Fledgling
by J.R. Godwin
Disclaimer: "Labyrinth" belongs to Jim Henson & Co. There's no money being made off of this.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
-Proverbs 16:18
Do you think of me?
Where am I now?
Baby, where do I sleep?
Feel so good but I'm old.
2,000 years of chasing's taking its toll.
-Kings of Leon
As everyone knows, the best place to set a story is an asylum or a battlefield. There's something poetically tragic about people losing their heads.
Before the advent of modern psychiatry, the mentally ill were sequestered away in prisons and the basements of public buildings. They died lonely, ignoble deaths, often at the hands of other inmates, very curable diseases, or broken hearts. It was said that if you didn't enter mad, you soon would be.
And little wonder! Asylums are imposing, lonely places, even well into the 21st century when you can no longer get away with torturing lunatics. They remind me too much of my castle, madhouses. In the wintertime, the wind at home whistles through the cracks and rattles the eaves. The goblins hide when this happens. They're afraid of the dark, and they hate the cold. On such gloomy afternoons, I'll huddle before a fireplace and fall asleep with a goblin or two on my feet, only to awaken hours later with a crick in my neck and an ache in my chest.
This is why, whenever I am not fulfilling my sovereign duties, I'm fleeing my world for some place a little more hospitable, a little more fiery. SoHo has been fitting the bill rather nicely the last few decades. There's always something delicious to eat in SoHo, and new music to hear, and more often than not a new body to warm my bed. The human world is a strange place, but it's far sweeter than mine.
Well, for the most part. I have never liked the madhouses.
How do you measure time?
If you're human, you probably measure it in days. By the number of breakfasts you've had. By your life stages. High school, university, first job, first marriage, first child. A lot of firsts.
When you're immortal, it's difficult to measure firsts. Time stretches out so much that you become less picky with the importance of things, because they all become important to you. You're not limited to a century of life or less, so you can afford to be generous with your memories.
Which of my lovers was the most important to me? I cannot say. They all made me smile, all made my long stretch of life more bearable, all whispered to me in the dark of their dreams and joys. They've all brought me to the brink, too, that transcendental post-orgasmic state when you can't think and your heart (for just a moment) has stopped. The French have a phrase for it: la petite mort, or the little death. Lying in my lovers' arms has been the closest I will ever come to dying. It's a bittersweet release.
That's another trait my lovers have shared: they've all died and laid rotting in the Earth. Most are past rotting by this point, have fallen away to dust and dreams. No one remembers their names anymore save me, the silent mourner adrift in a sea of time. It's an eternal vigil.
I tell myself that I will never take another human lover, because it hurts too much to lose them. I tell myself that I miss the sex, but since Sarah has reentered the picture, I've begun to wonder if I've actually loved them. Perhaps I am capable of love after all, and I try to dominate and control others out of a desperate need to control something in my long, immortal life. The constant loss is maddening.
I could take a new lover from among my fellow gods. Surely that wouldn't be difficult. I've done it before, and so have many other immortals. You've heard the stories of Zeus and his prowess among women, human and god alike, yes? (And, oh my, how his wife hates him. You can't imagine the rows.)
Yet I keep finding myself drawn back to the human world. There's something delicious about humans, with their singled-focused joys and wonderful stories.
When you visit Manhattan Psychiatric Center, a security guard must page you through the front door. First you'll be asked for your photo identification, which I always show them (actually an illusion and slight of hand, and the guard will nod at my imaginary licence that only he can see). The guard will scan his plastic badge and punch in a code on the keypad to open the door. All the doors in the facility are opened this way. No exceptions.
Then the guard will order you to stand in line and wait to check in. Visiting hours are 7 PM to 8 PM every day. That's it. It's much stricter than a regular hospital, and guests must be 16 or older. No babies allowed. Forget about the baby.
I always manage to skip the registration desk, though I typically walk through five locked doors rather than teleporting. It makes things less confusing for the humans on staff. Sometimes magick complicates things more than needed, and I don't like that. There's a great elegance in simplicity, in the beautiful movements of the body.
Today I wear a sweater and jeans, and my tousled hair is tied back from my face. I look like a very lean, very pale man, but just barely. Even magick can't hide the length of my teeth and the strange angles of my body. The guard has seen me a thousand times now, but he always shoots me a glance that one sees on a junkyard dog when it's deciding whether to bite. Humans, particularly the sensitive ones, tend not to like me.
On some level, far too deep for their consciousness to grasp, I smell of other dimensions, dreams, and desire. I will always set mortal creatures on edge, even if they can't articulate what exactly has them so ill at ease. I upset most mortal senses.
Every Tuesday at 7 PM I follow the same ritual: I appear on the tiny island on Manhattan's north end, and work my way past security, and go to the 7th floor. Then I walk three doors down from the lift and enter a room on the left. It's a private room, with a lonely bed and a solitary window.
And every Tuesday, I take the empty chair beside the bed, which holds a wizened old man, and I say, "Hello, Jimmy."
Jimmy, having not had any higher brain function for the better part of seven decades, never responds. His breathing apparatuses speak for him, wheezing and rattling and beeping.
But the soul is still here, and until the day when Jimmy dies, I will visit because of the affection I held for his brother. Many things have been said about the Goblin King (some good, some not so good), but let it never be said that I don't take care of what is mine.
Today when I enter the room, I see Jimmy sports a horrid new haircut. It looks like a nurse has taken a weed-whacker to his scalp.
"Oh, Jimmy," I murmur softly. "Poor lad. The girls will never want you now." The joke's already out of my mouth before I realize how terrible it is.
Jimmy was a handsome boy. It was clear, even when he was young enough to get away with playing tricks on his family, that he'd grow up to break many hearts. I can still see quite a bit of his brother in the mouth and ears. They always had generous mouths, the Ellingson family. Whenever Richard laughed, it was a very hungry laugh.
The spark of life is gone from Jimmy's mouth, of course. Now it's a slack, drooling line. I brush away the worst of the drool with a tissue and deposit it in the trash can beside the bed. There's nothing for it - Jimmy looks worse. It's been barely a month since my return to the human world, a month since the end of my 12-year disappearance as I frantically worked to repair the Underground. How is it possible for a human to age so rapidly in that time?
I take a shriveled, naked hand between both of my gloved hands. Liver spots mar the tissue-thin flesh. "I left you when you most needed an ally," I whisper. It's the closest I'll come to an apology. It doesn't matter, I suppose. Jimmy isn't going to respond, anyway.
One day, Sarah will be reduced to this. The thought turns the stomach. Perhaps it's for the best that she won't have me. Or perhaps it's all the more reason to take her back Underground sooner than later.
The discomfort in my stomach is getting worse. At first I think it's regret or grief, but then I realize it's hunger. The hunger moves up my spine and lodges itself behind my heart, and by now I've recognized it not as an emotion but a tingling of magick. Something is happening. Now all my senses are on full alert. This is a magick I've not experienced before, which makes it novel and exhilarating.
Someone is on the other end of this magick. I can feel another's life force tugging on mine, seeking me. The sensation is a distant precursor to sex, before you touch a person, before you kiss them. It's that moment when you spot them from across a crowded room and they ensnare you through the eyes. I feel a little drunk. My heart and groin ache.
On most days when I visit Jimmy, I'll read him the newspaper. Today is different. Once I feel this tingle, I can't concentrate enough to do anything, so I anxiously tap a foot and angrily stare at Jimmy as if he holds all the answers and is refusing to share. Fortunately, Jimmy is in no position to complain of my rudeness, and for the first time I'm glad.
Finally, after a half hour has passed and I'm about to leap out of my skin, I hear the lift outside chime. A nurse's confused voice echoes down the corridor.
"Are you sure it's this way?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely! I remember the way now. Thanks so much for your help." Manipulation and lies coated with a veneer of honey. I'd recognize Sarah's voice anywhere. I'm clutching the chair armrests as if driving nails. When Sarah enters the doorway, she stops dead at the sight of me. "Oh, my God."
I recover first. "No, just me. Won't you come in?"
Sarah stands firm in the doorway as if someone's hit her with a tire iron. Her hair is long and glossy black as always, like a raven's wing, and she wears a green wool pea coat, black slacks, and high-heeled shoes (the kind that always look lovely but painful). Her cheeks are ruddy from the cold outside. It's April, but winter has been stubbornly refusing to cede ground to spring these last few days.
The moment drags until I sigh with a bone-deep weariness. "Sarah, stop staring at me like I'm a monster and have a seat. Surely this isn't that difficult."
"What are you doing here?" she asks, ignoring my request completely.
I glance at Jimmy, still comatose. "Visiting a friend. And you?"
"I ..." She swallows and glances at the hall as if debating escape. "I felt funny, just a strange feeling, so I followed it to see where it lead."
"Funny? How so?"
"Just this ..." Unconsciously or not, Sarah rests both hands over her stomach. "... this emptiness you get when you're hungry, only it wasn't for food, and then it moved into my heart. It became a tug, so I followed it to see what it was. It lead me here."
"From where?"
Sarah won't look me in the face. "110th Street."
"Fascinating," I reply, and I truly am fascinated. "Sarah, sit. You make one skittish standing in the door like that."
She tucks her hair behind an ear and debates my request for a second before finally entering the room. There's an empty chair near mine, so she takes it and quickly inspects our surroundings. There's not much to look at. Jimmy doesn't have much left in this world. "Who's your friend?"
"This? This is James Ellingson, Jr., but everyone always called him Jimmy. He's a good lad. Was." I rest my cheek in one gloved palm, considering. "I suppose it's been a long time by human standards, but by mine, I was just talking with him yesterday."
Sarah can't pull her eyes from the wasted face. She looks haunted. "What happened to him?"
"Schizophrenia. Madness ran in his family, and the authorities coped with it the only way they knew."
"Lobotomy?"
"Yes."
"That's terrible," Sarah says softly. There's pain behind her eyes. I'm intrigued at her ability to feel so much on behalf of others.
I shrug. "It's what they knew. I must say, humans evolve at a tremendously fast rate. Things that appeared just or wise only fifty years ago are now looked upon as evil or archaic nowadays."
"My first year in grad school, we studied the history of psychotic disorders and psychiatric hospitals," Sarah murmurs, worrying her hands. "The things doctors did to patients back then would be grounds for criminal investigations today."
Exactly what I'd been pondering shortly before her arrival. There's surprise in Sarah's eyes when she looks at me again. I must be wearing a strange expression. I can't articulate what passes between us in that moment, but it tastes like mutual understanding.
"So," Sarah continues, "they lobotomized him."
"Yes. They thought to only cut a few nerves, but it didn't go well." Jimmy's head is slipping a bit, so I carefully adjust his pillow. "He was twenty-seven. Before he'd fallen ill, he was a solicitor - what you would call a lawyer. He was engaged to a charming girl named Nancy, but of course the lobotomy put a stop to that."
"How did you two, uh, meet?"
I smile at Sarah wanly. "His brother, Richard, was a lover of mine."
"Oh." The longest Oh I've ever heard, pregnant with thought. "I'm sorry, if this is personal-"
"It is," I assure her, "but there's nothing shameful about it." Sarah inspects me curiously again. "Have you never had a lover, Sarah?" My voice comes out so softly that it could be mistaken for seductive.
Fortunately, all my question succeeds at doing is making Sarah chuckle self-consciously. "I've had relationships. It's just ... weird hearing you talk about it so casually."
"Having a lover?"
"People don't talk like that."
"How do they talk?"
"They say they're dating someone, or dating around. Saying you have a lover is admitting to people that you're ... you're ..."
"Having sex," I say frankly.
Sarah laughs again. "Yeah."
"There's nothing shameful about taking a lover, Precious."
"I guess," she says, placating me. Her body language says otherwise. "So what happened after the lobotomy?"
"The family was never the same after that. Jimmy was their darling prince. Richard was devastated." I drift off for a moment, remembering. "... he and I parted ways soon after, but we did so on good terms. The whole family is gone now. Jimmy has no one left, so I visit him."
"You and Jimmy must have been close."
"Hardly. He barely tolerated me. I think he alone sensed something between his brother and me. The parents were oblivious. Jimmy threatened to brain me once or twice."
"Would he have been able to?"
My grin is just a touch malicious. "He could have tried. It wouldn't have ended well for him. In any case, he never did. But Richard was wild about him. It's a cruel thing to love a person so dearly when they despise what you are, but Richard loved Jimmy anyway. Not everyone went to university back then, but Richard did because Jimmy had, and anything his elder brother did, Richard had to do. He read music. He was a wonderful violinist. Paganini would have wept to hear him play."
I sigh and stare at Jimmy's slack face. "Of course, the parents were horrified their boy had become a musician. The violin on weekends was one thing. Playing at neighbourhood parties? Delightful, impressive. But to be a professional musician, a starving artist, a ragamuffin? Unacceptable. They threatened to throw him out."
"... Did they?"
"Richard was unwelcome in the home for a year, but that didn't stop his studies. He'd received a scholarship, and a fond professor got him additional support from the university. After a while, his parents relented. They missed their boy too much, as did Jimmy, who by then was having his fits. Within another six months, he was institutionalized for the first of many times."
I've been staring at Jimmy's wasted face so long that when I look back at Sarah, I'm surprised to see my expression mirrored in her face. "You visit someone who hated you?" she asks, puzzled.
"He meant the world to Richard, and he's gone now." Sarah's expression softens, and a small part of me feels relieved that she understands. Why should a king crave acceptance from anyone, let alone a former enemy? I won't say. It's humiliating. But the kindness in Sarah's face makes me, for a wild moment, want to kiss her feet. "Such is life. How is the darling Muriel faring?"
Sarah darkens like a storm cloud. "Why did you set me up with that awful woman?"
"You wished for it, Precious."
"Bullshit. I didn't wish for this. The woman's an asshole."
I tut. "Such language. You'd make a nun's ears bleed."
"Goblin King, I wished for wisdom! All Muriel does is criticize me!"
Sarah is sitting closer to me than she's realized. She jumps a little when I touch her hand. "Jareth," I insist. She's still riding high on anger, and she blinks at me in confusion. "Call me Jareth and I will answer whatever questions you have." She thinks it's a joke, I can tell. "I promise, Sarah."
She looks at me askance. "Since when do you make promises?"
"Since now."
She doesn't trust me, I can tell. "Alright ... Jareth." I remove my hand from hers and recline back in my chair. Sarah relaxes considerably after that. "Why did you set me up with Muriel? And don't say it's because I wished for it. You know I wouldn't have chosen someone that nasty for a teacher."
"No, you wouldn't have, but it's what you needed."
My presumption obviously nettles her. "How do you figure?"
I lace my hands over my stomach, considering. "Muriel is brilliant at what she does. Oh, I know you don't see it, not yet, but she is. She's also the only person I'd entrust with the keys to my kingdom. Her loyalty is beyond question. You'll come to appreciate her methods in the end, of that I'm certain."
"She's rude."
"Oh, do you think so? She's actually quite a sensitive spirit."
Sarah laughs bitterly. "Do you know what Muriel said to me today? She said I was a brainless idiot and it was a good thing I dropped out of grad school, because it would have been criminal to let me take care of patients. She also said it's too bad my dad didn't have a family business he could push me into, because it's clear I sure as heck wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere else."
"Not true. She hired you."
"Because you made her hire me!"
"That part is true," I admit.
Sarah throws up her hands. "Goblin-! Agh, Jareth! I think you're being obtuse on purpose!"
"Sarah, I shall make a deal with you," I say with all sincerity, but Sarah only grimaces in response. "I promise that you will get the answers you seek on this in time, but first you must make an effort with Muriel. She's a wonderful magician and will teach you what you need. If you give it your best effort and you still hate it, then leave."
She stares at me. "Really?"
"Of course. You're your own keeper." Because you wouldn't let me be yours. Haven't we been over this a million times before? Bitterness and grief bubbling on my tongue. Swallow it down and smile. Smiles can be interpreted so many ways.
"So I could leave now if I wanted?"
I stare at Sarah for a long time. "... Will you?"
She sighs. "No. I don't want to die like everyone else, clueless about the true nature of things. And you gave me a rare opportunity."
"Do you feel indebted to me?" Indebtedness is certainly a card I can play.
"I don't know," she mutters. "You did fulfill your end of a bargain. I can't just walk away."
"Yes. Tell me more about how you found me today." Please? I cock my head at her in a way I know will both annoy her as well as tug on the heartstrings.
My ploy works. Sarah looks disgruntled. "I don't know. I just followed this feeling I had, and it brought me here."
"To me," I insist.
"To this room," Sarah retorts. "You just happened to be here."
I grin toothily. "There are no 'just so happens', Sarah." She looks away from me. I delicately reach under her chin and gently, gently turn her face back to mine. She looks annoyed but, dammit, still not a trace of fear. "All humans have magick, Precious. Most dismiss it as the stuff of fairy tales, but all have the potential to channel it. One of the most basic forms it takes is connecting with someone else. It's a skill that proves itself useful, when a family member is missing and needs to be found."
"But you weren't lost," she says.
"Don't be so sure. My visits here always depress me. Times like these, it's nice to have company."
Sarah gently disengages from me, but she holds my hand in hers as if uncertain what to do with it. "How can I use magick if I don't know what I'm doing?"
"Instinct. How does a flock of geese know to fly south for the winter?" I like the way Sarah holds my hand, as if I'm a precious thing. "And I think there's something unique about our own personal connection, so I'm not surprised you sensed me nearby."
"Our dreams," Sarah murmurs. "They're not just dreams, are they?"
"I think not. You named me and my kingdom equal to you and yours." I deftly twist my hand, delicately taking Sarah's in mine, and kiss the back of it with a smile. Sarah doesn't resist, but she still looks solemn. "I will permit you another question. You asked terrible questions the other week at brunch."
"Did I?" she asks faintly.
"You asked me nothing about my history even as I asked all sorts of questions about yours." I rub the back of her palm with my thumb, grinning. "Quid pro quo, yes or no?"
She cocks her head, debating. "Alright. So, what are you?"
"Ha! You've asked that before."
"I have, but I didn't get a real answer. You said humans have called your kind faeries, djinn, gods. So what are you? You, specifically."
I've interlaced my fingers with Sarah's and begun to inspect her fingernails. The ends are chewed. She's a biter. "I? I'm a god, born of a distant star when this galaxy was in its infancy. I remember the explosion that preceded its creation. Now I serve as Goblin King, where I take unwanted children and guard human dreams."
"I thought you offered people their dreams."
"One and the same. When you know a person's dreams, you can better tempt them. It proves useful for dealing with people who wish away children. At my core, though, I have always been a fertility god."
Sarah laughs. "Excuse me?"
She tries to pull back her hand, as if I've said something distasteful, but I refuse to let go. "It's true," I tell her. I'm sure my self-pleasure is evident in my face.
"You make it sound like an excuse."
"For what?"
"For-" Sarah laughs again. "-for being ... you know."
"I don't know. Tell me."
"You act like you'll screw anything that moves."
I feel vaguely slighted by this statement, and it's difficult to offend me. "Excuse me. I have standards." Sarah finally retrieves her hand, and I use mine to cradle my chin as I inspect her. "Does it offend you that I enjoy sex? It's part of my job."
"I think a lot of guys would use that excuse," Sarah counters.
"Well, I can't speak for them," I reply, "but for me it literally is my job. Every god has a function. Mine is to bring forth new life. Even now, as Goblin King, I serve to protect children ... and when there were no children, or a people had suffered terrible losses in war or the food supply, I would be called upon to inspire the crops or the people to bear fruit."
"'Inspire'. What does that mean? Sleeping with the women?"
"Often." I nearly smile at the memories, but I stop myself just in time.
"That's crude."
"Why?" I'm genuinely curious.
"Because it's ... you can't just go around sleeping with people."
"Why?"
"Because you can't."
"Who told you that?"
"Everybody. Society. You just don't do that."
"Modern society has hidden away something very natural. Instead of revering sex as the force it is, you've degraded it, shamed it, made it inaccessible, and as a result of that you have widespread depression and perversions like rape." I count each of these offenses on my fingers as I speak, and my voice has taken on a lilt as if singing a song. Sarah aggravates me with her judgments, so my long-suffering temper has started to fray. Tuesdays are never good days to begin with for me.
"So people would call upon you to sleep with them so they could have kids." Sarah is trying to understand my point of view. Judging from her harried expression, she's failing miserably.
"Yes," I reply, and this time I do smile, with a touch of mockery. "You must understand that things have changed a great deal. The last two centuries have seen more changes than the last ten thousand years. Until recently, the population on this planet never exceeded a million people. Fertility was of the utmost concern. New children, new sources of food, new advances in art and music, ... all these things need a helping hand, so to speak. A fertility god can help most wondrously with that."
"I have a hard time following this."
"When done with disregard for another, yes, sex is destructive or traumatic - much like what your mother did when she cheated on your father and abandoned your family." Sarah bristles. "What your mother did was despicable. But the problem was her lack of empathy and loyalty, not the sex."
Sarah is quiet for a long time. Jimmy's breathing machines continue to rattle and wheeze and beep. My Champion and I sit side by side, saying nothing. Truth be told, I enjoy sitting quietly in her presence, even if she's not afraid of me. The lack of fear is both an annoyance and a novelty. After several minutes lost in thought, Sarah finally says, "What would people do, when they called upon you?"
"How's that?"
"You know. Say a people wanted to call upon your power. What happened?"
"They had magicians to call upon me."
"Like placing a long-distance phone call."
I can't help my grin. "People lived closer to nature back then, so it wasn't quite so long-distance. But yes."
"And then what?"
"It depended upon the people, and the situation. I was quite popular in ancient Ireland."
"Oh!" Sarah says in recognition. "The Horned God!"
I'm delighted. "Ah, so you've heard of me?"
Sarah's entire demeanour has come alive. Her body turns toward me as she begins to speak animatedly with her hands. "Of course. I loved Jung. He believed the Horned God was a guardian between worlds and a source of masculine power - the healthy kind. Everybody carries archetypal aspects within themselves, you know? And when a person, male or female, didn't integrate the Horned God in a healthy way, you'd have deviant behaviour like sexual violence."
I hum contentedly to myself. "What you once called myths you've now integrated into your scientific study of the human mind. How I love your species."
"So what happened in ancient Ireland, then, when people called upon you?" Sarah no longer sounds so cynical. Sarah the Scientist.
I'm thoughtful. How to explain this to someone so out of touch with her own history? "Ah ... a long time ago, thousands of years before Saint Patrick brought his dead god on a cross, the Irish religion concerned itself first and foremost with fertility. The Druids built enormous stone temples aligned with the movement of the sun. And of course, they held fertility rites for crops and children."
I stretch my legs and sigh. "There is a rite that has not been practiced in many centuries. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I saw one performed. The people would build up a great fire, and there would be feasting and merry-making. All the young women would adorn each other's hair and make themselves beautiful, and they would compete for the title of Goddess. Each woman would dance, and the woman who danced the most passionately and who won the crowd's heart would be declared the winner."
"And then what?"
"And then she would claim her prize: a god for a goddess." Ah, me, the memories. "A respected elder woman would paint the winner's face, cover her with a cloak of feathers and send her into a cave, deep beneath the earth. There she would find a chamber resembling a tomb, as they buried people back then, only this chamber was lit with candles and instead of a corpse in a burial shroud, she'd find a dead god lying in repose waiting to be resurrected. Often the god was played by a man who'd won his own competition among the other men, and he'd be dressed as a fierce warrior. Some people dressed their gods as a sun deity. Every tribe had its own customs.
"And sometimes," I say, "if the people had a magician or two, the god was a real one. A deity called down and made flesh, instead of a local man playing a role. Most people had sacred death masks made for this rite, a frightening-looking thing with a raging, red mouth and great horns protruding from the head, carved of wood and framed in animal fur or feathers. It was very impressive. So I'd lay there until the winner entered the tomb and, ah, brought me back to life. I'm sure you can deduce how she accomplished this."
From the way Sarah's blushed and laughed, she has. "And then?"
"Meanwhile, in the world above, the remaining women would take their pick of the men, and everyone would go off into the woods and have their own celebration. It was wonderful. No one would get any work done for days."
"Did this help people have kids?"
I mull that over. "They certainly thought so. Keep in mind, ritualized forms of sex meant society actively encouraged love-making, which meant there was more of it. There was no shame. If anything, people saw it as a duty so sacred that even their gods wanted to help them. It meant a new generation, and the lack of sexual frustration cut down on conflicts and war."
Sometime during my story, Sarah has turned completely to inspect me, as if she's never seen me before. "It sounds beautiful."
"It was," I reply with a tinge of wistfulness.
"You must have had a lot of children running around."
I chuckle ruefully. "I did. The last time I was called to Ireland for such a rite was at least fifteen hundred years ago, yet until the 1600's, there remained whole villages in County Meath where it was said the people had the queerest mismatched eyes. The English wiped most of them out, and the Famine took the rest. My Irish bloodlines are all gone now."
"I'm sorry," Sarah says quietly.
I regard her curiously. So strange to hear someone apologize so much for things over which they have no control. I never apologize for anything, even when I'm the cause. "What for?"
"It's sad. Those were your kids, or your grand-kids many times over."
"It's tragic," I agree, "but I had no emotional connection to them, I'm afraid. It takes more than seed to make a father. I never raised any of the children I sired. I had a particular job to do, and I did it." With gusto, says the look on Sarah's face. I won't deny that.
"You miss it," she says. It's not a question.
Mine is a bitter laugh. "The sacredness humans held for every aspect of their lives? Oh, yes."
At that moment, a nurse enters the room to say in an annoyed tone that visiting hours are over and that it's past time we left, so we do. Jimmy doesn't protest. He never does.
It's still light outside with the onset of spring. Sarah looks momentarily perplexed when I offer her my elbow, and I remember that the custom is outdated, but she takes my arm before I can retract it. It's very comfortable, having her touch me like this. As we reach her car, she disengages to unlock the doors, then looks me over. "Need a lift?"
"That would be lovely, thank you." I don't ride often in cars, but every opportunity to do so is a treat. Such curious contraptions, automobiles.
We pull onto the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. The passenger-side window is down and I'm riding along with my head half out of it, the wind in my hair and my eyes hungrily gobbling up the sight of Manhattan's skyline.
"Where do you need to be dropped off, Your Majesty?" Sarah asks.
"Jareth." I shut my eyes against the harsh glare of the electric lights, retreat into my imagination, where there's always candlelight and stars. The human world is a sweet one, but sometimes it's discombobulating. The wind feels wonderful against my skin, as if I'm flying.
"What?" Sarah is confused.
"Call me Jareth, Sarah." Her name tastes wonderful in my mouth, like an invocation and a promise.
"Oh. Yes. Well, where can I drop you off ... Jareth?" My name sounds awkward when she speaks, a flat tune on a faulty instrument. In time, Precious. In time.
"Anywhere. It doesn't matter."
Parking is atrocious in Brooklyn, so Sarah has to park several blocks from Muriel's house. I'm about to take my leave of her for the night, but I notice a possessed woman wandering the opposite side of the boulevard, and a vampire watches us from a neighbouring stoop. It's a good vampire, a member of a clan I'm friendly with, but still. Sarah hasn't a clue. So instead of leaving, I link arms with her again and escort her down the street. She looks surprised at me but doesn't protest. I consider that a victory.
"So, what does a fertility god do in the modern world?" Sarah asks.
I blink at her. "How do you mean?"
"People aren't staging ritualized orgies anymore. I mean, maybe they are, but they're not calling down gods for them, right?"
"In some places, they still do, and it's desperately needed. Mortals suffer greatly in this area."
"Impotence," Sarah says in agreement.
"Yes. And other areas."
"Like?"
"Fear of rejection. Fear of commitment. Fear of opening oneself up to a partner. Homophobia. Self-loathing. Performance anxiety. Jealousy. As you will."
"Sex can help with this?"
"It's always fascinated me that modern human societies tend to focus on the destructive aspects of sex without giving equal airtime to the healing aspects," I muse aloud. "In answer to your question, yes."
"So, like, how? Obviously the answer isn't Viagra. Drugs don't help the emotional stuff."
I feel a smile uncurl itself across my face and stretch like a cat. "Curious, are we?"
"Human psychology was my field of specialty," Sarah says defensively. "What you're saying is interesting."
I consider that for a moment. "It varies by the person. I'm sure you're aware, for example, of the way women's sexuality has been repressed, even today. Repressed, controlled, punished. You talk with your girlfriends, yes? Have any of them ever confided in you that they've never had an orgasm with a partner?"
Sarah flinches. Actually flinches. How curious.
"Sarah?"
"What?"
"Sarah, have you ever-?"
"That's none of your business."
"You brought it up."
"I'm sorry I did."
"Well, have you?"
Sarah looks at me, annoyed, and pulls away, continuing on down the street at my side but with her hands stuffed in her pockets. Her body language is answer enough, but after a beat Sarah says, "No. Never with a partner. And you can wipe that grin off your face."
"I'm not grinning."
"You just got this crazy gleam in your eye as if you'd thought, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, in big neon lights. The answer is no."
In fairness, I do have a very expressive face that doesn't do a good job of hiding my thoughts, so Sarah's probably got me there. "I didn't ask anything."
"You're thinking it."
"I've already proven time and again that I never, ever turn down a request for help from you, if you were to ask me for it. If you were to ask, and only then. You set that boundary quite well when you so happily defeated me." Sarah's gait loosens up a bit. At any rate, she's walking less stiffly. "Your problem is you don't trust people."
Sarah sizes me up. "I don't trust you. I feel like we're peas in a pod and co-collaborators in a big game I'm just beginning to understand, and you're so openly manipulative sometimes that it's easy for me to get a bead on what you're doing. I trust that you're trying to do what you feel is best for me, but I also think you're selfish and would 'help' me as long as you'd get something out of it."
I laugh. It's the sort of laugh a man makes when an arrow has struck true, but it would be a tremendous loss of face to admit it. I can't deny anything Sarah's said, and I won't even try. "Well played."
"Can I ask you something? Quid pro quo."
"Alright." I can always lie if I need to.
"If you had the opportunity to take me back Underground right now, whether I wanted to go or not, would you do it?"
As if operating on the same nervous system, we stop and stare at each other. A couple bumps into us from behind and maneuvers around us grumbling. It's a beautiful night out. The moon hangs heavy in the sky like a nine-month belly, and the stars wink cheekily from their black velvet berths. Their light can't hold a candle to the brilliance of Sarah's eyes.
"In a heartbeat," I reply, very honestly. "But I would never hurt you," I add, just as honestly.
Sarah sighs as she turns away, sighs as she says, "That's not good enough." We've reached the black iron gate guarding the front of Muriel's house. A neighbour's dog barks. One of Muriel's cats growls from its hiding place in the bushes. Sarah pushes on the gate and walks into the garden. I remain on the sidewalk, rubbing the black iron thoughtfully with my gloved hands.
As she mounts the front steps, I call out, "Sarah." She turns, curiosity radiating off her in waves. I can feel her eyes burning in the darkness. "As long as you're queen-elect of the Labyrinth, you will have no peace until you return, just as I will have no peace until we have you. I've tried to be generous, but if you won't come of your own accord, I swear on all the worlds I will find a way to drag you home myself."
Sarah sniffs. "You're going to be waiting a long time, Your Majesty." Then she goes inside, locking the door firmly behind her, shutting me out, and I'm left alone and angry in the dark with my thoughts.
Around this time I attend a party at the home of a neighbour, a fae lord named Tiberius.
If I had the luxury of a friend, Tiberius would be one of mine. He's young by my standards, perhaps two-thousand years old. Old enough to remember the ancient Irish fertility rites, and to have participated in a fair number of them. The only thing that finally chased him out of Ireland was the English, and he now resides entirely Underground. The fae have a poor relationship with most human tribes. Too much bad blood and betrayal there, most of it from the humans. The fae take loyalty oaths too seriously to break them.
Strictly speaking, they are not gods, though many human cultures have mistaken them for such. The fae are a mortal race with a finite lifespan and their own customs, just like humans, and they value artistry above most everything else. Their claim to fame in the old days was kidnapping beautiful youths, lovely lasses, skilled artisans, and brave warriors. So the fae share some characteristics with gods such as myself: neither race has ever been known for playing fair.
There's a human author who's famous for his relationship with the fae, an Englishman named J.R.R. Tolkien, only he called them elves. Tolkien was one of the few to bother learning fae languages and to actually write them down in his books. Of course, humans fancy he made them all up. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Tiberius' regnal name is Cirden, though his birth name is Cathasach. Like all fae, he also holds a secret name known only to himself. When he reached maturity, he did as all fae of noble stock did: went away to study the art of war with the best warriors, and at that time, that meant studying with the Romans. He liked this so much that he kept the name they bestowed upon him. For all formal matters of state, he's known as Lord Cirden of the Wild Wood, but the rest of the time, he's merely Tiberius.
He's a good man, Tiberius. He has a head for strategy and a heart for battle. I don't trust him as much as I trust Muriel, but I trust him more than most other people, and that says something.
You might think Tiberius a lout, the fae equivalent of a drunken footballer. In fact, Tiberius prides himself on his manners and sense of culture. His favourite place to visit whenever he ventures Above is Shanghai, renowned for its fashion and wealth. In the last century, when China was still under the thumb of England, you would have found Tiberius on the wide boulevards of Paris, where during the day he'd shop and, at night, play piano with the city's highest-paid courtesans.
That being said, Tiberius often is drunk. It's a curious fact that his birth name, Cathasach, means "the vigilant one" in ancient Irish. Clearly, the Fates have a sense of humour.
When I appear in Tiberius' courtyard astride my horse (a great black charger named Thunder), liveried footmen rush to greet me. Tiberius' servants are the best. He's trained them well. I sweep down from my horse, and a butler leads me through the massive doors and into the main hall.
Tiberius also throws the best galas. At the moment, every important person on Earth and under it is here: some of them fae, some of them gods, even a few humans. I spot a New York Times bestselling author, a young man who's been lauded as "the next Tolkien", and of course the irony is that, like Tolkien, he's chummy with the very same fae he writes about. (Apparently, the fae are flattered by this.)
When I enter the hall, the butler calls, "His Majesty the Goblin King, Lord of the Southern Marshes, Lesser Emperor of the Lower Lands, Guardian to the Nightmare Realms, and High Sovereign of the Labyrinth."
The temperature in the hall drops several degrees as everyone frantically bows or curtsies. For my part, I give a little nod but look bored, if regal. I'm quite a showstopper, if I do say so myself. You can thank Cornelius for handling my wardrobe. I wear a pinstriped suit, the kind you'd find at Fashion Week in New York. You can't expect gods and fae to ignore modern fashion trends, after all. I also sport grey silk gloves and glasses with round, dark blue lenses, and a silver watch hangs from my waistcoat on a filigreed chain.
I look outrageous, but as a rule, I dislike doing things by halves. Just ask Sarah.
"Your Majesty!" Tiberius booms, hurrying forward. He also wears the sort of stylish clothes you'd find fashioned by Gucci, not goblins, and his bow is far lower than mine, acknowledging my authority. "Please, come in, come in!"
The stiffness in the hall disintegrates, and everyone returns to their chatter, though they watch me from the corner of their eyes the way a flock of blue jays watches a cat.
Tiberius links arms with me and sweeps me into the hall. "I am so glad to see you, Jareth," he whispers conspiratorially in my ear. "I want to hear all the news. Your kingdom regrown in the blink of an eye! I need to know how you did that!"
"No secret to it, just behead a demon and spend a week recuperating in bed," I retort.
"It wasn't a big rift, was it?" he asks hungrily.
"It was big enough," I concede.
Tiberius laughs uproariously at this. "You're insane. You always were the toughest bastard I ever knew. That's why the Saracens loved you. Fancy a beer?"
I accept the drink from him, as if I had a choice. "Beer, at a formal mixer? Always classy, Tiberius."
He winks. "I've learned a lot from the humans. Come, see my new additions."
Tiberius' "additions" include a human girlfriend from Buenos Aires and a baby grand piano. Tiberius always had a soft spot for women and music. The girlfriend is darling - an accomplished model and equestrienne named Filomena who was recently on the cover of Essence. Tiberius is obviously smitten with her and failing utterly at hiding it. I should make a note to tease him mercilessly about it later. He hates looking anything but unshakable.
"When's the wedding?" I mouth to him.
"Next year," he answers, sounding a little drunker than I thought he was. "I've already asked and she's already said yes. But tell me about this rift. How did a pretty boy like you take on a rift and live to tell the tale? Wait, don't tell me, you're immortal. I know, I know. Well, we can't all be gods."
We leave the noise of the main hall for the added privacy of a grotto. The first one I find is occupied by a man and a woman who are going to need a private room very shortly. Out of a manly sense of camaraderie, I find myself steering my drunken lord away from them and down the hall, where I deposit him in an empty room occupied by a single desk and a bookshelf. It looks like the butler's office.
"Oh, good," Tiberius says, obviously not recognizing this place. "Is this the wine cellar?"
"Hardly." I shut the door and prop Tiberius on a sofa. "Try not to vomit on the couch. It looks expensive."
"Are you insinuating I don't know how to hold my drink?"
"I'm not insinuating anything. I'm telling you outright."
"Prig," he accuses me gleefully. "So tell me how you rebuilt the Underground."
I deposit myself in the chair behind the desk and loll one leg over an armchair. "Nothing to tell, truly. I closed the rift without destroying myself or blowing up the Underground, and here I am today, getting drunk with you."
"You're not trying hard enough. Have more beer." He pulls out of thin air two bottles of dark Belgian ale, caps off and gullets filled with an orange wedge. One of the bottles floats into my hand, and Tiberius raises his bottle in a toast. "May we never regret this."
I toast him back. "God save the king."
"Isn't that my line?"
"Drink your beer."
One beer becomes two, and two becomes three, and after that we stop counting. At least, I stop counting. Tiberius has a head start on me. I recall saying, sometime after Beer #3, "Tell me how you convinced a lovely woman like Filomena to marry your ugly mug." A royal title affords me a louder mouth when I'm drinking.
"Alas, I cannot say, Your Majesty. 'Tis a shameful, hedonistic tale."
"With an introduction like that, I insist you tell your tale, sirrah."
"Haha! Well. I was backstage at a fashion show in Buenos Aires. I heard a woman crying in the bathroom and went to investigate. Of course, I couldn't go in, because it was the Ladies'. I called and convinced her to come out, and out comes this ... this radiant goddess. She was crying because she'd broken the heel on her shoe and tripped onstage. It was humiliating, all the photographers had gotten a picture of it and it was sure to appear in the papers the next day. Anyway, I barely heard all this, because I was staring at the lovely vision before me." Tiberius plays with his beer bottle and gazes into the distance. Even he is aware that he's reached his limit. "I insisted on taking her to dinner to make up for the shoe, and she agreed."
"You didn't have to trick her? Was she inebriated?"
"Some of us," Tiberius says loftily, "can get by on our charm, I'll have you know."
"Have I met any of these people?"
"I can assure Your Majesty that you won't find any in the mirror."
"Now that's just low."
Tiberius snickers, pleased with himself, but quickly adopts a serious expression. It looks out of place on his face. "And pray, tell me how fares the Labyrinth."
I focus very intently on the rim of my glass. "Very well."
"You lie," Tiberius hisses with malicious glee. "What is amiss? You need a man, that's what. Or a woman. Someone who will laugh at your stupid jokes, besides your goblins. Someone with whom you can while away the hours."
I put down my drink completely and fold my hands in my lap. "You seem to be very aware of what my kingdom and I need."
Tiberius waves a hand and sloppily shakes his head. One would think he's dismissing me, but I recognize embarrassment and backpedaling when I see it. "I fear for Your Majesty's well-being. You've always been so isolated. Heavy is the head that wears the crown."
This is true.
"Gwyneth has been asking for you," he adds, as if carelessly.
I grimace. "No."
"But she's a delightful-"
"No, Cathasach."
"Oh, dear, you're unleashing my childhood name. It appears I've seriously breached decorum." Tiberius yawns and sways slightly as he bounces up from his seat. He runs a finger along the books on the shelves, bored and tired: never a good combination for him. "She would be a pleasant companion for you, though," he murmurs softly, like a lover in my ear. "You deserve some pleasantness. I say this as a dear friend who cares for you very much, Jareth. You can't hide forever at the heart of your Labyrinth."
"I'm hardly hiding, Tiberius, and in any case, the heart of my Labyrinth lies elsewhere."
He turns to me with a raised brow. "Was that a riddle? Am I to guess?"
My face, carefully shuttered. "No."
Tiberius looks smug as he interlaces his arm with mine and drags me close. "You always were an enigma. It's part of your charm. Come, escort me back to the hall. The floor is misbehaving a bit."
We return to the party, where the guests continue to avoid me, the Bogeyman. Little matter; my attention's scattered, as if I exist in multiple worlds. The musicians play on, never stopping even once. Dancers, dancers everywhere, covered in lace and velvet. Hundreds of candles burning in their sconces, wax dripping onto the brick, mirrors and silver and glitter. Time stops, or perhaps it leaps forward. I cannot say.
I take my leave just before the dawn - that strange, confusing time when the shadows have not yet fully receded and the land still belongs to the stuff of nightmares. Many other guests have already left, or dance drunkenly in the hall or the garden or, in at least two instances, the fountain. As the servants fetch my horse, Tiberius accompanies me to the door, his fiancée on one arm as he makes exaggerated gestures with the other.
Filomena glows in the pale yellow light outside, silently laughing at Tiberius' jokes. Tiberius was right: she is exquisite.
My throat aches. I'm very tired.
Tiberius is speaking. "It's been a pleasure and a privilege, Your Majesty. I hope you'll attend the wedding."
"Yes, please," Filomena says. "Tibby speaks the world of you."
"Tibby?" Even I can hear the smirk in my voice.
Tiberius flushes. "Yes, yes. We shall send you an invitation shortly. And I'll ensure you're seated next to Gwyneth." He winks, not a little cruelly.
I would not reflect much upon this period if it were not for a terrible thing.
Shortly after Sarah's latest rejection, and Tiberius' party, a fissure forms in the rocks to the west of my castle. Didymus spots it one day during a reconnaissance mission. I set out for it immediately and discover it's not far from the first rift we discovered weeks earlier, the one that nearly destroyed me.
I spy on the rift from a safe distance, assessing it, weighing it in my mind, until I decide that there's no danger here. The rift runs a great length, churning up the air between one clump of rocks and the edges of the forest, but it cuts a shallow swath in time and space. It hasn't yet opened a door to other dimensions, which is a relief.
"Does Your Majesty think this foul thing will go deeper?" Didymus whispers from his hiding place next to me. He sounds uncharacteristically solemn.
"I don't know," I reply, frustrated and curious, but I'm loathe to get closer. It would be too much like taunting a bear. "I'll keep an eye on it, though Heaven knows what I shall do if it worsens." Once a rift latches onto a dimension, it's very difficult to get rid of, like destroying a parasite. I'm not looking forward to another bout with a resident demon.
A week later, Didymus bounds into my throne room again, muttering frantically about the rift. He gesticulates wildly, which hints at impending chaos and doom.
It's a struggle not to roll my eyes. "We've already discussed this rift, Sir knight."
"Your Majesty, I don't mean to speak of that rift!" Didymus exclaims. "That is to say, Sire, there is a second one!"
My goblins squeal in terror as I leap from my throne with a roar.
Unfortunately, Didymus speaks true, and this rift has actually opened. When I spy on it from the trees, sheathed in my owl form, I can see the telltale sparks of other worlds - nasty ones, from the look of things.
The goblins discover a third rift shortly after this. They run yelling into my throne room, disrupting the other goblins, and the chickens, and the biting faeries. I sit rigid on my throne, pale and frozen and thoughtful as my denizens run riot, like hideous little children.
They only shut up once something else in the room explodes and, in the sudden silence, a small goblin asks, "What's Your Majesty gonna do now?" She's a tiny creature with a striped sock for a hat, one of Sarah's goblins. She's stubbornly taken to calling herself Lucky, though why she should choose such a moniker is beyond even my keen powers of deduction, as I certainly haven't had much luck of late.
"Sire, are these rifts more damage from ... the last time?" Didymus queries.
I run a pair of crystals over my hands. Brooding. Silent.
He means the last time Sarah defeated me, the last time Sarah destroyed the Labyrinth and ripped open holes between the worlds.
I let the crystals fall. They become dust before they ever hit the ground. "No," I sigh, "these are not from Sarah. They've never been here before. They're entirely new rifts." I curl my hands into fists.
The goblins titter anxiously. Didymus is stunned. "But what does it mean?"
My answer is a yell of laughter and rage. The goblins cower, and even brave Didymus flinches. "It means, Sir knight, that my Labyrinth has never recovered and likely never will! It's falling apart, and my power with it. And more rifts will come until they finally succeed at tearing me apart. That is what it means."
And I laugh until I cover my face with my hands. Perhaps I would cry, if I held with that nonsense, but of course I don't.
To be continued