A/N: This is incredibly old, but we found it in our files and patched it up.
The autumn sunlight seemed colder than usual, or so Toby thought as he walked briskly down the street. His breath created a constant steam in front of his lips, and he desperately wished he had brought gloves with him. Finally he found it, the nearly abandoned bookshop with peeling paint and dusty books. He checked the store name on the faded pieces of paper in his hand (worn from the hours it had spent in his pocket and the hours he had stared at the faded print in his dorm room), and then walked inside, dimly noting the small bell that rung at his entrance.
There was only one bookstore in all of Boston that had the book, only one dusting, aging bookstore that had not sold off (or thrown out) a copy of the book he sought. His own parents had thrown out his sister's copy (too many bad ideas, they said); it had taken him years to finally remember the author of the novel. Sarah's copy had never had an author's name: with its faded red cover and aging print it had seemed to have fallen out of a story itself, free of any ties to reality.
It was an old book, long out of print and very unpopular. He wondered where she had found it, where she had managed to pick up such an unwanted book, and why she had decided to keep it. He wondered how she had recognized its power between the faded print, how she had managed to tell the truth from fiction. He found himself at the cashier, ringing a bell to wake the man the clerk who had managed to doze off with the lack of customers.
"Hello Sir, my name is Toby Williams and I'm here to pick up a book I placed on reserve a few days ago." One copy, there had only been one copy, but it was more than any modern store in Boston—they had never heard of the book or its obscure author, and had pointed him instead to a collection of Grimms Fairy Tales and various collections of stories by Hans Christian Anderson.
"Oh, yes, you wanted Labyrinth, correct?" The shopkeeper jolted awake, readjusting his glasses and pulling a faded green book out of his desk drawer. It was obviously old and eaten away with neglect and disuse, "No one's wanted this book for a long time. Out of print for decades." He sniffed and sneezed from the dust, wiping off the cover with a tissue.
That book—that was the book. He had finally found it. After all the months of searching, he had finally found it: the window into his sister's disappearance. The one that didn't point at run-away, that didn't point at spoiled or selfish teenager—but hinted instead at the truth.
He remembered only glimpses of the Labyrinth. For years he hadn't understood them, the nightmares that crept into his daydreams. The blonde immortal had haunted him, riding crop in hand. Toby slumped in his chair with a thoughtful frown on his face; Toby's mind caught glimpses of the words he had spoken. There was obsession in his eyes as he had looked at the crystal ball in his hand, searching for the girl who came ever closer to the Labyrinth's center.
The images wouldn't leave. And there was a drive in him, deep and dark, to learn the inner workings of Sarah's story, to draw her out and save her from those cold eyes.
Toby shuddered.
Toby quickly composed himself and laid out the money on the table, picking the book up with relish. He resisted the urge to smell the dust that so lovingly covered the novel (as if the book were waiting for him to find it). "Thank you, Sir. If I ever need a book again, I'll be sure to come here."
—
The book was horrid. Not just the writing style and the plot development—the entire book was trash. But he didn't dare put it down because he could practically see her in every page, her green eyes watching him from behind the print, waiting for him to do something. And so he read each page for her sake, because given his own wishes he would never have touched it.
A childish romance in which the determined princess of a European kingdom (England or Germany, he guessed) decided to save her brother from the nasty Goblin King. The Goblin King himself was completely and utterly one dimensional; there was nothing of value within the book at all. Nothing except the fact that it had been Sarah's life, and that she had recognized some fairytale power within the character's cliché statements. (You have no power over me; I move the stars for no one; on and on with drivel.) It was one of the worst stories he had ever experienced the horror of reading.
Her life was based around this book. She had fashioned her dreams and her words around the play he held in his scholarly hands, and he couldn't figure out why it was so damn important. He had analyzed every passage for some deeper meaning and yet he had found nothing of significance, nothing that hinted the book might have been real enough to send both him and her to the realm of the Goblin King.
It was the ending, though, the ending that gave him pause. The King let her go. Omnipotent to the point of divinity, the King did nothing as he watched her leave. Toby wanted to tear the book in half. That is not what had happened.
It was as if he were looking through a glass window covered in fog; he looked out onto the world of the Labyrinth in which he could see nothing but hedges and aging walls. The print showed him but glimpses of what he had already known. The monologues provided him with a mere glimpse at their king, The Goblin King, master of time and death, thief of child-brides.
They hardly gave a description of the man, as if it were not necessary to describe the Goblin King. He simply was the Goblin King, and if one didn't know what that looked like, well, then they weren't looking hard enough. There was no sexual tension between the characters, no hint of the obsession in the man's eyes, no sense of being watched within those flimsy walls of words. The Goblin King simply was. He was like the Labyrinth, and had no need to be described. It was as if the reader should have already known what the world looked like, and repeating a description would just be redundant. No, what irritated him about the play was not the fact that it was idiotic; it was the fact that it thought he was idiotic.
Jareth—what kind of a name was that? Two syllables, hardly the name of a pseudo god who manipulated time with far too much ease. What kind of a God did nothing when a woman tore apart his kingdom? What kind of a King would have stolen her brother simply because she asked him? Toby was pacing, attempting to dissect the man's motives. Everyone had motives; all he needed was a chance to see them in the right light.
Sarah had managed to see the world through a tiny, fogged window; she had seen his face and she had seen his obsession. Why couldn't Toby do the same?
—
The smell of coffee overpowered Toby; the kitchen staff shouted as one latte was poured after another. It was somehow relaxing and took his mind off of the play. The bitter taste filled him and he felt himself find the inner peace he had been missing from the weeks spent studying the Goblin King's tale. He smiled and chuckled to himself. Who would have thought he would find the book only to wish he had never laid eyes on it?
"Your first time reading it." A low voice caused Toby to open his eyes. It belonged to a man in his late thirties (or so Toby guessed—it was difficult to tell) with disheveled blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The eyes made Toby blink; they looked wrong, out of place, forged. The man smiled a grin that made Toby think of a hunter. It was not a kind smile. "You poor boy. You must be so frustrated."
"Yes, it's, not a very good book…" His vision fogged as he continued to watch the stranger drink his coffee even as he grinned like the wolf. The violence in that image—why did it feel so familiar?
"You're just taking if for granted," the stranger said.
Toby's eyes narrowed at that statement, wondering if English was the man's first language (because nobody with English as a native tongue would have used that phrase in this context).
"You're reading for the words, boy. The book isn't speaking to those looking for words. It speaks in the silence between thought and word. You only see what the book wants to show you."
His eyes, those false eyes, never left Toby, taking in every thought that passed through Toby's mind before it had even been wrought into existence. He was still smiling.
"Taking it for granted, a book is supposed to welcome its reader to invite it into its world like an old companion returned from a long, difficult journey." Toby felt his face grow red, his pride affronted by this stranger whose name had yet to be mentioned. Toby had always been considered a gifted English student, finding the symbolism and meaning behind words just as easily as another tied their shoes. To be denied by a childish play was frankly insulting, and now a disheveled stranger sought to add injury to insult (or vice versa) by pointing out this fact with relish.
"Assuming, of course, the book is a whore, so deprived of money she takes every desperate man who can pay the bill. Labyrinth is no prostitute; she will fight you, and she will devour you if you don't tread carefully among her pages. She hates you as she hates all men who flip through her covers with a lazy arrogance, just as you have. Labyrinth is a far more dangerous soul than you give her credit for. I'd watch my step if I were you, boy."
Toby couldn't find any words that were insulting enough for the man, that would bring him down to the level he deserved. Bastard just wasn't quite good enough. Toby remained silent with his lips clamped shut. The man raised an eyebrow before sighing and shrugging his coat back in place.
"You've grown. Almost have your first beard. A few more years and I suppose you'll have a suitable paycheck for a human lover. In the mean time, try not to disturb what is mine."
And he was gone. A slight haze in the air, a blurred sense of movement, and he was no longer sitting across from Toby. He was nowhere. Toby felt himself shake. His coffee spilled on his hands as his eyes widened, and his mind jumped to insensible conclusions. Yes, bastard wasn't the word. The word was Jareth.
—
It was impossible to summon the Goblin King unless he wanted to come, which more often than not was when Toby didn't expect him and didn't want him. Toby discovered that early. No amount of cursing, pleading, chanting, praying would conjure the man. The Goblin King set his own terms, and he was making sure Toby realized it.
The book was no better than before; it was still dreadful and horrific and he wanted to burn it. But he couldn't. His pride had been challenged, and he had a lead. The Goblin King himself had tried to deter him; it wouldn't work, now, that Toby knew. He was close—he was close to finding her, his long lost sister.
It was with that thought that the Goblin King finally showed his face. Arms crossed, he stared down at Toby in what might assume to be amusement.
"Goblin King," Toby said.
"You take far too much after your sister." And there was a look in his eyes then, an ephemeral softness, and then the arrogance returned. "You summon me from my world, selfishly demand I grant you a wish, and then ask me to take it back five seconds later. Don't trifle with me. I'm not in the mood."
"So then you admit it; you do have my sister."
The Goblin King said nothing merely stood, the shadows in the room growing longer, as Toby continued to speak.
"For over twenty years you have kept my sister from the world she was born in, the world she belongs to. I want her back." For twenty years he had had to endure his parent's disapproving gazes, thinking his sister to be an actress or a bimbo who ran off. The police had never looked too hard for poor Sarah; she had simply vanished like smoke, and no one had thought anything of it.
"Yes, I thought so." The words were no more than a whisper, a sigh, and then he spoke directly to Toby. "What makes you think she belongs to this world, and not to mine? What makes you think she belongs to you?"
"She is my sister. I have more claim to her than you do."
"Why do you want her? What makes you feel the need to play hero now, twenty years after the fact? She was a selfish, spoiled child who wished you away for convenience. She abandoned you to the cruelties of your own world. Why would you want someone like that back into your life?"
"Why would you want her, Goblin King?"
He only smiled in response, and Toby shuddered.
"I challenge your Labyrinth for the sister you stole from me." It was pride which ruled his next words. "And I'll win because I know how this thing works. The Labyrinth is made of the challenger's dreams. My dreams, to be precise, my subconscious map of the world. Something you have no power over. I know my dreams as well as I know my place in this world—and you can't lose me in my own Labyrinth. That is why I'm going to win, and you have no choice but to sit back and watch."
Revenge for being the helpless child stuck at home, staring at pictures of a girl who no longer existed; revenge for all those years of wondering, of searching, of being a useless gifted child. And it was then that he noticed the glint of amusement in the Goblin King's eyes, and cursed himself.
"But then, that's no fun, is it? If you know all my tricks, all the cards I have hidden up my sleeves? And what good is life if it isn't fun?"
Toby's world disappeared in a breath, as if the king had blown out the final candle. The room smelled of smoke.
