Chapter 7: In the Abyss of the Nulli Void - Part II
Muko surveyed the circular assembly of floating Nulli council members he had gathered high above the city. The gathering wasn't as large as the one that had taken place earlier. Instead of every Nulli in the Void, the current assembly comprised the leader of each Nulli Tribe. There were 12 council members present, including himself. Still, the glow from the bodies in current attendance diminished his need to rely on radiant vision in the Void. His large eyes contracted to adapt to the increase in light. He focused on listening to Masai, leader of the Lynels. The large Lynel hovered mere feet away from him, glowing in luminous tones of burnt red and bronze.
A voluminous red mane hovering around the lynel's face swished gently against two large horns protruding from his forehead. Masai shook his head. A deep voice sounding much like a growl came from his fanged mouth. He sounded as though it took great effort to speak around his sharp teeth. "I have checked all. The Nulli Hero does not reside among the lynels."
Muko's eyes snagged on the massive molduga swimming another circling pass around the group. Small undersized arms and legs, too small to be useful on such a massive body, made treading motions in time to the movement of the fin on his back and the large tail behind him. The great behemoth was also a member of the council.
"And what of your people, Rorq?" Muko called out to the enormous tribal chief. A large glowing orange eye gripped him with its gaze followed by a single groaning roar. Rorq, a creature of few words said nothing more.
Muko had finished checking in with every Nulli Council Leader in the Void and not a single one reported having a member baring marks likely to belong to the Nulli Hero. He had to control the frustration tensing the muscles in his neck and jaw.
"What of the bokoblins?" asked Syen, leader of the Pebblits, in a gravelly voice that sounded like large, heavy stones rubbing against one another.
Muko stared and then shook his head at the tribal leader whose torso and limbs resembled a small pile of shining smooth, rounded stones. He gave a snort and then directed his next remarks to all around him. "I don't know about your tribes, but if they're anything like my own, they couldn't tell the difference between a celestial marking and a boil on their ass. Check your people again and let us reconvene at the next toll of the water clock." The Nulli had taken to keeping time using a clock powered by the running waters of the infinity pool that they'd built their unfinished city around.
Muko watched as the last of the gathering dispersed. He was ready to leave himself when suddenly the Goddess stepped out of pitch darkness and clothed herself in his glow. He let out another snort through his snout. His shoulders stiffened at her appearance.
"Goddess," he said, lowering his head respectfully as was expected. His eyes lingered on her like someone foolishly daring to hold a hot iron in his hands. His red gleaming eyes finally tore away when it seemed he could take no more.
"There's no time for this now," Vyomi responded, urgency making her sound more terse than intended. "Your brother has important news. We must go."
Muko crossed his arms over his broad chest like a protective shield. He wasn't sure which brother the Goddess was referring to. He didn't have time to ask since she was quick to step close and whisk him away in a cloak of darkness. His body went rigid at her nearness. His response didn't go unnoticed, but the diety ignored it. When he reappeared, he was standing on the rooftop of the tallest building in the city. He couldn't find the Goddess and assumed she had faded into the black of the Void once more. Muko let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. It surprised him to see his youngest brother staring up at him.
"Pog?" he asked, brows raised.
Pog held up a three fingered clawed hand to signal Muko to wait. The best explanation would be in showing. He looked down at his right forearm again and concentrated on making the mark appear. He visualized it until the golden mark floated up to the surface of his candescent red skin, making his arm look like a blazing flame.
Muko averted his eyes until they adjusted to the light and then looked at Pog in bewilderment. "You? You're the Hero?!"
Pog licked his lips and fidgeted."Yes, I came to tell you… and to ask for your help."
Muko studied Pog thoughtfully and then more excitedly. "As the Nulli Hero, your focus should not be on aiding Ganon and you should not waste your time on convincing Hyruleans to invite us to stay. Your time would be better spent taking what we need to thrive here in the Void. To start, you must capture the Zora City."
Pog blinked at his brother. "But is this what the rest of the council wants? No one wants to stay in the Void."
"It's what's best for us all," Muko snapped, taking Pog aback. The silver energy of his brother's imposing frame flashed like lightening.
"But the Goddess said I needed to change the hearts and minds of the Hyruleans, so they will invite us all to stay for good."
"To the deepest and most wretched Nothing with Ganon and the Hyruleans!" Muko spat, curling his lip. "They will never have us!"
"You don't understand," Pog insisted, hurling out his words in an effort to get ahead of his brother's fury. "The Goddess gave me a hand of power. Something to help me convince the Hyruleans."
"What hand of power? What in the darkest hell are you talking about, Poggle?" Muko asked, exasperated and now calling him by his full given name. "We need to strategize on how you will go about taking Zora City. Come with me before the council."
"She said I would be able to manipulate and control unoccupied and conjoined space," Pog continued. "To an extent anyway."
"Unless you have a plan to manipulate the space between the ears of every Hyrulean, then I'd say that power is all but useless," Muko scoffed.
"Brother, please listen to me!" Pog cried in desperation. "The Goddess says I'll be able to remove Ganon's malice from the body of any Nulli I use it on!"
Muko stopped for a moment to chew on this bit of information. He raised a large clenched fist to his jaw. The thoughts behind his eyes whirled and then exited his mouth at high speed.
"If you were to use this power on every Nulli once we arrive in Hyrule our free will would be re-intact. We could concentrate our efforts on attacking the Zora City. Once we take the city, we would have full access to their luminous stone deposits. We wouldn't even have to stop with the Zora. We'll take whatever we want from them all! Are you able to open portals like the Goddess?"
"What? Portals? I don't know." Pog shook his head rapidly and threw up his hands. "Muko, it's one thing for our people to have committed monstrous acts under the influence of another, but it's another to do it under our free will. They would never accept us in Hyrule if we did this!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Poggle! We may have done none of the things we did under our own will, and we may not even remember the things we did, but we still handed our will over to someone knowing full well how they would use it. The damage is done! The light worlders deserve everything they've gotten and we are merely taking our due."
Pog had never heard his brother speak this way before. Was it too late to reconcile with the light worlders?
"I see reason has finally found you." Muko sighed, taking Pog's silence as surrender to his logic. "We don't have time to waste. We need to strategize our plans at the next council meeting. I would have you right by my side when I proudly tell them the Nulli Hero is my very own brother."
Pog robotically nodded his head as though in a trance. Wasn't this why he had met with his brother alone in the first place rather than have the Goddess transport him directly in the middle of the last council meeting? He had his brother's support and through him the respect of the Nulli.
A foul taste in the back of his throat made him want to gag. If he followed his brother's plan, and they succeeded, the Nulli would no longer have to make deals with Ganon. They would spend the rest of eternity in the Void in a gleaming city made of luminous stone along with the comforts of their other spoils of war.
Then he thought of the cries of the despairing Nulli from the meeting with the Goddess. This plan would not solve their problems. There were Nulli who would agree with his brother, but there would be many Nulli who wanted a place in Hyrule. A place they would never have if they attacked and destroyed the Zora City, or stole and plundered from the Hyruleans.
Muko's hand on his shoulder was meant to be reassuring but became a lead steering him back to the meeting place high above the city. He hardly noticed when all the Nulli council members arrived once more. He was light-headed and everything seemed to be happening from a distance. He listened as Muko began explaining their plans to pillage Hyrule, not for Ganon, but for the benefit of the Nulli. And with him at the center of it all. "My brother, Our Nulli Hero, will be the key to our success!"
"Respects Muko, but it's hard to believe that Poggy is the Marked One the Goddess spoke of," voiced Ooni, leader of the giant, one-eyed Hinox. The gleaming bulk of the enormous cyclops shifted as he hovered closer to peer down at Pog with his large, neon blue eye. The rest of his coloring distinguished him as belonging to the black hinox kith. Ooni either didn't care or took no notice that his hulking frame had shoved several of the smaller council members aside. "Show us the mark!" he demanded.
"Better yet, I would like to see this hand of power you mentioned," called out the craggy voice of Dolo, leader of the Talus. His voice sounded like the churning of bubbling, hot magma. He was one of the few council members to not scurry out of Ooni's way. The igneo talus's large size rivaled that of the cyclops. A massive stone body appearing very much like boulders of volcanic rock burned red and orange in light energy.
Muko smiled widely and turned to Pog, beckoning him forward.
The usual weightlessness of the Void magnified as he stood outside himself. He stared agape watching as his lips mouthed a single word in a low whisper. "No."
Pog's body shook in time to his quavering voice. "N-Not before all of you hear me out." Muko stared at Pog suspiciously but he didn't stop him from continuing. "If we want to live freely, it can't be as beggars, scavengers or thieves," Pog went on.
"Exactly, it must be as conquerors!" Muko added, attempting to snatch control of the dialogue once again.
"No." Pog said more firmly and bobbed away to put some distance between himself and his brother. "We have an opportunity to be equals… allies." Pog kept his eyes on the Nulli council members and tried to ignore the surge of barely contained anger radiating from Muko. "We should fight against Ganon with the Hyruleans," he finished quickly.
The silence that followed was a fragile, brittle thing; shattered spectacularly by jeering laughs.
Pog shrank into himself. He wanted to be anywhere but where he was right now. A large hand closed painfully tight around his arm. Muko's claws dug into his energy crackling. "You fool! Stand here and say nothing more!" he hissed in Pog's ear. Pog's eyes averted downward. He didn't notice that not all the members of the council had taken pleasure at his supposed folly. Instead, he thought about his own foolishness and the golden hand mark. "If only I could be anywhere but here…"
Suddenly, the golden mark resurfaced more intensely hot than ever. Muko jerked his hand away cradling it protectively. Unfortunately, Pog couldn't escape the searing burning sensation as easily. The gold light outshone the combined light of the council, forcing all the remaining tittering laughs to die. Pog drifted far away from all sound, but the intensely blaring light was inescapable. Even with his eyes closed he still saw the light slowly consuming him.
When the light died down, there was nothing left of him he recognized. Pog fell to hands and knees that weren't his own. He jerked back startled and afraid when he saw the combined total of ten slender Hylian fingers instead of his usual bulky bokoblin six. Slowly, his surroundings came back into focus leaving him confused and shocked to find not the Nulli Council looking back at him, but a gleaming room full of angry Zora warriors.
Directly in front of him was the largest and most imposing of the Zora–ruler of the aquatic race, King Dorephan. The monarch looked every bit as impressive in person as he did in the infinity pool of the Void. A seven-pointed sun crown of white gold set with glowing luminous stone and other blue gems sat on his head. A deep red sash with cords woven of gold thread tied around his neck was fastened in place by an ornate brooch of luminous stone.
The king stood in front of his throne, towering over everyone else present. He had to be at least five times the height of any bokoblin and probably close to that of a hinox. A massive, muscular body was tensed for violence with clenched fists barely held in check by his sides. He stared down at Pog, jaw trembling and sharp teeth bared.
Pog's stomach dropped as he realized he was no longer in the Nulli Void. He also was not the only focus of King Dorephan's rage but every single person in the room. The king's voice rumbled out of his chest in a roaring boom.
"You dare conspire with Yiga criminals to take the life of my daughter!"
Standing next to the king was Princess Mipha. She was vastly smaller compared to her father. She also had smooth, red skin instead of her father's deep blue. But like all Zora, her face and underbelly was pale white. Her delicate, demure frame held a trident in one hand and the hand of a Zora child in the other. The small child seemed frightened by everything unfolding and grasped on to the princess's hand tightly. However, when he met eyes with Pog, the wide-eyed worry quickly turned to a scorching heat meant to turn him into a pile of ash. Mipha also gave him a look that revealed a raging storm from within.
"Arrest him!" the king bellowed. Still confused, Pog hardly put up a fight. Within seconds Zora guards subdued him and placed him in hand shackles. "There is a special place that we keep for murderous monsters like you!"
Pog jolted at that and wondered if the king could see him underneath the Hylian skin he was wearing. Was a beast truly what all of them saw?
"Remove this creature from my sight immediately!" King Dorephan thundered, slicing through Pog's thoughts.
A jail cell was the last thing Pog had in mind when he wanted to escape from the Nulli council meeting.
Hello, I just wanted to say thank you to anyone who took time to read my story, left a review, and/or added me to their fav or alert list:
Kurama the Platinum Zoroark, LD Mire, OutsiderDude, ShadowWolf223, Sp00kyT00ns, and Moon13dreams.
I also want to thanks Moon13Dreams for beta reading a couple of my chapters to help me improve as a writer.