Lake Hylia was a landmark famous for containing treasures and other oddities carried from all over Hyrule by the many rivers and streams that flowed throughout the land. It was also rich with marine life both commercial and strange. With such a bounty of resources, it was natural that people of all sorts would be drawn here: those looking to get rich quickly from the treasure, those looking to feed their communities with the fish, and one scientist intent on studying the more unusual phenomena in the water.

There was another who had been drawn here, also. One with malicious intent. He crouched at the edge of the lake, using the reeds there to cloak his presence. In the depths of the lake a team of Zoras, an aquatic and regal race, were dragging nets behind them to scoop up schools of fish, which once full they would take back to their home in Zoras' Domain. Before they did, he had something he wanted them to take with them.

From within his cloak, he drew out a bottle. Visible through the glass was a single fish, green with dark green spots and a white belly, a Hyrule bass. It looked innocent enough, but what it carried inside it was the real payload. A cluster of eggs that would hatch once in Zora's Domain and release a plague of tailpasarans. All he had to do was make sure it was in their catch.

Which was what the dominion stone planted beneath its chin was for. With it, he could guide the fish into the Zoras' nets. Once that was accomplished, he would activate another spell that would shatter the stone into tiny pieces and let them fall to the bottom of the lake, leaving no trace of its existence.

He uncorked the bottle and tipped the fish out into his leathery hand. It wriggled in his grip, but he held it firmly while he waved his other hand over it and muttered a spell. The dominion stone glowed briefly and then the fish fell still. With a grunt of satisfaction, the scarred man gently tossed the fish into the lake. Then he crouched and focused his will on the fish.

The bass had turned on its side and was bobbing on the surface of the water as though it were dead. Then the man's spell took hold and it dipped into the water. Once the bubbles had cleared, it turned toward the center of the lake and began swimming purposefully.

It didn't take long. Thanks to the bass's remarkable if not unusual eyesight, the wizard picked out a school of fish swarming up toward his thrall, fleeing from something. He immediately pushed his fish toward the school and was rewarded with the sight of two Zoras swimming up on either side of the school with a fishing net between them. Within moments, the enthralled fish was caught up in a mess of cold bodies, completely trapped in the net.

The stone shattered and the wizard flinched, a pain like plucking a thorn from behind his eyes. However, it did nothing to dampen the elation he felt at his success. Now that they had taken the bait, it was only a matter of time before he would have them in the palm of his hand. The proud Zora kneeling before a Goriya-a Forgotten. That was a satisfying thought.

He crawled away from the shore until he was sure he was out of sight before he climbed to his feet. He gave the lake one last glance, then with a dark chuckle, he turned and vanished.

...

It turned out the inside of the Great Deku Tree was a maze of tunnels. Even the chamber where they had encountered the Deku Scrubs was more of a conflux of adjoining tunnels that either twisted upward or downward, never truly level. They all varied in size, too; some being large enough for two to walk abreast comfortably, only to branch into a tunnel that required Link to crawl, and some were smaller still, barely large enough for Link to stick his pinky finger through. As the Scrub leader led them through the twisting tunnels, they saw evidence of his squad's explorations: Deku Babas that had been shot full of holes with Deku nuts, broken cobwebs, bits of leaves fallen from their bodies.

Then they took a tunnel that seemed unusually dark even with Navi's blue light illuminating it. Link looked closer at the walls and realized that the wood was black with rot. The air was hot and sticky, and a putrid stench wafted up from the depths.

"She's down this tunnel," Captain Keppu whispered. He was shaking. "Listen, you can hear her..."

The three of them strained their ears. Faintly from its depths, they could hear sticky sounds, punctuated with vicious scratching and an occasional screech.

"This is as far as I take you," said Keppu, regaining some dignity in his voice.

"Thank you..." Link began but was overridden by Navi, "Very well then. Now you and yours had better be gone from the Great Deku Tree by the time we return."

The Deku Scrub bowed several times in quick succession. "You have my word, good fly."

"That's madam to you, sir," Navi growled.

"Good lady," Keppu corrected himself. Then he scampered off though not before giving them an ominous squeak of "Good luck!" and a shrill echo of laughter.

Link's heart beat like a drum in his ears, his vision pulsing red in time to it. He tightened his grip on the makeshift shield and reached for his sword, noting how sweaty both palms had become. He drew in a breath, which came in shaky gasps before he released it in a big whoosh.

"Courage, Link," Navi whispered, the hoarseness in her voice betraying the state of her own nerves.

The Great Deku Tree is counting on me. He told himself. Saria is counting on me. Navi is counting on me. To his surprise, his own encouragement seemed to be working. His hands stopped shaking and his head cleared. He drew in another breath-evenly this time-and let it out again in a controlled release. Then he said, "All right. Let's go."

Here their journey grew more perilous than anything they'd encountered thus far. The grade down this tunnel was steep enough that a single misstep would send him tumbling head over heels, and that danger was eminent, for the wood cracked and splintered under his feet with every step, forcing him to place his hands against the ceiling for support.

Then Link stumbled as his foot sank into the crack that opened under his weight. His fingers scraped the ceiling as he pitched forward.

"Watch out!" Navi cried.

But it was too late, Link smashed face first into the splintery wood and then he was falling through open air. His screams intermingled with the voices of creaking wood in what seemed like a vast cave though there was no light to see it. The wind stung his eyes-useless in this pitch black-his hands thrust in front of him as if he might catch onto something unseen to stop his fall. If he knew how close the ground was then maybe he could perform the technique that Saria taught him: the instant his legs touched ground, tuck them in and allow himself to roll.

Yet it wasn't a technique that saved him, but a twist of fate. What should have been compact earth, he landed instead in something gooey-a lump of blob that resisted for only a moment before it burst and a tide of viscous fluid washed over him. It filled his mouth and nostrils, threatening to drown him. He rolled over and felt something strike against his knuckles, thick but pliant-a rope of some kind. He grabbed it and heaved himself up and out of the mess. He coughed and spluttered, spitting out the viscous liquid and blowing it out of his nose. What was this foul stuff?

Navi descended like a blue comet and thrust her face into his, her expression on the verge of panic. "Are you all right?" she began and then she froze, her face contorting to an expression of pure disgust. "What... what is that?"

Link looked down at his body covered in yellowish slime. He tried wiping it off his arm, but it only smeared it and came away on his hand in quivering strands. As he twisted, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He turned and almost immediately gagged.

He stood in a puddle of goo, which came oozing from membranous sacs that had been split from the impact of Link's fall. They must have been eggs as evidenced by the things wriggling in the wash of slime: tiny, pale creatures like spiders that twitched and chirruped feebly.

"Gohma larvae," Navi muttered. "Their mother's been laying eggs next to these roots-" she waved to a cluster of tree roots, which were as thick as trees stretching from floor to ceiling, "and they've been leeching the nutrients from them. No wonder the Great Deku Tree is so ill." She clenched her fists and ground her teeth. "We have to kill that thing, Link! Before it's too late!"

Link nodded and was about to say something, but a sound made him freeze. Instinctively, he looked for a place to hide. He had to make sure he got there unseen, which was why he instantly snatched Navi in his fist like a fly and with both hands closed his fingers tight to block her light.

"What are you doing!" she shrieked, her voice muffled between his fingers. She beat against his palms.

"Quiet!" Link hissed into his cupped hands. "Something's coming!"

Navi obediently fell silent. Link quickly stepped inside the root cluster then hunched down and cautiously peered out.

Even if it hadn't been so dark, the clusters of roots that populated the cavern like an underground forest limited what he could see, so instead he had to rely on his ears to track what he had to assume was Queen Gohma- the soft thuds of what sounded like rows of picks hitting the earth and soft clicks like fingernails striking together. She was close by, he thought though with the roots all around them the noise kept shifting abruptly so it was difficult to say where exactly she was.

Then he saw her. He almost gasped aloud. Instead, he bit down on his lip so hard he felt the skin tear, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin. She was only a massive shadow with a flurry of many moving limbs, but her giant orange eye was like a fiery beacon in the blackness as it swiveled left and right. He pressed his fingers more tightly together to block as much of Navi's light as he could. She responded by beating against his palm until he opened a crack facing toward him and she hissed, "You're suffocating me!"

"She's just right there," Link whispered back, waving his cupped fists at the monster as it turned and scuttled back the way it had come.

"Well, we won't get anywhere with you squashing me in your palms!" grumbled his fairy and before he could react, she popped out of his hands and lifted herself out of his reach.

This simple act almost cost the two their lives. In the complete dark, Navi's light was a beacon for Queen Gohma just as her eye was a beacon for them. Spotting the blue light playing on the roots before her, she wheeled around again and gave a horrible screech that froze the blood in their veins. Two giant claws clacked before her as she charged forward on spear-like legs. Link leaped to his feet and struggled to escape from the root cluster before Queen Gohma could catch him in those deadly pincers. It was a close shave as he just managed to pull his leg free before a claw slashed through the roots. Finding himself facing a wall, he spun toward the monster, drawing his sword and raising his shield as he had so many times before when facing against Mido. Instinctively, he knew that these weapons were woefully inadequate against this monster in a straight fight. Navi's blue light glistened on a black shell that covered her entire body, including her legs in overlapping plates. Her only weakness, the giant orange eye, was raised off the floor a good head taller than he was, which made slashing it with his sword a tricky proposition even without the giant claws that she kept waving in front of her. He needed to reach that eye.

Fortunately, the Gohma was preoccupied with disentangling herself from the roots she had slashed, so Link took the opportunity to put some distance between himself and her. As he felt his way along the earthy wall, he considered how he would defeat the parasitic arachnid. The eye. The eye was the weak spot, that much was clear. The hero of old had used an arrow to pierce her eye to blind her and then drove her off a cliff. There were no cliffs here and Link had no arrows, just slingshot pellets. He could probably still blind her...

Queen Gohma ripped herself free and wheeled around. With a screech of rage and a clacking of her massive pincers, she scuttled toward him. Taking quick aim, Link drew back the sling and released. He must have hit his mark, for she reared back with a screech, swinging claws over her eye.

Navi came down to hover beside him. "It seems you found her weak point." Her tone was not congratulatory. "I trust you have a plan?"

Much to his chagrin, he realized he had not thought beyond this point. While he may have blinded the parasite, he hadn't actually given himself an opening. In fact, with that eye closed and the pincers shielding it, it was more difficult to reach than ever. Rather than admit his mistake, however, he decided to look around, and almost immediately spotted his excuse. He pointed to the eggs embedded in the Great Deku Tree's roots and said, "While she's distracted, we can destroy her eggs," and without giving Navi a chance to respond, he drew his sword and pounced on them. Within seconds, the egg cluster was little more than ribbons of membrane awash in mucus and larvae, which he stomped into paste. Then he pointed and said, "There's another one!" and hurried there. Bemused, Navi could only stare before turning back to Queen Gohma to consider the problem of destroying her...

Her heart skipped a beat as she did a double take. What the...? The parasitic arachnid had disappeared! She looked wildly around the den for Queen Gohma.

There! Just outside the radius of the light she cast, between root clusters, she saw a dark blur of movement. Gohma was scuttling with alarming speed toward her Kokiri who was nearly finished with decimating the eggs and the larvae that spilled out.

"Link, watch out!"

Link started to turn but saw the massive monster first. He leaped back out of the way as her claw slashed past him, dropping his sword in the process. Her eye was still shut but somehow, she was sensing where he was as she continued to scuttle toward him while slashing at him. He was managing to keep clear of her claws until he stumbled and fell. Gohma heard the thud and arced her claw down to smash him. It chewed dirt instead. Link had managed to use his momentum to roll backward and onto his feet again, and with this momentary opening, he turned and ran for all he was worth.

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? ran through his mind with the same sort of breathlessness he was in now. He couldn't run from this monster forever! He had to find a way to kill it quick. He had to think, except the rush of blood through his body was too distracting to allow him to collect his thoughts. He could hear her pick-like legs tippity-tappity behind him, each strike an echoing crack in his ear and tapping directly on the surface of his brain. He had to get away! He had to get away!

His limbs reacted even before his eyes registered what he saw loom out of the dark. The cluster of roots was in his grip, his legs dangling beneath him, before he realized he had jumped up and held on. In fact, his consciousness seemed to be huddling in the back of his head while his body took over, shimmying up the cluster with the grace of a monkey. Suddenly and violently, the roots swayed as below him the Gohma stumbled blindly into them and became entangled again. Her tail whipped over her in a confused figure eight as she wriggled and screeched, almost touching the bottom of Link's foot as it passed.

Link's thoughts snapped together suddenly, and he focused on the tail. The tail had a mouth. An open mouth leading into its body. A memory flashed through his mind of the time he had had a fishbone stuck in his throat. He remembered how desperate he had been in trying to get it out: drinking water, pounding on his chest and thrusting his own fingers inside. In the end, he got it down into his stomach incrementally with swallow after swallow. It was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced. Maybe he could do the same to this parasite: by targeting the softest part of her, he could blind her with pain-send her into a frenzy-maybe exhaust herself and leave him with an opening to strike her fatally.

He had an idea, but it would require him to do something he had not actually tried before, at least not while clinging to roots. First, he shimmied higher up. Then he wrapped his legs around the cluster and squeezed tightly. After that he pulled out the slingshot in his belt and a pellet and allowed himself to fall backwards until he was hanging upside down. To his relief, he had calculated the distance correctly as he was just above the range of the tail as it waved back and forth. Noting the rush of blood to his head threatening to make him woozy, he quickly readied his slingshot and waited for the mouth in the tail to pass by him. Then, with a quick prayer, he fired.

He had been a second too slow, the pellet a blur where the tail had just been. Grunting in frustration, he curled up and felt for another pellet in his pouch, gritting his teeth against the rush of blood making his head swim. Then he dropped again and readied his slingshot.

Without warning, the roots gave an almighty lurch. Link lost his grip and fell backward until he came to a sudden stop with a CRACK! and pain lanced through his leg. He barely had time to scream before he slammed into the root cluster. Then he fell again, slammed into something that tipped beneath him, then fell one last time until he hit into the ground shoulder-first.

Navi darted to his side and tugged on his sleeve. "Get up, get up, get up, Link! Hurry!" She urged him, but he was in shock. When the Great Deku Tree's roots had tensed, it had closed on his left ankle so that when he fell, he had wrenched it out of its socket. By sheer dumb luck, after his momentum had pulled his ankle free, he had fallen onto the Gohma's tail before landing on the ground, which was the reason he was still alive now, though not without cost. He had been bruised on the way down but worst of all was his ankle. His ankle throbbed with pain and any attempt to move it made him almost black out.

"I can't..." he whimpered.

Navi glanced at the monster thrashing in the roots. She seemed to be trapped, the Deku Tree's roots closing in on her like giant fingers. She heard the parasite's shell crack and the Gohma herself screeched in rage. Maybe they were safe for the moment. All they had to do was wait for the Great Deku Tree to finish her off-crush her to death-and then they could figure out how to get home.

Queen Gohma wriggled futilely in the grip of the roots. Her claws were pressed into her, preventing her from using them to slash her way out. Her tail still thrashed as though it were a living thing all its own. It beat the ground several times inches from where Link lay and then lurched upward.

Navi gasped with horror as the tail bit into one of the roots and tore it free. There was a great rumbling sound from above-an enraged howl-and the roots closed tighter on the Gohma. But she had made the opening for herself that she needed and with her spindly legs climbed sideways up the roots. Through the breach, she swung her left claw out and then drew a vicious cut through the others. She fell to the ground with a heavy thud and then spun round where her eye fixed on Link with burning hate.

"We've got to run, Link," Navi said.

"My foot..." he said weakly.

"Here, take my power," she said and pressed her hands against his ankle. There was a glow around it and then it dimmed. He stood up, wobbling from the sudden motion. His ankle didn't hurt as badly, but it still felt as though he were standing on something loose and wobbly.

Navi was kneeling on the ground, respiring as though out of breath. Her corona had grown noticeably dim. "Go, Link," she panted.

He might have protested but with Gohma looming right over him he didn't have much choice. He hobbled away as fast as he could, and with a screech, the queen of Gohmas gave pursuit.

Link's flight was mostly done by leaping on his one good leg while using his bad leg to lightly touch the ground for support. It seemed to be doing the job, keeping distance between him and the irate parasite monarch, but he knew he couldn't keep it up for long. He had to find some way to take Queen Gohma down for good before she eviscerated him and destroyed the Great Deku Tree and everything else.

As he ran through the dark, he found himself gravitating toward something that glowed ghostly white. Drawing closer, he recognized it as the sword he had dropped. With a cheer, he veered for it and when he was close, he lunged forward onto his hands, flipped his legs over his head, and then came back up again with the sword clutched in his hand.

He badly misjudged the strength of his leg. Bringing his full weight on his broken ankle, it failed him and he collapsed onto his haunches instead. With the Gohma nearly on top of him, he didn't have time to pull himself back up to his feet. Instead, he tumbled sideways, bringing up his sword with each roll in an effort to drive the monster back.

When Queen Gohma had been caught in the Great Deku Tree's roots, her shell had been strained and ultimately fractured by the strength of his clench. Any longer and it might have shattered entirely and the soft body within crushed into pulp. As it stood, her shell had been squashed into an onion shape with fissures running throughout. As Link slashed with his sword, the tip caught in one of the fissures and as the Gohma reacted to the sharp point touching its soft body, its shell snapped back into shape, clamping it in place. She staggered backward from the pain with a piercing shriek. She swung her claw around to pull it out, but her efforts were clumsy and only drove the blade further in. Before long, there was ichor oozing from the cracks.

The queen staggered, her eye fluttering. Her claws waved drunkenly, her left swinging feebly at the sword in her side. Gradually, she came to a stop, her legs wobbling beneath her. Then she collapsed with a soft screech. Lastly, her eye slowly rolled upward, a glaze creeping up from the bottom. Then with a final shudder she fell still.

Queen Gohma was dead.