Link climbed back to ground level on the North side of the bridge.
His ears immediately informed him that he had a problem in the form of heavy boots stomping around on the paved bridge.
Three distinct shouts of "CAPTURE THE KIDNAPPER!" rang through the night, and before Link could so much as get a running start away from the bridge, he heard the string of a bow and the whizz of an arrow. He threw himself to the ground into a roll, came out of it running and bolted towards the Eastern Hills without looking back. He already knew there were at least three guards, at least one of them an archer, there was really nothing to be gained by trying to get a visual, especially where it was still too dark to see much of anything anyway.
A fact which thankfully could also work to Link's advantage.
Right after the bridge was a ruins site called "The Six Columns", a name which was nothing if not accurate: all that was left of whatever had once been here was six columns, most of them in remarkably good condition (that is, they were still standing) in spite of being believed to be thousands of years old.
The light from the stars and the crescent moon was just enough for Link to avoid walking straight into one of them. Instead, he rounded the closest one to the right, putting it between himself and the guards and so cutting their line of sight.
The thunder of the boots stopped almost immediately. Link listened to the steps fading away back towards the bridge. When he became unable to hear the guards' heavy steps anymore, he peeked around the column.
He couldn't see the guards, but he could barely see anything so that didn't actually mean much. He was hoping the receding steps meant they were back on the bridge, and at the very least they weren't right on top of him, but he couldn't be sure they had actually gone all the way back to the bridge.
For lack of a better strategy, Link once again ran for it, following the path East and then North as it turned towards the Eastern Hills. No sound of boots followed him, nor arrows.
As glad as he was to be able to evade the guards, he still found it insulting how useless they were under Agahnim's spell: they were JUST competent enough to force him to run from them all the time, so they were a nuisance AND an embarrassment. He shook his head to chase the thought away: defeating the wizard would free everyone, that's what he needed to focus on.
He was nearing the double gate at the entrance of the Eastern Hills when he heard a whistling sound ahead. He quickly crouched behind his shield, just in time to block a rock that would otherwise have hit him in the knees.
Link cursed under his breath. Knocks flying at people at knee height meant one thing: octoroks, the octopus like monsters that could live on land as easily as on water and who seemed to exist for the sole purpose of spitting rocks at people.
The little pests were already a nuisance during the day, but running into them at night like this was a straight up problem: they were relatively small and although their bodies were red, it was a red that had no shine to it whatsoever. In other words, right now, they might as well be invisible: Link couldn't see them at all.
He heard another whistle, from a slightly different direction. He re-oriented his shield, still crouching, and started north again, creeping along in a crouch. The second rock hit his shield.
Pretty soon, the octoroks would start ganging up on their prey: him. When that happened, hiding behind his shield would no longer be a good option because rocks would start coming from all directions.
A third whistle cut through the otherwise quiet night, this time from behind Link. He jumped to the side rather than move his shield this time, and the rock whizzed by right where his head had been.
Another whistle, and another one, and a third one. Link dove into a roll and jumped to his feet when he came out of it, taking off at a dead sprint to try and outrun the octos the same way he'd outrun the guards minutes earliers.
Two rocks managed to hit him, one on his lower back and one on his calf. He stumbled but kept running until he saw the stairs leading into the Eastern Hills proper. He took them at a run, leaving the oktoroks' projectiles to hit below him.
In the east, the sky was getting lighter, announcing the sun was about to rise.
Link had never been in the Eastern Hills. He knew of them, of course: they were famous as one of the most beautiful places in Hyrule, serving as private gardens and public grounds to the Eastern Palace.
He was pretty sure he'd heard of the area he was in now in particular: the 'entrance hall' to the hills, it was a large artificial valley, an excavated rectangular open sky 'hall' with seven owl statues arranged to form the corners of two adjacent squares, with an extra one in the middle of their shared side. It had a specific name to it, other than 'entrance hall', but Link couldn't remember it.
Dawn was breaking as Link walked through the open air hall. His brow furrowed as he looked around: there were flower beds next to the statues, but they had all been completely taken over by weeds, looking like they hadn't been tended to in years. The fountains that occupied the centres of the two squares defined by the statues were dry and dusty, cluttered by old bits of rodent nests and soiled by droppings and guano. Like the flower beds, they had clearly not been looked after, or so much as turned on, in years.
He was so busy looking at the dilapidated landscaping that the whistling sound to his right did not register and the rock hitting his right knee took him completely by surprise.
His howl of rage had no effect on the octorok, who simply spit another rock towards him. Link deflected that one with his shield, drew his sword, and ran at the pesky monster.
The octorok spit again, the rock hitting Link's shield again, and then it tried to scamper away. Link, his knee throbbing, wasn't having it. He caught up to the little red monster and skewered it right through its head with a downward trust. The monster turned to the usual black dust and crumbled in a pile. Link knew from experience that the dust itself would evaporate soon: if nothing else, monsters at least died clean.
He resumed walking and winced. The anger-fueled adrenalin rush over, his knee was hurting quite a bit. He dug the bottle of milk Talon had given him out of his pocket.
Talon's milk wasn't popular with everyone for nothing: nobody knew how, but the ordinary looking milk was anything but. It stayed fresh for days, for one thing, and even more importantly, it healed mild injuries, as if it had been mixed with red potion or something like that.
Link downed the content of the bottle, and the pain in his knee disappeared. He stowed the bottle back in his pocket and started to walk faster. The spot on the map that Vario had given him was just a bit ahead to the north.
Link's eyes widened when he saw where Gramps was hiding: the crumbling building had probably once been a groundskeeper's house, but it was so dilapidated that calling it a desperation shelter would have been generous.
Gramps' hideout was the about the same size as Link's house, but the resemblance to something anyone might want to live in ended there: the windows were all broken, the glass gone and replaced with planks of wood or in one case, a large piece of fabric; the walls were literally crumbling with chunks of the exterior covering having fallen right off, some of it still sitting next to the walls they had once belonged to; there was no garden around the house to grow any food at all or even just to look nice, the building was surrounded by nothing but dry cracked earth; there was no well in sight, either; finally, plainly visible thanks to the hideout being located in a hollow from where Link stood, there were several holes in the roof.
Link swallowed, suddenly extremely worried: this place was not fit to live in by any standard, and Gramps had been here, alone, for weeks. What if he'd caught whatever was running rampant in Kakariko before leaving? Or what if he was just sick with a normal illness? What if he had fallen at some point and broken something? And where was he getting water? Did he have to walk very far? And he was in hiding, so he probably couldn't just go to the river! And what about food? What was Gramps eating?
Link jumped down into the hollow, the landing just a little bit hard and nothing he couldn't handle, and ran more than he walked to the small shelter.
Sahasrahla was just cleaning up after breakfast when he heard someone running outside.
He froze: almost anyone in Hyrule being here was bad news. He hurried to the corner where his bow leaned against the wall and picked up the weapon and the quiver next to it. He nocked an arrow, pointed it at the door, and waited.
A voice soon called out from just outside the door. "Gramps?"
Sahasrahla let out the breath he'd been holding and put the bow back down: that was Link, Gedion's nephew, Sahasrahla's adopted grandson, and unfortunately for the boy, the very person the old man had been waiting for. The visions had been crystal clear on that, and Link's arrival simply confirmed their accuracy.
Sahasrahla went to open the door.
"Link!" he said with a forced smile. "Stop yelling, you silly boy, and come in!"
Link tackled him in a hug that almost sent him to the floor.
"Gramps! Why are you hiding? Are you ok? You're not sick, are you? Do you have enough food? Water? There's nothing around! And you're all alone!"
Sahasrahla snorted and patted the boy on the back before pulling back. "I'm fine, Link. Look:" he pointed at his indoor well. "I have water right here, and food enough." At that, he pointed to his admittedly dwindling provisions, stacked in shelves in the corner.
His brow furrowed as one of Link's questions fully registered. "Why did you think I might be sick?"
Link's eyes widened. "Do you… get news from home at all?" he asked.
Sahasrahla's frown deepened. What was going on in Kakariko?
"Tell me everything," he commanded.
"There's lots of people sick in Kakariko," Link said, immediately confirming Sahasrahla's fears. "Gran and Kepoga are fine and they're helping anyone who doesn't have anyone else taking care of them. Gran says it might be because there's evil in the air."
Sahasrahla licked his lips: there weren't many people in Kakariko who were sensitive to this kind of thing. If some people were able to sense evil in the air, it probably meant that there was quite a lot of it. It would certainly explain why people were falling sick.
"There's people missing, too!" Link continued. "Elin, and…" his voice caught, and he had to swallow before he could continue. "And Yvalo, too. And the guards are after me! They're under a spell, all of them! Except…" Link slowed down here and his voice lowered to a mutter. "… me and uncle Gedion weren't. He tried to go help the Princess, but…but… he didn't make it."
Link was interrupted by a sob. He shook his head, wiped at his eyes, swallowed and continued in a voice far more subdued than when he'd started. "Agahnim is also telling everyone I kidnapped the Princess, but I didn't KIDNAP her, I helped her escape HIM. He killed the King… and the descendants of the Sages, too. He was…" Link swallowed. "He was going to kill the Princess."
Sahasrahla beat back the urge to just hug his grandson forever. Even aside from losing his uncle and adopted father, this would have been a lot even for a less emotional child than Link. With the impossible loss on top of it all, and given the fact that this was in fact Link, who was the opposite of a calm and composed child, it was surprising the boy was at all functional right now.
Unfortunately, for the sake of everyone including Link himself, Sahasrahla had no choice but to keep the boy on task.
"Is the Princess somewhere safe now?" he asked.
Link nodded vigorously. "She's…"
"Do NOT tell me! Now. How many descendants does Agahnim still need?"
"The Princess says she's the last one," Link said, "and that if he gets her, he's going to bring Ganon back."
Sahasrahla nodded. "Yes, that is what I suspected."
He sighed and sat down heavily.
There was only one chair, so Link remained standing.
"I need to get three pendants so I can get the Master Sword for the Princess," Link said. "Gramps… she says you know where they are. You do, right?"
Sahasrahla shook his head. "You misunderstood Her Highness, Link. She will not be able to wield the Blade of Evil's Bane after YOU've earned it. The sword will be yours to use if you can claim it."
Link blinked, then grinned. "That's even better!" he said. "I'm good with a sword! So where do I find the pendants?"
Sahasrahla gave a small smile, but the eyes he fixed on Link were sad. "Oh, Link, my dear boy. You've always had much more heart than brains. I will tell you where the pendant of courage is… let's use it as a test. If you can claim that one and come back in one piece, I will tell you where the other two are."
Link sucked on his teeth. It wasn't that he didn't want to come back and check on Gramps again, but if the first pendant was far from here, it would be a big detour to come back again.
"You're concerned that I'm going to send you to the other end of the Kingdom and force you to come all the way back here afterwards, aren't you?" Sahasrahla said with a chuckle. "Not to worry. The pendant of courage is close by, in the Eastern Palace. Do you know where that is?"
Link sighed in relief but scratched his head. "Sort of. I know it's around here," he said. "It's on the east end of the hills, right? I saw a big thing there on the map, that's got to be it."
"Probably, yes. Take out your map and we'll make sure," Sahasrahla instructed, pointing at his table to indicate that Link was to set the map in question there. He knew very well that what Link was referring to was indeed the Eastern Palace – he was familiar with Link's map, after all – but he still needed to show Link how to actually get there.
Link did as told, taking the map out of his shirt and unfolding it on the table. It sprawled well over the edges of the small piece of furniture, so he moved it in such a way that the Eastern Hills were centered on the table.
Sahasrahla nodded approvingly and pointed at the biggest structure depicted on the map for the area, all the way to the eastern edge of the hills. "That's it there," he said. "That's what you meant, correct?"
Link nodded.
"I thought so. You're here, of course," the old man said, pointing at the spot on the map corresponding to his hideout.
Link nodded. "I jumped down from here," he said, pointing at the elevation south of the hollow.
Sahasrahla snorted. "Of course you did. Use the stairs behind the house this time. From the top of them, go east than south around this hollow. When you're all the way back to the south of it, go east." He pointed at a paved path on the map. "This will take you to a plateau, and you'll find stairs going down…" Sahasrahla used his finger to trace the path, "…and then you'll head back north and take THESE stairs up, then East and up again, then East again and up again."
"This whole place used to be part of the palace, didn't it?" Link asked. "There's a lot of dead ends and whole areas that just look empty."
"The Eastern Hills were the name of the gardens and grounds attached to the Eastern Palace, yes," Sahasrahla confirmed. "Those dead ends and empty areas were once beautiful gardens and shrines."
"Wasn't the palace restored?" Link asked. "That was one of the things Agahnim did, wasn't it?"
"It's one of the things the wizard claimed to have done," Sahasrahla corrected. "I don't think the Royal Family ever even realized that they just never happened to want to come back here since. The palace is still very much under the grip of evil, Link."
"Oh," Link said. "But the pendant is still there, right?"
"Yes, although the intended test to claim it is probably no more. Back to the map, Link. You understand the path you need to take?"
"Yes," Link said confidently. He pointed to the hideout they were currently in and with his finger, retraced the path Gramps had shown him.
"Good," Sahasrahla said. "Now listen carefully, my dear boy… these hills are not safe, and the palace will likely be infested with monsters."
Link suddenly found himself being hugged tightly. "You MUST be careful, Link," Gramps said. "Can you promise me that?"
Link hugged back. That was not a difficult promise, he'd already made the same one several times by now and besides, he couldn't risk failing the princess. He didn't want her to have to find someone else to help her, it would be way too risky, she might get caught again. "I promise," he said. "The princess is counting on me, and I won't let her down!"
Sahasrahla let go reluctantly. He would have much preferred to keep Link well out of all this, but he knew the choice was not his to make. Link had been called by fate, and being the brave boy he was, he'd rushed to answer that call. And now, Sahasrahla's adopted grandson was all that stood between Hyrule and Ganon.
"Then good luck. I will see you in a little while."
Link nodded, turned to the door, and walked out.