Storyline

In a remote, sunlit forest, several masked men travel on horseback to the edge of an enormous sheer cliff overlooking the sea. Off the coast is an otherworldly, dilapidated fortress, built on tall rocky spires. Some of the men have horns on their helmet. These horns look like those of Malus's head. The men proceed down a winding path towards sea level, get in a small boat, and row silently towards the castle. They have a prisoner with them: Ico, a boy with an immediately identifiable characteristic: two large horns protruding from his head. These horns are the result of an ancient curse, one that has stricken Ico's village for generations and earned him all its hatred and blame for whatever misfortune comes to its residents. The men have taken him to the castle after his twelfth birthday to place him in a mysterious coffin deep inside the fortress's darkened halls, where he will either starve or succumb to the cold. To open the way to the coffin, they take an enchanted sword that has the ability to open the idol-shaped gates that lead to the room. The men force him into the coffin, ordering him not to resist and telling him they do this "for the good of the village". After they leave, however, a tremor caused by the castle's many aged moving parts dislodges Ico's coffin from the wall, breaking it open but knocking him unconscious. During this time, he experiences a strange vision, set in another part of the castle - a spiked stone cage hangs from the ceiling of an enormous cylindrical room. As Ico approaches the cage on a spiral path that runs up the room's walls, a shadowy substance amasses at the bottom of the cage, overflowing and dripping onto the floor far below. Another shadow emerges from the walls behind Ico, engulfing him and ending the vision. He wakes up. Ico begins to explore the old castle, pulling levers and opening doors in search of a way out. Soon, however, he finds himself at the bottom of exactly the same room he saw in the vision, including the metal cage hanging from the ceiling. Ico ascends the spiral path until he reaches the top of the room again. This time the cage contains a young girl, Yorda, who sits there quietly. Ico calls out to her and promises to find a way to let her out. He reaches a lever, which lowers the cage close to the ground. Ico makes his way back down and jumps on the cage, sending it and a dislodged piece of wood crashing to the floor. The impact opens up the cage door, freeing Yorda.