“It’s all right,” Ico said. He knew the castle would tell him what Yorda would not. He would learn soon enough of what had come next. Now that the path to her memories had been reopened, the visions would continue whether Ico wanted to see them or not.
“Well, I’m not worried,” Ico said.
Yorda looked up at him, her reddened eyes full of pity. How can you know?
“Because of this,” he said, patting the Mark on his chest. It rippled slightly at his touch. “Remember, I told you the queen doesn’t like it? Well, I think I figured out why my Mark is so special. The pattern on this must be the pattern from the Book of Light! When the elder said I was their light of hope, that’s what he was talking about!”
Ico was young and his body, though small, was full of courage and strength. But it was the Mark that distinguished him from the many Sacrifices who had come to the castle before, and that had bade the phantasm of Ozuma to appear to Ico. The elder was right. Ozuma was right. There was nothing to fear.
Now the boy was talking about another friend, a boy named Toto. He must’ve found the book, Ico was saying. Yet the more he spoke, the deeper Yorda’s sadness became. His efforts to encourage her were valiant, but Ico was still too young to understand the dark tangle in Yorda’s heart, much as he was still too young to wonder why the elder had told him not to speak of his Mark to the priest from the capital. Too young to let the little doubts build up inside him and shake his confidence.
There was much he could still ask her: Why had the priest-king of the Holy Zagrenda-Sol Empire been unable to destroy the castle? Why had Ozuma failed? Why did the queen remain here? How did the castle become enshrouded in mist, why was it insatiably hungry for Sacrifices made in the image of the knight Ozuma? Why had his bloodline been chosen for this dark destiny?
But Ico was more concerned with the future than the past. Mistakes were mistakes, and failures were failures. Why torment someone with memories of their past?
He would accomplish what his ancestor had not. That was what Ozuma wanted. He would free the Sacrifices as Yorda had freed her mother’s victims so long ago. He would bring peace to the world.
He would defeat the queen.
Ico put a fist to his Mark, feeling his own heart beat through the fabric. Ico did not know that there were limits to the power of the Book of Light. He did not know that the priests in the capital-the new seat of the Holy Zagrenda-Sol Empire on this continent-knew of the book’s failings all too well. That was why they maintained their silence and proffered up the descendants of Ozuma to the castle. Not all history is told in stories and chronicles. The parts untold, the dark passages of time, were those that swallowed men’s hopes and made the distinctions between good and evil as nebulous as mist.
Ico stood, taking Yorda’s hand, secure in the belief that their path and the answers to his questions would be revealed.
Ico thought back, recalling the pier at the bottom level of the castle where he had first arrived with the priest and his guards. The guard had gone to a room on that same level to retrieve the longsword that opened the idol gates-which was almost certainly the longsword that had once belonged to Ozuma. That’s why it was able to move the idols. It’s imbued with the power of the Book of Light. Just like Yorda.
It made sense now that they had found Ozuma without his sword. For some reason, he had let go of it, and that had led to his defeat.
I have to find Ozuma’s sword. I’ll just retrace my steps back to the underground pier.
With Yorda by his side, he would be able to pass any idols they came across on his way back.
Ico decided that he would first take Yorda to safety when they reached the pier. With the double protection of Ozuma’s sword and the Mark, Ico would be more than ready to face the Queen. There was no sense putting Yorda in any more danger-and it would be too cruel to force her to face her mother again.
Ico nodded to himself and then turned to the girl. While he had been lost in thought, she had wandered some distance away. She was standing near the gates by the foot of one of the stone torch pedestals that lined the courtyard like two rows of soldiers, her head hung low.
“Hueeeh!” he called out to her. When she didn’t come, he ran to join her. Grabbing her hand, he took her to the stone archway that led back to the drawbridge.
But now the stone archway doors were closed, and the arch was much too high for him to climb. Ico pushed and pulled at the doors, but they wouldn’t budge. He gave them a swift kick and immediately regretted it. Ouch.
It was as though the queen had foreseen everything he would do and gone ahead to foil his plans. The castle was like a labyrinth that changed to suit her needs.
Ico growled and, hands on his hips, glared at the arch. Yorda had begun to wander away again. She was off to the right, drifting like a shadow, looking up at a high point on the walls.
Yorda stood at a dead end too. It looked like the way here had been hastily barricaded. Large boards had been nailed to the door jambs. They overlapped one another, leaving gaps large enough for him to peek through.
Ico thought he might be able to pull off the boards if he got his fingers through the gaps, but even though he tugged till his face turned red, the barricade remained firmly in place.
He had all but given up when he looked to see Yorda pointing to a corner of the wall near the barricade where some round objects lay in a pile.
“What are those?”
Ico walked over and examined the black objects. They were each about the size of his head and too heavy for him to lift with one hand. He leaned down and sniffed one. It smelled like dirt and-
Firepowder!
He had seen hunters smear tar mixed with firepowder on arrows to take down particularly large or dangerous animals. Because of the risk, he had never been allowed to handle the tar himself, but he recognized the smell at once.
“There’s gotta be a ton of firepowder in each of these!” He looked at Yorda, his eyes wide. “They must’ve used these during the battle!”
“Find the queen!”
The voice in Ico’s head, heavier and more fierce than any he had heard before, made him pause for a moment. Is that the priest-king? He realized he was experiencing another memory of the past. “Destroy the barricades! She can’t hide forever!”
The voice faded. Ico blinked his eyes, coming out of the vision. Yorda was standing next to him, so quiet he couldn’t even hear her breathing. The round, dirt-encrusted balls filled with firepowder sat at his feet, looking as harmless as lumps of mud.
“I wonder if they still work?”
Ico ran back to the front gates and lit his stick on one of the torches he found there. Returning, he lit the fuse on one the balls with his newly fashioned torch, and it began to spark and sputter. After pushing the ball up against the barricade, he took Yorda’s hand and moved away as quickly as he could.
The ball didn’t explode with quite as much force as he had expected-he didn’t even have to cover his ears. Even still, it blasted the wooden barricade to smithereens, sending a thousand pieces of wood scattering in every direction. The wind from the blast even extinguished the torch.
Ico grinned. Beyond where the barricade had stood was a narrow passageway with stone walls on either side, a strip of blue sky visible high above.
He would have to move more carefully from here on out. The queen was watching. Ico took the lead, holding up his extinguished torch and walking down the stone-lined corridor.
At the end of the corridor, the walls opened out. To his left was a stone staircase going down to a patch of grassy lawn-another inner courtyard of the castle.
Behind him, Yorda gasped.
“What’s wrong?”