ICO: Castle in the Mist by Miyuki Miyabe, Alexander O. Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

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. This 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.
    “Arrow Wind!” Toto screamed after him.
    The horse kicked his way through a crowd of stony faces. In the sky above, the woman turned her gaze to follow him. Lips of black mist pursed and she blew a gentle breath.
    Toto felt an icy wind blow over his head. The breath swept down the street, catching Arrow Wind in an instant and wrapping around his beautiful chestnut coat. Toto watched as his bushy tail, his hind hooves, his legs, and finally his back and mane turned to gray.
    Arrow Wind’s scream ended abruptly; he was