ICO: Castle in the Mist (18 page)

Where are you going? Who are you going to meet?

From his vantage point above the chandelier, Ico could see the knight’s gaunt cheeks and ashen lips. His cloak swayed with each stride. As with the statue, the knight wore no sword. Still, Ico sensed tremendous courage and determination in the set of his jaw and the dark gleam of his eyes. He was on his way to battle.

“Who are you?” Ico asked out loud. He had meant it to be a challenge, but it came out as little more than a whimper. Then the room shifted and he returned to reality—or perhaps sanity. His body swayed with the abruptness of his return, causing him to shift on the rafter and lose his balance. The rafters swirled around him, and Ico fell flat on his back on top of the chandelier. His arms and legs smashed into the candles, sending flakes of ancient dried wax drifting down below.

Ico twisted, sitting halfway up, his legs splayed across the top of the chandelier. His left leg had knocked over several candles and was sticking out over the edge.
Good thing I didn’t lose my sandals,
Ico thought. He tried not to make any sudden movements, focusing only on breathing steadily.

Creak
…

Dust fell in streams from the chandelier. The brackets holding it to the rafter were warping.

His fall onto the top of the chandelier had been the last push they needed. The first broke free with a loud pop, and soon all of them started to snap, one after the other, like panicked soldiers falling out of formation.

The chandelier left the rafter and seemed to pause in midair for the briefest of moments, as though it longed to defy gravity just this once and remain where it had stayed for so long.

Ico sat up a moment too late, his hand missing the rafter by an inch. The chandelier made a whistling sound as it fell, and he could feel the wind in his hair. The chandelier fell away from beneath his feet. He felt himself breaking into pieces, his soul escaping his mouth in a wordless scream. Lighter than his body, his soul remained, suspended in the air, while the rest of him plummeted down.

With nothing else to hang on to, Ico grabbed the central pole of the chandelier, the iron chain that had gone up to the rafter whipping uselessly from its top. With an incredible crash, the chandelier fell onto the bridge. It was just wide enough to extend from side to side, the outermost ring of the chandelier falling directly on top of the railings. Candles flew up from the base of the chandelier, arcing over the railing and falling down into the room below. Ico rolled up into a ball in the middle of the chandelier to avoid the spikes that once held the candles. Dust rose in a great cloud. Ico looked up and jumped off to the side with a shout as the iron chain came chasing after the chandelier. The chain coiled like a snake before falling down through the chandelier, pulling itself after.

Dust stung Ico’s eyes. Even his mouth tasted of it. Ico stood, wobbling. He saw the girl, still standing at the end of the bridge, hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with surprise.

“It’s okay—” he started to call out, when a loud noise reached his ears.

Something was cracking. He felt a lurching vibration, and the bridge buckled beneath him. The chandelier pitched forward, sliding down the railing.

Before Ico could react, the far side of the bridge snapped, falling from its perch at the edge of the second level. Apparently, the bridge was just as worn as the brackets securing the chandelier.

With a sound that shook the very ground beneath them, half of the bridge fell to the floor, forming a slide that started on the second floor where the girl stood and ending all the way down by the double doors that led out to the green grass beyond.

Ico rode the chandelier as it slid down the fallen bridge, coursing on top of the railings like a child at play. It quickly gathered speed, flipping when it hit the bottom and sending Ico flying.

This time he fell facedown and landed on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Dust filled the great room like mist, and in the silence, he heard the echoing
plink plink
of candles that flew from the chandelier and struck the ground before rolling to a stop.

Ico lay on the floor a long while, checking to make sure he still had his limbs.
I’m still breathing. Nothing’s broken. I’m not bleeding.
He waited until he could hear nothing moving around him before getting up. When he did, he saw that the fallen bridge formed a sturdy-looking pathway from the second floor down to where he sat. The chandelier had flipped over and fallen off to one side.

The girl was still standing where she had through the entire ordeal, hands held over her mouth in shock. Ico stood and walked to the slanting bridge to look up at her.

“Hey!” he called out. “It’s not pretty, but I think you can walk down that. Come on. Just watch where you step.”

Perhaps she was frightened, but the girl did not move. Ico climbed up the incline of the bridge, using his hands to crawl on all fours.

“If you’re scared, you can just slide down on your bottom. It’s like a slide.”

The girl shook her head. She appeared to be smiling. As if to say,
That’s hardly something to suggest to a young lady.

Something touched Ico’s heart—gentle and warm—reminding him of a time long past.

“You can just take it a little bit at a time. You won’t fall,” he said, smiling and glad that she had smiled at him.

In the end, he had to help her down all the way, one eye always on the railing where the bodies in his vision had hung. He wondered if the ropes had left any marks, and it made his stomach turn.

The railing was coated in dust accumulated over the years, plus a fresh layer from the recent collapse. The stone was rough to the touch and hurt his hand.

When he finally reached the bottom with the girl, Ico brushed the dust off himself and straightened out his Mark. He picked up a candle that had fallen by his feet, thinking it might be useful later. Sticking it in his trousers, he looked around for something that might serve as a weapon to replace the extinguished torch he had left up above. Eventually, he settled on the leg of a chair. He picked it up. It was the perfect weight in his hand.

He looked over at the girl to find she had her back turned to him and was looking across the room in the direction the knight had been walking in Ico’s vision atop the chandelier. She was looking intently, concern on her face. Like she could sense something tugging at her memory there.

Quietly, Ico gave the girl’s shawl a gentle tug. She looked around and their eyes met.

Ico had many questions, many doubts, but the fresh breeze blowing in through the open double doors and the shining lawn beyond blew them from his mind and beckoned him outside.

Joining hands, they walked through the doors. Ico could feel the softness of the ground and the grass through the leather of his sandals. It gave him hope and filled him with new energy.

Around the wide lawn under the sun was a terrace and a walkway that led to a large arched bridge awaiting them.

[8]

THOUGH THE INTERIOR
of the castle was a maze, out here there was nothing to stop them. Maybe it was the distance between his eyes and the sun and sky above that made him feel free. Here, high walls around the garden blocked the wind that howled incessantly in the corridors of the towers and across the high balconies.

They cut straight through the grassy courtyard, passing under a small walking bridge. There was a drawbridge here too, but it didn’t take long for Ico to figure out how to lower it, and they crossed without difficulty. A short while later, they came to a deep waterway, over which the two of them stood, casting their shadows down upon it. The water was a good distance below them and too dark for Ico to clearly make out their reflections. Still, he could see the silhouettes that they formed on the water’s surface, which somehow relieved him. If the girl had a reflection, then she wasn’t a spirit or a ghost.

A thick copper pipe ran along the wall above the waterway. The pipe climbed up the side of the walls—which were too high for even Ico to scale—twisting and bending before disappearing into the castle. The elder had taught him that they had pipes like these in the capital to carry water to the center of town, so that people wouldn’t have to dig wells or go fetch water from the river. He’d seen a number of pipes as the guards rowed him across the inlet when he first arrived at the castle, and so there must have been a number of pipes running along these walls for the convenience of people living here—but what made them all run? However it once functioned, it didn’t seem to be working now and probably hadn’t for some time.

It frustrated him to know so little about the castle. The wonders he saw here might be commonplace in the temples of the capital, but he had no way of knowing. He wondered if he would ever get the chance to find out. They returned to the center of the courtyard. The sunlight glinted off the grass, and it was hot enough to make Ico sweat. Ahead of them, stairs led to a heavy stone arch.

“Just a little more,” he said to the girl, then hurried, pulling her along. He didn’t want to get caught in such a large area surrounded by those shadow creatures.

Sweat dripped from his brow, but he reflected on how strange it was that since meeting the girl, he had felt neither hunger nor fatigue. Normally he would never have been able to run so far without stopping.

The two ran to the arch, where Ico saw what he had been hoping to find—the one place in the castle he had seen before entering its walls. They were at the front gate. Its doors were still open wide, pointing out toward the water.

“We made it!” Ico practically whooped for joy. He pointed at the gate. “Now we can get out of here!”

He felt dizzy with relief. Unable to stand still, he held both the girl’s hands and jumped for joy.

The only thing between them and the massive gate was a long path, as wide as the gate itself, covered in soft grass. Cobblestones had been laid down its center, and pairs of tall torch stands stood like sentries on either side. The torches were useless under the sun, but even so they seemed to welcome him, beckoning like outstretched arms, showing him the way out.

“Let’s go!”

Pulling on the girl’s hand, he ran.
Run. Run!
Ico’s mind was already ahead of him, floating somewhere near the gate. He wouldn’t let anything get in their way now. The gate was so large that even as he ran, he felt like he wasn’t getting any closer. It was like chasing after the moon.
No, I’ll get there. Each step is taking me closer to escape. Closer to freedom.

The gate towered in front of them. He wondered what kind of stone had been used to build such a massive structure. From this distance, he couldn’t see any of the seams one might expect in something so large.

At the top of each of the gate’s hinges stood massive round orbs, sparkling quietly beneath the sun. He remembered catching a glimpse of one of them from the boat on his way in, reflecting the sunlight down onto him.

Just then, the girl gave a terrified scream. Their hands were wrenched apart.

The girl had fallen on the cobblestones, tumbling to the base of one of the torch stands. Ico was moving so fast that he fell forward, tripping over his own feet. When he stood, he froze at what he saw. Still screaming, the girl was clawing at her face and body, her legs writhing in pain.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, crawling toward the girl but unable to bring himself to touch her. She twisted and turned as though her skin was on fire. Something unseen was attacking her, invisible talons raking her body. Ico whirled around, looking for more of the shadow creatures. But there was nothing in the courtyard but the sun and the grass.

They had covered half of the distance to the main gate. If they stood up and ran, they’d be there in no time. There was salt on the wind. Just a little farther and they would be able to hear the waves.

Ico felt the wind on his cheek—not the gentle breeze blowing in from the sea, but a cold, bracing wind rushing down from the Castle in the Mist.

Ico raised his eyes and saw something gathering in the air above the girl. It was the wind—he could
see
it. It came together in threads, slender whips forming in thin air, then entwining. Countless tongues of lightning flashed without sound in the gathering darkness of the cloud.

Individually, the threads had no shape or color, but when they flowed together, they formed a figure there in the sky—a gathering of dark motes that absorbed the light, waxing stronger as they coalesced, giving off a brilliance that was the opposite of light.

Still on his knees, Ico braced himself. Then his hands fell to the ground and his mouth dropped open when he saw the figure coalescing above the girl. It was not a creature of smoke that appeared there. Though it took form in much the same way, its shape was far more human than any of the creatures he had seen within the castle.

A woman. She wore a wide gown that flowed around her, with elegant embroidery along the sleeves and hem. Her face was small and gaunt, with sunken cheeks and a sharp chin. Her skin was white as bone, her features glowing with the same dull gleam as the eyes of the shadow creatures. But unlike the creatures, this woman’s eyes were pools of darkness. Though she had no pupils, Ico could tell she was looking straight at him. She spread her arms like a swooping falcon, her sleeves billowing.

This was the same woman in black Ico had seen praying before the idols in his vision.

The tolling of a bell came from somewhere in the Castle in the Mist. The bell rang slow and deep, and at its signal, the massive doors of the gate behind Ico began to close, cutting off the sea wind. The girl lay still on the ground, unconscious. Ico gasped and tried to grab her.
Stand up! We have to go! The gates are closing—

Then, floating above them, waves of dark mist lapping at her feet, the woman in black spoke. “Who are you?” she demanded, her voice twisting and bending through the air as though her voice itself were made of smoke. “What are you doing here?” The sound of her voice rose and fell, like a conversation overheard from beyond a wall.