AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am SOOO SOO SOOO SORRY! This chapter took FOREVER for me to write out and finally get up; I've been suffering the worst attack of writer's block I have ever had! :-O This chapter is short and I promise another one, hopefully soon, but YES there will be a chapter three, and likely many more after that. So, read it, review it, and most importantly, enjoy it!

~Teller

Poisoned Crystals, Chapter Two:

Crystal-Clear Choices

Ludo sat with Sir Didymus some distance from his bridge, upwind, to avoid having the terrible smell from the Bog of Eternal Stench ruining their luncheon. Ludo, who had rather interesting tastes, had brought rancid meat with a light green fuzz coating it and moldy haggis. (Where he found the haggis, Sir Didymus never did find out.) Sir Didymus, being a fox but also a knight, had brought a freshly slaughtered rabbit and a bottle of fine wine. He eyed Ludo's lunch with queasy distaste, but his precious laws of chivalry forbade him to ask Ludo to move it just slightly farther away. Ludo frowned at Didymus' choice of food, and tore into his own with relish. Sir Didymus tactfully looked away and squinted at the high - noon sun.

"Goodness gracious, is it noon already? We met at eleven, did we not, noble brother?" Ludo grunted his agreement, not willing to be distracted from his meat. "Then by all means let us get started, you to your .. ah, meal, and me to my own." He lifted a goblet of wine to toast the beast when a well-aimed arrow knocked it from his hand (paw). Sir Didymus gasped in shock, then wheeled around, blade in hand (paw) and ready to defend his 'brother.'

"Who is so foul a knave as to dare disturb and disrupt my meal with my brother?" He demanded in his high, wavering voice. Ludo, also on his feet, grunted. High-pitched cackles reached both pairs of ears, and suddenly nets fell down on the two of them, knocking over the bottle of wine. Sir Didymus shrieked his strident wrath, and Ludo bellowed his own, but before the rocks could come to save them, small, silent darts thwapped into both their necks, and suddenly it did not matter that their lunch had been interrupted or that the wine had been spilled, it did not matter that his brother Ludo was whimpering in pain, it did not matter that he could not respond to the invisible force that had begun to tug on him and pull him to the gracious Lady Sarah, it did not matter that the sky was fading slowly from blue to black, it did not matter that he was quickly loosing the consciousness he was not at all sure he could regain . . .

Hoggle looked up suddenly from his lunch of bread and cheese in his small, cramped hut outside the Labyrinth. A familiar tug had begun to itch his skull, one that usually meant Sarah was calling him from Aboveground. He smiled - he was always happy to see her - and stepped out of his hut.

"I'm a-comin', Sarah!" He called out to no one in particular, bending to lace his shoes. He stood up and found himself face-to-face (actually, more of face-to-leg) with the Goblin King.

"Good morning, Hogwart," he said in a good natured tone that almost always meant trouble.

"Hoggle, Sire," he corrected, his knees shaking. What did Jareth want of him this time?

"And, where might you be going on this lovely day?" Jareth continued as if Hoggle had not spoken at all. The dwarf glanced at the sky; it had been a beautiful clear blue only moments ago, but now it was so gray with stormclouds it was almost black.

"Well, Sire, you see, I was making myself lunch when I realized that I was out of - ah - brandy, which always goes well with my - um - meager bread and cheese, so I was hurrying -"

"To a liquor store named Sarah?" Jareth asked, his smile slow and wicked. Hoggle's eyes widened.

"S-Sarah, my lord?" Hoggle studdered.

"Yes, Sarah, you maggot-infested buffoon! If I thought for one moment that you were going Aboveground to visit her, do you know what I would have to do?" Hoggle paused.

"Sarah . . . oh - ohh, you must mean the little lady I -- um, met -- in your wonderful Labyrinth, Sire. Until you mentioned her I must admit that I had completely forgotten she existed, you know." Hoggle tried to smile, but failed miserably and ended up wincing. Jareth's expression grew more cruel and demeaning.

"Don't try to lie to me, you horrid little lout!" He said loudly, prodding Hoggle in the chest with his riding crop. "I don't want you involved with what I'm doing now, it's a very delicate procedure and I can not afford to let little worms like you make mistakes and ruin everything for me. So, since I obviously can't trust you, it's into the dungeons with you."

"Wh - what, Sire? The - the d-d-dungeons!" Jareth smiled, and it was as harsh as the crack of a whip.

"Yes, yes, the dungeons." he beckoned to something over Hoggle's shoulder, and a loud CRACK put an end to Hoggle's concern.

As the only three people - beings? - who could help Sarah lost consciousness, she blinked slowly and began to regain hers. She was aware of little else but the darkness and the confusion, and a strange feeling of loss. What was I looking for?

Where am I? she wondered, rubbing her head dazedly. What just happened? There was a flare of yellow light, from which she sheilded her eyes. When the glare had lessened, she lowered her hands and squinted in it's direction. Her eyes met an all-too-familiar figure lounging in a throne of grey stone centered in a currently empty throne room, his chin resting on his right hand, his left tapping a riding crop absentmindedly on his thigh. Inwardly she recoiled; this close to him he reeked of corruption and the decay of all emotion. He appeared to not have noticed her awakening, so she shakily stood and tried to escape the throne room.

"Oh," a mocking voice said from behind her. "The brave and confident Sarah awakens. Do you feel so confident now, Sarah, that you have lost the one fact that kept you going? Do you find yourself so brave now that you know that your very breath is in my command? Are you so determined to leave my throne room, now?" And although Sarah wished she could run, her legs disobeyed her mind and turned her around, marching her straight back to the small hollow in the floor she had crawled out of. She stepped into it, against her will, and her legs curled underneath her as if they were those of a puppet with cut strings. Sarah fought to cry out, but an iron hand gripped her throat and fused her vocal cords together. She blinked back tears and satisfied herself to glare at the Goblin King, but then her eyes closed. She tried to grind her teeth together in frusturation, but instead her lips curled upwards in a clown-like smile. She felt her determination and desire to fight this cruel magic sink, and just as she was about to let tears seep from under her lashes, the hold on her dropped, at least momentarily, and she opened her eyes and stood and exerted the use of her vocal cords to their full extent while she could.

"Why have you brought me here?" She demanded quietly. Jareth shook his head, and made a 'tsk, tsk,' noise.

"Now, Sarah, you know that you are in no position to be making the demands. That is for me to do, and you can trust that I will." For an instant, an insane heat filled his eyes and face, and it chilled and frightened Sarah to the very core of her being. But it had gone as suddenly as it had come, and she forced her muscles to relax.

"There must be a reason," she said, making herself meet his eyes. Jareth laughed.

"Of course there's a reason, Sarah," he said. "Do you know what it is?"

"If I did, do you think I would be wasting my breath asking you?" She asked hotly. Jareth's eyes clouded in anger, and he stood abruptly from his throne and began to circle her like a cat, or a shark.

"Careful, Sarah," he warned her, shaking a finger at her as a mother would her child. "I would not loose my temper, were I you: you might find yourself in some unpleasant situations." Sarah took his advice and bit her tongue, and Jareth continued.

"If you do not know why I have brought you here, I shall not tell you. I can tell you a few things, however, now give me a moment on how to phrase them." He paused, then sat down again in his throne. After a few moments, he leaned forward and spoke.

"I will trade you for your brother." he said. Sarah, who had expected something more drawn out and explicit, stared.

"What?" she asked, incredulous.

"I said, I will trade your position here in the Labyrinth for your baby brother's position Aboveground. You have a choice: either you wander the Labyrinth for the rest of your life, or you hand over your baby brother."

"Wait," Sarah said, suspiscious. "I thought that you had power over me." She waved her hands mockingly. "If you have so much power, why don't you just force me to hand over Toby?" As much as she disliked giving him ideas, she was sure he had already thought of this.

"My power over you is purely physical. Nothing can control your mind . . . or your heart. Although yes, I could physically make you pick up Toby and hand him to me, I much prefer watching you in torment. So, make your choice: Aboveground, or here?"

"Easy," Sarah said defiantly, throwing the words at him. "I choose the Labyrinth." Jareth frowned.

"You would rather die here than live out your life above ground?" he said, and if Sarah did not know him so well she would have thought he was displeased.

"I would," she said, "Because I won't surrender Toby to you ever, ever. The last time you got hold of him was a dreadful mistake on my part, and I'm determined not to remake that mistake. Nothing you can throw at me will make me change my mind." To her surprise and dismay, Jareth grinned.

"Nothing, fair Sarah?" He repeated. Sarah lifted her chin.

"Nothing," she said flatly. Jareth conjured three crystals and sent them hovering about her head.

"Not even this?" he wanted to know. Sarah looked into the first crystal and cried out at what she saw. "Now you have another choice. Either you give me your brother, or this is the future for your 'friends.' "

Within the crystal, she saw a vision of Hoggle chained hand and foot just high enough on a wall that his toes barely scratched the earth beneath him. Dried blood was caked on his forehead, ears, face, and neck, and he looked old and weathered and thin and in pain, and seeing him like this broke her heart. Jareth continued to speak.

"Of course, if you are set on not handing over your brother, it is possible other arrangements could be made. Perhaps, your word that you shall remain here, in the Labyrinth, forever, for your friends' freedom and your brother's assured safety from me?"

Sarah, thinking quickly and refusing to let any emotion cross her face, looked into the next crystal, and found herself peering into a vision of Sir Didymus - or was it Sir Didymus? If it was, he was a ghost of his former self; all his hair had turned white and his once fluffy tail hung limp and defeated. His eyes were old and tired and sorrowful, and she noticed that patches of hair were missing up and down his ribs. Where the skin showed, it was either rubbed raw as if with sandpaper or bore jagged cuts, infected and swollen with lack of treatment. Tears began to form in her eyes as she looked into the last crystal, already having an idea of what it's vision might be of.

"Well?" Jareth demanded.

Sure enough, inside she found Ludo, suspended over the Bog of Eternal Stench, mere inches away from it's surface. Blood from multiple wounds all over his body and particularly his face ran through his fur and dripped into the Bog, making it hiss and steam. He was gagged so that he could not summon the rocks to him, and within his eyes she found despair and pain. A single crystalline tear traced a shimmering trail down her cheek as she made her desicion, and Jareth smiled.