"Don't go on!"
"Go back while you still can!"
"Take heed and go no futher!"
"Beware, beware!"
"Soon, it will be too late..."
Sarah followed Hoggle through the shadowed path of the false alarms, trying to not let the stone carvings and warnings scare her.
"Don't pay any attention to them, they're just false alarms. The labyrinth's full of them. They can be especially persuasive, especially when you're on the right track," Hoggle said, trudging his way through the sand.
"Oh, no you're not!" one of the carvings said, making Sarah jump.
"Oh, shut up," Hoggle said, waving a wrinkled hand in the false alarm's direction.
"Sorry, just doing my job," it muttered.
"Well you don't have to do it for us," Hoggle replied. Sarah opened her mouth to say something when another false alarm began its chant.
"Beware! For the-"
"Just forget it!" Hoggle exclaimed. Sarah giggled. These things really were very funny.
"Oh please, I haven't said it for such a long time!" the false alarm begged. Hoggle threw up his hands.
"Fine! But don't expect a big reaction."
"No, no, no, of course not!" the stone statue cleared its throat. "For the path you will take will lead to certain destruction! Thank you very much."
Suddenly, Sarah felt something tap her shoe. She looked down and saw a crystal ball roll down the sandy path into a dark alleyway beyond.
"Uh oh..." she heard Hoggle say under his breath. He began walking forward at a tentative pace, shuffling through the fine sand.
"What is it?" she asked quietly, following him.
"Nothing good," he said. Sarah begged to differ. Whenever she saw a crystal ball, she immediately related it to Jareth. Ever since he had whisked her away to his Labyrinth in the Underground, she had been thinking about him more and more. She found him fascinating. But even though she was hardly 16 and found herself to be fawning over his incredibly good looks, she knew deep down she felt something else there, too. It was in his eyes...his beautiful, mismatched eyes. They held a deep longing, almost a sadness. She could see it even in the way he walked; his graceful, lithe movements were accompanied by a sorrowful air that Sarah couldn't pinpoint. What did he yearn for?
"How old is the Goblin King, Hiddle?" she asked, stopping to ponder the question herself.
"It's Hoggle!" he said, turning round to face her. "Why do you want to know that?"
Sarah shrugged. "Just curious."
"Well he's far older than I am, put it that way," Hoggle said with a stiff chuckle. Sarah gaped. Hoggle was wrinkled and shriveled and just downright old-looking but Jareth looked nowhere near as old as he was. He can't be human, then...she thought to herself.
"Is he...immortal or something?" She asked. Hoggle laughed.
"You don't know much about the Underground, do you?" he said darkly, turning round to continue down the passage. Sarah shrugged and began following him again.
"I thought everyone knew that Faeries were immortal," he said as they reached an intersection in the passage. The way down each way was dark, almost like an underground tunnel. The walls were stone and covered in cobwebs, making it clear that no one had been down this way for a very long time.
"He's a Faerie?" Sarah exclaimed, incredulous. She had no idea that cruel, mean, merciless Jareth could be a Faerie. For all the unkind things he did, he seemed more like an ogre in personality than a Faerie. "I thought Faeries did nice things," she remarked. Hoggle smirked, looking both ways down the tunnel.
"Like what?"
Sarah shrugged again.
"I don't know...like...like..." Hoggle scoffed and took another step into the tunnel, where suddenly an old ragged goblin appeared in front of them, draped in cloaks and holding a tin mug. It's face was hidden by an enormous woebegone hat; the only part of its face they could see was its enormous nose protruding from underneath the brim.
"Ah, what have we here?" it said.