Sarah's trying her best, but she still takes things for granted...

Disclaimer: Sarah, Jareth, the Labyrinth, and its other characters are owned by the Jim Henson Company.

Talespinner

Chapter 7: Not Always What They Seem

Jareth's sidestep carried him into his throne room, which he found blessedly empty save for one gnarled hob of indeterminate gender who tended the crackling flames in the hearth. Orange light with the occasional flash of blue, green, or violet flickered warmly, but could not reach the shadowed chill of the room's corners. The little servant dropped an automatic bow toward its king's direction before returning to work, unalarmed by the sudden appearance.

In a movement born of long habit, Jareth glanced briefly at a wood-and-crystal contraption that grew out of the wall like some forest-bound coral, its arms, knobs, and counterweights twisted into a chaos that almost, almost became pattern. A crystal knob suspended by a slender strand of glistening spidersilk scribed a ponderous, repeating arc beneath the device, and a faint click sounded just beyond the range of human hearing as one of the upper protrusions shifted a tiny increment. The Goblin King considered it intently, then nodded slightly, his features relaxing from the subtle tension they had held seconds before.

Turning on his heel, he strode purposefully out of the room through a side door. His booted footfalls were uncannily quiet against the polished flagstones.

The impossibly knotted staircase that led to the castle's highest tower reshaped itself in front of him, smoothing into a graceful spiral. Mere paces behind his passage, however, it resumed its confounding, tangled geometry. The high eyrie was a place that no subject of his, goblin or otherwise, ever entered.

Crisp, cool air greeted him as he stepped from the landing into the chamber; the arched, bare window framed an inky, star-strewn sky. The bright constellations hung innocently enough, but whenever the eye left them and then returned, they had changed – sometimes only shifting positions with each other like goblins jostling for territory, sometimes completely scrambling themselves into new groupings and images. Jareth's vision gave them little sport, as it was quickly trained on the labyrinthine shadows on the ground below.

No human, and few of his subjects would have noticed the pure white speck of a figure that he was watching intently as it approached through the outer layers of the maze.

The path marched austerely onward, the walls that flanked it standing straight and stiff-backed as soldiers. Every corner that led to a new branch of the maze was cut with knife-edge precision; no moss subverted these stones' integrity, and no tree roots roughened the smooth-packed dirt of the floor.

The lamps that lit Sarah's way were coldly glowing orbs atop regularly-spaced columns in the wall. They shone brightly, but the light felt hollow in the way of winter moonlight that only seems to accentuate the surrounding darkness. Harsh corners and angles of wall cast stark shreds of shadow across the path. The walls themselves were of sandy toned stone blocks, each hewn to a degree of precision that Sarah had not seen except in the concrete or brick of modern buildings. Only two sources of color broke the monotony. The first was an occasional rusty-looking stain on the stone, and the second was a very frayed, faded crimson thread that time and other feet had ground into the dirt. Though the thread had long gaps where it had rotted away, Sarah was sure that it had once been a single length.

Someone walked this way before, and marked the path. I wonder if that person ever used it to get out again.

Sarah shuddered. This maze did not feel friendly.

Her misgivings were deepened in short order by a rank whiff of animal musk that reached her on a gust of a breeze, and flared into all-out alarm moments later at the sound of heavy, scraping footfalls just beyond the wall to her left. She wasn't alone, and she was quite sure that she did not want whatever company was nearby.

The footsteps began to fade, moving away from her, and she allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief. The relief proved extremely short-lived, as a hulking shadow stepped out of a side passage and into the path perhaps fifty yards ahead of her position. She could not see its shape clearly in the shadowed distance, but it stood at least eight feet tall on two legs and was covered in shaggy hair. Two large, curving horns grew out of its massive skull, cutting a sharp silhouette against the bright light of a globe-lamp behind it.

Oh, no. In the space of that instant, Sarah was struck by a flash of familiarity, and froze, transfixed by fright. Then the creature at the far end of her path roared, and broke the spell. Sarah turned and fled.

While she had intended to follow the path marked by the broken string back to… wherever she had started, it quickly became apparent that that was not an option. The thread-marked path was wide and mostly straight, as if it were the main thoroughfare through this strange domain, and the creature gained on her rapidly. Sarah knew that she would be risking dead ends if she struck out away from the wide path, but decided she didn't have much choice in the matter. At the next intersection, she darted around the corner to her right.

She ran for what seemed like hours, her heart pounding in her throat. Sometimes the smell and the sounds of pursuit would fade away, and she would slow down to rest, but they always returned to send her careening farther into the maze.

Finally, her luck with open paths ran out.

She had been running down a long corridor, looking for connecting paths, and finally reached an intersection. Turning right led her into a short dead end, so she wheeled around and sprinted down the opposite branch.

Into another dead end. She was trapped.

Her breath came in sobbing gasps, though she tried desperately to slow it – she knew the wheezing wasn't doing her stamina any favors. Finally remembering her experiences with apparent dead ends in the Labyrinth before, she shoved down her panic and walked forward toward the wall.

Solid stone blocks were all that greeted her, while behind, she could hear the creature approaching her intersection.

Time slowed to sticky spider webs around her, in the way of nightmares when the monster has caught up. Sarah knew her only hope of escape was to dodge past the creature.

She was terrified, but she would be ready.

Quickly, she flattened her back against the wall just behind the corner, praying that the creature would not immediately see her when it rounded the bend. In place not a moment too soon, she heard the scrape of its footsteps approach, and she tensed.

It cut the corner closely, leaving no room for a quick dart past it.

Sarah's escape route was blocked by a towering wall of rust colored fur.

Unbidden, a cry ripped itself from her throat as she moved to try to get around it anyway. The creature easily hooked her in one rock-solid arm, and the cry turned into a scream as she struggled against the blow that she was sure would soon fall.

No attack was forthcoming, however, and her flailing attempts to escape seemed to neither harm nor anger her captor.

"SAWAH!"

The shock as she looked up into Ludo's ugly, but eternally friendly face – not the fire-eyed maw of a minotaur – was enough to jolt her awake.

Sarah sat up, drenched in sweat, and rubbed at her temples. The cotton ball of pain between her ears soundly informed her that her body did not appreciate the deviation from her normal sleep schedule, and she groaned at the sight of her alarm clock. It was nearly three in the afternoon.

While Sarah was typically all in favor of sleeping in when she had the opportunity, she had definitely overdone it this time.

I guess I'm allowed. She sighed.

At least I finished the manuscript, and – well, I don't think I would trade the rest of the night for anything else under the sun or stars.

A wry smile inched onto her face as she slid out of bed and went about getting clean and dressed. Any sense that her memories of the conversation with Jareth might not have been real was dispelled by the sight of the dream-sphere still nestled on a scarf on top of her desk – he had come, in the flesh, to see her.

And what pleasant flesh it was…

She didn't even bother getting indignant at herself for that thought. Having spent nearly half her night in his presence, she knew she was as likely to succeed in mentally levitating herself as she was to drive those ideas about him from her mind.

When she had returned from the bathroom with damp hair and a clearer head, she found her neglected cell phone and braced herself for the inevitable.

"Hey, you awake yet?"

"Sarah, seriously, you've either got your phone off or you're lazier than Jen is."

"OMFG WAKE UUUUUUUUUUUUP!"

Sarah laughed and shook her head as she scrolled through the text messages. Apparently Laurel was even more caffeinated and impatient than usual today.

After filling the small coffeemaker from her carefully-hoarded stash of premium beans and setting it to brew, she called her best friend, who seemed to be taking exuberant advantage of the break before graduation.

"Oh wow, she lives!" Laurel's voice was full of teasing laughter, though fuzzy against the background noise of what sounded like a crowd. "What were YOU doing all night? I've been trying to catch you all freaking day."

Sarah opened her mouth, then closed it, stifling giddy laughter.

"Why, I was chatting with the King of the Goblins. Until dawn. In my bedroom." Sarah was mildly disturbed to realize that such a response probably wouldn't even faze Laurel.

Instead, she answered the other, more mundane but nearly as exciting half of the truth. "I was finishing my manuscript. I didn't go to bed until sunrise, but it's done."

"Oh, fantastic – I wanna read it! But not tonight. Jen and I and a few other people are going to go clubbing after dinner, and now that I know you're done with the novel…"

Sarah could almost hear her grinning.

"…I don't have an excuse," she finished for Laurel.

"Exactly! I was going to try to get you to come shopping with us this afternoon, but we're already out since you slept the day away. Want to meet us at Underhill Café around seven for food?"

Sarah brightened, both at the mention of her favorite restaurant, and the nutty aroma of coffee coming from the carafe. "Sounds great. I'll be there. I'm going to walk – do you guys have room for me in the car afterward?"

"Yep," Laurel answered cheerfully. "Might be a bit tight, but you can sit on my lap if nothing else – OW!" Sarah heard a muffled thump just prior to her friend's exclamation, then breathless giggling. "Apparently Jen has something to say about that… oh, excuse me, you can sit on HER lap… figures…" Sarah set the cup of coffee she had been pouring quickly to avoid spilling it, shaking with laughter.

"Or I could just drive my own car, and save you the squabble."

Another snort from Laurel. "No, no… we have room. Really. Theresa's driving her SUV, so there's plenty of space. We'll see you at the restaurant."

"Sure thing," Sarah said, still smiling as she hung up the phone.

Seven o'clock. That left her about three hours to herself, given time to change clothes and get over to the restaurant. A part of her wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon reading over the last few chapters of her novel, but she knew that they were really too fresh in her mind for it to be a good time to edit. Instead, she emailed the last segment to Dr. Casas, who had taken up the position as her sounding board for the story with a great deal of enthusiasm, and encouraged her on it throughout college. The young professor was busy, having several classes to teach and a book of her own in progress, but somehow she had always found at least the occasional stretch of time for Sarah's work. Sarah did not think she would ever quite be able to thank her enough.

Email sent and coffee inhaled, Sarah rose from her desk and stretched. The vivid memory of the previous night and the riddle Jareth had left her were a growing pressure in her mind, and she realized that she would be preoccupied throughout the evening if she didn't at least address it.

That left her one good option for how to spend the rest of her time before dinner, and she was out the door and headed for the library almost before she had even consciously made the decision to go there.

As a Mythology student, Sarah had sometimes felt that she would save a great deal of effort by just moving out of her dorm and into the library, she spent so much time there. As it was, a study nook in a forgotten corner of the third floor had been "hers" since sophomore year; no other students seemed to ever delve deeply enough into the stacks to find it, and a longstanding treaty with the library staff allowed her to leave books unshelved on the table there and expect to find them when she returned. Today, she wove through the narrow aisles between the towering shelves with purpose, pulling volumes as she went.

Reaching her corner table and depositing her armload of books, she looked back into the isles for a moment, chuckling quietly. The thick, musty walls of paper and binding glue caught the sound and absorbed it as completely as a fresh snowfall.

I can't believe I never saw the resemblance before. It seems I'm always finding mazes to walk, no matter what I do.

Sarah settled herself comfortably in the dusty, upholstered chair, picked up the top book on her stack, and began to skim. She had a lot of literary ground to cover in three hours.

"Labyrinth: Symbol of Fear, Rebirth, and Liberation."

At six forty-five, Sarah walked out of her dorm room once again, having exchanged her t-shirt and hoodie for a flowing silk top, and her sneakers for her favorite pair of boots. Altogether, she decided she was dressed-up enough for an evening out, and her dark jeans would afford her enough freedom of movement to enjoy dancing when they hit the nightclub.

As she headed for the restaurant, she mentally reviewed what she had found in her afternoon's research. The trip to the library had been about as lucrative as she had expected, but not nearly as much as she had hoped. She had known where to find relevant books quickly because she had rooted through that particular body of texts many times before over the course of her schooling. Several of the volumes were almost old friends by this point – each maze-running dream, and not a few class projects had sent her back to that section of the library, looking to understand some new nuance of the mythos.

By this point, Sarah was fairly convinced that she had almost all of the information she was going to get on the subject of labyrinths, and no small amount of the surrounding lore of faeries, and the passages between worlds. It simply was not enough. She had the peevishly uneasy feeling that she really did know the answer, both to Jareth's challenge and a thousand others, but they somehow continued to dance just beyond her conscious grasp.

Just as well that Laurel has managed to forcibly distract me for the night. I think I might go more than slightly batty, otherwise, she thought as she reached the restaurant.

The Underhill Café was a cheerful cubby of an establishment tucked into the basement of an office building on the edge of the downtown area, and Sarah had always loved it for both its whimsical atmosphere and eclectic menu. She smiled at the wash of savory smells that greeted her as she opened the door, and at Laurel waving from a corner booth.

Shoving the Labyrinth puzzle onto the backburner as best she could, Sarah joined her friends at the table.

Jareth was in his throne room when his visitor arrived, lounging in the round-armed chair with the deceptive ease of a sleeping lion. His customary mask of languid boredom settled firmly into place as a faint, tinkling chime announced her arrival.

The woman who entered was tall and willow-thin, and walked as though her slippered feet never actually touched the ground. From head to toe, she was bone white, as an artist's sketch in motion that languished on new canvas without ever knowing the touch of paint. Her fitted gown and tattered, voluminous overrobe nearly swept the flagstones, the shape of the latter evoking an image of tired wings dragging behind a great bird in a faded echo of past magnificence. Despite the wear of her garments, her face was as smooth and cold as carven ivory, at once young and terribly, terribly ancient without a spark of humor to say otherwise. Hair so white it made Jareth's own pale locks look like spun sunlight by comparison was piled impossibly high atop her head in an elaborate, braided coiffure, the ends of which were bound with feathers that dangled past her face to lie against her shoulders. Only two motes of color relieved the harsh snowscape of her presence: her piercing eyes were a lustrous shade of honey-gold.

Those eyes never lowered from the Goblin King's face as she stopped in the center of the chamber and inclined her head to him.

"I would express my scintillating delight at the honor of your visit, my lady, but by the gravity of your expression, I fear you do not bring glad news. Then again, you always look like that… but you always bring unpleasant news as well. So what is it that brings you to my backwater kingdom this night?" His apparent nonchalance was the flimsiest of veils over his amusement at baiting her, and the daggers in her glare said that she knew it.

The guest did not deign to chide him for his insolence, but her voice was the essence of frost when she answered. "I think you likely know something of the situation already. Even one so flippant as you could not help but feel it."

"That may be, but you didn't come all this way to tell me something I already knew."

"The last anchor has been dead six cycles," she said, bluntly. "Already, the border realms begin to drift."

His eyes flicked to the timekeeping contraption that sprouted from the wall, and he was quiet for several heartbeats. When his eyes did not return to her, the visitor spoke again.

"Am I next to hear that not even that concerns you, King of the Goblins?"

His mismatched gaze refocused. "Peace, lady. There is a candidate."

A/N: The book Sarah starts looking through is real, and it's by Helmut Jaskolski. (No, I haven't read it, but I might if I can find a cheap used copy!)

I'm anxious to see what you all think of this chapter... it covered slightly less ground than I originally intended, but Laurel started talking and I just had to listen and take her suggestions. ;) As always, I'd love to hear your feedback - good, bad, or "wtf?"