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

This kind had spikes going up its tail in a straight line, getting smaller to eventually become a bony ridge along its back. It’s head appeared to have some sort of natural bone mask, the purpose for which became a little bit clearer when the thing turned, saw Link, and promptly opened its mouth. A plume of fire issued forth, nearly frying the boy. He leaped back, wondering how in the world he was supposed to do battle with something that hissed flame.

The creature, however, didn’t seem very concerned about Link. Having issued its fiery warning, it turned away as if completely unimpressed with the boy’s presence.

Link scowled at it. If it didn’t care about him being there, why had it attacked? Or was it merely letting the boy know he was being observed? No, that didn’t seem right…

“The tail, Link! Hit the tail!”

What? Why? Whatever. He took a deep breath, raised his blade and executed the forward jump he’d been taught, followed by a hard, downward cut.

The creature roared and started to turn toward him, but Link ran behind it, keeping it’s body between him and its head. He hit the tail again and flame shot out of the lizard’s mouth, leaving a deep scorch-mark on the stone wall to their right. Another hit. This time, it drew in a deep breath as if preparing to hiss out more fire, but instead, began making odd gulping noises.

A second later, its entire body began to pulse red and orange. Link knew what that meant and ran off to a safe spot behind the nearest center wall. The sound of the explosion nearly deafened him, unlike the quieter and slightly wetter detonation of the smaller version.

When the sound died away, his ears were ringing. “Better cover them next time,” he muttered, giving his head a shake. Where he had gone to get away from the blast was devoid of any other creatures. A few clay pots stood nearby, though. He broke one of them, and sure enough, a heart-fruit tumbled out. He ate it, and was relieved to find the ringing fade away as his eardrums healed.

“Okay.” He turned and headed down the other side of the path. It was empty, except for one of the metal torch stands – or was, until another of the fire-breathing Dodongos lumbered around the corner.

Two dead, exploded Dodongos later, he decided to try lighting the torches to see what would happen. His hope was that the bars covering another door to his right would go away so he could get out of this place. A wooden torch stand, the kind he was accustomed to seeing, stood at one end of the path, and was lit.

Quickly, he took out a deku stick before Navi could tell him to do that very thing and he’d have to fight the temptation to swat her with it. Within a minute, he’d lit the last torch, and sure enough, the metal bars slid up, exposing the door.

This one led to yet another passage, but he could see its end – it was leading him back out into the main entrance part of the cavern. This was the opening that had been too high up for him to reach – apparently he’d gone in one, big loop.

Right before the edge of the opening was another of those topless pyramid-shaped switches. He really hoped he wouldn’t need to hold it down with something heavy to make it work, whatever it was for. He sheathed the Sword and  stepped on it.

A loud click was followed by the noise of something moving far away; the bars covering the opening on the ramp on the other side of the middle island had slid up. Nice. He jumped down from the opening and started across, remembering at the last moment about the one-eyed statue. Not so nice.

Experience was a great teacher, however, and he ran past the stupid thing, making it all the way across without mishap or death.

“I’m getting hungry, Navi, and I need water.” The need wasn’t dire at this point, but it seemed wise to him to at least start thinking about taking care of himself. Who knew how much longer he’d be here, or what kinds of other challenges he’d have to face before all was completed?

“There’s no water here, Link. But you do have some food with you.”

He nodded. “If I have to , I can drink some of Talon’s milk, I suppose.”

“Yes, you can do that. But let’s see what’s in here first, okay?”

“Okay.”

He stepped up to the door and it slid open. A short passage opened into a chamber dominated by a huge stone structure. Surrounding its base were a neat row of bomb flowers.

“What’s this?” he mused aloud. He’d never seen anything like it, but that was hardly surprising. Very little of what he’d encountered over the past several days had been familiar.

“Look, Link!”

He looked. Another arch filled in with stone, and to its left, a single bomb flower. He was beginning to wonder why whoever had stoned up the doors had bothered when these exploding flowers were so readily at hand to undo their work. Ah, well. He shrugged, picked the flower, and set it down in front of the arch, then backed away.

After the dust from the explosion cleared, he entered, met another metal door, and when it rose, walked into a round chamber with three of the horned statues grouped together on the far wall. The one in the middle was facing him, the other two facing left and right on either side of it. He could just make out the sides of a large chest behind them, and suspected it held the compass that would make it possible to read the map better.

He stared at the center statue for a moment – something looked different about this one. Huh. Well, only one way to find out. He grabbed for its stone shield.

“Roarrr!!” The statue suddenly became animated, hopping up and down, its base thudding against the ground in a way that made it obvious it was much heavier than the ones Link had dragged earlier.

The boy barely got out of the way, but the thing turned and followed him, roaring the whole time. He skittered backwards, praying there was nothing for him to trip over, and slashed at it with his sword.

And then it began to pulse red, orange, yellow, orange, red…Link had no time to do anything except cower down under his shield before it blew up, sending chunks of rock in every direction, including his.

“Ouch…” One of the chunks landed on his right foot, another slammed into the shield, knocking him to the ground.

“Link! Are you all right?”

“No,” he said tightly, wincing. “I – are there any pots around here?”

“Yes, Link – look!”

He limped to the side wall where she was hovering and broke one open with his sling-shot. A rupee. Great. A stupid, worthless green rupee. Sighing, he headed for the chest, not knowing what else to do.

As expected, he found the compass, but that didn’t do much for his injured foot, or the large bruise on his arm from falling. Without a word, he took the compass and headed slowly back out of the chamber.

The vast, somewhat monolithic structure was directly in front of him. He shook his head and sat down in a gap between the row of bomb flowers. Opening his satchel, he removed some bread, a few berries, the leftover piece of cheese he’d gotten from Anju, and his bottle of Lon Lon milk. He was tired, hungry, and hurt. The fact that he was seated between an array of explosive plants meant nothing to him right then.

Navi seemed to sense his need to be left alone, and flew off to inspect something in another part of the chamber.

As he ate, Link began to feel a little better. It was tempting to remove his boot and see how bad the damage to his foot was, but it might also upset him, so he left it alone. When he was finished eating, he took the  covering off his bottle and took a swig.

The milk had been invigorating when he’d had some at the ranch, but he hadn’t been injured at the time. Now, he was able to appreciate exactly how extensive the power of that milk was. The throbbing in his foot dissipated slowly but completely, the bruise on his arm went away, and he felt like he’d just woken up from a very long, refreshing night of uninterrupted sleep.

“Navi!”

“Yes, Link?” She zoomed back in an instant.

“This milk is amazing!” He held up the bottle, inspecting the creamy white liquid in the greenish light. “I’m as well as if I’d eaten a whole bowl of heart fruit!”

“Oh, Link – that’s great! Be sure to save some, though. You know, in case.”

He knew what she meant and nodded. “Well, guess we should figure out the riddle of this – this thing.” He reached back and patted the structure against which he’d been sitting.

It really didn’t take much thought to figure out the purpose of the bomb flowers around its base, nor the open space where he’d sat. Even though he couldn’t imagine why he needed to detonate them, he knew he had to.

Picking the newly-sprouted flower near the arch, he brought it to the gap, placed it gently down between the others, and backed all the way into the entrance to the other chamber.

In a rapid series of explosions, the flowers went off around the base, followed a moment later by a deep rumbling as the thing began to shake, stone-dust and dirt rising from the place where the flowers had been. And then – bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Where before there had only been a high wall, there were now six deep steps leading to what looked like ramps that ran along the left and right sides of the chamber. Link was far too short to climb them the normal way; he had to clamber up each one, take a couple of steps forward, and clamber up the next. When he reached the top, he looked down, impressed with how high up we was.

Taking the ramp to his right, he eventually got to the other side of the chamber…and suddenly felt like he was back in the Great Deku Tree. To his left was an opening that led to another of the metal-clad doors. But to his right was a gigantic web, in the middle of which was a Giant Skulltula; beside it, a Gold one chittered.

“Bleh. Didn’t think you guys would be here, too,” he grumped, fitting a deku seed into the sling-shot.

Once the large one had clattered, dead, to the ground, he dispatched the Gold ‘tula, climbed the web, and took its medallion form. He tried to jump down, but the strands were too sticky, and he had to climb back to the floor. Irritating…

“Let’s go, Link!”

Unable to stare directly at the fairy, who was busy fluttering around by his left ear, he stared instead at the floor and told himself she was trying to be helpful, nothing more. “Okay, Navi.”

They went to the metal door, and when it slid up, entered yet another chamber. Once again, metal bars clanged down behind him. Before he could ask the fairy who had put all these barriers inside every