“Liar!” Ico yelled at her, though his voice did not seem like his own. He wasn’t even sure he had shouted.
Silence fell on the room. Even the mist stopped its drifting.
“You lie…” Ico said again, much more quietly this time. “Why would they do that to one of their own?”
“They don’t think of you as one of their own. You are a horned child, a Sacrifice. Nothing more.”
The mist brushed Ico’s cheek like a gently consoling hand.
“When I destroyed their city, the priest-king and his men realized that I was not yet defeated, and they were afraid. Yorda’s treachery also stood revealed. They blamed her, and struck her.”
Ico shook his head, feeling like one of the little wooden dolls with springs for necks that Toto’s father used to make for them.
“They realized that even with the power of the Book of Light they were too weak to ever stand against me. More so now that I had lost my human form! I was indestructible. Even if they managed to cross the waters again and march through my gates, I would merely turn them to stone and wait for the wind to reduce them to dust.”
The queen fell silent. Ico looked up. “So?”
“So…”
“What did the priest-king do?”
The queen leaned very slightly toward him. “He stopped time.”
“They cast an enchantment over the entire castle so that time would stop and I would be trapped within these walls,” the queen explained. “That is why the torches still burn, and the grass still grows green, and the gravestones stand in a neat little line. But in order to do this they needed the power of the Book of Light that was within Yorda. It was through her body that they worked their spell.”
The elder had once told Ico that the Sun God was the source of light, and as the sun wheeled overhead, so did time flow on. What better device than a Book of Light to control the passage of the days?
“They brought her back to the castle to be the cage of time. You see, the glow within Yorda was not just that of the book. She glowed with the time she held captive. It was she over whom the Sacrifices stood guard, not me,” the queen said. “They watched her, making sure she did not gain back her human awareness. The fools who rule your people sent Sacrifice after Sacrifice, encased them in stone, and let the magic of the sarcophagi transform them into monsters. One by one, the shades grew in number while time outside the castle flowed on. They continued sending the Sacrifices so that Yorda might not escape. But the more time she held within her, the greater their unease became. So they sent still more.”
That explains why the creatures wanted to take Yorda back with them so badly. That has to be the answer. That has to be the truth!
The more time accumulated, the deeper their sin. And the hotter their rage and resentment burned. They couldn’t stop the sacrifices, they couldn’t change the custom. The leaders of the empire kept converting people into shadows to keep their lock on the castle safe. It was exactly what the queen had done in the Tower of Winds. Ico understood it with such clarity that it nauseated him.
The queen nodded slowly. “You see it now, Sacrifice. They blamed me for my evil deeds, yet while their words still sang on their lips, they committed the same acts over and over, for many long years.”
The duty of the Sacrifice was never-ending. They would never return to their former selves. Pity us, they had begged him. And he had understood nothing.
“It was Ozuma’s idea that horned children be offered to the castle,” the queen said. Ico listened, forgetting even to breathe.
“When Yorda was chosen for the cage, he offered himself and his descendants as her protectors. ‘If Yorda is to suffer for this, then I deserve the same fate. I will go with her to the Castle in the Mist,’ he said.”
So Ozuma had returned once more to the castle, this time with Yorda. He came without his sword, one horn removed as a sign of his penitence-to show that he had lost his right to be a defender of the land, beloved of the Sun God.
“I greeted them,” the queen was saying, her voice becoming part of the mist that flowed around Ico. “Do you understand why? Why would I let them freeze time around me? Why would I admit Yorda and Ozuma to the castle?”
Ico himself was frozen, as though he had become stone.
“Because I was satisfied, Sacrifice. They were doing my god’s work for me! Picture, if you will, the beloved creations of the Sun God here on the land, the very ones he told to go forth and prosper, sacrificing one of their own kind, twisting them into horrible shapes and locking them away across the sea, and then accepting the resultant peace as their rightful reward. Did they really think they could sin and just wash their hands of it, pretending that nothing was wrong? Is that the proper way for men to behave?”
Another derisive smile spread across the queen’s face. She lifted her hands toward the sky beyond the darkened ceiling of the throne room. Then her hands moved, tracing the shape of a globe in the air.
“When men do such things of their own accord, then the entire land is an offering to the Dark God. My master takes as his power man’s fear, man’s hatred, and man’s anger. How pleased he must be! I had won. The darkness had won. Now you see why I was content.”
Now Ico saw the truth. When the custom of the Sacrifices had been established, the battle between light and darkness had already been decided. The long line of Sacrifices throughout the years had been nothing less than the procession of the defeated army. If men were reduced to sacrificing other men to appease the darkness, the Dark God’s reign had already begun.
The queen had only to sit back and watch the foolish humans do her work for her. Once they had decided to kill not just one person, but an entire race, the way was set. They had come up with their own reasons for the sacrifices, and their own method for carrying them out. There was nothing to stop them. People were always good at justifying their actions if there was a need, or even the appearance of one, and were quick to turn to violence when necessary. They washed away blood with blood, kindled hatred with more hatred, killed, plundered, always claiming that they were in the right as they built their mountain of corpses-an altar to the Dark God.
The Dark God’s revival was imminent, with or without the queen’s help. The Castle in the Mist would rule the world, and the queen would regain her former glory.
Ico sat limply, head hanging down, unable to stand up from the stone floor. He lacked the strength even to cry. He wanted to shout at her again, to tell her she lied, but he couldn’t summon the words.
This is the truth, a voice said inside him. “That’s why…that’s why you didn’t kill me,” he said, eyes on the floor. “There was no need to.”
The queen said nothing, nor did Ico need her to. “You said that I was lucky. You meant I was lucky because my Mark freed me from the sarcophagus, saved me from an eternity as a shade. That’s why you didn’t need me, why you said I could leave.”
Only now did the elder’s parting words make sense. He would be able to return to Toksa Village thanks to the Mark. A Sacrifice who could not become a shade was useless. That was why they didn’t want him to tell the priests about the Mark. If they had learned of its power, they would have ripped it from his chest on the spot.
“How will you live?” the queen asked abruptly. “Now that you bear the truth upon your back, where will you go? Do you have hope, little Sacrifice?”
Ico had no words with which to answer.
“Do you still want to take Yorda from the castle?” she asked gently.
Ico felt fresh tears well in his eyes.
“You might as well try. I won’t stop you.”
“What?”
“I believe you’re actually capable now. You have clearly been chosen by someone or something. Take her by the hand and cross back to the land, if you so wish.”