They waded through an ankle deep stream, and took its path for a while, the goblins darting about splashing each other. Hoggle fell back and watched their rear warily, the Labyrinth was not a place to be underestimated.
"What's there?" Sarah asked, her voice quivering with nerves.
"Nothing!" Hoggle declared far too quickly for that to be the truth.
They stepped out of the stream onto a broad sandy beach and Sir Didymus waved them frantically forward.
"This way, hurry!"
They all scrambled across as around their ankles the sand twitched like a long snake lay beneath and felt their passage. They stumbled into the maze again as hundreds of flat eel like creatures twitched from beneath the sand, many of them darting into the water.
"Electric eels," Hoggle shuddered. "You're lucky it's night, they weren't sunning themselves in the water. They can shock a goblin senseless if stepped on."
Jareth's breathing suddenly became laboured and Sarah and Howl picked up the pace as best they could. The goblins were now running, Hoggle walked a quick stride and Sir Didymus leaped and bounded. They marched through the Labyrinth, oddly meeting no resistance, and those denizens that dwelt there, took one look at Sarah's face and melted into the night. They did gain a discreet trail of the insatiably curious, some of whom, she realised must be going ahead to clear the way.
They staggered through the open gate of one of the guardrooms in the wall. The goblins manning it took one look and grabbed their weapons.
"Halt! What is you doing?"
"Getting to the castle before I die!" Howl gasped at them.
There was a sudden yammering of everyone wanting to know what had happened.
"Be silent!" Sarah yelled.
"BE SILENT!" Sir Didymus barked and there was a brief shocked pause.
"The fastest way to the Kings chambers, please!" Sarah ordered. "Does he have a personal healer?"
The guard gaped at them in degrees of shock, horror, terror and dread, their eyes turning to the figure coated in grey mud from the oubliette, his hair matted with dirt and leaves from the trek.
"That's the King?"
"Yes and he's damnably heavy!" Howl croaked.
Someone handed him a spear, which Howl took as a walking stick and then simply marched forward. The goblins scrambled around them and led them through the city. They pushed through the various passages to the Escher room.
"Ugh, I'm going to be sick," Howl slumped as the goblins who scrambled ahead were suddenly at right angles to them, running along the wall. Sarah grabbed his arm frantically as he almost toppled them both.
"Close your eyes and I will lead you!" Sarah ordered sharply. "You have five steps ahead of you, step, step, step," she called and they trudged on. "Flat section about four paces, careful, steps again, ooh, a long one, fifteen perhaps, step, step…"
.
The goblins lead them from the room and out into a section of the castle Sarah had never seen. A large chamber with a bench under the window and a table in the middle of the room surrounded by four throne like chairs. A long cabinet covered one wall and a map was painted onto the stone in pale brown lines. Every so often it shimmered. Sarah blinked, it was not a map of the Labyrinth as she had expected, though she found that easily enough, right in the centre beside a simplified sketch of a castle, no it was the sprawling extent of the kingdom.
"Don't look at it!" Sir Didymus warned her. "It will draw you in and you'll be lost to us!"
At that she and Howl both turned sharply away.
"What is it?"
"A map of what is needed," Sir Didymus answered as if that were obvious.
"What's it do?" Sarah asked as they crossed the room.
"It shows what is needed," Sir Didymus explained succinctly.
Howl snorted at that and they made their way to the goblins clustered at the tiled arch on the far side of the room.
"These are Kingy's rooms, no one goes in!"
"Well, that's where we're headed. Is there a healer in the castle?"
"Goblin healer, chicken healer, goat healer…"
"For the king?" Sarah interrupted.
"No, king only gets hurt around Sarah!" one of the goblins said and was hastily hushed and shoved out of the room by the others.
They all eyed her owlishly.
"A bed, for pities sake," Howl groaned.
"Come on," Sarah dragged him through the door, and no one followed them. Hoggle and Sir Didymus set themselves up as guards, but they didn't enter the rooms.
"Stop that, we need the help!" Sarah called.
"'s not worth my life!" Hoggle called over his shoulder.
"Kingy don't bog anyone in his chambers, he vanishes them! Never seen again!" A goblin explained.
"Then we're due a vanishing," Sarah snapped grumpily. "At least start a fire in that hearth and start boiling water!"
They scrambled to obey.
They trudged down a short passage that ended with a closed door. Sarah put her hand on the handle and shuddered as the magic swirled around her then settled again.
"If I'd done that, I'd quite likely be dead," Howl said hoarsely.
"Why didn't it fry me?" Sarah twisted the heavy handle and it gave a thunk as the latch clanked free. Howl's answer was a roll of the eyes.
She pushed the door open. Inside was a surprisingly spartan room. The floor was wood as much of the upper floors of the castle were. A bed stood against the near wall, unimposing and low slung and covered with the cream, grey and white crochet blanket that she had had as a young child. Sarah gaped at it, then stuffed that complicated infuriating conundrum to deal with later. The rest of the room seemed to take that as its theme. An oval rug in pale grey was spread beside the bed. Beside the wall opposite the door, sat a large chest and beside it a large wardrobe, both made of a very pale wood. An L shaped bookcase made of the same white wood fit in the corner. One part filled with books and scrolls, the other filled with a selection of glinting orbs. Sarah eyed them mistrustfully. The wall opposite the bed had a window that overlooked a courtyard with a misty waterfall falling on the far wall, but no mist entered the room. Pale cream curtains were loosely tugged to each side.
There was another archway off the room, and they stepped through to find a bathing chamber. A stone bath just large enough to sit in was set against the far wall. To the side of the bathroom was a wooden cabinet with drawers, and atop it a shallow stone basin, at that moment, empty. Above it, an oval mirror, just large enough to see ones face rested on pegs driven into the masonry.
"This," Sarah said pointedly to Howl, "is how to keep a bathroom, neat and tidy."
"I'm going to fall over," Howl said as he staggered and slammed his hand into the cabinet to keep himself upright.
"Oh, damn, I was so thrown by this place, I forgot. Hang in there, I'll untie him!"
Sarah scrabbled at the knots as Howl steadily breathed as his arms shook with the effort of remaining upright. She finally unwound the rope. Howl simply sank down, collapsing almost on his face as Jareth sprawled onto the bathroom floor. She dragged him off and turned to Howl.
"I'm going to pass out now," he said faintly and closed his eyes and went limp.
"No! No! You do not get to do this to me!" Sarah stamped her foot then sank down, dashing away tears of frustration. After several deep breaths, she arranged Howl in a recovery position. She then turned to Jareth, equally as helplessly. She spread him out on his back, as that looked the least injured, then dithered.
"Okay," she told herself firmly. "First aid. I can do this."
She stood, feeling rather buoyant without Howl's weight.
In the cabinet were bottles of perfume, one of that scent she loved, and several small tubs of makeup, and various lotions. It was disappointingly ordinary. There were no first aid supplies there, so she headed back out.
.
The goblins were good at getting things done if they wanted. She stepped out to find several boiling water in cauldrons over the fire. A bucket and several pitchers were set aside for her. A basket of clean bandages was waiting beside Sir Didymus, and a box of bone needles and thread. A case of ointments stood open beside it and a rather elderly goblin with grey hair waited, twitching his ears nervously.
"Hi, are you the goblin healer?" Sarah sank down onto the floor before him.
"I'm chief of the healers in the city. They say the King is injured. A magical accident. Some say it is your doing, as only you can harm him. Yet you are here. They tell how you and your Wizard Master dragged him out of an Oubliette and across the Labyrinth. Do you wish him well?"
"Of course!"
The goblin blinked owlishly at her.
Sarah almost fell over in exhausted frustration.
"I wish" she said pointedly, "that the Goblin King recovers his strength, vitality, magic and health, and is as well as he can be!"
She felt the magic take, then leapt to her feet and ran back into the bathroom. She could feel the swirl of magic there. Howl perked up groggily and blinked at her.
"Ugh, that was some strong fae magic." He pushed himself up to lean against the cabinet, blinking, but untouched by the spell she had directed at Jareth.
"Would it harm you if I used it on you?"
"What? You can use fae magic? Don't!" He held out his hands in alarm. "Calcifer would take it badly."
"You're hurt!" Sarah grouched.
"No, I mean, fae magic would be more harm than healing." He let his arms slump.
She noted that, and settled down beside Jareth. He didn't look any better.
"Why didn't it work!"
"Possibly because this is the heart of his domain, he probably has wards that only allow him to do magic here."
"But it's here," she wriggled her fingers through the air around him. "It's just not doing the work."
"Wards are tricky in their interpretation of intent," Howl declared. "I feel like death warmed up. I'm going to see if I can't get my head wound seen to by whichever healer they have dug up."
"Chief of the goblin healers, and I think he knows his stuff. Looks a bit medieval though."
"Not if they use magic, some of the tools are a channel, like a wand? Only to a particular purpose."
Howl pulled himself up wearily and then using the wall for support lurched out of the King's chambers.
.
"You're such a drama queen! Nothing goes easily for you, does it?" she snapped at Jareth. He continued to lay on the floor.
"Okay. I'm off to see if the healer can enter these rooms. If not, we're dragging your sorry ass back out there!"
She found Howl sitting on the ground stripped to his boxers. His legs were covered in bruises and his thin shoulders and much of his right arm and head had scrapes and cuts. Two goblins stood, one at his back, the other at his arm, picking out splinters. Howl simply had his eyes closed and gritted his teeth.
"You can use your magic here," Sarah prompted.
"I'll keel over and pass out if I do," Howl grunted then hissed with pain.
"Sorry!" The goblin wielding the tweezers yelped.
"Keep going," Howl growled.
She turned to the old goblin who was watching with sharp eyes.
"Can you enter his chambers?"
"I could, if you granted me sanctuary and permission," the elderly doctor told her.
"Please, would you enter the King's chambers? I grant you sanctuary from all the wards and their retribution, for as long as it takes to heal the King."
The goblin nodded and selected several vials and small pots which he set out beside Howl, then lectured his assistants.
"Paste on all the blood wounds, scrub your hands before you apply it. You'll need to cut his hair."
"No!" Howl jumped and clamped his hands to his head and then hissed and whimpered in pain.
"Then they will have to wash out the blood. Braid his hair out of the way then! If it is too bad, call me, we will discuss his vanity with regards to his health."
The very mean stare the goblin shot Howl actually made him flinch.
With that declaration, he turned to Sarah.
"Carry through the largest pitchers you can," he ordered.