Chapter 6
The next day, Link went to the shop and bought a bow. It wasn’t as good as his old one, but it would do until he could find or make a better one. Thus armed, he went exploring to the east past Kanelet Castle, scouting out the land to see if he could get to the mysterious village Marin had hinted about. The river flowed deep and fast, and he hesitated to dive in.
He found a cave, and it didn’t smell like monsters, and no monster noises came out of it, so he went in with a makeshift torch he had fashioned out of wood and old cloth and magic powder. The tunnel got very tight at one point, and he could hear water trickling all around him, but it was not a dead end. The exit put him on the other side of the river, and Link smiled.
“I wonder if I could make an easier way for Marin to cross,” he wondered out loud. “Well, at least there is one safe-ish way.”
He set off on the well-travelled path south, and it soon bent to the left. There was a large sign overhanging the road that said ‘Animal Village’.
Link blinked at the sign and stepped forward.
Five white rabbits, a blue baby bear, and a small raven rushed up to him, and stopped, their faces showing disappointment.
“…” Link stared at them. He had met talking monkeys, but never talking rabbits… if they could talk. “…Hello?”
Two rabbits turned back to him and smiled politely. “I’m sorry, stranger. We thought Little Marin had come.”
“Oh. I’m a friend of Marin. I just arrived on the island. She was going to come, but the bridge is gone.”
“Yes, monsters got it. I don’t know where they came from! Anyway, what’s your name?”
“I’m Link.”
“Pleased to meet you. Are you a swordfighter?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Wow! We’ve never met a swordfighter before.”
“There are supposed to be swordfighters at the castle, but we never bothered going, and they didn’t bother coming.”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Link gave them all the news he could think of. Meanwhile, the animals were showing him around their village in much the same way Marin had showed him hers. The baby bear introduced him to his father, a gourmet chef, and Link met an artist who was a crocodile, and a goat who was writing a letter and was very annoyed at being disturbed, muttering something about etiquette.
Soon, the animals and Link were right at home with each other, and he found himself playing with them as if he were ten years younger. He had a lot of fun that day, and decided to fix that bridge as soon as he could.
On the way back, he was pursued and attacked by a small swarm of monsters, not just Moblins but little Octoroks and Moldorms as well. He stopped heading west and turned north, leading them away from the villages, before turning to counterattack. He took out two of three Moblins, and almost all the Moldorms, when an arrow pierced his left shoulder from behind. Clenching his teeth, he whirled, ducked, and plunged forward into the darkness to kill the extra Moblin with the bow. His sword was difficult to hold.
Weary, but triumphant, he arrived home with no further mishaps.
The family was already in bed, but as he closed the door as quietly as he could, he heard a tiny squeak and looked up to see Marin’s door slowly opening and a pair of pretty brown eyes peering out at him.
“Is that you, Link? Why did you stay out so late?”
“Er… I ran into trouble on the way home.” They were whispering so as not to wake Tarin.
“Trouble? Oh! You’re hurt!”
“It’s not much. I can fix it.”
“Let me help you.”
Link turned his shoulder towards her. “Just pull it out. It’s at a terrible angle for me.”
“Just pull?” Marin took hold of the arrow shaft nervously.
“Pull hard.”
He heard her suck in her breath and felt her brace her hand against his back. Pain raced down his arm and she wrenched the arrow out of his shoulder.
Link sagged in relief, although his shoulder was throbbing even worse now. It could be bandaged and anaesthetized. After he took his shirt off, Marin made him sit still and did it all for him, and her cool hands relaxed him as she wound strips of cloth around his arm.
When she was done, he smiled at her, and lay down on his bed, the couch, curling up like a small child. He didn’t even hear her close her door again.
He slept late the next morning, but as soon as his consciousness was awake enough to know the difference, his eyes opened with a start, and he jumped up excitedly.
“Where’s Marin?” he asked Tarin. “I found a way to get to Animal Village, and I want to surprise her with it.”
“She’s down at the beach, as usual.”
Link ran down to the beach after hardly a bite of food, and followed the sound of beautiful singing.
He came across her in a little cove, stretching her arms to the seagulls. She heard his footsteps and turned, startled. At first her eyes were frightened, but when she saw it was him, she relaxed and smiled.
“Does your shoulder hurt today?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m going to go find a Great Fairy sometime. There are some around; I’ve seen their pools. What are you doing here?”
“I’m just singing… I like to sit here and wonder… Do you know, I…”
Link sat down on a log, and Marin sat close beside him, looking down at her hands in her lap.
“When you came… I was so excited…”
“I thought, ‘this person has come to give us a message!’”
“I… I’ve never been away from Koholint…”
“You haven’t suffered from it,” Link blurted out, staring at her, instantly blushing.
Marin blushed too and looked out at the sea, away from him. “I-I always wondered what it would be like to be a seagull and fly to far distant lands… I once wished I could fly away and sing for many people… You know?”
“… yes…”
“I’m glad you came. We’ve never known anyone like you…”
“I’ve never known anyone quite like you, either… Rana was fun, and Saria was gentle, and the Princess was beautiful, but you’re –“ Link stopped before saying ‘all three’.
Marin jumped up, flustered. “I don’ t know what you’re talking about.”
“Actually, you’re a lot like my friend Malon, who looks a bit like you, too. Except she doesn’t sing Ballad of the Finned Wish… um, Wind Fish…”
“Are you sure your shoulder doesn’t hurt?”
“No, I… I’m happy about something, and I want to show it to you!”
“What?”
“Come with me,” and Link set off, looking back at her. Her face was pink as she followed him.
He led her to close to the river after asking a fairy to heal him, and showed her the cave. “Do you know where this goes?”
“No…”
He took her to the river and showed her what he had done the day before – he had made a sort of rope bridge out of two ropes – one to stand on, and one to hold on to.
“Do you want to walk across yourself, or shall I carry you?”
“Er… ah, I’ll go by myself. Did you do this?”
“Yes, yesterday. Just a minute…”
When they were both across, he showed her the other cave entrance. “If the bridge breaks for any reason, you can get under the river like this. It’s a bit dark, dirty, and narrow, though… so…”
“Wow! I never knew about that. You see so much.”
“It’s… my job, partly.”
Marin skipped and twirled, and ran ahead to the village, where she was mobbed by happy animals. “It’s Little Marin! Sing us a song!”
“All right, already! Sit down, and I will.”
Link sat down near the back, since he was the biggest, and listened to Marin’s lovely voice and her lovely favourite song, “Ballad of the Wind Fish”, and other songs, too.
After a while, they started talking about him, and Marin mentioned that he was an adventurer, and explained about that. The little raven hopped up and down.
“Hang on a second! I found something weird in the desert once. Maybe he knows what it is!” And it brought him a fish-shaped key.
“I guess it’s the key to another dungeon,” Link said, after glancing at it once.
“Ooh, are you going to go and fight it?”
“I suppose… Can I keep it?”
“Yeah! Keep it and beat the monsters!”
“Okay, I will.” Link smiled.
They returned to Mabe Village that night, together, and the next day, they went back to Animal Village yet again. This time, Link stayed only for a few minutes to hear Marin sing a song and to say hello to the residents, and then he left to find where the key went.
It was a long hard trek uphill towards the centre of the island, towards the central mountain, but at least, Link thought, it wasn’t through jungle. His path was a rocky, dry one, with smaller, tougher, grey-skinned Moblins trying to stop him.
He found the dungeon entrance at about lunch-time, which was intensely fast, and after a sandwich, he dove in.
He came to the end of it in a couple of hours. He was weary, but not as hot and sweaty as usual, as the dungeon was half-underwater, and the largest, final monster was in a deep, black, cold pool. He didn’t trust the water, though, and drank only from his bottle to keep himself hydrated.
The Sirens’ Instrument he found was a lovely carved harp, with a beautiful ringing sound when he so much as let wind blow through it. He even blew through the strings on purpose to hear it more. Then he tucked it under his arm – wishing that his fairy were there to take it and protect the delicate thing from damage – and left.
Marin was still in the Animal Village when he returned, which relieved him: it was getting late, and he was concerned about her safety if she returned alone. She smiled at the harp, and tried to play it, but though the notes she played were pretty, they had no coherent meaning.
Suddenly, Link checked behind himself.
“What is it?”
“Uh… Nothing…”
They returned to Mabe Village, but Link kept having the feeling that he was being watched, but when he closed his eyes and listened, he could sense no living creatures other than Marin and drowsy birds close by. They continued, with the girl giving him confused looks every once in a while
Then he heard a sigh, and it didn’t come from Marin. It wasn’t another human, or a Moblin either… Link’s skin prickled all over, and he quickened his pace.
“What was that?” Marin asked.
“You heard it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Let’s get home.”
She nodded, and they almost ran to Mabe Village.
Once they were inside Tarin’s house, where he had prepared mushroom stew for them, they relaxed a bit.
Sitting in front of the fire – night was cool, even in summer – after supper, Link glanced around, frowning, and rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know… I just have this feeling that something’s not right, but it’s not threatening…”
“I’m… I feel…”
“I have the Triforce of Courage, which makes me fearless against any physical danger… but I still get creeped out by things I can’t see or understand…” Link got up and looked out the window. “It’s annoying me. This doesn’t normally happen.”
“No, I’d say not,” Marin agreed, huddling into a little ball on the hearth.
“…Please… Help… me…”
Link jumped and whirled. “Who are you?!”
“I… am… lost…”
Link resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“What do you need help with? Where do you want to go?” Marin asked, looking everywhere, and actually relaxing. Link stared at her.
“…Home… You…”
A dim, pale shape was coalescing in the middle of the living room. Link calmed a bit now that he could see it. It turned towards him.
“You… are a… fine… young man…”
“Thank you,” said Link uncertainly.
“Today… I will… stay with… you. Tomorrow… we… can… go.”
“All right,” Link replied.
“Is your home close?” asked Marin.
“Yes…”
“What’s your name?”
The ghost put its face close to Link’s ear and whispered a name that sent a tingle through Link, though he couldn’t say why.
Marin looked at his wide eyes and epiphanic face, but decided not to ask. She rose.
“Goodnight, everyone.”
Link shook himself out of his reverie. “Goodnight, Marin.”
The ghost faded away, but Link knew it was still there, motionless. He curled up on the couch and tried to get comfortable in his mind as well as his body.
Where had he heard that name before?
The next morning, he set out with Marin to find the ghost’s house, and they found it at almost suppertime – on the edge of Martha’s Bay, a tiny little crumbling building. It was difficult to see in the daylight the faint pale glimmer that was the spirit, but inside it became stronger and something almost like a face began to form as it looked around. It looked almost like a Hylian as it glanced at the bed, and the mouldy table.
“This is the place,” the spirit said happily. “It brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Link said without thinking. Marin elbowed him.
“I love this little house…”
Marin smiled at it.
“I must leave now.” It turned to him, becoming indistinct again. “For you… something… under… the bed…”
Link knelt down and scrabbled a bit in the dust, coming out with a new, large shield. It resembled the Gerudo Mirror shield he had left behind in the future, but without the design on its face.
“I… hope… it helps… you… in your quest…”
“Thank you,” Link said.
“And… Martha has… what you seek.”
Link looked at Marin, and she made a sign that meant ‘later’.
They left the house and Marin led Link to the graveyard. Alone, in a separate plot, there was a small gravestone with the Triforce on it. Link blinked at it and looked at Marin.
“Well, I don’t know what it is,” Marin told him. “It’s just three triangles.”
“It’s the Triforce.”
“What’s a Triforce?”
The ghost turned to them, not seeming to notice their discussion.
“…Thank… you. …I can… rest now.” It turned to the grave, and for the briefest of instants, it looked like a person again. Link cried out, but the spirit was gone.
“Who was that?” Link asked.
“It was…” Marin read the name on the grave. “But I don’t know why you would be reacting that way.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m asking. Anyway, the Triforce is…”
Link explained on the way home a little more about his homeland, and Marin was properly impressed by the mark on his left hand. Her innocent admiration warmed Link’s heart and embarrassed him.
The next day, over breakfast, Link asked: “So, who is Martha?”
“Oh, right!” Marin exclaimed. “I forgot all about her. She’s the mermaid in the bay. She’s named after her grandmother, who’s named after some ancestor. The bay is also named after that ancestor. I guess she must have been very beautiful or something.”
“Oh. Does she have something that I seek? Like an Instrument or something?”
“Oh, no, Martha doesn’t have an Instrument. But we can go ask her about it.”
She led him in the direction of Animal Village, but turned south before they reached the river. At the edge of a huge blue lagoon, she pointed to a round rock just above the water near to them. “Martha usually likes to sit there. I guess we wait until she shows up.”
“Oh, hi, honey,” sang a very happy voice. “Looking for me?”
“Martha!” cried Marin. “Yes, we are. This is Link. He’s a hero.”
“Sweet,” answered the wavy black-haired, black-eyed mermaid. “In two senses of the word. Could he help poor little me out?”
“Why, what’s wrong?” said both legged persons.
Martha winked and turned on her back. “Well, I’m swimming along, minding my own business, when a bunch of little fat fish with sharp teeth start trying to bite me! They didn’t get me, of course.”
“Well, but that’s…” Marin’s voice died away as she remembered the land monsters actions. “It’s just a couple of fish…”
Well, honey, it seems like the cavern in the middle of the bay is off limits to nice folks. There are other things than little fat fish in these waters now. Unless, of course, handsome wants to come and purge them or something.”
“Yes, I will,” Link said suddenly. “Is there an Instrument of the Sirens in the cavern?”
“Bless you, he doesn’t waste time, does he? I don’t know. The Wind Marimba is supposed to be around here somewhere, but in there?” She thought. “I guess that would make sense, although we never thought about it… at least, I didn’t.”
“Go on ahead to Animal Village, Marin,” said Link, wading into the water. “I’ll be back soon.”
He followed Martha to the middle of the bay. She swam butterfly, he swam sidestroke as he usually did. She stopped, and he caught up to her.
“Straight down from here,” she said. He nodded and dove.
Down, down, a very long way it seemed. Link wondered if he had enough air as he swooped under an arch. He caught a brief glimpse of a huge carving of a fish, which looked a lot like the front door of the Zoran Hall in Termina, and then he was inside. Light beckoned him upwards, and he shot out gasping into a warmly lit, roughly hewed cavern. He flopped on his back, panting.
Martha’s head popped out of the water. “Um, you might want to look around before you do that…”
Link jumped up and spun, drawing his sword. A strange, helmeted quadruped was charging him. He leapt out of the way, though his legs felt sluggish, and stabbed it under the helmet from behind. It squealed and collapsed.
Martha clapped. “Good, now you can recover your air.” Her tone indicated she thought of pure-air-breathers as odd. “I’ll leave you to the rest of it, then. And if you’re looking for Instruments and things, you can have any you find, I guess. It’s not like we’ll be using them. Bye!”
“Bye,” Link replied, getting up and venturing further in.
It seemed odd that so much of the cave was pretty dry. Martha and her family would have found it difficult to get around inside.
When he exited with the Wind Marimba, undamaged by water or by water-moldorm, he made for the Village. Martha had somehow gotten into the pool just below the town, and Marin was talking to her. They were having a cheerful conversation about – him. He joined them, and the girls squealed in surprise, and Marin blushed. After a while, Martha left.
Link spent the rest of the day chatting pleasantly with Marin. It was nice to be with her – to be with someone who understood what he meant when he talked about strange things, someone who was cheerful and kind and gentle. Sometimes, she would sing a song, and then the animals would gather around. Link had a lurking suspicion that the big brown bear in the café had a crush on Marin, and a stronger suspicion that he was jealous of Link. Link laughed inside at that, but also felt uncomfortable. He felt he’d rather not think about it.
If Navi had been there, she would have told him otherwise, he knew, and that made him more uncomfortable.
The next day, Marin stayed in Mabe Village, playing with the quadruplets. Link went out to the land north of Animal Village, where he hadn’t been yet. He met the owl, who helped him, directing him to a small shrine. Without his assistance, he would probably have bypassed it altogether.
Link walked carefully among the tall standing pillars. The shrine was in a small, stony valley, and the sun was not yet high, so most of the valley was still pleasantly shaded.
As he entered the darkness of the main building, he heard shuffling and clanking.
Link stood motionless, only his eyes and ears moving.
Ceremonial armoured guards advanced out of the darkness in a semi-circle around him. For a moment, nothing moved.
Then, they attacked with huge axes.
“Just once, I’d like to run into some holy guards who aren’t trying to kill off the hero,” Link muttered as he ducked and counterattacked.
The suits of armour were empty, and the empty shards turned to stone and vanished. Link blinked. He had seen some odd antagonists, but this was stretching his credibility.
The next room was blazing with light, and the door locked behind him, just like old times. A massive statue lurked in the centre of the room, clutching a giant spear.
The statue creaked to life – “Of course,” Link told himself with satisfaction – and forced him to jump back.
Eventually he found its weak spot in its fragile joints, and pelted them with ice arrows.
When it fell in pieces, he found a key in the ruins. The carved top looked like a cat’s head, but not quite. It looked a little disturbing somehow.
There was another room he hadn’t gone into. He wondered if there was a door for the key in the next room.
The next room was pitch black. Link hastily dug out his almost-forgotten magic powder and sprinkled some on the torches at the door. He took one with him as he walked forward, staring at the huge carving at the back of the room.
It showed a picture of what looked like Jabu-Jabu and the owl, surrounded by grape vines… and there was a strange form of Hylian letters carved throughout it. Part of it was scratched as with sharp claws. It sounded like a poem.
“To the Finder… The Isle of Koholint, is but an Illusion… Human, Monster, Sea, Sky… A scene on the lid of a Sleeper’s Eye… Awake the Dreamer, and Koholint will vanish much like a bubble on a needle…”
“Cast-away, you should know the Truth!”
Link turned away, his mind reeling.
“It… doesn’t mean anything, does it?” he said aloud uncertainly. “It sounds like… it’s all been set up for me… but that doesn’t make any sense at all… completely incredible.”
He paused for a long moment.
“If I wake the Wind Fish, Koholint will vanish as if it had never been?” He raced through his new acquaintances… Marin, Tarin, the quadruplets and the animals, Grandma and Grandpa Ulrira, and even Richard… they are real people. If the island were to vanish, what would happen to them? Would they vanish too?
Link went back home, arriving near supper, and sat and stared at the sky. The sun set slowly as the hours went by, and the clouds deepened to rosy red and brightened again briefly to gold before everything turned purple.
Marin tried to talk to him, seeing he was upset, but he put her away gently. He didn’t want to tell her what he had read.
Was that tablet even real? “Cast-away, you should know the truth”, it had said, but if it was not the truth…
His thoughts degenerated into semi-coherent blobs of logic and he went to bed, still trying to get it into something he could understand in words.
The next day he felt differently. Going up to the woods, he tried to let himself understand the flashes of insight that were invading his mind. After all, he had decided not to tell anyone, so why did he need to put it into words?
All that day, he hesitated, unsure whether to find the place to put the key and ultimately, the next instrument, or to leave the rest as proof against waking the Wind Fish and destroying the island “like a bubble,” he thought resentfully.
He returned with a grim face, and Marin sighed as she went about her chores. Link helped her, and then went to sword practice.
When he was so exhausted he could barely hold his sword straight, he went back into the house.
Marin was sitting in the living room, and she got up and smiled a little uncertainly, holding out a slim volume. “I found a really useful book… you might want to read this one next…” It was entitled “Instruments of the Sirens”. Inside were descriptions of different instruments, including the Cello, the Horn, and the rest, and Link learned the next one was a triangle. Link had never thought of a triangle as being particularly musical in combination with other instruments. There were no pictures, though. The book talked about the properties of the instruments, including the fact that they were indestructible.
“Well, that explains why the monsters didn’t just smash them,” Link said, “and prevent the chance of…” He looked up and smiled at Marin. “Thanks. This is great.”
“Are you having trouble with something?” she asked, innocently, smiling more naturally now.
Link hesitated. “I… I don’t really want to tell you about it… not yet…”
“Okay. I wish I could help. You seemed so tired and sad today.”
Link looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Marin said automatically. “Um… Good night.”
“Good night…”
The next day, his moods were mixed. He wanted to go to the next dungeon – he felt refreshed and ready – and he wanted to hold back and think through his situation some more. The pile of Instruments on the table was already pretty big, even though they were individually small instruments.
After breakfast, and listening to a once-more-happy Marin singing “Ballad of the Wind Fish” as she swept the step, his desire for action won out and he was off exploring again.
He was getting pretty far a-field, and it took him almost all day to find the dungeon. To make up for it, he raced through it, defeating its monsters in record time, for him, and carried the Coral Triangle out in triumph to the sunset.
Sunset! He looked at it in dismay. Even with his efforts, he was going to be very late indeed getting back. He would have to go carefully when he came to the river, too. Electric chus liked to congregate on the northern mid-section of it.
He wished, again, for Navi and his other friendly fairies. A hero’s life was just as lonely as he had heard, and while it didn’t bother him a lot of the time, as he liked peace and quiet, the solo adventuring was pointing out to him just how forlorn he was without even his fairy to talk to and share things with. He was taking to talking to himself inside the dungeons, for goodness’ sake!
He did get home late, later than last time, and this time, uninjured. Marin looked out to see him, but he waved a good-night to her while covering the yawn of the century with his other hand. She grinned at him and went back to bed.
The next day, he took as a holiday, and spent his time mostly with Marin. True, Tarin showed him his collection of whittled figurines, and they went to tea with Richard, and Marin dropped off some embroidery or something for Grandma Ulrira, and Link played one game of ball with the quadruplets, but that took surprisingly little of the day. Marin stayed away from his darkness of the day before the day before that, and Link was determined to enjoy himself that day.
Occasionally, dark thoughts would sweep across his mind, but he did his best to push them back into his subconscious. He didn’t think Marin noticed anything.
The next morning, Link was rounding the corner of the house with an armful of wood.
“Hey! You!” yelled a squeaky Moblin voice. “I gotta message for you! We got the girl, so-“
Link dropped the wood on his foot. His arm shot out and the miniature Moblin was pinned to the wall of the house.
“Where?”
“We – we – If you want to see her again, stop trying to destroy the island!”
“Where is she!?”
“M-mountains…”
Link turned and threw the Moblin as far as he could. It bounced. “Tell your cronies I’m coming. I’ll walk into whatever trap they’ve got set up. But if they’ve hurt her in any way, I’ll…”
“What’s the matter?” Tarin asked, coming around the corner of the house. The Moblin squealed and scampered away.
Link stood very still. “They’ve taken Marin.”
“What did you say!?”
“They’ve kidnapped her. Excuse me. I need to go find her.”
Link took off at a run, his sword and shield bouncing on his back.
Tarin stood frozen in shock, staring after him.