In Nayru's Palm

The gravestones, too, left wounds in Din’s light. Din hadn’t aided Nayru to her place in the sky yet—she was still waiting for Farore to descend. The sky was red and purple, but not as beautiful as it was in the desert.

“Who goes there?” snarled a gravelly voice. I stepped back. A gnarled face peered around the side of a small wooden hut. A shovel was thrown over his shoulder, and he glared at me out of half-crazed eyes; those eyes reminded me of Rue, and I almost called to her, knowing she would be nearby, and ready to appear and protect me.

“Who-who are you?” I asked. The man limped to me. I noticed his head was lower than his shoulders, and there was a hunch in his back that I didn’t think he could straighten.

“I’m Dampe the gravekeeper,” he growled at me. He shot the sun a hateful look. “Damn, I knew I was up too early.”

“It is nearly night,” I said, confused.

“I know damn well what time it is!” He glared at me, and for a moment I really wished he didn’t have that shovel. “Do I look like I get a lotta sun? Do I?”

“N-no sir.”

“Hmph. Go home to your mommy, kid, ‘fore you wet yerself.”

I watched him walk back under the canopy over his door. I hadn’t realized I had moved so far forward.

“Mr. Dampe, why do you wake up at dusk?”

“Go home, kid.”

“Sir, why?”

He glared at me again. He reminded me of a grumpy old dog.

“I don’ like s’much light. It’s hot out, and I’ve a job to do.”

“What do you have to do? Maybe I can help.” As long as he didn’t keep cuccos.

He glared at me again.

“Really, sir.”

He was still quiet. I expected him to turn and walk into his house.

“D’ya like diggin’ up tr’sure, kid?”

I was dumbstruck. I saw the corner of his lopsided mouth turn up.

“C’mon, kid, I’ll show yeh.”

I followed him to the path amongst the graves.

“Lookee here.” He thrust his shovel into the ground and pulled up a patch of dirt. “If yeh foller where folks’ve walked, they drop all kindser things.”

A twenty rupee glittered like a puddle of blood in the light of the dying sun. I dropped to my knees and picked it up, momentarily surprised that it was solid, and brushed off some of the damp soil. I handed it to him.

“Y’can keep it, kid.”

“You dug it up, sir. You keep it.”

“I got plenny.” Realizing it was a lost fight, I pocketed it, glancing around the place.

“You say you dig the path, sir?”

“Yep.”

“What about outside? Do you ever dig off of the path?”

“I’d hit a grave. I’d only get bones.”

“Not over here.” I strode along the fence until I reached a corner. “What if people wanted to bury treasure? What if somebody forgot about it and left it?”

Dampe was scrutinizing me from where we had found the rupee, then limped slowly over to me.

“Let’s give’t a try, kid.” He stabbed the shovel into the soil and dug. Grass resisted the sharp metal at first, but was uprooted quickly. Dampe dug a couple of shovelfuls as the sunlight’s last fingertips clung to the earth.

“Nothin’,” he said, not sounding very surprised. I looked in the hole, a bit disappointed, until I saw a glint in the dirt.

“Hey…”

I dug dirt away with my fingertips.

“Lemme, kid.” Dampe put a heavy hand on my shoulder, and I stepped back. He dug without bandaged fingers, and I stared a bit guiltily at the brown cloth swathing my hands.

I looked back to the unearthing happening before me. Dampe dug until he had exposed a fair amount of some sort of mechanical item. I could see some sort of spring, and a kind of arrowhead-looking thing at the end. He reached in and grabbed it tightly with one hand.

“Careful,” I cautioned him. His hand relaxed a bit, and continued tugging until it came free of the soil. We couldn’t tell clearly what we had found, since Din had finally lost her hold over Hyrule, and Nayru watched us with bright eyes.

“C’mon,” huffed Dampe, and we walked back to the hut. I carried the shovel, since it looked like my new friend would have left it in the dirt, what with his new treasure in his earthy hands.

His hut was very cramped, and barely seemed to have room for his little cot and a table. A quill roosted on the table, along with a book and an inkwell, both closed. I didn’t notice the little nub of a candle until Dampe had lit it, and a smell of burning fat clawed its way up my nose. Thankfully the bandages hid how it wrinkled, but I didn’t think the gravekeeper would have noticed anyway.

The man’s greedy eyes seemed to follow every contour of the device. At the other end of the arrowhead-like barb was what was clearly a handle. Other than that, I couldn’t tell at all what it was supposed to do.

Dampe seemed intent to find out. He grabbed the thing by the handle and pointed it to his pillow. The moment he had grabbed it, a red light shot from the device, and rested its beam on the rough fabric. He cackled and waved the light around, watching it flit across the walls like a demented insect. Suddenly, with a loud noise, it discharged. The barb shot from the tip and plunged into his pillow, still connected to his hand by a long chain. The moment it stopped moving, the chain grew taut and retracted, pulling on the pillow and sending it careening into Dampe’s face.

I dropped to my knees at his side, and gently pried the pillow from the thing.

“Are you all right, sir?”

The man was making an odd wheezing noise, and it terrified me. It wasn’t until I saw how his mouth was turning up at the corners when I realized he was laughing.

“BOING!” he guffawed, turning the device in his hand. “BOING!”

Even laughing, he was scaring me. He pointed it at his ceiling and triggered it again. This time, when the chain grew tight, it was Dampe that was sent flying. He landed on the bed, the device having been dislodged from the ceiling. He laughed harder.

“BOING!”

I backed out quietly.

I walked through the graveyard. The place was silent; no birds sang, no insects buzzed. It was me and my footsteps. The stone at the front said that this was where the royal family slept, along with their faithful servants. I knew that. I walked among the graves, paying my respects as best I could. I found the graves of Sharp and Flat at the top of the hill, and remembered how they used to compose pieces for my family. In their spare time, they would come up with songs from the tops of their heads to entertain me, with random lyrics that never made sense, but made me laugh anyway. I had missed them.

Ignoring the burning in my eyes, I looked between their graves and saw a hole in the ground, with the triforce pointing at it. The edges looked charred, and I could see footprints.

What in Nayru’s…

I heard a gasp above my head. There was a brown fence above me, and I saw Impa stagger to it, her hands resting on the rungs. Her eyes were clenched shut.

“Im—”

“No!” I stumbled backward; her voice sounded wrong. She vaulted over the fence and landed in a heap on the ground. I ran to her, despite her cry.

“How can I help you?” I asked softly. Her body was tense. She wore only a light shirt and breeches—none of the armor I had always seen her wear. Her silvery hair fell around her face, free of its tie.

“The well.”

I didn’t understand, but I carefully slid my fingers under her arm and lifted her, putting her weight on me. We staggered out of the graveyard. I looked to her face, but under her hair, her eyes were still shut.

We walked through the village, and she directed me to a spot in front of the windmill. Her voice was steadily becoming her own the closer we got to the well. It was empty, I noticed, which was strange. Didn’t wells hold water?

“There she is!”

The other adult Sheikah trotted up to us.

“We were wondering where you had gone, Impa,” Pyrrna’s mother said.

Impa’s eyes snapped open. They were completely black—I couldn’t distinguish pupil, or iris or white in them. She screamed as something flew from them and crawled up the side of one of the houses. I sensed a sort of awareness emanating from it, but I stopped paying attention when Impa collapsed next to me.

Soun’s father came to her other side, and we shook at her. She did not wake. I looked up as the hair on my nape stood on end, and I saw the shadow charging for me. Malice inundated me, and blind panic set in as adrenaline pounded my ears. I backpedaled, but the thing was faster. It was practically on me—

The woman, Pyrrna’s mother, intercepted, and she screamed almost as Impa had, except there was more agony, more despair, where in Impa’s there had only been anger and frustration. Shadows rolled off of her like flames, writing in Nayru’s light. I saw Impa move out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of the horrible sight before me. The woman moved forward until her shins hit the well, and there was an agonizing moment where I could see her legs bend, watched her body move forward…And then she tipped, even horizontal for a half second, her hair flying backwards off of her face, like extensions of the shadow. Her face was somehow the most horrifying of all, as I glimpsed it as it disappeared into the well. Her legs disappeared last, and I heard something scrape against stone just before something hit bottom with a CRACK.

Impa bounded forward and leapt in after her. I tried getting to my feet, but the man sent his hand in front of me, blocking my way. I fought briefly, but didn’t take my eyes off the well. There was stillness for several seconds. Several more.

In a loud gust, the well belched what seemed to be years of dust, and the cloud spiraled in the night air, illuminated by the silver moon.

“Impa?” I whispered, my voice breaking. The man was rubbing my shoulders and making reassuring sounds. Lights were coming on in houses, and some people were emerging from their homes despite the darkness. They didn’t see us sitting in the middle of the grass—we crouched in shadows, watching stone and waiting for some sign of life.