Bitterwood, however, wasn't convinced. "Jeremiah, you ran when the long-wyrms raided your village. You ran from the battle at Dead Skunk Hole. Why are you suddenly so brave?"
Jeremiah gave Bitterwood a serious look. "I heard Blasphet tell you how it feels to die. It's the same way I felt fifteen minutes ago, before he healed me. As horrible as death feels, it's not as bad as being afraid. It's time I grew up."
Vance butted in. "There are other rebels his age at the fort."
Bitterwood clenched his jaw. Zeeky placed her hand on his fist. "Let him go," she said.
"Will he be alright?"
"Yes," she said, though she didn't know his fate beyond the next few minutes. But he wasn't going to be killed in that small window of time, so it wasn't really a lie.
Vance and Thorny took their wings and Anza grabbed a disk for both herself and her father. In the aftermath, only one disk remained.
With an excited snort, Poocher trotted up, staring at Shay with a look somewhere between pleading and demanding.
Burke looked curious. "Would they even work for him?"
"I don't see how," said Shay. "They're controlled by thought."
"Hey!" Zeeky snapped. "Poocher thinks! He's as smart as you, just in different ways. Can you find edible roots by sniffing around? He's not even a year old and I bet he could survive alone in the woods better than you. Don't tell me he doesn't think."
Shay looked suitably chastised. "Fine. It can't hurt to try."
He sat the silver disk between Poocher's shoulder blades. The pig turned around in a circle, as if he were trying to see the disk on his back, which his fat neck wouldn't allow. After his third revolution, he closed his eyes and scrunched up his snout. His wings unfolded. He floated off the ground, looking smug.
Everyone in the room knew there was something that needed to be said. But not even Hex, who'd never shown any fear of an obvious joke, dared say it.
BURKE SOARED INTO the night sky. Shay led the way, shouting out advice on how to control speed, how to maneuver, and how to hover. Burke found most of the advice unnecessary. The wings responded to thought. He was good at thought.
It felt wonderful, slipping free of gravity, taking the weight off his exhausted leg and the pressure off his aching armpit. He experienced a sense of something approaching deja-vu-it was as if he had flown before. It felt perfectly natural. Just as he could feel the ghost of his missing leg, he now felt a different sensation: the presence of phantom wings that spread from his shoulders and occupied his new metal limbs. He, like most people, had experienced dreams of flying. What did it mean? Why did he feel so at home in the sky? Was it feedback? Since his thoughts guided the wings, did the wings somehow affect his mind? Or was there some deeper mystery at work here? The dragons believed in a myth that the world had once been ruled by angels who were then overthrown by dragons. His people believed the myth was a metaphor for dragons overthrowing humans. But, what if the myth was true? What if mankind had once possessed wings?
As comfortable as he felt in the air, Jeremiah and Anza looked even more at home. They were zooming around like sparrows at play, flitting about in tight loops that Burke doubted he'd have the stomach to attempt.
Vance looked stable in the air, though he avoided the daredevil antics of Anza and Jeremiah. Poocher floated without flapping his wings, as if he were some oversized black and white balloon. The pig didn't look nervous, but he no longer looked as cocky as he had earlier now that they were hundreds of feet off the ground. Thorny was the only member of their group who looked frightened. His newly restored hands were held out stiffly to each side, as if he was balancing himself on unseen stair rails.
Shay said, "I flew here in about two hours. I think the wings could go faster, but the wind takes your breath away. Also, in daylight, it was easy to follow the Forge Road. You'll probably need to fly slower so you won't lose it."
Poocher snorted. Shay looked at him, and saw the silver visor sitting on his snout. Shay could see in the dark with his visor; he supposed Poocher could too. He took the visor from his eyes and handed it to Burke. "Wear these. You won't lose the road then. The others can follow you. And, you may as well have this too." He loosened the long leather holster than held his shotgun and ammo. "It doesn't sound like it's going to be much more effective than a pea-shooter where I'm going."
Burke took the visor and the gun. He'd given Thorny the shotgun he'd fled Dragon Forge with now that he had working fingers again, so the additional firepower was welcome. "You're going to follow the others to Atlantis?"
Shay nodded, looking apologetic. "As much as I want to fight for Dragon Forge, my heart lies with Jandra. I'm afraid she's still possessed by the goddess."
"And what if she is?" said Burke. "How will you free her?"
Shay placed his hand on the hilt of the angel sword. "I don't know if she can be freed. If she can't, I have the only weapon that can hurt her."
"Understood," said Burke. "I'd make the same choice."
Shay floated over to Thorny. He slipped his satchel off and said, "You're a man who knows the importance of books. I found these in the kingdom of the goddess. They aren't interesting reading on their own, but they provide a key to understanding a lot of the books that survived from the Human Age. Try not to let them get around any open flames, okay?"
Thorny took the bag. "When all this is over and you get back to Dragon Forge to start your school, count me in as one of the teachers."
"Thanks," said Shay. He looked at the barn down below. "I should go. You all have a revolution to save."
"You're a good man, Shay," said Burke. "We won't let you down."
SHAY SWOOPED BACK toward the barn. Now that the sun had set, the night was biting cold, with a steady wind blowing from the north. Despite this, the streets were full of men, women, children, and earth-dragons dressed in white, crowding together, watching as he came to a gentle landing on the packed earth of the street.
Someone in the crowd said, "Our healer denies his divinity, but who else would be visited by angels?" There was a general murmur of agreement.
Shay knew nothing of Blasphet save that he was a mass murderer of both men and dragons. He didn't like the idea that his presence might somehow be helping Blasphet's reputation. For the moment, however, he had bigger things to worry about.
Within the barn, the underspace gate was still open. Jandra, Hex, and Bitterwood were gone, as was Jandra's mentor, Vendevorex. Skitter, the long-wyrm, was now in the barn, his copper-scales reflecting the various hues of the rainbow. Zeeky sat alone upon his back, cross-legged, with a glass orb roughly the size of a baby's head perched in her lap. The surface of the orb reflected the shimmering rainbow edges of the gate. Zeeky didn't take her eyes off the orb as Shay walked toward her.
"We're at the end," she said. "After we go through the gate, I don't know the future."
Having lived his life so far without knowing the future, Shay didn't feel as nervous as Zeeky sounded. He wondered how Skitter had slipped into the barn without him noticing. He must have been more preoccupied with getting Burke and the others on their way than he thought.
Zeeky said, "You know that Jazz is still in control of Jandra."
"I know," said Shay. "When she wasn't coated in silver any more, I had a flicker of hope that Jandra was back, but knew it was too good to be true. But, I can't just give up. Is there no way to save her?"
"I don't have any idea. The villagers won't tell me. They've stopped using words. All I hear are howls of rage. They want vengeance against the goddess."
Shay grew closer. In addition to the rainbow reflected on the surface, there was a tiny rainbow floating inside the orb. When he'd first met Zeeky, he'd been skeptical of her claims that she could hear the voices of ghosts predicting the future. Now that he had wings and a flaming sword, he found it difficult to be skeptical of almost anything.