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

“Take it!”

Navi had remained silent throughout this, and for the first time, Link was finding her lack of chatter as irritating as her redundant instructions. Caught between the strangeness of Hyrule Town, the girl’s bizarre offering, and concern about Navi, he decided simply to take the egg and leave. What the heck. “Sure.” He put out his hands and she placed the nest tenderly in them.

“Take good care of this, Link.”

Well! This was the second thing he’d been told that day to take good care of! But at least he could stuff the ocarina in a pocket – the nest…no.

He must have looked as much at a loss as he felt, because Malon giggled again and leaned closer, whispering, “Link, it’s a magic egg! It will shrink to fit in one of your bag-things, nest and all!”

He gave her a crazy look. Was she serious? One way to find out… “Woah! That’s – that’s amazing!”

She giggled again. “Hurry now, Link!”

You sound like Navi, he thought at her. “Right. Thank you, Malon.”

“You, too, Link! Good-bye!” And then she stood there, staring up at the sky.

It didn’t take very long for him to interpret all that as a nice way to tell him to get going; sighing, he went to the vine and hoisted himself up. The climb wasn’t far, and he reached the top in a matter of seconds. He was on level ground that led to the top of the gate. Thinking it might not be a good idea to be seen up there, he scooted past where he figured he’d be visible to the guard, avoiding an opening in the top of the gate support in which he briefly noticed a ladder. For all he knew there would be others down there. Only now he had another problem.

The distance from where he stood and the ground below was considerable. The idea of jumping wasn’t very appealing. Still, what choice did he have?

“Jump, Link!”

He did – not down, though. He’d been concentrating so hard on his dilemma that he’d forgotten all about Navi, and her tinkling voice in his ear startled the daylights out of him. “It’s awfully far.”

“Don’t you remember what the Scrub told you? Tuck your head in by your knees right before you hit the ground, and roll!”

Link tried to picture himself doing this, and all he could imagine was a landing that would end badly.

“I suppose we could stay here all night,” said Navi. “You could build a little cottage right where you’re standing, and – ”

“Be quiet, Navi.” There. He’d said it. “I’ll jump, then, shall I? Yes. Of course. Probably break something. Not the egg, though. Nope. That will survive, I’m sure, because it’s magic. Unlike me…” After a last quick look over the edge to make sure he wouldn’t land on anything sharp, Link gritted his teeth and jumped.

The whole tuck-and-roll thing worked a lot better than he’d expected. In fact, he was uninjured and standing upright a few seconds later. A bit wild-eyed, but unhurt. “Wow,” he whispered.

“Bet you can’t wait to do that again, eh, Link?”

“You’re very odd, Navi.” He’d actually wanted to tell her he thought she was insane. That would have been rude, though, he decided, and opted for “very odd” instead. “Now what?”

“Stay there, Link!” Navi flew ahead, returning a moment later. “More guards around the side of this hill,” she reported. “Climb up here, but stay to the right!”

He obeyed, moving as quietly as he could which, as a child of the forest, wasn’t all that hard to do. Once at the top, he realized a guard was standing only a few feet away, but his back was to Link and the boy ducked behind a nearby tree. The guard continued to stand there for a while, eventually moving off in a different direction.

Navi had gone ahead once more, and when she came back, led Link away in a diagonal line from the tree that took him parallel with an embankment rising up in front of the Castle walls.

No guards could be seen in this area, so Link broke into a run, finally reaching some vines he could climb to bring him up closer to his goal. After cresting the rise, he jumped down and would have continued along a walkway there, except for the unexpected presence of two more guards.

“Get into the water, Link!”

Something that looked to him like a man-made river was directly to his left; without hesitation, he lowered himself into the water, making as little splash as possible. “What is this, Navi?” The sun was gone now, and the water wasn’t at all warm.

“They call it a moat. Swim to the end down there. I see a spot where you can get out without being seen.”

His teeth had begun to chatter, making the idea of getting out of there very attractive, so he swam hard for the far end. He could barely make it out in the evening gloom, and had to believe Navi’s assertion that it was fairly close.

It was actually much farther than she’d indicated, but he was somewhat warmed by the strenuous nature of the swim itself. When he climbed out of the moat at last, the chill night air accosted him and he blew on cold hands, then wrung as much water out of his tunic as he could.

“This way!”

“Huh?” He looked up from his task, shivering. The pavement turned to the left, following the line of the wall. Ahead, he made out some dark shapes, but nothing he could identify yet.

“Hurry, Link!”

“Why? It’s dark, Navi. I doubt I can get anywhere now.”

She made a small jingling sound that somehow seemed to indicate exasperation.

“All right.” He smoothed out the hem of his tunic so it wouldn’t stay wrinkled from being twisted so hard. “Let’s go.”

Once again, the fairy flew ahead, Link following. As he reached the area where the dark shapes sat, the moon arose. In its light, the shapes became large wooden crates, each with the silhouette of a horned cow head burned into its side.

Nothing strange about that, really, except that he had no idea what the symbols represented (never having seen a cow before). What was strange was the rather portly man lying on his side on the ground, snoring.

Must be Malon’s father, Link concluded. He nudged the man gently with one foot and was rewarded with a huge snort, some grumbling, and then…nothing. The man slept on, his snores a little louder now.

“Wake him up, Link!”

“No, I’d better not. What if he gets upset and calls the guard? I’ll just wait until morning.” He went to one of the crates and sat, his back against its still-warm surface, and closed his eyes. It had been a very, very long day.

It wasn’t the sun against his closed lids, or the chirping of the early birds that awoke Link. Nor was it the natural end of his sleep-cycle.  Quite simply, he fell over.

“Hey! Woah!” He jerked upright again and stared around wildly at the unfamiliar surroundings.

“We’re outside the Castle walls, Link,” Navi reminded him.

“What? What? We…oh. Thank you, Navi.” He stood, stretched, and became aware of a sound that reminded him of someone sawing down a dead tree. A second later, he saw Talon, who was in the same position he’d been lying in the night before.

Before Link could do anything or even think about what he should do, another sound assaulted his ears. Loud, somewhat raucous, it came from his satchel, startling him so badly he nearly jumped into the water in an effort to get away from himself.

“It’s the egg, Link!”

“What?” He had to stop saying that, he thought briefly, almost at the same time remembering the “weird” egg Malon had given him. “Oh.” He nodded, waited for his heart to stop hammering at the inside of his chest, and drew it out.

A small white chicken sat in the nest. The bird turned, stared up at him, and crowed again, this time even louder since its sound was no longer muffled.

“What in tarnation?!” Talon had finally woken up, and had jumped to his feet, looking extremely unhappy. “Can’t a person get a little shut-eye around here?”

“Um, sir? You were sleeping on the ground,” Link pointed out politely. “Since last night, in fact.”

“What’s that? Oh. I…hello. And who might you be?”

“My name is Link, sir. Are you Talon?”

“I am. I fact, I’m the owner of the Lon Lon Ranch, in case you’re wondering.” He raised his arms over his head, stretching, and opened his mouth in a huge yawn. “Yep, yep, yep. Came here to the Castle to deliver some milk.” He straightened his tunic and looked around for a second. “Guess I sat down here to rest, and fell asleep, heh! Now what was that awful noise that woke me up?”

Link held out the nest. “Your daughter, Malon, gave me this. She’s worried about you, sir, and asked me to try and find you.”

“Eh? Malon is looking for me? Uh-oh.” He shook his head, eyes widening in sudden alarm. “I’m gonna catch it from her now!” He wrung his hands, his face scrunching up in a grimace that made the nostrils of his bulbous nose flare in a most unattractive way. “I messed up bad, didn’t I…never should have left Malon behind to wait for me. Aw, dang it! Gotta go, kid – she’s really gonna let me have it for this!” Without saying good-bye, he took off at top speed, arms pumping at his side. He rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

“Malon must be really scary when she’s angry,” Link mused aloud. “Remind me not to upset her if I see her again, Navi.”

“Hmph! She’s a little girl – how scary could she be?”

“I don’t know. You’re a little fairy, but you can be intimidating when you’re angry.”

“I can?”

Not really. “Sure.” He sensed it was making the creature glad to hear this.

“Oh!”

So now what? he wondered. The man’s reaction had made it impossible to have a conversation with him, and Link had pretty much forgotten to ask Talon if he could help him get into the Castle.

“Listen! There’s an opening over there, Link!”

“Where?”

“In the wall!”

He looked, not happy about its location. “Great. There’s that moat-thing between me and the wall, Navi, and it’s too far up from the water to reach. Plus, there’s water coming out of it. How – oh, wait.” He set the nest gently on the ground and went to the nearest crate, which he gave an experimental nudge. The thing was heavy, but not impossibly so.

He pushed harder, and it began to move. “Aha!” Getting on the other side, he began shoving it toward the edge of the walkway directly opposite the opening in the Castle wall. He'd done this before. A moment later it dropped over the edge and into the water like the block in the Deku Tree, its top only a few inches lower than the walkway.

“I think another one…” Link ran to the next box and moved it along, giving it a final push so it landed on top of the first crate. He climbed up, calculated the distance, and jumped.

The opening was small, perhaps a bit smaller than the