*****
Lemborg sat up, still wrapped in the carpet. The roar and the rumbling sound afterward were fading. An earthquake? He had never heard anything at Mount Nevermind about the Northern Wastes being subject to earthquakes. It seemed unlikely.
He got out of the carpet, unable to sleep. He thought he should go see what was going on, but he dreaded the thought of running into Kalkon after his gaffe during the khas game. He should leave on his own before the brain eaters returned, or before he made an even greater fool of himself before the dragon. Kalkon had rescued him from the crashed technojammer, healed him, entertained him, and he repaid her with this. His face burned with shame.
He could still see a bit in the huge, dark room. After collecting his few belongings, he walked out into a long, high hall, trying to recall the way out. He walked to one end of the corridor, took two lefts and a right, and realized he was completely lost. A window loomed ahead, faint red moonlight shining through its sand-dulled panes. Disgusted with himself, Lemborg dropped his few belongings and managed to pull himself up to the window ledge to look out over the dark city.
He was still on the administration building’s third floor. Lunitari’s red light fell over the ruins. Thousands of gnomes would walk on the red moon’s surface someday, Lemborg thought. Gnomes would build magnificent cities there, spreading their great inventions across wildspace, and there would be hydrodynamics for all. But it was impossible to care about it now. It meant as little as the khas game. Lemborg blinked back tears and sighed. He dropped his gaze.
A pole rose up right in front of his window, in the middle of the air not twenty feet away. Tied to the pole were human skulls. Holes had been gnawed in their bloodstained crowns.
With a gasp, Lemborg let go of the window ledge and ran the moment his feet hit the floor. He left his belongings where they fell. Behind him, the huge golden coiled shell of the brain eaters’ spelljammer rose up and stopped, hovering beside the translucent window like an upright coin. It began to turn, the bow swinging wide.
Lemborg saw a corner ahead. He dove around it as the great window exploded inward behind him. The spelljammer’s long bow raked the window from right to left, knocking out hundreds of panes in a glistening waterfall. Before the noise had ended, gaunt human figures in ragged clothes leaped down from the tentacled bow into the corridor. Shards of glass crunched under their bare feet. No one cried out-all faces were empty, even of their purpose. They set off immediately after the gnome.
They are going to catch me, the terrified gnome thought as he ran down a dark hall. They are going to catch me, and then they are going to eat me. The certain knowledge spurred him on even faster. He took two rights, a left, and found a spiral stairway down. He descended two floors, turned left again as he left the stairs, then fled down a narrow hall. Footsteps echoed far behind him.
He dodged through a doorway and found himself in a four-way intersection. He went right. Faint light was ahead. He stopped, unsure what it was, then moved forward cautiously to check.
Ahead was an open doorway leading to the night air. He crept close, boots crunching softly on windblown sand, and peered out into the moonlight. The plaza lay before him. The faint smell of scorched paint lingered in the air, drifting over from the visible wreckage of the Spirit of Mount Nevermind.
He squinted. Moving around the pointed nose of the Spirit were manlike figures in long robes. They did not seem to be walking; instead, they moved as if floating over the ground.
Brain eaters. Lemborg had seen them levitate during the chase aboard their nautiloid spelljammer, vainly trying to catch him. He turned and ran back into the building, through the archway into the four-way intersection.
A four-fingered hand there sank its claws into his left shoulder. Hysterical, Lemborg turned and sank his teeth into the creature’s skin. It was cold and slimy like a live eel. The hand jerked away from him instantly. But more hands grabbed him by his arms and clothing, human hands with scarred, filthy skin. He fought them insanely, screaming as he did, but they had him tight and there was nothing he could do. They held him down just as they’d held down the man whose brain was eaten out while he was still alive.