ICO: Castle in the Mist

by Miyuki Miyabe

  The priest knew that the guard had a child of his own—a boy roughly the same age as the Sacrifice. He knew the pain that man had felt on their journey whenever he saw the irons on the Sacrifice’s hands. How could he help but imagine, What if it were my son?

  But if they did not offer the Sacrifice, the anger of the castle would not abate. And should the castle’s fury be unleashed, there would be no future for the world of men.

  Though our Creator is good, thought the priest, our Creator is not omnipotent. The enemy of our Creator is the enemy of peace upon this world—in league with evil, maker of a pact with the underworld. So men must shed blood and suffer sacrifice, and be allies to god, that evil might be driven back. What else can we do?

  Forgive me, the priest whispered deep in his heart.

  “Take my hand,” the guard said at last, extending his arm toward Ico, thankful for the faceplate that hid his tears.

  The guard lifted him lightly off the floor. With heavy steps, he carried him toward the stone sarcophagus that sat pulsing with light, growling…hungry.

  [2]

  "DO NOT BE angry with us. This is for the good of the village,” the priest said as he closed the lid. It was the first thing he had said to Ico since their journey began, and it was also the last.

  There was no apology in his words, no plea. The voice behind that veil of cloth was even and cold.

  The good of the village…

  For the first time, he felt angry. This isn’t just for Toksa, Ico thought to himself, recalling the stone city he had seen from the mountain pass. It wasn’t fair to blame the entire custom of the Sacrifice on the village. It wasn’t their fault.

  The interior of the sarcophagus was spacious. Seated, his head wouldn’t even have touched the top, but his hands had been secured in a wooden pillory fastened to the back of the sarcophagus, forcing Ico to stand with his back to the front, bent over like a criminal placed in the village square as a warning to others.

  But I haven’t done anything wrong…have I?

  There was a small window in the door of the sarcophagus, but in order to look out, Ico had to twist his neck around so far that it soon became painful and he had to give up. So he stood, listening to the footsteps of the priest and the guards fade behind him.

  A short while later, he felt the reverberations of the moving floor. The priest and guards were leaving.

  I’m alone.

  Silence returned to the great hall—the silence of the Castle in the Mist. The silence itself must be the master of the castle, Ico thought, so long has it ruled this place. At least, that was how it seemed to him.

  Ico could hear his heart beating—thud thud . He took an unsteady breath. For a long while he stood there, alone, just breathing.

  Nothing happened.

  Am I supposed to stay hunched over like this forever? Am I supposed to starve to death in this sarcophagus? Is that my duty as the Sacrifice?

  The image of the elder’s face loomed in Ico’s mind. He could hear Oneh’s voice in his ears. We will be waiting for you to come home.

  So I’m supposed to go home…but how?

  He felt a slight vibration, no more than the quivering of a feather in the wind. The sarcophagus was swaying.

  At first, he thought he was imagining it. He hadn’t eaten anything since the small meal that morning. Maybe I’m already starting to tremble with hunger. Maybe I’m getting dizzy.

  But the rocking only grew stronger, and he was forced to admit it wasn’t him—the stone sarcophagus around him was shaking.

  The sarcophagus shook up, down, and to the sides with increasing violence. Hands bound to the wooden frame, Ico tensed his legs and swallowed against the fear. A low rumble accompanied the growing vibrations, filling his ears. It seemed as though the entire hall around him shook. Even the air keened with the tremors.

  Soon, the rocking motion became more than the sarcophagus could withstand, and the wooden frame broke off the back. The mechanism the priest had used to slide Ico’s sarcophagus into its cavity worked in reverse, spitting the sarcophagus out. It smashed onto the floor, cracking open the lid and sending Ico flying into the open air. His body rose, the world spun around him, and the next instant he crashed onto the cold stones of the floor. His right horn struck the floor, giving off a hollow clink, before everything faded to black.

  Rain was falling outside, a downpour.

  Ico was climbing a tower so high it made him dizzy. Looking up from the bottom, the top was lost in shadows.

  A stone staircase wound around the inside wall of the tower, as ancient and decrepit as the tower itself. The staircase had a rail at about Ico’s eye level, with spearlike spikes protruding all along its top.

  Thunder rumbled, and Ico flinched. Night had fallen and a storm had blown in, though Ico couldn’t be sure when.

  Halfway up the tower, Ico ran out of breath. It was cold. A ragged curtain hung in the window ahead of him, flapping in the driving wind of the storm. The frigid air blowing in through the window and the cold stones of the wall chilled Ico to the marrow.

  Lightning flashed, bright in Ico’s eyes—but in that moment of illumination, he spotted something hanging far above him. One hand pressed cautiously against the wall for support, he peered into the darkness. What is it? The dark silhouette resembled a birdcage, but it would hold a bird far larger than any Ico had ever seen. It seemed to be suspended from the ceiling of the tower. Stepping quickly, Ico resumed his climb. In another two or three circles around the tower he would reach the cage.

  The closer he came, the more unusual the cage seemed. Though fowl in Toksa were allowed to roam freely, nightingales, said to have the power to ward off evil spirits, and stormfeathers, who sang upon the altar at festival time and were said to augur the future, were often kept in intricately woven cages of long, delicate reeds and young willow branches. It was not uncommon for the beauty of the cage to rival that of the bird’s song.

  There was nothing elegant about this cage. It seemed to be made of black iron, and it looked immensely heavy. The chain upon which it hung was thicker than Ico’s arm, and the spaces between its thick bars were scarcely a hand’s breadth apart. Thorns of steel sprouted in a circle from its bottom edge, their function less to prevent whatever was inside from escaping than to discourage rescue.

  The cage swayed slowly in the strong wind. Ico ran higher. He was only a few steps from being able to see what was inside when he noticed something dripping from the bottom of the cage. He stopped and pressed up against the railing to get a closer look. Is that…water? Drip, drip. Drip. The drops fell steadily to the floor of the tower, leaving dark circles on the stone. No, not dark, Ico realized. Black. Whatever it was that dripped from the cage, it was blacker than pitch, the color of melted shadow.

  Something’s in there!

  The thick drops reminded Ico of the hunters as they returned to the village, prey lashed across their saddles, blood dripping past the horses’ hooves. Something was alive inside the cage, and it was oozing black blood.

  Thunder rumbled outside, as if to warn Ico from climbing higher. Still, he continued up. The bottom of the cage was at eye level now. He craned his neck to look inside…and saw nothing. It was empty.

  Wait…

  Something moved in a shadowed corner of the cage, though it was too dark to make out what.

  Is someone in there?

  Ico froze as a dark figure lifted its head and faced him. The figure was slender, graceful, like a shadow cast on the night of the full moon. The outlines were hard to make out in the darkness, but the figure was moving, silently. Ico could just discern the arch of a neckline and the curve of a shoulder.

  Biting back the scream that rose in his throat, Ico retreated against the wall behind him, feeling the firm stone behind his shoulders and back. He was no longer sure that the figure was looking at him—he couldn’t see any mouth or eyes. Yet Ico felt its gaze upon him.

  Lightning flashed and thunder roared, limning the s
ilhouette in the cage.

  There’s someone there. Looking right at me.

  With his eyes fixed on the vision in front of him, Ico never noticed the black shadow spreading on the very wall against which he had sought shelter. The shadow formed near his left fingertip and spread quickly, until it was large enough to swallow him whole.

  By the time he jerked away from the cold against his back, it was too late. The shadow had begun to emerge from the wall, engulfing Ico like living quicksand. Ico felt himself being pulled backward, sucked in—he flailed, grabbing for anything he might reach, but his hands closed on air. The black shape in the birdcage watched him. At the last moment, he realized that it was the black blood dripping from the cage that had seeped into the tower, climbed the wall, and engulfed him—yet there was nothing he could do about it now.

  Ico opened his eyes.

  It was a dream. I was only dreaming.

  Ico was lying facedown, flat against the floor, arms and legs spread wide. For a while, he was content to lie there. He didn’t want to move until he understood at least a little of what had happened to him, or where he was.

  I’m still in the castle.

  He sat up and looked around, checking himself for injuries and finding none. He stood and tried stretching his legs. He performed a little jump. Nothing hurt; he felt as healthy as he always did.

  As he took in his surroundings, he spotted the stone sarcophagus lying like an overturned wheelbarrow a short distance from where he had awoken. Its lid and metal hinges were broken. Ico picked up a piece of the shattered stone. It was rough and cold.

  The sarcophagus no longer glowed.

  It’s dead, Ico thought. The sarcophagus had opened its mouth and swallowed him whole—but Ico had been poison to it. It had spit him out, but not before suffering a lethal dose. What was poison to the sarcophagus might also be poison to the Castle in the Mist. The Mark rippled across his chest and back, though no discernible wind blew in the great hall. As the Mark was his, so too was he the Sacrifice–his horns were proof enough of that. Yet the sarcophagus had broken, failing to hold him.

  What does it mean?

  The countless stone sarcophagi set in their alcoves were as quiet as they had been when Ico first saw them. All were in their places, save the one that had held him.

  Thin light spilled in through a small window. It didn’t seem as though much time had passed since he had been knocked out; the rain and thunder had been an invention of his dream. Yet his memory of the black silhouette in the cage was as clear as though he had seen it with his eyes. Was that the master of the castle? Did the master show himself to frighten me?

  Ico cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hey!” he called out.

  The sound reverberated off the far wall of the hall, carrying his voice back to him.

  He called out again, “Is anyone there?”

  Echoes were his only reply. The priest and the two guards had left. He looked up again at the silent stone sarcophagi surrounding him—Ico thought of the Sacrifices within, turning to dust, becoming part of the Castle in the Mist.

  Only Ico was free.

  Free to leave. The elder and Oneh were waiting for him back in Toksa.

  Closer examination of the walls in the great hall revealed that they were cracked with age. Ladders had been set beside the sarcophagi to provide access to the upper levels of the stone shelves that ringed the room, but these were old and rickety.

  Ico ran in circles, hearing the sound of his footfalls on the stones, carried by curiosity, wondering if anyone was there or if someone in one of those sarcophagi might hear him and cry out for help. He even tried climbing some of the ladders. He found no one, but in his wandering he had spotted something at the top of the staircase—what looked like a wooden lever protruding from the wall.

  Ico raced up the stairs. It was, indeed, a lever. It looked like it might move up and down. Standing on his tiptoes he could just reach it.

  The lever was stiff. It probably hadn’t been used for many years. Ico pulled with all his strength. His face turned red. Part of the wooden lever objected to this treatment by breaking off and falling in splinters on his face.

  Finally, Ico’s strength won out and the lever slid downward. A breath later, he heard a loud sound coming from another part of the hall nearby.

  Ico looked down from the handrail of the staircase and found that the large doorway directly beneath had opened—it was a wooden door directly across from the one through which he had entered with the priest and guards. He had tried opening it before, but no amount of tugging and pushing could make it budge. The surface of the door was pitted and scarred, making him think that, if it came to it, he could break it down somehow—but finding a magical lever to open it was far preferable!

  Grinning, Ico ran down the steps and through the door, finding himself in another room, narrower than the hall he had left, with several vertical rises in the floor. He wondered what the room was for.

  A crackling sound made him stop. He looked up to see that the ceiling here was not quite as high as it had been in the great hall, and torches had been set along the walls. They burned with red flame.

  The look of the flickering flames was somehow comforting—it reminded him of the fireplace back home—until a disturbing thought occurred to him.

  Who lit these torches?

  The priest might have lit them on his way out of the castle—but that didn’t make any sense. Ico had heard the circular floor descending right after they put him in the sarcophagus. And if they had gone through the wooden door, who had lifted the lever to close it again? Why light torches here at all? If the master of the castle had lit them, was it to welcome the new, fresh Sacrifice?

  The Castle in the Mist is alive.

  Ico shook his head. There was no point in thinking about that; he would only frighten himself. Thankfully, the rise in elevation in the floor wasn’t too high for him to climb up. He seemed to have recovered from his fall, and the movements of his hands and feet were quick and strong.

  He reached the upper level and found himself at a dead end. Looking up, he saw another level high above him, but he would’ve had to be able to fly in order to reach it. Then he noticed a thick chain hanging from the ceiling. It looked as though something might once have hung from its end, but years of rust had caused the chain to drop its charge, leaving the links to hang without a purpose.

  Ico remembered the iron birdcage in his dream and shivered. He jumped, catching the end of the chain, and began, hand over hand, to climb. He had always been good at climbing ropes, and the links in the chain made it even easier. Once he was close enough to the topmost level of the floor, he used his weight to swing, and when it began to sway, he reached the edge with his feet and landed. I made it. I can do this.

  A row of square windows were cut into the wall in front of him. He jumped up to one, catching the edge with his hands and pulling himself up to find an even larger room on the other side. That’s more like it. It was time to find a way out and leave this place for good.

  [3]

  ICO LEAPT FROM the edge of the window into the next room—and realized too late that the drop on the other side was much longer than he had imagined. Wind whistled in his ears.

  Before he could regret his blunder, Ico’s feet connected with the stone floor with a fwoosh. Years of dust rose around him like white smoke.

  He shivered and looked up at the window overhead. He often jumped out of trees and off roofs back in Toksa, but never from so high. Yet he didn’t hurt anywhere, and his legs and knees were steady. He knew he was tougher than other children his age—but had he grown even stronger since reaching the castle?

  Could it be my Mark?

  However strong he was, he was still hungry. And thirsty. I wonder if there’s water around here. He pricked up his ears and listened, but all he could hear was the crackling of torches high up on the walls.

  The room he had entered was very large. He guessed it was about half the size of
the sarcophagus room. There were idols here too—not just a pair, but four of them, heads side by side, blocking his path. Light came from an opening just above the idols, indicating that a passage or some kind of room lay beyond them. But he wouldn’t be able to move the idols without that strange sword. There seemed to be no other exits.

  Directly in front of him was a smooth section of stone, a round dais rising slightly above the surrounding floor. Ico marveled at the incredible height of the walls and ceiling. Although the shape of the room at the floor was square, as the walls rose, they began to curve. As his eyes followed the walls upward, he spotted a spiral staircase winding around the inside wall, climbing toward the ceiling. This is the place in my dream! It was the same staircase, with the same spiked railing. And not just similar—identical in every respect.

  Ico gasped and looked up again. If this really was the place from his dream, then there should be a cage—and there it was, right near the top, its base dully lit by light from the window.

  Ico looked down at his feet and made a realization—the circular dais was a platform for receiving the cage.

  A shiver ran down his spine, and goose bumps rose on his arms. The events of his dream ran through his mind. Carefully, he walked up to the edge of the dais. He stopped and looked up again, half expecting to see black blood dripping down from the ceiling. But there was nothing.

  Nowhere to go but up.

  There were ladders on either side of the room. Ico took the ladder leading to the lowest ring of the spiral staircase. Surprisingly, the rungs seemed to be in good repair, and they held Ico’s weight without complaint. Ico scampered up one of the ladders and soon was climbing the stairs. The events of his dream were playing out again, only where once a storm had raged, now sunlight streamed through the windows. After he had gone quite a way up, he saw the same window above him, with the curtain flapping in the wind exactly as it had in his dream.

  The farther he climbed, the clearer he could see the cage. Ico’s heart began to leap in his chest. Any moment now I’ll see that strange black shape. Then the blood will drip, and it will look up at me, and…