But his bones were lying right here, back at the castle. Was the coffin they took out on the procession empty? Mother must have removed the remains in secret before they left the castle, and then…
Yorda’s tears had dried. She sat down in shock, staring at her beloved father’s bones, when she noticed something curious. The bones were discolored in places. Here and there light purple splotches, like bruises left after a fight, marred the dry parchment color of the bone. Yorda could not bring herself to disturb the bones by lifting them up or moving them, so she poked and prodded, shifting them only slightly, making sure the discoloration was not a trick of the light.
Convinced the bones were discolored, Yorda wracked her brain trying to come up with some explanation. Perhaps, she thought, this was a mark left by the disease that took him. But she knew her father had appeared healthy when he died. It made no sense that a disease could do such damage internally without showing some outward signs. Poison, however…
Yorda did not think her mother would have been capable of both poisoning and disposing of the body all by herself. She must have ordered someone to help her—someone helpless to resist her. And then, when the grisly work was done, her mother had made her helpers disappear—either by killing them or turning them to stone along with the other statues in her underground gallery. It was unthinkable. “I will get you out of here, Father, I promise,” Yorda said, her voice quiet but firm. She reached out for the skull.
The skull was facing away from her, down into the ribs, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary until it was in her hands. Then she saw that something had been placed between the skull’s teeth. She lifted the skull gingerly, as one raises a crown, and gasped with surprise. It was a book. The long teeth, exposed without lips to cover them, were clenched on a single book.
The Book of Light!
Her theory had proven correct. The queen had used the Tower of Winds to imprison the book, much as it had been used ages before to imprison the Wind God from which it took its name. But in order to be sure the book would never be uncovered, simply locking it in the tower wasn’t enough. So her mother had chosen to sacrifice her father, murdering him and binding him to this world with a curse, changing him into one of the shadows-that-walk-alone, and placing him here as the book’s final guardian. Then she killed her father’s advisors and a host of others to serve him in the tower, before sealing its doors with the idols.
As her anger flared, Yorda grabbed the edge of the book and pulled. In her hands, the skull began to move. She had the curious sensation that its empty sockets were looking, no, glaring at her, their sightless gaze boring a hole into her.
Before she could react, the skull leapt from her hands like a living thing, dancing up into the air. She heard a low moan, filled with rage and resentment.
“Father!” she called out, screaming. The skull sped toward her.
Yorda scrambled to dodge out of the way. She caught the skull with the back of one hand, dashing it against the bars of the cage. It bounced, falling onto the floor before shooting back up into the air. In midair it turned, facing Yorda to come at her again, howling like a wounded animal.
She watched as the jaws opened, spitting the book out onto the floor like a carnivore spits out tattered skin and cartilage from a kill. The discarded book fell with a whoosh of dust onto the tattered robe.
“Father, stop! It’s me! Your daughter!”
The skull flew at her. Yorda dodged to the side, but not quickly enough—teeth bit into her right shoulder, gnawing at her skin like a starving animal. She knocked it away again and again, but it kept attacking, lunging erratically like a rabid dog. Yorda ran in circles around the inside of the cage, sobbing with fear and sadness, horror and pity.
Then she remembered the book. If it truly was as powerful as Ozuma had said, perhaps it could break her mother’s enchantment.
But first she had to reach it, and the skull wouldn’t give her the chance. The moment she took her eyes off the skull, it would come for her, dancing, teeth chattering. After several attempts, she realized what the skull was aiming for. It wanted her neck—to chew through her veins and bathe in her blood.
She lunged for the book, and the skull swooped down and bit her hand. Blinded by the pain, Yorda flung the skull against the bars. This is my father no longer—it’s nothing but a monster! She wondered if she had made it this far only to die with this twisted abomination gnawing at her neck.
“Somebody, help!” she shouted, her voice echoing in the empty tower. She ran, and the skull continued its dogged pursuit.
The next time it came at her, she blocked it inches from her neck and it bit down into the flesh of her palm. Reflexively, she swung her hand, and the skull ricocheted off the bars of the cage, spinning in the air and howling with its teeth bared like a hungry animal. The cry pierced to her bones.
At that moment, the silver chain around her neck broke with an audible snap, as though it had a will of its own. Her father’s signet ring fell down her chest, past her waist, and down her leg, before rolling out onto the ground where it glimmered in the dust.
Yorda bent down quickly, scooping up the ring. Blood gushed from the wound in her wrist, splattering her white dress.
The skull was coming directly at her. Reflexively, she thrust out the hand holding the ring, trying to knock it away. A clear light shone from the ring, disorienting the skull, and it brushed past her head and fell behind her. She turned to see its empty sockets glaring at her, and its long, sharp teeth chattering.
The jaws opened, making a sound like howling laughter as it flew toward her. Yorda focused her mind, forcing all her attention on the skull, her eyes spear points. Time seemed to slow. Aiming for the gap between the teeth, she flung the ring with all her strength. The ring flew through the air, directly into the mouth of the skull as it sped toward her throat.
Time stopped. Her father’s skull screamed.
The light of the ring blazed from the skull’s eye sockets, from its nose, and from its mouth, growing more brilliant, until it seemed to shine through the bone itself. The skull howled a final, bitter howl of rage and pain. Yorda clapped her hands over her ears, knowing that if she listened to it, her heart would break.
The skull exploded. Fragments ricocheted around the cage, trailing particles of golden light, before becoming a rain of sparks that trickled down to the floor, glimmering as they fell.
Quiet returned to the tower. Yorda felt her body sway, and she clutched the bars of the cage. The strength left her legs. At her feet, her father’s remains lay wrapped in his tunic, still once more. Atop the tunic lay the Book of Light. Yorda moved in slow half steps toward the book. She leaned over, bent her knees, and finally reached out her hand.
The book was warm to the touch, like a living thing. The cover was ancient and dry, and it bore five words written in a script Yorda could not read. Yet the spirit of those words hit her like a wave, engulfing her, bringing her back to her feet. Yorda closed her eyes and clutched the book to her chest.
As she did, she felt something flowing into her, a divine power, making her entire body glow so that even when she closed her eyes it was bright.
The power healed her, closing the wounds and cuts she had endured during her descent from the crumbling stairs and the fight with the skull. When she opened her eyes, the bite marks on her wrist had vanished entirely.
She still glowed from the inside, the book filling her with light. When she looked around again, she saw a crowd of the shades surrounding the cage in series of concentric circles. There were too many to count. Nearer still, she saw her father, appearing as he had when he visited her chambers as a ghost. His advisers were there too, standing at his side.
Yorda stared at the apparition of her father. Her father looked back, his eyes filled with warmth and gratitude. He raised one hand, his skin the color of shadow. He was waving farewell. The shades in a circle around the cage began to drift upward. They climbed in silence toward the top of the tower,
fading as they rose, evaporating like mist in the light of dawn.
Her father’s shade lingered the longest. There were no more words. Yorda watched her father’s form as he lifted into the air, free at last. When all of the shadows were gone, the Tower of Winds was filled with light.
For a moment, Yorda stood praying to the Creator, the book clasped in her arms. The words of the prayer she had known since childhood flowed from her lips, leaving her filled with joy such as a child knows tasting a sweet, fresh fruit.
The enchantment was broken. The tower had been purified.
Yorda walked back outside between the idols at the door, heading toward the long stone bridge. At its far end stood the queen.
She was not dressed in the long, flowing white dress she wore that morning on her way to the final match. In its place she wore a black gown, dark as night—the same gown she had worn when she summoned Yorda to the graveyard.
This is my mother’s true form. I have torn away her mask and revealed her for what she is.
The queen was walking across the bridge, coming closer. No, not walking. She was floating.
They faced one another—the queen wrapped in shadow, the castle looming behind her, the daughter clutching the book to her chest, radiant with light.
“What have you done?” The queen’s voice pierced Yorda’s heart like a knife. “Do you even understand?”
Yorda did not reply. She stared at her mother’s face, framed by her flowing black hair. Her skin was whiter than her poor father’s bones. Not the pure white of new-fallen snow, but of nothingness—an absolute white that permits no other color to exist in its presence.
It was this evil darkness and absolute whiteness with which her mother sought to conquer the world. There was no room here for the color of a man’s flesh or the red of his blood, the rich brown of the soil and blue of the sea, or even the deep green of the trees and grasses. She knew then without seeing that the Dark God, too, must resemble his child: black clothes, black hair, and a bloodless white face.
“I did not expect my own daughter to betray me,” the queen said, stepping close enough that they might reach out and touch one another. “It is not too late, Yorda. Return that odious book to the Tower of Winds.”
Yorda shook her head, clutching the book tight. “It isn’t odious. It is a book of freedom. I’ve used it to release your enchantment upon the tower, while you were busy watching men try to kill each other. Men you value little more than the stones upon which you walk.”
“Naive child,” the queen breathed, her face twisting into a scowl.
Yorda blanched but stood her ground. “Do you enjoy watching men squabble over swords and wagers? Do you like to see them inflict pain on each other, Mother?”
Yorda was sure now that Ozuma had fulfilled his promise to her by distracting the queen. As her cruel lust for bloodshed had risen, she had lowered her guard.
“What do you want?” the queen asked, her voice crackling, echoing.
“I don’t know yet. But I do know what I do not want. I do not want a world where the Dark God reigns. I do not want the kind of world you scheme to bring about. I will stop you!”
“You are a fool!” the queen said. With a flourish she spread her arms wide, her long dark sleeves becoming giant wings, blocking Yorda’s sight.
“As child of the Dark God, I will be queen of his world. And you are my daughter. What is mine will one day become yours. Why do you not understand?”
“I don’t want a world of darkness!” Yorda shouted. “I want a world of people. I want a world of love, love like my father showed me. That is what I want!” Yorda took a step forward, closing the distance. “Did you not love my father? Did you never feel any guilt at what you did to him? What was my father to you? A tool? A warm body to fill a throne while it suited you? Did you hesitate at all before killing him, before cursing him to a suffering worse than death?”
“Love?” The queen tossed back her head and laughed. “Where do you get such precious ideas? Do you even know what love is?”
“I do!” Yorda said, the queen’s words like knives in her chest.
“Then,” the queen said with a smile, “you know that love between two people is worth nothing more than dust! Your trifling sentiments reveal how little you comprehend, my child. I am one with a god , and a god is something far greater than any man!”
“You’re wrong!” Yorda shouted breathlessly, looking like a sparrow defying a hawk.
The queen clucked under her breath. “I see now that it was a mistake to bring you into this world. Why did I think to share my life with you? How did I ever imagine something worthwhile could come of an alliance with a mortal? With one misstep I have earned a lifetime of lament!”
Yorda knew she could not cry—that she had no tears left to cry—yet the sadness rose in her all the same. She felt a tear run down her cheek, and she bit back a sob.
The queen beamed. “Foolish human child. See what has befallen your home, all because you had to free your miserable father!”
The queen flitted up into the air and disappeared from Yorda’s sight. In her place, Yorda found herself looking out on the castle. The place of her birth, a homestead from which she had never left. The castle was her entire world. Now that world was shifting, its outline bending in ways it should not, like a scene viewed through warped glass. The sky was frozen, and the very wind had stopped.
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 shu
tting 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!”
ICO: Castle in the Mist Page 27