Chapter One

A Beginning

The rain came down in sheets on the darkened, water-glistening cobblestone street. The sky above, glimpsed between the black silhouettes of tall houses that loomed overhead, was a sinister yellowish color in the nighttime, the low-hanging storm clouds lit from below with a sulphurus glow from the streetlamps; guttering candles burning low behind panes of rain-streaked glass.

Dark ran through the streets.

Hyrule Castle Town was always near deserted after nightfall, and the rain had driven any would-be stragglers indoors. The streets were empty save for the roaring drum of the rain and the slap of Dark's boots as they pounded across the slick wet cobbles. She's here somewhere, he thought desperately. I only turned my back for a second. She can't have gone far, not in the rain like this.

It seemed, he thought ruefully, as if he had been made for nights such as these: black and wet and dangerous nights. In the gloom, his shadowy body seemed to melt into the darkness. He was invisible. The feeble lights from the streetlamps slid over him without effect, he was a being whose very presence swallowed light, a living silhouette. Glistening rain streamed off his shadowy tunic and dripped from his black hair; lone runnels of silver in the blackness that was Dark.

Stop thinking like that! He mentally scolded himself, giving his head a shake and sending a few stray droplets flying to join their fellows pouring from the sky. That's not you anymore, that was someone else. Now you're Derek of Ordon. And you have a girl to rescue.

His feet pounded along the empty streets, his eyes, redder than blood, casting around him in the darkness. If she had been mugged, or was lying unconscious in an alley somewhere, or dead…

Those piercing eyes caught a slight movement and he skidded to a halt in the midst of a puddle, spraying himself with water and mud. An old beggar sat huddled in the overhang of a doorway, his threadbare cloak wrapped tightly around himself for warmth, peering out into the rain. "Hey!" Dark shouted, and the man's head whipped round to face him. "Hey, have you seen a girl around here? She…" But with a cry of fright the beggar leapt up and scrambled away into the night, until Dark lost his footfalls in the roar of the rain.

The shadow scowled after him, red eyes glittering, but then even that expression slid dejectedly off his face, to be replaced by a kind of bleak depression. She wouldn't leave the city without me. She needs my protection to cross Hyrule field. But, he considered, a spark of hope rising, as feeble as the lamp-light, she wouldn't stay out in this rain, either. An inn, that's were he would find her. And the only inn he could remember was the one the two of them had visited earlier that day: a place called Telma's Bar. She'll go there. She's friends with that Telma woman. And with an abrupt turn, he started back the way he had come, searching for the bar that would lead him to Ilia of Ordon.

{oOo}

Telma looked up curiously as the wooden door swung open, wondering who would be out in the weather at this time of night, and, more importantly, if they were interesting in buying anything expensive off the menu. She gave a small gasp at the figure that entered: tall and sinister and dressed all in black, a wild glint in his blood red eyes, soaking wet and smeared with so much mud that he looked like some sort of monster. The woman reached under the bar for the heavy wooden club she kept hidden for just such an occasion. It was long and thick as her arm, and a cruel metal spike had been nailed through it. There weren't a lot of troublemakers at Telma's Bar. Not anymore, at least.

"I know you're going for that club, Miss Telma," the stranger said, giving his head a slightly dog-like shake to dislodge some of the water in his dark hair and wiping mud from his face absent-mindedly, although all this really accomplished was to spread the mud around.

Recognition dawning, Telma abandoned her search for the club and gaped at him. "Derek?"

"Yes, Miss Telma," Dark said meekly, his shadowed face going red as he realized he was dripping mud all over her spotlessly clean floorboards.

"Derek, come in, and shut the door for Goddesses' sake!" Telma exclaimed as she hurried around to the front of the counter and pulled up a stool for him. "Are you alright? I thought you and Ilia were going home before nightfall."

Dark's head snapped up, his blush vanishing. "You mean she's not here?"

"Of course not. She's not with you, then?"

"No!" said Dark, a slight note of panic in his voice. "We lost each other in the crowd, and I can't stop thinking about those footpads who attacked us a few months ago…"

Telma nodded gravely. "Sit down, boy; I'm sure she's alright. I've got some friends in the city who know Ilia, and I'll bet you she's with one of them. I'll send a message to them, and if no one's seen her we can all go out and form a little search party, alright?"

Dark nodded glumly and slumped down onto the barstool she was offering. He folded his arms across the wood of the bar and rested his forehead against them, closing his eyes and trying to calm down. Somewhere nearby, he could hear the scratching of a pen as Telma wrote the promised letter, the soft rustle of wings as she fixed it carefully to a carrier pigeon and loosed it into the night. The rain pattered softly outside…

"Honey, you awake?"

Dark gave a start and jerked his head up as Telma spoke, ashamed at having almost dozed off when Ilia was quite possibly in danger. That coffee-colored face smiled encouragingly at him from across the bar. "Well, no wonder, since it's near midnight," she said. "And you look quite the mess, by the way. Care to see?"

The shadow nodded, and she drew a slightly cracked mirror from behind the bar, propping it up so he could examine his reflection. He grimaced at the wild-eyed mud-thing that looked back out at him. No wonder people ran away.

"My friends should be here in a few minutes," Telma stated conversationally, blessedly handing him a towel, and Dark found himself recalling the first time he had met her. She had seemed taller then, and he remembered being in awe of her bigness. Not that she was by any means fat, although Telma did have one of those figures one might call pleasantly plump, her weight settling attractively into the curves of her body. No, it was that she was commanding. Telma could sit quietly in a corner and still fill the room with her presence, and she had one of those voices that boomed off the walls even when she was whispering; a voice which expected to be obeyed.

Telma took the mirror away, still smiling. "So then, Derek, tell me. You and Ilia. You're her brother, right?" He nodded, and Telma gave him a funny look. "You know you two look nothing alike."

Dark sighed, and muttered, "It's a long story."

"We've got time."

"I don't know where to start," he protested, but Telma shushed him with one of those optimistic smiles.

"Begin at the beginning."

Considering, Dark closed his eyes and thought backwards. Back then there had been Ilia, but there was always Ilia. What came before her? There had been Link, he remembered. And the beautiful room full of water…

"I suppose it began," he murmured, eyes still closed, "In the dungeons of Hyrule Castle, after Ganondorf died…"