Though the white sails on the mill were tattered and dirty, they still rotated, creaking gently in the wind.
“I wonder if we can go any higher here?”
Ico turned to Yorda just in time to see a person standing directly behind her topple from the edge of the terrace and plummet to the ground below.
3
ICO YELPED, CAUSING Yorda to jump back in alarm. She landed with one heel hanging over the edge of the terrace. Ico grabbed her arm at the last moment, pulling her back to safety. “Someone just fell! Right there, behind you!”
He had seen it happen with his own eyes. Another vision?
Ico stepped carefully to the edge of the terrace, looking down over the precipice to the treetops far below. He could see no bodies lying on the canopy, no obvious places where branches had broken. No bodies lay sprawled out across the small patches of grass he could see between the boughs.
Though he had only caught a glimpse, he got that the fallen person was a woman. Chewing his lip, Ico walked the same path he had seen the vision walk, trying to figure out what she might have been doing. The long hem of her robes had dragged on the grass behind her as she walked, and her black hair had been tied up into a bun on her head.
“A handmaiden…maybe?”
Yorda had been following Ico with her eyes, but when she heard him say that word, her expression changed.
“Do you know who it was?” he asked. Yorda looked away in silence. Her eyes were dark, the way they had been ever since Ico learned about her name, her parentage, and her past.
“Well,” Ico said as he paced, “maybe she threw herself from the wall when the castle descended into chaos. It would fit with everything else that was going on.” He looked up at Yorda for some acknowledgment, but she did not appear to be listening.
Ico left Yorda with instructions not to get too close to the edge of the terrace and began climbing the foundation at the base of the windmill. The stones were worn and cracked, so it was easy for him to find handholds. While he toiled, climbing, the windmill blades creaked merrily on above him.
When he had reached the top of the foundation, he picked his moment and jumped onto one of the spinning blades. The sail flapped, snapping in the wind as the blades turned to carry Ico all the way to the top. He held on tight and enjoyed the view.
From here, he could see the eastern celestial sphere as well as a view of the winding path along the top of the castle wall he would have to take to get there. To the left of the sphere was a separate structure connected to the wall, which his borrowed memories indicated was the Eastern Arena. Beyond the wall stretched the blue sea. He jumped off the blade onto one of the roofs of the castle. Up here, the stones were even more weathered, with large cracks and tufts of weeds growing up from the gaps.
He looked out toward the arena. Something like a giant circular window dominated one of its walls. The window was closed with gray shutters made of the same material as the walls around them, but when he squinted his eyes, he could make out a thin line running down the middle where the shutters opened. He could draw a line between the circular window and the celestial sphere that led directly to the main gates. If he could open up the window on this side and the west and get the light through there to the spheres on either side of the gates, the gates would open.
He would start with the east, then would just have to run through the castle to the opposite side. Ico checked the route several times to make sure he wouldn’t forget. It would take a while, but actually knowing where he was going was a huge boost to his morale.
He walked along the wall from the place where the windmill had brought him and found an idol gate-a pair of squat statues-waiting at the end of the passage to block his path.
It would be impossible to bring Yorda up by the route he had taken. She could manage clambering up small rises and the like, but he couldn’t imagine her clinging to spinning windmill blades.
In the end, he was able to find some old wooden crates that he stacked to create steps at a place further down the wall. It was a long way around, but it was better than nothing. Ico ran back to the windmill, growing increasingly nervous with each moment Yorda was out of his sight. He didn’t want to think what would happen if the shadow-creatures attacked while they were apart.
He spotted her, standing on the terrace, lost in a reverie. For a moment, he wondered what exactly was going through her mind, then he shook the thought from his head and called out to her.
“You have to go around! I made a place for you to climb up! Around that way!” He jabbed with his finger back toward his makeshift stairs. “Understand?”
After a long pause, she started walking. From his high vantage point, he could watch her every move and call out to her whenever she was walking in the wrong direction.
Once she had climbed up to a higher landing, there was another problem. In order to get to the idol gate, she would have to cross a gap in the walkway. It had been easy enough for Ico to jump, but for Yorda, it would require quite an effort, and if she missed, she would plummet to the ground far below. The thought made Ico’s knees go wobbly. “No looking down, okay?” he called out to her from across the gap. Yorda immediately looked down and took three steps backward.
“It’s really not that far across. You can make it if you jump.” He reached out his arm to her. “I’ll reach out and catch you, all right? Don’t worry, just give yourself a running start and jump when you reach the edge. Just like jumping over a creek,” he said, realizing that Princess Yorda had probably never jumped over a creek. She might never have even seen a creek.
“See that?” He indicated the idol gate behind him. “If we go through there, we can get to the Eastern Arena. I figured out a way. We just have to get through here, and I need your help to do it.”
Yorda shook her head and took another step back.
“Well, I can’t do this alone,” Ico retorted. “Look, if we waste any more time-”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a black pool of shadow began to boil on the ground behind the girl.
“Yorda! The shades are coming! Behind you! You have to jump!”
Yorda took a quick look around, then back at Ico’s outstretched hand. She hesitated.
“You know if they get you I won’t be able to get out of here either!” Ico shouted, wondering if it were even really true. If the shades grabbed her, wouldn’t they be satisfied and leave? They had asked him not to interfere, that was all. Maybe if he gave them what they wanted, they would leave him alone. He could find another way out of the castle.
The first dark shape began to emerge from the pool, wobbling eerily as it stuck a misshapen foot out onto the stone. Its glowing white eyes found Yorda and glowed brighter.
Yorda turned back to face the creature, even as it spread its clawed arms to envelop her in an embrace.
Leave me. Run. Save yourself.
The words seemed to ring in Ico’s mind, though his ears heard nothing. A wave of weariness crashed over him. If she wanted to stay here in the Castle in the Mist, who was he to stop her? I should just leave-
Suddenly, Ico’s head began to ache as though someone had set fire to the base of his horns.
With a start, he realized it was Ozuma. Somehow, the spirit of his ancestor had crept inside his mind, driving back the shadows that threatened to cloud his thinking.
“Jump!” Ico shouted, swinging his fists. “Jump now!”
Yorda turned away from the shadow-creature just as its claws were about to close on her shoulders. Her eyes met Ico’s, then fell to his outstretched hand.