Chapter Nine

The Escher room, she believed the book had called it, seeing part of it in the passing light of a guard. Or was that something she'd made up herself after she'd left the Labyrinth but had continued to have her eye caught by book covers, paintings, and anything else that resembled her final battle in the slightest? Wasn't there some painter…?

Her musings came to an abrupt end as an unseen breeze scurried at her feet, she could swear she heard whisperings. 'Stop it, it's bad enough Jareth's messing with you, don't do it to yourself! Just wait until that guard passes and get out.'

But there came several loud bumps from just past the archway, and scuffling, and raising volume from the guttural voices speaking words she didn't understand. They seemed excited, or angry, she couldn't tell. They grew distant, and then returned, and seemed to be moving back and forth down the hallway. Maybe new prisoners were being brought in?

Nervous, she scooted farther into the room, and heard something moving. A standing torch lit beside her and she started, and looked around. The floor was moving up, and the entrance now led down stairs that turned with the wall. It looked very similar to the layout it had assumed the first time she'd entered this room.

Another torch lit diagonally opposite her on the other side of the room, next to an exit.

"Okay," she said softly to herself, "I'll just go that way."

An angry screech, higher pitched but definitely male, sounded behind her, much closer than the others, making her wonder if they Halflings were going to follow her in. She put a little more speed into her step and went around a corner, ducked under a low-roofed, unlit arch, and up some steps back into torch light.

Okay, not where she wanted to be. She debated going back and trying another direction, but decided to simply go on from here. She tried another set of stairs, and ended up, contradictorily, right back where she started. This time, she chose the other set of stairs.

She was on the ceiling. And no closer to her goal.

"What?" she asked aloud. "How does that…that—"

"It isn't fair?" teased a velvety voice.

'I was going to say, that doesn't make sense,' she thought, automatically looking around. Then her brain caught up with her in this distracting mess of a room.

"Jareth!" she hissed, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up belatedly.

"Sarah, Sarah," his voice said as she craned her neck looking at the—well, it had been the floor. Nothing but stone and dust. Her eyes darted to the corners, but there were so many of them…

"I think," he said softly, but somehow right by her ear, "that simply jumping down to the middle will not work, this time."

She jerked around, but of course he was not there. "Show yourself!" she said like a cartoon character, then immediately wished she hadn't. Seeing him was fifty times more disturbing than his voice alone.

"As you wish," he purred, and she looked up tensely. There he was, on the former floor. He smiled down at her.

"Tell me, Sarah," he crooned, walking along the ceiling as she edged towards another doorway. "What do you dream of now? Still of fame and fortune?"

She didn't answer, swinging though an opening that fetched her up on the wall that had been to her left.

"No?" he answered himself, dropping easily over and edge and then sideways across a wall, defying the laws of gravity and walking down steps that led him in her direction. "Perhaps of true love's first kiss?" he mocked the fairytales of her youth.

In the dizzying dimness of a corner she made her way down and through an archway, up another set of stairs, her only option. She looked up, then, edgily, over her shoulder, her hair falling across her back, her shirt sticking to her skin as she began to sweat from exertion and nerves. A fine layer of moisture formed on her forehead and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. She took stock of her surroundings.

She was finally on the same wall as the exit. Unfortunately, she was also on the same wall as Jareth.

She spun completely around and looked to her right; there was the middle of the room, the scene of Jareth's first defeat.

'There's no way I can run fast enough to make it to the doorway before he gets me.'

"What do you want?" she asked finally, stalling.

"Your defeat, of course," he said easily, coming slowly at her. It was like seeing headlights coming down a narrow tunnel, except that there was nothing resembling light around him, save when he used his magic. Only shadow.

"You're cheating," she accused him, unconsciously backing up in time to his rhythm. He laughed.

"I did not say this game was fair, Sarah. But take note; I have not used any of my power to stop you, none at all. Your lack of progress is no one's fault but your own. And your mother's," he added as an afterthought.

It jarred her to realize, in her fear, she had forgotten her mother.

"What have you done with her?" she yelled, stepping forward.

"I have done nothing—yet. But in time?" He did not look in the least bit afraid as she marched angrily up to him, stopping inches away to glare up into his face, fists clenched at her sides, twisting her shirt between her fingers. "I have more time than you do, Sarah," he reminded her gently, as if he was on her side. But she was not fooled.

"Give her back!" She stuck her finger in his face, as Linda herself was wont to do when stressing a point.

Immediately his eyes narrowed but before she could register the danger of her carelessness-forgetting he was no one to be trifled with—his fingers were tightly around her wrist, twisting her arm.

"Aah!" she cried, tumbling sideways. His other hand clenched at her shoulder, holding her up.

"Do not forget yourself, Sarah," he ordered her coldly. "I have not exercised any of my power against you, but that is not because I cannot. I merely did not need to, as you defeated yourself in your wanderings. But I am still no one to underestimate."

She looked up into his eyes, her own wide, too scared even to curse her foolishness, to wonder if this was as far as she would ever get, if it would all end here. Finally she was able to form a thought, then words. "What-what are you going to do to me?"

He looked back coolly, completely in control. Then came his dangerously appealing smile across his lips. "I should not like to interfere with a player, not directly. Unless that is your wish."

"My wish?" she said stupidly, dumbfounded. Why would she wish that?

He let go of her shoulder and loosened his hold on her wrist but did not—as she discovered when she tried to wrench away—let go completely. In his free hand he summoned a crystal and held it up for her inspection. Irresistibly, her eyes were drawn to its center.

"Mother!" she gasped, leaning closer. Linda lay prone in a murky room, barely visible but for the glow of her pallid skin in muted light. Even if she could have focused enough to take in the surroundings, Sarah would not have recognized where her mother was.

"She has not been harmed," Jareth assured her lazily. "But she is unlikely to receive aid where she is. In fact, she is unlikely to be discovered at all—before she rots to bones and the smell alerts the guards." He smiled as if pleased.

"You-you monster!" she screamed at him helplessly, wanting to fling herself at him and scratch his eyes out. But he still held her by one arm, and she knew better now than to do that.

"I can save her, Sarah," he said as if she had made no protest. "Quite easily."

She nearly sobbed, chest heaving and near hyperventilation. "What do you want?" she asked again, quietly, her head falling down, willing herself to just pass out.

"Stay here," he said softly.

"Until-when?" she gasped, unable to control her breathing.

With his other hand, he lifted her chin. "Forever. You shall be my slave. You shall show the Underground that your victory was a fluke, and never to be repeated. You shall show them all that you are not in fact, the great Conqueror. You were merely…lucky."

She did not understand the power of that word, not that even luck could not save her if she gave herself over to the king's hands. But she did know, deep down, that he should not have any power over her. By denying that, she had once freed herself. She did not want to accept his authority.

Somewhere, the clocked gonged. It didn't seem possible. Had she spent so much time here…?

"Your answer, Sarah?" Jareth prompted her.

She finally managed to slow her breathing. "And…if I say no?"

He smirked. "Than your mother shall remain where she is, and you will waste precious time looking for her. If she is not with you when you find her half-soul, you cannot merge them together. Think, Sarah. You will be well-treated here, and your mother safe. Just love me, fear me, do as I say…"

"And be your slave?" she couldn't help finishing with the alternate ending. Anger was steadying her, growing in the pit of her stomach.

To her surprise, he smiled again. "You forfeited your chance for anything else, Sarah. This is all you shall have now."

"No." She straightened, looked him full in the face. "I'll have more. I'll win—again. And you'll have to leave us alone forever. Now, let go of me," she said forcefully.

And odd looked passed over his features, some surprise, mixed with another emotion she couldn't name, something foreign on his face. He let her arm go.

She gazed at him levelly, and he stared back. Finally, she forced herself to turn around; trying not to hunch her shoulders against the creeping feeling he might hit her in the back with a crystal or something. But that wasn't his way, and she knew it.

"Beware, Sarah," he said in that soft tone she now recognized to mean he was no longer physically with her. "I shall move against you now, as is my right. And it will not be as easy as it was last time."

She continued walking.
.
.

Linda groaned, getting to her knees and finally to her feet, and looked up. Light seemed to come from nowhere, and be all around her somehow. It was also somewhere above her, so far above that she couldn't tell the source. Then she remembered the fall.

She also recalled Sarah's words, that Hoggle had helped her get out of such a place, for this could be nothing other than one of Jareth's underground dungeons, and oubliette.

But who would come for her now?

A/N:

To my reviewers:

Elliesmeow—It certainly is sad, and it will be sadder still when I have to write the scene where Sarah realizes it. I don't know if Argle will re-appear. Hope that little Jareth-Sarah scene made you feel better, though!

HazlgrnLizzy—once I realized I'd forgotten to mention Ludo and co. I thought I'd better put that in there…thanks for telling me the name of the room, I wasn't sure if that was it! And you were right about the king…

Raevenne—thank you! Glad you found the fic. Of course, as a hardcore SarahxJareth fan, I want to see their original mission fail as well, but Linda is more devious than even I know…she'll do anything to succeed.

Rionarch—for sure. We'll see more of her later though.

Natsuko37—hehe. Well, she's certainly lost now, and Sarah has no idea where she is. But if she thinks Jareth is cruel, she unfortunately is really in for a shock about her mother.

WE'VE STARTED A TREND—I like it too, the name came to me out of nowhere, glad you like! As for Sarah's luck—she's really gonna start needing it after this, isn't she?

FireShifter—sorry to keep you waiting! Jareth was being a pain, his lines wouldn't come out right, like he wasn't half-trying to be in character, and I was stuck for a while.

Nercia Genisis—hehe! How'd the costume come out, and what was it for? Have any pics?