Chapter 361: 361: The Path Under the Sand
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Her Friend jumped in a circle around her. It chittered in bursts and dipped its head toward the east. Miryam chittered back without words and swiped the air with a small claw. They did not share a soul thread, but play had its own language. Friend stamped little dots into the sand, then drew a long line through them with its tail. Many. Then it drew four thicker dots and circled them. Leaders. It raised its nose and sneezed. People. The desert was talking.
Miryam crouched. "The desert is talking," she said. "Many are passing."
Friend tapped three bigger dots and drew a circle around them. Leaders. It lifted its nose, sniffed, and sneezed. Soldiers.
Her eyes widened. Curiosity warmed her cheeks. "Are they like my papa," she asked. "I want to see them. Where are they? Can we go there?"
Friend tilted its head and squinted at her like a teacher faced with a very eager student. It paced three times, then drew a shape with its tail, flat on one side and curved on the other. A mountain. It scratched a small circle beneath it. Hidden. It tapped that circle three times and looked at her. Path.
Miryam leaned close, serious now. "You know a way under the sand."
Friend made the smallest bark and tapped the circle again, then swept its tail far to the east. It pressed its body low as if sliding down a tunnel. It looked back over its shoulder with a question in its eyes. Can you.
Miryam rose on her toes. The sand around her ankles stirred. She had learned that trick recently. Air wanted to be kind to her. Sand wanted to listen out of respect for the one who had ruled it before (her mother). She could not make dunes stand or ask a canyon to move. She could ask the ground to stop grabbing her feet. She could ask it to loosen and hold her weight like water. It felt like asking a sleeping giant for a ride across the room. If she asked nicely, it would shift without waking.
"I can," she said. "But only if I have wind and the sand is not angry. How far?"
Friend ran in a quick loop that would have been one circle if it were a dog and not a desert child. It made two loops. Then it stopped and drew two short lines. Two parts. One hour if the path was kind. Miryam looked back at the mountain. The sun had just lifted her hair. Two parts might be close enough. She chewed the corner of her lip, then nodded to no one but herself.
"I will stay close," she told the wind. "I will be quick. I will come back with a story for Papa." Inside her mind she wanted to do reports like Shadeclaw, silvershadow, skyweaver and others.
She found the slope that slid best and put both hands into the sand. She drew air down into it like a thin river. The grains softened around her arm and then around her knees. She took one step and sank to her shins. She took another step and sank to her hips. She hopped to her Friend’s shoulder and chittered in her ear. Then the sand loosened just enough and opened like a door.
They went down.
At first they stayed near the skin of the desert. Light filtered through and turned the tunnel gold. Miryam shaped the roof with her palms as she had shaped clay with Luna in the kitchen. She kept the curve even. She pressed the floor flat. She pushed a thin line of air ahead of them so the tunnel would breathe. Friend ran and doubled back and ran again. It stopped at small forks and tapped the right side with its paw.
A big shadow slid across the ceiling and paused. Miryam froze. A scorpion the size of a table crept above them. Its legs pricked the sand like needles. The tunnel wanted to shiver. She patted the wall and thought very hard about stillness. The scorpion moved on. The tunnel breathed again.
Inside the mountain, Kai never moved his feet. He kept his hands open and level. He let the flow of aura thicken by a hair and thin by a hair until the seven cradles held a single note.
[Ding! Rate perfect. Hold for five more hours.]
He did not blink. He did not know that the desert had welcomed a child into its cool belly.
Miryam and Friend came up for air once. They broke the surface in a small dip behind a dune and lifted their faces to the sun. She laughed with relief and let the wind dry the sweat on her brow. Friend shook sand from its ears and sneezed in a proud way. They looked at each other and grinned, then sank again.
The second tunnel went deeper. The light went pale. The air cooled. Glassy threads in the wall chimed when she brushed them, thin and sweet. She wanted to sing back. She did not. She kept her voice in her chest and breathed through her nose. She thought of Kai and the chair he had made for her near the forge. She thought of Luna’s hand on her head when she fell asleep too fast after a long play. She thought of home and did not let the tunnel feel lonely.
Friend slowed. It flattened its ears and went very low. It looked back and made a short sound that meant listen. Miryam listened. A new sound reached them. It was far away but real. It was not a hiss. It was not a roll. It was a beat made of many smaller beats that did not trip over each other. Marching feet. The ground knew the difference and told her through the bones.
She eased forward and raised the roof of the tunnel by hand. A weave of dead roots formed a screen in front of her face. The roots left small windows between them. She put one eye to a window and peered out across the sand.