Chapter 1: A Strange Stranger
The cacophony reverberated off of the stone walls.
There were a multitude of three-foot-tall idiots running around the room, each one acting a different way and making different sounds. The goblins were almost completely worthless. Almost. They served their purposes when needed, but for the most part were worth about as much as toe jam, or the stuff he could scrape off of the soles of his boots. Add to the goblins' incessant clamor, a baby stood in the center of a pit in the middle of his throne room. He despised babies.
Jareth checked once again the crystal ball balanced on a single finger and hummed some nameless and forgotten tune. The girl was faring poorly. Worse than poorly, he amended to himself. She was curled up in a ball trying vainly to ward off the fieries that were attempting to "take off her head" as per previous instructions, obviously to no avail. He glanced at the clock noting that she had but a few minutes until her thirteen hours were over. With a resigned sigh he got his little speech prepared and decided just what his newest addition could do for him.
The clock tolled the thirteenth hour and he stood, abruptly appearing before the cowering girl and well-meaning fieries. They scattered at his appearance and she remained curled up in a tight ball for a few seconds before he knelt down gently beside her.
"This Labyrinth is impossible!" She sobbed.
Inwardly he felt sorry for her, but appearances must be maintained, so he said, "No, not at all. The Labyrinth is always possible to solve, I cannot make it otherwise. It is merely your ineptitude that prevented you from solving it."
"Oh! I've had it with you! Keep the kid; I never wanted to come after him anyways! Just send me home! I want to forget all about this place, all about you! You're nothing but a monster!" She screamed at him, her eyes wild.
He immediately lost all sympathy for her and sent her home immediately. Normally he would have healed her first, but let her explain to her parents how she managed to get so dirty in the two hours that had passed in the mortal world. Her words had sparked an uncomfortable memory, and he didn't like it.
"Get up, boy!" yelled his father.
Jareth whimpered as he curled up tighter, his close-cropped sandy blonde hair in disarray and his face bruised from the beating he had sustained. He stumbled to his feet, trying to ignore the smell of alcohol coming from his father's mouth. The council should never have given Mathis control of the Labyrinth; never. The man was never sober and Jareth knew that he himself was an illegitimate child. He kept himself in pristine order so that his father had no true basis on which to ridicule him except perfection, but that somehow didn't seem to help.
"What're ya' starin' at, boy? Get and clean up after those accursed goblins!" The drunken goblin king screamed at his son.
Jareth bowed in mock respect of his royal father and went to clean up a mess made by the idiotic creatures. He walked stiffly his body aching all over form this most recent beating. He kept his back perfectly straight, combed his hair straight with his fingers and brushed away a tear that he refused to believe had ever been there. Entering the room in question he immediately began to clean up the mess, but stopped abruptly as Elena appeared. She stormed into the room, her crimson dress billowing around her.
"You let him do it to you again? Ugh! You're an idiot! When will you ever learn to stand up to him? As soon as you reach two hundred you'll be given authority over the Labyrinth and he'll be removed because of his incompetence. That's only three years away, Jareth. When will you show some character, some backbone? I've had it with you!" She ripped a ring off of her finger and handed it to him, saying "Find some other fairy princess. I want to forget all about this place, all about you!"
Jareth stared at the engagement ring in his hand, cold anger rising up in him. More character? Fine. That could be done. He watched her storm away then made a fist and called upon his inherited magic that he had gained only days before and destroyed the ring. Nobody knew that he had just passed his two hundredth birthday. His eyes burned with icy fire as he made a decision. He would prove to the council his age. Prove to Elena his character. Prove to his father his strength. Prove to himself his power.
Jareth, the goblin king cleaned up the mess the goblins had made as a plan formulated in his mind.
He stormed through the castle, retreating to the room full of staircases and doorways on walls and ceilings that was one of the major pitfalls of those who hunted for babies that had been wished away. For him it was a sanctuary from his past. He had added this room on as an extension. The castle was merely an extension of his thought anyway. It did have to follow a basic structure and appearance, but he was able to customize it at will. This room was his and his alone. Here he could forget his past. Here he had peace.
Jareth frowned. Well, most of his past. There had been that one girl who had beaten the Labyrinth. The first person to do so since he had inherited the kingdom over nine hundred years ago. Sarah. Ugh! The thought of the name repulsed him. How dare she use that line against him? He toyed with a crystal ball as he thought angrily about her. It had been a long time in the mortal world. He absently checked the crystal ball and was surprised to find a sixteen-year-old girl in it. She was talking to Sarah who was not sixteen. More like forty-three. The conversation wasn't interesting in and of itself, but the younger girl was.
She was incredibly unremarkable and extraordinary at the same time. Her long hair was dyed a deep plum color. She wore glasses and had perhaps had braces once because her teeth were perfectly straight. Her minor acne problem explained why she wore what make-up she did. Her clothes were simple, common to nearly any teenage girl, Well perhaps these clothes were not quite so common a mix-match of styles, yet something about them made everything flow and made her perhaps even oddly attractive. She wore a tight-fitting t-shirt with elegant runes scrolled in a ring, runes that he deciphered to be elvish from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy stating the same poem inscribed on the ring in the books, and a pair of black jeans with silver flames embroidered around the bell-bottomed legs.
She was complaining about the rigid order that society demanded of her when all she wanted was to be herself. He could tell that she was an artist even without the paint smudges on her hands and face. She just had that look of controlled insanity that he attributed to the creative people. He chuckled; his look was definitely not controlled insanity. He was tall and lithely built, but obviously strong. His angular face gave a feeling of strict control, but his wild make-up and choppy hair-style destroyed any semblance of order his face might have given him. His eyes were an icy blue that seemed like they could stare through walls and he dressed in elegant clothes. Elegant being gray spandex pants and long-sleeved shirts with tattered lace at the hands and left open at the collar to show his powerful chest and inherited medallion. His look was insanity.
Sarah was giving the stranger comfort now. Jareth snorted. Sarah meant well, of course. Just not to him. She had humiliated him. Him! Jareth, the goblin king had been bested by a human teenaged girl! He dropped the crystal ball in disgust. He hadn't been able to live it down. He was truly losing his mind. The Labyrinth had become wilder and more unsuspecting girls were being driven mad by his madness. It had to stop, but how? He threw the crystal ball at a wall… or maybe it was the floor… and it shattered. He screamed for a goblin to clean it up, and promptly disappeared. Let them worry about it.
He had retreated to his bedroom to find some peace, and found Deram instead. He swiftly set up his façade of haughty and uncaring arrogance as his half-brother smiled at him from his own bed. "Deram, how nice to see you again."
"Wonderful to see you as well, my brother! It has been a long time, hasn't it?" Deram replied, bushing a tuft of jet-black hair back into place.
"To what do I owe this occasion?" Jareth asked quietly, a hint of menace creeping into his voice.
"Have you been spying on that mortal wench who showed us all that you truly are an idiot?"
Jareth suppressed the urge to hurl a crystal ball as his sibling to see what it would do and simply stood fuming, which meant that there was absolutely no emotion on his face, except cold fury burning in those frosty eyes.
"Then you've seen the newcomer." Deram stated.
Again Jareth simply fumed in silence.
"Wonderful! I was told that you would know she was there, but… I've long had my doubts about you. This girl, Abby, is a very interesting subject for study. A strange stranger, if you will. Alice has a gift, you see, a gift like you. She simply doesn't know it yet. I'd watch out for her if I were you. She just might believe your embarrassment's story about the 'goblin king'." Deram chuckled and added, "Poor little Anna." as he faded away.
Jareth stood there seething for a few minutes trying to decipher what his half-brother had been babbling about but finally gave it up as a hopeless attempt and laid down to sleep. He knew none of those names belonged to the girl. Deram never got anybody's name right. He dreamed as he slept, another memory plagued him, even though he tried to run.
"How do you propose to take over your father's kingdom?" asked the council-man standing before them. Jareth stood with his father in front of all the rulers of the Underground and all the council members of the various kingdoms.
"I propose to rightfully claim my role as oldest child." He replied in a firm, but monotonous, voice.
"How do you propose to do that without being two hundred years old yet?" asked another council-man.
"By brute force, if need be." Jareth replied, "But I am at my maturity, I can assure you." He stood tall, but not rigidly so. His hair had grown a few inches since Elena had accused him of lack of character and he had cut it into an unruly mop of irregular strands. He had begun to paint his face as women do, but in exotic ways, his eyebrows arching up an incredible amount to accent his icy eyes. Those eyes bored into the council-man of the Labyrinth realm with an unforgiving and ruthless gaze.
"You are an illegitimate child! It is my right as oldest child to take the throne when I reach maturity!" screamed another male voice from the group of fey people gathered in the large room. "I am Deram, only true son of Mathis, and heir to the goblin throne. Jareth will not take away my right."
Jareth sneered in gleeful triumph at his perfect half-brother as the council recalled order and withdrew amongst each other for a time to consider. He knew they didn't want Mathis in control of the Labyrinth. He knew they wanted to jump at the chance of someone-- anyone-- else taking over the goblin throne. He knew he would get what he desired.
"Prove to us, Jareth, that you have reached maturity. As an illegitimate child, we cannot be certain of your age. You must prove to us that you can take over the Labyrinth."
Jareth grinned and his eyes practically glowed with triumph as he drew a crystal ball from thin air, lit it on fire with a thought, and hurled it at the council. It stopped only inches away from the head of the council despite the efforts of all who had witnessed and tried to prevent what had happened. He was strong, and he knew it. "I demand my right as oldest child." He said in a low tone that somehow still echoed around the silent room. "And I will have it."
The council stared in awe as the youngling drew the burning sphere back toward himself, blew out the flame, and made it disappear with a dramatic flourish. He followed his order to sit, yet sat like a king: proud, arrogant, and full of victory. The council declared his age set to two hundred, found the law in a dusty tome that declared oldest children as rulers regardless of illegitimacy, and declared Jareth the goblin king.
As he was preparing to leave, Elena came to him practically beaming. He smiled at her, but that didn't lessen the fires burning in those cold orbs of crystal blue. She seemed nervous, he noted. Good. He wanted her to be nervous, she should be nervous. She came close enough for him to kiss her, and he would have a few weeks ago, but now he gripped her harshly and brushed his lips against hers as a mockery. Shoving her away, he spun the high heel of a black leather boot and disappeared.
He woke up shaking with anger at remembering how he had gotten what he had and sat up to rub the sweat out of his face. He walked over to a mirror and simply stared. Was this the same boy who had once loved order over chaos? The same boy who had vowed that he would be the "good guy" while cleaning up the goblins' messes? No. That boy would have looked at this man with fear. That boy would have branded this man a freak; a crazy lunatic who needed only to be put in some forgotten realm of the Underground. That boy would have been… but it didn't matter. That boy was his past. Not his present. That boy was nothing more than a memory.
Jareth slept again with no dreams, only firm resolution of who he was. Funny, it seemed almost like he was trying to convince himself. But that was ridiculous. Wasn't it…?