Operation distract Trace was a success. Melody was very happy with herself as she slid down the pipe. When she heard Trace shouting at her, she couldn't help but laugh.

Her landing was about as grace full as the last one. She stood, rubbing her abused hip. With everything Sirrus had created over the years and he hadn't come up with a softer landing for the slides?

All irritation left her mind when she spotted what was in the middle of the room she had landed in. For several moments, the only movement was her mouth sliding open. Even the sound of Trace sliding down behind her didn't register.

"… why I even bother telling you anything. You never listen to a word I say," he stopped and scowled. "You're still not listening."

Her eyes were wide as she stared. Her hand suddenly shot up, grabbed his in an almost painful grip and pointed. "Trace… tell me what you see there."

He followed her gaze… and stared.

A chair sat in the middle of the room. It was large, metal and had two large metal pieces coming out of the back, over the top and down in the front. They looked uncomfortably like… legs.

"Trace…" Melody whispered. "It's a… spider chair?"

"That is what it looks like," he agreed, his tone more puzzled than horrified.

"I don't like it," Melody whispered. "I don't like it," she said again, getting a little louder each time. "I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like…"

"Melody!" Trace finally had to say to stop her. "Melody, you are cutting off the blood circulation to my hand. I know you don't care for spiders, but…"

"No. I don't care for Jeffy, the old guy in Tay I end up sitting next to at dinner who falls asleep and drools on my arm. I hate spiders."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I stand corrected."

"What is it with this family and creepy chairs?!"

Trace snorted a laugh, but coughed in a vain attempt to cover it. Melody's eyes narrowed at him. "Just for that, you're going in the chair."

"What makes you think we'll have to deal with that chair?"

"Trust me, at some point we will be dealing with the creepy chair."

Next to the chair was a machine with a switch. Melody flipped it out of curiosity and, surprisingly, sparks flew. At least one thing worked without having to connect anything.

She automatically didn't trust it.

"Melody, look behind us."

Melody looked on the other side of the slide they had come down and gasped.

A life-size statue of a woman had been carved out of crystal, facing the chair. A piece of paper had been placed in the open hands of the statue. Melody stepped closer, studying the face. Her hand covered her mouth as she came to a shocked realization.

"Trace?" she said weakly. "It's me… this statue… is supposed to be me…"

He moved beside her, studying the statue with a dark frown. "I don't like this."

Melody wondered how long ago Sirrus had carved the statue. He'd only seen her a couple of times around ten years before. Unless Atrus and Catherine had been showing him pictures of her, which she doubted, Sirrus had carved her face, body and height (and had gotten everything perfect) from memory.

Creepy was the only word the describe how she felt.

She shivered.

Trace immediately looked at her. "Melody?'

"I'm fine," she assured him. "Just a little… uncomfortable. I would just knock it over and smash it into a millions pieces, but a lot of work went into it, so I'd probably feel just a little guilty."

"The feeling would pass quickly."

She smiled and looked at him. "Thank you for the attempt to make me laugh."

"I wasn't joking."

She really did laugh then. "Let's keep exploring. The quicker I get away from this thing, the better."

The paper in the statue's hands turned out to be the frequency chart that Sirrus had mentioned in the notes Melody had found on his desk. She explained what she could remember of them to Trace. He looked so contemplative that she was suspicious. "What?"

"I think I know how Sirrus caused the explosion."

"How?"

He shook his head and smiled at her irritated look. "I'll let you know when you figure it out too."

She frowned, then pointed at the chair. "Just for that, go deal with the chair." She was surprised when he went willingly. He sat and pressed a blue button. Slowly, the two large metal legs began to lower, bringing a panel down with it. Melody squeaked when he snagged her wrist and pulled her down into his lap. "What are you doing?"

"I don't trust you to stay put while I do this, so you are doing it with me."

"No," Melody began to struggle. "I don't want to. You can't make me!"

"Instead of acting like a child, you could be experimenting with all these buttons," Trace pointed out.

"Buttons?" Melody asked, distracted.

The panel had closed, turning the chair into something resembling a desk. Buttons, lights and switches glittered temptingly across the metal surface. Three long, thick cables ran vertically inside a large opening in the center of the panel. In a split second, Melody went from arguing to a kid in a candy store. Her grin was one that both amused and worried him.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you really going to let me play with the buttons and switches without stopping me?"

He shrugged. "Enjoy."

She didn't need to hear that twice.

Several large symbols were lined up next to the cables. Some of them she recognized: the chair, the statues, and the conductors. There was one more that she couldn't tell what it was. Melody quickly realized that she needed to adjust the power levels that ran through the cables to feed power to the things the symbols symbolized. Thankfully, there were hash marks next to the symbols that she assumed meant how much power each thing required: 4, 11, and 36. The last symbol didn't have any marks.

Melody had been silently studying the panel for so long that Trace cleared his throat. She looked shocked, as though she had forgotten he was there.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "I'm so used to doing things like this by myself. I was just thinking…"

"Vary taxing," Trace commented, which earned him a glare.

Turning sharply, so that her hair whipped his face, she grasped a dial and moved it down a notch. She gasped and gripped his arms when the chair lowered. It moved like an elevator down to the level below. When it stopped, they looked around.

They were in a large cavern. Smaller statues of crystal sat on steps all around them. They were surprised to see that the statue of Melody had also lowered.

"It's following us," Melody whispered frantically.

"Ignore it," Trace said, "Do those smaller statues remind you of anyone?"

Melody's eyes widened. "Yeesha!"

It was then she realized the necklace was glowing.

"Not long now Father. Not long before I show you what a smart little girl can do."

Sirrus had been high on Melody's creepy list for a while. That memory pushed him way beyond the list. She tried to raise the panel so she could examine the small statues closer, but it refused to move. Evidently a person could only get in or out on the level above.

Trace, sensing her unease, gripped her shoulders. "Focus on the task at hand Melody."

She swallowed, shaking her head to clear it. "Right," she said, but her voice was a little shaky.

The dial wouldn't move down any farther. "Not enough power flowing to the symbol," she explained to Trace.

He was looking at the lights at the top of the cables. "I believe these indicate how many conductors are grounded, or collecting power from the lightning. I activated five of them to operate the rock ship. We have to find the others. It looks like there are 36 in total."

Trace reset the dial and the chair rose.

"By the way," Melody asked as they climbed out of the chair. "What did you see in the other tower?"

He snorted. "Nothing. The moment the ship stopped moving I turned it around and came back."

She raised an eyebrow. "And you say I have trouble focusing?"

He glared and said nothing.

An elevator on the other side of the spider chair room led up to the garden level.

"And why did you not take the elevator before?" Trace asked her.

"The slide is more fun."

"You didn't see it, did you?"

"That too."

She showed him where the ladder was that she had used with the other ladder in front of it. She made him go up first. She was wearing a skirt after all.

At the top they found more conductors, four to be exact, that needed to be activated. Melody left fiddling with the console to Trace, seeing as how he seemed to gotten the hang of them. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer over his shoulder and watch, when the necklace glowed.

"Idiot! You've run these calculations a million times! Counterbalance the magnetic forces perfectly, otherwise the ship won't get out of the dock! And you do want to get out of the dock, don't you? After all these years of trying?"

Evidently the years of confinement hadn't done anything to lesson Sirrus' temper.

Once Trace had finished activating the four conductors, they decided to explore the other tower. Since he still didn't trust her to stay put, Trace sent Melody across first. Now that nine conductors were activated, the ship moved significantly faster than before. Melody had to grip the handles tightly to keep from falling. Once it docked at the other tower, she turned it around and sent it back. While she waited, she looked around.

This tower was not as developed as the other one had been. It seemed that Sirrus had spent most of his time in the other tower. She followed a rock and crystal path toward an open area where she could see the lights of many conductors. Melody opened the panel and considered briefly trying to activate the conductors herself, but quickly decided to wait and let Trace do it. Why should she do the boring work when she had someone with her this time around?

She saw a hole in the floor near the conductor field, a hole with a rope leading down into it. She approached and took the rope in her hand. The necklace immediately glowed with a memory.

Sirrus was gripping the rope. His face smudged with soot, his hands blistered from work, a triumphant smile on his face.

"At last… after all these years…Freedom!" he exclaimed before descending the rope.

Melody gazed warily down the hole. Sirrus had thought there was a linking book down there. Obviously there hadn't been, but her curiosity had her wondering just what was down there.

She looked back over her shoulder and saw Trace coming on the ship. She looked back down the hole, then at the rope. She'd just take a quick peek, then come back up. It would save time if she explored what she could while Trace worked on the conductors.

Having talked herself into it, she climbed down the rope.

The rope ended on a narrow rock ledge. Beneath her, Melody saw the harsh green color of the burning planet. If a linking book had fallen down there, there was no way it had survived after all these years.

She took a few steps along the ledge and the necklace glowed again.

Sirrus reached the end of the rope, stepped on to the ledge and looked around in a daze. He stepped to the edge, staring at the planet below, his face a mixture of exhaustion and despair. Then a rage such as Melody had never seen before turned his face into something that frightened her.

"I am Sirrus…" he said, his voice as hard as his eyes. "And I will not be defeated!" he finished in a roar that made her flinch.

As the memory faded, Melody realized that she was shaking. She had never seen anyone that enraged before. Not even Saveedro had come close to that. Because there had been more than rage in Sirrus at that moment. There had been a deep and burning hatred.

Hatred for who? Who was his hatred directed to? Atrus? Yeesha? Herself?

"Melody!"

She looked up to see Trace looking down at her. She could tell by the look on his face that she was in for another lecture. She grabbed the rope. "Pull me up!"

There was something in her voice that made him forget his annoyance and what he'd planned to say to her. He pulled her up through the hole quickly. "What is it? What did you see down there?"

"He spent so many years trying to reach the ground. When he realized he couldn't…" she shook her head against the memory of his face. "I didn't think such hatred was possible. How can a person feel that much rage and hatred and not explode?"

"Maybe he did," Trace told her. "At least in his mind."

"Trace," Melody asked, tears in her eyes. "What if he's the one that has Yeesha? What if he hurts her?"

"We'll find her," Trace promised. "And if he has hurt her, I'll make him wish he had died when his trap book was burned."

Trace set to work on the conductors. Since there were so many, it took him a while. When they were finished there was nothing else to do in the tower so Melody and Trace returned to the first tower. After checking in the circuit board to make sure all of the conductors were lit, they took the elevator at the garden down to the spider chair.

As they lowered down to the cavern with the crystal Yeesha's, then moved the dial down further. To their surprise not only did they end up at the bottom of the tower (a metal walkway was built underneath), but the steps that held the crystal Yeesha's moved as well, tilting toward the spider chair while remaining overhead.

"Now what?" Trace asked, after trying to move the panel up. "I can see something over there, but we're still trapped in this chair. Sirrus must have reset everything."

Melody looked over the panel. A large blue button that hadn't been on before was now lit up. "Let's see what this does."

Both of them gasped as the chair plunged down even further. It finally stopped when it was completely underneath the tower. Only a few thick cables kept them from plunging to their death in the fire-y planet below.

Melody gulped and looked over her shoulder at Trace who was, predictably, glaring at her.

"Sorry?" she said sheepishly.

"That's it," he said sternly. "No more buttons."

"Agreed," she nodded.

Actually their ride down wasn't for nothing. There were some lines that led to the spider chair that they had to tighten slightly. Once that was done, they heard a low hum.

"The cables on the panel have to be the answer," Melody decided as they headed back up.

There were sliders on each cable that could be moved. When she moved them up and the hum grew louder and changed tone depending on where she set the slider. "Trace," she said, "I read something in Sirrus' journal about the crystals making some kind of music when set to different frequencies of sound. I think this panel is not just for distributing power. It's a keyboard for playing the crystal's music."

Trace frowned. "That doesn't sound like music to me."

"It has to be tune," she explained. "Like any other instrument. Look here," she pointed at the four clear cylinders under the cables. "There are different types of material in here, attached to a spring. This one is one of the Nera chess pieces, this one is a piece of quartz, this one blue crystal and this last one is black rock."

She slid all of the sliders to the top of the cables. The ensuing hum was so loud and the tone so high that all of the pieces were rattling and moved back, allowing the ring around the cylinder to rotate. When she lowered the sliders, the pieces stopped moving and one of the pieces (the Nera chess piece) was in the right position to slide into a hole in the cylinder.

"I understand what's going on here," Trace said thoughtfully.

"Good," Melody said, "cause I'm starting to get lost here."

"Each material has a different molecular structure, so the frequency for disrupting that structure would be different for each piece. We need to adjust the frequency enough for each of the materials to slid into their proper holes."

"What's the point of that?" she asked.

"I believe this is how we will tune this keyboard, as you called it."

Melody's 'oh' was three syllabled. "That was what the frequency chart was for, the one that my statue was holding. Do you remember what was on?"

"I wasn't focused on the chart," Trace said stiffly.

Melody, missing his tone completely, moved the dial to the top. "I'll just have to check it then."

According to Sirrus' notes, the sliders had to be set so that 20 units of power went through the cables. None of the frequencies Sirrus had written down added up to twenty, but the one in the middle of the page (10-5-5) was the closest. Hopping back in the chair, she moved the dial back down to what she decided to call the music level.

The combination of 10-5-5 got the black rock to shift and slide into place. It looked like she was going to have to use trial and error to get the others. Surprise, surprise.

With Trace watching the materials to tell her when the frequency was right, Melody set to work moving the sliders.

6-12-4 got the quartz in place, 3-1-7 got the blue crystal and the Nera chess piece required the most at 12-12-12.

When she got the last one in place, nothing happened. "What happened? I got all of the frequencies right, I know I did."

"Maybe it's not about getting the materials in the holes, but getting them all out at the same time. Each cylinder moves at the same time, but there are a different number of holes in each one. So some materials stay out longer than others. You got the frequencies right, but you have to enter then in the right order."

Melody could see that he was right. She would have to move fast. With Trace's help, she figured that quartz came first, then blue crystal, black rock and finally Nera.

Once all the pieces of material were vibrating and moving at the same time something unlocked beneath them and a pathway of chained floating rocks appeared from below. At the same time the keyboard rose, letting them out of the spider chair.

"Good work," Trace told Melody, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Once I set my mind to something, I don't stop til I get it done."

"I'll remember that," he promised.

UGH I hated that stupid chair! Took me for-freaking-ever! And this is the main reason why I hated Sirrus.

I hope you guys don't mind the direction I am going in, the slight romance between Sirrus and Melody (one-sided I assure you)