Technically Jareth had confined Hoggle to the boundaries of the castle where he was expected to prepare for he and Toby's upcoming journey, but while Hoggle was genuinely afraid of what the Goblin King might be capable of even this new threat was not enough to keep the desire to see Sarah out of the dwarf's mind.
It was one thing that Hoggle had to leave and a part of him couldn't really disagree with Jareth's reasons for wanting the baby as far away from the goblins as possible despite that Hoggle resented having to go along with and leave his home for who knew how long. But it was quite another thing to expect Hoggle to uproot and abscond with the Williams baby without so much as a goodbye or word of where he was going.
Hoggle just couldn't bring himself to leave without knowing that his friend was all right and while Jareth had assured him that Sarah was with Ramona the thought of her well-being being entrusted to the mentally unstable and slightly disturbed gypsy was not comforting to him.
"Damn you, Jareth." The dwarf muttered as he finished digging through some of the various storage rooms in the castle and put aside the final bits he'd need with him to undertake the task Jareth was expecting of him. "You may get your way this last time but I ain't doing nothing else for you ever again and if yous think I'm saddling that baby with YOUR namesake than yous got another thing coming!"
"Is that so, Hogbrain?" An omnipresent and all too familiar voice seemed to make itself known just then and when Hoggle turned his head to identify its physical source he instinctively jumped when he noticed Jareth had been watching him for an indeterminable amount of time from behind.
Instead of shrinking back like he was known to do in the past, the dwarf bravely puffed out his chest and held his ground with defiant determination. "That's right and I'll tell you another thing...I ain't doing nothing or going anywhere until I get to speak with Sarah. She deserves to know I ain't intentionally abandoning her or leaving the Labyrinth cause I want to."
Jareth who was leaning with his back against the wall some feet away with his arms crossed over his chest didn't immediately say anything and instead simply pressed his lips and stared at the dwarf in thoughtful deliberation.
"You know Hoggle...It occurs to me that perhaps I was being a little inconsiderate before when we spoke last. I mean after all this Sarah person is your friend and since I don't really care a wit about her there seems no point in trying to stop you from seeing her provided that you follow through with my other expectations. I'll even do you a favor and give you my blessing to tell her where your going and with whom, not that I have any delusions about the fact that you'd blatantly defy me if I swore you to secrecy anyway."
"You being nice? now there's a change." Hoggle grunted. "Who are you trying to fool? it must be yourself cause you know it ain't gunna be me."
"See now it's that kind of attitude that has always made it impossible for you and I to be friends." Jareth said in an airy indifferent fashion as he smiled at the dwarf. It seemed as if Jareth was in an almost friendly mood and given his past behavior this seemed highly disturbing on various levels to the dwarf who wasn't really sure what to make of suddenly being the recipient of his benevolent indulgence. With Jareth such things so easily disintegrated into insults and unbridled malice, particularly where the groundskeeper was concerned.
"Why are you really doing all this, Jareth?" Hoggle asked in a curious and guarded fashion as he glared sidelong at the Goblin King "You didn't have to go look'n fer trouble. Not like what your currently courting."
"You might be right about that, Hoghead. But nevertheless what is done is done. I can't undo the events that have now been initiated nor was I really the one to initiate them to begin with, as you are well aware. I am simply playing the hand I've been dealt to the house's favor and besides this business with that Williams girl has presented an opportunity to correct an old mistake I once made." Jareth answered honestly.
"What happened before wasn't your fault I can't believe that after all this time your still carrying on about it." The dwarf mumbled.
"You settle up with your mistakes in your own way and leave me to settle up in mine." Jareth remarked quietly with feigned indifference.
"Oh I will cause according to you it ain't like I get alot a choice in the matter, now do I?" Hoggle challenged.
Jareth simply shrugged causing the dwarf to sigh and turn his eyes back to his task.
"Nothing can ever bring Ramona's child back to life and your doing a disservice to her by letting her be responsible for Sarah when yous know perfectly well whom she looks like." Hoggle warned in a hooded fashion.
"Her physical resemblance to the person you are referring to is beside the point." This time Jareth's tone betrayed a hint of testiness.
"Right. you keep telling yourself that convenient lie but you know as well as I do how dangerous it is to have the both of them in the same place. It's almost as if your trying to wake the dark lady up or something..."
When Jareth didn't say anything Hoggle finally stole a glance up at him and swiftly grew alarmed as awareness blossomed within him like the sudden break of dawn.
"Gaw...You've got to be kidding me! Y..you can't do that, Jareth! She were a bitch on wheels before, and if she ever got loose again she'd probably destroy everything in her path just out of pure wrath. Yous knows about her nature better than anyone..."
"Do compose yourself, Hogwart." This time Jareth pushed off the wall and approached him in his more usual predatory fashion. "Do you think me so foolish as to not include a few tricks in my grand design along with some fail-safes? Forever is not as long as people like to think it is."
"You've done a lot o' selfish things in your time Jareth but this...This is beyond what I ever thought you were capable of." Hoggle said shaking his head in a forlorn fashion.
"I don't expect you to approve or even understand my motives but I do expect you to do what I ask. Like it or not you along with that baby are one of the fail-safes I have planned. "I should think you'd be grateful to be pulled out of retirement and back into proper service more truly befitting of your talents."
"So you think me raising up that baby will somehow make up fer the mistakes I made with you. Well, we got into some heavy scrapes once upon a time...But thing were different then and you've been stuck in the Labyrinth too long. Immortality never did sit well on the shoulders o' humans. You be living proof of that. Well since we're deciding to be so open and honest I might as well take the opportunity to say that once I go I hope to never see the likes of you again." The dwarf growled.
"Hoogle, if everything goes according to plan you just might get your wish. Now if you're intending to defy my wishes so that you can sneak off to see that infernal girl Sarah, then do it now and get back here quick. The baby has been feed and tended to and the ferry is being prepared to depart as we speak. From what I understand Ramona is taking the girl to see that intolerably knight so you might as well make it a proper reunion on your part." Jareth muttered with an ironic kind of quality to his voice.
-
After releasing Ludo back into the maze, with some reluctance Sir Didymus had returned to his post flanking the now destroyed foot bridge where the part of the maze wall butted up against the marshland and part of the enchanted forest that was within the Labyrinth's bounds. While it was true that the knight guarded over one of the entry points leading to the single entrance of the Goblin City, the reality of the matter was that almost no one ever came around anymore for Sir Didymus to screen. Now the hollow tree served only as a humble little home for the fox and the rest of his bravado and over enthusiasm was simply the aging fox's attempt to reclaim more glamorous and death defying times now long past.
Things had certainly changed in this part of the underground. It was hard to say for how long because in the Labyrinth the passage of time almost stopped entirely as if the entire maze was caught under some kind of spell. The main symptom of this oddity seemed to be one of forgetfulness and although the knight was well aware of who and what he was other details had become admittedly fuzzy.
Not all creatures in the Labyrinth were susceptible to this loss of distant memory but many preferred to feign as if they were in order to ensure that the hazy sheet of inactivity and stagnation remained. Sometimes one's desire for peace circumvented all other motivations.
Had Sarah Williams succeeded in her quest Sir Didymus would have happily returned to his normal duties with a few new friends in his back pocket and a well deserved feeling of accomplishment to boost his spirits for the foreseeable and in determinant future. But the anticlimactic way in which everything had been concluded and the Goblin King's seeming disregard for his supposed quarry after the fact had left a decidedly bitter taste in the fox's mouth and an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"What is to be done. I ask you Ambrosia, what is to be done?" The fox asked his sheep dog steed while the animal huffed in a sad laying position outside the hollow tree while Didymus stood nearby poking his scepter at the small fire he'd built to ward off the chill of a slight cool breeze that had appeared in the area in spite of it nearing the peak of the day.
Just when it started to looked as if the knight was to be doomed to languish once more in obscurity, a familiar sight came hobbling swiftly over the hill across the bog with his jewels bobbing and chinking at his side. The dwarf looked as if he was in a hurry and when he caught sight of Didymus's fire he made one final push with on hand pressed over his nose to trudge across the bog careful to step only where the rocks had submerged so that he could meet the fox wide eyed and out of breath.
"DAMN." Hoggle growled. Apart of him had been hoping the fox would have taken it upon himself to defy orders and gone looking for Sarah. The dwarf knew there wouldn't be enough time to hunt her down if she was on the move especially if Sarah was traveling around with that red headed nut job of a gypsy. Usually Hoggle was more sympathetic of the woman but it still galled him to think that Jareth considered her a better candidate to teach Sarah anything than he was.
"Why Sir Knight, what is thou doing here?" Sir Didymus muttered in an inquiring fashion when Hoggle came tromping up from the edge of the bog to meet him. "Is something amiss?"
"Amiss! Yous can say that again. That idiot Jareth is out of his head and worst of all he's roped me into something I's can't get out of. Look, I ain't got a lot of time...I needs you to do something important fer me. I's have a good reason to suspect Sarah's eventually gunna come this way again. I needs you to give her these and this and don't tell nobody else about it. Ya hear?" Hoggle said.
The dwarf then went about removing his pouch of what he called his Jewels along with a stained envelop from inside his vest that was thick and weighted down by something inside of it, he then handed all of it over to the fox.
"Fine, fine." Said the knight in something of a confused fashion. "But...Pray, tell. Why don't you just give them to her yourself?"
"Gawh...Cause I'm going away for awhile and it can't be helped so I need you to do it!" Hoggle growled nearly screeching out his words in frustration. "Look, it's all in that letter. If you wanna know ask Sarah about it later and whatever you do Didymus you keep that girl away from that castle. Ya here me? Jareth is up to something dangerous in there and fer safety sake you gotta promise me to help keep Jareth away from her. Sure he claims to not want anything to do with Sarah but I ain't taken no chances. She looks too much like a certain somebody and I aint about to take Jareth's word about that being a coincidence as fact." Hoggle muttered
"Very well. you have my word on my honor as a knight of the Labyrinth. I shall guard these items with my life and do my best to protect the good lady. But what of you? Where are you going?" Didymus asked lightly.
"I'm going out of the Labyrinth and into the Craglands with the baby. It sounds like we'll be going the cavern way, safer and easier than traveling on the surface." Hoggle replied in low tones to mask what he was saying.
"Indeed. I wonder why he's sending the child there..." Didymus mused.
"Mostly to avoid the pitfalls of this place no doubt, plus he's got a friend there. If it were just the matter of the goblins he were worried about I'd understand more, but there's somethin else motivating him that I can't quite figure. Or rather what I been figuring don't make much sense." Hoggle shook his head. "I don't like it but I gotta get back. Jareth will have my balls if I postpone his plans. I be counting on you, Didymus. Do your best if not fer me than fer Sarah. She's our friend and we're the closest thing she's got to family now."
After his parting remarks Hoggle forced himself to turn around and march back the way he'd came leaving a perturbed though vigilant fox in his wake. While the knight didn't seem the likeliest creature for the dwarf to rely on, he knew deep down that he was doing then right thing. He also had to believe that if he left his most beloved belongings in Sarah's care Hoggle would have an excuse to get them back from her someday and hopefully have the opportunity to explain himself.
Getting back through the Goblin City and into the castle was easy for the dwarf. In a similar but different way than Jareth, Hoggle was also intimately connected to the Labyrinth's power and aware of how aspects of it's magic worked. As the recognized groundskeeper of the Labyrinth the dwarf pretty much had license to go wherever he wanted within reason though there were still places he could be barred from and, unlike Jareth who could literally think himself wherever he wanted to be, Hoggle had to get there on foot instead of by magic most of the time. As for getting into the castle the business was a simple matter as knowing the right place to lay down something that could pass for a door like a broken piece of crate and when Hoggle would lift it back up it would be like walking down into a cellar.
As much as there were many wonders and interesting places on the surface level of the maze, below the surface was an assortment of endless passages, oubliettes, treasuries, and gnome hovels. Most of these underground areas were not very deep nor did most of them connect to the castle. But the castle itself was a different story.
Besides the fact that Jareth had more or less turned the castle into a fun house of illusion, the truth was that much of his efforts were to mask the castle's true features which included the extensive catacombs and store rooms that existed deep bellow its surface as will as various enchanted rooms that had been present long before Jareth's time. But perhaps most importantly the castle's roots served as a dock point for the aqueducts and the dark waters that flowed deep beneath the surrounding yellow and red baked ground of the dessert lands that seemed to endlessly surround the Labyrinth and enchanted forest.
There had been a time long ago when the labyrinth was surrounded by a sea of salt water but at some point in the course of the natural shifts of the greater ecology of the Underground, the sea had eventually dried up leaving a distant wasteland of cracked and baked earth that had once been the water's floor. With the exception of the enchanted Forrest, which operated according to it's own unique magical rules, a big reason that the Labyrinth itself was so sparsely populated was because very few people (magical or otherwise) had the inclination or the wherewithal to bother crossing the wastelands and those that did end up settling in or near the labyrinth or the Goblin City had usually stumbled onto it because of the Enchanted Forrest or by other magical means.
Besides crossing the dessert or getting oneself entangled with magic there was one more less well known way for people to travel between several significant points across the baked dessert. It was a little known fact that the aqueducts that existed deep bellow the great castle were connected to a greater water system; one that spanned in various capacities across the Underground and well beyond the boundaries of the Labyrinth. It was Jareth's intention to use this largely secret means to send Hoggle and the baby into the waiting hands of his friend in the Craglands. The ferry was enchanted to take it's riders by the safest route to wherever the fee payer asked. This meant that Jareth would have the final say since Hoggle didn't have much need to carry coins, silver or otherwise, on his person and wouldn't be able to bribe the ferryman to take them elsewhere once they'd left the boundaries of the Goblin Kingdom.
Hoggle knew his way by instinct. Being part goblin and dwarf afforded him a natural understanding of the tunnels and passageway although he did not have much of an affinity for being below ground in general unless it was confined to the relative comfort of his personal dug out hovel.
After making his way down to one of the lowest points of the castle the structural interior of cut stone eventually gave way to cavernous tunnels that opened into much grander display of wide open space that glittered in the dim light. Light that seemed to come from nowhere. Much of the space was accented with naturally forming limestone columns and drapes, stalagmites and stalactites, as well as beautiful glittering flowstone formations. The sound of dripping water reverberated through the cavern and the entire place smelled of sweet water and minerals. As Hoggle moved deeper into the cavern he could sense the gentle ebbing of inky water working against a limestone lip where he knew the ferry waited for him with the shrouded and obscured visage of the ferryman waiting in silence.
Hoggle could also hear the gurgling of the Williams baby along with the unlikely sound of Jareth cooing at him and muttering reassuring phrases in a melodic sing-song manner. Had the dwarf not utterly disliked the Goblin King and what he stood for in that particular instance he might have actually found this uncharacteristic example of Jareth's humanity to be endearing.
"Ah Hoggle," It seemed that the Williams baby had the most interesting ability to put the usually cantankerous Goblin King into a state of unusually good form. "So glad you could join us finally. were you able to connect up with your friends? I would so hate for you to resent me for not getting to say goodbye."
"I took care of meh business." The dwarf muttered in a guarded fashion as he inched towards Jareth while still keeping well out of arms reach. Hoggle was unaccustomed to Jareth's more accommodating attitudes and didn't know how he was supposed to react to them.
"Good. that means we can commence with you taking care of mine. Everything you put together earlier has been packed. I'm also sending two of my most loyal Hobgoblins with you to act as your servants and helpers." Jareth informed him. "Come along now. Don't keep Hoggle waiting."
At Jareth's coaxing something that had at first looked like a dirty crumpled rag stirred slowly to life at Jareth's feet and peeked her large goblin eyes and fluffy pink hair out from around the side of the Goblin King's boot. Likewise another figure that came up to about the height of Hoggle's chest shuffled towards them from out of the shadows dressed in light weight black goblin armor and a face obscuring helmet that had blunted protrusions forming out of it like a jack.
"Officer Flick rrehporting for duty, Sir!" The 'R' rolling beady voiced small goblin guard stood before Hoggle and saluted him while the other hobgoblin watched in meek shyness with weary eyes.
"Erm...At ease?" Hoggle offered for lack of anything better to say.
"Thank you, Captian!" The guard said with gusto.
Hoggle then peered tentatively up at Jareth who was watching the goblin with a masked expression that hinted and a kind of patriarchal pride for the short peppy gaurd. Sometimes it was suprising to realize just how truly attached Jareth was to many of his Goblins despite his own humanness. This was one of the reasons many of the goblins followed him in spite of Jareth not really owning any true dominion over the creatures.
"So it's to be captain, now is it?" Hoggle inquired gruffly.
"Consider it a promotion for what you did in the Goblin City. You technically were a first lieutenant once upon a time, if I recall." Jareth said lightly.
"Guh...But I was on Sarah's side during that fight. Why would you reward me for betraying you?" The dwarf asked in a sickly confused manner.
"You don't have any real loyalty to me, Hoghead. As such you are entitled to pick and choose your battles and real loyalties as you like even at my expense. Regardless of sides, you showed exemplary leadership and bravery during the battle in the Goblin City that went well beyond what is generally natural to your character. You also came to the defense of an innocent caught up at an exceedingly unfair and dangerous disadvantage. Did you think such acts would go unnoticed and unrewarded?" Jareth asked in a rhetorical manner. "In spite of my own nature I am capable of being generous and anyway I've always supported the notion of giving proper credit where credit is due."
Jareth signaled for Flick to take the mumbling baby from his arms so that the goblin could secure him in the boat. The Goblin King was still gazing at Hoggle and looking as if he wanted to say something more when Jareth's acute attention was suddenly drawn to the other hobgoblin still standing at his feet as she tried to stifle a sniffle.
Something softened in Jareth as if he was recounting something tender in his mind's eye as he gently knelt down and picked the little creature up in his hands and placed her so that she was eye level with him. the goblin's oversized eyes were pooling with unshod tears as she sniffled into a tiny little scrap of rag which she was apparently using like a hankie.
"I dun want to go, Master Jareth." The little hobgoblin said in a forlorn manner.
"Oh...Don't be afraid, my little Tilly-whim. I promise it will not be forever. But you see Hoggle there? he needs you to help him and so do I. The baby needs a mother figure and I know no better choice than you for that job. Please help me, Tilly. No more tears now...There's nothing to fear." Jareth smiled warmly at the little goblin that was practically smaller than Toby and, after cradling her in the crook of one arm, took her tiny handkerchief and used it to blot at her eyes for her. "There's my lovely girl."
Tilly-whim hid her face in the crease of Jareth's elbow. "I love you, Master Jareth. And...I'll be brave if you say so."
"I'm glad. Get along now." Jareth set the hobgoblin gently down and watched her scurry onto the boat and hide behind the basket Toby had been securely placed in.
"The ferryman will ensure you arrive at your destination before nightfall. there are supplies for the baby in its basket. I'm counting on you, Hoghead. Take care of that child and do not fail me." Jareth implored him.