The morning met them with humid and sticky air. Low clouds clung tenuously atop the walls of the Labyrinth, playing shadows over tall wheat grass at the feet of the three. They had stopped at the massive maze, looking into the first of many turns. While, of the three one had defeated the challenge of the labyrinth, one had lived most his adult life in Its wake and the final had ruled over it for ages unknown- none knew what was waiting just out of sight. Even the horses hesitated with their heads low and nostrils flared.

First thing in the morning Jareth had gathered the two horses from where they had bedded down for the night and saddled them without a word. He had waited until; at least, the sun had pinked the sky to wake his traveling companions. They had readied themselves hurriedly, feeling the need to be somewhere other than where they had slept. Jareth himself had been direct about their haste, especially once they mounted the horses to begin for the morning.

Then he had led them there, to the remains of a gate that had once stood guard to this way into the Labyrinth. Now it was buckled and toppled in on itself along with a large portion of the wall. They waited, breathing in the anticipation surrounding them.

"I need to know something before I go back into that thing," Sarah said. She sat on the back of Jareth's mount, her hands loosely cupping the cantle of the saddle and her thighs barely touching the edge of the king's jacket. He turned his head just so she saw one eye, half a cheek and the subtle curve of his lip. His expressions were not betrayed.

She cleared her throat. "I kinda get the idea I have something that man wants and that you two, well at least you," her comment had been directed towards Jareth, though Gideon did turn to look at her. "…are hiding a lot about this whole mess. I just want to know though, what the hell are we up against? I mean, if I go through there, face whatever he has waiting to stop us, and God knows what else, I should at least know what I'm in for."

Gideon averted his eyes towards the King who sat silent and straight in the saddle. This was one area the healer could not breach, at least not without Jareth's consent. IN the end it was truly the Goblin King's fight, they were bystanders caught in the line of fire. Gideon glanced again at the girl.

At last Jareth cleared his throat. "He's a mortal and he can die. Those who steal the gift of magic do not so easily inherit its treasures."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked cautiously. She had learned all too well the first time through that Jareth and the whole of the Labyrinth was quick to leave things ambiguous, especially when prodded. For the moment she remained unguarded, her contempt towards the man in front of her safely stowed away to the back of her mind.

"It usually chooses someone," Gideon interjected.

"If they are so lucky." Jareth bit the words out quickly, quieting Gideon and ending the dialogue between the healer and the girl. The horse shifted beneath the king and Sarah, taking a few lingering paces towards the entrance of the maze. A wind rushed between them and Sarah found herself nearer to the man in front of her than was comfortable. For a pregnant moment she stayed, and, her chest shuddering in breath once against his back, shook herself abruptly into a consciousness more fitting their situation.

Something was not being told to her again. But then, she had felt the breeze cold and icy against her skin in the humid morning and wondered who listened to them on the rush of air. "And what about you?" She inquired further, nudging Jareth with the side of one forearm.

"I was chosen from birth Sarah. Unlike Damien, I am no stranger to the Underground," he grew silent suddenly. There was a change in the timbre of his voice and his usually elegant accent slipped into a haggard exhalation. Sarah bookmarked the moment in her memory, filed under a time she would ask more about when he would answer.

"Now I think we speak to delay. Are you afraid, Sarah…. Why the concern for a place you conquered? What was it you said?" He paused a moment where he thought and then turned pointedly around in the saddle to stare directly into her momentarily shocked face. His eyes flashed and she could see herself reflected in the dark of his pupils. "It was a piece of cake."

She betrayed nervous laughter. "But why this way Jareth" Gideon asked from the side. Sarah, relieved to not be in so close proximity to Jareth and his eyes, gathered her composure.

"It's the straightest and safest of the trails to the Ivory Kingdom. And the only way Damien does not want us to take." The two were silent, confused, as the king spoke. The Labyrinth was washed in shadows more menacing by far than the open fields and forests of the lands surrounding. Clean air circled above them and, while warm and wet, was not the dreadfully still and stale atmosphere inside the walls of the maze.

Jareth sensed their unspoken question. "It's not a discussion. But, if you must know, the Labyrinth is fighting her bastard master. Damien knows, neither he nor his men can come inside these walls without facing what we face. It's a mystery to all now, but perhaps there is still a taste of me somewhere."

With that they entered, the horses alert and tense beneath. Neither Sarah nor Gideon begged another explanation. A brief respite from Damien and his army was worth the chance they took in the unknown and strangely silent labyrinth.

There was cold stone under his cheek when he finally began the slow return to consciousness. Instead of the chiming and raining broken glass a single drip of water landed repeatedly near his face, echoing against the walls of his current location. Jake opened one eye, waited a moment and then opened the other. "What the-?"

Still lost in the disorientation of passing out, he couldn't remember how he had ended up in the dank and moldy room. But there was no denying his being there. His hand rested on the floor, wet and cold. It was too real to be anything but, and try as he might, he couldn't deny that he was there. Slowly, Jake sat up.

His head swam in a strange fog and the world shifted back and forth briefly as a wave of vertigo struck him squarely between his eyes. He pressed a hand to his clammy forehead and then began scanning his surroundings.

There was little to see other than four cobbled walls coated with green and gray molds and algae. Overhead the ceiling was interlaced with black wooden planks that dripped water along stringy trails of lichen. In one corner the lichen came to a bulbous end and, as he watched, a great round eye appeared in the middle of the darkness. "Shit!"

He jumped backwards, hitting the wall sharply. Briefly his vision blacked. By the time he looked again the eyed plant had slipped back into shadows and Jake wasn't even sure if it had been there at all to begin with. Suddenly things seemed like a nightmare, especially as his last memory before blacking out became crystal clear. Horror spread across his gray face like a wave.

"I hope the accommodations are to your liking," a voice whispered from somewhere in the darkest corner of the room. Jake watched, breathing deep and tasting fear like metal in his mouth.

"Who's there?"

The figure which stepped out could have been anyone, anywhere, seen on a street or in a shopping center… but in the middle of the dungeon-like room he was terrifying. His steps were slow and calculated and each footfall echoed like gunfire. Jake flinched noticeably. The stranger was tall and lithe and darkly clad with jet black hair and equally dark emotionless eyes.

"No one of importance to you," the man lifted one fine boned hand and examined his fingernails. Then, as though remembering his prisoner sitting on the ground in the small room, acknowledge Jake once more. "But, we do share a common interest in someone."

Jake straightened suddenly. Though he wasn't sure what the man was talking about, something in his gut whispered caution. "What are you talking about?" Jake's voice hitched a moment as he swallowed against a thickness in his throat.

"I'm sure you already know. It's of no interest to me or help to you if you act stupid, Jake," the man hissed. He approached a few more steps, arms crossed behind his back and a feral grin slung across his pale lips. "If you still don't know, take a look." He inclined his head to the left and Jake followed the motion quickly.

Standing just to the side was a full length mirror, hovering just above the ground and seemingly not strung up by anything. While at any other time he would have been taken aback by the sudden appearance of something that had not been there even a few seconds earlier, Jake was instead focused on that which was within the glassy surface.

"Sarah?" His lips spoke the words before his mind had completely registered the people he saw within the mirror. There were two men with her who he didn't recognize. Her companions were not obviously malicious, nor did she look trapped, hurt or scared. However, as he saw his girlfriend in company of people who were strange and new, traveling a land dark, dim and utterly surreal, Jake leapt to his feet and lunged at the mirror.

What had been solid became wisps of smoke between his outstretched fingers, and Sarah's face disappeared into the shadows surrounding him. Jake grasped desperately, but all too soon nothing remained. Desperate tears slipped into the corners of his eyes as he turned to take his misplaced aggression out on the man who had imprisoned him.

"I wouldn't do anything rash." The voice came from behind him and Jake turned again to see the man waiting, casually, where the mirror had stood. This time he remained frozen, hands gripped into tight and trembling fists.

"What did you do to her?" Jake whispered, his voice trembling in his eruption of emotion.

The man shrugged. "Nothing, yet. She's beyond where I can reach… at least for now. But, you see Jake, I don't really want her. I don't even want you. I want something she has, something she's carrying on her, and something that is rightfully mine." He twisted his hand and produced a single spherical crystal that glittered with golds and silver as he held it out at arm length. Jake watched, mesmerized.

"Then why… why not just ask? She must be scared and want to go… go home," Jake managed, watching the orb twist and spin on fingers that moved with a subtle sort of grace. There was a hypnotic appeal to the movements of the hand and the crystal.

"Of course. And I will send you back to your dreary, busy, dirty little lives above, without even a thought of this place and what happened here. Which is why I need you, Jake. You can convince her. You can take it from her." He laughed briefly, tossing the crystal over his shoulder where it struck the wall and erupted into a sudden splash of light.

Jake blinked, shook his head, and then looked around the room. His captor/visitor, was suddenly gone and Jake found himself alone in the twilight darkness. His head swum again, filled with questions and uncertainties. From within the haze of magic, Sarah's face became brightly clear and he remembered what the man had said while holding the tiny little sphere in hand. "I have to find her."

With the words a square of light poured in from one corner of the cramped room. Hesitant, the young man ventured towards the newest change in his strange encounters that day. Hopeful he breached the brightness and suddenly found clear, warm day washing a vast length of prairie like grass and stunted trees.

"Ok." His hand trailed on a final piece of black and rotted wood, and then he stepped onto the Underground.

Riding a cool easterly wind, fine and chilling laughter faded into a distant and greatly dark forest.

In a small cottage on the edge of the outermost wall of the Labyrinth, Lily sat on her rocking chair with a tattered throw across her legs. Her children were asleep still and her companions out cutting fire wood and fishing in the distant lake. The silence bathed her, calmed her and allowed her mind to wander towards the people she sensed now moving into a darkness she couldn't see past.

"What are you planning, Jareth? When will you talk to her? How long will you carry this on as though you can defeat the world all over again?" She whispered the words into the empty room.

There were too many things that the girl didn't know, and perhaps never would if Jareth had his way. However, the things she did not know went even beyond Damien and the downfall of the Underground. The mysteries went through decades and losses and destructions and a darkness of a past which Jareth had all too conveniently forgotten. The same past Lily relived every night when she closed her eyes and slept fitfully.

"Times will come, though, Jareth. Soon you won't be able to brush over these things." She feared that the time would arrive sooner than Jareth anticipated and hoped, and perhaps before he was able to understand or accept the truths in the past and present. Then the Goblin King would be tested not according to the strength of his sword and valor but to the strength of his character.

Lily sat and rocked, staring into a morning that would dawn on many new and different things.