The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 23: Escape Attempt
By, Frank Hunter

Much as Rigo didn't want to believe it, the reality that he wasn't simply walking out of this place had begun to dawn on him. He tried, once, to go out into the hall, just to walk around some and maybe try to see out of a window, glimpse the city a little bit. He was immediately stopped by a guard who, as far as he could tell, was stationed just outside his room.

"Please return to your room, sir," the guard said, stoically.

"I've just gotta stretch my legs a little bit," Rigo told him. "I've been stuck in there forever. I'll be right back."

"I insist, sir. You are not permitted to be roaming the corridors. Return to your room."

Rigo sighed and went back in, shutting the door. From then on, whenever he peeked outside, there were two guards standing there, and no way to slip out unnoticed. If it hadn't been for the regular visits from Ilsa, he'd have gone crazy with boredom.

His arm was beginning to feel better, and though it was still slightly uncomfortable, he had begun to be able to move it and put pressure back into his fingers. He was ready to use the arm if needed, though he was sure that, given the chance, any doctor would tell him it was a bad idea. Now, it was just a matter of figuring out when and how to do so.

He was considering possible ploys to distract the guards outside when Ilsa finally came through for him. She practically bounced into his room, beaming brightly and hiding her hands behind her back. "Hi!" she said, giddily.

"Hi," Rigo answered. "What's that?"

"It's a surprise!" she said, and quickly lost patience with the game. She brought her hands out in front of her, and Rigo reacted in sudden shock. Loosely wrapped in brown paper, the Silver Gauntlets were there, draping from her outstretched hands. "Ta da!" Ilsa said.

"My…"

"Your grandmother's gloves!" Ilsa said. "I know how much they mean to you, and I don't really see any reason why you can't hold onto them." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Just make sure the Major doesn't see them, or he'll take them."

Rigo shook his head in disbelief. "Ilsa…wow. I didn't think…you didn't have to."

"I hated to see you so depressed," the girl said. "'If there was anything I could do to make you feel better,' I told myself. But I already knew there was. You'd told me what you wanted. And it wasn't easy, but I knew it would help, and so I went and got them."

Ilsa stepped up to Rigo and gave him a hug, which, after a moment of surprise, he returned, grasping her around her shoulders.

"I can get into a lot of trouble for this," she said. "So please, be careful with them, and keep them hidden, okay?"

Rigo forced a smile. "Sure. Of course."

"Great. Listen, I can't stay today. I'm just on my way out. I just wanted to stop by and give you the present. I'll see you tomorrow though, bright and early!"

"Bright and early," Rigo said, and smiled at her again. "Thanks so much, Ilsa. I owe you."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," she said with a flirty wink and let herself out the door, leaving Rigo standing there with gloves in hand.

Well that was a freebie, Nabooru said.

Rigo came to his senses quickly. It's time to go, isn't it?

I'd say so. You put any thought into how you want to use the gloves?

Yeah, Rigo said. He looked up, squinting into the afternoon ray of sunshine that reached down into his small room from the high-up opening. I think the window is my best bet.

As good a way as any, Nabooru said.

Rigo put the gauntlets on and got to work immediately. He was unable to lock his door so privacy couldn't be guaranteed. He knew he'd have to move fast and get gone, or his plan would be ruined.

He returned to his bed and immediately began to strip it, pulling off the sheets and pillowcases and tying them length-to-length until he had a makeshift rope made of bed linens.

An anchor, he thought. I need an anchor.

Check the chair, Nabooru suggested. Rigo went over to the chair that Major Tydus kept leaving by his bedside and took a close look over it. It was solid wood, pretty heavy, which was helpful, but the legs were what he was interested in. They were attached to the base of the chair by solid-looking screws and rivots, and he obviously had no tools with which to remove the hardware.

I'll have to break it, he said.

Well, what are you waiting for? Nabooru asked impatiently.

Rigo braced the chair diagonally against the ground and began repeatedly stomping his foot on one of the legs. It was pliant, and he felt a little give with each strike, but no breaking. It hurt his bare foot.

You hit like a woman, Nabooru said.

Who are you to talk!?

He redoubled his effort, putting more muscle behind his each hit as he kicked at the chair. Eventually, he began to hear crackling at the top of the leg as he struck it, until finally the piece of wood snapped clean off. It made a harsh, cracking noise that Rigo could have sworn echoed off of every wall in the place. He grimaced and eyed the door, frozen in place. But the guards didn't come. They must not have heard.

After a few moments passed and he wasn't caught, he took the newly liberated chair leg and tied it to the end of his faux rope, completing, what he thought, was a not-so-horrible makeshift grappling hook.

Alright, he thought. Now we're getting somewhere. He put the hook down on his bed and began to undo the bandages on his arm. As he pulled it from its sling, he was reminded just how tender it was, and how much of a bad idea this would be under normal circumstances. But the situation wasn't ideal, and his half-healed bones would have to do him.

Just be careful not to miss, Nabooru reminded him. The less noise the better.

I know.

Once his arms were free and he'd stretched the tired, underused muscle a little bit, he took the hook in his good arm and went to stand under the window. He lined the shot up, took his time, and tossed the chair leg underhanded, feeding the rope slack as it arced up, into the window bay, and slipped through the bars to the outside.

"Yes!" he hissed. Pulling on the rope, he worked the piece of wood back up the bars, now on the outside of his room. It caught horizontally and the rope went taught, now giving him a way to climb up and reach the bars.

Rigo climbed as quickly as he could with his bum arm. The techniques he had learned from Pureet about rope climbing had him doing most of the work with his legs anyway, but it was still difficult considering the injury and the weeks of inactivity he'd just been enjoying. However, he was young and strong enough, and before long, slightly out of breath, he pulled himself into the window bay.

Time to see if those things are gonna work, Nabooru said.

Why do they only work sometimes? Rigo asked her as he took the bars in hand.

It's a limited enchantment, Nabooru answered. It gives the gauntlets power over stones and metals with a certain composition. If the right elements aren't in the material, the gloves won't help you push or lift at all.

Guess it's up to luck, then, Rigo said.

He braced himself against the bars as best as he was able given the limited space, and pushed. At first there was nothing, but there hadn't been for the pedestal in the Desert Temple either. As he kept the pressure on, though, he felt it: the tingling down his arms. The gloves' magic was coming to life. Rigo almost screamed in delight. He felt his strength grow. He felt the iron bars beneath his hands start to bend and give way. They didn't stand a chance.

An instant later, the bars' whole framework popped out of place. It broke free from the window with the crash and rumble of broken steel and shattered rock, a loud, resounding crash that most certainly did echo through the room.

"What was that?" came a muffled voice from the hallway. An instant later, the door opened and the two guards outside came into the room. They spotted Rigo up on the windowsill immediately. "Hey!"

Looks like the cat's out of the bag, Nabooru said.

Rigo took the broken framework of metal bars and threw them down at the guards, forcing them to stop and protect themselves against the falling object. He realized, too late, that his grappling hook was still attached to the debris.

"Damn," he swore, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

Rigo turned and looked down out of the window. Below him, he saw a busy, bustling street full of pedestrians and merchants and paved by very solid-looking cobblestone. All of it was very, very far down. He hesitated.

So what's the next part of the plan? Nabooru asked.

I don't know! Rigo said. I was hoping for like, a moat or something.

Well you don't have it, Nabooru snapped. Go left.

Rigo looked to the left and saw an incredibly narrow landing, no more than a few inches in width, that he could possibly follow along to the next window, dangerous though it was. He swallowed.

Here goes nothing, he thought and climbed out.

He felt this little adventure he was on kept constantly pushing the bar on the most frightening moment of his life. Earlier, he could have sworn it was squaring off with Sooru's army, and before that it was the climb to the top of the Temple. But never before had he dangled over such an unforgiving fall with absolutely no measure of safety and absolutely nothing to catch on to if he went down. And as he climbed, he found that the wind at this height was unpredictable and gusty, and was treated to a fairly horrific mental image of him getting blown straight off the building and careening to the street below.

But as he reached the next window and peered inside, he realized that he couldn't stop there. There was another patient inside, a long-haired, bearded man jabbering endlessly to himself, nonsense words that Rigo couldn't understand. He seemed to be mentally ill. Either way, it might not be the best idea to pay him a visit, and Rigo was sure there would be guards outside this room too, even if his own weren't likely giving chase through the corridors.

No, he'd have to climb.

The man inside caught sight of Rigo in the window and ran over, staring from directly under the bars, right where Rigo had been in his own room just before his ownescape.

"The tenements are infested!" the man yelled at him from below. "And the green one knows! It's the end of days! Gotta plant the seeds! Plant the seeds or buy the farm!"

The man began jumping up at the window trying to grab Rigo by the leg, which was disturbing, but he was too far down to reach. Rigo looked around the window and gauged the stones that were set in the wall. They were not smoothly aligned. He felt he could probably climb on them, but the windowsill he stood on was much closer to the top of the building than the bottom.

Rigo, rushed somewhat into his decision by his irritation with the patient inside and his fear of the death drop beneath him, felt he would much rather get to the roof and find a way down inside than try to brave the whole length of the wall down the outside. It would also be less risky that anyone below would see him doing anything suspicious that way.

He grabbed an outlying brick and began his delicate climb up. The patient spat at him as he left. "Two become one!" he shouted, giving the impression that he was trying to put a final message across. "It's not double vision!"

Rigo put the man out of mind and kept moving. He tried not to think about any of it, just focused on where to place his hand, the next brick. He found his way gradually up the wall and counted his blessings when he reached the top. His hand settled on a flat surface of stone where the wall gave way to the roof, and he thanked the Sand Goddess. He bad arm was hurting awfully. If this had gone on much longer, he'd have been unable to hang on.

He pulled up, first to his forearms, then his elbows, and with his eyes shut in effort, managed to drag his body over the side lip and collapsed onto the roof. He was out of breath and tired, but still alive.

But, his heart sank when a voice rang out across the roof. A deep voice with a hint of amusement.

"Where you going, Rigo?" it asked.

He froze. He opened his eyes and looked across the roof. Standing there, amid a cadre of armed Hylian soldiers with polearms and swords, was Major Tydus. The big man was sneering down at him.

Rigo scrambled to his feet, and backed up against the wall. He thought immediately about hurrying back down, but knew that he wouldn't be able to take it. He'd fall, and that would be the end of it.

"It's time for me to go," he called out to Tydus.

"I agree," the man said. "Anyone who can pull what you just did doesn't need to be bedridden in an infirmary."

"Tell your guards to back down," Rigo said. "I mean it."

"Or what, boy?"

"Or," Rigo stalled, "you…you declare your intentions to go to war with the Gerudo people. Right here, right now!"

Tydus smirked. "I thought you said you were not an emissary."

"I…I'm not," Rigo stumbled.

"And that you came to Hyrule alone?"

Rigo was silent. There was nothing he could say to make this better, and he knew it.

"I'll give you one last chance, boy," Tydus said. "And you be honest with me, now. Tell me about the Gerudo out in the desert, and I'll let you walk free."

Rigo scowled at him. "Why should I?" he asked, "If you've never been honest with me? You're still lying. You were never gonna let me leave this place."

Tydus's smile seemed to grow, and two of the Hylian guards moved in on him from either side. "How about that? You're sharper than you look." He stepped in closer himself. "You want the truth? Fine. Here it is. You are going underground today, into a place reserved for degenerates and criminals, for your affiliation with a hostile race that has long been the bane of Hyrule's bloody history. You will rot in the Stockades with the roaches and the rats, until you die what will likely be a painful death at the hands of one of your fellow inmates. This will be the remainder of your life, boy, and there is nothing you can do to change it."

"That's what you think," Rigo said. The two guards moving in on him were within arm's length now. The one on his left was holding a polearm, so Rigo quickly reached for his scabbard and pulled to draw the man's sword for himself.

The guard tried to grab Rigo's hand, but the boy was quick, and jammed his knee up hard, between the man's legs, into a soft spot in the Hylian armor. The guard made a slight muffled sound and backed away. Rigo got the weapon.

Sword in hand, he immediately, spun and swung around his back, but the Hylian guards were well trained in this form of combat. The guard behind him parried the swipe and grabbed at Rigo's wrist and the sword's hilt. Rigo, with all of his strength, shoved his shoulder into the man's gut and tried to push him away, but in doing so, the guard was able to take his sword. The short struggle was all but over.

In the instant before the guards overtook him, Rigo saw the fast-moving shape of a guard to his left, and in his desperation threw a punch at the man's face. It connected clearly, and his fist, still clad in the Silver Gauntlets, caused damage to the exposed face of a person who, he recognized in the instant after it happened, as Major Tydus. Right afterward, the guardsmen were able to sieze Rigo by the arms and held him tight. He could no longer move, though he struggled with everything he had.

The Major reeled from the blow. Rigo's gloved hand had slashed across his left cheek with what amounted to a plate of jagged metal, cutting the skin there and opening a wound that bled freely down his face. When he turned back to Rigo, there was murder in his eyes and blood dripping from his chin.

"YOU FOUL, LOATHESOME, PISS-POOR EXCUSE FOR A DESERT RAT!"

The Major moved in on Rigo and threw a punch directly at his stomach. It was a direct hit, harder than he'd ever taken in Pureet's training sessions, and it made him double over in pain, forgetting even to keep struggling against his captors. The next strike hit him across the face and he dropped to his knees. And it continued from there, in painful hammer blows all over his body. At some point his arms were released and he tried to cover his head to defend himself, but it did no good. Eventually, the world just started to go black again, and before he was out entirely he heard the voice of one of the guards trying peel the Major away, to persuade him to stop. But the beating didn't end until the boy was out.