Melody Resonance's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Melody stood at the fork again with the empty jar under one arm and the theremin under the other. The cold passage lay behind them. The warm one waited. Somewhere down its length the tyrant kept every sound he had ever stolen, and somewhere between here and there stood his guards. Melody did not know the shape of the tunnels. One wrong turn would put a boot in front of a sentry. They needed a map, or someone who carried one. A soft thump came from the dirt near their foot. Then another. Not footsteps. A drum, low and small, three quick beats and a pause. Melody knelt. The sound came up through the floor. They followed it back along the cold passage until the wall opened into a side hollow they had missed before. A broad earthen mouth curved into the stone, roots hanging across the top like a curtain. Inside sat a gray rabbit no taller than Melody's knee, cross-legged, a hide drum on her lap. Moon marks glowed faint on her cheeks. Behind her, further back in the hollow, a taller rabbit stood in a robe of bark and ivy. His eyes were yellow. He did not blink. "You are the thief," the small one said. "The garden woman told the roots. The roots told us." Melody set the jar down slowly. "I need to reach his hoard without crossing his guards. I have no map." The tall one stepped forward. "The warren runs under his tunnels. Older. We know every branch. Something has been pulling the warren apart from inside. It moves through his passages. It killed one of ours three nights ago." He stopped. His jaw worked once. "I will guide you to the hoard. You will find what took the digger. If it is his, you break it." Melody looked at the drummer. She tapped the hide once. "I fade when no one hears. Carry my beat with you. Play it at each fork. The warren will answer. Guards will not." She lifted the drum from her lap and held it out. "Take it. It goes quiet with me if you refuse." Melody took the drum. It was lighter than it looked. They fitted the theremin's near antenna against the hide and turned one dial down until the drum's voice would travel into the dirt instead of the air. They tapped it once. The floor answered with a soft ripple three paces ahead, then five, then a long line pointing into the warm passage and bending left where Melody had thought the wall was solid. A map, written in tremor. Melody could read it. The tall rabbit was already moving. The small one watched them go and did not follow, and her marks were already dimmer than before.