The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 12: The Voice
By, Frank Hunter

"Amili, run!" Rigo shouted.

The circle of skeletons around the room was large, and there were only a dozen of them but they were closing in. Pretty soon there wouldn't be a way out.

"Are you sick? Come on, let's both get out of here while we can," she answered.

She tugged his arm and both kids made for a gap between the skeletons, the one closest to the exit. As they drew near the perimeter though, the skeletons there pulled closer together, blocking their exit. They moved to the other side, tried for another gap, but the skeletons did the same on that side. They wouldn't let them through.

"Listen," Rigo said. "I'll distract them, you slip around. You've gotta get out."

"I'm not leaving you!" Amili said.

"Yeah, you are!" Rigo pleaded. "You need to be safe. You need to! Please let me do this!"

Amili grimaced at him, but didn't complain further. "Okay," Rigo said with resolve, turning back toward the exit. They drew closer, and three skeletons again came together to block their path.

"Hey, ugly!" Rigo taunted, waving his sword. "Hey, ugly, over here! Right here!" If his teasing was having any effect on the undead creatures it wasn't showing, but it was the best bet he had.

"Go now," Rigo hissed, and ran in closer. The rightmost skeleton reached an arm out for him, but Rigo slashed at it. His swing of the little sword wasn't enough to cut the bone off, but it knocked the arm away, and Amili ran at the same skeleton. She tucked her hands up over her head, screamed, and tried to plow through the line.

This is all very touching, the strange voice commented. Rigo ignored it.

To his great surprise, the plan worked. The monsters didn't even seem to notice Amili as she stumbled through them, bouncing off rib cages and hip bones. She emerged on the other side unscathed, looking shocked. She was dazed, but only until she reoriented and saw Rigo still inside. "Rigo!" she shouted.

"Get away!" he said. Several more of the skeletons reached out for him, and he flailed his sword with all the grace of trying to swat at an insect in flight, forgetting his combat lessons with Pureet entirely. He threw himself off balance and fell straight backward.

Scrabbling back to his feet, he got up in time to see Amili come at the skeletons' backs with a brick she'd found on the floor. Apparently, she decided that if they were going to ignore her, she had an advantage. She swung the brick at one of the monsters' skulls with all her strength, and Rigo saw the skull crack as pieces of bone chipped away. The creature lurched, and he allowed for an instant of hope, but the blue light in its eyes didn't go out. The assault did get its attention though. It turned around, regarded Amili, and before she could take another swing, swiped a calcified arm at her and knocked her clean away, into the wall, where her head collided with stone and put her out cold.

"No!" Rigo yelled.

Ah, relax. She'll be fine. For now anyway, the voice said. It's you who's gotta try not to get killed.

Frustrated, Rigo burst out at it. "Don't you ever say anything useful?"

Yeah, the voice answered. Duck.

Rigo saw it just quick enough: the skeleton that Amili had attacked picked up her brick and threw it at him with the force of a cannon. He ducked, and the projectile sailed over his head and into the rib cage of the skeleton behind him. It shattered the thing's ribs, broke its spine clean in half, and put it down for the count. The blue light in its eyes faded.

"They can die?!" Rigo exclaimed. The circle was tightening around him, and he knew he'd have to fight soon or risk getting pulled to pieces, but he was frozen in place.

Of course they can die. They're just constructs. Enough energy expended, they'll all go down.

"So how do I…"

You've gotta kill 'em, kid. Use the little pig sticker you've got. Seems like your best bet.

"But…" Rigo stammered, fear cluttering his thoughts. "But they're the guardians of the Sand Goddess. I can't…beat them, can I? She's a god!"

She's the guardian of this temple. Guardians are strong, not invincible. The Hero of Time went through five of them when he needed to, Sand Goddess included.

"I'm not the Hero of Time!" Rigo exclaimed.

No kidding.

The skeletons were close enough now that they all began reaching out at him. Rigo held his sword like a baseball bat and swung at the outstretched hands, backing away ever into another set of bony fingers. Terrified, knowing his death was mere seconds away, he shouted out for the only thing he could use.

"Help me!"

He wasn't expecting to get a real answer.

I suppose if you gave me the controls, I could take a crack at it, the voice answered nonchalantly.

"The…the controls?"

Right, right. You'll need the dumbed down version, it said.

If you let me have this… Rigo felt a chill tingling in his head, as though he had just shot ice up his nose and into his brain.

…then I can work this. The sensation moved into the hand holding his sword. The sensation almost made him drop the weapon.

Get the picture?

A skeletal hand gripped his shoulder and Rigo twisted and swung at it, severing it with a lucky shot.

"You can fight them?!" he baffled.

If you give me control, yes.

"I don't even know what you are!"

Does it matter at this point? Your situation looks pretty bleak.

"How do I know you'll give it back?" Rigo asked. It was a pertinent question.

You don't, said the voice. But that's your call.

Rigo looked around himself one last time and could see nothing but bones, glowing blue eyes, and, through the cavity of one of the undead creatures, the frail form of Amili bleeding into the stone at the side of the room. There were no real choices to be made.

"Fine! Fine, take it. Just help us!" he shouted.

Now you're talking, the voice said.

Rigo felt the cold tingle engulf him. It started in his head as before, but now spread down into his chest, through his limbs. It was uncomfortable, though maybe that wasn't the correct word for it. It was as though his whole body had gone numb, but he was somehow still on his feet, still holding tight to his gear.

The truly disturbing bit happened in his mind. One minute he was there, thinking frightened thoughts and trying to come up with some way out of this, the next he was mentally shoved aside, into the passenger seat of his own head. The thoughts continued to come, but he wasn't generating them. Just witnessing. And as he witnessed, things changed outside.

Rigo's body filled with a strength that he had never himself felt. The skeletons were too close, now, grabbing at his clothes, but it didn't look any longer like they were coming down on him like predators. Instead, they looked like rats about to trip the snare in a trap.

One of the skeletons clamped down on the curls of his hair, and Rigo's new supercharged body sprang into action. An elbow caught that arm and pulled it down, snapping the creature's old bone. That done, the skeleton was thrown off balance, and Rigo's sword lashed out forcefully at its neck, severing its head and driving the light from its eyes.

The blade of Rigo's sword slashed and swiped faster than he could keep track of. It was an entity all of its own, and the being controlling it was a swordsman the likes of which he had never seen.

"Any other takers!?" Rigo heard himself shout. The vocal chords worked as always, but the voice that came out of his throat wasn't his.

Skeletons dropped to the floor in heaps, helpless against their new enemy. By the time the dozen of them were down to one, they still had not gotten the hint. It was likely they didn't have any sort of mind with which to made decisions. The last skeleton lunged, and "Rigo" did too. He plunged straight into its chest, driving his sword up under its jawbone and deep into the skull. The creature trembled for an instant before falling in a tangled mess.

Rigo felt his wrist give the sword a small flourish, and then tuck it back into its scabbard on his back. The room was again silent.

"Whew," his throat said. "That was fun."

Rigo tried to look over to Amili, to see if she was alright, but he couldn't make his head turn or his eyes focus. He had no ability to affect his body whatsoever.

"Relax, kid. You're gonna pull something."

He tried to respond, but couldn't speak. His mouth wouldn't move. Frustrated, he tried to think of other ways to communicate.

"Just do that," his throat said.

He paused for a moment, then thought again. You can hear me?

"Loud and clear. Not much fun sitting in the back, is it?" the being said.

Give me my body back, he thought at it.

"No."

Rigo panicked for a moment and tried to fight her, but it was useless. In giving her permission to take control, he had abdicated any sense of spiritual ownership over his body that he naturally had and, until recently, had taken for granted. He'd known something of spirits and possessions, knew enough to be wary of them, but in his moment of desperation he had done something that, in clear mind, he would never have considered.

"I told you to relax," the voice said. "I'll get it back to you, don't worry. Just not yet. I think you and I have a few things to straighten out first."

Rigo, in resignation to his futility, stopped pushing and slumped back in his own head, powerless. His body walked over and leaned against the wall beside Amili. It looked down at her. She was at least breathing.

Who are you? he thought.

He felt his mouth turn up in a smirk, as though the entity were amused.

"Me? I was the Stewardess of Gerudo in the days before Ganondorf," she responded. "And the Sage of Spirit in the days after. Back when I was alive, of course."

Rigo fell silent. Stewardess. Sage of Spirit. He knew who it was. This being was in all his history books, her name on the tip of his tongue even before she said it. It was, after all, famous.

"My name is Nabooru."