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HE CROSSED ABOVE THE OPENING where the strea, especially for supersensitive vampire ears, so we hurried on as quickly as possible The rocks were slippery, and in some spots we had to form a chain At one extra-icy patch, Gavner andon to Mr Crepsley, but the force of the fall broke our grip Luckily, Harkat held on to Gavner and pulled the two of us up

We reached the mouth of a tunnel a quarter of an hour later We hadn’t climbed very far up the lad eren’t cliher

Mr Crepsley entered first I went in after hi to ask Mr Crepsley if we should stop to set torches, but I realized that the farther in we crept, the brighter the tunnel beca from?" I asked

"Luminous lichen," Mr Crepsley replied

"Is that a tongue twister or an answer?" I gruives off light," Gavner explained "It grows in certain caves and on the floors of sorow all over the mountain?"

"Not everywhere We use torches where it doesn’t" Ahead of us, Mr Crepsley stopped and cursed "What’s wrong?" Gavner asked

"Cave-in," he sighed "There is no way through"

"Does that ht of having trekked all this way for nothing, only to have to turn back at the very end

"There are other ways," Gavner said, "The mountain’s riddled with tunnels We’ll just have to backtrack and find another"

"We had better hurry," Mr Crepsley said "Dawn is fast approaching"

We shuffled back the e’d come, Harkat in the lead this time Outside, we iven the treacherous footing - and made it to the mouth of the next tunnel a few minutes after the sun had started to rise This new tunnel wasn’t as large as the other and the two full vampires had to walk bent double Harkat and me just had to duck our heads The luh there was enough of it for our extra-sharp eyes to see by

After a while I noticed that ere sloping doard instead of up I asked Gavner about this "It’s just the way the tunnel goes," he said "It’ll lead upward eventually"

About half an hour later, we cut up At one stage the tunnel veered upward almost vertically and we faced a difficult clihtly around us, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose mouth dried up with nerves A little after the tunnel leveled out, it opened onto a small cave, where we stopped to rest I could hear the strea not far underneath our feet

There were four tunnels leading out of the cave I asked Gavner how Mr Crepsley knehich one to take "The correct tunnel’sto a tiny arrow that had been scratched into the wall at the bottom of one tunnel

"Where do the others lead?" I asked

"Dead ends, other tunnels, or up to the Halls"

The Halls hat they called the parts of the mountain where the vampires lived "Many of the tunnels haven’t been explored and there are no et lost very easily"

While the others were resting, I checked on Madah most of the journey - she didn’t like the cold - but woke every once in a while to eat As I was taking the cloth off her cage, I saw a spider creeping toward us It wasn’t as large as Madaerous

"Gavner!" I called, stepping away fro?"

"A spider"

"Oh" He grinned "Don’t worry - the mountain’s full of the down to study the spider, which was exareat interest

"No," he answered "Their bite’s no worse than a bee sting"