Title: Ace of Spades, Chapter 8 (Part 6)
Author: Silverstar Wizard
Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth, Jareth, Sarah, Arthur, the Bog, or the New York Yankees. If anyone wants to sell me any of those (with the possible exception of the Bog. Although I'm sure it has its uses…), please contact me as soon as possible.
Please! Read and Review! You've made it this far, don't give up now!
Author's Note: While I've got your attention, I'm going to plug an original story. Read DARK CYBERSPACE!!! Please!
This part starts to show where the plot might be going in the next few parts…so if you're at all interested, please stay around!
Eight
Sarah emerged at the bottom of the long slide that Jareth had provided as a way into the Bog, and immediately doubled over at the putrescent stink of the primeval marshland. Very little had changed.
She could see a stone wall far away in the distance, slightly obscured by a yellow-green scummy mist that hung just above the tops of the stunted trees. All the rocks and plants were hung with great swaths of Spanish moss, the kind that looks like hanging dusty green spider webs. The dirt path was slightly sticky, covered with some sort of congealed substance that Sarah didn't feel like thinking about. Huge blue bugs flew past languidly, alighting every now and then on rocks or trees to emit small clouds of smelly purple gas.
And then, there was the bog itself. Huge, greenish brown, dotted here and there with bubbling stink-pods and oil spots, and reeking of a combination of animal wastes, industrial refuse, body odor, dried vomit, and that smell that garbage gets on a really hot day.
Sarah gagged and covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve. She was almost able to filter out the smog in the air when she was knocked down by Arthur's arrival at the bottom of the chute.
For about half a second, Sarah thought that he didn't notice the smell. He started to stand and help her up, opening his mouth to say something. Sarah was astonished. For one half of a second.
"Gods help me!" he moaned, covering his mouth with one hand and supporting himself against a tree with the other. He heaved several times, clearly finding it difficult to keep from vomiting. Sarah quickly stood to support him as he gagged and choked, putting a hand on each of his shoulders and waiting patiently until he was well enough to continue. When he felt better, he looked over his shoulder at Sarah, smiling gratefully for the small service she had done him.
***
Arthur frowned at the clock that was positioned conspicuously in a niche in a slimy green boulder face. The clock, in contrast to its surroundings, was beautiful; it had iron hands in the shape of something that resembled, somehow, both a fleur de lis and a short sword. The lacquered parchment face was an antiqued, creamy yellow, and the mahogany of the body was decorated with intricate scrollwork. Arthur didn't know it, but Sarah would have recognized it as the same clock Jareth had shown her at the beginning of her first journey through the Labyrinth. Clocks were something Arthur was unfamiliar with, since they hadn't been invented until long after his lifetime, but he realized the significance of the rapidly advancing hands. The elegantly fashioned markers indicated that only six hours remained before…before what?
"Milady Sarah," Arthur asked, tapping her on the shoulder, "should we fail to defeat the King in thirteen hours, what shall become of me?" He was worried, and unsure. Sarah felt that she understood his position. For someone like Arthur, who was used to being in command, to giving orders and having them obeyed, to be wandering blindly with no sense of the final destination must be a terrifying experience. Since they had started traversing the Bog of Stench, he had talked less and less, and had become increasingly irritable. Sarah balked at the idea of having to tell him his potential fate. She personally had never faced the reality of possibly being turned into a two-foot-tall drooling cretin, but didn't envy anyone who had. She especially felt sorry for Arthur who, this time yesterday, had probably been comfortable in his castle, sitting at the round table with his knights, or fighting invaders on the frontiers of the Kingdom.
Steeling herself, she stopped and faced him. He must have sensed her own nervousness, because he fingered the embroidered edges of his sleeves and shifted his feet uncomfortably, tracing druidic patterns in the dirt. He knew that, whatever she was about to tell him, he probably wasn't going to like it.
"Well, I admit," she said, hesitating nervously between words, "that things have changed since the last time I was here." A flash of heat shot up her neck as she thought of just how much things seemed to have changed between herself and Jareth. Ignoring it as best she could, Sarah continued. "But when I came here to look for Toby, the stipulation was, that if I didn't make it to the castle at the center of the Labyrinth within thirteen hours, Toby would be turned into a goblin."
Arthur paled visibly, and Sarah hastened to reassure him. "But wait! You're different," she said, reaching after Arthur when he scoffed and started to move away, "because…well, first of all, you're not a baby." He turned around and waited for her to finish, arms crossed and clearly not convinced of his own immunity to the rules of the Underground, which he was only beginning to understand. Sarah furrowed her brow, searching for another reason why he wouldn't be turned into a goblin.
"And, here's another reason," she said. "Usually, the person who did the wishing away would go through the Labyrinth, but instead, it's you. There, you're a special case! Right? I mean, if one rule doesn't apply, then -"
Arthur turned around and held out a hand to stop her, the other smoothing his hair back to expose his forehead, which was damp with sweat. "I have heard enough. Do not trouble yourself to comfort me, lady Sarah. I am resigned to my fate." Seeing her crestfallen expression, he at once softened and became his usual optimistic self. Turning her head with one finger under her chin, he directed her attention to the clock.
"But see, there are yet six hours remaining. We are not yet defeated. Do you not agree?" When she didn't answer right away, he added, smiling encouragingly, "Right?"
Sarah brightened. "Right!"
"Then by all means," Arthur said brightly, proffering his bent arm to Sarah, "let us continue. To the castle!"
"The castle!" she echoed, hooking her arm through his. "I think that Jareth will not be able to stand up to two of us." She smiled as she realized that she was beginning to pick up his way of speaking, and the two of them set off together.
As they rounded a bend in the path, laughing and talking together, Jareth stepped from behind the clock the two had just passed.
"Damn!" he exclaimed. "Damn that girl! Damn him! Why has he not given up? Why is she still helping him?" Why, he thought, are they becoming…friends?