Free Labyrinth by A. C. H. Smith

keen blades glittered in the light, every one of them pointing forward and whirring wickedly. The wall of blades completely filled the tunnel, like a subway train, and it would chop them into little pieces in the blink of an eye. And, Sarah noticed with horror, along the bottom of the slashing machine was a busy row of brushes, for tidying up after itself.
    “The Cleaners!” Hoggle shrieked, and took off.
    “What?” Sarah was so terrified she was mesmerically rooted where she stood.
    “Run!” Hoggle’s shout came echoing from some distance away and brought her back to her senses. She dashed after him.
    The slashing machine came clanking and trundling remorselessly on behind them.
    All it needed for the story to finish now was that they should come to a dead end. Around a corner, they found one. A heavily barred door closed the tunnel in front of them.

Chapter Six - Up and Up
    Sarah gasped. The whizzing blades were rapidly drawing nearer.
    Hoggle was pawing pathetically at the great door and mumbling to himself.
    But Sarah wasn’t listening to him. She was looking around for an escape — above, below. She dashed along the side walls, looking for a handle or button. There had to be some way out. That was how the Labyrinth worked. There was always some trick, if only she could find it.
    The clanking, whirring, seething, brushing noise was louder. She glanced momentarily at what Hoggle was doing. He was still just scrabbling at the door. It was no use trusting to him. What could she do? What?
    Her eye fell on part of the wall, to one side of the door, that looked distinct from the rest, a panel of metal plates. She pushed at it and felt it give a little.
    “Hoggle!” she shouted above the echoing din.
    “Sarah!” he answered, hammering his pudgy fists against the door and kicking at it, as though it could be expected to relent in the face of such frustration. “Don’t leave me!”
    “Get over here and help me,” she yelled back at him.
    Hoggle joined her. Together they shoved with all their weight at the metal plates.
    “Come on,” Sarah told him, “push, you little double-crosser. Push!”
    Hoggle was pushing. “I can explain,” he panted.
    “PUSH!”
    The panel caved in suddenly. They fell through the space it left and sprawled flat on it.
    Behind them, the machine slashed through the air just beside their feet. When it reached the great barred door, there was a terrible crunching sound as the knives and cleavers bit through the wood, spitting it out as splinters, which the whirling brushes swept up neatly. The machine was cranked along by four goblins, standing on a platform behind the wall of knives. They were grunting and sweating with the effort of turning handles and working levers to keep the contraption whirring. The racket clattered onward, through the demolished doorway, and off into the distance.
    Sarah lay on her back, recovering her breath. Hoggle looked down at her. “He’s throwing everything at us,” he said, and shook his head with a trace of admiration. “The Cleaners, the Eternal Stench — the whole works. He must think a lot of you.”
    Sarah answered with a faint, forced smile. “He’s got some funny ideas.”
    Hoggle was busy again. Eyes darting left and right beneath his bushy eyebrows, he clumped around in the shadows until he found what he was looking for. “This is what we need,” he called. “Follow me.”
    She sat up and looked. There, on the floor of the tunnel they had entered, she saw the base of a ladder. It led up into darkness.
    “Come on,” Hoggle was calling. The first rung was too high for him to reach, and he was hopping around trying to jump up to it.
    Sarah went over to him. The ladder looked unsafe to her. It was constructed of an odd assortment of bits of wood, planks, and branches, patched together with ends of rope and half-driven nails.
    “Come on, give me a hand,” Hoggle urged.
    She stood with one hand holding the ladder. “How can I trust