The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 16: Temple and Tomb
By, Frank Hunter

The masked figure stood behind her row of soldiers and stared back at Rigo. She managed to look mildly content even through the mask, pleased with the state of the situation around her.

"Ahh," Sooru sighed, drawing out the word into the air. It lingered, as though she had no sense of hurry or urgency, as though she were prepared to stay put with her firing squad all day.

"It seems my suspicions were correct, yes Pureet? Prince Rigo," she acknowledged him, bowing her arm in a gesture of mock respect. "It is a pleasure to meet with you again. Albeit in such an…unconventional place."

"What…what are you doing here?" Rigo asked, unsure himself whether he was playing dumb or just legitimately dumbfounded. He hadn't, in a million years, expected to be faced with this. Not yet.

"Looking out for the best interests of Gerudo, of course. As is my charge. My prince." The final word came as though it were from a desert cobra. It was packed to the brim with venom, and Rigo worked to hide his own trembling. He'd been in trouble before, he was almost known for it back home. But never had he been in the sights of a person so powerful, so important.

"Word reached me, now a fortnight ago, that our guard at the stable had been brutally attacked and the stable robbed of one of our precious camels. That camel, if I understood correctly." She gestured to her side where Rigo and Amili had been maintaining their small campsite, and where their camel was now sitting and obliviously chewing on scraps of feed.

"I'd have been content enough to attribute the theft to young miscreants from Jirin. I even prepared to approach the Jirin with our accusation when, on the tail of that theft, my advisor informed me that several pieces of gear were missing from the tribal armory." She looked over her shoulder at Pureet, and Rigo thought he could still see some of the same animosity in her glare. Did Sooru know Pureet had helped him? Did she suspect?

"From there, it was only a matter of time before you were declared missing by your grandmother." She turned to Amili. "And your mother. Which reminds me." She gestured to the Gerudo guard nearest the door. "Guard, please secure the young lady."

The Gerudo soldier lowered her bow and with all the swiftness of military muscle, glided up the stairs and grabbed Amili by the arm before she knew how to react.

"Hey!" Amili protested. She tried to resist but wasn't strong enough to fight against the guard. She was taken unceremoniously, all but dragged, back down behind the line of soldiers, toward the campsite. "Let go of me!"

"Get off her!" Rigo yelled and made to move after her, but as he took a step and reached for his new sword, he heard more than saw the bows of the guardswomen tense up. They were ready to shoot if he gave even the least bit of reason for it.

Easy, kid, said the spirit of Nabooru in his head. Play this smart. Be calm.

Rigo latched on to her voice. It helped anchor him in this moment of unreality. He did step back to the top of the stairs and forced himself to be calm, to listen to Nabooru. Okay, I'm calm, he thought at her desperately. He had no idea how to cope with this situation, or how to fight if it came to that. He was aware of the danger he was in. If Sooru was, as he'd been led to believe, dedicated to holding the crown, she could just kill him here, at this forsaken temple, and no one would ever know. The soldiers were obviously all her own loyal people. There would be no other witnesses.

Will you tell me what to do? he asked the spirit. Can you help us get out of this?

I'll tell you what to do, Nabooru said. Just stay calm.

"I have great respect for your mother, child," Sooru said to Amili as the girl passed her by. "I promised her I'd bring you home alive and well, and I keep my promises." She turned to another soldier and said, "Procure his things."

Two more of the guardswomen stepped up the stairs and moved to take the bag of treasure and the weapons Rigo had strapped to his person. He prepared to defend himself, but was stopped again.

Let them have it, Nabooru said sensibly. If you fight now, you'll only get yourself killed. Live for now, fight later.

The items were snatched up and taken back down the stairs. The guardswomen brought them before Sooru and left them at her feet, returning to their vigilant places in the line. Rigo couldn't help but cringe as Sooru took up the curved sword he had chosen for himself, fingered the hilt and admired the blade. It didn't belong to her. It was his.

"This, I think, is not the item taken from the armory," she said. "Pureet?"

"No," Pureet said with little more than a glance at the weapon.

"No," Sooru repeated. "But it is quite an attractive piece." She tied the sword onto her own belt with absolutely no sense of haste. Then, she gestured at the velvet bag and looked back at Rigo. "Is the missing equipment in here, my prince? You should be aware, if we cannot recover what was taken, the consequences may be…severe for the thief in question."

She's toying with you, Nabooru said. Don't rise to it. Don't say anything.

Sooru lifted the sack of treasure up onto the guardrail of the stairwell, and began riling through it. "Hmm," she sighed thoughtfully as she pulled out some of the jewelry from the bottom. "Some beautiful objects, no doubt. All the property of the Sand Goddess, I would assume. Your cannibalistic thievery is a truly unfortunate trend, Rigo. Truly unfortunate. You seal your own fate, and you shame the name of the Great Ganondorf, in whose footsteps…you…walk…?" She trailed off in the middle of her rant. "What's this?"

Rigo clenched his fist. He knew what she would have found before she pulled it from the sack. There was only one piece that could have that effect. It was the chalice.

Sooru held it up and looked it over for a second in awe before her eyes. As she did, the color in her cheeks, at least the parts of them Rigo could see around the mask, drained, and the Stewardess went stark white. She frantically set the relic down on the guardrail and took several steps back from it, scrambling to get away but still unable to tear her eyes from it. "Dear Goddess," she whispered as she examined it. The sapphires inset into the design caught the light of the setting sun, making the piece even livelier than it had been inside the vault. Some of the guardswomen also caught sight of the chalice, and Rigo noticed their eyes turning from him to admire the cup. The soldier now closest to him was not paying attention.

They're distracted! he thought to Nabooru. This is my chance, I've gotta get a weapon.

She was ready with her answer before he could move. Think kid. You won't even get the arrows with it, and where are you gonna go? There's nowhere to run. I told you to be calm.

But…

Be calm! she instructed, and Rigo shook again at her tone. He, in his fright, had thought he had cobbled together at least something of a plan, but any question of it fell apart in time for Sooru to regard him again.

"This can't be," Sooru said. "This is…the Chalice of Nayru?" She posed it to him as a question, which of course took him off guard because he knew nothing about the cup apart from its appearance.

"Huh?" Rigo answered.

The name of Nayru did, however, have meaning for Nabooru, who responded with dawning recognition. Oh. Oh, no. Oh damn.

What? Rigo thought back at Nabooru, her startled response feeding his panic. What is it? What's Nayru?

"Where did you get this?" Sooru demanded.

"Huh?" he repeated again. His voice cracked

"Don't feign ignorance you little cur," Sooru spit at him with all the authority she could muster. It was substantial. "Where did you find the Chalice?!"

The question was so stupid to Rigo he almost didn't understand it. Didn't she know where the treasure was taken from? Hadn't she called him on it not a moment earlier?

"Inside," he said. "In the temple."

We need to get that back right now, Nabooru said with resolve.

What the hell are you talking about? Rigo demanded. This change in attitude made no sense.

Give me control, she said. You have to give me control now, or they'll get away with it. I'll fight them off, I swear to you. They can't take that chalice!

You said we'd die if we fought now!

It would be worth it! Nabooru exclaimed. Rigo's fear was rising. Something was culminating here, something that was bigger than him and that he didn't quite understand.

Give me control! Nabooru demanded.

No! Rigo exclaimed.

Sooru mused, unaware of the struggle Rigo fought in his own head. "They must never have even known they had it. Ganondorf never knew," She stared into Rigo and realization dawned in her eyes. "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what!?" he exclaimed, his frustration coming to a head.

Sooru laughed, a loud, long, and crackling laugh, and there was still nothing he could do about it. He stood there before Sooru's army, listening to the stewardess delighting at his misfortune, mentally fighting off the spirit of Nabooru who would not stop insisting at taking hold of his body again, and pleading at Amili, tucked away behind the soldiers, who also was powerless to do anything.

"Rigo, Rigo," Sooru said when she came back to herself. "You know, I had half a mind to just kill you here and be done with it. But now…now I owe you. A gift like this could do wonders. I could bring the Gerudo back here, to our old home. I could overthrow the Hylians. I could do everything that Ganondorf couldn't, and it's all thanks to this. And to you." She sneered at him. "Maybe you'd have made a formidable king after all."

Rigo snarled back at her. "I am the king!"

"Of course you are, your highness," she said, amused. "Pureet. Take him. Put him inside."

Pureet glanced at the Stewardess, but at first didn't move from beside her. "You said you would not kill him."

"And I won't," Sooru said shortly. "He can go in alive. My thanks to him for this wonderful present. Though I can't say the same for you if you are unable to follow my simple orders and redeem yourself. Now, put. Him. Inside."

Rigo saw the resignation settle into Pureet's shoulders as she slumped and stepped forward, moving toward him up the stairs. She passed between the archers and Rigo saw his fate coming, slowly and grudgingly, with each passing step of his old friend and teacher.

"Don't do this!" he said to Pureet. "I'm the King of Gerudo!"

He looked out over the guardswomen, his throat going dry, and shouted at the top of his lungs. "I'm the king!"

Give me control! Nabooru screamed inside his head. GIVE ME CONTROL!

Not one of the soldiers budged or showed any sign of reservation. The only response he did get was from Amili, whose tears streamed down from her eyes as she screamed his name at him from where she was held.

"RIGO!"

Pureet grabbed him by the folds of his tunic, beneath his black cloak, and pushed him backward, back inside the doorway of the temple and into the corridor. His feet shuffled to keep up. "I am sorry," Pureet said to him quietly as she took hold of him. "I truly did not think she would come here."

"Help me," he pleaded with her, clutching at her hands, still hoping, trying to pull her off. "Don't do it, please! I'm the king!"

"Yes," she said. "I have not forgotten."

Rigo froze. He could have sworn he saw something in her eye at that moment, some glint of cleverness or conspiracy. But before he could think on it, or ask, or make a move of his own, she shoved him backward and he fell onto the stairwell, rolling down several stairs and banging himself up as he went.

As he came to rest near the bottom, blood flowed into his eye from a gash in his forehead. He groaned, and got to his hands and knees. He tried for his feet but didn't manage to get them beneath him the first time. At the doorway, he glimpsed the shadow of Pureet disappearing from the entryway. As she did, Rigo heard from the outside, muffled, the voice of Sooru give one final directive to her army.

"Fire."

In the intensity of the confrontation, Rigo had not noticed that half of the arrows that were aimed at him were not tipped with arrowheads, but with small bags filled with explosive powder. At Sooru's command, the guardswomen lit the wicks on these arrowheads and fired them directly at the old stone positioned over the entryway to the temple. They impacted at once, and the explosion was almost enough to put Rigo down on his back again. He covered his ears, and as the shockwave came down the corridor, instinctively fell to a crouch, into a fetal position to protect himself from the oncoming sound and dust.

When the initial impact ended, Rigo got up and steadied his legs as quickly as he was able. He ran back up the stairs, but where once there was daylight and access to the outside, now there was just a pile of heavy, immovable stone. He was barricaded inside the temple.

"No!" he yelled as he fruitlessly pounded and shoved on the pile of rubble. "Amili! AMILI!"

But no one came to help him. The last thing he heard from the outside was his own name, "Rigo!" as Amili called out to him over and over as loud and desperately as she could, until this, too, fell silent. Rigo, broken, bloodied, and in tears, was left alone.