IV.

Miles away, a storm had begun. On the horizon, dark clouds released sheets of rain upon an illuminated city. Above Sarah, the sky was a burnt orange color, wisps of gray mixing their way into the otherwise clear sky. In a few hours, Sarah and Kallan would have to take shelter from the rain. In the meantime, they pressed on, relying on Sarah's recollections of her first run through the Labyrinth to guide them.

Without Jareth's magic weaved throughout, the Labyrinth was much less of a challenge. Walls ceased to close behind them, and tiles remained in their place. There were no riddle doors, or seemingly bottomless chasms to fall into. It was empty, quiet, lifeless. Soon enough, the two were at the entrance to the forest Sarah had been dreading to enter again. Her heart pounded as the pair took their first steps into the trees, stepping around overgrown vines and hedges.

Sensing something was wrong, Kallan stopped after a few minutes and turned. He watched as a few paces back, Sarah's eyes darted from spot to spot, trying either to focus on too many things, or avoid one. She wrung her hands nervously and seemed to be mumbling to herself occasionally.

"Sarah?" Kallan called, watching as her attention flicked to him, as she jammed her hands into her pockets and shuffled forward.

"Something the matter?" He suggested as she caught up to him. Sarah shook her head, despite her obvious display of distress.

"No. I just…there are a lot of memories here. I wasn't quite prepared to re-live them." She mumbled, removing her hands from her pockets and crossing them over her chest. She normally took up this position when she was ill tempered or stressed. Kallan used to comment on it, how she looked childish when she did so, but he held back, knowing well enough that these woods made Sarah nervous; jumpy.

Only a few miles away now, thunder began to rumble consistently, taking small breaks for flashes of lightning to bolt across the sky. The storm was fast approaching, giving Sarah an excuse to move faster. Minutes passed as the two drove deeper into the trees, making it past the more overgrown parts slower than Sarah had wanted. The moment the brambles ceased, and their feet touched a stretch of ground free from any deterrents, they broke into a brisk run as the storm took its final steps to them.

Gliding through the mostly clear terrain, Sarah and Kallan sped through the forest, the storm now directly above. Sarah could hear the rain rapidly beating against the thick canopy of limbs and branches that kept them dry for the time. She almost dreaded walking out of the forest more than staying in it, knowing well that the moment they did, she would be drenched.

Sooner than anticipated, the heavy drops of rain wound their way through the treetops, forcing the two to cease their race and seek out shelter in the form of a very large and very old tree. Sarah bent over in exhaustion, waiting for her lungs to stop burning. She could hear Kallan beside her, breathing heavily, but with no extreme effort like she did. In another moment, he was fine, and sliding his back down the trees smooth trunk, taking a seat on a protruding root. He looked up at her and gestured for Sarah to take a seat beside him. Obliging, she sat, leaning against the tree trunk, her eyes closed. Feeling as though she was being watched, Sarah opened one eye to find Kallan staring at her intently.

"Can I help you?" She asked, removing a strand of hair that was stuck to her cheek.

"I'm just wondering why you're so on edge is all. As soon as we stepped into these woods, you put up this huge wall it seemed." He said, his icy blue eyes holding hers. After a moment, Sarah sighed.

"It's a long story, Jared."

"Kallan..."

"Right. Sorry, Kallan. It's a long story." She repeated, hoping he would drop the subject.

"We're going to be stuck here for quite some time, I think. This storm doesn't seem to be slowing down. Plenty of time for a story, eh?" Kallan suggested, finding a more comfortable position at the base of the tree before staring at her again. Angry that he would not let the matter go, she acquiesced.

Its like he's a little kid. 'Tell us a story, Miss Sarah!' she thought, moving to face him.

"Fine. Its stupid, really. The forest didn't do anything to me. Its what was done to me here. I don't know…" she began, trying to find a better way to start the story.

"We were headed for the castle. I was running out of time and I had to find Toby…" she began.

"Everyone was hungry, but there were no berries or anything. So we pressed on, hoping to get through this forest quickly, because maybe there was something on the other side. Hoggle stopped me though, he surprised me, usually he was grumpy, but at the time, he was being uncharacteristically nice. So I should have known something was wrong, I guess. He pulled a peach out from his coat pocket. At the time, I didn't even bother to ask him why he had a peach. From what little I knew of the Dwarf, I knew he liked to keep random things on him at all time, so it made sense. He offered me the peach and pretty much ran away, muttering something about Jareth. I didn't realize he did until after the fact." She paused, no longer looking directly at one thing, just staring, lost in memory.

"I was so hungry…" she mumbled, images long ago lost flooding her memory like water spilling through a dam.

"Something was wrong with the peach. Hoggle had received it from Jareth. He put some sort of spell on it, to try and make me forget Toby. I fell asleep. And I dreamt…it was the most fantastic…horrifying dream I've ever had. At least I thought it was for a minute." She sighed.

Kallan interrupted her thought process; "It wasn't a dream, was it? It was real?" he asked, a tone of concern in his voice. Sarah nodded, tears springing to her eyes. She wiped them away quickly and cleared her throat.

"Yeah. He trapped me. It was a ball; a masquerade. Everyone had grotesque faces and elegant gowns. The whole world spun. Everywhere I looked, there he was. But as soon as I thought I had caught him, he was gone. I started to panic." She recalled, wringing her hands together.

"Then, out of nowhere, he was there in front of me, and we danced. And he sang to me. I would have stayed, everything was perfect and I was losing myself in this world he had created for me. But something in my head was screaming at me. I couldn't stay there. As much as I wanted to, I knew I needed to find Toby. I broke whatever trance I was in and ran. I couldn't find a way out, there were just mirrors wherever I turned. I remember, I picked up a chair, and I threw it, hoping to break the mirror, cause a diversion, find an exit. But breaking the mirror was an exit. When I woke up, I was in a pile of trash, closer to the Goblin City than I was before. This creature…she escorted me to a door. Behind it was my room. I thought I had gone home. Everything was there and it was perfect. I thought it was all a dream. But when I went to check on Toby, the creature was at the door yelling at me to stay inside. She tried everything to get me to stay…"Sarah trailed off, trying to find where to go next.

"You really care about your brother, don't you?" Kallan asked. "You never talk about him though" he said. Sarah shook her head, breaking from her thoughts. She nodded, smiling a bit.

"Toby's seven now. He doesn't remember anything." she said, turning her attention upwards. The rain had stopped. Sarah wondered when the storm had passed, but she could hear it now far ahead of them.

"Looks like the storm cleared though. We should get a move on." she concluded, standing up and brushing the dirt off of the back of her jeans.

"But what happened after you woke up?" Kallan asked, standing with her. Sarah shrugged.

"Nothing. I found Toby, we left. End of story." She said abruptly. Kallan frowned, unconvinced that it was the end of the story. Sarah moved ahead, stepping over the roots and finding the main path again. She marched forward, making a point to get out of the woods and as far away from them as possible.


Running to catch up with her, Kallan came to a halt when he set eyes on their next obstacle. The outer wall to the Goblin City lay ahead, its massive doors unhinged and wide open. Before it though lay mountains of rubbish. Some small, some towering, he watched as among them, small creatures scurried about, digging through the heaps and returning a moment later, their arms laden with assorted bits of junk. They repeated this until their new treasures overpowered them, at which point, the creatures shifted their things to their back, and hobbled off to burrows inside the taller of the trash piles. With a disgusted look on his face, Kallan took up stride beside Sarah, noticing that the closer they drew to the landfill, the worse the stench that hung in the air became. Sarah, who was un-phased simply took care to step over the trash and pressed onward.

"How are you alright with this?" Kallan exclaimed, covering his nose with his arm. Sarah looked back and smiled.

"Wimping out on me, Kallan? If you think this is bad, you wouldn't last a second in the Bog of Eternal Stench." Sarah jibed, finding Kallan's delicate nature almost hilarious.

"Bog of Eternal Stench? I don't even think…is that even a real place?" He asked, hoping she was making it up. Sarah nodded, a small giggle escaping.

"The worst smelling place I have ever been. The smallest drop gets on you, and you smell the rest of your life" she explained, finding comfort in the fact that she could still make jokes with him.

Kallan frowned, removing his arm from in front of his face.

"That's disgusting…" he said, kicking a broken bottle out of his path. Sarah laughed this time. The first since she arrived in the Underground again. To be able to laugh, she thought, at such a time, was incredible. She savored the moment, hoping that the good mood would last as they made their way ever closer to the castle.

As they reached the end of the landfill, Sarah's smile began to fade. From a distance, it appeared that the doors to the Goblin City were just broken, much like everything else they had encountered along the way. Upon reaching the gates however, the duo was enlightened to a more dismal situation. To the sides of the entrance, the large metal doors sat broken and irreparable. In their place was a barricade taller than the city's walls. Sharpened to a point, felled tree trunks lined the base, serving as an initial warning to those who would try crossing. Atop it sat a cavalcade of unusual items, all sharpened to a lethal point. Scrap metal jutted out dangerously, where at the very top, large boulders threatened to crush intruders the moment one tried to propel themselves up over the wall. Above the boulders were more tree trunks, arranged in an 'x' formation to make it impossible to grab on to. Along the city's wall sat more spikes and jagged metal bits, strings of broken bottles served as a sort of barbed wire. The Goblin City was impenetrable.

Sarah's breath caught in her throat. Instinctively, she reached for Kallan's hand. Finding it, she held on with a firm grip, Kallan giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

"What's going on?" She whispered, stepping back to look up at the barricade. Kallan shook his head.

"I wish I knew. Something must be very wrong for the Goblins of all creatures to shut out the world like this." He mused, running his free hand down the length of a wooden spike. Looking down the length of the wall, Kallan noticed that atop either side sat a series of watchtowers, all equipped with munitions and a large bell, likely to warn intruders.

"There's no way in, Sarah. We'll have to find another way" he stated. Sarah sighed, adjusting her hand so her fingers laced with his.

"Lets go then. We've got to find Jareth." She decided, scanning the area for an alternate route.

"I don't know this area well, so I can't help in finding a remote route there…but when The Council and I left Tir Na Nog for his castle, we went through a Clockwork City. They're strange little things. Sort of refuge towns for those without homes. The one we went through wasn't nearly as dangerous as others I've seen. Anyways. The one we went through is directly between Tir Na Nog and Jareth's castle. I can take us to the outside of my city, and we can go from there. it's the only way I can think of, unless you have a better idea." He offered. Sarah shook her head.

"No that's good. I cant say I know of another way to get past the Goblin City anyway. How long will it take to get to Tir Na Nog?" she asked, hoping it would not take too long. Kallan's brow furrowed.

"Well. We won't be going in Tir Na Nog. We cant. Well, you cant, Sarah. You're a human." He explained.

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked, not angrily, but a bit taken back.

"Tir Na Nog is a Fae city. No other creature or species can enter it, much less see it. Where I would see massive crystal towers you would see an endless forest." Kallan said, going more in depth with his reasoning this time.

"I can take us right to the border of Tir Na Nog, but no further. If I even tried, you would be lost forever. We'll travel on foot from there for maybe a day. Then we'll be in the Clockwork City. We can figure out the best way to get to Jareth from there, alright?" Kallan suggested. Sarah nodded, a curious look on her face.

"Alright. But how are we getting to the border?" She asked. Kallan smiled and pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Hold on tight"