ICO: Castle in the Mist (14 page)

For the space of a breath, barely long enough to blink, she hesitated. Her eyes focused on Ico’s, questioning, trying to peer into the bottom of his soul. Where her gaze fell on him, he felt cool, as though clear water washed over him. Ico gasped with the sensation.

She thrust out her arm and grabbed his hand.

Their fingers met, then their palms, and it felt like a current passed between their hands, pure and warm. It reminded Ico of the southerly wind prized by the hunters of Toksa Village that blew down from the mountains, guaranteeing a good hunt. It was a gentle wind, full of fond memories and happiness. Full of safety. It enveloped him in an instant, and the room shifted around him.

Ico was sitting on the same stone floor, looking up at the same stone walls, the same high ceiling. Torches flickered in sconces.

The thorny iron cage sat resting on the round dais. It wasn’t broken, it wasn’t leaning. It stood empty, and the door was shut.

Beside the cage stood an old man. He was leaning on a staff and wore heavy-looking robes woven of silvery thread. An intricately carved jewel adorned the top of his staff. Ico recognized it instantly. It was a celestial sphere—a globelike ball that showed the positions of the moon and stars, used by astrologers to divine the will of the heavens.

The old man’s hair was long, as was his beard. Both were pure white. He shook his head slightly, and Ico caught a glimpse of his face. His bushy eyebrows grew so long they threatened to cover his eyes, but still they could not hide his sorrow.

“This is no way to use the knowledge of the ancients,” the old man muttered, indicating the cage with the tip of his staff. “Our master has lost the way. There is no destination to our path. It leads only to darkness.”

Ico looked around again. It was the same room—but there was no dust on the floor. Nor were the stones in the wall chipped or cracked. The cage shone brightly, like new-forged steel.

“This is a mistake, a dire mistake,”
the old man said, his voice like a groan. “This castle walks toward destruction.”

Ico gasped for breath. It was as though he had been underwater for a very long time and only barely made it to the surface. Like his heart had sunk into a different place for a single, long moment, and only now returned.

His sight came back. The girl was in front of him, their fingers intertwined. He felt the wooden stick gripped firmly in his other hand.

At his feet, a pool of black smoke swirled on the ground. A pair of eyes rose out of the pool, followed by that familiar black shape.

They come from the pools.

Moving quickly, Ico smacked at the head of the newly formed creature with his stick. Still holding the girl’s hand, he spun around and struck another of the creatures looming behind them. It dissipated, leaving only its eyes floating in the air. As he watched, the smoke began to coalesce around the eyes again, forming a new creature where the old one had stood. All this had taken place in only a few moments, yet more creatures had already formed out of the pool in the corner.

We have to run.
Ico looked up, but the four idols still stood, blocking their exit. The window through which he had first entered the chamber was too high for him to reach, and there was no way to climb up. Neither of the two ladders in the room was tall enough, assuming he could even tear them from their moorings on the wall without breaking them.

In a panic, he swung his stick, letting go of the girl’s hand as he did. She lifted her eyes the moment he let her go and began to walk slowly toward the four idols. The creatures advanced.

Ico hurriedly ran to the girl, nearly losing a sandal as he did. The girl looked at Ico only briefly before returning her gaze to the idols. Still moving unsteadily toward the idols, she muttered something in words he could not understand.

Again, Ico took the girl’s hand. This time, he could feel
her
pulling
him.
She wanted to go toward the idols. “It’s a dead end!” Ico shouted, yanking her back. She shook her head as though annoyed and pulled against him. Her eyes were fixed on the idols, and her expression said
I must go.

It only took that moment’s distraction for the creatures to surround Ico. Ico put his back to the girl and swung his club in wide circles. The girl moved slowly yet smoothly. She avoided the stick when it came too close, and when Ico, breathless from the effort of driving the creatures off, lowered his guard, she extended her long, slender arm and pointed toward the idols.
I know, I know.
The idols!
Ico grabbed the girl’s hand and began to run. The girl’s hair and the shawl over her white dress fluttered in the wind.

They crossed the room, passing by the fallen cage. The girl’s pace quickened, and she ran ahead of him—a forest spirit leading a hunter to safety. The four idols loomed before them.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of white light cut through the air. The girl stopped as though she had collided with an unseen wall and took a step back. Ico flinched and stopped beside her.

The white light was coming from the idols, just as it had when the guard brandished that strange sword. The girl held up one hand as though to shield her face. Ico spotted another of the black creatures, arms outstretched, flanking her. But the moment the creature entered the light, it disappeared like a gust of wind blows away smoke, leaving no trace. Not even a pair of glowing eyes. The light leapt from idol to idol, coming together at a single point where it seemed to draw a quick pattern in the air before disappearing altogether.

With a low rumble, the idols began to move. Like marching soldiers changing formation in mid stride, the outer two idols moved forward, making way for the remaining two to slide to either side, opening the way for Ico and the girl.

Gaping, Ico looked around the room. The boiling pools of smoke on the floor were evaporating, and soon they had vanished entirely. Where they had been, the stone floor looked no different than it had before the creatures appeared.

The girl lowered her hand slowly. She seemed neither surprised nor the least bit frightened. Her shoulders relaxed, and her arms hung loosely at her sides.

They’re gone.

With a dry throat, Ico swallowed and put a hand to his chest to still the pounding of his heart.
She got rid of them. She even opened the door.

The girl stood motionless, looking down at the floor. Ico walked up to her, stepping quietly—though he could not say why he felt the need to do so.

“How did you do that?”

The girl turned, looking at his feet, but she said nothing.

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t understand me. I mean, you don’t speak my language. Er, sorry.”

The girl blinked. Her long eyelashes fluttered.

“Look,” Ico said, “we need to get out of here before those creatures come back. Come with me, okay? Let’s find the way out.”

Ico realized he was still holding the stick in his hand. It wasn’t exactly what he pictured when he thought of a weapon, but it had done an admirable job of holding the shadows back. He decided he’d better hang on to it. He steadied his grip on the stick and held out his left hand, brushing the girl’s sleeve. He tried looking at her face, but she would not meet his gaze. She just looked at his outstretched hand, and for a moment, she did not move.

At last, she made her decision and grabbed Ico’s hand tightly.

Her hand was soft in his, with long slender fingers and delicate nails like the newly bloomed petals of a flower. Again, a sensation like a gentle wind passed from her hand to his. Ico recalled diving headfirst into cold pools of water on a hot day in the middle of summer. In an instant, the day’s dirt and grime were washed away, making him feel clean down to the bone.

The energy flowing into his body felt so good that for a moment, Ico closed his eyes. He wasn’t tired anymore. His hunger melted away. He felt no thirst. Even the pain in his leg from the fall off the top of the cage faded away.

Again, a vision came as his eyes were closed—something that had once been, but was no more.

The four idols—the ones the girl had moved a moment before—were lined up in two rows. Before them knelt a figure in flowing black robes and a long black veil, back turned to them, praying.

The figure was bent over so low that it was hard to make out any details, but Ico decided it was a woman. For a moment, he thought she might be holding something in her hands, but he decided that it was only her intertwined fingers.

Quite suddenly, a brilliant flash like lightning shot from the woman’s chest, striking each of the four idols. The idols began to move, lining up to block the entrance to the room, just as they had been when Ico first saw them.

When the idols came to rest, the kneeling figure stood. The veil shifted on her face—or perhaps she had moved it with her hand. Ico glimpsed a white cheek and hair bound up in an elaborate braid.
It
is
a woman.

The vision faded. Ico opened his eyes.

Still holding his hand, the girl stood staring ahead of them.
I wonder if she saw it too.

Ico thought back to the old man he had seen when he first held the girl’s hand. He had not prayed quietly like the woman in black; he had been angry. Maybe the celestial sphere on his staff was supposed to suggest that he was some sort of scholar.
Probably a very great scholar,
Ico thought. The elder had books with drawings of the heavens in them, but even he didn’t have a device like that.

So who was the woman in black? Had she been praying to breathe life into the idols, or for something else?
Maybe,
Ico thought with a sudden realization,
she was casting a spell ward. Maybe all those idols were meant to seal off the doors and imprison something. No ordinary person could make things move like that. Was she a witch?

Witches were commonplace in the fairy tales Ico had heard growing up. They were followers of darkness, servants of the evil gods who fought against the Creator. Witches were fallen human women, and while they resembled people in appearance, their hearts were filled with dark curses chanted by evil gods. Wherever they went, darkness followed, even by the light of day.

Was there a being like that in the Castle in the Mist? Was the master of the castle a witch?

Ico shook his head. Thinking about it was getting him nowhere. He didn’t even know what these visions were, or why he was seeing them. He only knew that it happened whenever he took the girl’s hand.

Ico glanced at her. She did not look sad or even frightened. Nor did she smile or seem engaged with the world around her at all. Though she was right next to him, and he could look directly into her face, he felt like she was standing on the other side of a veil of mist.

Who is she, for that matter?

She could open the doors magicked shut by the woman in black. She carried within her the same power held by that blade.

Ico pulled lightly on her hand. She looked in his direction—or rather, she turned her face toward him, but her eyes did not see him.

I know she’s taller than I am, probably a little older…and nothing else.
He tried staring into her chestnut eyes, tried to see if some secret might be hiding there beneath her eyelashes, but it was in vain.

His eyes went to the shawl she wore over her shoulders. What if her shawl had the same power against the castle that his Mark seemed to have? She didn’t have horns on her head, but she had been kept in a cage. He was sure she was another kind of sacrifice. Just like the elder and Oneh worried for him, someone worried for her, and they had given her the shawl as protection so that she might one day return to them.

“Let’s go,” Ico said brightly. Whoever the girl was, it was better being two than one.

[5]

THE ROOM BEYOND
the idols was smaller and again split into two levels. Ico wondered why the castle had been built in such an inconvenient way. It seemed like there were different levels of floor everywhere, making it impossible to walk straight through.

The rise in this room was very high, but Ico jumped with his arms outstretched and caught the edge. Left behind, the girl wobbled unsteadily on her feet, seeming lost. He had only taken his eyes off her for a moment, but when he looked back he saw that she had turned and was walking back toward the room with the cage.

…and the creatures!

“This way!” Ico shouted. He slid his arms over the edge, reaching down toward her. “Grab my hand, I’ll pull you up.”

He knew she wouldn’t understand his words, so he gestured to get his point across. Finally, she reached out to him and grabbed his hands. Ico braced himself to pull her up—and was astonished.

She’s so light!

This was nothing like when he had struggled to pull her out of the swirling black mist. Even though all of her weight was in his arms, she was barely heavier than the basket he used to carry firewood back home. Ico stared at her white skin and the light that seemed to suffuse her.

She
is
a spirit!

But then he saw the shawl on her shoulders rising and falling.

A spirit that breathes. And has fingers and toes. And hair.

Ico realized he was staring at the girl and blushed. She didn’t seem to notice.

“I think we can get outside from here.” From this higher level, he could see an arched exit leading from the room through which bright sunlight spilled. “Come on. This way!”

Ico waved his arm, urging her forward. He ran out through the arch, and then stopped and stood in amazement.

They were at the end of a long, straight bridge of stone. The far side was so distant he could barely make it out.

He could hear the sea from here. There was a parapet of stacked stones, and he leaned out over it, feeling dizzy, like he had when he looked down from the tower that held the cage. The blue sea stretched out beneath him. Clouds drifted overhead, and he could hear the cries of seabirds coming from all directions.