18 TUNNELS

When Sarah awoke the first thing she realised was that she was no longer held by a Mysterique. In fact she was lying on a cold stone floor. It was only as she stood up to look around that the terrible memories returned to her, but this time there was no pain. The grief, the anguish, of this she felt none. The invisible shield between her and the heartache had reappeared, leaving her almost numb, only a slight melancholy air remained about her. Puzzled by this, but no longer thinking to question it, she focused back on her present situation, taking a long look around her.

In front of her she could see the river they had just crossed, and looking up she saw the Mysteriques had returned to their original position, having carried her and her friends across the river. Silently Sarah thanked them for their help and soon received a silent message back.

"You're welcome Sarah, it was a pleasure. And do not worry about what is to come, focus on now, live through now, and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. What will be, will be, and no amount of fretting will change that. Enjoy the now; after all, it's all you'll ever have."

With a slightly puzzled smile on her face Sarah turned her eyes to the ground to find her friends asleep on the floor around her. Confused but not really surprised by anything she found in the Labyrinth now she bent down over Sir Didymus who was laid almost at her feet and touched his shoulder in order to wake him. He awoke almost instantly, jumping to his feet with staff in hand shouting "How dare thee wake me, I'll fight thee to the death for such an insult!" It was just as he finished this outburst he managed to pull his hat from over his eyes and stared in shock at Sarah whose face showed the same expression. "Why my Lady, please forgive me, I did not know it was thee. I'm so sorry, had I known it was you I would never…"

"Sir Didymus, please don't worry about it. Sleep does strange things to people, I know it did to me. You're forgiven, now stop waving that sword at me, it's intimidating. Help me wake the others, will you?"

"Why of course fair maiden."

With that they woke up the rest of the friends, including Samael who it turns out had fallen asleep before he'd even gotten halfway across and had been carried the rest of the way by a Mysterique. Puzzled at the bizarre sleep epidemic, they nevertheless turned to Hoggle to find out where they were to go next.

"That way." He said, pointing towards the wall that stood behind them. In the faint light Sarah could just make out a large circular hole in the wall. They walked towards it and as they did she saw tracks in the floor that were the same as the ones the cleaner had moved along.

"Hoggle are these by any chance the tunnels that we were chased through by the cleaner last time I was here?"

"Yep, they is. But those are a long way off. The tunnels go right the way under the whole Labyrinth, ya could run the entire Labyrinth in them, but ya'd get lost."

"Lost? You mean these are the tunnels you got lost in when you were supposed to be coming to meet me?" A sheepish nod from Hoggle confirmed this. "Then why on Earth are we going to try and go through them?"

"Cos we're not on Earth, and it's the quickest route without 'aving t' climb that cliff. I knows the path we're going t' take, done it a hundred times. Course it changes every time, but it's usually easy enough."

"That does not inspire confidence." Sarah said, frowning, but indicated Hoggle should lead on anyway.

Hoggle shook his head at her and head off down the tunnel. As soon as they got into the tunnel it became pitch black, almost as if the doorway behind them had been blocked, allowing no light in at all. Sarah put her hands out, one to the side and one in front of her, feeling her way in the dark. Nevertheless it was only a few seconds later she heard a sharp yelp, an "I say!", a grunt of pain and almost instantly she herself fell over a pile of bodies that had suddenly appeared in front of her, consisting of Hoggle who had fallen over Devon, knocking Sir Didymus off his back. Extracting herself from the group Sarah began giggling at the absurdity of the situation. They were trying to navigate their way through a maze of tunnels that changed constantly and they were doing it in the dark. It was impossible.

"Hoggle we can't do this without light, we're just going to get lost."

"Yeah I know. It wasn't this dark before, the tunnels change, everything about them changes. But we 'av t' go on now, the way back will have already changed."

"Well then have you got a candle or something, any light source?"

"Ooh, ooh, I have, I have." Samael answered excitedly from behind her, and a second later a bright light filled the tunnel. Blinded by the initial brightness of it Sarah closed her eyes and opened them a few seconds later to see Samael's tail glowing brightly. Amazed, all Sarah could do was stare. "How do you do that?" she finally managed to ask.

"We all can. The underwater goblins, that is."

"Well thank you very much Samael, that'll be a great help. Why don't you go up front with Hoggle and help guide us."

"Really? I could do that?"

"Of course."

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you." He said before swimming off ahead of the group, urging Hoggle on with the importance of his new assignment as he called it. It made Sarah smile to watch his excitement at being useful. He reminded her of a child, but this made her think of Toby and for a while she became saddened. She still had no idea what was going on Aboveground, what he was going through. So once again she was drawn into a web of unanswerable questions and this time there was no distractions from her thoughts.