45

It was the darkest dance I'd ever seen.

The Iron Knuckle moved like a machine – fast, precise, crushing, implacable. Sheik flowed like water – loose, improvisatory, quick, seamless. It was a juggernaut versus a typhoon. The grinding of gears against the wail of the wind.

After the initial, bone-jarring collision of blades, they separated and circled. Sheik zipped along the river like a mongoose sizing up a particularly meaty cobra. The undulating flap of his cloak gave the Shiekah assassin the look of some dust-mottled phantom.

Titanic sword in hand, the Iron Knuckle trudged after him. Never in a hurry, it seemed. I knew for a fact that the Nameless Woman within that awful suit of armor could be just as swift as her opponent. Nonetheless, she strode into the duel as if savoring it. Deliberate steps took her into the dark, swirling heart of the river, where Sheik flitted gray as a twilight shadow.

Then: A blast of movement accompanied by a crash of steel. The Iron Knuckle dashed forth in a blood-red blur. That immense, diamond-tipped blade swept out like a platinum tsunami.

Sheik seemed to welcome the approach of the sword. He ran to meet it as one runs toward an old and dearly missed friend. At the border of its horizontal arc, he shimmied like a serpent and fell well below its frantic momentum. He flew straight into – and under – the blade's killing range.

His own curved sword sang once – twice – three times. An ear-mauling sound erupted as the blade's edge found no give in the Iron Knuckle's nigh-invincible suit. Amber sparks wheeled through the gloom.

Only by a salamander-slim movement did Sheik avoid the Iron Knuckle's crushing counterblow. The woman's fist crashed down like a steam-press. A gout of water erupted through the air even as Sheik skittered lithely to the Iron Knuckle's side. The Shiekah skipped backward with perfect gymnast's bounds as the great sword slashed through the air where he had once stood.

I just barely heard a strange, subtle sound. Something breathy, rhythmic, and half-suppressed. I was in no state to really be surprised when I figured out what it was – laughter.

Both the Iron Knuckle and Sheik laughed as they fought. They giggled and chuckled and chortled. The Shiekah's laughs came in a series of boyish, breathless bursts that followed him as inexorably as the tail of his cloak.

Completely fucking insane, I considered. I didn't apply this label to anything in particular. The phrase crossed my mind again and again – a frantic goldfish careering dementedly about its bowl. Perhaps I meant the world as the phrase's target. Almost certainly.

Sheik fell upon the Iron Knuckle again, arms held out from his sides as if in imitation of a soaring bird. In response, the armored woman threw her entire metal bulk forward, meeting the Shiekah not with a blade but with a brutal shoulder-check. Sheik tried to pull his charge into a dodging roll, but ended up taking a shoulder-plate to the side. There was a godawful sort of sound – something like tenderizing meat with a mallet – and the Shiekah spun off and fell into the river.

My insides seized. My tongue had long since gone dry as dirt.

But: Sheik was back up in an instant, his bloodstained cloak now heavy with river water. His free hand flew out, sharp silver launching from between his fingers. A throwing knife collided with the Iron Knuckle's helm and sent her reeling. The impact summoned a sound like the chime of a demonic bell.

The armored warrior stumbled back, spitting half-coherent profanities. As she regained her bearings, Sheik rose into twitching readiness. His hand slipped again into the inner folds of his cloak. Another short, weighted knife danced into his fingers.

"Not . . . nice!" the Iron Knuckle sputtered.

The Shiekah took a little more time to line up his toss. A few seconds of fervent concentration. Then his arm went rigid and the bladed missile went flying.

A gauntlet whipped up so quickly I thought that it must belong to some third party – a new challenger in this game of death. It didn't, of course – the Iron Knuckle simply reached out her hand, fast as thought, and swatted the throwing knife from the air.

"No," the Iron Knuckle groused. "We'll be having no more of that tonight, thank you."

Sheik started to swing his arm in for another knife and then hesitated. Something lively sent porcelain wrinkles spreading away from his eyes. His crimson irises twinkled fiercely. I swore that I could see the savage ghost of a grin through the wrappings about his face. He withdrew his hand and doubled his grip about the pommel of his sword.

"If you insist," Sheik heaved.

He sprinted forth in a serpentine zigzag. In the firelight, the Iron Knuckle's sword shone as red as if it had just been forged. It fell to crush the Shiekah – and Sheik's sword rose to strike back. Like that, they were back in it – all the way up to their souls.

They continued the dance across the course of the river, up over its banks, and about the cracked complex of boulders. Swords cast out before them, legs pumping like animals at the hunt. Each slipped past the other in a series of thrusts and blocks and thoughtless, full-strength uppercuts. Sheik jigged and the Iron Knuckle waltzed to meet him. Each by turns broke and tapped and boogied and jooked and jived and krumped and jitterbugged. When they came close – and Sheik's rash assaults assured this often – they tangoed as devotedly as lovers on a polished marble floor.

All the while, their quick breaths resonated with the depth of their pleasure.

Through it all, I found myself growing more and more detached from what I saw. Not just mentally – though my thoughts were indeed increasingly muddled and dull. My entire body was slowly, inescapably going numb. Though the double-dose of the Red had undoubtedly saved my life, I was still utterly broken. I could barely muster the strength to turn my head to follow the battle's course.

If Sheik – whoever the fuck he turned out to be – was to be believed, I was still perched on death's front stoop. Thus, this gelid dimming of my senses provoked in me an equally senseless panic. Something helpless and infantile and maniacally terrified.

[Please don't let me die!]

Before my eyes, the Iron Knuckle scuttled crablike between the split and seeping corpses of Hylian legionaries and Protectorate soldiers alike. Sheik pounced like a cougar, driving his blade before him in an impossible storm of curving strikes. Metal rang against metal as if in the depths of some twisted hellforge. Using the monstrous diamond sword's flat as a ram, the Iron Knuckle punched out and deflected Sheik from his line of attack. The assassin skidded through the water, dirty bandages soaking a dingy, uniform gray. He crouched in the current, one hand plunged into its flow and the other balancing his blade above his head.

For a moment, the two fighters sat perfectly still. They regarded each other raggedly. Their breathing was a humid gale.

"Hnnnn . . ." the Iron Knuckle purred. "Come on, little lamb. More. Come on! Come on come on COME ON! KILL ME IF YOU CAN!"

"As you wish!" Sheik laughed, panting. The sheer happiness in his voice was stunning. "I shall enjoy sending you to Hell!"

[Please.]

The Shiekah launched himself as if thrown from a catapult. A leap of such length that it took him right past his opponent, legs pumping to sprint even before he landed. The Iron Knuckle twisted like a dervish to catch up, but Sheik took off swiftly toward the field of boulders. With a hop and a plunge, Sheik mounted the slick stones sure as a mountain goat.

Oh God. He's escaping! I thought. He's gonna leave me behind! It was a self-evidently stupid thought – but hey, I wasn't doing so hot right then.

Clearly thinking better than I was, the Iron Knuckle trotted after her tormentor cautiously. The tip of her sword slipped through the surface of the river. Its path produced a clean, liquid slicing sound. For the first time that evening, I saw the armored warrior grip her weapon with both hands.

Sheik bounded from one rock to the next, seemingly without a destination. Here, there; forward, backward; toward, away. And then with a flourish, his thin boots propelled him into the side of the tall spike of stone at the center of the field.

A distinct holy shit moment: The Shiekah fighter kicked against the side of the great boulder, coiled like a human spring, and rebounded back out over the river in a leap worthy of a dozen Olympic medals.

The reversal came so quickly that the Iron Knuckle had almost no time to react. She flinched back and tried to bring her sword to bear.

But too late.

Sheik soared through the steam-drenched air as if suspended. His sword was like a shining talon. Its arc of descent was so perfectly conceived that it felt predestined.

The Iron Knuckle made a faint, flustered sound.

I blinked.

There was a hideous sound of metal sliding past metal. A cracked drive-shaft sort of squeal. A heady splash of boots impacting the water.

That blink felt like it had eaten up hours of my life. When my eyelids sprang back open, Sheik knelt triumphantly in the middle of the Kerneghi River. His eyes were bright as planets on an evening horizon. His sword no longer sat in his hands.

Instead, it protruded from the mouth slit of the Iron Knuckle's helmet. Its length jutted from the dark space at an acute, cantilevered angle. The armored suit slumped back on itself with an air of benumbed shock. Within its bulk, nothing moved or made a sound.

Holy fuck. He did it!

I wanted to laugh joyously, but didn't have remotely the energy to do so. The thought of all that sound as it ricocheted against my broken ribs only served to make me miserable.

"Enjoy the darkness of the Pit, creature," Sheik breathed. He stood from the river's flow and breathed a sigh rattling with relief. Trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion, the Shiekah turned his face to me and arched his eyebrows. "And now, Mister Olsen, I will see you to that surgeon I mentioned earlier."

The great suit of armor tilted forward with a faint creaking. Its cape fluttered as if perturbed.

Sheik froze. All the happiness drained from his eyes like the last moments of a smoking match.

"FUCK."

The voice rasped loud as a bullhorn through the armor's seams. A moment later, an unsteady gauntlet rose up and plucked at the sword projecting awkwardly from the helmet.

"You're a clever one, little lamb."

Sheik spun about in time to watch his own blade pull from the Iron Knuckle with a metallic scream. The warrior held the sword between gauntleted knuckles and considered it with unseen eyes. Then she flipped it peevishly out into the dark, where it disappeared with a half-hearted sploosh.

"That was too close," the Iron Knuckle mused. She turned on us, irises glowing hot as volcanic craters. "Way. Too. Fucking. Close."

She drew up her gargantuan sword and let its point drift in Sheik's direction. Water dribbled from the blade in a miniature rain shower.

The Shiekah was once more a tight-wound doll of twitching muscle and crackling nerves. He held his empty palms out as if to steady himself. His sodden cloak clung wetly to his back and buttocks.

The Iron Knuckle declared, "Now. Now now now. Let's see how you deal with Round Two, you delightful little cunt. See, that was just a warm-up. An hors d'oeuvre. Now that I see what you're made of, little lamb, I think I'll show you just what I can truly do!"

Like a maddened witch in a stage play, the Nameless Woman let loose a cackle of boundless glee and malevolence. She raised steel arms and drove her eyes into the Shiekah before her as if he were a sacrifice tied to an altar.

Something in her form changed. In the faded gloom of guttering flames and my own wounded senses, it was difficult to tell just what it was that I saw. I was reminded of what had happened to her great-helm when she had "removed" it. A molten ripple traveled through the breadth of her armor. Her cloak spun about her shoulders as if caught in a hurricane gust of wind. Everything about her physical form seemed to come loose and shimmer moistly, like fevered flesh or spilled quicksilver.

"Hahahahaha! Get ready, Sheik! You're gonna love this part!" she howled.

The Iron Knuckle's armor began to change shape. Its plates slid apart as if made of putty. Edges and angles became jagged as mountain peaks. Something sickly and golden began to shine through the night.

Despair took hold of me. I wished only that I might will myself into unconsciousness. Before the manifestation of this cyclopean apparition, I wanted only to give up at last and sleep.

"THAT'S ENOUGH, MAYDA!"

A hale, masculine voice boomed through the contours of the encroaching darkness. Its words echoed sharply across the rocks and over the surface of the river.

I watched numbly as the Iron Knuckle's psychotic smile – still hideously visible through the corona of her transformation – twitched and faltered. In its place grew a grimace of disappointment and disgust.

"No," I heard her murmur. "Not now. Not now! Goddamn you, Vaati! Not fucking now!"

"STAND DOWN," the disembodied man commanded.

It was like watching a king cobra retract its hood. Within seconds, the Iron Knuckle's half-completed metamorphosis became a mass of jumbled silvers, reds, and coruscating gold. She stood cocooned in a roiling ooze of liquid armor. A cloying stink of graphite, iron, and ozone washed over the river. I could only stare in stunned amazement as the previous configuration of plates emerged from the pulsing morass. No more than ten seconds later, the Iron Knuckle stood as she had before she had even lifted an axe against the 18th Pikes. Every inch of her steel was immaculate. Only the giant sword stood as proof that she had been in battle.

She whipped about angrily and cast her voice into the smudgy shadows beyond the river bank. "Show yourself, you interloping bastard! If you have the nerve to interrupt me, at least give me the courtesy of doing it in person!"

Sensing a break in the Iron Knuckle's attention, Sheik broke and dashed my direction. He slid to a stop by my side, dropping strong but surprisingly gentle hands to my good shoulder.

"We must move. Forthwith," he said.

I looked at him dully as a stunned cow. "What?"

"Get up!" Sheik hissed. "Linus Olsen: It is imperative that you rise now!"

My dazed eyes skipped past the masked Shiekah, out to where the Iron Knuckle stood enraged. Her armor trembled with some unknowable, insensate emotion. She shouted, "You son of a bitch! Where the hell are you?"

Amid the mess of giant river stones, a voice quietly slithered:

"Ah . . . patience was never your forte – was it, Iron Knuckle?"

At first I saw nothing there, in the darkness beyond the rocks. Then: two arcs of what looked like electric current flared to life. Dual wisps of indigo plasma twisting and spiraling inward. Whirlpools of violet current like captured ball lightning. Vague, unnerving sparks like a pair of frozen fireflies. Beneath these materialized a vast, perfect set of teeth that glowed like moonlight. A grin – floating in the dark like something out of a schizophrenic's waking dream.

A darkness deeper than darkness detached from the shadows and strolled into the field of boulders. A crisp, exact garment of silken black. In actuality – a beautifully tailored suit. Both its shirt and jacket were black as oil – as midnight – as the deeps of the sea. From its collar hung a perfectly positioned tie of bright, electric purple. Silver cufflinks shone in the shadows like stars. Urbanity defined.

Amid the embers of the evening, the suit's owner came into focus. He was a tall, lean, elegant man. A long, severely boned face terminated in the jutting spike of a chin. Black hair swept back slickly from a high forehead and a pronounced widow's peak. It shone damply in the firelight, as if it had been tamped down with pomade. Dark waves of it fell past his ears like a curtain.

Eyes even darker than the Iron Knuckle's – though these did not shine with that ceaseless, mine-fire glow. Instead, this man's irises were like flat pools of liquid onyx. I thought – just maybe – that I saw another spark of incandescent purple in their abyssal depths. He blinked so little that it was disturbing.

The man's arms and legs swung long and loose about a broad torso. Those limbs moved strong and sinuous as snakes or eels. Despite the fact that he couldn't be any more than thirty-five or forty years old, his deeply tanned skin rippled with a constantly twitching matrix of lines and strained folds – as if the muscles and tendons contained within were at war within the surface of his body.

Everything about his posture spoke of spring-loaded tightness and whipcord readiness. It was as if he spent every moment of every day prepared to pounce.

He swaggered through the river as if getting wet was a concern for lesser men. Without a word, he abruptly hopped atop one of the same stones that Sheik had used to launch his final attack. The man's tar-black shoes dripped globes of river water. Still holding that imperturbable grin, the suited man raised his arms like a carnival showman.

"Hello, boys and girls!" the newcomer said cheerily. "Is everyone enjoying their evening?"

I could only goggle like a mongoloid.

Sheik whispered, "Please. Olsen. We are done for if you do not simply stand."

"Vaati . . ." the Iron Knuckle growled.

"Oh, come now," the tensed man smiled. "Who but those we command call me that? Least of all you."

The armored woman barked, "You have no right, you slimy cocksucker. This is my battle! I want to see it finished!"

The man in the suit – fucking Vaati, man! – gestured my way. "I think that you're already most of the way there, Mayda. In fact, I'd say we've let you have a little too much fun tonight. That kid's a wreck."

His smile, I realized, was as groomed and joyless as a graveyard. He said, "You fucked up, Knuckle. Now it's time for you to stand back and let the big people do the talking."

Ever since he had appeared, something about the man had slipped splinters of itching dread between my fingers. He inspired a feeling of breathless consternation – of simultaneous fear and frustration. A heavy-metal ugliness that settled somewhere nebulous in my bowels. Something known . . . some word that my agony-addled mind couldn't quite settle upon . . .

Oh.

Oh shit.

The word. The word was actually a phrase. Déjà vu.

[I could just barely make out the figure that she talked to. He stood half-concealed by the frame of the sliding glass door, his upper torso arched back slightly. Whoever he was, he wore a suit so black and svelte that it seemed to shine.]

"You were there too . . .!" I breathed.

[Skinny, tight-tendoned hands flexed and relaxed spasmodically as the nameless woman spoke. For a moment, his broad chest twitched with unheard laughter.]

"What?" Sheik whispered.

"That man . . . I saw him the same night . . . at the party . . ."

I swore that it was the same suit – though no doubt this man owned more than just one. Just a different shirt and tie tonight. Last time, the tie had been red as raw meat. But that grin? Well, I'd say it was unmistakable.

He seemed to notice my dazed, rapt attention. His head tilted to the side and he let loose a vulpine giggle. "And here I thought that the poor sap wouldn't get it." Vaati lolled his long neck in the Iron Knuckle's direction. "You may have no impulse control whatsoever, but I continue to be pleased by your judgment of character."

"Did you really come here just to gloat?" the Iron Knuckle snapped.

"Well – no. I suspect I'm here for the same reason you are. Things are going our way again, after all. The man of the hour is once more in our hands. And given the occasion, I thought I'd make a bit of a staff meeting of it." Vaati's smile was at once condescending and ingratiating. "Hail, hail – the gang's all here!"

"Please. You can do this. We must retreat. Please. I beg you," Sheik pleaded.

It was only then that I finally noticed the other figures edging closer – materializing out of the ringing darkness. Each stepped through the rocks as if rising to take communion. Three more silhouettes, gaining shape and definition in the night's orange witchglow.

The first came among us on horseback – riding a titanic, dark gray charger made all the more imposing by its silence. Its eyes were black and insensate as diamonds. The rider was a trim, sharp-looking man in armor. In one hand he lazily dipped a bronze-bladed spear. His armor was enameled a depthless ebony, inlaid with swirls of dark gold like poison honey. On his great-helm were attached a pair of mighty horns. They extended from his helmet so ostentatiously that they looked like they had been pilfered from a Texas longhorn.

He reined in his iron-gray mount some way from the stand-off zone between Sheik, Iron Knuckle, the man in the suit, and me. Taking his time, he let loose heaving sighs as he dropped his spear into an immense scabbard running from his saddle. He then reached up and stripped off his helmet, dropping its weight into his lap.

His face summoned in me a confusing swirl of emotion and memory. It was a normal – albeit craggy and weathered – face. His salt-bleached blonde hair swept back from a clearly encroaching brow. He had blue eyes and his eyebrows crinkled up as he smiled.

I recalled: Los Angeles by night. Waiting for a bus. The smell of diesel exhaust and hot asphalt high in my nostrils.

He pointed a gauntlet at the Iron Knuckle and winked. "Heya, Bright-Eyes. Nice to see ya'." His was a fluted, breathy, almost English accent. Without a moment's consideration, he drew a cigarette from a pocket on his belt and lit it with the quick, hidden flick of a match.

[Hey mate. You got a light?]

And all of a sudden, I was absolutely certain that I had met this man before – in the briefest of possible moments. On the night I had gone into the city to pawn the Master Sword, I had given him a quick swipe of my lighter.

[Cheers.]

Was it true? Was it possible? Could this be anything but the feverish thrashings of my diseased mind? Was it a coincidence or a trick of memory? Was I truly, irrevocably mad?

Or had these people actually been following me before I even came to Hyrule?

The Horned Man took a drag from his cigarette, caught my eye, and gave me a quick upturn of his chin. Had I not already been half-dead, I suspect that the sense of unreality would have set me to screaming.

The next figure to step into the light was a sepulchral ruin, approaching at a slump and a shuffle. Compared to the others, he was almost gnomish in height. He wore only black and gray, mottled canvas pants and a black leather duster like the flapping silhouette of wings. The coat draped over his cancer patient's frame appeared to have been last cleaned in another century. It was faded, frayed, and streaked with mud and patches bleached white as bone.

Every curve of his ribs was visible through thin, filmy skin riddled with visible veins. Each of his audible breaths was short and urgent. Beneath a long mop of black hair thick with grease was a face that might belong to an ice mummy. At one time, you could have described him as Asian. Now his eyes were sunken so far in his skull they were like dull, distant marbles. A skein of pumice-gray stubble grew patchily over his chin and cheeks. His skin was the color of tallow.

He pulled up beside Vaati – or at least the rock which the man in the suit perched upon. The skeletal man made a sound like he was asphyxiating on a mouthful of dust. His mineral-sharp eyes fixed upon me. There glittered in their depths a hatred so pure that I felt it prickle across my flesh. Sublimated murder.

The final figure seemed to appear among the rest of them between blinks. There was a sound (of tearing paper) and a smell (of burnt electronics) and a sensation (of vertigo in a cavern). Then he stood with arms crossed, earth-colored tabards flapping up about him as if in exasperation. It seemed that the depths of my terror were endless – for I also knew this last man. At least, I had seen him before, standing at the outer reaches of all sense and sanity.

He was very tall. From his thick brown boots to the disheveled shock of his dark hair, he had to stand six-foot-six or seven. Sharp-looking instruments ringed his belt. Beneath his dual tabards, the man wore loose dark clothing and a boiled leather tunic.

But none of that really mattered. What I saw first – and what everyone probably saw, when I thought about it – was the mask.

It was a thick, brick-red plate that covered everything from his chin to far over his hairline. At first, I thought it was clay or ceramic – but then I saw it was actually striped with smaller, more crystalline bands. It was actually some kind of dark, half-polished stone.

The mask held no features except for two eye-holes and a very curious carving. This etching ran between the eyes and terminated on the mask's forehead. Oh so simple: Just a cross. But not really a cross – because of course it was a cruciform. The rest of the mask was smooth as the surface of a bowling ball.

I hadn't actually seen him before. Not in full. Only his flowing black silhouette against a blood-red sky. On a hallucinatory evening in Los Angeles, this man had crashed a machete against a garbage bin in challenge. Each strike like a diseased church bell. This man had delighted in my maddened fear and flight.

He cracked gloved knuckles and let loose a fast, airy chortle. Breath and words flowed from behind his sheer mask dead as wind over a wasteland. He had no accent and spoke as if perpetually hyperventilating.

"Look at 'em. Fuckin' geek finally got what was comin' to him." The masked man turned to the man in the suit. "Should we waste him, chief?"

"No need," Vaati said coolly. When the man in the mask and the not-dead dead-man growled lowly, the man in the suit said, "Ease yourselves. Today we all get a glance at our future. A kind of 'get to know your neighbors' night. The true beginning of this grand and wonderful game."

[Something isn't right.]

Before anyone else could get a word in, the man in the suit announced, "Let's all get to know each other, shall we?"

He flicked two fingers in the direction of the man in black armor, who breathed twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils at his name. "Darknut."

The hand danced to the gaunt, swaying man in the duster. "Stalfos."

And now to the masked man, who stared at me as if I were an insect desperately in need of squashing. "Armos."

"Bishop Armos!" the masked man corrected sharply.

"Whatever."

The man in the suit swept his palm to that previously nameless woman – perhaps called Mayda. "Of course you've met our dear Iron Knuckle." Even through her armor, it was clear that she fidgeted irritably.

At last, he drew his flight attendant's hand to his own chest. "I am Vaati. Right hand of Ganon and the troop leader of this merry little band."

[Something isn't right about all of this.]

"Linus . . . please . . ." Sheik whispered desperately.

At last, Vaati threw out an inviting palm to me. His face bunched up in a jolly canyon-land. "And here's the man of the fucking hour! The Hero of the Triforce himself. Sworn, eternal enemy of our master in darkness, Ganon. The dude destined to rise again and attempt to defeat him. We – who are the great generals and ministers of his Protectorate – are under blood-oath to oppose this man at every turn."

My eyes bulged. For a moment, my whole body buzzed with the energy of revelation. I choked, "You're the Inner Council, aren't you?"

Vaati laughed, "Inner Council? Are they still calling us that? Hmph. I really liked 'the High Ministers.' It sounded like a reggae band."

[Something is missing. Something is amiss.]

Sheik's hand pressed into my shoulder as if it were made of titanium. Though he did not speak, the urgency of his grip was terrifying.

"Don't you want to introduce your friend, Hero? He seems like quite the scrapper. Sure seems to have saved your ass tonight," Vaati smiled. "Not that any of us are particularly surprised to see him here tonight. It is a night of firsts, is it not? Surely it's the work of Fate that both of you are here to help us celebrate the opening of this great enterprise." He cocked his head and took Sheik and I in with eyes that were almost saurian.

[Something is seriously fucking wrong here.]

And there it was. It clicked. The bottom fell out of the world.

"Your ears . . ." I wheezed. "You all have round ears!"

That Cheshire grin. Those dancing eyes.

I coughed, "You're all outerlanders! You're all from fucking Earth!"

"Bingo bango!" the man in the suit cackled. "Give this boy the prize."