ICO: Castle in the Mist Read online

  “He’s gone to the Forbidden Moutains,” Ico whispered.

  The guard turned pale. “How do you know that?”

  “No one from the village has gone north looking for him, have they?”

  “Of course not, it’s forbidden. No one will go close.”

  “No one except Toto. If he left in the middle of the night, he’s already there by now.” And when he sees what lies on the other side—

  “I want you to ask the elder something for me,” Ico said suddenly. “He must lend me Silverstar. I’ll catch Toto and bring him back.”

  The guard took a step backward. “What are you talking about? We can’t let you out of this cave. You know that.”

  “But except for the elder, only I can enter the Forbidden Mountains, and he’s too old to ride Silverstar so far.”

  The guard took another step back until he was flat against the door. “You mean you’ve been to the mountains?”

  “Yes. The elder took me there when the Time of the Sacrifice came.”

  “Why’d he do a thing like that?”

  So that I would play my role without question, Ico thought, but he said, “We don’t have time to talk about these things—I have to go after Toto!”

  The guard turned and dashed from the cave, locking the door behind him. Ico’s heart pounded. He paced in circles. He could not hear the sound of the loom today. The entire village must be in disarray. He wondered how his foster mother was taking the news.

  What seemed like only a few moments later, the elder entered. The guard opened the door for him then quickly fled, leaving Ico and the elder alone inside.

  “Elder, I—”

  The elder’s open hand hit Ico’s cheek with such force that he lost his words and gaped. “Elder?”

  “What nonsense did you put in that boy’s head?”

  The elder’s face was severe, his mouth strangely twisted. Ico had never seen him this way before, not even on the day that he had taken him into the north.

  “I haven’t told him anything—”

  “I know Toto came here the other day. I looked the other way because I know he’s your friend. And now I see I have made a terrible mistake. What did you put him up to? What are you planning?”

  Ico’s mind reeled. Planning? Me? Why would I want to involve Toto in any of this? He’s my best friend. Why is the elder accusing me of things I haven’t done? So great was Ico’s shock that he didn’t even notice how his face stung.

  “I’ll admit, I didn’t imagine children were capable of such scheming,” the elder said, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, as if he were holding them back from striking Ico again. “Toto disappears, and you leave the village on the pretense of finding him. With you two on Silverstar and Arrow Wind, no hunter in the village would be able to catch you. Tell me plainly—where is Toto waiting to meet you? Where were you going to go once you were together? I shouldn’t have to mention that there is no safe haven for the boy with horns.”

  “We weren’t planning anything! I swear!”

  “You lie to me, even now?” the elder said.

  “It’s not a lie! Why don’t you believe me?”

  Ico went to hug the elder despite himself, but the elder brushed his hands away and turned his back to the boy. “It gave me much pride that day you accepted your fate as the Sacrifice so readily. Even as it filled me with sorrow that you must bear this burden, I felt great gratitude. And now, you have betrayed us all.”

  Ico stood there, staring at the elder’s withered back, unable to think of anything to say. That back was cold and hard, a barrier that none of his explanations or pleas could hope to pass.

  When Ico had been younger, he had often gone for rides upon that back. And he had known since the time when his horns had been nothing more than bumps, that before the day came when he could give the frail, weakened elder a ride upon his own back, he would have to leave the village.

  “The Mark will be ready for you by the end of the day,” the elder said, still facing the wall. “Once it is complete, a signal fire in the watchtower will inform the priest’s entourage in their lodgings across the river that the time has come. They will be in Toksa within a day, and you will leave with them without delay.”

  “I won’t go anywhere until Toto is back in the village,” Ico managed to say, forcing out the words.

  “I thought you might say that.” The elder snickered; it was a cold, derisive sound. “Buying yourself more time, no doubt.”

  “I’m not, I swear it!”

  “Whatever the case, Silverstar has already left. A messenger has gone to tell the priest what has happened. We will wait for word from him before deciding what to do about the boy. Until then, we can only keep searching for Toto in hopes that he was struck with a sudden urge to go hunting and will return of his own accord. I will send no one toward the mountains in the north, let alone you. Your plan has failed.”

  Ico felt something cold on his cheek and lifted his hand to touch it. For the first time, he realized he was crying.

  “I never thought to run from my responsibility.”

  The elder was silent.

  “Especially not since we went to the Forbidden Mountains, and I saw what lay beyond. My heart hasn’t wavered, not even for a moment. I couldn’t let something like that happen to Toksa, or to any place. If I can help stop that—if that’s my fate—then I accept it.”

  The elder stood as silent and still as an ancient tree. The only motion in the cave was Ico’s trembling lips and the teardrops that fell from his eyes.

  “It’s not a lie,” Ico said. “I haven’t lied to you. I could never send Toto into danger, even if I wanted to escape. I couldn’t.”

  The elder hung his head and spoke in a low, rough voice. “The old books tell us we must never trust our hearts to the Sacrifice. How I wish I had understood the meaning of those words before now.”

  With his long robes dragging across the dirt behind him, the elder walked unsteadily from the cave. Ico didn’t try to stop him. He sat there in silence, quietly sobbing.

  In the distance, the sound of the loom began.

  Mother—I want to see her. She’d understand how I feel. Like she always does. “I know, Ico,” she’d say. “Don’t cry.”

  Or maybe that, too, was only a dream. Maybe she would never be like that again. Maybe to accept his role as Sacrifice was to accept that the elder, and Oneh, and everyone else he knew would change forever.

  For the first time, the cruelty of it all sank inside his heart. Ico covered his face with both hands and wept out loud.

  Yeah, you’re a good horse, real good.

  Arrow Wind’s hooves skipped lightly over the stones, never flagging. The horse’s body was sleek and supple beneath Toto’s legs, his neck thick and strong, and his eyes alight with a black luster. Arrow Wind galloped onward, his chestnut mane whipping in the wind.

  Toto had never felt so alive in his life. He had always wanted to ride like this. He was having so much fun that he had almost forgotten where he was going and why he had snuck out of the village late in the night.

  By the time the dawn star shone in the sky, he had already reached the foothills of the mountains in the north. There, he stopped to give Arrow Wind a rest, watering him and rubbing him down as he whispered words of praise in his ears. They had ridden hard across the grasslands separating the village from the mountains without stopping. Toto ate some baked crackers, drank some water, and waited for the first light of dawn before beginning the climb up the Forbidden Mountains.

  It was his first time coming here—he had never even heard of someone making the trip until the other day. Even still, in the morning light, the mountains seemed almost disappointingly peaceful and green. There was no path up them, but the slope was easy, with only short, mossy grass growing beneath the swaying branches of the willow trees. Arrow Wind kept his pace well. Toto gave him an occasional rub on the neck to keep him from going too fast. Other than that, he leaned forward and listen
ed to the pleasing sound the horse’s hooves made on the grass below.

  By the time the sun was shining on him directly, he was nearly halfway up the mountains. He looked back down at the grassland over which they had come. It spread out flat as far as he could see. It was beautiful.

  These mountains aren’t scary at all, he thought. What’s so forbidden about this?

  Toto’s chest swelled. A light of hope lit his face from the inside. His heart danced, running ahead of him toward the Castle in the Mist. He would go there together with Ico, defeat the master in the castle, and save the village. There was nothing to be scared of after all. Everyone had let themselves be frightened into cowardice by rumors and stories. If only they had ever dared to face it head on, they would have realized that they were stronger.

  Arrow Wind’s footfalls mirrored Toto’s heart, growing lighter with every step as the little warrior and his gallant horse made their way up toward the pass.

  If Toto had been just a little older, and his eyes a little more like those of the wary hunter, he would have noticed something very strange. Other than himself and the horse beneath him, there was no sign of life on these hills. No birds sang, no insects buzzed. Only the leaves of the trees swayed in the cool forest air. This was why the hunters never strayed here, why it was taboo to venture under these boughs.

  But Toto noticed nothing. Nor was Arrow Wind frightened. Together, they reached the pass. Here the forest and sky opened around them, and they could see for miles in every direction. Toto dismounted and walked through the pass, coming to a stop at the other side.

  He saw something that staggered his imagination.

  A city, surrounded by high, gray walls. It was giant, enormous, the largest city he’d ever seen. It was dozens of times larger than Toksa, at least. The houses were monumental stone edifices, standing close together. Brick-lined streets crisscrossed between them. He spotted something that must have been a church, with a tall spire that reached for the sky and a large hall with a flag flying above it.

  And there were people. A great throng, filling the streets.

  Toto’s eyes went wide, and his mouth gaped. Then, for the first time, he felt uneasy.

  Why was the entire city so gray, from corner to corner? And the people too—why were they gray?

  Why isn’t anyone moving?

  Everyone stood in the streets, perfectly still. When he squinted his eyes and looked, he noticed the flag wasn’t moving either. Perhaps the breeze that blew against Toto’s cheek up here in the pass did not reach down so far.

  [5]

  THE MEN OF the village returned empty-handed from the day’s search. They watered their horses and rested aching limbs before quickly conferring and heading back out. The looks of determination in their eyes were undermined by a growing certainty that Toto had gone north, toward the mountains—though none dared say it.

  Sometime after noon, the elder met with a messenger from the lodge across the river, come to tell them that the priest from the capital was growing tired of waiting.

  In the weaving room, Oneh worked the loom tirelessly. She had only paused once that day, to glare at the elder when he came to make sure she wasn’t worrying about Toto instead of her task.

  The elder had sent word back with the messenger, asking with utmost politeness for another three days. The messenger returned bearing both a message and an air of grandeur, and he cast a disparaging eye at the hunters hurrying to and from the village.

  “If the situation here is beyond your ability to handle,” the messenger told the elder, “it would be a simple matter for us to send our guards to assist you.” There was a haughty ring to the man’s words.

  The elder bowed deeply. “Please tell them it is nothing so serious. We are merely doing all that we can to carry out our instructions in accordance with the priest’s wishes. We remain, as always, entirely loyal.”

  After the messenger left, the elder stood clenching his fists. He told himself that he was furious at Ico’s betrayal, at Toto’s recklessness, and Oneh’s stubbornness—but the more he tried to summon his wrath, the more his true feelings interfered. If that self-important, self-serving priest wants the Sacrifice so badly, why doesn’t he come dirty his own hands? Whatever excuses he might make, he knew the priest didn’t stay in Toksa because he didn’t want to hear the village’s laments at having to hand over the Sacrifice—to feel the accusatory stares of the villagers. The priest could lock Ico up in a cave, make Oneh weave the Mark, and silence the villagers’ questions himself…if he wasn’t such a coward. It left a bitter taste in the elder’s mouth to realize that no small part of his anger was directed at himself for striking Ico and speaking to him as he had.

  A woman from the village arrived, breathless, calling for him. The hunter who had taken a fall several days before had just passed away. The elder’s heart sank even deeper, and the lines in his face hardened so that he looked more like a statue carved from stone than a man of living flesh. How easy it would be if only his heart would turn to stone as well. To stone. All to stone…

  Toto sat astride Arrow Wind, gaping down at the scene below him. That’s why nothing moves.

  Even the flag flying from the hall had been frozen in mid-flutter.

  Toto urged Arrow Wind down the mountainside and rode directly through the city gates. The horse walked smoothly with Toto gripping the reins, but Toto no longer rode gallantly. He crouched low against the horse’s back, clinging to its living warmth for encouragement.

  The world around him was petrified and gray.

  The people in the streets around him had been frozen in time. Some pointed toward the sky, others ran, holding their heads in their hands, while still others held their mouths open in soundless screams. Toto wondered how many years they had stood there like this. When he reached out hesitantly to touch one, it crumbled into dust beneath his fingertips.

  Arrow Wind whinnied and Toto steadied his grip on the reins.

  No matter which turn he took on the winding streets, people turned to stone awaited him. At first, he tried to believe that these had all been created. Perhaps someone important from the capital had crafted a sculpture of an entire city here for some purpose beyond Toto’s comprehension. They had made countless statues—entire houses—and encircled the grim tableau within a wall when they were done.

  But why would they do that? Was the city a decoy of some kind? Toto nodded, pleased with his theory. It has to be that. When the enemy saw a city full of people unprepared, men without helmets, with bundles on their backs, leading children by the hand, people carrying baskets and fetching water, they would be tempted to attack. And then—

  Toto’s imagination failed to produce the second phase of the strategy. It also struck him as odd that the statues would be crying and shouting and obviously fearful if they were intended to appear an easy target. And nothing explained why so many of them were pointing upward, toward the western sky.

  Toto was not the brightest boy, but he had a keen eye for detail, and everything he saw undermined his attempts to remain calm. The looks of abject fear on the faces of the stone people. Hands raised as though to ward off the fast approach of…something. Lips shaped around cries of despair when there was no longer time to escape.

  He reached the entrance to a street where a pile of barrels sat, one stacked upon the other. Toto stopped. Dismounting, he reached out to touch one of the barrels, and its surface crumbled like a castle of sand. Craning his neck, he saw a figure behind the barrels—a boy about the same height as he, cowering. Fragments of the crumbled barrel dusted his stone hair.

  The boy was smiling.

  Toto understood instantly. He wasn’t hiding from whatever it was everyone else had been looking at—he was playing hide-and-seek. Whatever happened to the people in this city had happened so quickly, he hadn’t even had time to realize that he was about to die.

  Reluctantly, Toto admitted what he had known for some time already. This city was no grand work of sculpture. T
his was the reason why the mountains in the north were forbidden. This was the curse of the Castle in the Mist.

  The master in the castle was capable of dooming an entire walled city in the space of a breath.

  This was what Ico had seen. This was what he meant by “trouble,” why he was so determined to sacrifice himself for the village.

  Arrow Wind gave a light whinny and rubbed his nose on Toto’s shoulder. Toto stood, rubbing the horse’s neck, unable to take his eyes off the stone boy. At the end of the street, he saw a stable. The horses were still inside, their manes a uniform ashen gray. Toto was acutely aware of Arrow Wind’s warmth beneath his hand, the softness of his mane, and the musty smell of him. He pictured Arrow Wind turning to stone, a cold gray like the other horses.

  Arrow Wind whinnied louder, his front hooves lifting off the ground. Toto pulled on the reins and looked up at him, when he spotted something in the western sky—something that shouldn’t be. It was a thin black mist, or perhaps a distant swarm of insects. As the mist drifted closer, it began to coalesce into a shape. He saw a broad forehead, the straight bridge of the nose, and flowing black hair. Finally, he saw a pair of eyes.

  It was a woman’s face, covering the sky above him.

  Toto heard a soundless voice.

  Who are you?

  Toto remembered playing once with Ico in a cave near the village. They had gone deeper than any of the other kids dared and discovered an underground pool. The water was as clear as crystal, and a faint light glowed at the bottom. Ico and Toto threw stones into the pool. The echoes of the splashes reverberated off the walls of the cave, followed by another splash and another echo. They kept tossing stones until the echoes overlapped one another, making a strange music that sounded almost like a vesper prayer. That was what this voice reminded him of—though the woman’s face hung in the sky, her voice seemed to echo from the depths of the earth. Or maybe she was speaking directly into Toto’s soul.

  Who are you? Why are you here?

  The woman’s lips twisted like pennants in the wind.

  Intruder.

  Now Arrow Wind reared and shook his mane, and the reins slipped from Toto’s hand. Before he could regain them, the horse galloped off madly.