ICO: Castle in the Mist

by Miyuki Miyabe

  The wind whipped at Yorda’s hair as she stood staring up at the aging, desolate tower.

  She could feel the weight of her father’s ring on her breast. When she picked it up in her fingers and lifted it, it sparkled in the sunlight.

  The sky above was deep blue and free of clouds, and the sea below reflected its light. Tiny waves sparkled across the water as white flocks of seabirds wheeled in the sky, flecks of paint against the sky’s azure canvas.

  She walked across the stone bridge, stopping halfway to look over her shoulder. She had heard a snatch of cheering mingled in with the howling of the wind.

  The Eastern Arena was beyond the castle proper. That she could hear the roar of the crowd from this distance meant that their excitement had reached new heights on this final day of the tournament.

  Just then, Ozuma and his final opponent would be entering the ring. The spectators standing in the packed gallery around the arena floor would stand as one and applaud. She wondered for whom they would cheer, which contestant had inspired more of them to wager their hard-earned coin. The outcome of this match could make a significant difference in the weight of their money pouches.

  She closed her eyes, steadied her breathing, and began walking again. Though she had walked here a hundred times before, today the distance to the tower seemed much greater.

  As she approached, she spotted the shadows-that-walked-alone gathering by the windows. She wondered if they had come because they sensed her, or if they always stood there to look out on the world beyond the tower, much as she looked out of her chambers at the land and sea beyond the castle walls.

  Now she faced the stone idols before the door to the tower. Yorda brought her feet together and raised her father’s ring. Pointing the mark on the ring toward the idols, she spoke in a high, clear voice.

  “As I bear the signet of the master of this tower, I command you. Stand aside!”

  A bright light shone from the ring. The flash was so brilliant, Yorda staggered, taking two or three steps backward before she regained her footing. As one, the idols’ heads glowed in response. Unbound energy ran along the lines of their misshapen forms, and a bridge of lightning spanned the air between statues and ring.

  With a heavy grinding sound, the two idols parted to either side, revealing a dark rectangular space behind them. At the same time, the light faded, leaving Yorda’s hands numb and tingling. The spell ward was broken.

  Yorda stepped forward. A chill wind blew out from the tower, brushing past her cheek. She was alone in darkness and silence.

  Yorda had given Ozuma his orders that morning: he was to fight his best in the final round of the tournament and emerge victorious. Yet it must not seem an easy win. Even if his opponent was no match for him, Ozuma was to drag the fight out, driving the spectators to a frenzy. She wanted everyone in that arena to forget, if only for a while, the passage of time. She wanted them to lose themselves in a fight so spectacular they could not tear their eyes away, not even for a moment.

  She needed time.

  The queen would be watching the final match with cruel curiosity, her eye on Ozuma as he worked his craft on the arena floor. She alone knew that he would one day be a statue in her gallery, and she would want to see just how good he was so she would know what she would be taking from this world.

  All that Yorda required was that the queen’s interest be held long enough to distract her attention from other things.

  She remembered her father’s quaking voice when he visited her chambers. She’ll find me, he said.

  The queen knew everything. Even the slightest disturbance, the merest presence within the borders of the enchantment she had laid upon the castle could alert her, as it had when Yorda made her attempt to leave the castle that day. And yet the queen was only human. She might be the child of the Dark God, but she was no god herself. If something captured her mind and heart so forcefully that for a moment she had no attention to pay to stirrings within her enchantment, then it might just be possible for Yorda to enter the tower unseen. It was, in essence, Yorda’s only hope: a wager more desperate than any taking place in the arena that day.

  Ozuma had promised to carry out his end of the bargain. “I will make it a match such as they have never seen, and steal the queen’s eyes with my sword,” he told her. “When her attention is captured, that will be your chance to run into the tower and do what you must do.”

  There was no time for dawdling. She took a step, then another, toward the entrance to the Tower of Winds. She passed by the idols sitting silently at the sides of the doorway. She could now see inside the first floor of the tower. She was inside its walls.

  The tower had few windows for a structure of its size. The darkness seemed to pool here at the bottom, thick and still. For a tower, the space was vast. The bottommost floor was shaped like a round courtyard and paved with square stones packed tightly together. The construction was very similar to the corridors within the castle proper, save for the occasional stone jutting out from the floor, its edges cracked or smashed altogether.

  There was nothing here resembling decoration or furniture at all. There were no sconces or pedestals for torches; the walls were bare. Above her head was only space. The Tower of Winds was as empty as it could be.

  Not the best place for hiding something, Yorda thought. Is the Book of Light truly in this place? Is my father’s soul kept here somewhere?

  She spotted a spiral staircase winding up the inside wall of the high tower. A railing went along its length, adorned with sharp spikes. The bottom step was off to her right, beckoning her.

  Yorda looked around in a circle. The shades she had spotted by the windows were nowhere to be seen. Had they disappeared, or were they watching, hidden in the gloom? She looked up for so long, her neck began to hurt, but she could not see all the way to the top of the tower. Yet now she sensed that the darkness above her was not entirely empty. Something was there, mingling with the natural shadows of the place. Silhouettes against a black backdrop.

  Yorda stared for a while longer before finally giving up. It would be quicker to walk up the stairs to the top. My time here is fleeting .

  Stepping briskly toward the stairs, she noticed something on the floor of the tower. It was a large circular design, wider than she was tall. She ran up to it and found that it had not been carved into the floor, nor painted there. Instead, it rose from the floor in relief, forming a sort of dais with its edge raised a full inch off the stones of the surrounding floor.

  In the back of her mind, she dimly recollected seeing a design like this one in history books she had read years before. Suspicion grew inside her, and she found she could not take her eyes off the dais on the floor. Eventually, she had to force her feet to carry her back to the stairs. Her earlier confidence had fled, and unease was only too eager to take its place.

  As she began to climb, pools of blackness emerged from the floor below her. The pools boiled and seemed to writhe across the stones as though living things. Yorda grabbed the handrail in terror and watched as pairs of glowing eyes began to emerge from the dark pools. Pair after pair spilled out into the tower, followed by inky black arms that grew out of the pools like swiftly sprouting weeds.

  They were the shades of the tower, the shadows-that-walked-alone. As she watched, one after the other emerged onto the floor, their legs twisted and their backs bent horribly. They staggered more than walked, their movements an eerie dance that would have been almost humorous had the creatures not been unmistakably evil. They advanced up the stairs, leaping from step to step as they rose toward her.

  Her voice fled her and Yorda put her hands to her cheeks, realizing now where the shades had gone. Quickly, she dashed up the stairs, only to see another black pool boiling on the landing just ahead of her. A creature emerged from the pool with white eyes like those behind her, but with the shadowy shape of a bird. Its wings grazed Yorda’s head as it shot across the empty center of the tower to the other side of the spiral stairca
se.

  In that brief moment, Yorda saw that the bird-monster had a human face, its mouth open in a silent scream. Three more of the bird-shaped creatures flew up from the landing. One of them spotted Yorda as she cowered against the wall and dove straight at her. Yorda was unable to do anything but throw her hands in front of her face—but as she did so, the ring at her chest flared with a bright light.

  With a whistle of wind, the creature’s wing struck Yorda’s shoulder before it careened into the wall behind her to disappear in a puff of smoke. The smoke drifted past Yorda’s face, leaving a lingering chill in the air before vanishing altogether.

  Yorda looked down the stairs and saw that the creatures coming up from the floor of the tower had stopped. They recoiled in horror. The figures closest to Yorda were beginning to lose their shape, their limbs melting away and drifting off into the air.

  It’s as my father said. The shadows-that-walk-alone are powerless before the ring, the symbol of this kingdom’s former glory and his love for his people.

  Yorda held the ring up in front of her face. As she watched, the threads of darkness spilling from the pool on the landing ahead of her dissipated. Soon the pool evaporated entirely. Yorda quickly ran up the stairs, going so fast she stumbled once or twice. Each time, she caught herself with her hands on the stairs and continued to climb. Once, she nearly lost her balance and made the mistake of grabbing the handrail to her left. Her hand caught on one of the sharp spikes and began to bleed, yet still she climbed, legs in constant motion. Finally, when she was breathing so hard she felt her chest would burst, she stopped for a moment to catch her breath. She looked around and saw that she had climbed more than halfway up the tower.

  Looking down over the railing, she spotted more than a dozen shadowy things on the floor of the tower, aimlessly drifting. Some of them were crouched on the dais in the center. The birds clung to the walls, slowly beating their wings.

  Yorda looked up. At this height, she could finally see the top of the tower. There, hanging from the roof, was something like a giant metal birdcage. There was no other way to describe it. It was cylindrical in shape, the gleam of the iron darkened with age. Yet when the wind that whipped around the tower blew in through the windows, past the ragged shreds of curtains, the dim light of the sun glinted off the thick-looking bars. Yorda realized that this was what she had seen when she peered at the top floor of the tower through her spyglass.

  She was amazed by its size. Though its design mirrored a birdcage, it was large enough to contain a grown person. There were sharp spikes all around the bottom and top edges—a strange, deadly looking adornment. Perhaps to keep people from coming too close, Yorda guessed.

  A chilling sensation ran up Yorda’s spine. Maybe it was built to hold a person. Maybe there’s someone in it right now.

  She heard a voice shouting but could not make out any words. Then she realized it was her own voice, and the sound brought her back to reality. Once again, Yorda dashed up the stairs. She had to go higher. She had to learn what was inside.

  Pressed by desperation and fear, Yorda ran, taking two steps at a time. Finally, she approached the base of the cage. A little farther, and her head was level with the bottom. She clung to the railing and leaned out as far as she could.

  “Father?” she heard herself call out.

  An old, faded robe lay in tatters on the bottom of the cage. She could faintly make out the remnants of gold embroidery around the sleeves. It was her father’s tunic—woven of wool, a deep navy color, softer than silk to the touch. This was the same tunic he often wore for public occasions; the clothes he had worn as he lay in his coffin at the funeral.

  She looked closer and saw a tuft of white hair protruding from one end of the robe. My father’s body is here too. Confined even in death. He was the master of the Tower of Winds.

  Yorda fell to her knees and wept out loud.

  [12]

  YORDA LOOKED AROUND desperately, trying to find some way to release her father’s remains from the cage.

  The cage hung from the ceiling of the tower by a chain thicker than Yorda’s arm. The chain was old, its luster long gone, and it was covered with rust. From what she knew of similar devices in the castle, Yorda expected there to be a winch somewhere to raise and lower the chain, but she saw nothing. Tears still streaming down her face, she continued to climb the spiral staircase.

  Unused to such exertion, her legs were beginning to give out on her. Her calves were painfully cramped, and her knees and ankles ached. But sorrow and indignation kept her moving, even when she had to crawl up the last ten steps on her hands and knees.

  At the top of the stairs was a square landing surrounded by pointed spikes. At the edge, she spotted a metallic lever. She followed the chain from the cage up to the ceiling where it connected with a winch, then ran back down to the lever by the landing.

  That’s it!

  The lever was set firmly in the stone floor, and when she touched it, the device wouldn’t budge. Whatever oil had been applied to it was long gone, and the lever was stiff with rust. She took it in both hands and brought all her weight to bear on it, forcing the lever very slightly back with a horrendous creaking noise. She saw the chain holding the cage shudder, and the cage dropped a few inches, its base tilting.

  Yorda pulled with all her might. She blinked against the sweat and tears that mingled in her eyes. Again she pulled. The skin on her hands was raw and bleeding. One of her fingernails cracked. Once, the sweat on her hands made her lose her grip, sending her sprawling onto the ground and biting her lip. Her entire body screamed in protest at the effort—it was more physical work than she had ever attempted. But Yorda did not give up.

  The cage continued to descend at an obstinate pace. She stopped only once to check on its progress and found it was halfway down the tower. This gave Yorda hope, and she turned back around and continued her battle with the lever.

  At last, there came a thud she felt in her hands. The lever was all the way down. She heard a heavy, reverberating clang drift up from the floor of the tower far below. Yorda looked over the railing once to check that the cage had, indeed, reached the bottom, then she began climbing down the stairs. She had to fight her legs to make them do as she bade. For a moment she paused, hands on her knees, steadying her breath and wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of a hand.

  Suddenly, she felt dizzy, as though her legs were swaying beneath her. No, I can’t fall now, she told herself, but the swaying sensation continued. She realized it wasn’t dizziness—she really was swaying.

  Spurred to action by animal reflexes Yorda never knew she possessed, she leapt just as a part of the landing beside her feet crumbled and gave way. The stone of the stairs dissipated in the dust, tumbling toward the base of the tower.

  There was no time for fear. The staircase was continuing to collapse beneath her, cracks running through the stones directly toward her feet. She fled down the spiral staircase, the sound of crumbling stone close behind her. Ahead of her, too, there was a gap where several stairs had fallen away. She cleared it with a jump, landing with the tips of her toes on the far edge. She lost her balance and slammed into the wall but was back on her feet immediately and resumed her mad dash.

  She felt like she was playing a game of chase where the stakes were her life. She wondered that the stairs in the tower should suddenly grow too weak to support her weight, but then she understood the darker truth. Her mother was trying to smash her against the stones of the tower floor. Had the tournament ended? Had Ozuma emerged victorious?

  Now she was practically sliding down the stairs. When she finally reached the bottom, her legs collapsed beneath her, completely numb, and she sprawled across the floor. For a while, she just lay there, gasping for breath. No matter how much she breathed, her chest ached, and her vision grew dim, the floor on which she lay shifting nearer and farther in turns.

  Finally she was able to get her arms beneath her and pick herself up. I did it. Just a l
ittle farther.

  She looked up to see the spiral staircase hanging above her in the tower, as though nothing had happened. It was so quiet, it seemed almost like she had dreamed the collapsing stairs around her, though she could spot the gaps where she had had to jump, and there were piles of rubble around the edges of the tower.

  Yorda hugged her arms across her chest. The giant cage holding her father’s remains sat directly atop the round platform in the middle of the floor. The shades were nowhere to be seen.

  Careful not to catch herself on the metallic thorns, Yorda approached the door of the cage. With a trembling hand, she reached out and touched the door, grabbing hold of one of the bars.

  With a screech that made her teeth ache, the door swung outward.

  I guess you don’t need to lock the door that holds a dead man, she thought with relief, though it made her father’s imprisonment seem that much more contemptuous. A fresh tear rolled down Yorda’s cheek.

  “Father…”

  She stepped inside and tried to pick up the faded tunic. The fabric disintegrated like cobwebs in her hand, sending up a plume of dust. Yorda spotted her father’s bones beneath the tattered cloth. With her eyes she marked the curve of a rib. There was a shoulder. She brushed away more of the tunic and found the bone of an arm. She guessed the bones protruding from the bottom of the tunic were his legs.

  Judging by the arrangement of the bones, she guessed her father had been lying stretched out on his right side. But something was missing—she couldn’t find the skull.

  Crouching low, Yorda moved around the remains to the other side of the cage. From this vantage point she could clearly see the skull, tucked in beside the ribs, beneath the protruding ridges of one of his arms—as though he had been holding his own head under one arm.

  Yorda had seen her father’s body lying in the coffin in the castle. And not just Yorda—a ceremony was held for the entire kingdom. Ministers and noblemen great and small had gathered to pay their respects. After the ceremony, a great procession carried the coffin throughout the kingdom for two weeks, so that the commoners could say their farewells before his remains were laid to rest in the royal graveyard in the mountains. The line of mourners behind his carriage had snaked for miles.