Disclaimer: I don't own the Labyrinth, Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, or Didymus; they are owned by Jim Henson.
Warning: This is rated M for occasional adult content. I will try to separate the lemons from the rest of the fruit basket by marking those chapters, but you have been warned.
Sarah pulled up her collar as she stepped out into the biting cold, scanning the street for a cab. Sleet was beginning to fall. Again.
Nothing. Thank goodness my apartment is only a few blocks away.Why am I always the one Sean calls to work on the reports? Because you have no life, Sarah Williams, that's why. She glanced at her watch - 3:12 AM. At least my flight's in the afternoon, maybe I can catch some sleep before heading to the airport. It'll be good to see Toby for Christmas.
She trudged head down through the sidewalk slush when a man stumbled into her. She slipped on a patch of black ice, and then they were in a pile on the wet sidewalk at the mouth of a dirty alleyway.
"Shhorry," he slurred, clutching at her coat. She scooted back, trying to free herself from the tangle of his grasping hands. He caught on a brooch pinned to her lapel and the mumbling drunk suddenly shrieked, rearing back. She smelled burning flesh.
"Not a fan of silver?" she asked softly, getting to her feet. He snarled at her, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth, but before he had time to do anything else she sprayed him with a face full of silver mist. Instead of merely squeezing his eyes shut in pain, bits of his face began to melt away. The creature let out a keening scream as Sarah turned and ran down the alleyway. Instead of opening onto the next street the alley became a dead end. Shit. She searched frantically in her purse. Doorknob, doorknob… damn, it's in my OTHER purse.
She heard shuffling behind her, and turned to see the thing lurch around from behind a dumpster. It seemed to grow as it approached, the clothing wrapped around its body straining at wrong angles. She ripped the brooch off her coat with a gloved hand, preparing to make her last stand. It opened its mouth impossibly wide, and she could smell the stench of death on its breath.
Help me, someone, anyone - please!
The creature went rigid, then abruptly disintegrated into a pile of slimy black ooze. The silhouette of a small, gnarled form emerged from behind the pile of recent monster, with a wicked knife in its grasp. They both stood for a moment in stunned silence.
"H-Hoggle?" she whispered. "Is it really?..." She slumped back against the dirty brick.
"Sarah -" choked Hoggle. "Ye c-called me…"
Stepping around the lately deceased, Sarah tackled her friend in a bear hug. He caught her right hand in a strong grip, craning away from the silver with a curse.
She quickly stuffed it in her pocket. "Shit, sorry! It's so good to see you! Why haven't you-" She stopped short, catching a clear view of his face in a stray beam of moonlight. "You look… different." Uncertain, Sarah took a step back, and the dim light glinted off the knife in his other hand, still covered in black ichor.
He hastily wiped it off on the remains of the monster's coat, and cleared his throat. "'Tisn't safe here, Sarah. We need safe harbor NOW."
She looked around quickly, and when the shadows failed to produce more nightmares she motioned for him to follow her down the block. "Come back to my place - it's not far."
In a short while they reached her apartment. She looked sidelong at Hoggle as he passed the threshold, but no wards ignited. Good enough for now.
The old dwarf made a circuit of her apartment, inspecting all the doors and windows, occasionally scratching runes of his own into the walls. "Ye've done all right," he said, finally coming to sit on her old sofa. "We should be safe fer a little while, at least."
"I hope so, it took two years to get the wards to stick," she said as she removed her coat, gingerly dropping it into the trash. "I'm starving, is there anything you would like to eat?"
She heard an amused snort. "A pint and a pasty wouldn't go amiss."
Sarah had a dark stout in her fridge, and while she didn't have a pasty she did have some frozen chicken pot pie. She popped it into her toaster oven and while it defrosted she sat an open bottle of beer on her coffee table. She went into her bedroom to change her bedraggled clothes, and when she returned Hoggle had his feet propped up with the bottle in his hand. A short while later the pie was done, and she placed it on a tray before him complete with plastic fork and knife. He devoured the pie with gusto along with a packet of chocolate cookies. Finally he seemed satisfied, and looked at her with a smile that was both so familiar and jarringly alien. "I've missed ye, friend" he said finally, the word friend holding a weight they both felt but did not acknowledge.
"Hoggle, it's been forever. I can't remember the last... where have you been? I've called you before this. Why did you come now, after all this time?" She turned to get her own drink from the fridge, trying to hide the hurt in her face and voice.
"True to tell little lady, I dunno. P'raps your need warn't so great as now. P'raps the Winter Solstice makes it easier for the likes of me to pass over. It's hard to say. P'raps….p'raps it's the Labyrinth."
Sarah started at the last statement. "The Labyrinth?"
"Things is different since... you left. The Labyrinth's gone wild, and there's plenty o' things come to get a piece a' wild magic. But, instead of gettin' weaker like you'd expect, it's been getting more powerful. Big magic like that can tear the Veil. I don't know the whole of it, but since He ain't in charge no more strange things walk farther than they ought, 'specially this time o' year. I keep to the outskirts meself, it's too hot near the Goblin City for me."
Sarah's head was spinning with questions. "Not in charge anymore? But I would have thought Jare-"
"Well, you was never the brightest faery in the jar, now was you?" interrupted Hoggle sourly. "You defeated 'im, and you think that don't come with a price? No one has seen Him since you was last Underground. Some 'as said you killed 'em."
"I didn't kill him!" she said, shocked. Then cold doubt crept into her stomach. "At least, I don't think I did…" Oh, gods...
"I knows Him," said Hoggle, finishing off his beer. "He's in hiding, or captured. There be traces of His magic still left on the Labyrinth, and it would be gone by now if he was dead."
"Like what?" Careful Sarah, sympathy for the devil is how you lose your soul...
"Well, it's always summer in the Labyrinth, high summer in fact. The tide o' the year never shifts to the winter. Time holdin' still as that? His doin' and none other."
"But Hoggle... just what are you? Who are you?" She edged closer to her kitchen counter, where she kept iron skillets and silver forks. His hard little eyes didn't miss it.
"I be a Redcap, born and bred. I can tell you sees me true now, so's no point hidin' it from ye. If I be unwelcome, you need but say the words."
She looked down at him, at his long-fingered hands, the nails darkened and stained. Until now, she had assumed it was garden dirt, but she had the sickening realization that it just might be a shade too red for that. His cache of jewelry still hung at his belt - where... who had it all come from? - her eyes fell on her plastic bracelet, still there, although dimmed with scratches and yellowed with age. She drained her own bottle. "We're still friends, Hoggle. No matter what."
The dwarf nodded and relaxed. They sat in silence for a long moment.
"What about the others?" she finally asked. "Didymus? Ludo? Do you think I will be able to see them now? What will they even look like?" she glanced around to her wards. " What about things like that creature that attacked me tonight… do you think more of those will be coming around?"
"I ain't seen Ludo in many a year, I think he went back up into the mountains," said Hoggle. "Didymus has been on a search for the King, so I'm unsure of his exact whereabouts. He's one as believes the Goblin King still lives, and that He can clean up the mess you left behind."
"But…" But that's not fair? But I just wanted my brother? But I didn't mean to hurt anyone? "I'm sorry about that… it was never what I wanted."
Hoggle shrugged off her weak apology. "Whatever I may say about Him, He kept order, and there ain't nothing like order in the Labyrinth now. It's thinning the veil between Above and Below, and humans don't remember enough of the old ways to get themselves out o' harms way. It's gettin' worse, and they ain't nothin' to be done, except get Him on the throne again. Mebbe that's why I come to you."
"I've noticed more nightmares, more faery activity in recent years," she conceded. "But I don't know what I can do about it. I'm a programmer, for goodness sake."
"Humph, I'd not ask this of you if I'd found the same girl I'd left. But ye ain't the same, are you? You see us true, and you found the old ways. I'd wager yer fae-touched. And those as like you may do for a while but there's not enough belief left in this world to power the old defenses that keep your kind safe. There's plenty out there hungry for a taste of your magic, whether you use it or not."
"Hoggle, I don't have any magic, just a few tricks and trinkets my mother left me. That's all."
Magic is no gift for an ordinary girl, who takes care of a screaming baby...
"Pffff, I've answered to none since He was defeated but ye pulled me across the veil with barely a thought. I don't believe our meetin' tonight is by chance. Ye upset the balance and the Underground has a habit of rightin' itself in ways you ain't gonna like. As yer friend, Sarah- if I was you I'd take this chance to try to set things straight, before the shadows grow too long to outrun."
Sarah rose and turned to a window. Is this even real? She stole a glance over her shoulder where Hoggle was picking his teeth with the plastic fork and her coat lay steaming unpleasantly in the trash can. Very real. Is this truly your fight? A much harder question. If I don't go back, something that goes bump in the night is going to come after me? Tonight was a close call… too close.
"If what you say is true, then I don't really have much choice, do I?" she asked, pacing the floor in frustration. "Hoggle, I have a life here. I can't just disappear on a quest and expect my boss to be okay with that."
"Don't look like much o' one," he said, looking around her sparse apartment.
She opened her mouth to disagree but caught herself. Oh I have a life, my friend- a boring, mundane life, filled with lines of code, crappy overpriced lattes, and stressful holidays. But to return to the Labyrinth… the thought thrilled her and terrified her.
"Saving the villain… is that even done? Do we just walk right into the Goblin City carrying a white flag? Sounds like a piece of cake."
Hoggle made a rude noise, and shrugged. "It warn't that easy the first time, and ye won't find it easy this time, I can promise ye. May be that Didymus could tell us more, but we have to find 'im first. If anyone has found information about the king it would be that ol' dog."
"When do we need to leave, how even?" sighed Sarah, slumping into her chair.
"As soon as we may, girl. Ye wards are good but they ain't nearly enough. Ye pullin' me through like that is bound to cause a stir and we need to move before something big comes knockin'. I got me a bit of a place in Greenvale, where we can lay low until we find more about Didymus. I can pull both of us back, if we're holdin' hands."
"Just let me gather a few things," she muttered. Dammit, those plane tickets cost a mint. After downing some aspirin, she returned to her bedroom and pulled a day pack from her closet. She knelt at the foot of her bed and turned the lock on her old rowan hope chest, one of the few things she had that had belonged to her mother. Inside, instead of tea towels and extra blankets, was a strange collection of objects. Old rusted keys, a brightly enameled bird, a piece of black scrimshaw, as well as a large, lumpy pouch that tinkled with the sound of glass and smelled of spices and swamp water. A flash of red caught her eye. Tucked in a corner she noticed the Labyrinth, the book that had started it all.
She gingerly picked it up, surprised that it felt warm to the touch. She leafed through it, seeing the familiar lines she had replayed so many times in her youth. When she got to the last fateful scene, she was surprised that it didn't end quite how she remembered. In fact, it didn't end at all. She grew cold as she began to read a detailed record of her past decade. She flipped faster through the book, arriving at the page describing the events of the present day:
"And so, she determined to set out for the Labyrinth once more, seeking the King who lay at its center…"
As she watched, new words appeared, beginning to transcribe the future. She dropped the book as if it were a venomous snake.
Hoggle appeared at her doorway. "Sarah? Yer wards are lit up like a candle, there's no way we're hidden anymore. What d'ye do that would-"
"I-it's the Labyrinth," she said, unable to take her eyes from the book. "I… think it knows what we're planning."
Hoggle paled visibly when he saw the book, and cursed in a language she didn't understand. "That book was His, Sarah. I seen it before, in his own study. How did ye come by such a thing?"
"I found it when I was a girl. I don't remember where it came from, it's been too long. It wasn't magical when I got it, just a normal book…" The word normal died in her throat. "Oh Hoggle, what do we do with it?"
"I say we takes it with us. No good can come of anything findin' it here, which is sure to happen sooner than later."
Nodding, she stuffed the book deep into an inner pocket of the daypack. She quickly added the relics she had already taken from her chest and crammed in a box of granola bars from her pantry. By the time she had finished texting her dad to tell him that she would have to stay in town for work, she noticed a soft but high-pitched whine coming from her wards.
"Trouble's about," said Hoggle quietly, stretching out his hand. "We can't tarry any longer."
A tremor went through Sarah as she touched his blood-stained fingers, but she gripped them tight. Almost immediately, the room began to splinter away as an icy wind blew around and through them and she shut her eyes to the stinging cold.