ICO: Castle in the Mist (19 page)

Ico held his arm around the girl’s body, sheltering her. He stared up at the woman in black, his breath ragged through his open mouth. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t move.

I shouldn’t answer her.
The elder, Oneh, and every scary fairy tale he had ever heard had all told him that if you ever met a demon in the woods, even if it called you by name, you were not to answer. Answer, and it would have your soul. Instead, you must close your eyes and tell yourself that what you were seeing didn’t exist. Close your heart to it, else the demon would steal its way in.

“I see your filthy horns, boy. You are a Sacrifice. What is a Sacrifice doing leaving his stone coffin, coming all the way out here?” Even when he closed his eyes and pressed his hands over his ears, the woman’s voice wouldn’t go away.

He opened his eyes again, and they met the woman’s black gaze, two pools like fathomless swamps. Ico shivered and scrambled back. His right hand reflexively went to the Mark on his chest.

The woman’s eyes, black scars on her white face, narrowed. “What’s this?”

The bell rang, its sound echoing through the courtyard. The gates were already halfway closed now. Their shadows stretched all the way to where Ico and the girl lay on the ground.

“I see,” the woman said, nodding. “You are a particularly lucky Sacrifice. Thank your luck and leave my castle. I’ve spared your life once. Begone before I have a change of heart.”

My
castle—this woman was the master of the castle?

“Wh-who—” Ico stammered, trying to stand. Then he was on his feet before the woman. “Are you the master here?” he asked, forgetting the warnings for the moment.

“Yes. I am master of the Castle in the Mist. I am queen of all who live in its shadow.”

The woman moved her right hand, lifting a finger and pointing it directly at Ico’s nose. Though what he felt now was so different, somehow the gesture reminded him of the way the girl had pointed at him when she first stepped from the cage.

The queen of the castle was incredibly thin, even down to her fingers. She wasn’t just old—she seemed almost a skeleton. The sharp nail on her outstretched finger gleamed like a slice of obsidian.

“Sacrifice. Your life is in my hands. If you do not wish to suffer the same fate as your comrades, leave. Now.”

His fear mingled with his determination, and his heart raced. He ran to the girl’s side and tried to lift her in his arms.

“Take your hands off the girl!” the queen said, her voice slicing the air. A sharp, cold wind hit Ico’s neck like a blade.

“She is not for you to touch, Sacrifice. Do you know who this girl is?”

I want to know.

He shivered and looked up at the queen. He meant to sound defiant, but his voice quavered pitifully. “It doesn’t matter who she is! She’s trapped here. She’s a Sacrifice, like me! I’m taking her with me!”

The queen’s pointed chin lifted and her face twisted. Ico’s legs turned to jelly beneath him. The queen began to laugh.

The girl moved, getting her arms beneath her and rising halfway to look up at the queen. She looked like she was going to cry.

Ico stepped to the side, kneeling by the girl. He put his hand on her shoulder and could feel her tremble. The girl was transfixed by the sight of the queen.

The queen sensed that she was being watched, and her laughter faded as she looked down at the girl. Even though she was still half lying on the ground, Ico could feel her recoil at the queen’s gaze.

The queen spoke more slowly now, weaving her words as she called to the girl. “Yorda,” she said, “my dear Yorda.”

This time, Ico flinched. His hand tensed on the girl’s shoulder and he looked at the queen. She was staring only at the girl now. As she was entranced by the queen, so too could the queen not take her eyes from her. Their eyes met.

“Did you hear what this brazen boy has said? He called you a Sacrifice! How unfathomably rude. Does he not know that you are my beloved daughter?”

Ico felt the strength leave his legs. His arms dropped to the ground.

Yorda did not reply but instead lowered her face to the ground as though she might escape the queen’s eyes. She lifted her hand to her mouth. Even her fingers trembled.

“That can’t be right,” Ico stammered. “There’s no way she’s your daughter!”

“Oh?” The queen looked at him, smiling. “You doubt my words? You are as foolish as you are headstrong!”

Ico stood quickly and charged at the queen. Laughing, she waved her bony hand at him—her slightest gesture was enough to send him tumbling across the stones.

“You should know your place, Sacrifice—and it is far, far from me.” The queen’s smile faded and her eyes glowed like black flames in the pale moonscape of her face. “I should kill you just for leading her around the castle!”

Ico stood on unsteady feet. “If she really is your daughter, why did you imprison her in a cage? It doesn’t make any sense!”

The queen’s pointed chin lifted and she laughed again—a short laugh, like the bark of a dog. “The lowly Sacrifice would admonish me! What I choose to do with my daughter is none of your concern.”

Ico made to charge her again. The queen raised a clawlike nail, but Yorda stepped between them. Without a word, Yorda stretched out her arms in front of Ico, holding him back. Ico looked into her eyes and she shook her head, pleading with him.

The queen’s eyes narrowed. “Look at that. It seems Yorda pities you.” She seemed more bemused than upset. “Your luck is twofold, lowly Sacrifice. I will spare your life a second time, for Yorda’s sake. Now leave. Yet I will not suffer you to leave by the front gates through which I once walked in glory, surrounded by the cheers and admiration of my people.”

Almost as if they had been waiting for those very words, the giant gates closed fully, shaking the earth with the sound. The light that had come streaming through was cut off, casting the entire courtyard in shadow.

The tolling of the bell ceased.

“I am sure a crawler in the earth such as yourself will have no trouble finding a suitable exit. Wriggle from a crack in the wall if you must, miserable vermin. Or perhaps you would prefer to dig at the earth with your claws and escape through a tunnel of your own making? But you will find a way, and you will leave.”

Though there was no wind, Ico’s Mark stirred. The queen frowned, her eyes flashing. Ico recalled the queen frowning before when he had touched his Mark—as though she found it distasteful.

He began to walk toward the queen, placing his hand directly over the Mark and focusing all his thoughts on it. Wrapped in robes of swirling darkness, the queen stared him down. Ico glared back.

“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.