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

He nodded. She was, after all, a fairy, and had obviously been around a lot longer than he had, or at least been to more places. “Okay.”

“There’s nothing more to do here, Link. We should go.”

He agreed. Since the tour wasn’t going to happen, he couldn’t see any other reason for hanging around a place that had lantern-swinging ghosts and dead things. As they left, he cut some more grass for the heck of it, and this time was rewarded with both a green rupee and more bugs. He scooped up the latter, tucked the former into his gem pouch, and went back out into the Village.

The pen that held Anju’s cuckoos was empty – they were probably inside the barn-like structure behind it – so he wandered past, this time ignoring the short staircase on his right. He’d seen something glittering on the side of the large house directly beyond the stairs, one of the few with a fenced-in yard. When he got closer, he saw it was another Gold ‘tulla. Interesting. He whacked at it, and collected yet another medallion. How many was that now? Seven? It was a good thing they weighed almost nothing and took up very little space.

“Did you see that watchtower, Link?”

He frowned. What was a watchtower? He came out from behind the house and looked around the deserted Village. The windmill was turning in a soft breeze, but what – aha! “You mean that tall thing over there?”

“Yes, Link!”

“Okay, what about it?”

“You should climb it and take a look around!”

A few minute later he was standing at its base, staring up at the source of some familiar scratching. So. That was why Navi had told him to come here – not necessarily to do some sight-seeing, but to obtain another medallion. Very well. He took out the sling-shot, hit the creature twice, then climbed up and got the shiny disc.

“Are there more around her?” he asked before she could start telling to him to check out some local site.

“Up there, Link!” She flew away from him toward a lane that ran between buildings. One, he knew, that ended at the gate leading to the path up the mountain.

“Are you trying to get me up the mountain by following a trail of ‘tullas, Navi? I mean, I know where it is.”

“No, Link. I’m trying to help you find medallions so you can help a family here in the Village, and get wonderful rewards for it!”

That confused him so much, he didn’t even try to ask what she meant. “Sure. Where next?”

This time, she brought him to the back of one of the buildings on the left side of the lane, where he found another Gold ‘tulla scratching around on the outside wall under a window. He defeated it easily, tucked the medallion away with the rest, and asked Navi where the next one was.

He didn’t like the answer.

Crashing into trees was, in his opinion, the dumbest thing he’d ever been told to do, but it did get him a tenth medallion. “Now what?” he grumped, rubbing the side of his head.

“Go into the large house up there!”

He thrust out his jaw as he considered stuffing Navi into the bag with the medallions. “It’s late. They’re probably asleep.”

“Not in that house.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the way she’d said that, or even what it seemed to imply. “Oh?”

“Link!”

“Navi!”

“Go!”

“Fine!” He trudged off, unhappy, but willing to do her bidding for the time being. If he got in huge trouble for barging into someone’s home in the middle of the night, so be it, but he’d never again do as the fairy told him without some major discussion first.

The house was dusty inside, its corners shrouded in cobwebs, the furniture in a shockingly neglected condition. In fact, there wasn’t much furniture at all, just a sagging sofa against the wall in the entryway (and what was a sofa doing there anyway?), and a few chairs and tables in various states of disrepair positioned in no logical order around the massive main room.

Light came from a scattering of candles, but they were few and cast more shadows than illumination. Link headed for the center of the room, not sure what he was looking for, or even doing there in the first place.

A second later, he leaped back with a yell of surprise as something dropped from the ceiling to dangle at him, mere inches from the floor. It was, well, it looked like a spider, but it had a man’s face, a combination Link found increasingly horrifying.

It spoke, and Link nearly passed out. “Good evening, young man!”

What? What? Where’s the exit? Holy…

“Welcome to my home!”

Link gulped, took several deep breaths, and did his best to recover enough to be polite. After all, the horrifying creature had somehow sounded completely reasonable. “Um…er, I mean, well…thank you.”

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Why does he look like that?’ It’s a sad story, really.”

Link stared.

“Yes. Well. You see, me and my sons are cursed. We, er, okay, we were very greedy people. So the Spider of the Curse, er, cursed us. He sent his little minions out into the world and said our only hope lay in their demise, knowing full well we could never leave the house to do that.”

“Oh.”

“Someone has been killing them, though, because as you can see, I’ve gotten my face back, and one of my sons is completely back to normal!”

“He is?”

“Yes – look!”

Link peered past the dangling man-spider and into the gloomy recess of the room. Something was there all right. Or someone. Whatever or whoever it was, he looked like he was doing some kind of exercise, jumping and waving his arms around. Very strange. “When a person kills one of these Spiders of the Curse, what happens?”

“Why, the creature folds in on itself and becomes a lovely gold medallion! Oh, sorry. There goes my greed again. I suppose there’s nothing lovely about a dead spider. Still, gold…”

“Wait – you’re talking about Gold Skulltulas, right?”

“Ha! Yes! That’s the other name for them! Why? Have you  killed one?”

“Ten, actually.”

“Oh, my dear, dear boy! It was you, then! How can I thank you?”

“First, why do they turn into medallions?” He’d been meaning to ask Navi this, but kept forgetting, what with everything else that was always going on when he encountered one.

“So there would be proof, of course! And so a count could be kept. You see, once all of them have been taken out of the world, our cure will be completely broken. Their King arranged for their existence solely for that purpose.”

“Nice.” He was being sarcastic again.

“So here’s what I propose – you keep on killing those nasty rascals, and we’ll make you rich beyond your wildest dreams!”

Link gave him a crazy look. What kind of person would have wild dreams about being rich? Not him, that was for sure. All he’d ever wanted was to have a good life and be accepted by others. Before he could reply, the dangling homeowner spoke again.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Link.”

“Link! Aha. Well, why don’t you go speak to my son. He’ll give you a reward for freeing him from the curse and tell you how many more medallions you’ll need to free the next brother. Er, that is, if you want to.”

“Okay.” That word didn’t necessarily mean okay, that he’d try and kill every freaking Gold Skulltula in the world, or that he’d go talk to the freed brother. He was simply agreeing in general with no commitment either way.

“Thank you, Link! Thank you!”

“Sure.” He wandered off, still not sure what he wanted to do.

“Link!”

“Navi!”

“Go talk to his son!”

“Fine.” He went to the corner of the room where he’d seen the person there flapping his arms.

“I heard what you said to my father!” exclaimed young man who was, in fact, flapping his arms, highly excited. “I’m free! And you did it! Thank you! Here!” He reached back and took something from the table behind him. “This wallet can hold two hundred rupees, and as you’ll see, I’ve already filled it for you! Now please – help my brothers. You’ll need more than ten medallions, I’m afraid, to break the curse for the next one. Twenty, in fact. Good luck to you, my friend!”

Link gave him what amounted to a manic smile, took a step back as he tied the heavy pouch to his belt, and took off for the door.

Back outside, he gave his head a quick shake, still somewhat horrified by what had just happened.

“Are you all right, Link?”

“No, but that’s okay. I’ll get over it. Navi, what in the world am I going to do with so many rupees?”

“You may need lots of them later, you know.”

No, I don’t know, he thought at her. “Okay.”

They were both silent now, both aware of what Link’s next move should be. Death Mountain blocked out the sky to Link’s left. The whole idea of a mountain to someone who’d only ever known forest and relatively flat land was more than a little daunting, never mind the possibilities of what he might find up there.

“I don’t want to go there in the dark.” He knew he didn’t have to elaborate on what he meant by “there.”

“You could play the Sun Song.”

“Yes, I could.” He nodded and began walking down the stairs. “I should.”

Navi said nothing.

“They have an awful lot of staircases in this village.”

Navi remained silent.

“So this way, then.” He headed up another flight of steps. He’d also been up here during his search for Anju’s birds, and knew there was yet another short stairway beyond the buildings on this level.

He finally reached the last stretch of ground before the gate blocking the path to the mountain pass. Looking resigned, he took out his ocarina. He played the Sun Song

In a dizzying display of light and dark, the moon set and the sun rose in the space of perhaps a half-second, causing Link to almost lose his balance. The one other time he’d done this, the reaction hadn’t been nearly as extreme, and he hoped it wouldn’t get progressively worse every time. But for now, that was as bad as it got, and it was early morning.

A guard was standing by the gate, looking like nothing unusual had occurred. Yet it had, only it seemed Link and Navi were the sole witnesses to the sudden time shift. The boy was in awe over the power of the music, and finally understood why everyone was using the term “mysterious” to describe it. How it could do such a thing was certainly a mystery to him and would most likely continue to be.

“We really should go now, Link.”

He nodded and, tucking the ocarina away, walked boldly to the guard.

Unlike the guard at the entrance to Kakariko Village, the one stationed in front of the gate that blocked the path up Death Mountain was clad in metal. He stared at Link in surprise, but said nothing until the boy asked him if he could open the gate.

“The road is closed beyond this point!” He emphasized his words by jabbing a pointing finger at something behind Link. “Can’t you read the sign over there?”

Sign? There’s