Chapter 12 – Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Dakota Castle. Sora, Donald, and Goofy would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Jiminy suggested they be cautious in their approach to the enemy stronghold, but Sora had other ideas. The image of dear, sweet Mira etched in his mind like a particularly bothersome splinter that makes your hands sore while you're trying to do your pushups at the gym, he charged ahead, obvious to the dangers that awaited him.
Oblivious, too, even to the name of the castle. His ignorance and curiosity finally got the best of him just as he was about to cross the moat out front. "Where is this place anyway?" he asked no one in particular, hoping one of his friends would answer before one of the many thousands of eyes staring at him out of the darkness alongside the path.
"It's called Dakota Castle, I think," said Goofy. "That's what the doormat says."
"Doormat?"
True enough, there in front of the drawbridge was a rectangular piece of plastic grasslike material with the words, "Welcome to Dakota Caste – Please wipe your feet before entering" printed around the edges.
"Gawrsh," said Goofy. "It sure is nice of the Heartless to keep their palace clean."
"Clean?" said Sora. "Look at this place. It's practically a bog! Wiping your feet must be just for show."
"Or else…" said Donald.
"Or else what?" Sora said.
"Or else there's poison on the grass out here, and the Heartless don't want anyone to track it inside!"
As soon as Donald's word sank in, everyone charged headlong for the entrance. There, they collided with a metal gate probably meant to keep out intruders. Sora found himself at the bottom of a dogpile of battered heroes.
"How will we get in?" Goofy wondered.
"Get off me and we'll think about it!" said Donald. "You guys just have no manners sometimes, squashing such an innocent guy as me."
"I think we use that." Goofy pointed to a small, bright red spot on the wood of the bridge, shaped roughly like the head of a mouse.
"A Trinity Mark!" Sora beamed. "Just what we needed."
"Ah, phooey," said Donald. "I always get squashed when we do this."
"We don't really have a choice," said Goofy. "Not if we want to stop the Heartless and save Sora's girlfriend."
"I told you on the way over," said Donald. "He already has a girlfriend. This new one is just a concubine."
"So how many does that make?" Goofy began counting love interests on his fingers, but Sora interrupted him.
"Will you two please be quiet and charge?"
Three bumped heads and some mysterious pyrotechnics later, the front door to Dakota Caste swung open, revealing a dimly lit main hall that almost certainly led to danger, intrigue, and one poor little girl. Overhead, a chandelier dangled from the thinnest of wires, threatening to crash down upon the three heroes at any minute. Grotesque carvings along all of the walls looked almost as if they would come to life to eat the intruders. Paintings more horrifying than Salvador Dali could paint after a bad drug trip lined the walls higher up, their demonic subjects watching the middle of the room. Sora could swear he saw a crash of lighting in one of the windows, even though it wasn't raining outside.
"Anybody home?" Goofy shouted into the (possibly) empty chamber. Only his echo answered him.
"I think they're all out to lunch," said Donald. "Maybe we should try back another time."
"Don't be silly," said Sora. "Mira is in here somewhere. We just saw a whole swarm of Heartless head into the forest here. Of course they were going to this castle."
"We better start exploring, then," said Goofy. "No sense waiting near the entrance."
The entrance, which shut behind them as they stepped out into the room.
"Automatic doors," said Donald. "How convenient!"
"I think that was supposed to scare us," said Goofy, "but don't these Heartless know that we can always exit a dungeon we've entered in case we need to rest up?"
"Please don't talk about things like that," said Jiminy. "It's really bad form."
"If you put it that way," said Goofy, "I think we should just keep going. Never mind that…"
A swarm of materializing Heartless cut Goofy off. Sora counted at least a dozen Shadows and two Fat Bandits. With no time to prepare a strategy, he whipped out his Keyblade and charged.
"Enemies!" said Donald. "Time to try out my new battle cry. For Daaaaaaaaaisy!"
"I need a battle cry, too," said Goofy. "Spoooooon!"
It only took a minute to turn all of the Heartless into puffs of smoke, but that didn't signal the end of the commotion.
"Very good," said a voice from somewhere up above Sora. "Very good, indeed. I didn't know you had such potential."
Sora recognized the voice. "Kairi? Is that you?"
"Who?" said the voice. "I know no Kairi."
"Don't play tricks on me now," said Sora. "I know your voice. It's the dearest thing to me."
"How quaint," the voice said. "You hold dear that which holds your friend Mira in the most miserable of painful vicegrips. I scoff at your puny attempt at bravado. Still, I can't help but be a little flattered. Most people hate my voice."
"Show yourself, whoever you are!" said Sora.
"In time, boy." The voice chuckled. "In time, you will know the true power of the Ice Princess."
"Ice Princess?" said Donald. "Man, these villain names just keep getting cornier and cornier."
"Do not underestimate me!" said the voice. "I am like nothing you have faced thus far."
"Yeah, yeah," said Sora. "If I had a penny for every time I heard that one."
"Insolent fools. I shall destroy you."
Goofy scratched his head. "Has she said anything that isn't stock dialogue so far? For all we know, that voice could just be a recording. You know, one of those automedicated alarm systems."
"Automatic," said Donald. "But you have a point."
"I'll tell you whose dialogue is stock!" The voice seemed angry, or at least its owner did. "Mr. 'We'll always be together, Kairi.' I've read more romantic lines in novels I bought at the grocery store!"
"I thought you didn't know Kairi," said Goofy.
"I—I did say that, didn't I? Never mind. I don't really know what I know. I'm not that big on self-knowledge."
"Nostral te ipsum," said Goofy. "That's what I always say."
Sora and Donald sighed in unison.
"Is he always like this?" asked the voice.
"I'm afraid so," said Donald.
"Then I'll kill him first. Come, see me in the dungeon if you want wish for death."
Sora shook his head. "These bad guys. They spend all this time devising evil schemes and building elaborate hideouts with all the little intricate decorative details, and then they don't even take a minute to think up some original speeches. Tsk, tsk."
"I don't think that was the main bad guy this time, Sora," said Donald. "Call it a hunch."
"We'll see," said Sora. "We'll see when we reach the dungeon."
"And where would that be?" said Goofy.
Nobody knew, so they scanned the perimeter of the room for clues. Surely one of the many doors leading elsewhere would show some signs of being the entrance to the dungeon. It was a simple task to check behind each one to see if any showed any signs of leading to the prison area, but before the party even got to the first door, Donald stumbled over a better solution.
"A map, guys," he said. "I'll bet this will tell us everything."
Sure enough, on the wall next to the entrance was a map of Dakota Castle, complete with markers for landmarks, a legend, and an arrow with 'You are here' printed next to it. Landmarks in the legend included the throne room, the torture chamber, the execution altar, and the dungeon.
"This way!" Donald said as he herded the others in the direction indicated by the map.
"Hold on," said Goofy. "Shouldn't we let Jiminy copy this down in his journal in case we get lost later on?"
"Good idea," said Sora. "Then we can access the map at any time while we're in the dungeon. Wow. That sounds like something I've heard somewhere before, but I just can't place it."
XXX
The castle dungeon was about as inviting as a William James novel on a rainy afternoon the day after a stock market crash. It wasn't the sort of place anyone would want to stay for any length of time, and from the battered and crushed skeletons hanging from the walls and the trails of dried blood across the floor, Sora figured most prisoners had things to worry about other than being alive and in prison. He could only hope Mira hadn't joined the poor unfortunate souls on the wall.
And she hadn't. Not yet. She didn't appear to have much life left in her as she slumped across the floor of her cell, but she was still breathing. Still breathing, and still able to be rescued, thanks to the Keyblade. Sora unlocked her cell door, darted to her side, and propped her head up in his arms.
"Mira! It's me, Sora," he said to her, but she could find little to say in return. Something done to her in the recent past had left her incapable of answering. She didn't appear to have any bruises or cuts or other external signs of torture, but something was wrong.
"Mira!" Sora tried again. "Do you hear me? I'm here to rescue you."
Again, she did not reply. Sora felt a tear run down his cheek as he stared into her eyes. They were open and just as gorgeous as he always pictured them, but they lacked the spark they had back at the park. They were the eyes of someone who didn't want to go on with life.
"Maybe this'll cheer her up," said Donald. He produced a book from his pack and held it in front of Mira's face.
"Hey, what's that?" said Sora. "Where did you…?"
"I picked it up in a souvenir shop on the way here," said Donald. "It was going to be a present for Kairi, but I think it'll be useful enough for us in this situation."
"What is it, though?"
Before Donald could answer, Mira came to life. Not slowly or gradually; she jumped up, at once, as if ignited by a spark plug. Her smile returned to her face. "Sora, is that you?"
"Yeah, it is."
"You look so cute!"
Sora blushed. "Why, thanks. You, too."
"No, I mean here, in the book."
She grabbed the volume from Donald and shoved it in Sora's face, but she couldn't resist hugging him before he could read the title.
"To think you were once so little, too," Mira said. "Still had your hair, and I had no idea you had such a smooth bottom."
"Such a… WHAT?" Sora's face contorted in confusion.
"See?" Mira pointed to the cover. The books title read, Anthology of Embarrassing Naked Baby Photos. The star model on the cover looked just like every other baby, except instead of Winston Churchill's hair, it had brown spikes shooting off in every direction. To erase any doubt about the authenticity of the image, Sora's name appeared in the lower corner of the photo.
"How did that get to this world?" Sora fumed. "Really, I had no idea my mother would even dare send pictures like that to a publisher. But in this world? I need to have a talk with her."
"Gawrsh, Sora," said Goofy. "We thought you were just a Keyblade Master. Now it turns out you're a model."
"A cute one, too," said Mira.
"Shut up," said Sora. "I don't want to hear it. And burn that stupid book."
Mira hugged Sora tighter. "There's nothing to be so ashamed of. We're going to be married someday anyway. Right, my knight in shining armor?"
"Whoa, who said anything about marriage?" said Sora. "We're not even adults yet."
Mira giggled. "It brought me out of my little funk there, anyway. And I needed it. The people in charge here know some of the worst methods or torture imaginable. You know what they did to me?"
"No," said Sora. "Do I want to know?"
"They tied me up and forced me to listen to Hayden Panettiere. Singing. Do you have any idea what that's like? It's like the opposite of music."
"Why, though?" said Sora.
"It's because I'm a bit of a fugitive, for musical crimes."
Donald shrugged. "Musical crimes, like disco?"
"Worse than that, I'm afraid," said Mira. "I've been hiding contraband. Musical contraband. My family keeps a collection of banned Beatles records."
"How is that bad?" said Donald. "The Beatles are terrific."
"The Beatles have been banned every since she came to power. All good music has, actually. It doesn't get talked about much, but…"
"But?" said Donald.
"I don't think you're from this world. Otherwise, you'd know about her."
"That's a pretty good guess," said Sora.
"Sora!" Donald scolded. "You're not supposed to tell people about the worlds being connected. King's orders!"
"Sorry," said Sora. "But no secrets from Mira."
"I'll have to tell you the story, then," said Mira. "And I'm sorry you have to hear something so sad, but it's the truth of this place. For many long years, we've all been her slaves."
"Who is she?" Sora asked.
Mira looked him straight in the eyes. "The Banshee Queen, Yoko Ono."
