The Castle in the Mist seemed to change the layout of its corridors every time Ico walked them, so that he could go down a hallway into a room where he was sure he had been before and find it looking like it belonged to an entirely different building. Ico grew more frustrated with each mistaken turn, though he knew his anger was wasted on the castle’s stone walls.
Ico wondered if all castles were designed so confusingly. He suspected the queen’s twisted sense of humor was the real culprit here.
He climbed up wide shelves in the middle of chambers, clambered up chains hanging where staircases had crumbled, then called for Yorda once he had found a way for her to join him. After making his way through three or four rooms in this fashion, Ico had entirely lost track of where in the castle he was. Which way was it to the stone bridge where Ozuma stood? Which direction am I facing? He stuck his head out of the window to check the sun and found it to be straight overhead. So much for that idea. He knew that he had to go down to reach the water, but how to go down when he couldn’t find any stairs or ladders leading in the right direction?
As Ico wandered, he found himself outside again in a corridor with grass growing in tufts on the dry ground. There were some trees resembling willows with long slender branches that shook in the wind.
Ico had seen these same trees near Toksa Village. They kept their leaves even in winter and sprouted new green buds in spring. They were highly sensitive to changes in the wind and given to rustling, so much so that they often alerted hunters to the whereabouts of prey or gave early warning of approaching danger.
Ico stopped beneath the trees, feeling the sun on his skin. For a moment, he felt like he was back home. Whoever had planted these trees here must have loved the forest-something told him it wasn’t the queen. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, when he noticed the sound of running water.
Yorda was standing behind him a distance away. Ico ran quickly down the corridor. It extended straight for a while, then turned sharply to the right.
He ran down to the end, finding a clearing with a large pool of water in it, like a cistern. A rusted pipe ran left to right across the wall on the other side of the cistern at about Ico’s height. From there, a thinner pipe extended straight down into the water. It was another dead end. But Ico could hear water flowing beneath his feet. He went to the edge of the cistern and leaned over, looking down to see that part of the underwater wall on the near side had a grate set into the stone, its bottom half submerged in the water. The water was flowing through the grate, back toward the corner Ico had just turned.
The cistern looked deep. Before he could change his mind, Ico jumped straight out, away from the edge, landing in the cool water with a little splash.
His feet couldn’t reach the bottom, so he treaded water, scooping up some onto his face to wash off the dirt and sweat. It felt incredibly refreshing.
Unfortunately, the grate on the near wall was strong, and no matter how much he kicked or pulled at it, bracing his feet on the edge for support, it wouldn’t budge. He looked around for a lever or some other device that might open the grate, but there was nothing.
When he looked through the bars, the water on the other side was dim, but he could see patches of light falling on square pedestals that protruded from the water at regular intervals.
He wasn’t sure why there would be a room as part of an underground waterway, but the light he saw had to be coming from some sort of ventilation shaft-possibly big enough for him to get through. If the water was flowing through the grate, then it must be going down somewhere ahead, which meant that the underground room might be a way down to the lower levels of the castle.
Now we’re getting somewhere!
Climbing up the pipe on the far side of the water, Ico made his way back to the top of the cistern. Heading back down the way he had come, he found, just as he had expected, several square openings hidden in the tall tufts of grass. The openings ran in a line down the corridor. Each was covered with a thin grate, but he was able to pry one free with a little work from his fingers.
Crouching by the hole he called out to Yorda, who came running from around the corner.
“I’m going down-you wait here,” he told her, then he slid down through the hole so fast he didn’t see Yorda waving her hands, trying to stop him.
Ico landed back in water, but at least here it was much shallower than out in the cistern. It only came up to around his knees. The air smelled of mold, and the walls were damp.
He quickly found one of the square pedestals and climbed up onto it-and immediately fell into the past.
2
FOR A MOMENT, Ico didn’t realize he was seeing another vision. He blinked and saw people-many people-crowding around him in the dimly lit underground waterway.
What made it so different from his previous visions was that, this time, Ico wasn’t just an observer-he was part of the scene. Right next to him, a skinny boy raised one bony arm, trying to touch Ico’s Mark with trembling fingers.
“Wh-who are you?” Ico asked, and the boy disappeared, only to reappear an instant later a short distance away, standing alone up to his knees in the water. He looked cold.
Ico turned his attention back to the other people. There were men, women, young and old, about thirty in all, he guessed. They all looked terribly cold and exhausted, their backs bent with despair. Their pale faces, drained of life, hovered eerily in the light that spilled down through the opening above Ico’s head.
“What are you doing down here?” he asked, turning around. No one replied. “What’s going on? Is there a way out of this place?”
In silence, a few of the people broke away from the crowd and began walking slowly down the waterway, making dull, metallic noises with each step.
Beside him, a boy lent his hand to a slender girl to help her step up onto one of the pedestals. Ico gaped at her legs, so skinny they looked like skin stretched over bone. Wooden manacles went around both of her ankles, the heavy chain connecting them coiled at her feet like a snake.
“This is a prison,” Ico breathed. “Who put you in here?” he asked the crowd.
He felt someone tapping him on his shoulder from behind-a vision of the past, actually touching him.
Ico whirled around and saw a stocky man standing on the pedestal behind him. He looked like a soldier, possibly a guard. Though he wore no sword or chain-mail vest, the shoulder of his tunic was woven with some kind of emblem, and he wore a metal helmet with a short visor over his eyes.
He held his right hand over his right eye, peering out at Ico with the left. His eye was clouded, like a deep pool, far underground where the light does not reach.
“Who are you?”
The soldier shook his head, and Ico heard a voice in his mind.
What happened when the enchantment was broken? the voice asked.
Eyes opening wider, Ico took a step back into the water with a splash.
We were prisoners here, but the enchantment was our protection. What happened when it broke?
“How should I know?” Ico said with a shake of his head. While the voice had been talking in his mind, the others gathered in the underground prison had formed a circle around him and the soldier.
Madness took us all. People trying to run, others trying to stop them. Fear and a mindless rage gripped the castle.
Ico stood gripping the Mark on his chest and listened to the soldier’s story. “I thought someone had invaded, or the queen had put everyone to death-but no, you were killing one another.”