~ "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered…I have fought my way here to the castle, beyond the Goblin City, to take back the child that you have stolen… For my will is as strong as yours…and my kingdom as great... You have no power over me."~
"Hey, you!"
Celestine jumped, alarmed by the sudden voice, and whirled around when she felt something nudge her foot sharply from behind. At first she didn't see anyone, then heard a loud cough from below and looked down, her blue eyes large in surprise. When she saw the squat, rather ugly little man standing there in front of her, his large, gnarled hands in fists on his hips, with his watery grey eyes looking up at her suspiciously and rather unkindly, she couldn't help the squeal of alarm that escaped past her lips, nor the way she took an involuntary step backwards, staring in disbelief and shock at the dwarf-sized man. Whether he'd been expecting this reaction, or whether he was simply accustomed to people shrieking when they saw him, she couldn't be sure, but given the way the man sighed wearily and rolled his eyes in exasperation she guessed it was one of those two.
"Would you just take it easy?" the dwarf asked her in a gravelly, irritable voice, narrowing his grey eyes at her.
"I-I'm sorry," she apologized automatically. "You just startled me. I didn't realize anyone was following me."
"I wasn't," he said with an indignant sniff. Celestine blinked rapidly, once again caught by surprise.
"You…weren't?"
The dwarf gave a derisive snort and rolled his eyes once again. "As if I have time to chase after little girls all day," he snapped grumpily. "I was just coming out to make sure no one was trampling around like a gorilla through my garden. Luckily, you aren't, unfortunately, I have the lurking suspicion you're not actually supposed to be here."
"Be in your yard?" she asked, bemused.
"No, not my bloody yard!" The sudden exclamation had her stepping backwards again, wide eyed. "The Labyrinth, you fool! The Labyrinth!"
"Oh," she mumbled, embarrassed, glancing around uncertainly at the high walls around her, then became a bit indignant as she fully processed his rude words. "I have every right to be here. I came to find my brother."
The man raised a bushy eyebrow at her, his expression skeptical.
"Your brother?" he repeated, his tone seeming to question her mental stability.
"Well…" Celestine hesitated. "My stepbrother."
"Uh-huh…and why would you think he'd be in the Labyrinth?" asked the squat man, folding his short arms across his rather robust chest and eyeing her inquisitively.
"He's in the Castle," Celestine said, rather annoyed now. Why was this unnamed little man treating her like she was a nutcase? And especially acting as though he knew her on top of that. Where did he get off being so rude, anyway?
"The Castle, you say," mused the man, and scratched at his broad chin, looking thoughtfully at the sky. "So Jareth took him, eh?"
"I-I don't know," admitted Celestine, all of a sudden apprehensive. "I don't even know what happened to him or how I got here, just that my brother's missing and I know he's in the Castle."
"And how do you know if you don't know anything else?" the man interrogated her slowly; again in that patronizing tone he seemed to enjoy using with her.
"Because," she said, and reached into her shoulder bag, pulling out the small familiar red booklet and flipping to the center of the book, "That's where the child is hidden in the story… Where else would they take him if not to the Castle?"
She looked up at the man; surprised he hadn't made another smart remark, and was rather perplexed when she discovered that the squat little thing was gaping at the book in her hands, his large mouth wide with shock as his jaw went slack. His eyes were stretched wide in disbelief, and his breathing was suddenly unsteady.
"What is it?" she asked, a little nervously.
"Hide that right now!" he hissed furiously, snapping abruptly from his trance-like state and waving his hands wildly at her. She scrambled to push the book back into her bag, staggered by his unexpected irritation.
"What?" she repeated fearfully once the book was safely out of sight. "What's wrong with the boo—"
"SHHH!" The man all but brandished a fist at her to ensure silence, looking around with a wild kind of terror in his eyes. Then, still glancing fearfully from side to side, he hobbled over, grabbed her in a grip surprisingly strong for a man so small, and began to lead her forcefully towards a rather dilapidated shack just ahead of them, right outside of the gates of the Labyrinth. "Don't speak a word 'til we're inside," he warned her under his breath, still towing her along behind him.
She stared with wide eyes at him, completely at a loss for what to do. All she had done was to pull out the book about the Labyrinth. What was so bad about it that this man was suddenly acting as though she'd brandished a weapon at him in the middle of the Holy Land? Still, she thought it better to follow his instructions, as he was obviously more familiar with the Labyrinth and the lands in which they now were than she was. After all, he had his home built just outside the walls of the Labyrinth itself; that had to be cause to have a good education on the place. So she allowed him to drag her along in silence, only feeling secure in speech once she had been ushered inside the small dwelling that was the man's home; having to stoop to fit through the doorway, which was exceptionally small compared to the normal size of a doorway.
"Did I do something wrong?" she asked quietly, taking a seat on the floor seeing as all the chairs in the room looked either too small or too precarious for her to sit in, and there was no bed.
The man didn't answer immediately, setting to slamming the shutters on every window in the small house shut and bolting them, then repeating the process with the door, which had four consecutive locks in place. Only after every curtain was drawn, and every possibly entryway—even the chimney—had been blocked, did he finally turned to face her, and he looked extremely wary as he eyed her shoulder bag, as though he could see the offending book straight through the thick leather material of her satchel.
"If Jareth knew you had that book," he told her very quietly, his voice trembling slightly, "He would never let you leave this place."
She gaped at the man, aghast at this new revelation.
"W-why?" she demanded, terror very much in evidence in her wide eyed expression.
The man sighed deeply, then sat himself down rather heavily on the nearest chair, rubbing his gnobbly hands across his face before settling down and pinching the bridge of his rather bulbous nose between his thick forefinger and thumb.
"Not very long ago," he began slowly, his tone indicative of a very serious piece of historical information about to be brought to light, "There was a woman from your world who passed away. In your world, this was almost a year ago. Here it has been nearly two hundred years. Her name was Sarah Williams."
Celestine's eyes grew very wide. "That was the name on the tombstone under the tree where I found the book," she murmured in awe.
"Jareth was very much enthralled by her," the man continued calmly. "When she was much younger, a teenager just about your age, she was miserable with her life, and called on the goblins to take her brother away to the Castle, trying to ease her burden. She hadn't actually expected it to happen, but when it did she pleaded with Jareth to return her brother to her. He agreed to return the boy, but only if Sarah could find her way through the Labyrinth and breach the Castle walls in exactly thirteen hours or less.
"She did it, though Jareth had attempted everything to prevent her from reaching the gates of the Goblin City. He tried to sway her to become his bride, but she accused him of being cruel and unfair by stealing her brother when she had not meant for him to be taken away in the first place. Jareth finally returned her brother and gave up entirely on Sarah and her world. Many of those who had befriended Sarah on her journey through the Labyrinth remained her friends up until her death recently. Jareth never again mentioned her or her world. He wanted nothing to do with it."
"But…" Celestine was confused. "What does this have to do with the book?"
"Jareth was delivered the book by an Oracle who arrived about one hundred years ago, after the death of Sarah," the man said, still speaking in his quiet, gravelly tone. "This Oracle told Jareth that Sarah was dead, and that he believed he had found the cause of her rejection of him, despite his designs on her. The book, called The Labyrinth, was thought to be a teller of the future, as Sarah had discovered it before Jareth had even managed to discover her world. Jareth ordered the book to be destroyed and the Oracle sent away. Before the Oracle departed, however, he declared a prophecy to Jareth.
"The prophecy was told in the presence of my grandfather, one of Sarah's very dear friends. He passed the words on to my father, who in turn passed them on to me. The prophecy was this: "There will come a time, near in that, and far in this, and when that time comes, so shall one. This one will bring what you have long thought lost, both the good and the bad. You will both despise this one and love this one for what it shall bring to you. However, your love shall overcome your loathing and you will find eternal peace with this one. Your desire for it shall be so much that you shall not allow it to pass you by. Forever will you and this one be bound together, once your lust for it has penetrated too deeply to be taken back. And together you and this one shall drift through eternity together, two beings in one, always bound, never apart." That was the prophecy."
The man looked up at her now, his grey eyes glowing with intense wisdom.
"For the past one hundred years since the Oracle's prophecy, Jareth and many of his followers—as well as his enemies—have believed that what the Oracle spoke of was death. It was well known and still is that Jareth is immortal, and tires of his life without love. He finds joy in nothing, and has not for two hundred years. All believe the time is coming when he shall end his own life, and that it is death he craves so intensely. My grandfather did not believe this, and neither did my father. I was not sure what to believe, but now it is only a week until the time of the hundredth anniversary of the Oracle's prophecy. However, if he discovers that you have come from Sarah's world, carrying the very thing he banished so long ago, he may become so vengeful there is no way to tell who would be in danger and who would be safe. The only concern now is that much of the prophecy is still shrouded in mystery. The Oracle's first words "near in that, far in this" still puzzle many."
Celestine was silent as the man finished his tale, watching her with steady, grey eyes, judging her coming reaction. But Celestine was thinking, and thinking hard, so if the man was awaiting some kind of gasp filled, awe inspired reaction he was going to have wait for a while before he received one. While he watched her, her mind worked vigorously to decipher the hidden meaning in the Oracle's words, knowing there was one buried within the clues and riddles.
"Near in that, far in this," she murmured softly, playing the words through her mind and aloud, judging their importance. A thought came almost immediately to her mind. Time in her world moved much slower than time in this world, the world of Labyrinth. "Near in that" could also mean "closer in time" in her world, while "far in this" could mean "farther in time" in this world; the Labyrinth world.
"Time," she whispered, staring at the man now. "The Oracle meant time. 'Near in that, far in this' means the times in the two worlds. Sarah's world and this world."
The man was gaping at her, looking stunned, then, slowly, the shock melted off of his face to be replaced by a look of total jubilation.
"Of course," he whispered, eyes alight with glee. "That's it! The passing of time!"
He suddenly frowned, his brow furrowing as something interrupted his joyous celebration.
"But…what does the rest of it mean?"
Celestine nibbled on her lower lip, not entirely certain if she could answer that question. True, she enjoyed solving riddles and such at home, but it didn't mean she was a whiz. The realization just now had been a hunch, and she'd had other information. She didn't know if she could manage to solve the remaining part of the prophecy, but she could try. After all, maybe it could help her solve the Labyrinth and get to her brother faster. A pang of despair hit her then as she realized she'd just spent almost half an hour in this man's hut, listening to him talk, while her brother was locked up somewhere in the Castle, waiting for her to come save him.
"Um…" She was thinking quickly, now frantic to get this visit over with quickly. "Um…I have no idea what the rest of the prophecy means, but I really, really have to go!"
She got up, careful as to not knock into any of the cluttered furniture on her way to the door. She scrambled to undo the locks, succeeded, and pushed her way out into the open air. After the dimness of the hut, she was almost blinded by the sunlight overhead, and had to stop and cover her eyes for a moment while they adjusted to the sudden brightness. She heard the man following her, his footsteps heavy and quick, and then he was beside her when she looked down.
"I'm coming with you," he said gruffly. "You'll never get through the Labyrinth by yourself, at least not in time."
She blinked in surprise at him, then smiled warmly, suddenly grateful for this unexpected display of camaraderie.
"Thank you," she said softly. The man glanced up at her, then away quickly, his ruddy cheeks flushing, and grumbled quietly to himself. "What's your name?"
He didn't look up at her as he replied. "Sorrel."
"I'm Celestine," she offered, and when Sorrel glanced up at her she smiled again. He blushed and looked down at the worn toes of his shoes.
"Well," he said, clearing his throat loudly and hoisting his trousers up higher on his small waist, "We should get going. We won't make it to the Castle if we don't hurry it up. Come on."
She followed as he led the way. Though she suspected he had never been too far into the Labyrinth, right now she trusted him more than herself to get them safely and speedily through the twisting maze. She didn't know a more effective means, in any case, and was desperate to get to Mikhail and get him out of this story book dreamland before it turned into a nightmare realm.
"So, since we'll probably be making this venture together," Sorrel said then, grabbing her attention instantly, "I feel I should lay down some very simple rules that you'll have to listen to if you want to get to your stepbrother out of this place in one piece, as well as yourself."
"Okay," said Celestine hesitantly, not sure if this was supposed to be reassuring or not to her.
"Rule number one," Sorrel said, not turning, but sticking a gnarled finger straight up into the air, "You do what I tell when I tell you, no arguments about it. That especially refers to the little red square."
Celestine was smart enough to know that "little red square" was code for the book, and affirmed his words so he could continue.
"Rule number two." A second finger joined the first as Sorrel continued to walk ahead of her without looking over his shoulder. "If—big, hawking IF—we run into Jareth, you don't speak a single word to him, unless he happens to ask you face to face. And if he asks something like "do you have the little red square?" you lie. No ifs, ands or buts about it, alright?"
"Alright," agreed Celestine, nodding her head.
"And, finally, rule number three," Sorrel said seriously, lifting a third finger to join the others and waving them in the air around his head. "Under no circumstances are you permitted to fall in love with Jareth, or kiss me."
Celestine actually stopped walking, stunned into stillness by this final rule. More because of the first requirement than the second. She had no desire to go against the latter part of the command, but the premier part of it startled her.
"Why would I even consider falling in love with Jareth?" she demanded, and Sorrel paused to turn and look at her, finally realizing she had stopped dead in the middle of the path.
"He's very charismatic," said Sorrel gruffly. "It's force of habit to go absolutely bonkers for him. You can't help it."
"I'm not a susceptible as I think you're assuming I am," Celestine told him, rather curtly, a little miffed by his inadvertent comment on her emotional strength and resistance to a man's charisma.
"He's also drop dead handsome," Sorrel added, his watery grey eyes sly as he glanced at her.
"I don't go completely head over heels for a man just because he's something to look at," snapped Celestine, truly affronted now.
"Whatever," sighed Sorrel. "Just don't let the idea plant itself in your head. You'll never get it out otherwise."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said tersely, stalking after him as he turned and resumed his waddling down the Labyrinth corridor.
He muttered something under his breath, and it sounded very close to "women", but Celestine made no comment. She really didn't want to argue with Sorrel if she didn't have to, and since he was her only source of guidance in the Labyrinth she couldn't risk it even if she had adopted the desire to quarrel.
So they continued on, not speaking, the only sound that of their feet against the dirt path and the crackle of twigs that snapped under the heels. Sorrel paused several times in the course of leading her along, looking left and right as though at two different intersections, but there was nothing there but solid brick wall. Celestine thought at these times as they became more numerous that she should ask what the hermit was doing, but she suspected he knew very well what he was up to and didn't see any reason to bother him. If he wanted to act like there were paths where there weren't it was fine so long as it didn't delay them too much in getting to the Castle. Several times more did Sorrel display his unusual behavior of stopping and looking to his left, then to his right, snorting dully, and continuing on, until finally when Celestine was starting to get worried—for they had not come across any real turns since they had begun—he stopped again, looked right, and gave a grunt of pleasure before turning and walking straight towards the solid brick wall in front of him, palm out.
"Sorrel—" she began, alarmed, then stopped, her breath catching, as Sorrel walked straight through the wall, not disappearing, but simply moving into a small alcove that had completely blended into the wall, as the stone that made up the alcove was exactly the same as that of the walls surrounding them. "How did you…?"
"I've had to keep this thing tidy for as long as I've lived," he informed her, looking rather proud of himself. "You get used to its tricks."
"So…" The mystery of his continued pausing finally made sense. "All those times you stopped before you were looking at turns we could have made?"
"Of course," he said gruffly, looking up at her almost disdainfully. She frowned, not appreciating his obvious superiority, and he seemed to relent. "You get used to it," he repeated, more gently this time. "Don't worry. I'll get you to the Castle."
She smiled in spite of her growing panic as she glanced at her watch. She hadn't realized how quickly time had gone by. It had already been half an hour and they hadn't really even started on the Labyrinth; they had been walking straight for nearly half an hour and they still had to get through the rest of the maze.
(Sometime Later...)
"Sorrel…"
Celestine's voice was laden with hesitancy as her eyes followed the slow but deliberate movement of the small crystal orb on the ground ahead of them.
"What?" Sorrel sounded distracted, his eyes also fixed upon the gleaming orb, but he did not seem in the least bit perturbed by it. In fact, he was starting to follow it.
"I don't think we should follow it," Celestine objected instantly, grabbing Sorrel by the back of his vest and restraining him when he tried to take another step forward. "Something's wrong…I don't like it."
"You're talking nonsense," said Sorrel with a snort, and turned to bat her hand away. "There's nothing to worry about. We're completely safe down here. It's probably just help from one of the villagers from earlier. Things like that happen when you're nice to people here."
"Sorrel," hissed Celestine, growing desperate. "Don't! I really think it's a bad idea!"
"And I really think we're done discussing this," snapped Sorrel, rounding on her. "What was rule number one?"
When he stopped trailing the orb, the crystal sphere came to a halt and sat where it had frozen, as though waiting for them to follow.
Celestine chewed nervously on her lower lip, her eyes darting anxiously from Sorrel's angry face to the ominously still orb. She remembered what rule number one was, "Always listen to Sorrel", but she really didn't think that Sorrel was in his right mind. Something about the orb had him in a trance. She could sense it in the way he was becoming uncharacteristically grouchy. Before now, he'd been patient and if he happened to lose his patience he'd apologize, but this was different. His eyes were stormy, and his brows turned down disapprovingly as he glared up at her.
"Sorrel," she began, pleading.
He cut her off.
"If you don't listen to me now, we're not going any farther and you're on your own if you want to get to the Castle!" he shot venomously at her. She recoiled as though he'd taken a strike at her, and stared in disbelief and hurt into the wizened old face of the dwarf.
"Sorrel," she murmured, her voice quavering.
He snorted, turned his back, and stomped after the orb, which immediately began moving again, leading the stubby man to a much darker, gloomier looking hall than the one they had just been venturing in. Celestine stayed where she was, feeling close to tears from fear and frustration. She knew something was wrong, and Sorrel wasn't listening to her. What did she want to do? Should she follow him and hope he'd snap out of it and figure out a way to get them quickly to the Castle, which could waste more time than they could afford if he was thrown off track long enough? Or did she want to take her chances by herself?
She really didn't like being on her own, especially in a place like this where little made sense and even less was what it appeared to be. But if she took the chance of waiting for Sorrel to come back to himself, it could take up more time than she was willing to risk which could be better put to use trying to rescue Mikhail from the Castle. She turned her back on Sorrel, who had already vanished down the corridor, following the gleaming orb, and set her feet back on the path that they had previously been taking. She would do this on her own, no matter what Sorrel said, she decided firmly, beginning to walk quickly down the corridor.
"You can do this," she murmured reassuringly to herself as she continued onward, the dark hallway where Sorrel had disappeared becoming smaller and smaller behind her as she went. "Just keep your head clear and you can do this…"
But her feet weren't listening to her pep talk, and were suddenly slowing down…less sure in the steps she forced herself to take. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to will her feet to continue, but it had the reverse effect on her as the silence behind her seemed to intensify. She stopped abruptly and held very still, her ears straining to hear anything in the intense silence that suddenly seemed deafening. But there was nothing to hear. Not even Sorrel's footsteps.
Still breathing deeply, she chanced a glance behind her, half hoping—however irrational it was to hope—that Sorrel had just stopped at the end of the passage and was waiting for her. Maybe he had even returned to himself and was about to come back, she thought. She waited, looking eagerly behind her into the vacant passageway. Sorrel did not reappear, and she still could not hear any sound of traversing footsteps anywhere along the corridor that he had chosen to follow the orb along.
Turning away from the empty space, feeling all of a sudden exceptionally nauseous, she closed her eyes and tried once again to will herself forward, away from the other corridor. Nothing doing. Her feet remained solid on the ground as though stuck there by glue, and did not budge. She groaned aloud, throwing her hands over her eyes and pressing her the heels of her palms hard against her eyelids so little white spots danced and winked behind in the blackness.
"Jeez, Sorrel, why did you have to follow that thing?" she demanded aloud, half frustrated, half desperate as she finally pivoted on her heel and took off at a brisk jog, following the path she knew the hermit had taken in his pursuit of the orb.
She knew better than to follow him as he followed whatever force was drawing the orb along, but she also knew she couldn't make it through the Labyrinth without Sorrel. That was only half of her reasoning, though. The other half of her mind was in a panic, terrified that something had already happened to Sorrel as he arrived at whatever cursed or booby-trapped destination that wretched glass ball had led him to. And she knew there was no goodness or light lying at the end of the path he had taken. She could feel it. There was evil working in the Labyrinth, and it had decided to make her friend—and maybe even herself—a target for its malevolence.
As that livid thought ran across her mind, she saw in her imagination herself coming up on Sorrel at the end of the passageway, lying face down in the dirt, while some horrific specter loomed over him, laughing maniacally and brandishing a bloodied knife.
No, She shook her head firmly to dispel the alarming image. That wasn't what had happened to Sorrel, she was just being panicked. She had no doubt that something was wrong, but she couldn't go ahead and assume the ultimate worst of scenarios like she had a tendency of doing when she was in full panic mode, which was exactly what she was in now as she finally rounded the corner where Sorrel had last been seen.
She held her breath anxiously as she made the turn, almost praying that, somehow, miraculously, Sorrel would be standing there, transfixed by the orb that had chosen to await her. Her heart plummeted into her gut when she realized she was mistaken in her hopes. Sorrel was not in the corridor, and neither was the orb. They had gone on farther ahead, and even though her hesitation had only been seconds long, who knew how far that enchanted ball could have pulled Sorrel along by now? Already, her optimism was fading fast as she gave up the jogging and broke into a flat out run, her footfalls rebounding quite loudly off of the ivy-strung stone walls as she hurried along the passage, desperate to find Sorrel; safe and alive.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, and praying she didn't get lost or draw something unpleasant in her direction, she paused for a second at the next turn, looking left and then right. She didn't see a sign of Sorrel anywhere, and felt her heart begin to thump dangerously hard in her chest. Her lips felt suddenly dry, and her tongue darted out to moisten them as she called out tentatively,
"Sorrel?"
Her voice gave a lonely echo to the stone walls. She waited in silence for a second…two… Sorrel did not answer.
"Oh, jeez," she whispered, her head turning this way and that desperately as she searched for a sign of the hermit without success. She couldn't afford to make a wrong turn here. She would just end up more lost if she did, and without Sorrel she was doomed. She didn't let herself think about what would happen to Mikhail if she couldn't reach him; she couldn't dwell on that right now, or she'd break down into total hysterics. Right now, she had to find Sorrel, and FAST.
But where on earth was she supposed to turn…?
Celestine felt something large bump against her shoe, and, thinking it had been a rat, she squealed in terror and whirled around, her foot lashing out at whatever the thing had been until—
"OW!"
Celestine's eyes flew wide as Sorrel careened into the ground, swearing and howling in pain as he clutched his knee, which she had just stupidly managed to kick.
"Sorrel!" she cried out, and knelt beside him, her hands fluttering helplessly against his forehead as he continued to curse and groaned, massaging his knee with his eyes watering as he glared angrily up at her.
"What'n the hell did ya do that for?!" he wailed at her.
"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, hands over her mouth now as she stared down at him. "I thought it was a rat! I didn't hear you come back! Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not!" he snapped, cinching his eyes shut and rocking back and forth slightly in pain, his dirty and yellowed teeth gritted together. "You kicked me!"
"I'm sorry," she said again, meaning it. She had to be an idiot, she decided as she continued to watch uncertainly as Sorrel slowly seemed to wind down. Only an idiot would have blindly kicked out at something and ended up pegging their guide right in the patella.
"By all things good," grumbled Sorrel, finally rocking himself up into a semi-sitting position, hunched over his injured knee. "And I thought I knew what knee pain was when I started getting the cricks. Where'd you learn to kick like that anyway?"
He leveled his gaze up at her, his mouth turned down in a severe frown, but at least he didn't look as annoyed as he had before. That was always a good sign.
"I sort of learned by myself," she admitted, embarrassed and ashamed of herself, and ducked her head so she wouldn't have to meet his scrutinizing gaze face on. "I'm glad you came back, though. I was starting to get really worried."
"I didn' come back," grunted Sorrel, rolling onto all fours to slowly push himself up to his feet, wincing as he gingerly put weight on his leg. "I was waitin' around the corner. That bloody thing seemed to realize you weren't followin' and stopped goin' forward."
Celestine was silent. She felt as though all of the blood in her body had suddenly turned to ice. That little glass ball had stopped going forward when she hadn't followed it. She'd been halfway wrong about her assumption. Yes, it was evil and looking for a target, and she had thought Sorrel and herself were the targets. But it wasn't Sorrel the little ball wanted, it was her. Just her…
"It…stopped moving?" she repeated slowly, and her body all of a sudden felt cold, as though the tunnel had dropped several degrees, and she shivered, her arms coming up to wrap around herself.
"Yeah," Sorrel muttered, stretching out his leg as best he could and wincing every time a joint popped audibly. "I tried to get it to go. Even tried kickin' it. No doing. So, I was about to come runnin' to get you and heard you stompin' along like an elephant—"
"I called your name," she objected, turning to stare at him. "Why didn't you answer me if you heard me?"
Sorrel lifted his head abruptly and blinked his watery grey eyes at her, his bushy brows turning down in confusion. "You didn't call me," he said in bewilderment.
"Yes, I did," Celestine insisted. "I called your name and you didn't answer. And I was standing right here when I called."
Sorrel eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, as though considering arguing with her some more, but then paused and glanced back down towards an open archway just to her left along the corridor, and his expression became all of a sudden thoughtful. Then, just as suddenly, he was staring at the little glass orb with a mixture of horrified recognition on his face, and he stumbled back abruptly, gasping in sheer terror as his hand groped for her arm, catching her by the sleeve.
Celestine felt a chill go down her spine as she also glanced at the unoffending little glass orb. There was nothing unusual about it, it looked the same as before, but all of a sudden Sorrel was all but hyperventilating as he clutched at her arm, and when their eyes met as he looked up at her, she saw nothing other than sheer terror.
"What have I done?" he whispered, and his voice quavered with untold dread. "That's one of his…one of Jareth's…! I didn't even realize…!"
"What?" Celestine stared wide eyed down at him. "Sorrel, what are you talking abo—"
"Run!" he yelled, and abruptly yanked her by the arm, turning a full one hundred and eighty degrees before taking off at a sprint back down the corridor. Celestine didn't wait for anything to make sense and followed, only glancing back once at the glass orb lying motionless at the corner. Her heart turned over in her chest as she saw that the orb was no longer transparent and gleaming clearly, but had taken on the color of an icy blue eye that stared up at her as she ran from it.
"Sorrel, wait!" Celestine turned and ran full out after the hermit, shocked that he could move so quickly while she was struggling to keep up, and she had longer legs.
"Run! Celestine, run!" he shouted back at her, not turning his head as he rounded another corner, momentarily leaving her sight.
The second he vanished, possibly even sooner, there was a horrible, grating sound, like the sound nails dragging against a chalkboard make. High and screeching so Celestine actually cried out as she stopped mid-run and clapped both hands to her ears. She heard Sorrel give a yell through the barrier of her palms, and abruptly he had returned to her field of vision as he came somersaulting backwards out of the corridor, having apparently been knocked clean off his feet. Even as he slammed into the opposing wall, the grating sound was overwhelmed by an even louder and finalizing bang and rumble as what sounded like rocks bashed together. The floor, ceiling and walls shifted around her, the floor bucking so she nearly lost her balance and had to throw out a hand to catch herself on the wall just to her left, and dirt crumbled from above, raining down like dusty snowflakes on top of her and Sorrel. She shut her eyes tightly as to avoid getting hit and raised her other hand to shield her face as the pebbles showered around her, and ahead of her Sorrel curled himself into a protective ball on the ground, both arms over his head.
In another moment, it was over, and there was that heavy, almost deafening silence from before. Celestine couldn't even hear herself breathing, though that could very well have been because her heart was going a mile a minute and all she could hear was the blood rushing through her ears. She didn't lift her head, afraid of what she might see, and focused instead on keeping her knees from giving way.
"Sorrel," she called out tentatively, her voice rasping slightly. She swallowed hard as she realized her throat had gone dry with fear again. "Sorrel, are you okay?"
"…I…I think so," the hermit stammered, his voice quaking slightly. "How 'bout you?"
"Fine," Celestine answered, carefully lifting her hand from her eyes so she could see the smaller man slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. She could see his arms shaking so badly she was almost afraid he might fall on his face again.
She should have gone to help, but she had the feeling if she took another step she might be the one to end up on her face. Her entire body felt numb, save for her wobbly knees, which did not seem altogether ready to support her weight. She stayed where she was, as a result, and struggled to find her voice when it seemed determined to fail her.
"What just happened there? Around the corner?" she asked tremulously. She felt something ice cold and wet trickle down her forehead and wiped the back of her hand across it. She was having cold sweats she was so scared out of her wits.
"The walls closed," Sorrel explained, shaking his head morosely as he hung it low, as though afraid to look up and witness again what had just happened in front of him. "I thought we could get by them before they decided to listen to him, but I guess not…"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"That glass ball," croaked Sorrel, putting his hands over his face. "I should have realized when you were telling me something felt off, but I was already caught by 'im. That was Jareth's crystal ball. He uses them as his eyes and sometimes his ears. They carry his magic around, too, and that one managed to hypnotize me before I realized it… I don't know how I could have let it get to me. I've been careful all these years whenever I come through the Labyrinth not to get bewitched by one of them."
"Why would he need to bewitch you before now, though?" she pointed out. "You've never had anyone following you before, have you?"
Sorrel went still for a moment, and she could see the wheels turning in his head. Then he swore so loudly and abruptly that she jumped.
"He knows!" he spat, scrambling to his feet so quickly it shocked her. "He knows you're here! Though how he could already know is beyond me! Nobody else has seen you 'cept me!"
Celestine mulled that over for a moment, opening her mouth to immediately agree with him when she realized something. Something he had said when they first got started. Something that then had seemed corny but after what had just happened had some horrifyingly real connotations to it.
"Sorrel," she murmured uneasily as he stomped furiously at the ground, cursing to beat the band, "Weren't you the one who said the walls have ears?"
That stopped the hermit dead in the middle of his mini-rampage, one foot still halfway into the air, ready to punish the ground once more, and his fists raised in defiance. She couldn't see his face, but she felt that his misty grey eyes must be popping out of his skull at this point.
"By all things good," he whispered, and she could hear the tremor in his voice. "I said that and I didn't even stop to think…"
He was still posed with his foot and fists in the air, but instead of looking angry he looked almost comical. A figure frozen to stillness on a single thought. She was amazed he could keep his balance as he was, considering he'd almost gotten cold-clocked by a couple of slabs of rock, and she had only heard it. Yet here she was, still trembling at the knees with her hand braced against the stone wall to keep herself upright…
She paused on that thought, suddenly becoming intensely more aware of her surroundings as she replayed "the walls have ears" warning in her mind. Yes, her hand was on the wall…but it sure didn't feel like a wall…at least not a stone wall.
Her fingers curled almost thoughtlessly against the solid whatever-it-was that she was leaning against, and felt her fingertips brush against satin cloth. There was a steady beat just under her knuckles as her hand formed an almost complete fist, and her nail grazed across something cool that felt like a metal button. She felt her heart suddenly lodge in her throat as the "wall" took a slow, steady breath. Walls, to the best of her knowledge, did not breathe. Even in the Labyrinth.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned her head carefully to the side, feeling her breathing speed up at the same time her heart began to tap out a panicked rhythm against the front of her rib cage. Her hand was still glued to the "wall", and as her eyes followed the length of her arm all the way up to her wrist, she caught sight of silky, black fabric underneath her palm. Just above her fingers, which were curled into the fabric, a long, sleek strand of platinum blond hair lay tantalizingly close, almost begging to be touched to see if it was as silky to feel as it looked. She followed that beautiful strand up from above her hand, which was beginning to tremble against the silky cloth beneath it, and felt her heart kick start as her eyes lit upon a fair skinned, flawless, high boned cheek. Up further, until she was looking up into a pair of the most beautiful and unusual eyes she had ever seen. They were also the most terrifying, because they were the very same, shockingly ice blue color of the eye that she had seen in the crystal orb. And now, those eyes were watching her, face to face, from under dark half lowered lashes; unmoving, but not unyielding.
She could see, with awful clarity, the blatant interest in those eyes as they looked down upon her, glittering in the dim lighting of the tunnel. She felt herself trembling, and all of a sudden she felt as though she had been dunked in twenty degree water, and barely escaped gasping for breath as she managed to pull herself out of her semi-trance enough to take in the rest of the face of the man who was now looking down at her with such keen fascination in his transfixing gaze. All the breath that she had managed to draw into her lungs left abruptly in a swift rush, leaving her completely winded and dizzy.
She didn't know who this man was, or how he had gotten there, and at that very moment she did not care. All she knew was that, at that very instant, she was looking into the face of the most handsome man on the face of the earth, and she couldn't look away. She could feel herself staring openly, and sensed that—apart from her eyes widening until she probably looked reminiscent of a fish—her mouth was slightly open in shock, and she was not breathing. The man did not make a move as she continued to gawk up at him, nor did he speak, but remained leaning with almost casual grace against the stone wall, his eyes hungry as he looked upon her. She saw his lips curve slightly, and when she broke contact with his eyes to look at his mouth it was to see the ghost of a smirk flirting across the most perfect pair of lips she had seen. This could not be a man, she decided as she slowly lifted her eyes back up to gaze at him, he must be an angel. The angel's glacier blue eyes gleamed with a strange sort of triumph as he watched her watching him, and his smirk grew distinctly more pronounced.
"Celestine!"
Sorrel's harsh voice jerked her suddenly out of her reverie, and the mixture of panic and terror in his voice brought her head swinging around, forcing her to break eye contact with the inhumanly beautiful stranger. She had a harder time pulling her hand back from his chest, but as she did Sorrel came barreling over and yanked her clean out of the stranger's reach, actually pushing her behind him. Again, his immense strength shocked her. How could someone as small as him be so incomprehensibly strong? It was an unfair thing to wonder, but she couldn't help it.
But she had to put her wonderings aside for the moment, because Sorrel had taken a clearly defensive position in front of her, and was shaking so badly she could hear his old knees knocking together, and his hands were twitching anxiously as he rubbed them along his thighs.
"Your Majesty," he said, barely avoiding stammering as he gave a jerky bow in the direction of the handsome stranger, "Such a surprise to see you here, and such an honor, too."
"Good evening, Sorrel," murmured the stranger, still reclining against the wall, still quite relaxed as he finally turned his ice blue gaze from Celestine to the hermit in front of her. "I trust you and your guest are well."
"Absolutely, your Majesty, absolutely," Sorrel said, his voice syrupy but not all together flowing the way Celestine felt it should when addressing royalty, which this man clearly was. Sorrel was obviously too strung out to manage much finesse at this point, he was so terrified, but Celestine couldn't quite understand why…
"Tell me, Sorrel," the royal stranger said calmly, as easy as though he inquiring about the weather, though she had the sense his question was much weightier than it would appear, "Who is this lovely young creature you have accompanying you? I might have thought a relative if not for her stature and obvious beauty that you and yours seem to inevitably lack."
The stranger's voice snapped slightly on the last word, almost like a whip crack, enunciating it, and Sorrel cringed away from the man as though he had been struck. Celestine felt embarrassment sweep through her, accompanied by a stab of annoyance. Who was this man—other than royalty—that he could insult Sorrel in such a way? True, he'd complimented her, but that didn't mean he should think himself entitled to say such a demeaning thing to Sorrel. She opened her mouth, just about ready to say something in defense of her guide, when Sorrel abruptly turned, spotted her, correctly interpreted her intent, and promptly trod on her foot so she gasped and stepped back. Her toe throbbed in her shoe and she stared in disbelief at Sorrel as he sent her a hard look before glancing frantically back at the stranger.
He was trying to tell her something, she could tell that much, but at the moment she was either too dim or too left out of the circle of knowledge to know just what he was attempting to get across to her, so she simply kept her mouth shut and her eyes down, trying to figure things out for herself as Sorrel turned back to their present royal company.
"She is an acquaintance, my Lord," the hermit explained courteously, bowing again, this time a little more sure of himself than before, though his knees were still knocking together. "I was simply giving her a tour of the Labyrinth to pass the time while her parents are away."
"Her parents?" inquired the man with the ice blue eyes, which swept up to scrutinize her at the very moment she made the mistake of looking up. She felt herself beginning a slow but certain free fall into his deep gaze and hurried to yank her eyes away before she could lose herself completely. "I do not remember your family being much in the way of social butterflies, especially with a family who could produce such an intriguing daughter. That aside, I do not recall a family ever having a daughter of such untold beauty without bringing her before me, and that would be heresy, would it not?"
"Of course, my Lord, of course," Sorrel said, and he sounded panicky again, clearly having backed himself into a corner. "It is just…well, it is a difficult matter to explain—"
"And what is so difficult?" the man asked, arching a fine eyebrow at the hermit, his tone clearly condescending.
This time Celestine couldn't stop herself from speaking in Sorrel's defense, though the minute she opened her mouth she wished she'd kept it closed.
"My family is not from your kingdom, sire," she said softly. "We are visiting from other lands."
Sorrel's breath hissed through his teeth as he turned to glare at her. She stared at him, utterly bemused.
"Two," he shot at her under his breath before turning away, his shoulders stiff.
She stared at his broad back, even more bewildered than before. What on earth did "two" mean? She racked her brains, trying to find a connection from the word to any memory she might have as Sorrel attempted to answer yet more softly spoken questions directed at him from the ice eyed stranger. She mouthed the word to herself, allowing the long curtain of her hair to swing forward to hide her face as she thought as hard as she could. She glanced up once as she felt the eyes of the stranger on her again after Sorrel muttered something to him about "out on the sticks of things" in relation to where she lived, and as their eyes locked once again she felt a sudden shock of understanding steal through her, as though the bright gleam in his unusual and attractive eyes had had enough light to shed on the clue she was so desperately seeking.
She remembered now what two meant. Rule number two of what Sorrel had told her from the very minute they'd set foot on the path of the Labyrinth. And rule number two was that if—big hawking IF—they ran into Jareth, she wasn't to speak a single word to him, unless he spoke to her face to face. Her eyes grew wide as she stared back at the tall, handsome stranger, who was still looking directly back at her; his expression one of keen interest and some other unknown emotion she couldn't quite name, but that wasn't important. What was important in that instant was that this man, this royal male with the glowing blue eyes and glistening blond hair, was Jareth. And she had broken rule number two, and spoken to him without his initiating conversation first. Oh, God…
She felt nauseous. Beyond nauseous. And the world suddenly seemed to be tilting dangerously under her feet. She had thought because Sorrel had treated an encounter with Jareth like a rarity beyond hoping for that it would be just that, and they would not meet him at all. But that little crystal ball that Sorrel had at first been so keen on and then terrified of had been Jareth's eye into the Labyrinth, and he had seen them; come after them. He had slammed the passage shut so they could not escape, and now, here he stood, and he was more focused on her than the hermit standing so protectively in front of her, clearly attempting to distract the man from noticing her. The very man they had been trying to avoid had somehow been alerted to their presence—her presence, as she doubted he would have given a rat's tail about Sorrel being in the Labyrinth alone—and had hunted them down, using his magic to put Sorrel in a trance to lure them to him. But that hadn't worked…not all the way…
Celestine realized now why she had felt so uneasy about following the crystal orb. She had sensed Jareth's magic without even realizing what she was sensing, but Sorrel had already gone for it. They'd been doomed to this meeting from the moment that unholy thing had rolled into view.
So now what did they do?
"Sorrel," she whispered, her voice a mere thread of sound.
Sorrel turned just barely to look back at her, and when he saw her pale faced expression he felt his stomach bottom out. She'd realized. He should have been annoyed it had taken her so long, but now that she'd made herself aware, it was only a matter of time before Jareth noticed something was off, and he would get his answers whether Sorrel and Celestine wanted to give them or not. It was already bad enough that Jareth was eyeing the girl with the most interest Sorrel ever remembered seeing on his king's face when inspecting a female even remotely close to him. Jareth couldn't fail to be aware of at least some of Celestine's differences. Her clothing, for one, was a dead giveaway she was not a native, and the fact she'd called him "sire" was not good, either, though he suspected she didn't realize that at all. No one called Jareth "sire", only "my Lord" and "your Majesty".
All of that aside, however, Celestine had been touching Jareth when Sorrel had finally discovered his king's presence, and just from the look on the girl's face Sorrel had already seen that rule three had been tossed clean out the window. She was already falling for the Goblin King, and the poor lass didn't even know it… She had already been caught in his spider web of charm and good looks and suave speaking, and if Jareth had his way, he would eat the girl alive. Sucking her dry from the inside out until nothing remained.