With a wave of my hand, I gestured to the others to come into the open space, then glanced back into the square.
Only then did I see the woman.
She was in a cage, like an oversized bird cage. The cage was suspended fifteen feet in the air from a wooden scaffold by a long chain of heavy iron links. She was slumped down as if asleep or unconscious, and most of her form was shrouded in filthy scraps of fabric. There was something strange about her which I could not quite make out from this distance, some suggestion of feathers around her face, and her hands seemed longer and finer than normal.
The others came and stood with me, staring at the strange scene.
There was nothing else for it. I strode forward, taking a breath to challenge the seated figure. But before I could speak, he turned his head. Very slowly, his head revolved on his neck. It turned and turned until, horribly, it had turned completely around and leered at us over its bent back.
The face was not that of an ordinary man. Madness blazed in his eyes. His skin was puckered and twisted like that of a man who had been burned or ravaged by disease. His lips looked as though they had been cut away, the ragged hole of his mouth revealing the expanse of his teeth and gums in a terrible rictus of a grin. His ears were mutilated, and his nose was gone also. His eyes burned with an unnatural light.
Despite his horrific appearance, Toshiro took two steps forward and gasped. “Yakuna, my old friend, what has happened to you?”
This dreadful apparition leered at us, but it did not reply to Toshiro. Instead, it opened its nightmarish mouth unnaturally wide, and a hiss came from it like a thousand angry snakes. From the depths of the black mouth leaped a cluster of slimy black tentacles. The tentacles whipped out and around, reaching toward us and groping at the air before retreating back into the gaping, toothy mouth. I had no doubt that Toshiro was right.
We had found Yakuna.
The evil, multitudinous voice of the Festering boomed out from Yakuna’s seated form. His body had not moved, but his head was turned almost completely on his neck, and the terrible grinning face was looking right at us.
“Well, Soul Binder,” the voice gloated, “so you have come to us at last. We have been waiting long for you, you and your meddling friends. You have come here by your own will, and now you will stay with me, you and your pretty women.” The horror opened its mouth again, and a blood-red forked tongue lolled out in a parody of laughter.
“Yakuna!” Toshiro tried again. “Yakuna, it is I, Toshiro, your old friend and comrade. We fought side by side together, don’t you remember? How can you be like this? What has happened to you?”
He took a step forward, and Kai reached out to stop him, but he shook her off. The old samurai seemed mad with grief for his friend’s fate.
“Toshiro,” I said firmly, ignoring the creature’s gloating laughter. “That thing is not your old friend. If there is any part of the real Yakuna left in there, it’s buried deep. If we can slay it, we may be able to free him from his entrapment, but do not approach it.”
“How can I not approach him? He’s my friend; I have to help him!” He tried to pull away from me, and the tentacles tumbled from Yakuna’s mouth again, slapping the stone on which he sat and reaching out toward Toshiro.
“Don’t you see that the Festering wants you to approach him?” I said sternly. “If you do, you will be killed and enslaved, and you will turn on us. You will be as tainted as he has become.”
That seemed to get through to him. He stood, blinking back tears of anger and frustration.
“You’re right,” he panted. “I need to get a hold of myself. There’s something... I don’t know what came over me. It was like madness for a moment, but it’s passed.”
“It’s the effect of the Festering, Toshiro,” Kai said. “We can all feel it, but you were more susceptible to it because of your grief for your friend.”
“Yes, yes, I see that now,” he said. Then he looked back at the terror which sat unperturbed on the stone, gazing at us in anticipation of what we would do next. Toshiro’s dark eyes hardened, and I saw him take control of himself. Slow anger came over him.
“We must kill it,” he said in a voice as hard as stone.
“Yes,” I replied. “But we must be careful. You must follow my lead and not let your emotions get the better of you.”
Toshiro nodded and dropped back behind me.
The creature laughed horribly, throwing its head back.
“And you, good Lady Kai,” it said, “do you not recognize an old friend when you see one?”
The head was facing us, sitting backward on the body, but the left hand of the seated figure rose mechanically, like a puppet on a string. One finger pointed upward at the woman in the cage. She was still shrouded in blankets, so I doubted Kai could make out the woman’s identity even if it were her own sister caged in there.
At first, Kai didn’t seem to recognize the woman, then a dark realization flooded her features.
“It’s Nika!” Kai gasped.
“That’s the Tengu woman?” Cara asked. “The leader of the resistance in Otara!”
“My friend,” Kai said, a sob bursting from her lips. “How I’ve searched for you.”
That explained the strangeness about the caged woman’s figure, I thought. She was
