Chapter 26

Home

After two days further walking, Link reached the city of Tarseth. It was with some trepidation that he entered the city through its northern gates, passing again through its great walls. He was surprised by something that he certainly did not remember: a shanty town had been thrown up before the gates. The city seemed to have grown, expanding now beyond its old walls.

The people living in the makeshift hovels looked grubby and unhappy. They gazed at him openly and suspiciously, and greedy eyes ran over his pack and the sword hanging from his belt. None approached him, though. There were even gorons and zoras in the crowd, all the folk of Hyrule brought to their knees by Ganondorf.

Poverty was more evident in this place than anywhere Link had previously seen. He knew these were refugees who had fled south and now made the best life they could in this place.

Passing through the great city walls, he entered the city itself and followed the same road he remembered from years earlier, until he reached the square at the centre. The big temple rose up in the middle of the square, but he could not bring himself to feel as impressed by it as he once had done.

This had been his first experience of real hylian architecture, except only for the Forest Temple. Now, he had seen so much and been to so many places that it could not possibly rekindle that sensation.

He moved through the square, oblivious to the normal bustle of city life, moving around the temple until he came to its wide, pillared portico. He ran his fingers over the carvings on the pillars; they had been so strange to him, once, but now they were familiar. Grinning gorons, elegant zoras, and then just as he remembered it, the depiction of the kokiri.

Turning from the engraving of the Little People and their fairy companions, he felt a lump in his throat. Putting it from his mind, he took a step towards the doorway, but then he halted again. He could not go in. Archon might not still be here, so much had happened in seven years. But then again, he might.

Suddenly, Link could not bear the idea of seeing the old priest. The hylian had been the first person beyond the borders of the forest that Link had met, and most of all, he had believed in this ambassador of the Little People who had come forth to save Hyrule. He wondered what Archon would have thought as the news and rumours reached Tarseth. What had he felt when he learned of the fall of Hyrule Castle, the death of the king, the ruin of Castle Town?

He could only have thought one thing, Link contemplated. Disappointment, that Hyrule's hope had failed.

Blinking back tears, Link half staggered out of the porch and pushed through the crowd. He fought not to break into a run. People called out at him as he all but threw them out of his way in his determination to get away from the temple.

No, he could not face Archon. He could not allow the man to know how badly he had been let down, that the kokiri he had trusted had so entirely failed Hyrule.

The first time he came to Tarseth, he had stayed for a week. The second time, he passed through the city in mere hours, and was pushing hard to escape its boundaries before the day was done.

The road to the south of Hyrule was familiar to Link, even though he had only journeyed upon it once previously. It struck directly south, and he could see the hills ahead of him. By the time night fell, he was a lot closer to them, and he refused to stop.

There were no other travellers on the road, and he enjoyed walking in the surrounding night. He was setting a punishing pace, so he did not feel the cold spring air. Nayru's Love was bright in the darkness above him when the ground began to slope upwards and the road began to deviate from its straight course. It began bending noticeably towards the east. Remembering the direct route he had taken after leaving the forest, Link left the thoroughfare and struck across the hills cross country.

Soon the hills surrounded him, and he was happy to stop. He sat in a lee at the bottom of a slope, and wrapped himself in his blankets, but still he did not sleep. Instead he pulled out his ocarina and began to play the songs he had made up the first time he crossed the plains of Hyrule. In a strange way it comforted him.

There was a parallelism to the way he had left the forest, running into a self imposed exile with a heavy heart. Now he returned, and again he felt as if he bore the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

Throughout his journey, he had refused to properly consider what would happen when he reached the forest. He had thought about the Lost Woods and the Forest Temple, he had wondered if Ganondorf's taint had reached this far, but he had refused to consider how the other kokiri would respond to him.

Now, in a strangely detached way, he thought of his old friends. He wondered if they, too, had grown up. Perhaps the death of the Great Deku Tree had changed some fundamental law of the forest and that was why his body had matured. If so, they would be like him.

Remembering the cloud that had hung over his departure, he wondered if they would revile him as the Deku Tree's killer. It was bizarre, but he could not make himself feel sad if they did. He no longer blamed himself for the Deku Tree's death. It truly had not been his fault, and he had done what he had been able to do.

The truth was that his responsibility for Ganondorf's ascendancy to power had driven out all other guilt. The fate of the Deku Tree had always been beyond him; the opening of the door of time, the removal of all obstacles to the Triforce, that was an accountability he could not shake off.

The next day was a strange one; those first days of his quest were now so graven in his memory, that he had expected to almost relive them. The steep hills, the bitter wind, the constant ascending and descending without seeming to ever get anywhere.

He had been much smaller when first he had climbed these slopes, though. He found instead that he made quick process. The wind was cold, harsh, but he pulled his hood lower and wrapped his cloak more tightly around him. He did not find the hills at any point to be too steep or treacherous. He stopped as the evening was drawing in, and again wrapped himself up out of the wind at the bottom of a hill, but he had seen from its peak that he would be on the flat prairie within an hour the following morning.

When the morning came, he found he had even overestimated that distance, and was quickly striding across the turf. It was a warm spring day, clear and bright. At midday, he stopped at a stream to drink and rest, then carried on. He was making good time, and guessed he had walked some eight or ten leagues as day again began to fade. It was still light enough for him to see that ahead, there was a road, crossing his path. He remembered it vividly, for he had crossed it in that first night, as he had fled the forest.

Once he was on the other side of the track, he broke into a gentle run, knowing he was close to his destination. It was almost fully dark when, squinting in the bad light, he knew he could see something ahead. As he got closer, he could make out the trees, tall evergreens and smaller trees with bare limbs, some with the new buds of spring beginning to flourish.

Uncertainty and relief fought within him in equal measure as he increased his pace, until he passed the first line of trees and knew that once again, he was in the forest. He was home.

Morning was breaking through the Lost Woods when Link awoke. His first day back in the forest was under a clear spring sky, and the forest was clearly beginning to burst with life after the harsh winter. Link sat up and leaned against a nearby tree, enjoying the feel of the sunlight filtering through the trees above. Travelling south, he had passed through copses and spinneys, and he remembered the woods around Cumberlann and the Avehn Gorge, but for the first time in seven years he was back amidst the trees proper. He had not expected such an overwhelming sensation of homecoming.

For some time, he sat and enjoyed the thick forest air, the dappled sunlight, and the woodland noises that surrounded him. He could feel the foliage around him almost humming with life as the trees began to grow anew and the animals woke up after the cold winter.

Eventually, he stood, repacking his blankets and shouldering his pack. He pulled on his hood and his boots, and began walking through the trees. Quickly, he came to the little stream he remembered. He had never thought it to be a large body of water, but he could have stepped over it without even wetting his feet now. After seeing the Zoran River, it was certainly less impressive than it had been.

He hesitated before actually crossing the stream, though. A thought had occurred to him. There should have been a bridge. He remembered the bridge, all too clearly. He must have strayed off course as he travelled. Thinking about it, he made an educated guess that in the dark he had moved too far to the west as he approached the forest, and began to follow the stream east.

Sure enough, after following the waterway for a little while, he saw the bridge ahead of him. It was only a small, wooden walkway that meant the little kokiri could get over the water without getting wet. He stepped onto it and stood still for a moment, before pulling out Saria's ocarina. He had stood here when she had given it to him. Chastened as he sought to leave the forest, he had had to turn away from her and run, unable to hold back his tears.

It was the last time he had seen her, as she stood on this bridge and with sadness in her eyes promised they would be friends forever. Shaking his head to try and rid himself of those images, he pushed deeper into the forest.

The trees drew closer together and he felt an eeriness begin to surround him. Even after the Deku Tree's death, this was a place of intense enchantment. He could feel the eldritch potency wrapping itself around him. His heart began to beat faster, but he continued onwards.

All the time, he was looking for some sign of something living. He could hear life all around him, could sense it, could almost see the trees growing, but he had seen no creatures. There were no squirrels leaping from tree to tree or scrubs pattering amongst the foliage.

When he finally did find something living, it was certainly not what he had expected. As he walked, stepping quietly passed trees and shrubs, he heard a grunting noise. It did not sound like any forest creature he knew. Then he saw something ahead.

At first he thought it was a hylian, but it was too big for that. His heart was thumping in his chest now, as he tried to get closer while concealing himself behind the thick trunks. As he approached, he did recognise it. It was taller than a hylian, and broader than a goron. It had almost no neck, and a pug-like face with flattened features. It wore a leather jerkin and rough chain mail, and held a jagged sword in one oversized paw.

It was a moblin.

But there had never been moblins in the Lost Woods. Link could not comprehend how the creature could be within the forest.

He had seen a moblin once before. Sliding behind the tree trunk, he saw again the storm lashed stable, where he had waited while Impa and Zelda mounted their horse. The moblin had appeared in the doorway, impossibly huge to his Link's childish eyes. Then, it had underestimated him because of his size. He would not have that advantage now, but he had become used to his new body and knew his strength after working at the ranch.

The moblin stopped and seemed to sniff, scenting the air. Link realised that the wind was against him: the creature had caught his scent. Before it could place him, though, he acted. He wrapped his hand around the Master Sword's hilt, waiting, and then as the monster began to turn, he leapt from behind the tree and swiftly drew his blade from its scabbard.

The moblin grunted and lumbered towards him, but Link had already bounded forwards to meet it. He raised his sword and hacked at the creature. The moblin blocked, but it was far too slow to stop Link. He stepped aside and the moblin tried to swing its own blade. Link dodged the slow creature and before it could react again, he slammed his sword into the moblin's midriff with all his might.

It roared angrily and stumbled, falling to one knee and losing its grip on its own weapon. Moving back to give himself more space, Link pulled his sword from the creature's side and swung it around, hewing the moblin's head from its shoulders.

Still on its knees, its head bounced and rolled away as the body collapsed forward onto the leafy earth.

Panting, Link stood. He could still feel his rage, his anger that this monster could have penetrated the Lost Woods. So Ganondorf had extended his reach this far, after all. The darkness that had consumed Hyrule had taken hold inside the forest.

Link knew that he had to find the kokiri, if he could. He had to know if they were all right. He cleaned his blade on the moblin's jerkin, ridding it of as much of the thing's foul blood as he could manage, then he sheathed the sword and set off at a brisk run, heading for the village where he had lived the earliest years of his life.

When he reached the edge of the clearing that was home to the kokiri village, Link stopped. There was a clear space, and then a low, wide trunk that he recognised as Mido's house. Nothing was moving, that he could see.

He left the tree line and rounded Mido's house, surveying the village. It sloped away from him, and in the distance he could see the Goddesses' Hill, thrusting up out of the earth with hardy shrubs clinging to its bare rock. A little stream wound its way from one side of the village to the other, pooling in one place, with stepping stones where the kokiri could cross.

He could see the different houses of the twins, and Fado, and his other childhood friends. His eyes immediately sought out two particular houses, and he quickly found them. Saria's house, with the walkway that wound around it to the top, where long ago she had trailed a makeshift bridge to another tree. And his house, taller than the others, with a ladder ascending from the ground to the doorway.

There was a lump in Link's throat as his eyes ran over the achingly familiar houses, but he saw no one. He walked through the empty village, and then saw something by the twins' house. Breaking into a run, he dashed over to it, trying to convince himself it wasn't a body.

It was. He recognised the rotting corpse of Fado. One of the kokiri, the ageless children, the spirit of innocence, had been murdered.