Sarah Williams had finally done it. She had found the courage to take the final leap of faith required to effectively break apart the Goblin King's Escher Room illusion and draw him out so that she could confront him on a more even plain. Now Sarah found herself standing at the center of a sandstone platform with only the remnants of a few broken stone archways floating in suspension around her. The air was thick and heavy with what passed for sky being streaked with violet and purple hues against an inky black backdrop.
Directly ahead of her stood another stone archway with its inner space cast in shadow. As Sarah Williams stared into the blackness she witnessed the Goblin King slowly emerge ominously from the shadowy depths with a look of ragged determination set like stone on his features. He was dressed in the tattered colors of the barn owl and looked somewhat depleted. For a second the adversaries stared each other down before Sarah finally stated her final demand.
"Give me the child."
Jareth set his stance stopping a few feet from her and seemed almost impressed by her apparent diligence. Finally he advanced upon her though not as directly as his usual custom demanded.
"Sarah, beware. I have been generous up till now, but I can be cruel." He warned her flatly.
Sarah had the urge to scoff at this remark.
"Generous." Sarah briefly cocked her head to the side. "What have you done that's generous?"
"Everything!" He replied with forceful indignation. Jareth began to walk around her as he prepared to present his evidence. "Everything that you wanted, I have done."
Sarah half turned as she followed Jareth's accusing gaze while he circled her.
"You asked that the child be taken...And I took him. You coward before me, I was frightening. I have re-ordered time. I have turned the world up-side down and I have done it all...For YOU. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?" He inquired of her.
For a moment Sarah was taken aback and as she quickly considered each charge she could find no mistruth in them. Jareth had done all of those things. He had become everything she expected him to be and now it occurred to Sarah that perhaps even the Goblin King might be something different than what he seemed to be. Was he just one more something that she had taken for granted? Yet this did not alter the cause of her mission. The fact still remained that the Goblin King had taken possession of her baby brother and that Sarah was attempting to win him back. Nothing else mattered. This was part of her destiny.
"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City." Sarah began to advance upon Jareth forcing the worn looking Goblin King to retreat several steps.
Jareth was not ready to forfeit yet. He simply needed to buy more time for the enchantment to run its final course.
"For my will is as strong as yours..."
"Stop. Wait." Jareth abruptly interrupted her in mid-sentence putting up his hand between them in an effort to stay her. There was a chance Jareth could still reason with her. Offer her a fair trade in exchange for what he wanted most from her.
"Look, Sarah. Look at what I'm offering you." He said imploringly.
On his other hand a crystal manifested at the tips of the Goblin King's fingers that he then held out for her to observe. "Your dreams."
Yet something in Jareth's expression betrayed him ever so slightly damaging the genuineness of his words as he engaged her in their battle of wills and Sarah was encouraged to continue on her course caught up in obtuse concentration as she felt her own power grow and surge.
Again she began her advance forcing the Goblin King to retreat even farther. "And my Kingdom as great..."
Jareth was losing ground quickly. He needed to shift the stakes...He needed to make Sarah sympathize with him. So for lack of better option he began to explain the true nature of his terms and the opportunity they presented.
"I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want." He said persuasively with just a tinge of desperation.
As Sarah started to turn away from him, Jareth began to feel genuinely afraid that she might actually say the words that had the power to strike him from her thoughts and banish him forever from her life. The time was so close at hand, though only Jareth knew for sure how many grains of time remained.
Meanwhile Sarah was struggling to find the right words. "My Kingdom is as great...Damn! I can never remember that line."
As Sarah thrashed Jareth saw the weakness of her strength begin to seed and take root and the realization brought him an acute sense of satisfaction that was almost admiring of her in its expression. He was gaining back his ground. If he could only keep her distracted...
"Just fear me." He Implored her. "Love me. Do as I say...And I will be your slave."
"My Kingdom is great...My Kingdom is great..." Sarah continued to search for the right words, her eyes growing wide with the effort. Finally awareness seemed to take hold of her as she slowly looked back into the Goblin King's face.
The moment of truth was upon them and Jareth inwardly steeled himself for the potential outcome. Her eyes were still so much like those of a child. Large and glossy almost like a doll's but full of life and secret knowing.
"I...I can't remember the right words...I..." As she faltered in this pivotal moment somewhere a clock began to sound the hour with a deep resonating gonging and as it sounded the Goblin King began to vindictively and triumphantly laugh just as deeply.
The sinking feeling of dread that came upon Sarah Williams then was poignant and devastating and the atmosphere surrounding them lifted as the violet hues shifted to red and the inky blackness faded and dissipated into white. Jareth stepped closer to Sarah now as she began to process her own failings and realize the truth of her fate.
"But...No." She protested.
Jareth placed a hand on either side of her shoulders and gripped her upper arms in his hands kneading the flesh beneath her shirt firmly with the padding of his thumbs as he tugged Sarah into an embrace causing her to press her nose into his chest.
"You...You have no power over me." The words finally came to her now and were spoken meekly.
As Jareth spoke the tattered garb of the barn owl seemed to fade leaving the billowy white cotton and tan breaches he had once appeared to her in, shifting in its place. It seemed the Goblin King's vitality had returned to him. In a strange act of something that might have passed for compassion, the Goblin King stroked the back of Sarah's hair. "Im glad you finally realize that though it doesn't change anything. You and your bother are now one of us."
"Shut up...Shut up! You're a liar and a cheat! I said the right words! I said them! I want my brother back and I want to go home. I know you have the power Goblin King!" Sarah said viciously her hands forming into fists as she pounded against Jareth's chest and jerked herself out of his embrace with a spin.
Jareth's jaw set and he took one menacing step toward the teenager and pointed. "What is done is done. The stakes and terms of our bargain were clearly set. You chose to run my Labyrinth, Sarah. You chose when you could have just as easily accepted my boon in exchange for your brother instead. Don't forget that you were the one who asked for him to be taken away from you. You should know by now that there are consequences for the things you say and what you do. You can't escape it. None of us can. How dare you presume to be so unique."
"You don't know me, Goblin King. Not anything about me." Sarah exclaimed, venomously taking her own step forward.
"I know your dreams. How else could I offer them to you? How else could I do everything I have done? It is YOU who doesn't know anything about ME. But you will, Sarah. Mark me when I say that you will. Jareth sighed and inspite of his returned vitality he pinched the bridge of his nose almost as if out if exasperation and shut his eyes. "Now. Today is a new day and I've grown tired of this line of conversation and of dealing with you. You may do as you please from here on out and go where you please. I have not the desire or the time to attend to you, but I have no doubt that others might; so you should have no reason to be unhappy now."
Jareth smiled when he finally brought himself to look once more upon the disgruntled teenager who would have liked nothing better just then than to ring his throat right about then. The thought was sobering and finally Jareth gave a mocking bow and stepped away from her chuckling to himself.
"Welcome to the Underground and to the Goblin Kingdom, Sarah. Welcome home." Jareth said before making a ticking sound.
By now Sarah was pacing back and forth and muttering any number of obscenities and when she finally brought herself to look up so that she could make a face at his final remarks, all she could perceive was the feeling of fluttering bird wings in her face and the omnipresent words of the Goblin King clicking his tongue at here.
"Such a pity." Was the last thing she heard him say after he'd visually disappeared.
Left on her own and still fuming Sarah threw a highly juvenile tantrum hopping about and yelling things like…"After everything he put me through"…and "It's not fair!"…Oh how quickly some lessons were forgotten at times.
Eventually Sarah did finally calm down enough to really look around and see where she was. Apparently, like everything else, the sandstone platform had disappeared and Sarah once again found herself exactly where she'd started upon the sandy hill over-looking the great maze proper during the start of her original journey. Jareth had stuck her back at the beginning, how very annoyingly appropriate, and last she knew her friends were still waiting for her in the Goblin City or so she had to believe.
What exactly was she supposed to do now? If Jareth wasn't lying about her being part of the Underground and the Labyrinth's reality than she might as well have been dropped headlong into a foreign country, only this was much worse because it involved magic and a place that supported fairy tale things that were everything and nothing she understood them to be. Sarah was half tempted to simply break down and cry but the entire concept seemed a waste of her time.
"God, I wish Hoggle were here. He'd know what to do." Sarah wrapped her arms around her shoulders to protect her body against the wind.
It was strange because when she'd first arrived in the Underground everything seemed to be caught in a kind of suspended animation with the obvious exceptions of the creatures she'd met along the way. But now her surroundings had come to life and there seemed to be no short supply of moving air, indigenous sounds, strange and exotic smells and odd sensations. Frankly Sarah felt a slight chill threatening and it was hard to know the right course to take.
"I can't believe that jerk is just going to leave me out here to fend for myself! So much for this entire nightmare following the plot of the play." Sarah observed referring to how in the story book the Goblin King had done everything to the maiden out of love for her.
The more Sarah contemplated her options the more it seemed like she had no other alternative but to make her way down the bluff towards the outer garden and pray that in the time that had lapsed Hoggle or one of her other companions had caught on that something was amiss and had come looking for her. She was almost convinced that Hoggle would be on to Jareth's antics and have the good sense to come back to his regular haunts to look for her, but as she shuffled her way down the hill towards the outer gates her hopes began to steadily diminish. Hoggle was unfortunately nowhere to be seen but at least the dried and scummy looking fountains had started up again even if the water still resembled a putrid swamp. Sarah hurried past the various garden statues and made an effort to remember how she'd gotten into the Labyrinth in the first place.
For a second Sarah hesitated. Did she really want to go back in there? And if not where else was there really to go? But to sum things up similarly to the way Hoggle once had…What other choice did she really have?
"Guhr. I hate this Labyrinth. Where's that damn door again…" As Sarah began to retrace her steps along the outer wall where there were still the left over bodily remains of several biting fairies sprinkled about the glittery ground, some of the remaining living faeries began to take notice of the pissed off teenager and began to investigate her.
At first it was just one or two hovering in an annoying fashion about her hair and face occasionally trying to pluck at her eyelashes or yank out a stray strand of hair. But after a while two quickly evolved into three and three into six until eventually Sarah was trying to deflect a small little horde of the vivacious little shits all trying to dive bomb her at rotating intervals graciously of course and with sweet little smiles on their faces.
"God damn it, knock it off! I don't have time for this!" Sarah protested protectively trying to deflect the buggers away from her by swatting at a few of them.
Unfortunately all this seemed to accomplish was to anger the creatures causing them to swarm more and before she knew what was happening a whole slew if biting faeries we're attempting to lift Sarah off the ground by individual bunches of her hair and it was all the girl could do but to screech and flail about trying to get them to release her.
Now as it happened, Sarah Williams wasn't the only human having a frustrating day in or around the great maze nor was she the only human roaming about as well.
In fact while Sarah and Jareth had been hashing out the final details of their confrontation on the great bluff overlooking the Labyrinth, a gypsy healer by the name of Ramona had been wandering about the stone and hedge maze walls brimming with much vexation of her own.
Unlike Goblins and dwarves, the humans of the Labyrinth did not, with the exception of Jareth who knew and saw all, have an internal instinct that allowed them to seemingly understand the magical shifting patterns of the maze walls and traps so even if you were highly experience at getting around there was still a strong possibility that one would either get lost and completely lose their bearings or have something unhappy happen to them.
Ramona in particular did not have any talent when it came to maneuvering through the Labyrinth which was precisely the reason she preferred to stay close to her home near, but blissfully upwind, if the bog. Ramona only venturing out of doors when it was absolutely necessary or when her supplies were running low. Beyond this though she was a fair good healer and even had a rudimentary understanding of magic (one almost had to when they lived in the enchanted forest) though she claimed to stay away from the stuff whenever possible. Generally Ramona also rarely ventured so close to the outer walls of the Labyrinth but unfortunately her present list of ingredients she needed to restock had to do with the powdered wings of biting faeries which were a native species in the Labyrinth that happened to only build their nests at certain elevation points unique to areas of the stone maze and outer walls.
Often times Ramona could trade the grounds keeping dwarf Hoggle for the fairy wings which he tended to remove post mortem with some disturbing amount of delight, but by then the wings had more or less lost their potency in transit; and besides that their purity was often compromised by the pesticide Hoggle used to control them with. Furthermore Ramona tended to trade with Hoggle using various pretty baubles and bits that came into her possession often as payment for her healing services and lately business hadn't been the best.
In order to compensate for her poor sense of direction, Ramona had gotten into the habit of carrying a durable wooden ladder with her whenever she had to travel a considerable distance and whenever she needed to check her progress in getting where she wanted to go. This was so that whenever she happened to feel in doubt, which was considerably more often than the red head would have liked, Ramona could slap her wooden ladder up against the side of a wall or a statue and climb on up so that she could peer over the top of the maze and get an idea of her progress.
A new morning had begun in the Labyrinth and it just so happened that Ramona had set out well before sun up as it took her nearly half the day to get to the outer wall if she left any later. This time around she'd actually hoped to get back home by the mid-day but the likelihood of that outcome was still unknown. At the time Ramona slapped her ladder up against a particularly barren part of the stone maze strewn with dead wood. This was a point of observation that seemed unusual when one considered there were no trees, dead or otherwise, in the vicinity to explain their presence.
At that particular time Jareth had just made his exit leaving behind a disgruntled teenager and Sarah had just finished making her way down the bluff when Ramona poked her flaming red haired head over the Labyrinth wall.
Given that the woman rarely saw other humans around, Ramona's eyes was naturally drawn to the pretty young brunette, whom wasn't the most pretty just then, and preceded to quietly observe Sarah Williams mutter and cuss her way around the outer entrance which Ramona could see very clearly from her vantage point. Ultimately though the red head weirdly lost interest after a while and began to retreat back down her ladder without comment and for a moment it appeared as if the humans would completely miss their opportunity to interface with each other.
Of course, thit was the case up until Sarah made the mistake of pissing off some of the biting faeries that were bothering her by swatting at them. The consequences of this resulted in a good portion of one of the faerie nests viciously molesting her at once. Hearing the sudden commotion, the red head immediately hurried back up the ladder to investigate and this time the sight was well worth the effort.
When Ramona peered over the wall and looked directly below her she was just in time to see a petrified Sarah Williams rolling about in the sandy dirt trying to ward off a slew of faeries who were in the middle of ratting up her hair so badly that if someone didn't intervene soon Sarah would have to practically shave her head in order to get the matted snarls out.
"Hey!" Ramona shouted abruptly at the whole lot of them. "What do you think you're doing?"
It was a general question and asked in a somewhat combative way.
Ramona's timing was impeccable because just as she was calling everyone to attention those damnable faeries had teamed up with one another and managed to find a rather large rock which was mere seconds away from being dropping over the still sputtering Sarah Williams head. It was an ominous threat which would have surely wreaked her beyond all help. Instead, the biting faeries were so startled by the sudden interruption that they accidentally dropped the boulder too soon in a lapse of concentration causing it to narrowly miss anything of Sarah's that was vital by a number of inches.
Realizing that someone was coming to her rescue Sarah tried to glare up at the direction of the feminine voice while still trying to ward off the rest of the unsavory insect like creatures.
"For God's sake get them off of me!" She managed; more as an automatic response born out of desperation than anything.
Sarah squinted up at the new arrival with a mixture of surprise, awe, and avarice. She was certain she'd never seen anything like the woman before; with her curly head of fiery red hair and a thick multi-colored multi-layered patchwork skirt of a gypsy out of some kind of fairy tale. For a brief moment she appeared as something almost ethereal in the early morning light; with her red hair glinting off the low rising sun like a siren.
Ramona's eyes widened in surprise at Sarah's lack of manners completely ignoring the circumstances of the present situation. Who did This girl-child think she was speaking to her like that? As if Ramona didn't have enough crap to deal with when treating goblins with stubbed toes and trying to explain the bonuses of pre-natal vitamins to intellectually aware barn yard animals every other day…now THIS girl was making impolite demands before they'd been properly introduces and was taking the good Lord's name in vain on top of it. And for what? It wasn't as if Mona was obligated to do anything about her predicament. For all she knew Sarah was simply getting her just desserts for some fairy related offense. Sometimes immortality did weird things to people's brains particularly if it wasn't natural to their origins.
"Oh yeah? How about throwing in a please and thank you the next time you want help from someone…And don't take the lord's name in vain like that!" Mona replied sharply at a yell placing her hands on both hips as she narrowed her eyes at the still squirming raven haired girl.
"Please…Whatever you want. Just get them off of me…They're hurting." Sarah whined.
A few moments later a rumbling could be heard as a very indignant red head ungraciously talked her way through the front gates leading out of the Labyrinth proper. Once the gates had promptly opened for her Mona picked up her basket and ladder and stomped through the entrance muttering a mild 'thank you' as the gates quietly closed behind her. Mona then proceeded to set her ladder against the nearest wall as she picked her basket up once more, pulled her trusty giant wooden spoon from her belt and started swatting in single elegant strokes at Sarah's assailents wrapping the faeries one by one on their head and, as they fluttered stunned to the ground, muttered "Good, Matilida" every time she successfully hit one home.
When the task was done and Sarah was successfully liberated from her tiny attackers, the red head began the process of swooping up the stunned faeries and one by one ripped their little transparent and powdery wings off without so much as a twitch as she tossed each one into a nearby scummy fountain or scraggly bush. When she caught Sarah giving her a horrified expression at the seeming brutality of this the gypsy narrowed her eyes at the girl who really should have looked more appreciative.
"What's that look for? Oh. Them? Don't worry about it. Those little tramps can swim, climb, and scavenge for themselves just fine without their wings. They'll climb back up into their respective nests and sulk until a new set grows back in. My Raymond used to love watch the little miscreants fuss. " Ramona gave an indignant sniff before securing Matilda back into the space at her belt.
Her hands once again came to rest upon her hips as Ramona eyeballed Sarah suspiciously. "So huh, what exactly were you doing there a second ago with that big heavy looking rock hovering over your head? Not trying to do something funny now are you?"
At first Ramona's question regarding the rock was lost on Sarah, as she was too busy staring at the redhead like one might a rather eccentrically shaped piece of shrubbery or even a particularly strange breed of animal. Matilda? Did this woman just refer to the huge baseball bat sized spoon her belt as Matilda? Sarah's brows went from furrowed, to raised, and then back to furrowed again. And who the hell was Raymond?
"N…No! I mean of course not. I…I was just trying to get back into the Labyrinth. I need to find some people and I also need to smack a certain Goblin King right in the kisser when I get the chance. See Jareth is holding my baby brother captive in that castle and dumped me here against my will. I don't belong in this place! Please Miss, can you maybe help me because I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I don't even want to think about what's going on back home. Dad and Karen must be going out of their mind by now."
"Uh huh." Ramona looked as if she didn't quite believe or understand Sarah. Then suddenly as if a dime that had been standing on its edge finally turned over...Ramona suddenly exhaled a huffy breath and dropped her hands from her sides. "Well! In THAT case...You're going about it all wrong!"
"Wait…What?" Sarah asked in confusion still sitting on the ground.
"If you were fool enough to strike up a bargain with that hunk-a-hunk Goblin King up in that castle at the center of the Goblin City than your just gunna have to accept the logical consequences that come with the territory. Jareth is a lot of things…But he's mostly honorable and when he's not there's usually a reason for it that's bigger than he is…Which I bet is blissfully hard to find." Ramona added suggestively. "If you want something from that magic man than the first thing to do is to get mart about it and find something to give him that's of equal or greater value capered to what you want in return. Find out what his pleasure is and use it against him as leverage. He'll give you what you're after. I guarantee it."
Ramona offered Sarah her hand and then tugged her onto her feet.
"Um…Right. Excuse me, Miss? But huh who are you and how do you know that?" Sarah asked with some skepticism.
"You can call me Mona. Best cook-n-clean, interspecies mid-wife, goblin-wrangler, window washer extraordinaire this side of the Underground. And I know because I cooked and cleaned in that castle for a good fifteen years. The King and I…We go way back. That's how I know what he's up to." Ramona said with wink and a flick of her chin.
"Now you're a pretty young thing and judging from the looks of those strange cloths you're well out of your element here. So I suggest that for the time being you come along with me until you can locate some other friends or find some better sense. It's not wise to go wondering round this maze and whatnot when you're considered a local." The red head added. "Meanwhile, you can take out your revenge on some of those biting faeries while you're at it. I aim to powder me a hell of a lot of wings tonight."