need protecting, you are the one who must do it."

Link stepped back, unsure how to respond to this sudden responsibility. "But, I can't! I mean, I don't even have a fairy! I can't do anything!"

Saria fixed a stare on him, and he found he could not look away from her deep green eyes. It seemed like she was suddenly looking directly into him rather than at him.

"Link, last night we both agreed that a time of darkness and of light is coming. You said you wanted to be part of that. Well, now's your chance. You can turn away, but if you do, who will stand in your place?"

There was certainly nothing that could be said to answer such a charge and accusation. Carefully, he reached into the chest and picked up the sword, gently lifting it out. As his hand wrapped around the hilt, he felt a sudden rush, as if the spirits that were watching them suddenly gasped in unison. Feeling that he was setting his feet to a path he could not truly see, he pulled the sword from its scabbard.

It was only a short blade, no more than a dagger or long knife to a hylian knight, but it was quite long enough for a kokiri. He looked at it and could not help feeling that he agreed with Tehl and Saria: it was right for him to have this.

Pushing these thoughts to one side, though, he drew his stare from the sword and returned it to its sheath, looking back at Saria.

She smiled. "Come on," she said. "Lets get back to the village."

They walked steadily back to the Altar Room, and left the Temple the way they had entered it the previous day, climbing back down the tree and leaving the Sacred Forest Meadow. They talked little as they walked back through the Lost Woods; both felt something had just happened that would have far reaching consequences, taking them both to very different places.

They had just reached the tree line at the edge of the kokiri's village when Saria put out her hand and stopped her friend. "Link, I don't think we ought to let anyone else see the sword. Not yet, at least. The inscription where we found it said it was to protect the innocence of the forest. If that's true, then they shouldn't know it's needed."

Link nodded. "Okay. I'll take it to my house and keep it there." Saria looked relieved, though Link could not truly say why, or understand her misgivings. She led the way to his house, avoiding the other kokiri and talking lightly. When they got there, Link climbed the ladder up to his single roomed house. Sitting on the edge of the bed he drew the sword and looked at its blade again. The more he gripped the hilt, the more he felt ready to use it and knew it would be needed soon.

He put it away, then, and it was not until he returned to his house late in the evening that he thought of it again. As he curled into his blanket and began drifting to sleep, he thought again of the omens and portents that had been reaching out to him in the Forest Temple.

Images began to swirl in his mind of the courtyards, the fresco and the altar in the Forest Temple. Suddenly, they were replaced though.

Thunder rumbled over head, and rain poured down from the sky in torrents. Through the driving rain, Link could see an enormous building, a castle. Above his head fluttered a fairy. But that was impossible. Link did not have a fairy companion.

Turning, he could just make out a horse disappearing into the mist, away from the castle. A voice echoed back to him, a voice he was sure he knew but could not place, as if the knowledge was just out of reach, visible but unattainable.

"Do what I have asked of you!" The voice was fading; Link strained his ears to hear what it was saying. "I believe in you!" The horse was gone. Its rider was beyond reach, their words lost in the storm. Feeling somehow hollow, Link turned around.

His heart stopped. A man stood before him. He was tall, seemingly a giant to the small boy. He was dressed in black armour, an ornate cloak hung down his back, billowing in the torrid weather. He had a sickly green face and a long pointed nose. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a mocking sneer. Hatred, unaccountable hatred, rose up in Link with unmitigated force.

The figure's golden eyes were staring through the deluge after the horse, but suddenly flicked down to Link. The sneer grew, and the man raised a single hand. Energy seemed to pulse in it, growing stronger. Malevolent magicks swirled around the man, then suddenly exploded straight at Link.