35. The Labyrinth

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Gabriel ushered the three children into the passageway, then ordered them to remain still as he pushed the hearth back into place with a loud scrape. Darkness fell over the tunnel as he did so. The siblings all held very still, breathing in the musty, stale air and listening to the sound of his boots clack against the ground whenever he moved about. After a moment, there was the flick of a match, and Gabriel proceeded to light two battered lanterns that had been hanging on the wall. He handed one to Kate and held the other aloft in his hand. 

"Where are we?" Asked Michael.

Gabriel swung around to look at him. The lamp cast a checkered pattern of shadow all across his face, making his scar more prominent than ever. His expression was serious, stern, even. (He could rival Miss B with how good at glaring he was.)

"We are in the place where you are quiet and do as I say."

With that, Gabriel lead them down the passage. Soon they arrived at a set of jagged stairs, at the bottom of which was an iron gate. Gabriel descended first and undid the sequence of bolts and locks holding the gate closed. Once he and the children were through into the next tunnel, he shut and locked it behind them. 

This path was wider than the first, with iron rails - not quite train tracks, but similar enough - running down it. They were able to walk side by side, Emma and Gabriel in front, Kate and Michael at the back. It was after carrying on like that for fifteen or so minutes that Kate finally dared speak. "So really, where are we?"

For a moment, Gabriel was quiet, and she thought he might not answer. But then he said, "one of the old mining tunnels used by the town. It will take us through the mountain, to the valley where my village lies."

"Right," Kate said. The village where this wisewoman would hopefully be able to help them locate the book they so needed to get home. Except, Kate thought, even if she did have the information they needed, it still seemed unlikely that three children stranded in a time not their own could possibly find the magic tome before the Countess and her Screechers did. 

She tried not to dwell on that, and her siblings did the same, all three of them instead focusing on Gabriel, who had, surprisingly, began speaking, his deep voice steady and soothing - a port in the storm. He began to tell them about these mountains and the particular breeds of magic that lurked within them. The hannudin - roughly translated as hope killers - nasty ghouls who lurked in the shadows and whispered terrible things to lonesome travelers, until the poor souls just sat down and withered away. The salmac-tar, which lived in the deepest caverns, and possessed no eyes but enormous, powerful ears, as well as razor sharp claws. Apparently, they were also distantly related to goblins, though they lacked in the intelligence of their more well known brethren. 

"But even such creatures are part of the balance, of the ecology," Gabriel said. The children were hanging on to his every word, especially Michael and Emma, who were uncharacteristically good mannered when he talked. "When the witch came, she changed everything. She upset the habitat."

Kate and Michael exchanged looks, their hard expressions made sharper by the lantern-light. They could both see how what Gabriel described was possible. They could both see how those rotten Screechers were so destructive, with their ruthless nature and yellow eyes... And twenty of them were in pursuit, probably ripping up the cabin even as the quartet plodded along the gravel path. Had they found the passageway, yet? It was only a matter of time. 

"What makes their shrieks so powerful?" Emma asked, drawing her siblings' attention. She was questioning their guide about the cries of the Screechers.

"Nothing," Gabriel replied. "It is only a sound, made powerful because of an illusion. The fear comes from your own mind."

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