Sarah stood comfortably in Jareth's embrace. He hummed his happiness against her neck then straightened.
"So, shall we give my father the greeting and welcome his station requires?"
"Oh yes, and tell him he's invited to the wedding on Sunday!" Sarah perked up.
"Wedding?" Eltharion crossed over to them. "What wedding would this be?"
"Ours!" Sarah grinned at him and felt Jareth stiffen at her side as his father shot him a fierce blue-eyed stare.
"You would wed without the customary traditions of our people?" he snapped frostily at Jareth.
"I at least choose to honour her," Jareth said with stiff indifference.
"I would have thought that my misfortune with your mother had steered you onto a more conservative path. It has always done so until now, you've refused the most beautiful courtesans of my court over less."
"You assumed my mother the cause?" he looked away with feigned boredom. "You should have looked to the quality of the women, many could not abide the goblins and those who could, did not pass my labyrinth."
"You put them through trials without cause?" the High King tilted his head back and glowered at Jareth down his nose. Sarah wondered if he used magic to situate his crown, as the antlers remained fixed as if they grew from his head.
"Without cause? You wound me father, did you not check the beauty of their minds along with their physical aspects? Or do you forget that I see dreams as clearly as most see life?"
The High King tilted his head sideways and Sarah marvelled, the antlers truly were stuck very firmly.
"You were always the most skilled illusionist to perform before my courts, I had not accounted that a latent dreamers talent. Is your mother of the muses?"
Jareth gave a disgusted snort.
"One would think, father, that you would know, considering how a child comes to be in the world."
The High King sneered in retort.
"Your magic is the shades of fire found only among the denizens of the darkest Abyss, but I would never have found companionship among them. You sing and move with the grace of the Muses. You have a rotten attitude, but I suppose that is my doing, all our line has it. You have magic, and a permanent link with the mortal plains like no other fae ever would dare. It is as if you walk between both worlds…" the expression on the High King's face went from disdainful to pasty white dread in a slow dripping second. "No," he whispered and the magic flared around him like the roar of a raging forest fire. His eyes were cold and furious. His dismay turned to anger and Sarah shuddered at the stark terror in his face, as if he were one about to face the executioner.
"Speak!" Jareth cried out in urgency and great frustration. "If you know my mother, I implore you for both of our sakes to speak!"
About them the blue sigils on the iron flared so brightly they lit up the yard and turned the night to daylight.
"He cannot, my son," a soft gentle voice, like the release of the last leaf of autumn drifted around them and the sigils on the fence lit up blazing the ward signs for all to see.
Sarah and Jareth whipped around. Sarah could not see anything, but Jareth fixed on a single place, some twenty feet away in the middle of the empty grass of the yard.
She could feel Jareth trembling in her grasp and tightened her arms.
"He sought to seduce me and order me to his will, but he, as many before him failed. Yet, he alone, of all my many desperate suitors left me with child and escaped with his life."
A cool breath of wind settled the High King's tempestuous magic and the sigils on the fence grew dim once more.
"Mother?" Jareth's voice was hoarse and Sarah, being tucked so close to him, could hear his heart jump and stutter at his unvoiced fears.
"My son," the soft voice sounded like the dying note of an achingly beautiful song. "I cannot linger in this mortal plain, but know you and your lady have my blessing."
"Thank you," Jareth mouthed, unable to voice the words.
"And you, Eltharion," there was dire warning amid the crystal tones, "you will never have this son of mine as your heir."
The High King drew himself up, regal and powerful. Yet in that moment Sarah could see he was both enraptured with the woman she could not see and at the same time devastated.
"His inheritance is mine to grant and his lady has claimed the power to balance his. They will far outstrip the magnificence of the fae courts, yet few will see their true glory. Be thankful he deigns to have you in his life, for that was none of my choosing. Be gone from this place and leave these mortals in peace."
The High King of the fae stepped backwards as if he felt the words as a physical blow.
"Hey, King Eltharion," Sarah called, breaking the terror of the moment. "The wedding is here, at nine in the morning on Sunday, be there!"
The tall fey tilted his blond head, his antlers not shifting an inch.
"I accept the invitation, future daughter in law, son, Ma'am," with that slight bow towards the invisible lady, he vanished.
.
"Stay here," Jareth whispered fiercely and Sarah sank towards the quilt with his economical movement of sweeping her legs up from under her. The moment he stepped away she felt a ward go up around her, all sparks and fiery protection. She squinted and tried to see this invisible woman that Jareth approached, but could make out nothing in the night. Jareth came to a halt, peering upwards as if she were seated on a tall horse. He reached out as if he took a hand and as he kissed her, Sarah gasped. A slight shimmer of the form of a woman was there, as if made from starlight, her pale hair shimmered in the moonlight and it seemed her skin was the ever-shifting aspect of the night skies. It was her grace Jareth had inherited, and from the faint swirl of purple flames that for a moment allowed her horse to flicker into visibility, her magic.
The moment Jareth released her hand and stepped back, she was gone. Warmth crept back into the summer evening and the cicada chorus split the silent night as if they had never stopped. Sarah shivered, shaking off the layers of magic woven around the yard. Jareth stood alone with his arms folded around his stomach, his head bowed. Sarah ducked out from under his ward and ran across to him.
She stopped a short distance away and awkwardly rubbed at her elbow, waiting. She did not want to intrude on his private moment, by the flicker of emotions on his face; it was both joy and grief. Yet she wanted to be there for him. He dug a handkerchief from somewhere and turned so those seated by the house could not see him and dabbed at his eyes. Sarah crept closer and he reached out an arm for her.
"I'd always thought her dead," he whispered, staring up at the stars above their heads.
Sarah was full of questions, but they could wait. He was trembling harder now, and she could tell it was an effort for him to stand.
"She gave your old man quite the boot in the backside," Sarah sniggered.
He rocked with silent laughter.
"Oh, she did it beautifully, and in such a way he could only ever long for her and never be sated."
"And she gave us a blessing," Sarah whispered. He gathered her in a tight hug and buried his face in her hair. "Sorry I couldn't invite her, but I got the feeling this was one of the few times we could gain her audience."
"That we saw her at all and still live is testament to her blessing, if we were to understand it as you mortals do," he murmured as he straightened. "As I have power over transitions, she is all that is beyond my grasp."
Sarah felt a flicker of unease wash over her.
"Is she Death?"
Jareth laughed at that, a smile of cheeky delight on his face.
"No, precious thing, she is the fading dream, the lost hope, the unsung song and all that could be but is not. She lead a fae the calibre of my father, with his proud and disdainful heart, and turned his trap on him to deliver a warning to the entire race. I am proud to be her son, and the warning against the pride and pitilessness of the fae."
She gazed up at him, and saw what had never been in his eyes before. A peace, as if his soul were still water and no outer storm could assail it.
"Are," she cleared her throat as her voice caught, "are you still the Goblin King?" She fidgeted, nervous as to his response to her lifting of the geas that drove the Labyrinth and the Goblin Kingdom.
He quirked his head to the side, a little like the owl whose form he took, and smiled.
"Of course, precious thing, they are my people and I am their king. No geas bound me to the kingdom, that was my own heart and desire. Don't get me wrong, they're as irritating as any subjects can get, but they're mine, and they know it. Tell me, could you honestly ever leave the Labyrinth?"
She shook her head before her lips even shaped the 'no'.
He broke in to a slow, happy smile, the delight rising to his eyes.
"And that, precious thing, is what it is like for me."
"But, but isn't the wishing away a geas of some sort?" She couldn't let it be, the Labyrinth could not be the Labyrinth without it.
"Of a kind, but not. The right words are her prompt, not mine. I can only respond. Now that I've met my mother, she's been watching the plains for those in need of protection or testing in the manner I can deliver. As my father suspected, she is a muse of sorts."
Sarah reached up and trailed her fingers down his cheek and he leaned into her touch.
"And I thought I had a messed up family life," she said wryly.
"We make quite the pair don't we?" Jareth turned and kissed her palm. "We have an audience, precious thing," he murmured and Sarah gasped to find Toby waiting not more than a few yards away, pulling disgusted kissy faces. Karen and her father slowly approached as Michael helped Sophie across. Howl busily packed the iron pieces of the ward into its crate.
"Jareth," Toby asked when he saw that he had his attention, "does your dad really have horns?"
Jareth cracked up. He leaned on Sarah and howled with laughter as the others came to join them.
"It's his crown," Sarah explained.
"I kept waiting for it to fall off," Michael admitted.
Jareth dug out his handkerchief again and mopped his eyes.
"It's a magical construct, and as such, part of his being, so yes, it is his crown, and yes he does have horns, magical ones."
"Can you teach me how to make something like that?" Toby said in awe.
"I could, but your magic is quite different. Of everyone here, I think you saw my mother the most clearly."
"Oh yes, she had beautiful white blond hair and a dress made all of stars. Her horse tried to stay invisible, but it had a belly full of purple fire that moved whenever it shifted."
Sarah gaped at him; she had only caught hazy edges of the beautiful woman.
Jareth smiled.
"She is really pretty," Toby concluded.
"That she is," Jareth agreed. "Wizard," he turned to Howl and gave him a formal bow, "for the services rendered today and the assistance and protection of Sarah's family, I will take the matter of Toby and Sarah's magical applications out of your hands and register them myself with the King of your lands."
Howl seemed to slump with relief.
"Thank you," he said somewhat thickly, as if trying to hold back emotions at a weight among many that had been lifted from him.
Jareth simply inclined his head.
"What of the three doorways in Sarah's bedroom?" Robert asked.
Sarah groaned and Jareth glanced down at her.
"You're still having trouble with that?"
She made an indistinct noise and yawned.
"Can't I do it in the morning, I'm exhausted and my mind has run out of words."
He chuckled beside her.
"Let us tend to this and settle for the night. If we're to have a wedding at nine on Sunday, we've got our work cut out for us tomorrow."pan/p