Without warning, it opens its mouth and shrieks in a voice that sounds horrifyingly human.
I stumble back, and my elbow hits one of the pedestals. The globe on top of it wobbles, and I steady it with a whispered “Shit, not again!”
When I glance back, the monster has frozen in its tracks. It’s looking up, probably at the eyes in the hallway where it’s standing, but it feels like it’s looking straight at me.
Its triple jaws open, saliva stretching between them. They open so wide that I can see into the creature’s throat—except it isn’t a throat, really, it’s a void. A black hole. A vast, hollow space far larger than the hideous body containing it.
A woman’s voice comes from between those jagged, dripping teeth. “Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me.”
The cry rises to a bloodcurdling scream, and then another voice takes over—a man shouting, “No! No! No!” over and over. The voice changes again, a younger man begging for mercy. More voices babble and gibber and scream from the monster’s gullet while it stands still, its jaws stretched wide, unmoving.
Without being told, I know that those are the voices of its victims. What I’m hearing is the creature’s prey, the way they cried out in their final moments. It’s terrifying, and it’s…
It’s exactly what I need.
I run over to the globe where I last saw Ravager and his group. They’re arguing over something, probably debating the best strategy for expanding their lava canal, which doesn’t seem to have gotten very far yet.
I activate the sound on that sphere, then run back to the one with the monster. By twisting that ornament farther, I can make the beast’s voices louder. I’m hoping the sound will transfer from one globe to the other and that the screams will blast out into the area where my rival stands with his men.
“No! No, don’t kill me! Please, please, I’m begging you!” shrieks a voice from the beast’s throat. A second voice joins in. “Stop, stop, oh gods, not like this. Not like this!”
“What the ever-loving fuck!” exclaims one of Ravager’s men. I think he’s called Needle. He seems to be their version of Maven, an expert on magical devices.
His terrified exclamation echoes back through both orbs, infuriating the monster. Stamping its six feet, it opens its jaws wider and releases more desperate pleas and screams of agony.
I retreat a few paces, pressing one hand over my mouth, both horrified and pleased at the success of my trick. Needle crouches down, covering his ears, while a second man, the one they called Grisly, starts to yell panicked curses. The third man, whose thief name is Slaughter, remains calm, listening to the screams with an expression of hideous interest on his face.
Ravager is the only one of the four who hasn’t unmasked yet, despite the heat. I’m not sure why. He knows I’ve seen his face before, at the Puzzled Coin, even though I don’t really remember it. Maybe he doesn’t trust his own men with his true face.
If that’s the case, I can’t say that I blame him. I’ve heard of the Vexxan cousins, Slaughter and Grisly. They used to be enforcers for one of the hessen lords, but according to rumors circulated in the Night Goose, they were too violent. Couldn’t follow orders. Couldn’t stop themselves from raping people or beating them to a pulp, even when that wasn’t their directive. Anyone who’s too brutal to be employed by a hessen lord is truly a despicable piece of shit.
I’m not familiar with Needle, but if his name is anything to go by, he might be an expert in poisons as well as magical artifacts. For years, there have been rashes of unexplained, apparently random deaths in Belgate, suspected poisonings, most of them never resolved. He could be responsible for some of them, or for many.
Who is Ravager, really, and why is he working with men like these? Impulsively I move closer to the sphere again and peer into it, like I’m trying to see through the mask and discern his reaction to the monster’s terrible sounds. All I can tell is that he isn’t smiling. He stands rigid, holding another bomb in his hand, looking from the lava moat to the hole he blasted in the wall. He’s pretending to strategize, but I suspect he’s more distracted and unnerved than he’s letting on.
I let the cacophony of shrieks and desperation play for a few more minutes, and then I shut off the sound from the beast’s globe. I approach the sphere overlooking the moat, eager to hear what my rival and his people have to say.
“What the hell was that?” snaps the one they call Grisly. “What’s going on in there?”
“There’s more than just her in that place,” says Slaughter. “She’s got a whole gang, and they’re torturing folks. What are you not telling us, Rav?”
“I’m not keeping anything from you,” Ravager replies.
“Then how do you explain what we just heard?”
“Maybe the Fae showed up,” suggests Grisly. “Maybe they caught the girl and her gang, and they’re killing ’em.”
“If the Fae are here, I’m out,” says Needle. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Sounds like they’ll be arguing for a while, so I shut off the sound and start to leave the observation room. But an idea strikes me, so I turn back, weaving among the spheres until I find onethat overlooks the front of the keep. I clasp both hands around it and lift it free of the velvet hollow where it sits.
I’ve knocked a couple of the spheres off-kilter, but until this moment, I haven’t tried to steal one. I half-expect an alarm to sound or some arrows to come whizzing out of the wall to impale me, but nothing happens. The crest on top of the ball stays in place, and the image inside remains the same.
“I’m taking you with me,” I tell the sphere. “You’re my eyes and ears.”
Cupping the sphere, I head down to the first floor and set it safely in a corner where I can keep an eye on it. Then I pull up the long rug that runs down the main hallway and begin cutting it into strips. The dagger I got from Ravager is so sharp it slices through the thick material neatly, which is perfect for my plan.
“Thanks for the knife, asshole,” I murmur with a half-smile. “And now to oil the floor.”
