Prologue: Hatchling

The first stroke of the clock made Mikhail cringe, but he shook his head and gathered himself to try again. "Give her back to me!"

"But you asked me to take her. I have only done what you wanted," the Goblin King told him in a tone that accused him of being thoroughly unreasonable. The clock continued to strike: three, four… "I have done you a favor, Mikhail. Go home to your wife. Lily is waiting for you. Now you will have all the time in the world to be with her, as you have not these last months. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Not like this!" Mikhail sobbed. "I have come all this way, through pits and mazes and monsters and Gods know what else. I have done exactly as you said. For the love of the Light, give me my daughter!" His hands reached out of their own accord, begging, pleading.

"Go home, Mikhail. Forget her."

"No!" he shrieked. "No! You can't tell me to forget. You can't keep her from me. You have no power over me!" The last words were nearly drowned out by the final stroke of thirteen.

The Goblin King winced, and then fell back. Mikhail was falling as well, tumbling downward as snowy wings beat around his head… and then he was standing in his own home, as a white owl drifted silently out the open door.

He looked down. In his arms was an infant, wrapped in a patchwork quilt that had seen too many years of use. She regarded him solemnly, sucking on her fist. He shut the door, then barred it for good measure and sat heavily in a rough wooden chair, the only piece of furniture he had ever owned. He cradled the child, holding her to him as though he would never let go, staring at her as though he never wished to see anything else.

Then he gasped. Her eyes… something was wrong with her eyes… He threw more wood onto the coals in the fireplace, prodding them to get a flame going, and held her so that the light shone on her face. Her eyes… they had been quite a pale blue before, like Lily's—like his own. And now…

"Green. They're green," he mumbled to himself, staring with anguish at the child's face. "What happened? What did he do? What has he done to you, Serena?"

--------

Jareth sat at his window, staring out over the city and the Labyrinth, absently spinning a crystal in his hand. It had been such a close thing. Imagine someone saying the words at exactly thirteen o'clock! No one, even he, could have said whether the man had finished before or after the final stroke—and if it truly had been the same moment, was the man within the time limit? Perhaps the king could have said that the baby had to be rescued before the stroke of thirteen to be returned, or even before the first bell. He was the rule-maker in this game, was he not?

Jareth sighed, and conjured a second crystal; the two orbited each other smoothly in his palm. He was a goblin of his word. He wasn't sure he had won the girl fairly, so it wouldn't have been right to keep her. She was too young to make a proper goblin, anyway; usually he wouldn't have taken a child under a year old, but he was called on less and less as time went by, and he had to take what he could get.

A third crystal found its way to his hand, and began alternately spinning and hopping over the first two. If only it wasn't so hard for goblins to bear children of their own… then he wouldn't have to resort to transforming human children. It was almost more trouble than it was worth, and he was always exhausted afterward, even when the humans didn't say the spell to break his power…

A fourth crystal joined the pile, forming a revolving pyramid in his hand, and he found himself short of breath. It would be some time before he recovered from tonight. And then he would just have to wait until he was called on again—perhaps to add to the ranks of his loyal subjects, perhaps to take another beating. And in between, there were the many affairs of his little kingdom to attend to: tiresome audiences to sit through, depressing reports to read, taxes to levy... He sighed.

Maybe he would hold a ball, if he could find the time. Jareth couldn't remember the last time there'd been a real ball—one that took place outside of his crystals, where he didn't have to worry about keeping some human girl distracted and could actually enjoy himself. Just one dance with a normal goblin, one love song with real feeling in it, one night of carefree revels would surely keep him sane for at least another decade—but Jareth doubted he would have such a chance.

He gritted his teeth, and a fifth crystal slid smoothly into the base of the pyramid. "I ought to just appoint a steward to handle these things. I could take a holiday and travel in the human world for a century or two. I could even abdicate and leave forever…"

But he wouldn't, of course. He was needed here. His people needed him. More to the point, the Labyrinth needed him.

Even he could see it was coming apart at the seams; without his magic to keep it together, the castle itself would collapse in a matter of weeks. He had to pour all his energy into it just to keep it standing, while his kingdom languished in famine and decay, and while the number of goblins dwindled every year…

It would never end, not until he was dead and in the ground.

Grimly, Jareth tilted his hand, and watched as the crystals rolled down, one by one. They fell outside the window, down past the wall, and onto the stones of the courtyard, where they shattered into thousands of pieces. The pieces split into the tiniest of fragments, which broke again until they had collapsed into dust.

The wind stirred the glittering particles, then picked them up and carried them out into the Labyrinth.

Jareth turned away and started toward the throne room.