The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 44: Piercing the Veil
By, Frank Hunter

"They try and beat me, all in vain. For once I win, I end their pain. What am I?"

Nabooru? Rigo asked. Any idea?

Sorry kid, the spirit answered. That first one was easy, but I'm not big on word games. You're on your own.

Not the answer Rigo had wanted.

A little help wouldn't go amiss. Beat me all in vain…is it an army? he guessed.

Armies get beaten all the time, Nabooru countered.

The Hero then? He never loses.

But he also isn't arrogant or violent.

Ugh!

A clicking noise began coming out from the woods, steady as a metronome. "Tick tock, try your luck," the Skull Kid said.

"You need to give me a little time," Rigo told it.

"We're already bored. Take a guess," it answered.

A monster? he asked.

Too vague, Nabooru said.

If we can't get out of here, Tydus is gonna get to the Waters. How about something helpful?

He hasn't gotten there yet, Nabooru said. He can't open the gate. Just answer the question, and you'll be fine.

If I give the wrong answer, then we're gonna be stuck in here forever and Tydus can take however long he needs. And you're being completely useless. I should maybe just kill myself right now and save the time.

Wait a minute, he thought. Like most good riddles, when the answer came to him, it was painfully obvious.

"Death!" he shouted at the Skull Kid. "Death can't be beaten, and it ends your pain!"

The irritating ticking noise stopped and Rigo was engulfed in silence, but he stood his ground. He didn't want to make any more demands or accusations. He had won. If the creature didn't honor that, then he would have to fight it. But a being like the Skull Kid wasn't likely to renig on a fair arrangement.

Sure enough, in the distance, Rigo again saw an orange light gradually fade into existence. It lit up the trees in that direction most pleasantly. Beyond that light, Rigo could see a second flame coming to life in the distance.

The voice of the Skull Kid blared to life around him. "That," the voice said, "was a good game."

"Thank you," Rigo answered, unsure of what else to say.

"You follow Tumu's lights. Tumu's lights will take you to the Sacred Grove. To where the other one went. And when you get there…tell us. You will kill him?"

Rigo put one foot in front of the other and began to walk toward the string of lights. He could see a third glowing into existence further on. "That is the plan," he said.

Mild giggling from the Skull Kid. "When you finish, you come back. Tell us the story. We would like to hear. Very much."

"Sure," Rigo said, knowing full well that whatever happened, if he was still alive at the end of it, he'd have to cross back through the Lost Woods. Still, if he could find a way to never set foot in this place again, he damned well knew he would take it.

"I need my friends, too," he reminded the Skull Kid.

"Everyone comes. You will meet them at the end. Walk well, and see you again."

Rigo took that as goodbye, and when he neared the first light, he found that it was not the Skull Kid there holding it, but some sort of an anthropomorphic tree. It was almost twice Rigo's full height, and appeared to be sentient. It had a face, and the limb that held the lantern looked eerily like a hand. But the tree-thing did nothing but slowly gesture onward, toward the second light and the second such creature.

Rigo followed them, going through what felt like a hundred lighted groves before he began to see them in the distance: the flickers of other such lights. Other lines of firelight illuminated in the fog. Paths constructed for the Gerudo army to find their way forward so that they wouldn't remain lost. So they wouldn't change, as the Skull Kid had put it.

When he reached the end, Rigo found that the lights stopped just short of a final clearing that opened upon an ancient solid stone wall. There was an opening in the wall where it looked like at some point there may have been a door, but now it was just a tunnel through to whatever was on the other side. Flanking the open tunnel were two Hylian guards standing watch. So he'd actually made it to the right place.

Rigo didn't come fully out of the woods, instead ducking behind a tree at the sight of the guards. He wasn't ready to sound any alarms just yet, not with his army still scattered. If he played this right, the Gerudo could go into this with the element of surprise on their hands. If not, and the warning got back to Tydus, they would effectively be bottlenecked in this tunnel as they tried to push through to the other side. And if he waited long enough, there would be too many Gerudo soldiers here, and the lookouts were bound to see someone eventually.

It was while he was waiting behind the tree, trying to figure out the best course of action, that he heard a whisper from off to the side. "Psst," it called quietly. He glanced over and squinted, trying to find the source of the sound. As he focused his eyes, his heart fluttered and all but stopped. Ducked down behind a thick shrub, hiding for all she was worth, he could see the white of Amili's tunic.

He couldn't make out much of her, but it was clear what she was holding up in her hand: a bow. Two of them, two guards. They could take the lookouts together. Rigo unslung his own bow from over his shoulder and showed Amili that he'd gotten the idea. She lowered her bow, and Rigo loaded an arrow.

From the distance, there wasn't much by way of communication or organization, but Rigo figured the plan was simple enough. He took aim at the guard on his side of the tunnel, waited quietly, and when the arrow was lined up, he fired.

It pierced the guard straight through the throat, and the man reached and clutched at it for a hectic moment before the loss of oxygen and blood caught up to him and his back slid down the wall. His partner had an instant to be surprised by what happened before Amili's arrow lashed out from the woods and took him down in similar fashion.

The watchmen down, Rigo and Amili emerged quickly from the woods and trotted up to the bodies. Their eyes met, and Rigo wanted to hold her, embrace her, tell her he'd never leave her behind again and to his excitement, she looked like she wanted nothing but the same. But, refined as she was, she did not succumb to these desires. Instead, she grabbed the corpse.

It felt to Rigo as though he and Amili would never have their perfect moment, never get the chance to recover and return to the way things were. He grabbed the other body, the one he'd shot, under the arms and dragged the man back off into the woods. Amili did the same. When they came back together, alone now, Rigo it would be worth trying to say something. Anything, before they were again surrounded by troops they needed to set an example for.

"Amili," he ventured. "I was so afraid I'd lost you. I don't know-"

"I'm here," she said. "We're all fine. I saw more lights along the way, more paths, I'm guessing for the rest of the troops? What are they?"

"Guides," he said simply. "It's a long story."

"Those are the only kind you seem to know."

Rigo sighed. "Amili, I know we don't have a lot of time. I know a lot changed the night Sooru came for me. But I swear on everything I've ever loved that I never forgot about you while I was in Hyrule. I always cared. I still do. And if we get out of this, I promise I'll tell you everything. And I will never stay away again."

Her head lolled and she regarded him with tired eyes. "Is this the part where I'm supposed forgive you and swoon, and tell you I love you?"

She ought to be a writer, Nabooru injected.

"No," Rigo said, ignoring the spirit. "It's just, for real, we may not make it out of this. And if we don't, I don't want everything to end with bad blood between us. I want you to know the truth, and I wish I could tell you the whole thing now. But the short version is that I'm still here with you. And that I always have been."

"Rigo," Amili answered. "If we get out of this, I will give you your chance to explain. But in case we know, just know that I never forgot either. And I still miss you. And I do want to hear everything."

She put her hand on his shoulder and wore the hint of her old smile on her face, and Rigo wished that the time, that moment, could have been right then. If he could have wished for anything in the world, that would have been it. But that was not the moment.

The two stood together as more Gerudo began to filter out of the woods, one by one. Wherever the lighted paths were, they weren't visible from here, which, Rigo supposed, showed a bit of cleverness on the Skull Kid's part. As the group began massing in the clearing, Rigo saw the blindfolded eyes of Pureet as she emerged, being led by the hand by another soldier.

"I stayed by her side, Stewardess. The whole way," the soldier reported to Amili. Amili thanked her and dismissed her into the ranks. Rigo embraced his old teacher, genuinely surprised and relieved to see her again. If there was anyone who would have been unable to follow the lights, it was Pureet.

"I hope you did not think me the type to sit out a fight?" she asked, sardonically.

"You kidding?" Rigo asked, working to keep the tears in his eyes out of his voice. "Never doubted you for a second."

He led her over to a place where she could sit down and take water and rations, which all of the troops were permitted to spend a few minutes doing. After the stress of the forest, it would have been ideal to wait at least a day, to regroup and recover from the scare they'd had, but time, as always, was not on their side, and it wouldn't be long before Tydus discovered his lookouts were missing. There was no choice but to prepare quickly, and deliver their assault immediately and without mercy.

"We can be ready in a matter of moments," Amili told Rigo once the final head count had been done, and it had become clear that the Skull Kid had kept his word: all of the soldiers had been recovered and returned safely.

"But we don't know what's on the other side of the wall," she said. "Do you have any idea what to expect?"

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

Nabooru? he asked inwardly. What can you see?