Chapter 31: Morpha and the Sage

He is not a lover who does not love forever.

~Euripides

Malon rushed up the stairs to Kakariko Village as if expecting to find Link at the top, waiting for her. When she didn't immediately see him, she stomped her foot on the grass and clenched her fists until they were white.

"I told you she was yours. You didn't have to run off with her in the middle of the night!"

Talon, coming up behind her, winced and hoped they found the boy before his daughter woke up the village. With dawn just now lightening the sky, only the hardiest would be up and about, and these folks did buy their milk from the ranch, after all. No sense irritating customers.

"Maybe Ingo and I could have a look around," he said. "Better if you stay here, hon."

Malon huffed. "I'm not stopping until I get my hands around his neck. I'm sick of waiting for things to happen—for you both to come back to the ranch, and for every other good thing I've waited for. This time I can do something about it."

Talon sighed. He knew Malon well enough to let her have her way at this point. "We'll check the hill and the graveyard, just in case. If we find him, we'll meet you at the well."

"Fine. Just hurry."

The two of them shuffled off to the far north end of the village, leaving her to decide her own path. After peering into a few of the nearest alleyways and finding little more than a stray cat or two and a loose chicken, she made up her mind to follow her dad and Mr. Ingo to the other side of the village.

She had almost made it to the well when a hunched figure appeared out of a dark corner at her side. Startled, she made as if to go around it, but it quickly accosted her.

"You feel the storm coming, don't you miss?"

The question was so odd that it halted Malon in her tracks.

"Oh, I know the sky looks clear right now. Not a cloud to be seen. But the signs are there, if you know where to look."

For a moment, she forgot everything else that was on her mind. "I…I don't understand. Who are you?" She wanted to add, "You look like the grave keeper," but thought better of it.

As if reading her thoughts, the old man grinned, scratching at an absurd white beard that was so long it brushed the ground as he walked. "My brother was the grave keeper in this village. We never got along, you see. He was always concerned with things that were dead, while I was concerned with keeping things alive."

Malon frowned. "You're a doctor?"

"To some I am that. To others, I'm merely an eccentric old fool that likes to collect rare plants and animals." He pointed at a cluster of buildings that took up the northwest corner of the village. "I own the potion shop."

A snort escaped Malon's nostrils. "Maybe you have potions to help find a person whose neck you'd like to strangle?"

"Oh. I'm afraid that's too specific, even for my talents." When Malon's expression fell, he hurriedly added, "That doesn't mean I can't help you."

She watched as he brushed off a strange piece of glass and handed it to her. The glass was red, but it was embedded inside a purple frame with a matching handle, making it look like a mirror or a magnifying glass.

"I found it at the bottom of the well a few weeks ago. Haven't much use for it myself."

She shrugged. "What is it?"

"If my memory of Sheikah fables serves me correctly, that is a Lens of Truth. A Sheikah who used one of those would be able to see the truth of their surroundings on command. As long as it's somewhere near you, all you do is blink three times, and the Lens will work its magic."

"I don't understand how it helps."

The old man smiled again. "You will, soon."

She tucked the lens away in the folds of her dress, shivering. "Thanks, I guess."

"Just remember, young lady. Do be careful when the storm comes. It'd be a pity to see a flower like yourself wither away before it has found its place in the world."

Malon watched until he disappeared the way he had come. Her father had visited the potion shop on occasion to get medicine for a sick horse, but she had never gone with him. How the man had managed to sneak up on her and how he could be so sure the so-called Lens of Truth would help her remained a mystery.

"I can dull the pain," Ruto said, "and I might be able to stop the blood, but I don't know enough about his condition to do more than that."

"What do you mean?" said Navi.

"You said his reflection caused the wound?" Ruto shook her head. "No one sees the darkness within themselves without being changed."

She tore a piece of Link's right sleeve and tied it in a knot around his shoulder. She tore another from his left sleeve and dipped it in the puddle on the floor to soak up some of the blood. By the time she had fully dressed the wound, he had almost no sleeves left at all.

After some time had passed, she noted that his breathing had evened out. Finally, he groaned and started to cough. "Navi, did he ever talk about us? I mean about our engagement."

Navi hesitated. "I think it made him uncomfortable talking about it."

"I thought so." Ruto gently placed her left hand on Link's forehead. "Do you think…" She stopped as his eyes began to flutter open.

Link squinted, not quite convinced of his own consciousness. "What's happened?"

Ruto bowed her head. "Navi says you've been unconscious for almost an hour."

Link winced at the sight of his shoulder. "How did you find me?"

"She found me first."

"Did you find the demon?"

"Morpha is hiding in a shrine on the top level."

"Let's go then." He tried to sit up, but the pain forced him back down.

"You're in no condition to fight." Ruto cupped his other shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "Navi and I will take care of this."

"I said I would help you. I'm not going back on that promise."

"I know." Ruto laid him down as he struggled against another wave of exhaustion. "You have helped."

"What are you doing to him?" Navi said.

"I told you I could dull the pain." Ruto held up a vial of salve she had been rubbing on Link's wound. "I didn't say how."

"What will happen to him?"

"He'll be asleep for a while, but he'll be safe." Ruto smiled. "And we'll be back before he wakes up again."

He sat up, his mind and body clouded with pain. How long had he been away this time? The pain in his shoulder had dulled slightly, so that he could move about. He felt around for his sword and shield and found them lying a few feet from his left shoulder.

Where had they gone? He shook his head and tried to remember who "they" were.

The shrine on the upper level. Could he get there in time to make a difference? Numb after so much time on the floor, he struggled to his feet and turned in a complete circle, searching for the way out. There were two doors, but which one had he entered through? How would he reach the shrine? Maybe it was too late.

He moaned and started walking.

The gate leading into the shrine rose like a portcullis, vanishing so quickly that Ruto paused on the threshold and stared as if she suspected the demon waited for them in ambush.

"How do you know it's in here?" Navi kept her voice low.

"I can't explain the feeling, exactly," Ruto said. "I just knew it when I saw this room."

"That sounds like something Saria said."

"Who?"

"Oh, nothing."

Ruto shook her head as she passed into the shrine, clutching her harpoon gun to her chest. As soon as she had stepped beyond the threshold, the gate came down again, sealing the way out. "No!" She spun around, aiming her gun at the gate as if she could blow it open.

"He won't get in now," Navi said.

"He wasn't supposed to follow us in the first place."

"Then why are you so upset?"

Ruto tried unsuccessfully to repress a shiver. "Maybe, Navi, just maybe, I'm not as brave as I've been pretending to be." She sighed and turned to examine the shrine. Most of it was a large pool of water, with four pillars of stone rising above the surface—one in each of the pool's four quadrants—and a walkway lining the perimeter of the pool.

Slowly, a stream of water rose from the surface of the pool, defying the force of gravity as the drops formed a shape like a tentacle. The effect was hypnotic, distracting. As if sensing Ruto's presence, the tentacle left the edge of the pool and curled around her ankle. Too horrified to resist, she watched as it grew wider and wider until it had become a tube three feet thick, hard as stone to the touch.

"Watch out!"

Ruto looked up just in time for another tube to clap her in the face, flinging her away from the first tube and onto the walkway at the pool's edge. Both tubes followed, wrapping around her body before she could move and lifting her off the ground.

Navi rammed herself against the tubes. "Princess Ruto!"

Ruto struggled to free her arms, but the tubes swayed back and forth, squeezing her until she was groggy.

Link crawled onto another ledge, his tunic soaked in water but smeared with blood near his right shoulder, where the dressing had come loose. Two other rooms on the upper level had yielded nothing, and he had no way of knowing whether this next door would lead to the shrine until he entered it—not an easy task in his present state.

He winced at the burning in his shoulder. His sword and shield weighed him down, and the breeze blowing through the temple chilled his skin. This has to be the one. It has to be.

He stumbled up to the door, ignoring a pair of stone dragons that leered at him from either side. The line of his jaw hardened when the door refused to yield to his pounding. I will not break my promise!

Ruto screamed as the demon released her, allowing her to fall to the pool twenty feet below. The harpoon gun flew from her grasp and landed on one of the stone pillars protruding from the water.

Link. She plunged beneath the surface in a foam of bubbles. I shouldn't have left you.

She kicked her feet, struggling to regain the oxygen she'd lost. The demon had almost strangled her, and she still had no idea how to fight it.

"What's that?"

Navi's voice broke into her thoughts. She blinked and tried to see through the water around her. She found a ladder on the side of the pillar and climbed until she was over the top.

The tubes that had been crushing her hung limp on opposite sides of the pool, draped across the walkway like the fallen limbs of trees.

"See it?" Navi was at her side in an instant.

Ruto nodded. Inside one of the tubes, a red ball quivered like a massive drop of blood. A smile graced the corners of her mouth. Squeezing me must have made the demon weak.

"Does it look important?" Navi said.

"Yes!" Ruto leapt to the next pillar, where her harpoon gun awaited her. She picked it up and aimed for the quivering mass with one eye closed and the gun propped on her shoulder.

A click and a jet of air hurtled the harpoon through the tube and the red glob at the center in a spray of fluids, red and blue.

The demon roared, a sound more startling because she couldn't see its face. Both tubes swung over the pool, and she dove into the water just as they clapped together behind her. She heard another clap after that, but it didn't draw her attention until Navi said, "He's trying to open the door!"

The pounding came again, too weak to be one of the tubes hitting the wall or the floor. Link? Ruto lunged for the edge of the pool and scrambled onto the walkway. Only a few yards separated her from the door, but she never made it.

A tube grabbed her from behind, yanking her back. She screamed and flailed her arms, but the demon held on stubbornly.

Link's voice came through the wall, muffled. "Ruto. Navi!"

"Princess, it's below you!" Navi shouted so Ruto could hear over the pounding.

Ruto glanced down and saw the glob with her harpoon still sticking out of it. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the pain squeezing her chest so tightly. She waited, holding her breath until she had worked up the nerve for what she had to do. She opened her eyes, sought the blunt end of the harpoon with her feet, and stomped on it, driving the point further in.

On the other side of the door, Link rapped the hilt of the Master Sword against the stone one more time, wishing he could settle the matter with one of the Gorons' Bomb Flowers. With a sigh, he fingered the Sages' Medallions in the pouch at his waist.

If Darunia were here…

Even as he gave up on pounding his way in, he heard an explosion from the shrine, and something wet splattered the door. Startled, he backed away, his concern for Ruto's life peaking. Another pounding followed, opening a hole in the wall beside him.

When he saw the red and blue fluids pooling on the walkway, he thought they came from Ruto. He couldn't see her body, nor could he find Navi at first. But they were here somewhere; they had to be. As did the demon.

"We did it, Link!"

Stepping through the hole in the wall, he hesitated. "Navi?"

"We did it. Ruto's the Sage!"

"I don't understand," I say. "How did you kill it?"

I sense the two of them turning to face me.

"Of all the insensitive questions, Navi. He didn't believe we could do it!"

"Link?" Navi's wings tickle my ear. "Go stick your head in a Deku Bush."

The light fades, and I can see Ruto standing on the pedestal reserved for the Sage of Water, her fins spread apart like wings. She looks at me with a look that sees through my exterior, into all the thoughts I've hidden from Navi—and even from myself.

"You saved my life. I would have expected no less from the man I chose to be my husband."

I shake my head. "I didn't save you. I didn't even get there in time to help."

Her eyes take on a distant expression. "Do you remember how we met?"

"You yelled at me once or twice." I can't help smiling at this.

Ruto laughs. "I was terrible."

I shrug, remembering Sheik's image of time as a river. "It's upstream now."

"I was selfish then. I had everything I wanted, but you had something I didn't: selflessness." The tears are gathering in the corners of her face. "When you risked your life for mine, it changed how I thought of myself. That day, I swore that the girl who had been indulged so often would turn out to be worthy of doing something great for her people."

Suddenly, I'm aware, in some small way, of the impact I've had since I left the forest seven years ago. The reality of Ruto's transformation from what she used to be to this—a grown woman—forces me to realize how much my smallest actions have made a difference in the lives of others.

She continues. "Now, thanks to our efforts, Zora's Domain and its people can return to their original state. As a reward for your part, I grant my eternal love to you."

Hopefully, my face betrays nothing of the illness in my stomach.

Ruto smiles again. "Well, that's what I want to say. I don't think I can offer that now. I have to guard the Water Temple as the Sage of Water, and you…you're searching for Zelda!"

I sense my face is a little warmer than it was a moment ago. "I'm sorry."

"For what? I was the one who was foolish. Had I understood why you were asking for the Spiritual Stone, I would have given it to you without such an obligation attached."

I swallow. "How did you know I was looking for her?"

"When I kissed you, your response told me you would never return the affection I felt for you. Navi told me the why and the who." Ruto hands me the fourth Medallion, a blue disc with the image of six water drops arranged in a circle. "If you see Sheik, please give him my thanks for getting me out of the ice. And Link?"

"Yes?"

"Don't give up. You will find her."

For those of you who have played the game enough to pick up on differences subtle and not-so-subtle between my novelization and its source material, you may be curious about my reasons for leaving certain parts out and putting others in. Let's look at a couple of examples from these last two chapters.

First, you'll notice that there's no Ice Cavern. I should hope the reason for this would be fairly obvious. True, it's where Link gets his Iron Boots and learns the Serenade of Water, but frankly there's no reason why he couldn't learn the Serenade somewhere else. As for the boots, this brings up the issue of Link's ridiculously large inventory in the game. In video games, you can get away with having a character that carries around an entire army surplus store in his or her pants. In a book, it's much more difficult to get away with this. Rather than attempting to come up with some complicated solution like giving Link storage depots all over Hyrule, I thought it was better to leave certain things out. I mean, how would YOU like to lug the Iron Boots around everywhere you go? Great exercise, maybe, but pretty ding-dang-dong exhausting.

This brings me to my next point. Ruto. Some of you, after reading this chapter, may be thinking, "Why the heck did Ruto kill the demon and not Link?" Good question. It might seem fundamentally wrong to have anyone other than Link kill the dungeon bosses. But think about it. As epic as it sounds to have one guy or gal doing all the heroic stuff, it makes for a very, very repetitive and not-very-realistic scenario. Plus, I really wanted to give the Sages a more significant role. In the game, the main thing they do is build a pretty rainbow bridge and seal up Ganon. Great stuff, but I felt we needed a little more than that in the book.

I'm immensely grateful for all the reviews and comments! Keep 'em coming!