ICO: Castle in the Mist (36 page)

Yorda ran across the bridge, looking for someone, anyone. She listened for voices and heard nothing. When she reached the castle proper, she saw guards, all frozen in place like living statues. One man had been stopped in mid-step, one foot hanging in space. Another was about to speak to a comrade, his lips slightly parted.

She looked around more and found a handmaiden, frozen holding a tray of silver goblets. Her other hand was behind her head, frozen in the act of fixing her hair, fingers outstretched. Even the air inside the castle seemed frozen in stasis.

She heard the queen’s voice, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “This is your doing.”

So dependent was the castle upon her mother’s enchantment that it could not live in its absence. All who lived within its walls, cut off from the outside world, living in false peace, were frozen in time.

“In preparation for the Dark God’s arrival, there had to be people upon the land, for the Dark God takes sustenance from the evil in men’s hearts. Human greed and wickedness are my offerings to him.”

Her mother had not struck sooner, wielding her powers to lay her enemies low, so that she might have a greater population to offer up to her god when the time came. Sacrifices were always fed handsomely until they were brought to the altar.

“Destroy me, and you destroy them,” the queen’s voice said in a low growl by her ear. Yorda felt a cold finger stroke the back of her neck. “But, should you repent and help me imprison that cursed book once again, I will replace the enchantment, and all will be as it was before. What wrong have these people done? Think on it, Yorda. To the ignorant, it does not matter what form their Creator takes. They care not whether they serve a god of light or of darkness, as long as their prosperity is ensured. One god is easily exchanged for another.”

At some point she had appeared directly behind Yorda, and now she stepped in close, enveloping her in an embrace—no different than when Yorda had been a child, sitting on her mother’s knee.

“Why must we argue over such things? Are we not mother and daughter?” Her voice was soothing now, tickling at Yorda’s ear.

Yorda looked down at the graceful curves of her mother’s arm, wrapped in delicate, near transparent black lace that only accented the whiteness of her skin. In that embrace, Yorda felt powerless and immature, her bones slender and fragile, her chest flat like a child’s. And yet, Yorda’s body still glowed with light. The energy that had flowed to her from the book coursed through her veins, illuminating her skin from within.

Yorda gripped the book more tightly, lowering her head and shutting her eyes tight.
My mother was chosen by the Dark God, and I was chosen by the God of Light. If I do not stand down, we will fight as the avatars of our chosen deities. The queen says it is a meaningless battle—but I am my father’s daughter. His blood flows in me. And what did she do to him?

She pictured her father’s skull burning with rage and chagrin, locked in the tower for an eternity, the book clenched between his teeth. “You would deceive me, Mother,” Yorda said, opening her eyes. “Did you not tell me, just a moment ago, that I should never have been born? Have you forgotten how you shamed my father? Forgotten the horrible treatment you showed him?”

After a brief moment, the queen replied in a gravelly voice, full of power. “You find my actions unforgivable? You would deny your own mother’s love?”

Though her cheek was still wet with tears, Yorda had to laugh. “I thought love between people is no better than dust.” She took a deep breath and wrenched herself away, turning to face the queen. “I’m tired of your lies!”

Yorda held the shining book up high and thrust it toward her mother’s face. A horrifying scream rent the air around them, echoing off the walls of the castle. The queen covered her face with both hands and flew up into the air like a grim, ungainly bird.

Writhing and screaming, the queen ascended halfway up the Tower of Winds, throwing her body against the stone wall. Her robes spread out wildly in the wind like a black flower blooming in the sky.

“What have you done?”

The queen’s soft, soothing voice was gone. Now she screamed, glaring down at Yorda from high above her.

“You were wrong, Mother!” Yorda shouted up to her. “You tried to deceive me!” She caught her breath, then continued. “Why? Of what worth is it, being the child of a god? Where is the meaning in ruling the world? You did not love your husband as you do not love me! Where’s the glory in butchery and lies? So many lies!”

The book held high over her head gave more power to Yorda. She watched as it grew brighter, filling her with strength, sweeping away the last wisps of doubt as she strode forward to stand beneath where the queen floated in the sky.

Yorda’s hands moved of their own accord, flipping through the pages of the Book of Light. There she found a new power, and it flowed forth in a blinding holy radiance directed squarely at the queen. The light caught the queen in midair, flinging her against the tower.

“Have you forgotten what I said?” the queen screamed. “Kill me and you kill everyone in the castle!”

Suddenly time returned to the castle around Yorda. Everyone who was frozen lurched back into motion. Within moments, screams of terror rose up from every hall and courtyard in the castle. The long enchantment over them was gone entirely now, and as one, every minister and handmaiden, guard and patrolman were returned to their senses, and the reality of what they saw drove them mad.

Yorda did not flinch. Her eyes fixed on the queen, she chose to believe in the power of the book and held it still higher over her head. The Book of Light knew its enemy well. It would not let the queen escape. Again and again, she was dashed against the tower, the white light burning her body, and she howled, unable to escape the reach of the light.

Yorda watched, weeping, as the queen lost her shape and began to unravel into threads of dark mist. Yorda wept more and louder, yet her hands remained firm, pressing the book toward the queen. She was quickly dissolving into the stuff of the black pools Yorda had seen in the tower.

She’s becoming
like one of the shadows she created.

Perhaps this was, in fact, her mother’s true shape. Perhaps she was nothing but an apparition, a gathering of motes of black mist.
This gave birth to me? My father took
this
as his loving wife?

The mist dissipated into the sky, winding into the wind, almost entirely gone now. Yorda stood with her legs firmly planted, forcing her weary arms higher. The mist was very thin now, hardly more than the last wisp of smoke from a cold fireplace. The wind picked up, blowing it away.

But a single thread remained, twisting with rage, and from it the queen’s voice sounded in Yorda’s ears, saying, “I will not be destroyed! Look well, for you have failed!”

A powerful unseen force slammed into Yorda, sending her sprawling across the stones of the bridge. The shock of the impact was enough to knock the Book of Light from her hands.

Yorda scratched with her fingers on the bridge, trying to stand. Finally on her feet, she picked up the book and clasped it to her chest. The sounds of disquiet from the castle were growing louder. She heard the clashing of metal on metal, women screaming, men shouting.

The noise washed out over the bridge like a rumbling earthquake. Yorda stood as still as stone, not believing what she saw. On the far side of the bridge, a great throng of people were pushing their way out of the castle, running toward her in a wave. She saw guards, patrolmen, handmaidens, and scholars. The soldiers wielded swords and spears, while the handmaidens bared teeth and nails. She spotted the Minister of Court, his fists clenched above his head as he charged out onto the bridge—at Yorda.

Though they could not have been a more varied crowd, they all had one thing in common—their eyes were clouded with a dark mist. With a deepening sense of despair, Yorda realized what had happened. Her mother, the queen, had turned to mist and possessed them all, driving them mad. She was wielding them like puppets, sending them to kill.

Kill, kill, kill! Kill the one with the book! Kill Yorda!

Yorda had few options. She still held the Book of Light in her arms, yet she lacked the will to lift it again.

This is my mother’s strength. In the end, I could not defeat her. I merely forced her hand and brought ruin to us all.

The shouts grew louder, and the rumble of feet swept closer. Yorda closed her eyes.

“Lady Yorda!” A powerful voice shouted over the noise. “Lady Yorda!”

She lifted her face and saw that the crowd had stopped just a few paces away from her. They were turning, looking back toward the castle. Then their ranks began to dissolve, as new screams of rage and fear rose from the mob.

It was Ozuma. He was brandishing his longsword, cutting down people in his way, charging toward Yorda.

“Ozuma!”

Ozuma swung his sword in all directions, driving back the possessed throng around him, shouting out to Yorda. “The book, Princess! The book!”

Buoyed by his voice, Yorda once again lifted the book in her hands. When she raised it over her head, the crowd on the bridge shrank back, some fleeing altogether. Ozuma pushed them aside, making a path to the front. When he was finally free of them, he ran up and took Yorda’s arm. “Now!”

Grabbing Yorda, he pushed her toward the edge of the bridge.

“What are you doing?”

“We have to run!”

Run? Run where?
The Tower of Winds was a dead end. If they ran inside the tower, they would only be trapped.

She hesitated and the crowd regained their fury, advancing, a dark light in their eyes.

“Come with me!” Ozuma shouted. Not waiting for an answer, he picked Yorda up lightly in one arm. He returned his sword to its scabbard, tossed his helmet aside, and ripped off his chain-mail vest to lighten his load. Holding Yorda in both arms now, he leapt from the top of the bridge. Yorda pressed her eyes shut a moment before they touched the foaming waves. Icy water wrapped around her, but her heart was filled with a song both triumphant and sorrowful.
The book is safe.

With the Book of Light still clutched in her hands, she slipped into unconsciousness.

How much time had passed since then?

Yorda looked up at the boy staring into her eyes, clasping her hands tightly.
I know you,
she thought.

And he knew her as well. The memories of the castle—how it had become enveloped in mist until the mist became its name, and fear and awe its reputation—she had shared these with him, through his hand in her own.

That was why doubt now clouded the boy’s eyes. That was how he knew she was the queen’s daughter, the only one who could hope to defeat her.

He knew she had left the castle, bearing the Book of Light, and so escaped the queen’s dark grasp. He knew that when she and Ozuma had plunged into the sea, the waves acted as a veil, blinding the queen to their whereabouts until the currents carried them safely ashore.

But why did you come back?
the boy wondered.
Why were you imprisoned here? The steel cage that held you in the top of the tower was the cage that once held your father. The cage you fought so hard to free him from.
Yet it was you I found lying in that cage. Without hope, sadness your only companion.

And the gallant knight Ozuma was turned to stone by the edge of the old bridge, as lonely as you. Why does he stand there, the knight from a foreign land come to save you, now stripped of his life and the sword he wielded for you? With the passing months the weather wears away at him. He is mindless and cold.

So too do the shadows-that-walk-alone fill the castle once more. The pools from which they spawn form freely on the stones, trying to take you back into their embrace.

What happened after you escaped the castle?
the boy wondered.
Why, though you held the book, could you not defeat the queen? What terrible misstep did you make that sealed your fate?

Though Yorda could now understand the boy’s tongue, he could not understand her. Still she whispered in her heart:

In the end, I could not defeat my mother.

It had all been in vain. In the end, the child of the Dark God was still master of the Castle in the Mist, and the Dark God still awaited the day of his revival. The threat to their world had not been defeated, merely delayed.

And it is all my fault. I could have defeated her, yet in the end I betrayed myself.

Yorda knew that, though the boy’s language would not rise to her lips, her memories would tell the tale of the great battle that ensued after her escape from the castle, of the tragedy and deceit that followed. If she just held on to his hand, he would learn it all.

But what good would that knowledge bring him? What meaning was there in showing him the defeat her own hands had wrought? The deceit that dragged Ozuma down, cursing his blood, the curse that spanned generations, down to the boy himself.

No, even if there was meaning in showing him, Yorda did not want the boy to know. Not now, when she was powerless, able only to offer apology after apology.

I should release his hand. I will return to the tower, and he may leave here on his own.

But the boy only gripped Yorda’s fingers tighter. His eyes flashed. “The knight Ozuma was my ancestor. The blood of the knight who defended you runs in my veins.” He stood. “This time the blood will not fail.”

CHAPTER 4
THE FINAL BATTLE

[1]

THE GIANT FRONT
gates of the Castle in the Mist were closed once more. Ico and Yorda stood together in the sunlit courtyard. The memories of the castle and its history now returned to Yorda formed a link between her and the boy, a link firmer than his grip upon her hand.

Ico squinted in the breeze, looking up at the gates that blocked their escape.