She walked around the Oubliette, trailing her hand on the walls, but found nothing that could even remotely be called a door. She tried stomping the sand, but there was no hollow sound to indicate a hidden trap door. In desperation she tried to grip the walls, but it was built like the inside of a witches hat, with no hope of climbing.
"Hello!" she yelled. "Anyone out there?"
She almost cried in relief as two goblins popped their head over.
"There's a runner! See, told you I heard something."
"Hey, I'm Sarah, can you go get Sir Didymus or Hoggle for me? In fact get both!"
"We's not helping a runner!"
"I'm not a runner you idiots!" Sarah snapped. "Your king is here, he's hurt. Get someone to help us out!"
The goblins leaned over and yelped, then vanished.
"Well that helped," Howl grunted sarcastically.
"Hey!" Sarah called. "Hey, is anyone out there?"
A different goblin put his head over.
"Ooh, it's look just like the Kingy, he's gonna be mad when he finds out you pretended to be him! Bogged that old elf what did it last time he did!"
"What's your name!" Sarah snapped.
"Aggsy."
"Aggsy, do you know who I am?"
"You look like the Lady."
"I am the Lady."
"Nah, you're in the oubliette, only runners in the oubliette. You're got clever disguise."
"Aggsy, I swear, if you don't help us, when the King is better, I will ask him to bog you as a special favour to me."
"Not if you don't get out of the oubliette," he pointed out with unerring accuracy then wandered off.
"Hey! Come back."
"What you want now?"
"Just send down some water and bandages, please!" she begged.
"What, are you hurt?"
"Badly! Now get them!"
"What can you trade?"
"I've a shiny diamond stud earring," Sarah pointed to her ear. "Real gold and real diamond. For that, you get us bandages, water and a rope."
"No plastic?"
"Is he barmy?" Howl asked, incredulous.
"Yes!" Sarah yelped as the goblin moved away. "Yes I have plastic. My watch. It tells the time Aboveground."
The goblin leaned right over the edge to see it.
"It's a clock. Like Kingy has." The goblin peered sharply at Jareth sprawled on the ground, now shivering.
"You didn't steal from Kingy did you?"
"No! I didn't! I bought it at Walmart! Aboveground!"
"I've not heard of Walmart."
"What will you ask of us?" Howl spoke up with such a waspish drawl he almost sounded like Jareth.
The goblin eyed the watch with undisguised greed.
"Is good. I've got rope here. I go for bandages and water now!"
He dropped a coil of rope into the oubliette and then darted away.
Sarah picked it up, tied a piece of splintered crate to the end of it, then with a heft, aimed for the broken ladder. It bounced off and fell. She tried again, then again, and kept going. She worked out how to loose enough rope for it to fly free, and had to kick the piece of wood in half when she did eventually hit the gap in the ladder, only for it to bounce off because it was too big.
.
The goblin returned with bandages and water, and Sir Didymus.
"Fair Lady!" He gave a bark of surprise. "Blood! Blood on your shirt, thou art hurt!"
"Sir Didymus, catch!" She called and threw the wood about the rope with all her might. He snatched it in his paws and peered at her.
"Now that I have caught this, what is your purpose?"
"Tie it to the ladder and see that it is firm enough to carry me."
"Why climb a rope when there is a ladder?"
"It's broken."
"No, it's not."
"It is."
"Is not."
"Sir Didymus?" Howl interrupted. "Is the ladder outside the omliette?"
"Oubliette," he corrected carefully. "Why yes, how else did we come to be standing here?"
"Sir Didymus, is the ladder long enough to reach the ground within?"
"Of course, it reaches the ground without."
"Sir Didymus," Howl said with forced calm, "sit on the edge of the oubliette, pull up the ladder and slide it down inside."
"Then how shall we get down the outside?"
"We'll do the same in reverse!" Howl almost whined in exasperation.
"Hey, Didymus!" Hoggle's familiar voice called from outside. "What they want us here for?"
"It's the Lady Sarah!" he called.
"What's she doing in an oubliette, only runners end up there?"
"I cannot say; she has not yet furnished me with such particulars."
"We're hurt! Your king is hurt! Damnation, cease your inane gabble and get us out of here!" Howl yelled.
At that there was a cuss and a thump and soon a dwarf stuck his head over the edge.
"It's His Majesty!" Hoggle moaned in dread.
There was a sudden scrabbling and the rim of the oubliette filled with goblin faces.
"Nah, they're just tricking."
"You idiots!" Hoggle roared at them. "That is Lady Sarah. That is that Wizard that is teaching her the human magic. And that, lying like a man fallen in battle, is King Jareth!"
There were various murmurs of disbelief and horror.
"Get the ladder down here," Howl ordered sharply.
With Hoggle correcting much of Sir Dydimus's prevaricating, the ladder slid down, followed abruptly by several goblins and Hoggle.
He crept slowly over with a strange kind of haunted terror on his face. He stopped well out of Jareth's reach.
"What did you do to him?" he asked Sarah.
"I didn't do anything!" She retorted, scandalised. "A magical explosion knocked us all over and he must have landed badly."
"You're the only one with the power to harm him so badly," Hoggle said hoarsely.
"What?" Sarah choked.
"We never said, but this place was a mess after you left. Not even he could fix it all. Some places at the castle, well, he's just sealed them off. Same with parts of the Labyrinth."
"She honestly did not hurt him, it was as she said, a magical explosion," Howl reiterated, then waved over the goblin carrying water and bandages. "Is there anything nearby we could use as a stretcher. We're going to have to hoist him out of here then carry him."
They gaped at him and shook their heads.
"We could ask the Junk Lady," one of the goblins suggested dubiously.
"Too far!" Hoggle snapped, "And on the other side of the castle."
"I'll carry him then," Howl declared with a grimace.
He stripped off his own torn shirt and folded it to put it under Jareth's head, then briefly inspected his neck, arms and legs.
"Doesn't feel as if anything is broken," he said dubiously. "Any of you know anything about fae?"
There was a solid round of shaken heads.
"Right." Howl grimaced. Sarah shuffled over and helped him wash away those grazes that were now clogged with sand from the oubliette. Jareth looked like a particularly scruffy mummy by the time they were done.
"Sarah, help lift him onto my back and tie him there," Howl ordered.
It took the strength of both her and Hoggle to hoist him up.
"Ooh, Jareth, what do you eat? Rocks!" Sarah grumbled, as they staggered under his dead weight. Howl awkwardly ducked around and hauled him into a very uncomfortable looking fireman's hold across his shoulders.
"Tie him on, I don't have the strength to climb and hold him!" Howl staggered across to the ladder and used it for balance.
"Indeed, you are much injured yourself," Sir Didymus observed.
"Shut it and hurry up," Howl ground out.
Using the rope the goblin had provided, Sarah hastily tied Jareth's arm to his knee, then wound the rope a few times around Howl and the unconscious king.
"You, fox and you," Howl pointed at Hoggle, "hold the ladder and do not let it move! Sarah, come up right behind me, if my strength fails, you hug us to the ladder and we slide down slowly. A ten foot fall can break bones."
"On it!" She walked up slowly behind them and by the end was shoving Howl up rung by rung by his backside. He levered himself onto the edge and clung like a limpet.
They were high above the ground with only lumps of rocks in the hard packed earth below. All about them was the hedge maze of the Labyrinth. In the distance she could see the castle at an angle she hadn't approached it before.
"Damnation, how high is this thing?" Howl groaned as he trembled with pain and exhaustion. "Why hasn't anyone repaired the ladders?"
"Now's not the time. Get up here everyone and hurry!" Sarah called down. The goblins scrambled up with their usual feistiness and Hoggle followed Sir Didymus. They drew out the ladder, tipped it and slid it down outside just beside Howl. They went down, but in reverse with Sarah protecting Howl. He stood beside the edge of the ladder and shuddered.
"Why don't you sit?" she offered.
"I'd never get up again," he said hoarsely as the others gathered around them.
"Okay, which is the fastest and easiest route to the castle?" Sarah asked.
"Which one?" Sir Didymus asked.
"Easiest," Howl declared immediately. "Flat walking. No climbing."
"This way!" Sir Didymus pointed and the goblins flanked them as they walked on. Sarah saw how slow Howl was and came up to his side and he gratefully draped an arm across her shoulders.
"We could try a double person carry," she suggested, setting her feet against his weight.
"No," Howl gasped. "If I stop, I'm down. Keep moving!"
They had not gone more than five hundred yards when the group in front of them seemingly vanished.
"Where did they go?" Howl groaned.
Sarah patted the walls and found an arch pretending to be a patch of hedge. She dragged them through despite Howl's grunt of protest.
"Thrice cursed fae magic, I can't even see its constructs!" Howl grumbled woozily.
The goblins found a patch of helping hands and spent their time high fiving them all as they passed, taking the left fork, instead of the right where the hands all pointed.