absolute darkness.'
'How can you see?' Zeeky asked Adam.
'Let me show you.' There was a crunch of coal dust as he hopped from his saddle. He walked toward her, drawing very close. He smelled a lot better than the long-wyrm. He put something cold and metallic in her hand. It was a circle of metal, with a gap at one end. It felt like the visor poocher had taken from the rider Bitterwood had killed. She still had the object in her bag.
'Put that on,' he said.
She slipped the visor over her eyes. Suddenly, she could see clearly. Adam crouched before her. Unlike the first rider, Adam was handsome, with a mane of chestnut hair and boyish features. He stood up, smiling. 'Better than stumbling around in the dark, isn't it?'
'We were doing okay,' Zeeky said. 'Poocher wasn't lost.'
'Oh?' Adam asked, sounding skeptical. 'I didn't know pigs could see in pitch black.'
'He can see with his nose almost better than with his eyes,' Zeeky said, kneeling next to Poocher. Poocher turned his snout toward her as she opened the bag over her shoulder and pulled out the visor. He quietly advanced into her hands as she slipped the visor onto him. Poocher's head was bigger than hers. In a few months, he'd be too big for the visor. As it was, he gave an approving grunt.
'Yes,' she said. 'It is better isn't it?'
'So it's true,' said Adam. 'You understand the pig?'
'Of course,' said Zeeky. 'Mama says I was born able to talk to animals. I could talk with Mulie, our old hound- dog, before I could talk to Mama.'
Zeeky took a closer look at the long-wyrm. She gave it a scratch near the back of its jaw. It tilted its head to accept her touch. Its claws flexed in the packed coal dust.
'Yes, I know you like that,' she said.
'You can understand Trisky too?'
'That's his name? Trisky?'
'Her name. Her full name is Triskaidekaphobia.'
'That's a funny name.'
'It means 'fear of the number thirteen.' It's appropriate because she was the thirteenth and final egg to hatch, and, unlike her siblings, she only had thirteen pairs of legs instead of fourteen. She was born when I was only seven; it was lonely for me growing up underground because I had no parents, and I felt sorry that Trisky had no parents. I asked the goddess if I could care for her and she said I could. I fed her cave crickets when she was little-she was no bigger than a garden snake. Now, she's the strongest and fastest of the long-wyrms.'
'Granny told me there was no goddess,' said Zeeky. 'She said that the goddess was really the devil, and the only things that lived underground were demons. But I knew that wasn't true, because I've talked to bats, and they aren't demons.'
'Do you know why you can talk to animals, Zeeky?' Adam asked.
'Nope,' she said. 'I just can.'
'I know why,' said Adam. 'The goddess is always trying new things in the world. She gave the long-wyrms life out of clay.'
'I thought you said they came out of eggs?'
'But she sculpted the eggs out of clay. They weren't laid by a mother. And, sadly, Trisky and her siblings never laid any eggs themselves. When they die, they'll all be gone. The goddess said it's just part of life; most kinds of animals that have ever lived died out long before you and I were born.'
'That's sad,' said Zeeky.
'The goddess says it isn't sad. She says the world must constantly change; nothing lives forever, save for her. And, for all the things that die, she makes new things. Some thrive, some don't.'
'If Trisky and her kind are so rare, why do you ride them? Why do you attack people? It will only make them get hurt.'
'Trisky likes to be ridden. She enjoys having a purpose in life, as long as that purpose is to serve the goddess.'
Trisky let out a bubbling gurgle that showed that she agreed with Adam's words.
'See?' said Adam.
'You can understand her?' Zeeky asked.
'Yes, but I need the visor. It contains all the knowledge of the subtle sounds and gestures that allow me to talk with her. Though, 'talking' isn't exactly the right word.'
'No,' said Zeeky. 'It's like talking, but it's more than talking. Animals speak with their whole bodies. They even speak with smells.'
'Right,' said Adam. 'I need the visor in order to talk to long-wyrms, and that's the only animal I talk to. But you can talk to most vertebrates, and I know why.'
'Why?'
'You were born with a catalogue of animal signals already memorized. You instinctively know the right tones and postures to convey your thoughts to animals, and you can read all the signals they give off and understand their intentions. The goddess made you this way. She reached into your mother's womb and shaped your brain so that you would be gifted with a thousand times more knowledge than my visor holds.'
'Oh,' said Zeeky. This news worried her. Sometimes, the other kids in Big Lick would whisper behind her back that she was a witch child. Had the devil touched her while she was still in her mother's belly? She shook her head. She wasn't a witch child. She was a good girl. Maybe the goddess wasn't the devil. But then-
'What happened to my village, Adam?' Zeeky asked. 'Did you help destroy it?'
'We didn't destroy it,' said Adam. He smiled, but Zeeky could tell this wasn't a real smile. 'We simply returned it to nature. In a year or two, no one will know it was ever there.'
'But that was my home!' Zeeky said, in her sternest voice, placing her hands upon her hips. Poocher drew close to her, his head tilted toward Adam, his head lowered, as if prepared to attack with tusks he hadn't yet grown. 'Where is everybody? What did you do with Mama and Papa? Tell me!'
Adam shook his head. 'I can't tell you. However, I'm supposed to bring you to Gabriel. You can ask him.'
'Why can't you tell me?'
'I'm sorry. I don't have permission. And, truly, I don't know what the goddess plans for them. She's been preparing the people of Big Lick for many generations, I'm told. She's given all its people magical gifts. Gabriel said that the goddess planted her seeds in Big Lick, and decided now was the right time to harvest them. Be assured that if the goddess wants your family brought to her, it must be for some greater purpose.'
Zeeky frowned. Judging from his body language, Adam was telling the truth. He didn't know what was in store for her family. She didn't see any choice but to go with him to Gabriel, whoever he was.
'Looks like I'll get to ride you, Trisky,' she said, stroking the beast's copper-scaled neck.
Trisky gurgled her approval.
Chapter Eight:
Burke's Tavern
Every town needs an old man whose only purpose is to sit near the main road and talk to strangers as they pass. Dealon served that role at Burke's Tavern, a small village on the Forge Road, ninety miles from Albekizan's palace and equally as far from Dragon Forge. Dealon had filled the role of unofficial greeter for over forty years, since his wife had died in labor. He'd been too lonely simply sitting alone in the ramshackle cabin he'd built for her. The place looked abandoned after all these years, with weeds all about and moss growing on the wooden shingles. Dealon only returned to the cabin late in the evening to sleep, sharing his bed with a one-eyed cat named Gamble. The rest of his time was spent on the porch at the local tavern, or had been since the tavern was built.
The curious thing about the village of Burke's Tavern was that it had possessed the name for centuries, yet, in Dealon's youth, there was no tavern, nor any memory of anyone named Burke. In the first decade after his wife's death, Dealon had spent his days leaning against a fence near the Forge Road. The traffic of the road often resembled a parade. Great-lizards as green as unripe apples ridden by darker-hued earth-dragons would traverse the dusty, packed earth, guarding caravans of wagons towed by monstrous ox-dogs.
Yet, it had not been dragons that had proved to be the village's most important visitor. Roughly twenty years
