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ith all the pieces in play, with all the elements ready, Ganondorf made his move. With the Triforce at his full command, infinitesimally tiny cracks between Light and Dark Worlds, Hyrule and the Sacred Realm, slivered through the delicate seal made by the Sages so long ago. Only the Triforce's magic could create them, and only the Triforce's magic could detect them, otherwise invisible to naked, and even to magical, sight. The merging of the two worlds after such long separation had begun.

As the veil cracked, dark power began seeping into the world of Hyrule, all at the command of the Evil King. The power seeped one drop at a time, coalescing into puddles, trickling into streams, and finally torrentially pouring into rivers. Wherever the dark aether flowed, life was sucked out of the very ground and left to rot. It invaded forests and the soil beneath them, leaving trees and grass and plants to whither away; it swam into the seas and the waters, drying them up and filling them with mud and murk; it flew into the air and filled it with disease and pestilence. It infected those who breathed it, causing them to choke up blood and die in the streets.

Miakoru Town was the first to catch wind of the evil plague. It swarmed through without rest, leaping from soul to soul as slowly the town was decimated. Those that were sick were quarantined to their houses in an effort to stop it from spreading, but it was to no avail as the illness had wings made of magic, carrying it through the infested homes only to always find its next victim. Only those wise enough, or perhaps fearful enough, to have left the town at the first symptoms of tragedy were spared. All others were soon taken ill, dying, one after another after the next. Miakoru would fall to Ganon's evil taint.

Kakariko was luckier than its sister village, but it was not free of the turmoil that had haunted the dying citizens of Miakoru. Soon the waters all around the city were turned to sludge, and all water that was clean would vanish, thirsting the populace into desperation. The livestock within the town soon grew quite feeble with the lack of grass and grain, and with it came famine beyond belief as eggs, meat, and cheese became only a distant memory to their hungry stomachs. Brave adventures were forced to travel further and further down the well-beaten paths to find precious water and increasingly scarce food, hoping and praying that the goddesses would look after them, that somehow a savior would come for them.

A meeting was called among those close to the Royal Family within their castle in Hyrule's center. The Wise Men were there, transcribing many scrolls and parchments, trying to find prophecies that might shine light onto the arrival of one who would save them from whatever was haunting their kingdom. Reading the old texts, texts that should have been obliterated by the water's ungraceful care but somehow were still kept well intact, they were able to discover the history of the Sacred Realm and of the Nine Gates that linked the worlds together. The books also told of the seal that not only kept the foreign realm permanently separate from that of Hyrule, but also of the great evil that was held beyond those gates. Armed with maps and traveling gear, it was decreed that the Wise Men in the company of the castle guards should investigate the seals upon the gates and to re-establish them if needed, hoping that this would be the key to saving Hyrule. While in some cases the seal had deteriorated in one direction, allowing the flow of energy from Hyrule into the Evil Realm, the unperceivable cracks that Ganondorf had created at those points in the other direction were unable to be detected, and so the Wise Men were left clueless and powerless. The King had no other choice but to post petitions for anyone who could discover the source of their woes or find such a thing to cleanse the land, promising significant rewards to those who could do so.

It was then when the evil began taking shape in the far-off distance. Slowly out of the evil power that had spread from Ganondorf's Triforce formed a wizard of unquestionable power. He walked towards the land of Hyrule slowly but steadily, coming first to Kakariko village. The wizard could not be seen as representative of the evil that consumed him, for unexpectedly everywhere he stepped, the evil power within the world seemed to be banished, gone forever. Those that came to greet the stranger he touched with his gentle hand, and instantly they were cured of hunger and thirst and disease. In his wake, water, air, and land became well again, almost as if his magic was so powerful and so great that it had no other choice but to leap away from his body and spread into the world. The citizens of Kakariko claimed him a savior and asked of him his name, to which he answered the name of Agahnim.

The Hylians within the town of Kakariko led him towards Hyrule Castle so that he could meet with the king and his advisors. As the wizard stepped forward, the king asked the cause for his presence in the world of Hyrule and how he could perform the amazing miracles he had performed. The wizard merely mentioned that he had felt disturbances within the land of Hyrule and wished to help the people within, that his priestly powers of healing were powerful enough to stop the flow of evil seeping through whatever cracks through which it was finding its way into Hyrule. The king seemed generally pleased with this answer, but before he could speak any more, the wizard then held his hands up, cupping them about a glowing sphere of white that was growing within his hands. Agahnim held it tenderly, his eyes closing as he murmured incantations upon the spell. In a sudden movement, he plunged the sphere into the ground, and in a large shock of thunder without sound, all land from Death Mountain to Lake Hylia, from the Lost Woods to Kakariko Town, were cleansed of the evil; all save for the death and demise of Miakoru Town was made as it had been before.

The King applauded the wizard's display of magic and began walking him into his castle. The king returned to his throne and with his daughter Zelda at his side, and he issued two decrees. His first decree was that the town of Miakoru would be dismantled, the houses burnt to shambles and then discarded, burning as if they were funeral pyres, normally reserved for the nobles of the old Hyrule. It would be made into a large graveyard to honor those who died in the evil that had swept over the Kingdom of Hyrule. Along with a graveyard, as a memory to those who died there, a small cathedral would be set just to its west to serve as a sanctuary for travelers and as a place of worship to the goddesses. The second document which the King signed was a brash but not wholly unforeseen action, as the king decreed that Agahnim should not only serve as his own personal advisor but also as one of the heirs to the wisdom of the Seven Wise Men. After much resistance, Agahnim finally accepted both positions most graciously.

Sahasrahla and the other Wise Men, however, smelled something amiss, almost as if their senses had been alerted whenever Agahnim was near. Though they began teaching the wizard the language of the ancients, soon they decided amongst themselves that they believed Agahnim to be too serious a threat with the knowledge of old. Already the wizard would keep himself up at odd hours of the night within his chambers, entertaining himself with things unknown. They feared for the safety of Hyrule with such a wizard of great power so close to the king. The next night, meeting in secret, the seven decided to flee from the castle and go into hiding. The next morning, when this was discovered, Agahnim was enraged; his wrathful fury led him to the king to whom he demanded that the Wise Men be returned to the castle. The king, however, refused, for he was not a dictator, nor had the Seven Wise Men broken any law by leaving the castle grounds. However, Agahnim could not be contented in this manner, and as a result he threw his hands upon the king and took over his mind, rendering the king's conscious self powerless over his body. "Perhaps," said the wizard in a snake-like voice, "you will now learn that wizards are to be contented rather than refused."

From that day on, the king's actions were manipulated by Agahnim's puppet strings. Decrees were sent out, offering rewards for information on the whereabouts of the Seven Wise Men; however, none ever came forward, all either unaware or too sympathetic to the Wise Men's decision to tell. Many days passed without information, and so Agahnim decided upon another strategy. If the Seven Wise Men would not help him to gain the information on how to bring Ganon back into the world of Hyrule, then perhaps the Seven Sages, the Princess and her maidens, would. The tyranny was very swift, and one by one, the maidens disappeared from the interiors of the castle. Since oftentimes the maidens would visit Kakariko from time to time, both their absence from the village marketplace and the strange demeanor of the royal guards within Kakariko were well noted, and so people naturally began to whisper to one another about questions of their safety.

This continued until one night, the seventh night after he had taken power, Agahnim was preparing one of his rituals, a ritual to complete that which would break the seal between this world and Ganon's world. The last Sage, Princess Zelda herself, remained locked within the castle dungeons, the dungeon keepers watching for strangers. The magic of the Hylian people, however, had not lost its hold within the royal line somehow, and so using her magic through the form of telepathy, Zelda sent forth a plea towards the south. "Help, my name is Zelda. I am kept imprisoned within the castle dungeons. Please, help me."

Moments later, Link awoke within his bed, having heard the words whispered in the silence. His uncle Llewelyn was simply tightening his shoes about his feet, already brandishing a shield upon his right arm. Seeing his nephew awoken, he walked over to Link and laid him back down. "Link, I have to go do something. I will be back by morning." He went to the table to pick up his sword, a family heirloom, finally walking out the door. Just before he left, he peeked his head back in, looking back at Link. "Please, Link, do not leave this house until the sun rises." With that, he left.

Link pondered his uncle's words for a few moments, and was content with them. But then those words from Zelda were heard again in his own mind. "Please... help me."

He crawled out of bed, donned his boots, and headed out into the dark rain.