A/N: Greetings my wonderful, amazing, gracious readers! Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the arrival of spring :). I'm always so excited to hear your responses to what goes on, and last chapter did not disappoint, haha...
I really enjoyed writing this one. Hope you guys enjoy reading it just as much!
Jill: Haha, well thank you. I certainly do intend to keep writing. Until my last breath!
Shobgoblin: Thanks so much for your review! If I at all sound professional, that is a huge compliment :). Thanks for suggesting that style to be written in more. I'm not sure if it will or has been, but it's something I'll definitely keep an eye out for. Well, as for any adventures afterwards or if they tie the knot...my lips are sealed ;).
Thanks to all you who reviewed. You really do make it so much fun to do this: Kaytori, The Queen of Water, Jill, Kate499, She with the hazel eyez, XXPay4XtraShippingsXX, willowrain, deerstop, PheonixBreaker90, mrsgoblinqueen97, Metal1loves, JennaSoprano, Elphaba Rose Wilde, Kinzichi, KawaiiScorpio, Shobgoblin, avulgarism, and Guest.
Chapter Twenty-Five: As the World Falls Down
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The stench was awful. The darkness was consuming. And the cold seeped into her bones until it felt no fire could warm her ever again. So many muscles through her arms, down her back, and along her shoulders ached. Something hard and sharp dug into her ankles.
Sarah groaned as she returned to the conscious world. It was a highly unpleasant affair to go from being blissfully unaware to awaking in a terrible place full of shadow and hard rock. She opened her eyes and waited for them to adjust. Gradually vague shapes and lines appeared in a short radius around her where she lay on the ground.
There were no windows, but a light must have been down further away or around a corner because the darkness wasn't complete. When she lifted her hand, she could see the outline of each of her fingers as she wriggled them, so she squinted down at the rest of her to see what state her body was in.
As she suspected, the hard, biting metal around her ankles was a pair of shackles tightly locked and chained to a wall. The chains rattled when she pulled her feet and didn't extend very far, so there would be no exploring her black prison. The smell certainly wasn't as bad as the Bog of Eternal Stench—that was a memory imprinted on her nostrils that couldn't be erased—but it was like rotting garbage a few years old overlaid with a tinge of dankness. Everything seemed to be made of gigantic stones that held the cold in them like blocks of ice.
Thinking of ice sent her mind to the Fay maiden she'd encountered at Midsummer's Eve whose invisible icy tendrils had wrapped around her throat. She shuddered as she thought of later that evening when it happened again as soon as Fiachna attacked them and someone snatched her into the air.
Am I in some ice palace of hers? she wondered. Seems like it'd be a little more light. And white.
Then Sarah remembered.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her chest tightened. She pulled her legs up to her chest so she could rest her forehead on her knees as a wave of despair washed over her.
"Fiachna," she whispered. "He got in."
She'd been with Sir Didymus and Ludo trying to figure out a way to break the news that Jareth would soon have a queen at his side and that that queen would be her—of her own choice of course—when a shadow pooled around them. Both the creatures got to their feet and made a clamour, but it was too late. A figure draped in black and gold swooped in amidst the confusion and grabbed Sarah from behind.
It didn't take much guessing to surmise who it was that had come.
Sir Didymus saw what was happening and lunged forward with his trusty sword unsheathed. Sarah tried to warn him, but no sound came out of her mouth. She could only shake her head and mouth the words as he valiantly attacked the great power who'd come to take her captive.
The brave fox barely got a few leaps forward before a shard of obsidian formed in the air and ran him through. Sarah's heart burst, and her lips screamed silently as the poor creature dropped to the ground. Ludo straightened up and seemed to become intent on following Sir Didymus's example when everything grew hazy and dark. The last thing she remembered were the strong, harsh arms gripping her body tight and Ludo's agonised wail piercing the air.
She wiped away a few tears that rolled down her cheeks. Had the mage gotten Ludo too? She didn't know, and it drove her mad to imagine what might have happened after she blacked out. If that foul demon had killed her friends…
A scraping noise echoed through the chamber. The space sounded long and spacious if the sounds bouncing off the walls were any indication.
There were no footsteps, but a faint rustling and sliding noise grew closer as if a heavy piece of cloth drug along the ground. For the first time since waking, fear bubbled up in her chest and shook in her hands.
A torch ignited with a tongue of fire on the wall opposite her. She jumped a little.
She was indeed in some dungeon built of rock, and her shackles connected to the wall that curved around behind her. It was from around the corner that her visitor approached and where the original light must have been. Her hackles rose on the back of her neck, and she scooted closer to the wall.
Just remember, she told herself, it's only Bran. Yes, he turned out to be a sadistic mage with lots of power and plots for revenge, but it's still him in some way.
It did little to assuage her dread as a dark figure appeared from around the bow of the wall. Sure enough, it was Fiachna the Raven Mage in all his majestic bearing and wicked aura. The black hair, the golden eyes, and the hard line of his mouth all came into sight in the flickering firelight on the wall; yet it cast deep shadows of contrast over him that enhanced the sinister impression.
"Oh, Bran. How nice to see you again," she said with a sickly sweet voice.
Instead of growing angry, a smirk appeared. "It is time we met again, I think. It's been so awfully long for old friends to stay apart." He took a few steps closer. "Under poor circumstances though, I'm afraid."
"Yes, poor circumstances that are your fault. You're not sorry at all, are you?"
"Sorry? No, I am not. I must admit, at first I could not fathom why the Goblin King of all beings would choose a little mortal girl to give his heart to, to let her be his weakness. Then I spent time earning my way into your affections and realised he may not have been so mad as I thought. There's a peculiar sort of…charm…to humans." He waved a hand in a vague gesture. "You know, their many petty worries and strange habits and all without a drop of power. It was not something I would do again, but I found it most interesting…"
Sarah waited for some villainous plot to come out of his mouth about taking over the earth to rule the puny humans. Wasn't that what villains usually did?
"You are different than most of them there I saw," he continued. "You have a touch of, shall we say, the fantastical. You often didn't fit in because you had seen something beyond your own world that hardly anyone else ever had witnessed. They all walk about in their normal lives ignorant of the splendour just a world away."
She shook herself and contemplated covering her ears as his voice grew smooth and rich like caramel oozing warm and sweet down his chin. His words rang true. It was something she had tried to push aside, but once in a while it rose up like a wall she couldn't get by.
Fiachna clasped his hands behind his back and paced slowly in front of her.
"You are very lovely too. You almost compare with the beauties of our Sidhe kindred, but I would only admit that to you. Throughout our history the occasional human mortal has caught the eye of a Fay, but it never is without a bit of trial because some of us don't think it wise or right. Me, for example: I do not mind having your kind as little playthings. To be bound together though by something as powerful and intimate as love and matrimony? Never! Permitting the brief, pointless lives of mortals to be bound to us! It's preposterous."
Sarah's heart tightened and swelled all at once. She licked her lips and drew a deep breath before speaking.
"But there's a way to become immortal so it does last forever."
Fiachna's pacing stalled, his back to her. It was a minute or two before he finally spun around on his heel and loomed over her small frame huddled against the wall.
"Aha! This is better than I even dreamed!" He laughed a loud, harsh laugh that split the air. He reached out to finger a strand of her dark hair. "The mortal girl fallen in love with the Goblin King! Good. Very good. The presence of hope will make the fall even sweeter. True despair and anguish of the soul. Very good indeed."
She smacked his hand away with hers that trembled. It was difficult, but she tried to hide how deeply his words affected her. He simply chuckled and looked down at her feet. Without a word, he waved a hand in their direction. The shackles fell away with a clank to the floor.
Sarah wanted to run as fast and hard as she could, but she knew it was futile. They were in the mage's lair, and he was too powerful to escape from. She'd been humbled frequently in the Underground when her frail mortality and lack of magical defence left her so vulnerable against beings far greater than humans. As much as she felt her pride rise up and say that she didn't need anyone to help her and she could keep herself safe, she knew deep in her heart it wasn't true. No one was meant to fight alone.
But that wouldn't stop her from doing whatever she could to destroy this beast's plans for her and the man she loved.
Jareth…where are you? I need you.
It was a terrible thought to imagine that he might not be able to find her. It turned her blood to rivers of ice.
"Get up," Fiachna commanded.
"Why? What are you going to do with me?"
"Isn't it obvious? You are the bait and your lover the prize. I have waited years far beyond your lifespan for this day when I could finally bring him to his knees. I will devastate him."
"And that's all you can do isn't it?" she murmured as she looked into those bright gold eyes. "Destroy things."
He struck her across the face. She winced at the pain that felt a lot more intense than it should have from a single slap. The mage snatched her arm and jerked her to her feet.
"Get up! I thought I might keep you as a pet when Jareth was dead," he hissed into her ear, "but your future is not looking so fortunate anymore. If I do keep you alive, there will be a lot of suffering and breaking to make certain you are the perfect slave." He laughed. "Or I will just kill you when he gets here so the worst damage is done."
She struggled under his grip, but it was as solid as rock. Besides, he only took pleasure in her meagre attempts to resist.
"I do not think I will be the one to do it though. Come with me and greet my other guest."
Shackles appeared around her wrists, and he tugged her along by a chain. They turned the corner and headed towards a door at the end of the long shadowed corridor. Sarah paid attention to every detail as they passed through the door and up a flight of stairs. If she even had one moment of opportunity, it would be a benefit to know this place as much as possible.
Torches flared to life as they went through another two passes: one not much wider than the shoulders of a man and the other as broad as a room. Not a single patch of colour or trinket or rug decorated the eerie halls, and not a single window had yet appeared. It was like a maze of doors and halls. Sarah felt her heart drop with each new doorway or passage that muddled her memory.
Then the mage shoved her into a vast chamber with a ceiling that went up like a spike, windows dotting the walls like small boxes of faded light, and multiple table and desk surfaces scattered with vials, leather-bound books, grotesque figurines, and other assortments of possessions.
"Sarah Williams," Fiachna drawled, "meet our distinguished guest. Although…I do believe you already have met."
Sarah's mouth turned up in a grimace as a tall, graceful figure turned around and drew off the silver hood of her cloak. The chilly disposition sharpened her features and the blue of her eyes.
"Seraphina!" Sarah spat.
"Hello, little mortal."
Everything in the world ceased to exist. There were only two beings that still existed: the only person who mattered at all and the enemy who had taken her.
After everything—precautions, wariness, defence—the Raven Mage had managed to steal away the most precious thing in the Goblin Kingdom. The only thing that had made Jareth look forward to eternity without a sense of woe and boredom. The only thing that made him feel cared for…loved.
Jareth the Goblin King was no longer even aware of himself. Only a possessed need to hunt down Fiachna the Raven Mage and draw the life out of him.
After securing Sarah's safety of course.
Everything was hazy and sharp all at once. It no longer mattered that Fiachna had grown rather powerful or that he didn't know where the filth of the earth was hiding. Jareth certainly wasn't the most powerful of his kindred, but the mage would find out just how dangerous it was to play games with the Goblin King, the Master of Mischief who was about to bring a storm in his wake.
He didn't notice, but as soon as he realised his dear Sarah had been taken, her friend Ludo cowered and crouched over the body of his friend the fox. Sir Didymus's chest still rose and fell with shallow breath, so the wound hadn't been fatal, but he would need attention soon.
"Friend hurt," Ludo moaned. His gigantic hands gently scooped up the fox and held him to his furry chest.
Hearing a voice finally broke through Jareth's mad haze, and he narrowed his eyes at the two creatures. "Take him to the castle. Mary will care for him. I don't want Sarah blaming me for the beast's death."
Ludo backed away and hurried on lumbering legs to the castle. Jareth didn't watch, but he appeared in the dungeons where Hoggle and the other dwarf had been kept in the oubliettes. Gerdol the dwarf would know where Fiachna had gone and how he managed to find a way through Jareth's precautions without being detected, but the mage might have taken his slave with him.
He lit the oubliette where the dark dwarf had been kept and felt like crushing rock beneath his fingers when he saw it was empty. Something caught his eye. He floated down to the ground inside and increased the flow of pale light as he bent down to the floor. There was a dark powdery substance that at first looked like dirt or sand, but when Jareth pinched some between his fingers, it all came together. It was not any earthy substance at all: it was some magical conduit of the Raven Mage just as the Goblin King had his crystals. Most Fey had some sort of physical medium attached to their particular personality, as if their abilities became something tangible rather than an unseen force they wielded. This black powder was Fiachna's, and Jareth could sense the fading power when he touched it.
That dwarf had been meant to be captured all along so he could provide a connection within the kingdom for his master. Here Fiachna would have entered into the realm.
Jareth went to Hoggle's dark pit and leaped down and landed in a crouch with his cloak fluttering around him. Hoggle shouted in surprise and bumped his head against the stone wall, yet he recovered himself rather quickly.
"Master! He's here! You were right. That…that dwarf tricked me and brought someone here in the dungeons!"
Jareth sneered. "Tell me something of use! Did you overhear anything that could be valuable?"
"I…I'm not…"
"Tell me quick or it's the Bog for you!"
Hoggle shuddered and fumbled with his hands. His memory bowled him over like a giant wave. "Sarah!" He jumped up and down once or twice before pacing back and forth. "They were gonna' get her. They said they were after 'the girl' and that's got to be her!"
"They've taken her," Jareth said with steely calm.
Hoggle stumbled and came to a standstill with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide with grief.
"Anything else they might have said that you can tell me as quickly as you can?"
Hoggle seemed to understand now why his king was more irritable and sharp than usual. His head bowed, and he shook it slowly. They had been speaking in such low voices that he couldn't hear hardly anything they had said.
"And did that dwarf tell you where he was from?"
"He did, but I'm sure it was all lies! If he served that dark creature that came here, he certainly didn't come from the Grey Mountains. When I see him again…"
"You will not be," Jareth jeered. "He will be dead before anyone sees his face again."
Hoggle wiped his sweaty palms on his breeches. "T-take me with y-you."
Jareth's brow arched.
"Sarah's my friend. I…I want to help."
Jareth laughed, but it was neither warm nor friendly. "You cannot help me, fool."
"I won't be in the way! Someone hurts Sarah, and I'd like to hurt them!" He stomped his foot. "I'm not going to leave her. That's what I did before but not again! I'll…I'll find a way."
Jareth paused and felt a sliver of reason slice through the dark cloud of anger swelling like a storm around him. He eyed the diminutive creature with slight distaste mingled with a sense of being pleased by the dwarf's devotion to his beloved. He found the strange sensations to be odd, but perhaps the dwarf could be of some use after all…
Gerdol drug his feet along the ochre rock and sand crunching beneath his boots. The dry air whipped his ebony shags of hair around his face and parched his mouth all the way down his throat, leaving a foul taste on his tongue. The smell of arid earth burning in the sun lined his nostrils, but he thought that might be because of the sand that swept up in his face whenever the wind picked up.
The poor creature had been abandoned.
Fiachna had promised safety and a journey home at his side, but the mage had changed his mind once he had the mortal girl in his clutches. Gerdol winced at the memory and rubbed at his chest where fury festered like an open wound. Those golden eyes had taken one last look down at him, and that liquid voice spoke his doom: You have served me faithfully, and if you survive the next few days, you may yet, but I'll need all the energy and power I can manage. You must stay behind. It will take too much to take all three of us back to the Dark Fortress.
And the Raven Mage and the unconscious woman in his arms had disappeared in the blink of Gerdol's dark eye. Now he walked the barren land outside the borders of the Goblin Kingdom where the sun beat down yellow and hot and there was not another realm for many leagues. He could not go back to the madness of the labyrinth under the Goblin King's control, but he doubted he would last long out here where hunger and thirst would take his life or Jareth would find him and drain his lifeblood.
He threw up his hands over his eyes when a cloud of sand and dust swirled up like a violent cyclone only twenty feet in front of him. Although the sudden shade relieved his overheated skin, the whirling tempest could not bode anything pleasant.
Gerdol dropped to his knees as the wind's ferocity intensified and tore at his clothes. The sand stung his exposed skin at his throat and face.
Out of the waves of swirling sand and dust, a figure appeared. The wind seemed not to touch him but rather it lashed out from him like unseen whips. He was clothed in black leather, and his spiky pale hair became visible. Gerdol knew exactly who he was.
He dropped deeper to the ground and clutched fistfuls of dirt. His doom had come.
Jareth the Goblin King stepped out of the tempest, and the curls of power whipping around them slowly died down, but the storm in his face did not abate. His blue eyes were like piercing blades of ice as he stalked towards his prey. The dark dwarf was too occupied by this terrible figure to notice the much smaller one coughing and waving a hand in front of him where the cyclone had been.
Gerdol inhaled sharply when a strong hand like cold iron gripped his shirt and lifted him into the air.
"Death take you swiftly by my own hand if you do not answer me," the Goblin King said in tones as cold and hard as his eyes. "Where are they?"
Gerdol kicked his legs and closed his eyes to avoid those orbs that might burn straight through him. The hand tightened, and the other rose up to touch a single finger to his chest.
"I warned you, foul dwarf. If you do not answer me, there will be such pain as you have never known. Not even from your cruel master who now cowers in his hole to hide from me."
The dwarf did not take long to decide. In Fiachna's haste to slip away to his hiding place while sparing as much power and energy as possible, he forgot something very important: an ill-treated, scorned slave can easily forget either the threats or promises of reward from his master.
Before Jareth could wrap his fingers around his little throat, the dwarf opened his lips and spilled secrets of his master that would earn his instant death—or ghastly torture. He told him the location of Fiachna's lair where they had dwelt for some years, not sparing any detail so that the death of his wicked master would be more assured and thus save his own life: unless the Goblin King decided to end it after he got what was useful from him.
The king's jaw loosened a fraction at the willingly given information, but there was suspicion in his gaze. "If you are not telling me the truth…"
"I swear it!"
"But what if he again laid a clever trap and made it seem as if he abandoned you here so that I would find you and receive lies?"
Gerdol shook his head. "No! I swear it! He lied to me. He left me. Gerdol is alone now. Couldn't use up precious power to take me too."
His last remark saved him from anymore interrogation. Jareth slowly lowered him to his feet and dropped him the last yard so he landed in a heap at the king's boots. "I can see you aren't telling lies. You see? You should have taken my offer yesterday. The Raven Mage has no natural affection or loyalty. You were just another tool in his hand to be used and cast aside. Did you really think he would reward your fealty?" Jareth sneered. "Foolish dwarf. You also would have been spared my wrath, but since you aided in the capture of Sarah Williams…"
Jareth raised a hand. Another voice shouted.
The other dwarf Hoggle darted over and avoided looking up in his king's face. "She won't like it. Not at all, you know. He was forced to do it all!"
"Not all," said Jareth. "He would still serve that filthy raven if he hadn't been discarded. Yet…" he paused with a cunning gleam sparking in his eyes, "…he can still be useful without killing him."
Hoggle jerked his head towards the other dwarf. Gerdol looked away as his cheeks burned with shame. For one of his kindred to witness this spectacle was a great disgrace. But was it a greater disgrace to betray his own race to serve such a one as the Raven Mage?
"He will come with us."
"But won't we be too much?" said Hoggle. "If his master didn't want to take three—"
Jareth fingered the edges of his cloak with both hands and cut off the dwarf. "I am not the Raven Mage. I am the Goblin King."
He opened his palm and blew. A bit of shimmering dust flew out and settled on the heads of both dwarves. They exchanged a bewildered glance, then gawked openly as the king shrunk and shifted. Downy tan wings unfurled around him, and a pair of beady dark eyes regarded them coolly as a barn owl stood on the sand where the majestic Goblin King had been.
They shuddered and panicked when their bodies felt as if they were shifting and being pulled at like forming clay. Hoggle shook his arms and groaned, but suddenly he was up in the air. His arms had turned to wings! Instead of shaking, they were flapping. He looked down and saw that he also had become a bird, a little smaller than Jareth and with dark brown feathers speckled with tan. With one glance, he saw that Gerdol had transformed into a black raven who opened and closed his beak as if he tried to speak but couldn't form words.
Jareth rose up into the air and waited until the new birds—a brown owl and a raven—followed his example. He soared on the winds that whirled up above the earth and ruffled his feathers and set his piercing gaze to the Northeast where the most precious treasure he had ever possessed had been taken. Although this manner of travel would take longer, it would reserve his magical capacity for the more important task ahead of removing the dark soul of Fiachna from his body.
Gerdol was no accident. The dark dwarf obviously hadn't been told the truth, but Jareth was no fool or simpleton. Fiachna would not risk leaving a loose end so close to the Goblin Kingdom without a purpose, but clearly he believed his opponent would be blinded by rage and grief which always obscured reasonable judgment.
It did not blind him. It sharpened his sight and enhanced his mind like a blade honed on the wheel.
They would remember the other half of his name famed throughout the Underground for he was not only the Master of Music. He also was the Master of Mischief…
NOTE: Eeeeeee...Excitement!
I am very aware that I do keep you guys hanging for a while almost every time, but trust me when I say that it's much better that way or else you'd end up with some shoddy work on upcoming chapters. I write a little ahead so I have room to work and change or add things if necessary, but I've kind of caught up to myself now that I'm writing the climax and resolution of the story that are so extremely important. I try not to let too much time pass in-between chapters, but in the midst of writing real novels and the rest of things going on in my life, it's been taking a little longer to perfectly craft these crucial last few pieces. I'm a perfectionist, haha! Both a curse and a blessing...Don't worry: this isn't a warning that it's now going to be two months for each wait, lol. That would be terrible!
Please review! :) This is one of the last chapters in which you'll have the opportunity. And I love hearing from you all!