Chapter 5
Rat stood before the bedroom's door. He drew in a breath, gathering courage. Pulling the curtain aside, he stepped into a round lobby. A mosaic star, similar to the one in his bedroom, decorated the ceiling. Underneath the star, a blue Zora stood behind the desk, reading a book. He glanced up as Rat entered the lobby, smiled, and returned to his reading.
They really do trust me.
Five rooms branched off the central lobby, each draped with curtains like his own, but the curtains enclosing the empty rooms were drawn back, letting the sunset fall on waiting beds. The fourth room seemed to be an open kitchen. The room had no walls, and a fire crackled under a round stove. Link worked at a counter, sleeves rolled to his elbows, chopping something green on a cutting board. He wore no weapons and his back was to Rat, and to the inn. Onions sizzled in a pan on the stove. The smell made Rat's mouth water.
This was the perfect angle for an ambush. Rat's training highlighted the opportunity, but the thought turned his stomach. Instead, he tiptoed around the edge of the room, heading for a curtain across an arched doorway, which he assumed led outside. It was hard to move silently in these boots—he wished he had his Yiga sandals. But the swordsman didn't turn, and holding his breath, Rat slipped through the curtain.
He emerged from the inn at the top of a flight of wide, curved stairs. The city spread above and below him. It reminded him of the trees in the depths, with their flat, layered pads. Connected by arcing walkways and stairs, the city's tiers climbed above his head to a palace at the summit. Below the inn, the layers continued down to the level of the lake: an intricate network of homes, shops, and round courtyards. Water flowed through the city like blood through its veins, spilling over rims and sliding through canals. Every shape was round except for the Hylian crates tucked in convenient alcoves. Zora mingled everywhere, in all sizes and colors—red, blue, black, gray, green—hundreds of fish people, maybe thousands. The sound of their chatter mixed with the roar of the waterfalls.
Rat cringed. He wished he had goggles for his ears—something to soften the sound. But he braced himself once again and descended the stairs. His inn was towards the top of the city, two levels down from the palace at the top. Five more levels spread out below him. Smoke rose from dozens of dinner fires. The rupees clinked in his pouch. His stomach growled again.
At the bottom of the stairs to the inn, he passed through a round courtyard. A statue rose from a bubbling fountain. Rat recognized the face of the Zora king carved in stone—and the face of the Hylian sitting on the Zora's back, gazing into battle with noble determination. Rat rolled his eyes.
As he hurried down the next flight of stairs, he realized something was missing. He touched his leather pouch, but it was full. In the center of the stairs, he stopped and glanced back at the statue, and felt nothing.
I don't hate him anymore.
Frowning, Rat turned away. He rubbed his chest, remembering the relief as the gloom lifted from his body.
Did Ganon make me hate him?
The gloom was Ganon's magic, and Ganon hated Link above all else.
Was I being… used?
He ran down the stairs, fleeing from the statue and the inn, descending to the third city tier. Blending with the crowd cleared his mind. This tier was less grand, more practical. Shops jutted from the rim of the circular tier, lit with glowing blue crystals. Above the shops, platforms sprouted from supporting columns. A child raced up a twisting set of stairs to her home and barreled into the arms of a fish woman.
The smell of friend fish tickled his nose. Rat followed the smell, keeping himself as small as he could, staying in the shadows. But Hylians were sparse in the crowd, and the Zoras stared at him, fascinated. Not unkindly. Blood rushed into the tips of Rat's ears. He wasn't used to being noticed. He was used to slipping about as he pleased. No one cared where he went, as long as he met his quotas and finished his chores.
Nothing has changed.
He passed a stall selling fishing tackle and another selling anti-fungal powder for the scales. Rat hurried past a stall with spears and tridents twice his height.
Link never told him to stay. Rat could climb down the ladders, jump in a barrel, and tumble over the edge of the waterfall. He could duck past the guards on the bridge and vanish into the mountains, and no one would care.
Rat clinked the rupees in his pocket and headed for the oily smell coming from a food stall. In the shop beside the food stall, the glint of weapons caught his eye, and his feet drew him to the shop like iron to a magnet. A red Zora woman worked behind the booth, sliding a new blade across a wet sharpening stone. Knives of all sizes spread across a stone table, forged of silver-white steel, with elegant twists and curves, like they were swimming with the water. Corruption tarnished most of the knives, which were marked discounted with red strings. But a dagger at the end of the counter gleamed silver, newly forged. Its razor-sharp edges glinted in the sunlight. Rat's breath caught.
A thin Zora man stepped around Rat and approached the stall. "How much for this one?" The customer picked up the silver knife.
"Six hundred rupees," the shopkeeper said.
"For a toothpick?"
"The forge just reopened," she said. "We're working as fast as we can."
The customer sighed and set the knife back.
Tearing himself away from the blade, Rat stepped up to the food stall. His chin just reached the counter. Severed tentacles swung from the roof. Dead fish lay on beds of ice, eyes cloudy, mouths gaping with their final breath. No flies buzzed around the fish. Since coming to Zora's Domain, Rat couldn't recall seeing a single insect.
An old, blue Zora chopped his fish on a block. His knife fluttered in a blur, tapping like a rattle. He scooped the fish with the flat of the blade and dumped them into a frying pan just behind the counter. Oil popped and sizzled.
"How much?" Rat reached for his pouch.
The Zora blinked down, staring at his Hylian ears and goggles. "You're Link's boy."
"I'm not…" He bit his tongue.
The vendor wiped his hands on a wet rag. He smiled with broken teeth. "You're the one he saved from the Depths. What was the battle like?" His second eyelid blinked across his eager, yellowed eyes.
"Explosive."
The man laughed. He slapped the fish on his block. "One way or another, we've all been saved by Link. You've had a journey. Fresh or fried? This one's on me."
"Fried," Rat said quickly.
The knife came down.
He wandered into the street, face turned up to the sunset, and jumped back as a pair of Zora children darted in front of him. A half dozen splash fruit jiggled in the gray child's arms. "I get to be Link," she said. "You be the Mucktorok."
"You're always Link!" the blue boy said.
"That's cuz I throw the hardest!" She hurled a splash fruit at the boy.
He yelped and back flipped, but the fruit exploded against his ankle in mid-air. Rat flinched as the spray misted his face.
"Give me some fruit," the boy said. "It's not fair. Where did you find all those?"
The girl lowered her voice. "Behind the waterfall at the duck pond."
"But nothing's back there."
She flung another fruit, and the boy shrieked as she chased him down the street.
Rat wiped his face with his sleeve. Link, Link. Was the worship this bad across all of Hyrule? He retrieved his fish from the vendor, wrapped in wax paper, yellow with grease.
As he turned from the stall, a splash fruit came hurtling for his face.
The blue Zora boy jumped in front of Rat. He caught the fruit and landed with a barefoot slap. "Sorry," he murmured, then shouted at the girl. "Leelee! Watch it!"
Rat glanced at the plump splash fruit, then across the counter at the hot pan of oil. The vendor was rummaging through a chest of ice in the rear of the stall. His back was to the street and to Rat.
"Hey," Rat said. "Can I play?"
The boy stared at him, taking in the Hylian from his boots to his goggles. "Sure. You're the tallest. You can be King Sidon." He dropped the fruit into Rat's hands.
Rat fumbled with the slippery fruit. It wiggled and shot from his hands. He grabbed for it, knocked it further, and the fruit bounced over the counter and burst apart in the pan of oil.
Steam erupted into the air. The white cloud spread higher, wider than Rat had envisioned. Haze filled the food cart and spilled down the street, obscuring the weapon stall. Zoras coughed in the steam, waving their hands to clear the air.
Rat slid through the fog to the bench of knives. His hand brushed over the silver dagger at the end of the bench and it rolled into his fingers, then slipped up his sleeve. He drifted away from the bench and covered his head like the Zoras scrambling around him, mimicking their panic as he stumbled from the fog.
Blend in, Karta whispered. Flow with the crowd. Nothing's more obvious than a guy running away.
At the edge of the street, he ducked around a crate between two shops, closed for the evening. He forced himself to walk along the path behind the shops, though his legs ached to run. The edge of the city's tier ran on his left: a drop-off that fell to the next level below. Two guards came jogging down the street, armor ratting, drawn to the explosion.
Rat's heart jumped into his throat. He darted to a ladder that led to the tier below, tucked his fish bundle into his pouch, then swung himself down the ladder. He braced his boots against the rails and slid. The metal heated under his hands. As he reached the bottom, he hit the ground with a heavy thud. Pain jarred through his left leg, but he darted into the shadow of an abandoned shop and crouched behind a dusty counter. Pulse hammering in his ears, he listened as the commotion died down on the level above him.
When the evening was quiet once more, the dagger slid into his hand. He hefted it, balanced the blade on two fingers. It was lighter than it looked.
Six hundred rupees. Not bad, Karta said.
"It's for self-defense."
Mm-hmm. Karta sounded like he was smiling.
Rat twirled the dagger between his fingers. He wrapped the blade in a rag from the floor, then tucked it into his boot and slipped out of hiding.
This tier festered the shadow of the tier above. Flies buzzed around piles of rubbish and fish bones, and the Zoras who passed Rat had nicked fins and shifting eyes.
He climbed a ladder to an abandoned house, perched like a cracked bubble on a column, and emerged into a common area. Torn rush mats, broken pottery, and fish bones littered the floor. Declarations of love for Prince Sidon graffitied the walls, framing a mis-proportioned portrait of the king. Rat passed it, but the awfulness of the painting drew him back. He snatched up a piece of broken charcoal from the fire grate and sketched over the portrait, smoothing out Sidon's jawline, adding depth to his brow. He wasn't sure he was capturing him right, but he'd had a good long while to stare at Sidon while the king worked over him, and his eyes were definitely not that large. Dusting charcoal from his hands, he stepped back. Sidon silently thanked him. Rat nodded.
A hammock still hung in front of the home's window, swinging in the evening breeze. He hopped into the canvas. Feet swinging, he retrieved the bundle of fish from his pouch. It was still warm. He ate, picking white flesh from tender bones, as he gazed over the city.
The sun dipped below the mountains. Red streaks of clouds smeared the orange sky. Below, a Zora father and son walked side-by-side, fishing nets slung over their shoulders, as they made their way home in the pink light.
Home.
Who needed a home? Rat licked the oil from his fingers, tossed the wax paper into the fire grate, and hopped out of the hammock. The fish wasn't settling right in his stomach. Must be the oil.
He left the broken house and picked his way through the city, finding a different route back up to the tier above him. He should be going the other way, down the river. Maybe if he followed the river, he would reach the sea. Mother had told him stories of the ocean.
That will be my last adventure, she said. I was born with the sea in my blood. It never leaves.
What is the ocean like, Mama?
Imagine a desert, but made of water. It never ends. The waves keep rolling and rolling. One day I'll take you there.
Rat found himself at the bottom of the steps to the inn. A chill wind raised goosebumps on his arms, fluttering the curtains in the inn's windows. Light glowed in the kitchen window and a column of smoke puffed into the air.
He remembered the fairy tonic sliding down his throat—two fairy tonics. He felt the rumble of the wheels, the fiery burst of air in the balloon, felt himself rising through the chasm to the open sky, helpless as a doll.
"Ugh, Link."
He climbed the steps, strode through the lobby, and entered the kitchen.
Link glanced up as Rat parted the curtains. His arms were buried in a tub of soapy dishwater and beside the tub stood a pile of dirty dishes. Glass jars of all sizes filled the counter. Half the jars steamed with red fish soup, and the rest held layers of rice, fried vegetables, and meat.
"Cooking for an army?" Rat said.
Link pointed with his brush to a bowl on the counter, covered with an upside-down plate.
Rat lifted the cover. Slices of tender venison rested on a spread of green vegetables, all atop a mound of white rice. A fresh lime wedge garnished the presentation. The aroma of garlic drifted into Rat's nose. His stomach gurgled. "I already ate."
The swordsman lifted his pan from the suds and swirled it in a second tub of clean water.
"What do you want from me?"
Link shook the water off the pot. Picking up a towel, he began drying the pan.
"Give me that." Rat crossed the kitchen, grabbed a second towel, and snatched the pot from Link.
The swordsman stared at him, empty hands dripping, as Rat wiped the pot down.
"You know exactly why," Rat snapped. "Go lay down. You're running on two hours of sleep. Stop making me feel guilty."
Link tilted his head.
Rat set the dry pot on the counter with a clunk, shoved up his sleeves, and shouldered between Link and the tub of dishwater. He grabbed a dirty pot and plunged it into the water. The swordsman stood behind the boy, and Rat felt the weight of his eyes burning into his shoulder blades. Then Link picked up a basket of jar lids, stepped to Rat's side, and began closing his jars.
They worked quietly, each focused on their own task, until Link tightened the lid on his last jar. "Do you want to return to the Yiga Clan?"
"No."
"Is there anyone else to take care of you?"
Rat scrubbed viciously at the rice burned to the bottom of the pot.
The swordsman crossed his arms.
"You saved my life." Rat pointed at him with a soapy spoon. "What do you plan to do with it?"
"That's up to you." Link picked up his drying towel. "Go rest. We'll talk about it tomorrow."
"I'm not finished." Rat dunked his pot in the tub of clear water.
A smile twitched at the corner of Link's mouth. He took the pot from Rat as the boy pulled it from the water and began wiping it down.
Whatever. Rat let him dry, and picked up the next dish.