“If you are truly the master of this castle, then the Sacrifices are being offered to you, right? Why? What is it all for?” Ico asked quickly, his feet firmly planted. “Those black smoke creatures in the castle—they were Sacrifices too, weren’t they? You turned them into those things with your magic. You’re no queen at all. Queens are good, noble people with kind hearts. They don’t make innocent people sacrifice their children. You’re a liar. You’re a witch!”
The more he talked, the angrier he became, until Ico was practically shouting. The queen waved her hand as though swatting away a fly, and Ico flew backward. This time he went even farther, making an arc through the air before landing on the cobblestones shoulder first. Blood rose on his cheek where it scraped the ground.
Ico felt dizzy, and he ached all over. He was having trouble breathing, and white spots filled his vision.
“That’s enough of your mewling, little creature,” the queen said in a cold, echoing voice. “Now, Yorda. Back to the castle. Do not waste your time with this Sacrifice. You forget who you are.”
Ico blinked, but his vision would not clear. He tried focusing on the queen, still hovering in space, and Yorda beneath her, hunched over on the cobblestones and cowering in fright.
“Don’t listen to her, Yorda!”
Ico heard his own voice sounding like it came to him over a great distance. His tongue wasn’t moving the way he wanted it to. He thought he saw the queen gesture, and for the third time he flew through the air, hitting the ground hard as he landed beside the girl. She’s toying with me. Ico felt like his ribs might break. Cuts covered his knees and elbows.
Yorda threw herself over Ico, protecting him with her body. She looked up at the queen, shaking her head, pleading.
“Why do you show mercy to one so low?” the queen asked. “This castle will one day be yours. You are my body. You will reign over the Castle in the Mist with my heart, and wait for the day when we rule in glory once more. Do not tell me you have forgotten?”
In his half-conscious state, Ico was dimly aware that Yorda was crying.
“Or perhaps you have tired of waiting? Still, you may not go against your destiny. Listen well, Yorda. You and I are one. When the time comes, you will realize what a great blessing this is.”
The queen’s form began to fade. Ico decided it wasn’t his vision failing, she really was leaving. “Sacrifice,” she addressed him. “Leave at once. You will not get another chance. And do not waste your time with my daughter. She lives in a different world than some boy with horns.”
The queen’s dark robes of mist began to dissipate. Then, in a reverse performance of her grand entrance, she unraveled into the wind.
Ico lay sprawled across the cobblestones. Yorda was close to his side, hands on the stones, crying. It was the only sound in the courtyard. Ico looked over at Yorda. Her tears fell, making little dark spots on the stones that quickly dried and were gone. It was almost as if the shadow cast by the castle refused to acknowledge her sorrow.
Ico tried lifting his head, and a stabbing pain ran through his neck. He yelped, and Yorda turned to look at him, streaks on her face where the tears had run.
Their eyes met. Seeing Yorda cry made Ico want to cry too.
“Is it true?” he asked in a weak voice.
Yorda wiped away her tears and said nothing.
“Yorda…your name ’s Yorda, right?”
Yorda’s hand stopped, half covering her face. She nodded.
Ico rested his head on the stones. He could feel the strength ebbing out of his body. “So the witch, the queen…is your mother.”
Yorda nodded again. Curling up on the stones, she turned her back to Ico.
“So you weren’t a Sacrifice after all,” he said, more to himself than to her. “You know,” Ico continued in a whisper, “when I hold your hand, I see things. Visions. And the queen was in one of them. I saw the knight with a broken horn from the old bridge too. And even you, when you were little.”
Yorda did not turn to face him, so Ico talked to her back. “When we were on the trolley, you were there with your father.” Gritting his teeth against the pain, he lifted his head and managed to sit up. He hurt in so many different places, he wasn’t even sure which places they were. Even his eyes were growing hot with the tears that threatened to come.
“You were riding with him, playing. It seemed like you two were close.”
Yorda had stopped crying. She looked up, focusing on something far away.
“Where did your father go?” Ico asked then. “Did he die? Did your mother keep you locked up all the time? Tell me, Yorda. What is going on in this castle? It wasn’t always like this, was it? It’s different in the visions. What happened to the beautiful Castle in the Mist where you used to play?”
Yorda whispered something, a short word. Though he heard it clearly, Ico couldn’t understand.
She moved her legs, coming closer to Ico. She extended a slender arm and touched the scrape on Ico’s cheek. He felt warmth. It seemed to flow from Yorda’s fingertips into his body, filling him.
The woven Mark on his tunic began to glow from the inside. Ico’s eyes went wide.
The pain in his body was disappearing.
Blood stopped flowing from the cuts and scrapes on his skin and began to dry. His bruises faded. His joints, stiff with pain, moved smoothly again.
Ico spread his hands and looked down at his healing body. The Mark was glowing faintly, like a firefly on a summer night, pulsing in pace with the beating of Ico’s heart.
When the last scrape had disappeared, the Mark’s glow faded. Yorda let her fingers fall from Ico’s cheek.
Ico stared at Yorda’s face. It was beautiful. He didn’t dare breathe for fear of breaking the spell. Her eyes were sparkling.
“Thank you,” he said.
Yorda began to smile, but her smile wilted halfway, and her lips turned down at the corners. She lowered her eyes.
“I think you have the same power as my Mark,” Ico said. “Or maybe you have the power to make my Mark work better. You know what the elder said? They said as long as I had this Mark, I would never lose to the castle.”
Ico took Yorda’s hands in his own. “You didn’t want to be locked in a cage, did you? You want to leave here, right? I’ll take you with me.”
Yorda shook her head vigorously, but Ico did not give up.
“You have power, Yorda. More than the castle. And I have the Mark. Didn’t you see how the queen looked at it? She said she was sparing my life, but the truth is she couldn’t kill me.”
It was nothing more than a guess, but when Ico said it he felt sure he was right. If the queen really were that powerful, she wouldn’t have stopped at threatening him. She would have snapped him like a twig right there and then.
Filled with hope, Ico looked into Yorda’s eyes. He felt like he was looking into an hourglass, trying to pick through the grains of sand for some truth buried there long ago. He hadn’t found anything yet, but the warmth of Yorda’s hands in his told him that he was getting close.
CHAPTER 3
THE CAGE OF TIME
[1]
YORDA HAD LIVED in loneliness so long and so complete that it had penetrated her being, becoming her flesh and blood.
When she saw herself in the mirror or reflected on the surface of a pool of still water, she saw not a person but a thin skin stretched over a lonely void. I’m a container, an empty vessel, a collection of nothingness.
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.”