Gently rubbing its injured arm, the brain eater waited until the gnome had exhausted himself. Then it raised its uninjured arm in the dim light and gestured toward the plaza. The empty-eyed humans who held the gnome nodded and followed their robed master as he left, taking their captive with them.
*****
Three other brain eaters waited by the Spirit and the dry fountain, their feet hovering scant inches over the sand. Their robes rippled in a cool breeze. Shivering in the grip of the human slaves, Lemborg recognized the milky eyes and obscene tentacles, writhing like worms, hanging from the mauve horrors that passed for faces among brain eaters. They kept their thin hands hidden within their wide sleeves, arms crossed in front of them as if considering judgment.
The slaves halted before their floating lords. A long moment passed in silence. Then one of the slaves walked over to face Lemborg. He struggled once more to free himself, but could not.
The raggedly dressed human, a woman, looked down at Lemborg. In the red moonlight her eyes were bottomless holes, as if she had died weeks ago and rotted away inside.
“You are the cause of much needless trouble,” she said without accent or inflection. She could have been reciting something she read on a sign. “You would have escaped, your deeds unpunished, were it not for the power of our telepathic masters to read the simple minds of vermin like you. You will tell us where the passage device generator is hidden.”
Lemborg struggled, even less effectively than before, before he subsided. The woman was looking over his shoulder, as if listening to something that Lemborg couldn’t hear.
“You left the generator inside your ship, beside your pilot’s chair,” said the woman. “It is unguarded. Does anyone else know you are here?”
Lemborg, breathing heavily, simply stared up at her.
“Only the old female brass dragon,” said the woman. She waited, then added, “which is dead. We shot it down with our ship’s catapults and ballistae. Two of our masters are examining the body now. Do you know of any other valuables in this city?”
“Shut up!” Lemborg shouted at her in fury. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Tears suddenly ran down his whiskered cheeks.
“You hide nothing from us. Our masters take the information from your mind as soon as you think of it. They tell me what to say so I may communicate with you. Your thoughts are as simple as those of fish.” She paused. “You have not seen any treasure here. As that is the case, our masters have only one more use for you. They are tired and hungry from hunting you down. Our masters will now feed, and they will feed on you last so you will know what is to come.” The woman stopped, a puppet hanging on its strings.
One of the hovering brain eaters drifted forward, toward the woman and Lemborg. Its feet touched the ground directly behind the woman. Narrow fingers seized the woman by the arms, long claws digging into her bruised and dirty skin.
The empty-eyed woman sank down to her knees, her head tilting back abruptly. Wide eyes reflected the red moon above. Her pale lips trembled.
The brain eater gently lowered itself over her until the moist tentacles where its mouth should have been touched her face, then stretched out and covered her head from the eyes up, tightening their grip in seconds.
The woman shuddered, then spasmed violently. She opened her mouth and screamed up at the night sky like the damned. Lemborg threw back his head and howled with her, eyes squeezed tight and feet kicking wildly.
A monstrous roaring broke over the city. It drowned out both cries. The roar crashed and echoed through the night, fading into echoes and the howl of distant wind.
Lemborg opened his eyes, gasping and shaking. The other brain eaters now stood on the ground and stared off to Lemborg’s right in silence. Forgotten, the woman lay on her side, knees drawn up and hands entangled in her blood-matted hair as she sobbed. Lemborg looked in the direction the brain eaters faced.
There was a low thundering, like a heavy thing running with a strange gait. At the far end of the sand-covered plaza, a huge moonlit shape hurled into view from around a street corner. It quickly turned toward Lemborg and the brain eaters in a loping run, favoring its right foreleg as it came on. It was very fast.