Disclaimer: Sarah, Jareth, the Labyrinth, and its other characters are owned by the Jim Henson Company.
Talespinner
Chapter 21: It's a Crystal, Nothing More
The wind shrieked and cried in hollow fury, calling out for that cool, strange strain that had played counterpoint to its wild singing, but the thread had fallen silent with nary an echo to remind of its existence. The angry tempest could cover every inch of ground, slip beneath any stone or around any windowpane as easily as thought, yet it could not find the harmony.
Trees bent near-double under the weight of its desperation, and dust whirled aloft to scour bark and stone as if scratching the surface of the world would reveal what was lost. The crystal stars above gave no guidance, their eyes cruel in incrimination of all that stretched beneath them.
Her bronze mask sat warm against her skin, filling her head with its dried-blood-upon-hewn-granite scent as it deflected spark after spark from the great stone anvil before her. The vaulted cavern rang with the song of hammer on stone and precious metal, a bell struck again and again beneath the bones of the world.
Powerful and sure, her hands seemed to hum in counterpoint as they held and swung, coaxed and teased, cajoled and commanded the white-hot ring of silver that would become an ornate necklace. Its cries were the sweetest music in the depths as it yielded to her mastery, taking form and purpose beneath her touch. Other masked ones moved within the red-gold glow of the forge fires, each with some wondrous piece of the stone's bounty to mold, but she scarcely noticed their exertions, so focused was she upon that shape that was hers. It needed her; it sang and screamed under her attention by turns, and she could not bear to let it fall silent.
There. A strike with the hammer to spread the edge into the fragile delicacy of a bit of filigree, or the elegant blade of the sharpest knife.
There. A smoking quench in tepid water, the hot metal's hissing shriek a thrill that shivered up her spine.
There. The forge-fire's all-consuming heat that would once more awaken the silver's shine to incandescence –
Sarah.
The quiet sound was more felt than heard, and she shrugged, dismissing the faint whisper of familiarity it brought as quickly as it had come. She lifted her silver ring back toward the fire –
Sarah.
The silken word was dissonant against the glorious clamor of stone and metal, and she hissed in irritation, looking up to find the interruption.
A tall shape with a mask like a sharp beak was staring at her, eyes the cool grey of old shale even in this place of flames.
Sarah.
She turned back to her beautiful silver, for whatever meaning the word might have once had was gone, and she was far too enchanted by the half-formed shape of white fire to trouble herself over it further.
The varicolored glow of a thousand lanterns speckled the dark forest with lights that bobbed in the cool wind, and leaves on the cusp of autumn's turning cast shifting, violet shadows on the sharp faces of the revelers who danced beneath them. Her legs were bare beneath a filmy shift, and the air's chill edge raised gooseflesh as it slithered over her skin, chasing her while she twirled amidst the throng. The music goaded her movements, slipping in and out of hearing, but always as near as the yielding earth under her feet.
Graceful shapes wove and spiraled around her, and their chiming laughter threaded through the music as if shaped by some invisible conductor. She could feel their hard eyes upon her even as she cast her own downward, predators circling, assessing which would finally move to claim her.
At last, a golden, long-fingered arm intruded upon her field of vision, beckoning in what was not an entreaty, but a demand. Shivering, she reached to comply, and the fingers closed around her wrist with gentle, menacing promise. The woman's eyes, when she looked up, were diamond-bright and cruel as the oldest stars, and they flickered with amusement in time to the dance that continued around them both.
Marble-smooth hands swung her into a new, paired measure, and her deft puppeteer smiled down at her as the world spun. The faces of the other dancers swam in and out of her blurred, reeling vision – all smiling, all meaningless beside the constant beacon that spun and twirled and guided her around the clearing. Something in the rhythm and tenor of the dance struck a single, clear note of memory – of a dream? But the woman was wrong… it had been a man, tall and flaxen-haired with a smile like a barbed hook…
The woman leaned down to whisper something against her ear, and a heartbeat later she could not have said what the words were, but suddenly nothing was as important as the tickle of sweet breath on her skin, warm enough to spite the autumn air. There had only ever been one dance, one midnight revel, one pair of secretive eyes that promised pleasure and gave…
Sarah.
The masculine voice came from somewhere near, and startled, she stumbled and lost the rhythm. Then the diamond eyes flashed, and the long fingers cupped her face and forced her not to look away from the fury she saw there.
She turned her face willingly into the harsh grasp in silent apology and focused anew on the steps of the dance.
Sarah.
No. Go away.
She forced the strange name out of her thoughts as the woman smiled once more.
Sarah!
The voice was a shout just above her an instant before a rush of brown feathers filled her vision, and the hawk's razor talons struck her shoulder. The pain was a searing, pure chord that cut through the subtle cobwebs of the revel like a scythe, and her blood smelled of molten copper as it spilled upon the ground.
A cool, humid breeze ruffled her hair and the loose, white vest and shirt that she wore. She glanced around warily, tickled by another frayed end of memory, taking in the slate-grey sky over a rocky moor redolent of heather and wet lichen. A crumbling stone wall encrusted with emerald moss stretched out before her, and when she followed it with her eyes, it led up a massive hill strewn with what once must have been an impressive collection of structures. Now the only building still deserving of the name was an ancient-looking central keep with great, gaping holes in its walls. One particularly enterprising tree had taken root among the scattered stones at the bottom, and she fancied that even at this distance she could hear it slowly crushing the rock to gravel, and then to dust in the soil.
Lacking other ideas and filled with a strange, restless clarity, she picked her way across the stone-strewn ground and slowly climbed the hill. Save for the faint, inexorable song of tree roots and weathered stone, the silence in this place was absolute, and her own breathing sounded cacophonous to her ears.
When finally she gained the hill's crest and stood before the warring keep and tree, she hesitated, some unnamed instinct telling her that she would find strange things inside.
That was always the way it was, in the stories…
What stories? There surely must have been some, but she could not recall any of them.
She stepped across the threshold, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The chamber might once have been an impressively-appointed audience room, but all that remained was mossy stone and the smell of damp earth.
Almost all.
"Well-met, little nightingale," a lilting voice came from the deeper shadows of an alcove. She jumped to one side, turning to face the unseen speaker. Silver glinted as he shifted, and now that she was looking, she could just make out the graceful outline of a figure amidst the gloom.
Why did that voice make her feel as if…?
"Show yourself," she said, surprising herself with the note of command that her words carried.
He chuckled softly, stepping out and offering a slight bow. The black hair, twinkling eyes, and deadly-looking silver talons were at once strange and familiar to her, and she frowned, trying to place them…
"As you say, my lady Sarah. You led me an impressive chase – I will consider it a blessing of Danu simply that you acknowledge me, now."
The dark green-and-grey, wool tunic and cloak he wore pinned at the shoulder with a gleaming knotwork brooch, though finely-made, were somehow too mundane, too… human for his sharp beauty, and yet they called to mind an echo of more elaborate robes that swirled as they danced…
"Sarah." She tried the name out slowly, dubiously, toying with the fabric of her sleeves. It was a plain word, but it tugged at her mind like a hook set behind her eyes. "I've met you before, haven't I?" she asked suddenly, her eyes flickering back up to his face.
He nodded, smiling mischievously. "You have. Once wearing the form of the bird I named you, once clad in a gown fit for a queen and skipping across the surface of our murky politics like a stone upon a still lake, leaving ripples wherever you touched."
She shook her head, brow knitted into a frown. "I… don't remember…"
"Can't say I blame you," he said lightly. "Jareth's a bit of an… overwhelmingly distracting companion."
"Jareth?" she asked, a fluttering sort of panic settling into her chest. Why can't I remember?
He sighed and muttered, reaching into a fold in his cloak to withdraw a slimly-bound book and offering it to her. "The fool who sent me after you, and if rumor throws true – and it usually does – your lover, I believe. He bade me show you this."
She took the book, at once desperate to remember all the details the man was speaking of, and terrified of doing so. She studiously pushed aside the turmoil brought by the last thing he had said, and opened the plain, fabric cover.
'To Jareth, with hard-won understanding. –Sarah.'
The handwriting was hers – she knew it like she knew the moon followed the sun.
Flipping through the plain, printed pages, she read, and found herself recalling what would happen at the end of the tale, as if she'd always known the story – as if she'd written it.
He had chuckled and preened like a peacock when he found himself in the text.
She remembered the way his riot of pale hair had drifted in the garden's slight breeze, and the laughter in his eyes as he had stared at the pages.
She had been nervous – terribly nervous – when she had finally printed out the story at the office. It was her apology to him.
She remembered sitting on a ledge while he read the entire book, trying not to watch his face, but then giving in and devouring his reactions greedily.
Her eyes had fallen closed, and Airgetlam watched in silence as the emotions swept in a tempest across her face for long minutes.
'So you do understand,' he had said when he looked up at last. And then he had said something she'd never thought to hear from him, and she had smiled… and he had kissed her.
She had spent an afternoon in his company, wandering with the King of the Goblins as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
He had led her to the most wonderful library she had ever seen, and there was a book that drew her to it like a moth to a flame. She had to read what was written on its cover – she had spoken the words – and he had shouted her name before everything was swept away.
Sarah opened her eyes.
"How long have I been dreaming?"
Airgetlam smiled, breaking his statue-like stillness. "Just over a day, if I guess aright, though I should note that you are technically still dreaming; it's just become what you would call a lucid dream, I believe. I had a damnable time pulling you into somewhere we could take our own forms."
"I feel like I've stepped into my old 'Scenic Ireland' wall calendar," she said, looking out beyond the hole in the wall across the harsh landscape.
Airgetlam blinked at her for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed. "I wondered why you had such pretty memories of the moors of Connacht for me to work with. It certainly was convenient."
Turning back to him, she narrowed her eyes, mind furiously working over the details that had all returned in a rush only moments ago. "Alright. So I've been wandering around, stuck in my dreams, and you're here presumably to get me out, at Jareth's behest. Which raises about ten dozen questions, the most important of which is, 'why am I here in the first place?' I remember Jareth yelling right before … whatever happened, happened… as if he was trying to stop me, but he took me there to begin with."
Sighing, Airgetlam raised his eyes skyward. "I really should just leave that to him to answer to – he deserves it. I am far too benevolent for my own good, though, it seems."
Sarah arched an eyebrow.
"What do you know of mortal dreams and how they affect our world?" he asked.
"Our dreams… thoughts… wishes… connect the worlds together, and I know there's a problem lately with those connections growing thin."
"An accurate assessment. Historically, as many as three mortals at a time have served as primary anchors, as well… always dreaming, always re-weaving the connection." Sarah thought she saw him wince slightly before he continued. "We have had no such connection for a great deal of time, now, and Jareth has been under a great deal of pressure to provide one to stabilize the worlds."
"So he led me to the trap and let me take the bait," she said flatly. "But then he tried to stop me and sent you in here, so he's either got something else up his frilly sleeve, or he realized it was a bad idea."
Airgetlam snorted a chuckle, shaking his head. "The latter, if the state he was in when last I saw him is any indication."
"I'll put him in a 'state' when I see him again… really, I suppose I appreciate that he realized locking me up to presumably dream the rest of my life away was a stupid thing to do, but he'd be a damned sight better off if he'd manage to realize that before the whole business with the library!"
"You will find nothing but agreement on that from me," Airgetlam murmured.
Sarah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay. Next question. Why you? Why not come get me his royal self?"
"The answer to that has very little to do with him and everything to do with me, my lady, and it's something that's not necessary to go into details on at present. Suffice it to say that I have certain unique abilities, and if he was capable of freeing you himself, he most definitely would have done so." His lips formed a slight smirk. "Even setting aside the favor he now owes me, the blow to his pride alone was a steep price for one so unused to requiring assistance. And quite… delicious to see, really."
"I'll just bet," Sarah muttered. "How did you get to me, then, and pull me into this dream?"
Airgetlam gave her a sardonic look. "Impressively. Good try rephrasing the question, but no."
Her lips twitched. "Fine, fine. How do we get out of here, charming as it is?"
"Ahh. A much more useful question." He crossed the overgrown floor to lean against the tenacious tree. "The easiest way, if you can manage it, would be to find another mortal's dream – preferably, but not necessarily one physically close to your home – and use that as a bridge to return to your world."
"What's the hard way?" she asked, curious.
"I think of another easiest way, because tearing the wards that bound you here strand from strand is not prudent given that things are already unstable. So, let's stick to this one, shall we? I'm sure you're quite resourceful enough to handle it."
"Is it nighttime in my world?"
He snorted. "I'm afraid I have exactly as much information on that front as you do. Which is to say, none at all."
"That's helpful."
"You'd prefer I left you to your own devices completely, perhaps?" he asked archly.
"Ahh… no. I'm sorry, you don't deserve this, I'm just – "
" – I know," he cut in cheerfully. "I do so wish I could be there when you get back to Jareth; it would likely provide a few decades' worth of entertainment, at the least. I don't think he would appreciate that, though. Ah well."
"You enjoyed the hell out of him asking you for help, didn't you?" she observed.
"Naturally. Now. Let's see what we can do about getting you out of here." He straightened and nodded briskly. "The first time I met you, it was in a dream that was not your own. Do you recall how you got there?"
Sarah shook her head. "No, I just… was there. I fell asleep as usual, and wound up inside the boy's dream instead of mine."
"So you did it unknowingly. That's… hmm." He trailed off, searching sky for answers through the branches. "Mortal dreams are like… a net, or a web, except each one connects not to others that are physically near, but to others that are… symbolically near."
"So two people dreaming about forgetting their locker combinations might be connected."
"Whatever you mean by 'locker combinations,' yes. And such mundane dreams as those are far from us here, whereas the garish fantasy of vampires that you found yourself in some time previously was relatively close."
"I see, I think," Sarah said tentatively.
Airgetlam nodded. "Since you are still within our realm, there are a great many more potential connections you can follow than simply those that have something to do with this – " he gestured with one clawed arm " – scene I've constructed."
"How… how do I do that if I'm already dreaming, though?"
He smiled. "Much more easily than if you weren't, actually. What I mean to try is to dissolve the borders of this place, and then let you find a mortal dream to step into. I can follow you where you go, but I can't lead you out."
She swallowed and nodded. "Alright then. Let's… well, not much to do except try it, is there?"
His answering smile was strange and somehow distant. "Not hard to see why he likes you… Yes. You may wish to close your eyes, as this will likely be disorienting."
She closed her eyes and waited, heartbeat loud in her ears.
The first thing she noticed was that the air lost its chill and its damp, and… well, everything, really. It felt like absolutely nothing. The sense of solid earth beneath her feet faded away, and then heard Airgetlam's soft, cultured voice. "You may look now, if you wish."
She was adrift in a sea of darkness and color. After blinking rapidly for several seconds, she began to make some sense of what she saw – myriad lights, like stars, or fireflies, yet in every color she could have imagined, some bright and some dim, and all connected by a faint tracery of threads.
"Well," she said a bit breathlessly, "that's dramatic."
"Dreams usually are," Airgetlam observed.
"Do I have to… I don't know, swim to them?"
He shook his head, the lights playing along his glossy hair. "What you see is only your mind trying to make sense of what you feel. To reach the ones that are near enough, you need only decide to touch them."
Sarah began to raise her arms uncertainly, then let them fall by her sides – he did not seem to mean to 'touch them' physically. Instead, she visualized cupping one of the twinkling lights between her hands and looking into it, like one of Jareth's crystals. An overwhelming feeling of other came over her, and she recoiled. The touch had seemed to throw her entire being off-kilter.
Her reaction must have shown on her face, because Airgetlam spoke again. "It can be hard to set yourself aside enough to enter another being's dream, but it is not always so unpleasant."
Wordlessly, she nodded and tried again. This time she bore the contact longer, and got the brief, fleeting impression of shifting moonlight across a desolate crossroads.
What am I even looking for?
Again she looked in, to catch an image of a great tree flowering in the depths of winter.
And again – The smell of salt water and a sense of pressure…
Wait.
That touch had still felt strange and not-her, but in a way that was almost familiar, though she could not have said why. Hesitating only a moment, she wrapped that feeling around her like a mantle…
… and the light went crystal-blue. She moved her head and felt resistance – and a lock of her hair drifted in front of her eyes.
She was underwater.
Gasping in surprise was likely not the smartest thing to do, in retrospect, but when she inwardly cringed in expectation of water filling her lungs, she found that she could breathe normally.
A lithe, powerful shape slid past her and turned – and she nearly laughed aloud, for Airgetlam made a decidedly fetching merman.
"I'd change my shape, were I you. Those legs aren't going to do you much good, here." She could hear his voice as if it was spoken from right next to her ear.
She was in a dream, wasn't she? Smiling grimly, she focused all her might on believing she had a tail, and moments later, she turned an experimental summersault in the slight murk of the ocean.
"Easy enough. How do we get out, though?" she asked.
"We have to find the dreamer, and you will exit by… her side. His? This feels like a woman built it, but I'm not sure."
"How can you tell?"
"Practice. Come, oh inquisitive one." He beckoned with a hand that had grown webbing between the fingers, but still sported long, wicked claws. Sarah supposed some things didn't change much.
They swam for a time, past sleek fish and stranger creatures, though clear, cold currents and murky kelp forests, always following the ephemeral tug of the dream's center point that Sarah recalled from her past misadventures. She could have peppered Airgetlam with a dozen more questions during the journey, but instead held her silence, struggling with how to ask the one that really mattered.
"Airgetlam… why did he do this? Why send you after me?" she blurted at last.
He turned to regard her, long hair floating in a cloud around him. "Another question he should likely be the one to answer. But isn't it obvious? He regretted the decision, and is flouting what many of our kind consider to be unquestionable good sense to reverse it."
"You don't think freeing me is a mistake, then?"
She thought she heard him laugh. "It's certainly not a mistake for him. For myself… it's an interesting choice to see him make. On a practical level, there are several obvious pitfalls, but because of who and what you are…" He paused to consider his next words. "You arguably do more good for our world free – telling your stories and shaping the thoughts and dreams of other mortals. Arguably. It's a less sure thing, you understand."
"I… think I follow."
"Beyond that… I know what you're asking, and what I'm telling you is to make him answer that question. Pin him down and drag it out of him, if you have to. He owes you that much. But I can't answer it for him."
Sarah sighed and nodded, beating the water with her tail as if it could yield up the answers she needed.
A short while later, Airgetlam spoke again, satisfaction in his voice. "We're close, I think."
Before them stretched a flat plane of sea floor and a glimmering city of glass and bright coral. The structure was breathtaking in its size and beauty, and Sarah felt a pang of regret that she would not indulge her curiosity and explore it any farther than it was necessary to find the dreamer so that she could finally leave. And confront Jareth.
They entered the city, swimming over anemone gardens and delicate crystal spires lit by cold, blue lamps that shone without a flame.
"You are mostly free of the wards now," Airgetlam said as the sense of being off-center dwindled. "When we reach the dreamer, you must wake yourself up as you would from a nightmare, and I will remain to keep the weave stable long enough for you to make a graceful exit from wherever you find yourself upon waking."
Ahead, a two-legged person treaded water next to a scaffold of sorts that held an array of lamps in different colors. She was adjusting their beams to play across the large, intricate garden on the floor below, sandy hair waving gently in the current.
"Hey, could you get me another lens? Shifting water does some crazy-ass things with the light."
Sarah stopped cold in astonishment at the sound of that voice, then laughed and surged forward.
Laurel turned, presumably to collect the new lens, and blinked. "Sar – what are you –"
Sarah caught her friend's arm and commanded herself to wake.
Despite how creepy it seemed to simply materialize next to Laurel's bed while the other woman still slept, Sarah was immeasurably glad to feel the soft shag carpet beneath her hands as she stumbled to the floor.
Laurel stirred, but did not wake up. Sarah had made it.
Some small part of her was tempted to simply slip out the door and walk the two miles to her own apartment, and then curl up with a cup of tea and think of anything but the fae for a few hours… but the rest of her knew that wasn't going to happen. She would find no peace until she got to Jareth.
And besides, she'd been as good as sleeping for the last… day and a half, it looked like? She took a deep breath, and stepped back to the balcony of Jareth's castle that she was beginning to regard rather fondly.
The quiet in the castle as she hastened through the halls was something profound and expectant, the tension of unspoken words and heated gazes. Where was he?
Moments later, the silence was broken by padding footsteps around a corner ahead, and Sarah hurried to meet them.
The footsteps turned the corner, and Yera bounded into view, looking frantic.
"Sarah, there you are!"
"What's going –"
Yera shook her head, looking down at her hands before thrusting them out to Sarah. "Jareth gave me this."
It was a crystal, cradled carefully as if she feared it would break.
"Why would he send –?" Sarah asked, confused, but already reaching for it. She picked up the crystal in both hands, and looked up to continue trying to question Yera –
– and the last thing she saw before her vision fragmented around her was a pair of frigidly cold, yellow eyes that had never belonged to her trusted friend.
A/N: *falls over* That one gave me a hell of a time to write. Thank you to everyone who reviewed recently - I really appreciate the interest and encouragement this late in the game, because I'm juggling too many things at once and pushing like crazy to keep this coming and get it finished.
The mechanics of dream-hopping as described in this chapter were heavily influenced by the Changeling: The Lost system for World of Darkness. So any of you who have played that (or other WoD systems) may see some familiar concepts.
Okay, it's 4AM; my ass (and the rest of me) is going to bed.