Light Without The Sunlight
Chapter Eleven
"Fascinating. Perhaps the Labyrinth is rejecting you."
I shot him a glare sharp enough to cut. He smiled and beckoned for the ring again. I clenched my fist and said to Sturgie, "Where are we?"
"Oh? Is the would-be princess lost? What ruler cannot place herself within her kingdom?"
I kept my eyes on Sturgie – or the multi-coloured disco ball she'd become in the lights of the globes. The goblin hummed and tapped the dark sides of the tunnel with her halberd and the gold and green and red and silver danced upon the motley crew. "I think we're at the edge of the southern region."
"What's in that?"
"I don't know. It changes according to who rules the Labyrinth. It reflects their deepest fears. First it was that disease swamp, and then a . . ." She trailed off, looking at the King.
Hoggle spoke up for the first time since entering the tunnel. "It was the bog of eternal stench when you came. Disgusting place – don't want to know what's in your mind. Then it became some maze of theatres, and then the tunnels."
"The snake changed it to tunnels?" I said.
"Why would it do that?" Hoggle retorted. His beard had a curl to it now and his skin was clearer, his face less swollen. "It's a snake, it likes tunnels. More likely your fear of it made the tunnels in the first place."
Jareth laughed. "Congratulations, Sarah, you created the perfect habitat for it. Well done. Do you want a silver platter to put my kingdom on?"
Ignore him, ignore him, but I couldn't ignore him because the fear needed an outlet – lest I become paralysed by the thought of fangs flying through the air at my throat – and I snapped, "Your kingdom? If it's your kingdom then why did your mother give me the ring? Why has the Labyrinth changed for me? When I met Sturgie she was almost diseased, and now she's good as new and it wasn't you that did that. You don't care about this place or your subjects or anything. No wonder it doesn't want you as its king anymore."
Oh no. What was I thinking? After what his mother told me, too. This is his father's fault. You're an idiot, Sarah.
He was a foot from me and yet I felt him looming and surrounding and trapping me as well as the tunnel did.
I want to go home.
"This is my kingdom," said Jareth, velvet-quiet, his voice almost swallowed by the earth. "You, Sarah Williams, are a guest here, brought by your own foolishness. Any freedom you experience is bestowed by my hand and I can take it away just as easily. It was I who kept you brother safe while you made a stupid wish. It was I who saved you from the shadow realm. It was I who stopped the clock. Do not think your newfound power has elevated you to my level. I have been alive for two thousand years. I am still the Goblin King and you would do well not to forget it."
I swallowed and nodded. One green eye, one brown, flashed and glittered and reminded me that this man was not human.
"Do you think the griffin knows how to kill the snake?" I asked, almost unable to get the words out.
"Would you like to ask him?"
"How?"
"Throw your globe at a surface and step through. Keep the ring on. It will protect both of you from becoming one of them. To get back merely wish for it."
"Sturgie, come on." I didn't even say goodbye to Hoggle – who, in my periphery, stood straighter than ever – in my haste to escape. The shifting grey void welcomed the little goblin and I with open arms.
On the other side I let out a sob and crumpled to my knees. Heather and dry grass rustled and flattened beneath me and a wind whistled through my hair. Wherever we were was dark and vast and misty and I could barely see it through the tears.
"It's impossible," I moaned. "It's all my fault, everything's gone wrong."
"There, there, Miss." A chainmail paw patted me on the shoulder. "King Jareth will sort it right."
"He shouldn't have to. Toby's going to turn into a goblin now." I might get stuck here, too, and Dad would have no one but Karen.
"It's not so bad being a goblin." Out the corner of my eye, a tiny row of sharp teeth bared themselves, lit in green. "I enjoy it."
"Were you always a goblin?"
"'Course not. None of us were to start with. But King Jareth's castle is what we remember."
I rubbed the tears from my eyes and asked, "Do you even like it there? Is he a good king?"
"Better than the last one, I tell you what, and he deals with the sickness as best he can. We can't have visitors much in case it spreads, but he sings songs with us and we get to join in. We have fun." She sighed and leaned on her halberd and held up the green globe in wonder. "And he's pretty too."
"Sturgie!"
"Can't deny it, Miss. I was human once back when the old king was in power and my brother didn't want me no more. I still got eyes for them human-like people. Goblin boys . . . Children, the lot of 'em." She shook her head. I laughed, wetly, and coughed on the thick saliva built up by crying. Pushing back my hair, I looked around.
"This looks like Dartmoor. Mum and Dad brought me here once, a few years ago." Thick fog lingered, cut through with moving shafts of moonlight. Within was the suggestion of rolling hills and bogs and rock outcroppings and hidden streams. The smell of dirt and peat lay heavy on the tongue. I breathed it in and remembered, "That was the year that she . . . Anyway, no time for that now. Let's find the griffin." I got to my feet with Sturgie's help and tried to bat out the dirt and damp from the silk gown. It didn't work. Ah well. Bigger fish to fry.
"I wish to know where the griffin is," I said and clapped my hands once – the sharp smack was smothered by the coiling clouds of vapor the instant it sounded. It did its job. A tiny blue light flickered into life, bouncing and swaying three feet above the ground. Sturgie picked her way over the unsteady ground and jabbed her spear at the nearest. It was a bulbous, wispy thing, and it vanished at the halberd's touch and reappeared a little further across the moorland.
"Will o' wisp," I gasped. "Oh, it'll show us the way." I took Sturgie by the hand and together we followed the wisp to the griffin.
The grey haze imploded, and Sarah Williams was gone. "Come, Hodgepodge. We will deal with the snake ourselves."
"Uh, your Majesty, shouldn't I check on the baby, or maybe tend to the gardens? The gate needs watching, after all, and . . ." Jareth's flapping cape was almost out of sight down the righthand tunnel. Hoggle sighed, tugged his trousers higher, and hustled.
His King was on a mission. This was good. Of late, Jareth rarely had reason to do any more than sing and flap around as an owl. That he had a goal, a reason to be the Goblin King at last – well, Hoggle hoped he would finally do something about the curse.
"Sire," Hoggle began. "What are you going to do about the snake?"
"Kill it."
"Ah . . . Uh, how?"
Jareth whirled around and Hoggle saw nails turning to talons and hair more feathery than usual. "You doubt your King, Hogwash?"
"It's Hoggle," he mumbled.
"I have ruled this dreadful place for two millennia and this is the thanks I get? Uppity Speakers and faithless subjects and a damned snake trying to destroy everything I worked so hard to protect?"
Hoggle snorted.
"What was that?"
Hoggle had never noticed how haunting owl eyes could be when lit by silver and red. He noticed now. He gulped down his insubordination.
"I never doubted you, Your Majesty."
"I see," Jareth drawled. "Your confidence is inspiring." He snapped into motion without warning and Hoggle jogged after and wished he'd never come to the Labyrinth kingdom. Curse his curiosity over the great parties the old king had been said the throw, and curse Jareth for closing the ways. Jareth was a spoilt brat of a monarch who terrified Hoggle.
That Sarah girl might be the ticket. Maybe, just maybe, when they found the snake, he could push Jareth towards its open mouth and run for it. Then Sarah could kill the snake, be crowned ruler, and he wouldn't have to put up with being called Hogwash and get back to being himself.
Except he'd swapped curiosity for cowardice since coming here, and was Jareth scary.
He sighed and trotted along, stumbling here and there, and wishing he was somewhere else.
Damn his mother. And damn himself for introducing Sarah to her. Why had he done it? Some form of subconscious self-destruction manifesting itself? He'd though it circumstance but now he wasn't so sure.
Jareth wasn't one for wars and glorious battle. However, at that moment, he was looking forward to a killing.
Apep . . . no matter what he'd said to Sarah, he doubted it was that particular snake. True, the chaos serpent had disappeared in history long past, but the snake of the shadow realm was not the right size to be the awesome beast of legend. This creature that haunted the tunnels was probably a Naga of some kind, one of the minor serpent deities of the Above's Orient. Hopefully. The other option was that it was Apep, the eater of worlds who had tyrannised the Underground since its inception, and who was thought to be banished by one of the other monarchs.
Or maybe this was the other snake, the deceiver, the liar and destroyer and killer and thief. The one who, so tale has it, fell and caused the fall of Man and has been working to keep them beaten down and ignorant of their true misery ever since. He once heard it said that the greatest trick of the snake was to convince the world that it didn't exist.
If it was that snake, the Labyrinth was in even deeper trouble.
But, again, he doubted it. Apep or the lying serpent wouldn't have wished themselves into non-existence where they would be trapped in the shadow realm 'til death. No, this was to be one of the other Speaker creations.
Jareth stretched the fingers of his right hand, flicked his wrist, and felt the comforting grip of his cane, it's rounded silver top resting in his palm.
He tossed it a foot in the air and snatched the sword that fell. He swung it overhead and heard Hoggle's intake of breath. The tip of the sword drew a dazzling rainbow of the purest colour that hung for a long second in the tunnel before fading away. Celtic knots trailed down the polished flat of the blade and wrapped over the handguard as intricate leather detailing. The butt of the grip was stamped with the Labyrinth emblem in bronze.
"Do you think a sword created to level mountains and destroy armies will be good enough for a lowly snake, Hogor?"
Hoggle gulped. "If you say, Sire."
"It's a good thing I do say, then, isn't it? This way." Jareth led the way through the righthand of another fork and then left, all the while flicking the sword through the air, testing the balance, reacquainting himself. It greeted him as an old friend, moulding into his grip as if it had never been used by another.
The tunnels changed composition – the roots receded and embedded scraps of cloth fluttered as they passed. The air seemed thinner, drier, hotter. It rasped down Jareth's throat. Soon enough every breath was painful, and Jareth thanked his magic that, despite the black leather, he would not overheat.
Hoggle, on the other hand, panted and stumbled along. There was a dull thump and a shout and a thud. The dwarf groaned and got to his feet. "Oh, stupid place!" and he kicked the thing he'd tripped over and gasped in pain. As he hopped around, Jareth examined the stonework protruding from the floor. It was the cap of a column, all curlicued and clean. They were well within the southern region then.
Jareth tapped his amulet. Damn thing, why did it not work? It should be heating up in accordance with threats to the Labyrinth. He had felt it before, not long ago, then Linda . . .
Ah. He'd thought it was Sarah, and the snake had taken advantage of the malleability of the southern region to keep him from investigating. How cunning.
He took a left and stalked forward and then stopped.
Where was he going?
"Hoggle?" he said.
"Yes, your Majesty?"
"Do you know where to find the snake?"
"No, your Majesty."
Jareth hastened. There was another fork further up. He went right. Another fork. He tried going left. He paused, thought back over the journey. Left, right, left, right . . .
How long had they been in these tunnels for?
He cocked his head to the side, concentrating. Sarah's clock said two hours left. They'd been down here for nearly five hours.
This is absurd.
Jareth materialized at the edge of the southern region.
Except he didn't.
He was still in the tunnel. He tried again, seeking the throne room, and stayed where he was.
He looked at Hoggle, who was looking at his red globe. The light from within was dwindling, a mere pinprick within the crystal. His silver globe was much the same.
Jareth slashed at the air and the rainbow swept in its usual arc. It wasn't all magic, then, just his. He wondered if he'd used the last dregs of his powers to summon the weapon. He couldn't tell. His chest, his head, his whole being, felt numb and insubstantial. His thoughts were indistinct. A wash of pointlessness, of nothingness, washed upon him and he stood unmoving, caught by the onslaught of why?
"Sire," said Hoggle. "Your Majesty . . ." The dwarf's voice trailed off and he sat upon the ground. Frozen. Easy prey.
Jareth forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, stumping onwards. He swished the sword half-heartedly through the air to create light to see by. Step, step, step, step. On and on. Why was he doing this again? To save his Labyrinth, wasn't it? But the Labyrinth didn't want him . . .
He at last came out of the tunnel, into a space vaster than he could see. He felt the emptiness stretching out in front, and above. A swish of the sword highlighted a few pillars of earth rising into a void and a hole in the ground directly ahead. Other than that, it was dark, darker than pitch. The blackness seeped into his eyes and into his brain and left him dumb.
"At last, the King arrives."
The snake was here. The sliding of scales echoed through the chamber, sifting through the columns and finding Jareth's ears, where it insinuated itself and dragged ice up and down his spine. He could not see it, could not pinpoint it. He could not do a thing. The sword hung at his side. It could have been as heavy as the universe for all that he could move it.
"I have been waiting . . . hoping you would come . . . Your Labyrinth has been most . . . gracious." The sibilance of it made Jareth want to retch, if he'd been able.
"I must thank your father, too . . . Your petty squabbles created the path in the coronation room . . . Just enough space to get a little piece of myself through . . . His madness was my strength . . . It was too bad when he died . . . I had almost got through . . . but I left a piece of myself behind . . . waiting . . . perpetuating chaos . . . feeding on your health . . ."
Its voice was behind him, above him, below, slipping in and out.
Jareth couldn't breathe.
"Yes . . . it was me that cursed your kingdom . . . I watched it crumble . . . I kept it weak . . . so that when I returned, I could eat you all so, so easily . . . Like mice . . .
"And that girl, that delicious, dreadful girl . . . she made the path whole once more . . . and your dwarf in the tunnel, who I shall eat after you, opened the door . . . and I could come through . . . Once I've eaten you, I will take the strength of this place . . .
"I will no longer be trapped in the shadow realm . . . I will eat the Underground and take your power . . . Then I will go Above . . . The Speakers will die . . . I shall consume all . . ."
Jareth had just enough control to whisper, "Apep."
The snake's head rose from the tunnel set into the floor. It was larger, far larger than Jareth remembered. It was thick as an ancient oak. Its yellow eyes lit up, intoxicated with hunger and rage. Hot, dry air came off it in waves and Jareth's mouth dried into a desert.
"Yes, Goblin King." Apep' mouth split open. Its teeth dripped luminous green venom. ". . . Thank you for your years of service . . . your subjects have been delicious . . . But I know you will taste the sweetest of all . . ."
TOWRTA: Oh, my Lord, what is going to happen!? *GASP* Jareth is in the clutches of the snake without his powers and Sarah and Sturgie are far away from being able to help! Oh no! And finally we learn why the heck Apep, eater of worlds, has decided to target the Labyrinth - all because of Jareth's dad. Dude, the old king was not a great guy.
Until next time on, Life Without The Sunlight!
Peace out and God Bless.