Key Quest: Air and Fire by Judy Colella (color ebook reader TXT) 📖

other two. A quick shot, and now he could only hear one. It was even closer than the last, and he realized it had to be on the wall next to the door through which he’d entered.

It was.

Zing! Squeak! Thud. Done.

He walked forward, feeling somewhat safer. Even better, the now-familiar metal bars that had slid down to block both the exit and another door beyond the top of what looked like a rune-inscribed monument straight ahead, slid back up to allow him to get out of the room when he was ready. As he reached the monument, he realized it was actually a staircase with huge, deep steps. Figured. He put away the sling-shot, reached upward, and jumped, catching the edge of the first step and hauling himself onto its top.

Altogether there were three of these and like the other one leading into this chamber, this door was covered with runes that had been chiseled into the stone. What a strange place this was! He came close to it and the door shot upward.

Almost as soon as he’d stepped inside, Link detected a very unpleasant odor. It smelled toxic somehow, but from where he stood, all he could see was some kind of greenish mist rising from the floor at the end of the tunnel-like entry into this next room.

At his shoulder, Navi twinkled at him but said nothing. That made him frown. Why was she being silent? What was in here that she didn’t want hearing her? Or perhaps him…He started walking, but it wasn’t until he’d left the entry tunnel that he saw the highly unpleasant details defining the chamber.

Square openings in the floor contained some kind of green liquid, the surface broken here and there by a semi-skeletal arm and hand reaching upward, frozen in death’s stiffness. Worse, standing on several spots along the crisscrossing pathways made by the openings were…things. Tall, ugly, cadaverous things. They may have been people once, or perhaps had never been. Link couldn’t tell, having never seen anything like them before.

Despite this, his instincts told him they were dangerous. Not moving at the moment, they nonetheless looked like they could suddenly become animated and cause great harm.

“Link!” It was a hiss. “Run! Run past them without stopping! If you stop, they’ll drain the life out of you and you’ll die!”

Naturally, the boy wanted “run” to mean “run back the way you came,” but the same irritating sense of certainty that had told him these creatures were lethal, told him he was supposed to run straight ahead to the corridor barely visible on the far side of the room.

Afraid to speak, he nodded, took a deep breath, and took off. As he passed the first one creature, he felt more than saw it stir. Crap. He ran faster. A low moan came from somewhere behind him and he pretty much flung himself in through the corridor as soon as he reached it.

He found he was facing more pools of poisonous-looking liquid, another narrow path, and at its end, a vast monument atop three shallow steps. A golden Triforce symbol had been painted in the center of the  monument’s top frame, the object itself inscribed, but this time, Navi translated it for him.

“Listen, Link! It says, ‘This poem is dedicated to the memory of the dearly departed members of the Royal Family.’ Um…” Her voice had a tremulous, whispery quality, and Link knew she was as frightened as he was at the moment. “Now here’s the poem – ‘The rising sun will eventually set. A newborn’s life will fade. From sun to moon, moon to sun – Give peaceful rest to the living dead.’ Well! This is an interesting poem, isn’t it!” Her cheerfulness was clearly forced.

“I guess.”

“I mean…huh. What’s this?” She flew to the lower left part of the monument. “Ooh. Something else is inscribed on this tombstone, Link! Look!”

He leaned down, peering closer. “Musical notes?”

“It’s the secret melody of the Composer Brothers!”

“But…wait. Wouldn’t Ganondorf have been able to see this, too?” He straightened and took out his ocarina.

“Maybe – or maybe they did this after they were dead.”

Link shook his head. “That’s plain old creepy, Navi. And besides, how could they do that? I mean, did they whack the stone with their lanterns or something?”

“Don’t be disrespectful.”

“Sorry.” She was right. His sarcastic tendencies were getting out of hand. “Well, whatever. I may as well try to play it, yes?”

“Good thinking, Link!”

He wanted to ask her why she felt the need to say his name all the time, but decided to forget it for now and see what playing the song would do – if anything. He couldn’t read music, of course, but the way the notes had been chipped into the monument reminded him of how the holes on the ocarina were situated. Using that as a guide, he played the short melody, not sure if it was right.

“Oh, there’s something more here!” Navi flitted over the lower section now. “It says, ‘Restless souls wander where they don’t belong...bring them calm with the Sun’s Song.’ Gee, I guess that’s the name of the melody!”

Link was frowning at the ocarina. Nothing, as far as he could tell, had happened. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

“We need to leave now, Link.”

Leave. That meant having to run past those monsters in the next room. The alternative, naturally, was to simply stay put either until someone came along and rescued him (ha!) or he died of starvation. Awesomeness… “All right.” He prepared to start running, and was about to launch himself down the narrow path when Navi’s recitation of the extra wording struck him.

“What is it, Link?”

“Navi, would you read that last bit again, please?”

She flitted back to the tombstone and read the words at the bottom. When she was done, she zoomed back to his shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

“It said ‘restless souls’ and…what else? ‘Calm them with the…’ I think I understand. The only problem is that I’m not sure I was playing it right.” He started walking down the path, careful not to let himself slip into the green, foul-smelling pools on either side. “If I’m wrong, Navi, I’ll probably get killed.”

“You aren’t wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

Okay, he thought, not exactly a comforting answer, but what the heck.

He’d reached the end of the path and peered out into the room ahead. The things hadn’t moved, but they looked horrifying and dangerous anyway. He lifted the ocarina, took a long, deep breath, and played the song.

As soon as the final note echoed away, another sound rebounded around the chamber, something that sounded like paper being torn. More important, however, was what he saw happen at the same time – the creatures turned pure white, almost as if they’d been frozen.

“Woah!” Eyes wide, he took a step into the chamber. Nothing. None of the movement he’d sensed before, no moans. Since he didn’t know how long the effect of the song would last, he ran as fast as before, but without the mind-rending fear, and got to the other side a second before the tearing sound was repeated. Without looking back, he knew the monsters were back to what for them was normal.

He kept running, in fact, until he was back on the ramp leading up from the tomb. Halfway to the top, he stopped to catch his breath. He could see light pouring down from the hole through which he’d jumped. “Er, Navi? How am I supposed to get back up there again?”

“Well, how did you get out of the Deku Tree?”

He thought about that for a second. “Yes, but I don’t see any blue light.”

“Nope. No blue light. But you do see that platform, don’t you?”

He took a few steps further. “Oh. Huh. Didn’t notice it when I got down here.”

“Of course you didn’t. You were looking down the ramp, not at your feet, silly.”

I’m not silly. “True. But what’s your point?”

She did her tinkling giggle sound. “Go stand on the platform, Link.”

He nodded and did as she suggested. Nothing happened for about a split second. He looked up at the piece of sky visible through the hole, and then – light. Bright, yellow-white light. It bathed him in its brilliance, and when it faded, he was standing in the graveyard once more.

Link nodded. He looked around, somewhat slack-jawed. “Aha. Interesting. Didn’t feel a thing. I wonder what that was.” He was muttering, and then, louder, he said, “Navi, what was that?”

“A transporter.”

“Ah. Of course. A transporter. I should have known. Ha. Good. Can we get out of here now?”

“Not yet, Link! There’s more to see!”

He looked at the sky again, at first in exasperation, but this quickly changed to shock. The sun was out. He nearly had to sit down. “How long were we down there?” And what was wrong with his voice? He suddenly sounded like a little girl.

“Not too long. Less than an hour. Less than that, even.”

“Are you laughing at me, Navi?”

“No. Yes. Nicely, though. Haven’t you figured it out?”

Figured out what – that if I had a shovel, I’d whang you with it? “No.”

“The Sun Song!”

Sun…ah. Now he decided that if he had a shovel, he’d whang himself with it for being so stupid. “Should’ve guessed.”

“That’s okay! It’s why you have me here!”

He refused to follow up on that one. Instead, he decided to see how this song-thing worked and played the melody again.

The sun went down and the moon came up, all in about four seconds. That was all.

Amazing. “Got it. So what else do I have to see?”

“Some of these gravestones can be moved!”

“Why?”

“What a curious little boy you are! Here – pull this one back.” She’d led him to a grave that was smaller than the Composer Brothers’ but of the same general configuration.

Link walked behind it and immediately noticed a kind of pathway about the same length as the stone. It looked like someone had dug up the grass to form a dirt track. Grabbing the top of the stone, he pulled, and to his astonishment, it moved easily. But why?

“Listen! There’s another hole here now! Jump, Link!”

“Navi! I’m not your…never mind.” It simply wasn’t worth getting into an argument about, so he went to the front of the grave, and sure enough, another hole was staring at him from the ground.

Sleep would have been nice around now, as would a cup of water and some berries. Maybe a piece of bread. Would have been, but wasn’t going to happen unless there was a bed and a table full of food down there. So, being an obedient little boy, Link went to the edge of the hole, shot a glare at his fairy, and jumped in.

Chapter Eight

 

By the time Link finally left the graveyard, he’d destroyed one of the cadaverous creatures (which Navi eventually informed him was called a “re-dead,” a term he found incomprehensible), learned he could reveal magically hidden chests containing large pieces of the heart-shaped fruit, and jumped down another hole in which he’d discovered a metal version of his shield. This one was quite a bit larger than his wooden one, but Navi told him to keep it, that there might come a time when he’d be glad he had it.

For its size, the shield was fairly