The Boy Who Became King
Once upon a time there was a beautiful kingdom separated from the real world by a line called the Between. The ruler of this great land was King Oswald. Oswald was a tall handsome man and a powerful sorcerer. His queen was a nymph of the air by the name of Adrianna. For many years Oswald and Adrianna ruled their kingdom of faeries in peace and harmony.
One day there was much celebration throughout the land for Queen Adrianna had given birth to an heir, a beautiful blonde baby boy whom they named Jareth. He was born with all the power and majesty of his parents and it seemed as though the golden age would continue forever under his care. But in the shadows there lurked an evil presence desirous of shocking the golden age and bringing the ruin of the kingdom. This evil was known as Eldritch and he was a goblin.
On the day of his tenth birthday Prince Jareth was out riding in the woods with his father when a great dark cloud blew over the sun. Momentarily plunged into darkness the King and his retinue could see nothing but when the light returned they saw clearly that Jareth was gone and his horse dead on the ground before them. They scoured the countryside but could find neither sight nor sound of the little prince and the whole kingdom wept for his loss.
But Jareth was not dead as was thought. In the darkness the boy had been snatched from his fallen horse and stolen away under the cover of a magic so powerful that even King Oswald could not penetrate it. It was the magic of the goblin Eldritch; he had kidnapped the young prince in order that he might use him for his own dark purposes.
Eldritch resided in a dark cavern near the Bog of Eternal Stench. Here it was that his mother, a poor wretched creature had crawled to bear him in the midst of a foul storm some two hundred years before and from which he rarely ventured save on occasions of importance such as this. This was where he brought the unconscious boy Jareth and where he concealed him from the eyes of the kingdom as they bemoaned his loss.
Eldritch was a true goblin and as such he despised all other races with a foul hatred which consumed his very soul. He was the leader of a rebel sect of goblins known as the True Ones with views similar to his own. The True Ones were planning a goblin rising and were intent on usurping the thrown and breaking all the peoples of the kingdom to their will alone. But they alone even with Eldritch as a leader were not powerful enough and so they had concocted a plan to steal away the one thing that could assure their victory: Jareth.
In the deep inky blackness of his cave home Eldritch conducted a terrible ceremony before the members of his sect. Drawing deep on all the recesses of hatred and evil that he possessed he cut into the chest of the sweet prince with a knife of blackest jet and removed his still beating heart, replacing it with a jagged crystal, bursting with malevolent power. The heart he hid and would tell none where he had put it.
And so Jareth was turned from a gentle and happy child to an instrument of hate, a cold stone ready to bludgeon all the good from the world. But it was not quite the time yet. Jareth spent many years under the care of Eldritch and the True Ones, learning all of their dark powers. He became pale and thin, his eyes cold and sharp, his mouth curled with sadistic humour. He was powerful and conceited and hungry.
When the revolution came it was truly terrible. Blood soaked the earth of the kingdom and the air at night was filled with the sounds of weeping. The goblins laid siege to every farm and township they came to, always with Jareth at their head; Eldritch just behind, watching, his bitter face twisted into an awful gleeful grin. Then they came to the castle of Oswald.
The castle guards were brave but they were no match for the goblin hoards. Jareth rained down lightning upon the walls, reducing them to rubble in mere seconds. Soon they came upon the room where the King and Queen remained steadfast upon their thrones. As the army entered Eldritch called for the others to fall back, only himself and Jareth would be needed here.
The Queen recognised her son immediately despite the change in him and it broke her heart to see him so. She let out a cry of anguish as he turned his cold eyes upon her and she felt her heart break in her breast as she looked upon him. Adrianna fell to the ground and the King lept to his feet with a startled cry. But all his power could not help him now and as his castle exploded around him King Oswald died at the hands of his own dear son for whom he had mourned many a long year.
The battle was over and the goblins had won. They rejoiced amongst the wickedly flaming ruins, their shadows glancing off the splinters of the golden age of peace. The castle was rebuilt over the ruin and surrounded by a massive labyrinth. Jareth was pronounced King of the Goblins and Eldritch became his grand vizier.
However the life of the old goblin was drawing to a close. Despite the victory of his army he had been uneasy since the battle of the throne room. He threw himself into research, desperately seeking the answer he knew could undo all his great work. One day, while searching the great library he found it and went into a panic.
When Jareth had been born a prophecy had been made. This prophecy said that no harm would come to him as the truth of his heart did not in fact reside in his body. It had said that a great terror would come upon the land but that it would be lifted by the arrival of one from the above-world who would restore the truth to him. When Eldritch had removed the boy's heart he had removed only a piece of muscle, his power to do good was still out there. But Jareth must not know, it would be safer that way.
In hope of flouting the prophecy Eldritch strengthened the barriers between the worlds. He worked more intricacies into the labyrinth and fortified the castle three times over. Finally he instructed Jareth that those from the other world were not to be trusted under any circumstances and must be kept out of the kingdom.
When Eldritch died he was sure that he had done everything to ensure that the prophecy never came to pass and the goblins would forever remain the foremost lords of the land. But he did not count on Jareth himself.
After many years the King discounted the words of his dead mentor; he was gone and what authority had the dead over him. He was bored with his kingdom, goblins were such inferior creatures really; much more interesting were the humans over the border of the Between. And so Jareth worked his way into the consciousness of the world. Myths, legends and children's stories rang with his name. He toyed with them, pulling in and letting them lose themselves in his labyrinth while he watched them despair and laughed over them. He was not prepared therefore when she came: Sarah.
She was just a girl, just another human to toy with, except that she refused to be manipulated. He could not scare her or bend her to his will as he could others and that intrigued him; she intrigued him. She ran from the dream in the crystal, she escaped the prison in the junk-yard, she jumped from the stair-case. She jumped and he followed.
Jareth found himself in his own memory. The ruined masonry of the old throne room floated timelessly about him as though he were trapped in that moment once more, the moment when he had killed his parents. And somehow he knew. Deep within himself he knew that she was here to save him, to give him what he had been missing almost all of his life; his heart.
"You have no power over me."
He felt the crystal in his breast shatter painfully as the room spun and fell away, the old room disappearing into the past where it belonged. He was seated on his throne, alone in the darkness and a terrible rushing, thumping filled his whole body. It was the beating of his heart.
Fear and pain gripped him and the Goblin King fell upon his knees and beat the stone floor with his fists as visions of the things he had done washed over him in grim detail, ending with the anguished faces of his mother and father. Ragged sobs escaped his throat and his cries shook the very walls of the labyrinth outside. Then there was quiet and an odd feeling of peace. It was over; long years of hate and anger and boredom were gone and he could make it right. His parents faces flashed before him again but this time they were smiling gently. He would make it right, he would be the king he always should have been but first there was something he had to do.
Sarah sat alone by her mirror, her face reflecting sadness and all traces of victory gone. She was empty and alone in a world in which she did not truly fit. Jareth sat in owl form on her window sill. He closed the birds large dark eyes and drew on all the power he had in this world. When he looked again the room was full of people, his people. They were laughing and shouting and singing and dancing and Sarah was running between them, hugging and kissing all of them. Only Jareth remained outside in the cool night air for he could not join in the party, he had not yet earned that right but one day perhaps the girl and her friends could look on him without fear or dislike but with something more tender.
And so, intent upon his new course Jareth left the window sill. Spreading his white wings wide he soared over the house and back through the Between to his own realm. The wind through his wings reminding him that he was finally and truly free.