ICO: Castle in the Mist Read online

  “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.

  The boy looked up at it and his eyes grew distant.

  Something about the tall statue, one horn protruding from his helmet, made Yorda’s heart flutter. Memories swirled inside her, tiny waves breaking against the shores of her mind.

  I know this knight. I know him. This is him, the man. But why is he made of stone? Another memory rose, clearer than the others. This is no statue. The curse turned him to stone, binding him here. I know why. I know…

  But she didn’t know. It was so close. She stamped the floor in irritation.

  When she looked again at the boy, he was standing beside her, glancing curiously between the statue and the bridge. She followed his gaze, wondering what it was that he could see that she could not.

  The boy took Yorda’s hand and broke into a run. Yorda ran too, nearly tripping. In a daze, she saw a crack form at their feet across the ancient bridge, and the stones began to fall away from beneath them. Yorda’s legs treaded air, and she fell before she even had time to scream.

  But the boy caught her, leaving her dangling from the edge of the bridge. She looked down at the calm blue water of the ocean, waiting for her. A breeze ruffled her hair and shawl, and the cries of seabirds rang in her ears.

  The boy pulled Yorda back up onto the remnant of the bridge. His face was pale, and he chattered on rapidly. To Yorda, it seemed as though he were apologizing.

  It’s not your fault, she thought. The castle is old. It’s decaying. That’s why the stone bridge collapsed. That’s all.

  Or was it? As they ran across the bridge, Yorda found herself wondering why the castle was disintegrating beneath them. It can’t decay. It’s alive. The Castle in the Mist is eternal, isn’t it?

  For just a moment, the veil separating Yorda from her memories gave way to her pressure. A realization spilled forth. She grabbed hold of it tightly.

  It is because I am free. I left my cage, I’m trying to leave. That’s why the Castle in the Mist is dying. The castle shares my fate. I am the cage of time, as the castle is my cage.

  Though her memories remained dark, after that she knew with each step, with each new room they passed, that she was not to leave this place. The feeling grew stronger and stronger, welling up from inside her, binding her to this place. What I am doing is forbidden. I cannot escape the castle. That is the one thing I must never do.

  That was what the misshapen creatures told her. They pleaded with her desperately to remember her role. That was why they wanted to bring her back, to quietly end her charade of escape. Just as she had been stopped before once…but that memory too was out of reach.

  They ran on through the castle, and again the shades attacked, and again the boy came to her aid, baring his teeth at the dark shapes looming over him, a tiny mouse in a den of lions. The dark creatures vanished, their lamentations left to hang in the air. She realized that the boy could hear them too. As proof, every time he saw them, his fear grew greater...and his hatred, and the tears in his eyes.

  Why do I not stop? Yorda wondered. Why do I follow this boy? And what is this strange warmth that flows within me each time I take his hand? This warmth threatens to fill me, I who have spent so long caged in the castle, my life an empty vessel for time to fill. What if it succeeds? Then I would…I would—

  I would be a girl again.

  That’s why I have to stay here. The queen wants it. I must follow her wishes.

  But—

  Is that what I want for myself? Is that what I desire?

  Though she uttered not a sound, Yorda’s cry of confusion echoed throughout the castle, every corner hearing her question. And so when they finally reached the gates, her answer appeared before them in the form of the master of the castle herself: the queen, destined to rise again, destined to rule the world.

  Yet she was wrapped in black, and her once beautiful face was as thin and gaunt as a corpse. Her obsidian eyes flashed with anger, and though Yorda wished it were not so, she had but one name to call this woman: Mother.

  The person who bore me into this world.

  But I am…I was going to—

  The veil dropped away. That which separated Yorda from her memories vanished. Suddenly everything—the whole of the history of the Castle in the Mist—came surging back to her in a great tide.

  “Now, Yorda. Back to the castle. You forget who you are.”

  Yorda looked to the boy at her side. In the shadow of the closing gates, he stood facing off against the queen.

  He is the Sacrifice. And I am part of the castle. We can never be together, aligned in one purpose.

  Then the queen left, satisfied to see Yorda’s memory returned. The gates closed firmly shut. The royal audience was over.

  The boy lay on the ground, covered in cuts and bruises. Yorda was crying. It took her some time to realize that the tears falling on the tiles of the courtyard were her own. I’ve remembered how to cry.

  The boy was speaking to her. She could understand him now. She even knew what language he spoke. It was the same language of the poor knight turned to stone on the bridge—the swordsman Ozuma. She r
emembered him now too.

  The boy was telling her that when he held her hand, he saw visions. He told her that he had seen her with her father on the trolley.

  Father. How long ago had she forgotten him? He’d fallen beyond the reach of her recollection.

  “It seemed like you two were close.”

  Yes, we were. But now I am very far from him indeed. So far that we will never be together again.

  Yorda touched the boy’s cheek. In that instant, she made a decision. I will help him escape. I will save this Sacrifice. And I will stay here to play my role, to remain the lock on the cage of time. This will be the last time I take his hand.

  Then the strange pattern on the boy’s tunic began to glow. Pulsing. Sending life into the boy, and into Yorda.

  As she watched, the boy’s wounds healed. It was as though her hand had melted into him. I can feel it crossing to me. A light of hope. The brilliance of life. The brilliance of wisdom that resists the yoke of darkness.

  “I’ll take you with me.”

  How could he still want to escape with her, knowing she was the daughter of the queen?

  “The day will come when a child of my blood will come to save you.”

  Was this the child? Was he more than a mere Sacrifice? Was he the warrior protected by the light of wisdom?

  Yorda took the boy’s hand. A new strength flowed from it, washing away her sad determination, cleansing her memories, and beginning to fill the empty vessel that was Yorda.

  No. I don’t believe it.

  But the boy was there, and he was looking at her. That was when Yorda understood what was drawing out her memories of the castle into the boy. It was him. He wanted to know its dark past. He wanted to know everything. No one could stop this. Not even the queen.

  The elder sat up in his chair suddenly.

  What was that?

  He had been dozing, the Book of Light in his hands. Now he found he could not reach down and pick up the book. His hands, knees, even his tongue were numb. It was as though a bolt of lightning had run through his body.

  Gradually he loosened his fingers, rubbed down his arms, and finally got out of his chair to pick up the book. The ancient tome was glowing and warm, just as it had been when he had first taken it from Toto’s hands. The cover opened of its own accord to a particular page.

  There, in the middle of a long line of densely packed ancient letters, he saw the illustration of a single great sword.

  The elder looked up, awe rising within him.

  “He has found the way. He has found it!”

  [3]

  TIME LURCHED BACK into motion. It boiled up, whirling in a spiral, arcing like lightning, regaining the pace it once knew in the distant, distant past—

  On either side of the castle gate, the celestial sphere in the east and its twin in the west sparkled brightly. A bell rang, signaling with its deep echoing sound the start of the great tournament held only once every three years.

  The gates slowly opened, their height such that they appeared to scrape the sky. Knights, soldiers, and mercenaries from every corner of the queen’s domain, and beyond, formed two lines that proceeded across the bridge from the gathering place on the other side. The bright sun reflected off of their burnished gear.

  More than one hundred men made up the procession. Some wore helmets of bright crimson, others leather armor polished to a glow by years of use, heavy round shields lashed across their backs. Each contestant had his own specialty. Behind one proudly hefting a giant battle-axe walked another dressed in a long black robe out of which poked a segmented whip with a spike on its end. There were youths in the crowd, boys not old enough to shave. There were mercenaries with keen eyes who had seen many battles, and an old man who had seen more, leaving him with but one.

  They advanced between ranks of the royal guard lining either side of the high corridor leading through the courtyard. Their ambition was a tangible substance that shimmered above them like heat rising off the desert. The guards stood with their hands at their waists, chests thrust out so that the royal signets upon their breastplates could be seen beneath their surcoats.

  Eight days hence, when the victor had been decided by single elimination tournaments held in the arenas, they would look up to one of these warriors as their new master-at-arms. But for now, they simply watched the procession, expressions hidden behind their faceplates. They knew that whatever skill these warriors had with axe and whip, with dagger and trident, it was wasted on a knight. A knight wielded a sword. As to whether they watched with smiles, cold and hard, or with the curiosity of career soldiers, none could say.

  Yorda stood on the terrace outside her chambers, looking down at the spectacle in the courtyard. Her tower stood to the west of the central keep where the queen’s chambers were located. From this height, the procession of warriors looked like little marionettes in a play. Even still, the crunching of their boots on the stones drifted up through the air, and she could sense their elation in the wind that blew against her cheek.

  The castle stood atop sheer cliffs overlooking the sea, the salt wind sweeping it year round. Even now, the breeze played with the ends of Yorda’s short-cropped chestnut hair.

  Those who were close to Yorda all said that when they returned from a long journey and smelled the sea air, they felt like they were truly home. Not having set foot outside the castle, it was something that Yorda couldn’t understand. She had never known a wind that did not carry the scent of the sea.

  The queen did not like to expose Yorda to strangers, and so she had forbidden her to leave her tower during the tournament. It was rare for the queen herself to leave the castle, and even within, Yorda saw no one else but the Captain of the Guard who was always by her side, the ministers who managed the castle affairs, the handmaidens who tended to her, and Master Suhal, the great scholar.

  “How peaceful your world must seem at a glance,” the queen would tell her. “Calm as a windless sea. But peel back a thin layer, and you would find invasions and battles waiting. You could hear the ragged, blood-choked breathing of neighboring kingdoms, eager to expand their domain, biding their time. In such a world, the beauty with which you were born is far too dangerous.

  “Beauty is a high, noble thing. Thus are men enchanted by it and seek it out. But those who desire you desire also our lands. I must keep you hidden so that you do not entice them or enchant them—because, my dearest, while your beauty holds the power to command the actions of a few men, it does not bestow the ability to govern.

  “It is the same for me. The land I govern is the most wealthy and beautiful of all the lands that divide this vast continent. They crave it, as they crave me. From their slavering jaws and their multifarious schemes have I escaped many times. All to protect myself and my beautiful domain, blessed by the Creator. You, who were born into this world as the lone daughter of the queen, have noble blood and noble beauty, thus must you bear my burdens.

  “Beloved child, my daughter. I pity you for your beauty.”

  The warriors were now lined up in the square before the gate. Mor Gars, Minister of Rites, slowly took his place on the stand that had been erected for the tournament. It was richly decorated with flowers of the season and flags embroidered with the crest of the royal house. The royal guard, in formation around the warriors, lifted their swords as one toward the sky and stood at attention while the contestants dropped respectfully to one knee upon the ground.

  The minister began his speech, his voice carrying to every corner of the square with the quiet accompaniment of the leaves rustling in the sea breeze.

  A single tear fell on the back of Yorda’s hand where it gripped the railing. The tournament had begun. Yorda wondered who would win, and if he had ever imagined in his wildest nightmares what awaited him after his brief moment of glory.

  And she had no way of stopping it.

  Ten days before, Yorda had gone against her mother’s word and attempted to leave the castle. An act born of childish curio
sity, nothing more.

  Yorda was sixteen, a flower just entering bloom. To her, the outside world was the stuff of dreams and longing, a busy place where people mingled and lived out their lives. She wanted to walk upon the grass beyond the gates, if only just once. She wanted to see towns and villages she had never known. She wanted to look back at the castle looming across the water, to see its grand shape from afar. Her youthful heart wanted to escape the chains of royalty, however briefly.

  She had pleaded with one of the handmaidens closest to her, who finally gave in and agreed to help. The handmaiden had a lover who worked as one of the guards.

  The two worked out a plan. On the night of the full moon, when the leaders of the merchants’ guild gathered and had their meeting with the Minister of Coin, there would be many people of no name or stature on the castle grounds, for one only needed to be a member of the guild to sit in on the gathering and listen. Events such as this meant that there would be many commoners of all ages, both men and women, filling the audience chamber in the central left tower.

  If Yorda wore common clothes and mingled with the crowd, she would be able to escape without difficulty. The main gates would open once when the leaders of the merchants’ guild arrived and again when they departed. If she left when their meeting began and returned when it ended, no one would be the wiser. As luck would have it, while the guild members were present, things at the castle became too busy, and Master Suhal suspended his lessons. She would not be missed or lectured on the importance of education. And if anyone did happen to visit Yorda’s chambers while she was away, her most trusted handmaiden would be there to make excuses.

  Yorda thought the plan was splendid. It was fun for her to wear the colorful town-girl clothes her handmaiden had procured. The elaborate tunics and short vests that the merchant guild elders and their companions wore enchanted her with their floral-patterned cloth and matching shoes and toques. How happy it made her to wear things she had never even been able to see up close, let alone touch.

  Until then, all the clothes she had been given were simple things of the purest white that wrapped loosely around her, with no variation from day to day save for the embroideries on her sleeves and her shawl. Yet even when they were embroidered with the most intricate patterns and designs, the thread was white, or at best a faded blue or brown pigment made from grasses. The queen would not allow her to wear bright vermilion, yellow, or green, saying they would detract from Yorda’s natural beauty.