Child Of The Forest - Judy Colella (popular e readers .TXT) 📗

the bars had retracted as soon as the Scrub went away. Not now. Then again, there was that silver thing over the doorway that looked like a closed eye.

“N- ”

“Look, Link! There’s an eye-plate switch over the door!”

Really? Never would have seen that myself… “Thank you, Navi.” He put away the shield and reached for his sling-shot.

“Shoot it, Link!”

“Navi, I know you mean well, but at this rate, you’ll be advising me when to inhale.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because…never mind. I – never mind.” He took aim.

Zing! Clink! Blink!

The shot was dead-center, and the eye snapped open. Simultaneously, the bars rose, unblocking the door.

“Navi!”

“Yes, Link?”

He smiled. “The door is unblocked, Navi! Look!”

“Very good, Link.” Even with that teensy voice, she managed to sound condescending, but he chose not to take offense – he’d basically asked for it, after all.

“Let’s go.” He went to the door, it slid open, and when he walked through, found himself in a room with a floor that sloped down into a large pool of water. Straight ahead was a wooden beam stretching horizontally across the breadth of the chamber and suspended over a platform that looked for all the world like a square, grassy island. Unlike a normal island, though, and in addition to being the wrong shape (who ever saw a naturally-occurring piece of land that was a perfect square?), it moved.

When he’d come into the chamber, the “island” had been a few feet from the edge of where he stood, but had moved away to the other side of the water. Link would have stepped onto this with the expectation of being brought to the other side except for the long, deadly-looking spikes sticking out of the log all along its length. And since it was rotating only inches from the surface of the moving island, the barbs would have easily shredded him.

“What now?”

“Listen! Dive under the water, Link! I see a switch over there!” She flitted away and hovered, turning bright green, over a spot on his left and about halfway across.

He went down the slope to the edge of the water and peered down. Yep. Another of those topless pyramid metal switches was barely discernible on the floor of the pool.

And I was just starting to get dry, he lamented, but said nothing aloud, his expression stoic as he dove in. The switch was a lot further than he expected, and before he could try pressing it, he ran out of air and had to surface.

Gasping and shaking wet hair out of his eyes, he tread water for a few minutes and formulated his next move once the switch was down. It made sense that something would be activated to enable him access to the platform-island without being spiked to death. From where he was, he’d need about four seconds to get back to dry ground, another second to jump onto the platform…

With a huge intake of breath, he dove straight down. This time, with the switch being directly under him, he activated it without a problem and bobbed back to the surface to see what was happening.

“Hurry, Link!”

“Not yet.”

“Link!”

He ignored her, counting seconds as he watched the deadly beam of wood being rendered harmless as whatever mechanism the switch had set in motion lowered the level of the water by a couple of feet. The platform, which had been moving this whole time, made it to the other side, and started back. About halfway across, there was a loud click and the water level rose again, bringing the log perilously close once more before the platform reached his side.

He’d have to time it exactly right, or dive back into the water –

“Okay. Here we go.” He waited until the platform had begun its next trip across the water. When it was a fraction past the halfway point, he took a deep breath, dove, and re-activated the switch. This time, instead of surfacing, he swam under water to the where it met the slope of ground.

The platform reached his side right as he got to the edge, and he jumped on, crouching instinctively all the way across. The click indicating a rise in the water level occurred when he was already at the other side. He jumped, grabbing for the edge, and pulled himself to safety.

Dang.

 Relieved, he turned…dang again. A Giant Skull-tulla was leering at him. He leered back and waited for the stupid thing to turn its vulnerable belly toward him. Why did they do that? he wondered, hacking at it, then backing away so it could fall, dead, to the ground. Did they think they were being ferocious or something? Or maybe they thought they could gross out their enemies so bad…naw, that didn’t make sense.

“Link! What are you doing?”

“Thinking, Navi. Thinking.”

“Then think quickly, Link – we have to keep going!”

He nodded, but then stopped – something in her tiny voice wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as it normally sounded, and he had to wonder why. “Is everything okay, Navi?”

“Of course! You…you must learn how to move those large blocks.”

“What large blocks?”

She flew to what he’d assumed was a part of the tree’s interior construction – a huge block of what looked to him like dirty cork with a crescent moon inscribed on the side. In fact, he’d noticed one exactly like it against one of the walls in the chamber where he’d landed after plunging through the web.

“What does it do?”

“It moves.”

“Yes, Navi, you told me that. But why?”

“So you can reach things.”

“Oh.” What? He nodded and approached the object. As he did, he saw it sat at the far end of a kind of channel dug into the ground. “I move it along here?” He pointed at the sunken path in front of the block.

“Yes, Link. You need to get on top of the wall here.”

“Ah.” Now he understood. If he could pull the block along its channel, it would give him access to the opening higher up.

“Stand by it and pull. Then, when it stops again, pull yourself up.”

The instructions were clear enough, but where was her enthusiasm? What was wrong? “Thank you, Navi.” He got into the shallow channel, approached the block, and dug his fingers into it surprisingly soft surface. To his satisfaction, it moved rather easily, sliding along almost as if the bottom had been oiled. At the end of the channel, he stepped up, hauling the block the rest of the way, and jumped up onto its top.

“There’s another door up here.”

“Yes, Link. You must open it.”

The boy bit down on some pretty heavy sarcasm and went forward. As he did, her continued lack of exuberance registered, and he frowned. He realized suddenly that she’d actually sounded afraid.

 What was in here that was so…so frightening? Only one way to find out. He squared his shoulders and when the door slid open, he strode inside.

SIX

 

Another circular chamber. To the left, one of the taller plants that became a Deku stick. Straight ahead, one of the smaller, more vicious ones. A lit torch stand, and two unlit torches. The door through which he’d entered, and another to his right, both blocked by metal bars. Okay. That was it? None of what Link was seeing explained Navi’s fearful behavior.

Without waiting for her to start telling him the obvious, he ran ahead and hacked at the snarling, hissing plant, killed it, then went after the taller one. Dead. Took the Deku stick. Lit it from the big torch and lit the other two. Bars gone.

Catching his breath, Link raised an eyebrow at Navi who was sparkling in front of him, her usual blue looking slightly darker somehow. “What’s beyond that door?” He nodded at the other exit.

“Y-you should be very careful when you go in there, Link.”

“Why?”

“Enemies are everywhere – hadn’t you noticed?”

“Yes, Navi. But why do you seem more upset about it now?”

She didn’t answer his question, just flitted to the door and told him to hurry.

He shrugged. “Fine.”

As soon as he was on the other side, he saw a short, upward-sloping path, and dangling from the arched opening at its terminus was a Giant Skull-tulla. It’s vulnerable belly was facing him, so he zapped it quickly with a couple of Deku seeds and it clattered to the ground, leaving a green rupee that he didn’t want.

Normally, he would have gone forward to explore the room beyond, but something was very different here. Something that was making his skin tingle. What was it –

“Spider!” Navi whispered, nearly causing Link to jump out of his skin. “Not like the others! Look at the ceiling! See those things hanging there?” Navi hadn’t moved any closer, either, so he had to assume she was referring to the dark masses that didn’t look like stone bulging from the ceiling.

To make matters worse, the things were pulsing. He nodded, afraid to make too much sound.

“Shoot them down, Link, before they break open!” Her whisper was barely audible.

“What’s in them?” he whispered back, risking detection by the other thing he’d just noticed clinging to the ceiling – a thick-bodied, dark brown spider with, of all things, one eye.

“Babies. Her babies. And they’re as deadly as she – and very, very fast.”

Who, exactly, was “her?” The Scrub had mentioned a “her” as well. Surely not the one on the ceiling – the almost reverential way in which the leafy creature had spoken of “her” made him think that had to be a much more powerful being than the almost puny thing overhead.

“Destroy them or they’ll attack all at once!”

“Huh? Oh.” Gulp. He’d think about the other possibilities later…Had he reminded himself lately how much he hated spiders? After a slow inhale, he raised his sling-shot, took aim, and –

Zing! Plock!

He missed! How had he missed? True, the chamber was extremely murky, but still - ! He raised the sling-shot again, correcting his aim slightly to the left.

Zing! Slooch!

Yuk. The sound of his Deku seed hitting the spider-pod was wet and very unpleasant. Greenish liquid spurted out of the pod, the remains, no doubt, of the baby spider. Ew!

Suddenly, the cyclops-arachnid turned its red eye directly toward him and began to move forward along the ceiling. That, he knew, wasn’t a good thing, and he shot rapidly at the remaining pods. Unfortunately, before he could hit the last one, it fell, broke open, and a smaller version of the strange-looking spider ran toward him.

Like the other one rushing at him, it had only one eye in the middle of its head, was round, and had thick legs.

When it was almost on top of him, Navi zoomed close to his ear and shrieked, “Your sword, Link!”

He had no time for a snide comeback this time. The Kokiri Treasure flashed in his hand as he swung at the creature, yelling with a combination of terror and ferocity. It took more than one or two strikes to dispatch this version, small as it was, and he nearly got eaten half-way through the fight by the larger one which had jumped down from the ceiling, but in the end, he somehow prevailed, and the two beasts lay dead at his feet.

“Link, you’re hurt!”

Bent forward, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, he realized she was right. One of the