With a final pull, Imaro tore the three faces from their mooring. The body beneath Itu-Nusani Mujo’s head shuddered spasmodically, then lay still. Gasping from his exertions, the warrior rolled away from his foe and allowed the object he had torn away to settle like a limp rag on his heaving chest.
His assumption had proven to be correct. The thing that covered Itu-Nusani Mujo’s head had to be a mask, though one unlike any he had seen during his wide wanderings. And he had guessed that the mask would be his true adversary in the Shinda, not its wearer ...
As both the Nubala and Jijiwi spectators gathered around the two combatants, Imaro began to sit up. It was then that the substance of the Three-Faced One’s mask flowed upward and adhered to the warrior’s head.
* * *
Viscous, translucent fluid enveloped Imaro’s face. Beyond the foul substance, he could see only dim light and vague shapes. Directly in front of him, he stared into the central face of the living mask – from the inside. The face was expanding like a drinking-skin filling with water.
Looking to both sides of the mask, Imaro saw that the other faces were also expanding. And he saw the fingers of both his hands, locked around the edges of the mask as he struggled to tear the loathsome thing away from his head. But the mask clung to him like a burr to cloth; and to his consternation, he found that his resistance was weakening.
Still, Imaro strove. He did not know whether he was sitting or lying on the ground. He knew only that the mask of Itu-Nusani Mujo was attempting to usurp his will, and drive his spirit from his body. The living mask was part-demon, part-parasite ... a creature that had existed long before the advent of the Erriten.
The faces spoke to Imaro even as he fought to dislodge them. Insidious thoughts crept into his mind like tendrils of pure malevolence.
Why do you not yield, warrior?
You are strong; we can make you stronger.
Yield ...
Yield, and you will live like a god, and all others will bow to you in terror.
Yield not, and we will make you unseeing, unhearing, helpless.
Yield ...
Imaro’s only response was to amplify his efforts to remove the mask. The mask’s triune consciousness probed deeper into the warrior’s mind and spirit, seeking the source of a resistance stronger than any it had encountered during it countless rains of usurping the bodies of mortals.
The mask found what it sought – and recoiled in alarm. The mask had not heard Imaro’s name before this day, for the entity had always remained aloof from the undertakings of deities and sorcerers. Now ... it knew who Imaro was, and what he had done during his long lifetime. It sensed the stirring of the Cloud Strider within the warrior. It understood how hollow its promises were to one such as Imaro. And it recoiled as though seared by sudden flame.
In that moment, Imaro ripped the living mask partway from his head. But he could not pull it all the way free. Pain worse than nearly any he had previously experienced tore into the skin of his face as the mask continued to cling. Imaro’s throat closed on an outcry. And he continued to tug at the moist, leathery substance of the mask.
Then Imaro saw the shadowy shapes of hands on the mask ... hands that clutched and tore at its substance even as the agony of its continued adherence caused Imaro to rend harder at the mask’s rim.
And the mask’s consciousness spoke again:
This cannot be!
This cannot be!
This cannot be!
This cannot –
Then Imaro knew no more.
* * *
When his eyes opened, the first thing Imaro saw was a ring of faces above him – not the faces of the mask, but those of the Nubala and Jijiwi. He felt the hardness of the ground beneath his back. His face throbbed with pain, as though the skin there had been torn away.
He rubbed a hand across his face, then held it in front of his eyes. It was not blood that coated his fingers, but instead a noxious-looking fluid that resembled silty water and smelled like carrion. As Imaro looked at the hands of the people surrounding him, he saw the same type of fluid dripping from their fingers.
Imaro began to rise. His movements had little of his usual pantherish grace as the others helped him to his feet. When he looked down, he spotted scattered fragments of a leathery-looking substance. Some of the pieces were recognizable as parts of the faces of Itu-Nusani Mujo. Splotches of the same foul-smelling liquid that dripped from the fingers of Imaro and the others covered the pieces of the mask.
Then an inert form lying nearby caught Imaro’s attention. Disengaging from the hands that held him upright, he tottered toward it on legs that were still regaining their strength.
The warrior looked down at a desiccated husk only barely recognizable as the corpse of Itu-Nusani Mujo. Its skin hung loosely on its large bones, as though the thews beneath had wasted away. Its face bore only suggestions of features: a cavernous opening that was once a mouth; a nub of a nose; eye-sockets that were little more than slight indentations beneath protruding brow-ridges.
“We could not allow the mask to take you,” said Tuatat.
“Nor could we,” added Zuburi.
Imaro turned to face the headmen of the Nubala and Jijiwi. The umad and the wachik stood somewhat apart from each other, as did the people of their tribes. All were blinking in bewilderment, as though they had difficulty believing what they had just seen – and done.
“When it looked as though you might not be able to pull the mask from your head, we had to do it ourselves,” said Zuburi. “The cattle-herders did not know it, but Itu-Nusani Mujo was as much an
