The Belly of the Beast

"Open your mouth," the zyglot said.

Jess, realizing he couldn't actually bargain with them, did exactly as they told him to. The Zyglot dropped some powder on his tongue. It promptly sizzled in his mouth and dissolved.

Probably going to put me out of my misery before cooking me, Jess thought.

"The pain will leave."

Jess' headache subsided within seconds. The zyglot then cut the rope around his ankles. "On your feet," he said.

Jess stood slowly, afraid the headache would roar back into his head, but felt no ill effects whatsoever, almost as if his skull had never ever been nearly fractured.

"Let me explain,' he said.

"Shut up. You can explain to the elders. March!"

He poked Jess with the spear. With one zyglot marching in the rear and the other scampering across the ceiling in front of them, the journey to the elders, whoever they were, began.

The zyglots knew their way around the labyrinth of tunnels because in no time at all the three of them stepped into the crisp, clean air into a beautifully green forest. Jess gasped because everywhere he looked he saw huts built among the branches.

Natural climbers, natural tree dwellers. Another thing struck him. The zyglot village had been built in the very depth of the forest where sunlight rarely entered. That also made sense to him. Their large eyes had developed from what might have been eons of living in near darkness and working the mines in the center of the earth. No wonder they had easily surprised him, what with their ability to clamber over ceilings and see in the dark. He was lucky he wasn't dead.