If Jareth hadn't been spinning crystals at the exact moment his powers were dampened, he might not have noticed it had happened. It was a lucky break, really. He'd anticipated this move years earlier and had already neatly packaged the necessary spells into a crystal, ready to be broken at a moment's notice. All they'd done with their dampening spell was give him notice that they were on their way. Sloppy, but they'd always underestimated him, assuming his level of intelligence was no greater than that of his subjects'. Their mistake afforded him more than enough time to collect the prepared crystal and return to his throne where he lounged in his most care-free posture. He was almost impatient by the time Greevy finally stumbled into the throne room well ahead of Jareth's uninvited visitors.
"Your Majesty!" Greevy shouted, trying to catch his breath as he approached the throne. "A bunch of… people! From that other king's court!" Greevy stopped just short of the dais and his voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "Fae!"
Jareth sighed, his patience - never one of his stronger attributes - too thin to deal with the anxiety of a high-strung hobgoblin. He waved Greevy away and watched the door.
Their footsteps announced their presence long before they appeared in the doorway. They entered two-by-two and spread themselves in a semi-circle in front of Jareth's throne, each dressed in the red and gold of the High King and carrying a long spear tipped with a razor sharp spearhead. The elaborate tassels that hung just below the tips indicated that the weapons were more for decoration than combat. When they attacked, it would be with magic.
Last to enter was a man dressed differently from the rest in shades of blue and lustrous silver. He marched to the center of the semi-circle and took in a large breath. "Jareth, King of the Goblins, by order of the High King, you are under arrest!" he shouted.
Jareth arched an impeccably groomed brow while the goblins in the throne room whispered to themselves. He reached into his cloak and the guards responded by pointing their spears at him. With his magic dampened, Jareth supposed a sharp spear point would actually hurt. Slowly, he removed his hand from his cloak, a bright green leaf held between his fingers.
"Mint?" he offered the man.
The man glared.
Jareth sighed and put the leaf in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment before finally asking, "The charges?"
"High treason."
"Is that all?" he asked, as if there were far more serious crimes they could charge him with if they only knew about them..
Jareth's goblins giggled.
"Is that all?" he repeated. "You betrayed your king!"
Jareth reached into his cloak again. No reaction this time, he noticed. At least, not until he pulled out the crystal. A couple of the guards winced. Several more took a step backward, destroying the line of the semi-circle.
Jareth smiled, showing his teeth. He tossed the crystal lightly, then caught it again, and looked deeply into its depths.
"And how is it that I am meant to have betrayed my king-" Jareth paused as if looking for the answer within the crystal. Then his eyes snapped to the man. "-Gospatric?"
If Gospatric was surprised Jareth knew his name, he didn't show it. He didn't even flinch.
"You allowed a runner solve your Labyrinth. You intentionally returned a child to the Above against the express wishes of your king."
Jareth shrugged. "The girl won and she was entitled to her prize. Those are the rules, and we can't break those, can we?"
"Isn't it true," Gospatric continued, "you had no intention of handing the child over to your king?"
Leaning back in his throne once more, Jareth said, "I don't recall promising the child to him."
Gospatric's demeanor cracked and he sputtered, "You don't…? Providing children to Faerie is your sole reason for existing!"
Jareth threw back his head and laughed. He heard his voice ring out solo in the cavernous room then stopped and threw an ugly look toward his subjects. The goblins all began hooting with laughter and Jareth joined them while Gospatric and the rest of the Guard looked at the scene with disdain.
"Quiet!" Jareth commanded, and the goblins fell silent. He turned his attention back to Gospatric and the Guard. "I do not exist for the High King's pleasure."
For the first time, Gospatric smiled. "Then you plead guilty," he declared.
Jareth leaned forward, spinning the prepared crystal over his hand and onto his fingertips. "My plea is irrelevant, is it not?" His eyes scanned the Guard. "You come to convict, to use me as an object lesson to dissuade others from rebelling against the High King's wishes."
"I, as a loyal subject of our king, come to carry out his orders," Gospatric preened, bowing ever so slightly.
"And put your son on my throne."
Gospatric straightened.
Jareth laughed. "Did you think I would forget? I wonder, how do you think that will work, your son on the throne of the Goblin Kingdom. It's been so long since… Well, you know." He threw Gospatric a knowing look. "Do you think he will remember? Will he find it natural to be here? Do you think he might really be a-"
"Arrest him!" Gospatric shouted.
A whisper rose from the Guard as they each began to recite their own incantation.
"And if he's not," Jareth continued, "Do you think he'll be able to control the goblins? If he fails, what do you think they might do to him? How long do you think it will be before the wretched things find their way out of the Labyrinth and begin to invade your precious Faerie?"
Gospatric's face turned deep red and he pulled a crystal of his own from his robes and began his own incantation.
Jareth felt the Guards' magic begin to curl around him, spinning a web that would trap him. He stood, letting his cloak fall to the floor, and smiled. "Enjoy what little time you've got," he said, then dropped the crystal. Immediately, a blue-grey vortex surrounded him and began to pull him away from the creeping magic of the Guards and pushing him toward the little park where his provisions lay hidden under a small, unassuming cairn far off the beaten path. Once he collected it, he could easily afford to move around Above, even if his magic was never undamped. The preserved magic was slower than his unfettered magic, but effective. He felt himself slipping free of the Guards' magical net, then swallowed the leaf in his mouth.
But the vortex caused Jareth to fail notice several things. Firstly, he did not notice the gestures Gospatric made over his crystal as the vortex spun around him. Secondly, he failed to notice the silvery-white substance that poured from his body and streamed into the crystal Gospatric held. Lastly, he did not see Gospatric's ecstatic smile as the crystal became as gray as a summer storm.
However, Jareth could not miss the pain in his head as he was pulled from the throne room. It blinded him, causing all thoughts of his next steps to flee his mind. He didn't even have a moment to be grateful that his preserved magic had worked exactly as intended. The veil between the Underground and Above was sealed, breakable only by the Goblin King. The pain grew until he feared his head would split and an agonized scream was wrenched from him.
He arrived Above, but crumpled, still screaming, when he hit the ground.
As the blue-grey vortex swallowed Jareth, the smile fell from Gospatric's face. "Follow him!" he shouted to the guards.
There was a long pause.
"Well?" the Head of the Guard asked one of his men.
"The scrying crystal says he's still here, sir."
The Head of the Guard cursed, then looked at Gospatric. "What are your orders?"
But Gospatric was not looking back at the Head of the Guard. He was looking at the crystal in his hand, studying the grey mist that swirled within. "Leave him," he said, finally. "It's only his body. I have everything that matters right here." He stared into the crystal a moment longer, listening to the murmuring of the goblins.
"What do you mean, sir?" the Head of the Guard asked.
"The Goblin King," Gospatric said dramatically, "is dead." He closed his eyes to savor the moment.
"How can that be?"
Gospatric looked at the Head of the Guard shrewdly. "I think you've forgotten your place."
The Head of the Guard took a step back and looked at his feet. "Yes, sir."
"I have removed everything that made him him," Gospatric said. "All that remains, all that he took with him is the bag of hobgoblin bones he was born in. If he manages to survive Above, and he won't, he'll simply age and die like every other being that exists up there."
The Head of the Guard suppressed a shiver.
"What are they saying?" a goblin whispered.
"That blue guy says the king is dead!" a goblin whispered back.
"Deaf?" another asked more loudly, the other goblins beginning to speak over each other.
"No, dummy! Dead!" another shouted and a couple hooted with laughter.
"What's dead?" a couple more asked, one speaking half a second after the first.
"Dead is he ain't coming back no more," one sniffed.
A couple goblins howled. More laughed.
"Who's gonna be king now?"
"Ooh, me!"
"It can't be you! The boots won't fit!"
"Those were very good boots."
All of the goblins agreed, most very loudly.
"Quiet!" Gospatric shouted. It didn't have the same effect as when Jareth had done it and the goblins continued to talk, laugh, and shout, growing more and more raucous with every second.
Gospatric dodged a flying goblin who landed just beyond him.
"See?" The goblin said. "The King's boots make you go further!"
"Boots do not make a king, you idiots!" Gospatric shouted.
That got the goblins' attention.
"Do you know what does?" he continued, more softly.
The goblins stared at him, wide-eyed. Tentatively, one asked, "The bulge?"
"The what?"
"You know," the goblin said and pointed downward.
There was a general murmur of agreement and one enthusiastic shout of "Yeah, we haven't seen no one else with one of those!"
Gospatric closed his eyes and sighed. "No, not the… Not that. What makes a king is this." He held the grey crystal so the goblins could see. "This is the essence of the Goblin King. I took it straight from Jareth himself."
The goblins collectively ooh'd.
"Can I hold it?" one asked.
"Absolutely not," Gospatric said. "Only the king can hold it."
The same voice rang out, "So balls make the king!"
Gospatric pinched the bridge of his nose. "What has he been teaching these cretins," he murmured to himself. He turned to the Head of the Guard. "Summon my son," he said. With one hand, Gospatric held the crystal aloft, staring at it as it began to shrink, the color becoming darker and more opaque. With the other, he summoned a sceptre of silver and gold. Carefully, and with no small amount of pomp, he affixed the crystal to the head of the sceptre.
The goblins watched, rapt.
"Father?" a timid voice broke the awed silence..
Gospatric swung his arm toward the new arrival. "Long live Acton, King of the Goblins!" he shouted, and the guards shot to attention.
"He don't look like no king to me," a goblin said.
"That's because he doesn't have balls," added another, wisely.
Gospatric reddened, though not as much as his son did. Deliberately, he handed the sceptre l to Acton. "King Acton," he said to the goblins, gesturing clearly to his son.
There was a general oohing from the assembly.
"Acton," he said, smiling widely, "Welcome home, son."
Acton looked around and grimaced. "You can't be serious, Father."
The smile slid off Gospatric's face. He grabbed Acton by the ear and swung him around to face him. "You dare question my gift to you? Have you any idea what I needed to do to ensure your place in the kingdom?"
One or two of the guards shuffled self-consciously.
Acton held his ear, bending at the waist in supplication. "Sorry, Father," he whined.
Gospatric's face softened as he laid his hand on his son's back and encouraged him to stand straight and climb the stairs to the throne. "This is all yours now," he said warmly to his son. "You will rule the Labyrinth and ensure the mortals who enter it never leave. You will pledge every infant to your king and become his most beloved servant. You will bring honor to your family." His face then darkened. "Do you understand?"
"Y...yes, Father."
"Very good." He gestured to the sceptre. "The Sceptre of the Goblin King is the symbol of your office. It contains all of the knowledge of the former Goblin King. With it in hand, no one will question your place here."
"Yes, Father."
Gospatric turned to leave.
"Father, wait!"
He turned back to his son, his face expectant.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"It's the Goblin Kingdom, boy," he laughed. "If a hobgoblin can figure it out, how hard can it be?"
Acton watched helplessly as his father faded away, followed closely by the guards. He looked around him, trying not to show fear at the dozens of beady, yellow eyes that stared up at him. One by one, the goblins began to laugh.
The pain in Jareth's head began to recede, leaving him gasping for air on the cold, wet grass. He laid there for a moment, then pushed himself onto his hands and knees, trying to get his bearings. In the distance, several people were staring at him, concern and wariness etched on their faces. Closer, a young man ran to him, with a few others following close behind.
Jareth stood, his knees weak.
"Hey, man… you ok?" the man asked, looking Jareth up and down.
"Halloween's not for two weeks, loser!" an older boy on a bike yelled as he passed.
The young man glared at the boy, who had already ridden too far to be yelled after.
Jareth looked down at himself and saw boots, trousers, and billowy shirt. Nothing like the other people were wearing, but his clothes seemed right. Theirs were wrong.
Weren't they?
"What's your name?" the man asked, touching Jareth gingerly on the shoulder.
Jareth looked at where the man's hand touched him, then shrugged the man off.
"Someone call 9-1-1," the man said toward the gathering crowd. Another young man nodded and ran off.
This didn't make sense. None of it. All wrong. It was all wrong.
His breath started to come faster as he began to panic.
"Sir? What's your name?" the man asked again, a little more slowly and with more volume.
"I…" Jareth started, his voice sounding strange even to him. "I don't know."