The elder quailed, thinking of the newborn child. How adorable, how helpless and priceless he had seemed. Even if he bore the horns of the Sacrifice, he was still just an innocent babe. How could the elder be stern with something so small? What words could he use to tell the child that his life would one day be offered up to the Castle in the Mist?
He could not protest his duty to his father. Instead, in a weak voice he asked, “What happens if I succeed in keeping the child from escaping, only to watch him fall ill? What if he is injured? What if he does not live to the proper age?”
“The Sacrifice cannot fall ill,” his father said with grim confidence. “Nor can he be easily injured. He will be exceptionally healthy, in fact. You need only raise him to become as solitary as the hawk, as pliable as the dove, and deeply committed to his fate.”
“Raise him?”
“Yes. As elder, you must raise the child born this night as though he were your own.”
“But what about the parents?”
“Once his birth mother is able to walk, the parents must be cast out from the village.”
“What? Why?” the elder asked, even though he knew what the answer would be.
“That is the custom,” his father replied. “The couple who has given birth to the horned child must leave Toksa Village.”
Then, for the first time, the hard lines of his father’s face softened, and tears shone in the corners of his eyes.
“I know it sounds harsh. But it is in fact a mercy. Imagine the anguish of parents forced to raise a child they know must leave them before he is fully grown. If separation is preordained, the better it be quick. Muraj and Suzu will live a good life in the capital. They are free to have another child, or three, or five-as many as they wish. Greedy though the castle may be, it will not take more than one child from a single family.”
The steel in his father’s voice left the elder speechless for a time, until at last he managed to utter a name. “Oneh…”
His wife. What would Oneh think? She knew the village custom as well as he did. How would she take the news that they were soon to become direct participants?
“How will I tell Oneh?”
He already had six children with his wife. Four had been claimed by accident or disease before reaching adulthood, leaving them one son and one daughter. They had grown well. Their son had already taken a wife.
“Are Oneh and I even qualified to raise a child at our age?”
“Of course. He will be like a grandson to you.” The new elder’s father smiled a thin smile, showing dark gaps where his teeth had fallen out. “Think of it this way. Because the horned child was born tonight, your own grandchild, who cannot be far off now, will be spared his fate. You should consider yourself fortunate.”
The elder shivered. His father was right. Because the Sacrifice had been born tonight, the village would live in peace for many years, maybe decades. My grandchildren will be spared. Still, he could not tell whether the chill that ran down his spine was one of relief or of horror that his father would say such a terrible thing.
His father clasped his hands once more, shaking them with each word. “Know this,” he said. “The elder must never fear. The elder must never doubt. No one will blame our village for this, nor will they blame you. We are merely following custom. Do everything the priest tells you to do. Accomplish your task, and the Castle in the Mist will be sated.”
Do as the priest says. It is the priest’s doing-no one will blame the village-or the village elder-the elder-
“Elder!”
The voice brought him back over thirteen years of time in an instant. Back to his seventy-year-old self; back to long whiskers growing from his chin; back to thin, bony shoulders.
“Sorry, Elder, didn’t mean to intrude.”
In his doorway, several men of the village stood shoulder-to-shoulder, still dressed for field work.
“It is no intrusion, I was merely doing some reading.”
The men exchanged glances until one of them spoke.
“Mistress Oneh’s weeping in the weaving room.”
“She became violent,” said another man, “like a madness took her, and she tried to break the loom. We held her back, Elder, but she’s wild yet.”
That explained why the loom was still silent.
“I will go myself,” the elder said, placing both hands upon his desk for support as he rose from his chair.
Oneh, sweet Oneh. There have been enough tears.
How long would it take for her to understand that no amount of tears or rage could change what had happened? That no matter how high she raised her fist to the heavens or how hard she beat the ground in lamentation, it was all for naught.
Their cries would not reach that ancient castle perched upon the cliff at the end of the world, far to the west where the sun sank after its daily journey. The only thing that could lessen the rage of the master in the castle, that could stave off the castle’s curse for even a short time, was the chosen Sacrifice.
2
SMALL PEBBLES FELL down from above the boy’s head, plinking on the sandy floor. First one, then another.
The boy sat up, looking up at the small window set at the highest point of the cave. The window had been hewn out of the rock, and long years of wind and rain had smoothed its edges.
A face appeared.
“Psst! Hey!” a voice called down. “I know you’re in there!”
“Toto!” the boy replied with a smile, wondering how his friend had managed to climb up to the window like that.
“What,” Toto said, “don’t tell me you were still sleeping.”
The boy had been lying on his side-there wasn’t much else to do.
“You’ll get in trouble if they catch you.”
Toto grinned. “I’m an old hand at this. No one saw me.”
“You sure?”
“Hey, you should be thanking me. I brought you something-”
Toto threw down a white cloth bag into the cave. The boy snatched it up and looked inside. There was a fruit and a wrapped bundle of baked sweets.
“Thanks!”
Toto grinned. “Don’t let them catch you eating those,” he advised. “That old fogey they got by the door will take ’em away.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
The boy’s guards weren’t particularly friendly, but neither were they cruel. When they brought him his three meals a day or came to set a blaze in his fireplace on cold nights, they would look down at the floor or off to the side-fearfully, apologetically-and leave the moment their business was done.
“Psst, Ico.” Toto lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don’t you ever think of running away?”
Ico-for that was the boy’s name-turned away from the window at the top of the cave, letting his eyes travel across the gray walls. This cave was on the northern edge of the village. It had originally been a small, rocky hill until the men of the village hollowed it out by hand, specifically to house the Sacrifice. Ico would remain here until the priest arrived to lead him away. The years that had passed since the cave’s construction had smoothed the marks left on the walls by the stonecutters’ chisels and axes. Ico could run his hand over it and feel nothing but featureless rock.
That was how long ago the custom had started and the sacrifices had begun.
It would take many words to describe how he felt at that moment, and they all jostled for attention in Ico’s head. Yet he lacked the confidence to choose just the right ones and line them up in just the right order. He was thirteen.