ICO: Castle in the Mist (20 page)

In Yorda’s world, time was stopped. Time was her prison. It had held her for so long she could no longer remember when it began, when she had first realized her destiny. Yet finally she had come to an understanding.
Time does not imprison me, I imprison time. Time is my captive. I am the lonely keeper of the key, free to live here so long as I do not relinquish my post. Here I have stayed for so long that time itself is meaningless.

Why is this so?

Who makes me do this?

By whose command am I here?

She had forgotten. In exchange for the power to hold back time, she had lost the power to mark its passage. Over the long years, this oblivion had been a mercy to her, the only peace she could claim.

A sea of forgetfulness, a barrier from the truth, enveloped her. She became a tiny round pebble, sunken into its depths. Here there was only peace and tranquility. Though the waves of doubt and unease might riffle the surface of the water high above her, they would never reach down to the bottom where she lived.

An eternal sleep, not unlike death.

When will it end?

Who will end it?

On whose command will it cease?

Stopping time meant stopping her heart. Nothing changed, nothing moved. Nothing was born, nothing faded. As it had always been. As it would always be.

At least, that’s how it was meant to be—

“Yorda…that’s your name?” A voice, calling her. Dark eyes looking up at her. The warmth of another person standing close, the sound of their breathing.

Where there is life and action, time cannot remain still. The doors of the cage must open and let their captive free.

Yorda…yes. That is my name.

Yorda was dreaming. She dreamt in fragments that seemed to come and go as they pleased as she lay in the cage at the top of the tower above the pedestal room. How long had she lain here? Her dreams followed no logical path, nor could she be sure if they were dreams in her sleep or waking dreams in her mind. Often, she’d relive the same dream many times.

As death and oblivion were closely related, so too were death and dreams.
Who can say truly that the dead do not dream? Am I dead dreaming of life? Or am I alive dreaming of death?

In her dream, someone was climbing the spiral staircase that wound round the tower. In her dream, she heard footsteps, saw a shadow on the stairs. She looked up and saw the figure approach. But after she blinked and looked again, she realized it was just a vision without substance.

That was the way it always was. Always she returned to sleep, in search of the next dream.

In this dream, she saw a dark shadow grow upon the wall behind the climbing figure, drawing it in, devouring it. The figure said nothing, only cowered in fear as the darkness took it. A great storm raged outside the tower. She could feel the wind on her face and the cool drops of rain. Her dreams were often indistinguishable from reality.

The figure taken by the shadows—it was a little boy. His intense fear bit into her. Her eyes opened in fright. Then, she did see someone climbing up the stairs of her tower. Going round and round, racing up the spiral with a desperate speed.

Is this a dream? Was the figure I saw before the dream? Which is life, and which is death?

Then she heard a voice call to her. “Is anybody there?”

Yorda sat up halfway. It was the boy, leaning up against the railing, looking at her. “What are you doing in there?”

She could see him with her eyes. She could hear his voice in her ears.

Yorda couldn’t believe it.
I’m still dreaming. This is a fantasy my heart is showing me. A gentle, soothing lie. That’s all.

The boy was standing on tiptoe now, stretching as high as he could, and calling out loudly. “Hold on. I’ll get you down.”

He started up the stairs again. Yorda could watch him run with her eyes. He was wearing strange red clothes—a pretty color, though. She wondered at the cloth that fell over his chest and back, decorated with such an intricate pattern. When the boy ran, the fabric flapped and curled like a flag.

Presently, she could no longer see the boy. It looked as though he had crawled out of one of the windows higher up in the tower in her dream.
That’s right. I’m still dreaming. I mustn’t forget.

Nothing will happen after this. Nothing will change. I will go back to sleep.

The cage shook around her.

Yorda grabbed hold of the bars, clinging for dear life. The vibrations continued, and then, to her amazement, the cage began to slowly drop. The round pedestal far below her grew larger.

An intricate dream. A dream woven from my wildest hopes.

But the cage did not descend all the way down to the pedestal. Instead, it stopped at the height of the idol gate. There it shook again, and Yorda stood, holding on to the bars.

She could see the heads of the idols just beneath her feet. The four of them stood mute watch over the way out.

She wondered how she knew that. A shiver ran down her spine, and Yorda let go of the bars, retreating to the center of her cage. A fleeting memory bloomed in her mind.

“These idols are our protectors.”

“They’ll protect us, both of us, during the eternity we must wait here in the castle until the time of the revival is at hand.”

“I am you, and you are me. I am what fills you, and you are my vessel.”

Yorda shook her head, letting it hang limply from her neck.
I am myself. This is my body. My hands and feet. My hair. My eyes.

There was a loud clanging sound above her head, and the cage began to rock like a boat at sea. She looked up and saw that the boy from before had landed atop the cage.

The cage rocked, and Yorda was thrown against the bars. Above her, the boy lost his balance and fell from the cage with a yelp. The cage lurched again, more dramatically this time, and the next moment it began to fall. The chain had broken!

There wasn’t even enough time for her to blink. The bottom of the cage struck the pedestal with an echoing
clang,
and for a terrifying moment it teetered, threatening to topple, before coming to rest on the ground. A breath later, Yorda heard a sharp metallic whine as the door to the cage swung open, its lock broken.

The boy was sitting a short distance away on the floor. Silence returned to the room, and Yorda heard the crackling of the torches and the wild breathing of the boy.

Am I still dreaming?

Yorda stepped slowly out of the cage.

The boy was still sitting, gaping up at her. He looked young. Small round black eyes. The strange cloth he wore gave off a dim light. And he had horns.

“We will need sacrifices.”

Fragments of memories danced in her head.

“The Castle in the Mist will require them.”

I
am
dreaming,
Yorda thought.
This isn’t some entertainment my mind has woven for me. I am replaying an old memory. It must be, because I know this boy with the horns. I have known him for so long. Together, we walked this castle—

“It was my mistake to attempt to use your power.”

“But do not give up hope. The day will come when a child of my blood will rise to save you.”

“And your mother—”

Yorda retrieved her voice from across the span of ages. “Who are you?” she asked the boy. “How did you get in here?”

But the boy just stared at her blankly. She asked him again, and the boy’s lips moved.

“Are you…are you a Sacrifice?”

The words had a familiar ring to her ears. They were not her own, but words she knew well all the same. They were the words he had used those many years ago. She knew she recognized them. But that was so long ago. And though she could understand them, it frustrated her that she could not speak them.

The memories washed over her like waves, incessant, present.

This boy is no dream, I know that.

Yorda extended her hand and touched the boy’s cheek.
I want to feel his warmth. I want to be sure.
The boy’s shoulders lifted and his mouth twisted.
He’s afraid. Don’t be. But I must be sure you’re real.

That was when
they
appeared.

Yorda called them the shadows-that-walk-alone. They were shades, born of the Sacrifices. The souls of the Sacrifices were removed, steeped in dark magic, and transformed into the misshapen creatures. Yorda’s mother, queen of the Castle in the Mist, called them her slaves, and she spoke of them with great disdain.

The shades were looking for Yorda because the queen was looking for Yorda. Yorda held time within her body, the shades held Yorda, and the castle held the shades. Even now, the queen reigned over these three layers of warding.

But the boy protected Yorda from the shadows-that-walk-alone. He took her hand, defended her, swung his thin arm, and fought with his tiny frame, driving them back. If the shades dragged her into their realm, she would once again become a prisoner, and the boy would turn to stone, a sad adornment in the castle. Yorda knew this. But the boy did not—even as he did not know that Yorda was the property of the queen of the castle—and he protected her.

Yes, this must be a dream. A dream woven by my heart, in mourning for my dead soul.

The man had promised that she would be saved one day. But no matter how firm his promise, he was just a man and his strength was limited. After all this time, he would have frozen and eroded, then disappeared without a trace.

But the feeling of the boy’s fingers clutching her own and the warmth of his hand were real. He existed without a doubt, burning with anger, trembling with fear, breathing raggedly in the chaos, fighting the shades that sprang up around them.

As she staggered, being led by the boy, she had an idea. She gave his hand a tug. He resisted. He did not disappear. She didn’t awake trembling to find herself still inside the cage.

This isn’t a dream. Believe this. It’s not a dream. The promised time has come.

Yorda pulled on the boy’s hand as hard as she could, turning toward the warding idols.

“These idols protect you.”

Guardians heed the orders of the one who is guarded. Though Yorda might lack the power to drive off the shadows, she could bring light to open the way out of this place.

“Never move the idols. We must defend the castle against the impurities of the outside world until the revival is nigh.”

When Yorda used her own power to move the idols, the shades disappeared from the pedestal room like smoke in a strong wind.

“How did you do that?” the boy asked, glancing between her face, the empty room, and the idols that had parted before them. She saw dark doubts and bright hopes in the innocent eyes looking into hers.

“Come with me, okay?” the boy said. “Let’s find the way out.”

She looked at the horns growing from his head, then she took his outstretched hand.

[2]

LED BY THE
hand as they ran through the castle in search of a way out, Yorda attempted to summon her faded memories. It seemed to her that walking on these stones with her own feet, free of the cage, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

The towers of the Castle in the Mist. Landscapes seen from incredible heights. Endless corridors. High spiral staircases. Crumbling furniture and adornments. Everything was as she remembered it. Many times she had run through here, touching, sitting down to rest. She had to be able to remember.

But like a nightmare in which you run and run and never seem to get anywhere, Yorda’s memories of the Castle in the Mist hung frustratingly close, but always out of reach. It was as though a dark veil had fallen between
now
and
then,
concealing her past from the present.

Had the castle always been this vast? Always this tangled? Even though each of the rooms seemed familiar to her, the ways between them were strange and convoluted.

The boy was brave—as though he hardly feared anything. Or perhaps that was just a façade. He
should
be afraid. Yet his feet ran and his eyes searched without pause. Except, every once in a while, a thoughtful look would come over him and he would stop. After a moment, he’d shake his head and begin to walk again. Yorda imagined that at these times he grappled with doubts and fears in his mind, but for Yorda, whose own memory was clouded, it was difficult to imagine what these doubts and fears might be. If only she could understand him better.

His words were tangled in her mind. Yorda didn’t even know the boy’s name. Yet the horns on his head spoke to something asleep in her heart, trying to rouse it.
So familiar, so comforting.
She heard a voice whisper in her head.

“Don’t give up hope.”

Who had he been? What was he to me?
She stretched out her arms in her mind, trying to uncover memories that lay buried in the shadows. How satisfying it would be to pull them out, drag them into the light.

I want to remember. I must remember.

Sometimes, the boy would take her hand and his eyes would go blank, as though his mind had toppled and fallen inside himself. His expression was that of someone peering at something far off in the distance, something that Yorda could not see.
What’s wrong?
she wanted to ask.
What are you thinking?

Then the moment would pass, and the light would return to the boy’s eyes. He would tilt his head curiously, looking first at her, and then at their surroundings, as though he had been on some long voyage and only just now returned.

After a while—Yorda realized with some surprise that she could mark the passage of time—they made their way to the old bridge leading to the far tower of the castle, dimly visible through the white mist. The statue of a knight stood on the near side of the bridge.