Part Four
"To speak of 'mere words' is to speak of 'mere dynamite'."
Jareth awoke slowly, and instantly wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep. But the pain, while enough to keep him properly confused and disoriented, wasn't enough to make him pass out again. Which told him one thing right from the start-whoever his enemy was, he knew his business in the pain department. Not a happy revelation.
Speak of the devil...something (or rather, someone) was moving in the shadows off to his right, gliding smoothly toward him. He made to turn his head, but the chains (chains? Oh, bloody hells, he just *knew* it) prevented him. Cautiously, he pulled and twisted, testing his limits-no, they were all here, just like in the dream. Even his mouth was bound by a heavy metal band. Not iron, thank the fates, iron would have finished him. But not ordinary steel, either. Magic chains to bind him, and though he didn't care to test it, he was pretty sure there was some sort of 'chain' on his thoughts too. At least something that would prevent him from using his powers.
~You are very perceptive, fae.~
Jareth felt a twinge of cold fear at the voice that echoed calmly in his head. He kept his face and posture wary but calm. The voice chuckled dryly, and the figure to accompany it slid into view.
~You.~ Jareth thought.
~Yes. Me. Aren't you happy to see me? It has been a very long time.~
~Too short by half.~
~Pity you feel that way, since you're going to be my company for a while.~
~Where have you brought me?~ Jareth tried again to move his head, but a flash of pain stabbed up his neck, and he closed his eyes briefly, fighting to keep the nausea down. Maybe he had better try to assess just how much damage had been done to his body before he tried anything else.
Then again, maybe he was better off not knowing.
~You aren't in your precious lands, for now that is all you need to know.~
~Why did you bring me here?~
"Well, I couldn't let that fool Erlar have you as his prisoner, now could I?" The man spoke aloud now, in a low soothing voice, as if speaking to a frightened young boy. "He might get silly ideas about draining your power and trying to use it against me. Power mongers always do that sort of thing, eventually. Besides, I think I would enjoy the company for a while."
~I'm afraid I'm in no mood to play gracious guest.~
"Aren't you even interested in watching the fate of your realm played out? I think it would be quite some entertainment."
~What are you talking about?~
"Behold." He flourished an arm at the wall opposite of Jareth, and the Goblin King's eyes narrowed as the wall seemed to ripple like molten glass. It cleared, and he found himself looking at his own throne room, littered with corpses. Several more of his subjects were chained together along the walls of the room, watching the throne with horrified, pitiful stares. Jareth strained his eyes, searching for one body in particular, and praying he wouldn't find it. One of the walls had been knocked in, and a huge knobby black head was leering in through the opening. Its pus-oozing snout rested inches from the foot of the throne itself, upon which sat a small, bony dark featured man, a half-fae from the looks of him. Jareth suppressed a growl as he held up a crystal in his bony hand, surveying it with great relish, though he was holding it carefully. Half-fae, then, for no other creature could hold the thing without it vanishing and no whole fae would worry about popping it.
The image blurred, and they were looking at the outside of the castle, covered in languishing wyrms, ranging in color from black to scaly gray to crusty yellow-brown. All of them were repulsive, scabby monsters that scaled from ten to fifty feet long. They draped their gnarled bodies over walls and ramparts, growling and snapping at each other as they lolled in the setting sun. A few of them flapped up into the sky, and the wall image followed them as they flew to various places in the Labyrinth, to forage, he thought. But apparently the beasts had no other intentions but to merely destroy as much as they could. He bit back a growl in his throat as he watched them rip and burn and lay waste to everything around them. He watched as they flushed out and hunted down several creatures hiding in the remains of the Labyrinth.
Once more the image wavered, and then cleared to show a large underground cavern, full to the brim of bustling creatures. Despite the almost forced activity, the atmosphere was subdued, as if every creature was listening with one ear and watching with one eye for something to come swarming into their mists. The image seemed to fly over them all, searching, and then settled on a small, brunette figure in bright green and leather clothes. It moved closer, and Jareth felt a combination relief and fear contract in his guts. Sarah. Pale. Frightened. Alive.
His captor moved forward. "Interesting," he purred. "Look, my dear fae. That is the true glory of mortals, isn't it? They adapt to situations, especially crisis, with an almost unfathomable speed, and not only adapt, they take charge of the situation. Look at her already, she can't have been down there more than an hour or two." He chuckled again as she marshaled a group of nervously chittering garden gnomes setting up a series of tents and lean-tos. "Head-strong, stubborn, and yet at the same time so quick to bend to circumstance. Interesting."
*Oh, Sarah.* Jareth thought to himself, a quiet kind of despair wrapping around his heart. *If only I could warn you...*
He threw a burning glance at the dark man beside him. *I know what's going to happen now, Sarah, I know a game when I see one. Be careful, Sarah. The powers I gave you are useless against this one. I know. He gave them to me...*
"They ain't moved." Hoggle grunted and spat on the floor in disgust. "They just sit there. But yer right on one bit," he waved a hand to Ludo. "They're watchin' that castle alright. I saw a goblin get too close, and then," he snapped his fingers. "Dead, jus' like that."
"So we can't get close to the castle at all?" Sarah handed Ludo a plate with a few mounds of what looked to her like purple tongues, but her hairy friend dug into with relish, offering her one to taste. "No thanks, Ludo. You go ahead. I wished them just for you."
"Sarah eat." He admonished. "Sarah rest."
"Yeah, when was the last time you got some sleep?"
"I'm fine," she told them flatly. "I couldn't sleep anyway, even if I was tired. My mind is too...busy. Oh," she slammed a fist into the stony wall, then jumped back, cradling her bruised fingers. "It isn't FAIR! There has to be a way into the castle. There just has to be. Doesn't anyone know a secret entrance or something? This is the Labyrinth, after all, there's always a secret way in or out."
"They've all been blocked off. Wyrms at every doorway. It's like that Early or whoever knew where they all were." Hetta grumped, bossing her son around their little camp space.
"Erlar," Sarah corrected absently. "There's no way he knows all the entrances. How could he? He's never been here before, and even if he had been, they change too often-"
"Well, he knew anyway, didn't he? That ain't the point."
"What *is* the point?"
"The point, Sarah, is that we can't get in. All the wishes you make against him are just twisted to his advantage."
"So I'm pretty much powerless to stop any of this?"
"I dunno."
"Thanks for nothing, Hoggle."
Abruptly, words from long ago danced into her head, from the first time she'd ever entered the Labyrinth.
~~'You know what your problem is; you take too many things for granted.'
'That's your opinion.'
'Well, it's a lot better than yours!'
'Thanks for nothing, Hogwart.'
'Oh! It's HOGGLE, and don't say I didn't warn you.' ~~
"Maybe," she muttered. "Just maybe."
"What's that, Sarah?"
"Nothing. You know what, I am kinda tired. I think I'll get a quick rest. And then, we figure out this Erlar guy. Okay?"
"Deal." The dwarf scrambled to his feet and beckoned to his hairy friend. "C'mon, Ludo, let's leave her Highness to 'er rest."
"Don't you dare start with me tonight, Hoggle. I'll...I'll...kiss you!"
"And send me tumbling into the Bog of Eternal Stench again? Ha! Not likely." The dwarf trotted off in mock fear, Ludo lumbering good-naturedly behind.
"Night-night Sarah."
"Good night, Ludo. 'Night, Hoggle." She sighed, watching them fade into the crowd. Above, the fairies were burrowing into the nooks and crannies of the ceiling, the junk people were huddling together, looking like a small junkyard themselves, even the fireys were settling themselves down in boneless heaps around a snapping blaze. Sarah sighed again and wished for a warm, thick blanket, which she wrapped herself in and huddled down in a corner. But she didn't sleep, images, voices, thoughts were swirling madly in her brain, shaking up a mental storm. She saw again the horrible destruction wreaked on the Goblin City and the Labyrinth itself (she had been watching in her crystal, horrified, as the wyrms had plundered and destroyed the place she had come to love so much). But most of all, she saw Jareth, as he had been that morning, smirking down at her.
*I fought with him. I fought with him and then avoided him, and now I might never see him again-*
"He isn't dead," she whispered fiercely, pulling the blanket tighter. I would know if he were dead. We'd all know. He's just trapped somehow. The invader caught him off guard, I bet. If I could just get into the castle!
"I wish..." she trailed off. "Oh, what's the use? My dreams aren't any good against him."
"What dream may fight a nightmare?" She jumped at the wheezy voice, and sat upright, looking around.
"You!"
The Wise Man took no notice of her surprise, though his Hat giggled a little and winked at her. "You were expecting maybe Amber then?" (Sorry, had to do it.)
"I was speaking!" The Wise Man wheezed irritably at his Hat. "Do you mind?"
"No, not at all." the Hat chirped.
"Thank you." The Wise Man harrumphed loudly, and then stated, "A nightmare cannot be fought with a dream; the dream will only become the nightmare. And then we have simply another enemy where once-"
"We did not." The Hat finished.
"We did not," the Wise Man echoed tetchily, rolling his eyes.
"Is this making more sense to you than it is to me?" the Hat asked Sarah.
Sarah expected the Wise Man to snap at his talkative head wear again, but instead all she heard was a gentle snore. Yep, he had fallen asleep again. If only she could that easily.
"Nightmares can't be fought with dreams," she muttered. "Then what can nightmares be fought with?"
Her eyes drooped...hmm...she must be more exhausted than she thought. Well, now that the adrenaline rush had faded off, it was no wonder...dreams cannot fight nightmares...what do you fight nightmares with?...nightmares.....
"Nightmares!" Sarah sat bolt upright so quickly that a small goblin wandering close by jumped and spun around, scrambling away.
"Sarah? You okay there, dear?" Hetta was suddenly by her side, putting a worried gnarled hand to her forehead. "You was screaming about nightmares."
"No, not nightmares. Nightmares!"
"Err......eh?"
Sarah surged to her feet. "Where's Hoggle? I need to talk to him!"
"He's gone out. Down to see what's lefta the Labyrinth. Left while you were sleepin'."
"I've only been sleeping a few minutes at most!"
Hetta eyed her. "You've been out cold fer about five hours."
"Really?" She shook her hands and pulled at tangled brown hair, trying to smooth it back into a ponytail. "Well, where's Didymus? Or one of the other officers?"
"Went with Hoggle or else different places of the Labyrinth. Tryin' to 'assess damages,' he says."
She reached up and clutched her pendant tightly. "I wish Hoggle and Didymus were here! Now."
"Here now, what mischief is this?" Suddenly, a small, irate red fox was sitting casually astride a hairy sheepdog about a foot away. "What sorcery hath brought-Oh, my Lady! Art thou the cause of this?"
"So, yer awake," Hoggle didn't seem surprised at all to find himself standing back in the cavern, despite the fact that two minutes ago he had been balanced precariously on a thin ledge not eight feet above a rioting wyrm...well, given the alternative, maybe it was better to be in the cavern. "Miss me already, didjya?"
She waved an impatient hand at him. "I need to get in touch with the Nightmares."
"The Nightmares...? Oh, yeah. Them." Hoggle's eyes darkened. "Whatcha want with them? Nasty as them things be, even they ain't a match fer the wyrms."
"It's not the wyrms I need them for." Sarah began pacing in the limited space, brow furrowed, deep in thought. "No, them I'll need against Erlar himself, I don't have anything else to throw at him...but how to get past the wyrms? Oh, there has to be a way..."
"Well, ye've got an army, doncha?" Rilum piped up from behind his mother. "Aren't they good fer nothing'?"
"Hush, you," Hetta rounded on him. "And before you even say it, no, ye can't go fight with the army."
"Ma..." Rilum looked disgusted. "I'm almost all grown up now. An' I was a messenger in the war against the Nightmares, weren't I? I can do it!"
"Actually," Sarah cut in, "I only have about half an army. The rest of the goblins are in the castle. Maybe dead. And even if I managed to train all them," she gestured to the mass of creatures, many of whom had never seen battle for blatantly obvious reasons (such as in the case of William the worm, whom Sarah had met on her first trip in the Labyrinth, and his infamous 'Missus'),"they'd never stand a chance against a legion of wyrms. So how do I get my Nightmares past them?" She resumed her pacing.
"While yer running in circles, maybe ye'd like to know what state yer labyrinth is in, Sarah." She froze and turned to look at the dwarf.
"I'm almost afraid to know," she whispered, then shook her head and sat cross-legged in front of him. "But I need to just the same, hmm?"
"Well, my lady," Sir Didymus crouched in the dirt and accepted the plate of roast mouse that Hetta offered him. "The foul fiends have laid waste to all-excepting the Bog where once I stood guard, fulfilling my sacred vow." Didymus paused to crunch hungrily into what looked suspiciously like a crisp mouse-tail.
"I guess the Bog of Eternal Stench was too much even for them." Sarah laughed slightly.
"No such luck," Hoggle sniffed. "The monsters like it in there. You shoulda seen it, about ten of 'em were rolling around in the muck like birds in a puddle. Some of 'em even drank the gunk. O' course, once they roll in the Bog, ol' Erlar won't let 'em back in the castle-can't say I blame 'im there."
"That's disgusting. Not even the *goblins* like the Bog," Sarah wrinkled her nose and set aside the cup of soup Hetta had supplied her with. So much for an appetite.
"It's just the way wyrms are, I guess."
"Ick."
"Now there's a properly royal word," Hoggle waggled his eyebrows comically at her, and she burst into a small fit of giggles.
"Thanks, Hoggle," she told him when she had recovered. "I needed a laugh."
"That's what I thought."
"She really is quite remarkable, your lady wife."
Jareth ignored the drawling voice and concentrated on her face. She was staring thoughtfully into space, almost right at him, obviously letting her brain wander as he had taught her. After all, the best ideas often came when you weren't even thinking about the problem.
"She came up with the Nightmare solution a bit faster than I expected-but then, you impressed on her the importance of time, didn't you, my dear fae?"
~You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth.~
"I wonder how long it will take her to find her way in?"
*That depends on you - on whether or not you do anything to interfere,* Jareth thought, being careful not to think so that his warden could 'hear' him. Since that first conversation, he had maintained his silence. He wasn't going to give the jailer even that much.
"For one so carefully raised in the art of kingcraft," the voice drawled nearer, "you certainly are being rude. Where are your manners? Won't you even answer a direct question?"
*Not for you,* he thought savagely. *Never for you.*
"Well, I suppose if you'd rather keep your sullen silence, I won't attempt to stop you. The woman is much more interesting, anyway."
"To speak of 'mere words' is to speak of 'mere dynamite'."
Jareth awoke slowly, and instantly wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep. But the pain, while enough to keep him properly confused and disoriented, wasn't enough to make him pass out again. Which told him one thing right from the start-whoever his enemy was, he knew his business in the pain department. Not a happy revelation.
Speak of the devil...something (or rather, someone) was moving in the shadows off to his right, gliding smoothly toward him. He made to turn his head, but the chains (chains? Oh, bloody hells, he just *knew* it) prevented him. Cautiously, he pulled and twisted, testing his limits-no, they were all here, just like in the dream. Even his mouth was bound by a heavy metal band. Not iron, thank the fates, iron would have finished him. But not ordinary steel, either. Magic chains to bind him, and though he didn't care to test it, he was pretty sure there was some sort of 'chain' on his thoughts too. At least something that would prevent him from using his powers.
~You are very perceptive, fae.~
Jareth felt a twinge of cold fear at the voice that echoed calmly in his head. He kept his face and posture wary but calm. The voice chuckled dryly, and the figure to accompany it slid into view.
~You.~ Jareth thought.
~Yes. Me. Aren't you happy to see me? It has been a very long time.~
~Too short by half.~
~Pity you feel that way, since you're going to be my company for a while.~
~Where have you brought me?~ Jareth tried again to move his head, but a flash of pain stabbed up his neck, and he closed his eyes briefly, fighting to keep the nausea down. Maybe he had better try to assess just how much damage had been done to his body before he tried anything else.
Then again, maybe he was better off not knowing.
~You aren't in your precious lands, for now that is all you need to know.~
~Why did you bring me here?~
"Well, I couldn't let that fool Erlar have you as his prisoner, now could I?" The man spoke aloud now, in a low soothing voice, as if speaking to a frightened young boy. "He might get silly ideas about draining your power and trying to use it against me. Power mongers always do that sort of thing, eventually. Besides, I think I would enjoy the company for a while."
~I'm afraid I'm in no mood to play gracious guest.~
"Aren't you even interested in watching the fate of your realm played out? I think it would be quite some entertainment."
~What are you talking about?~
"Behold." He flourished an arm at the wall opposite of Jareth, and the Goblin King's eyes narrowed as the wall seemed to ripple like molten glass. It cleared, and he found himself looking at his own throne room, littered with corpses. Several more of his subjects were chained together along the walls of the room, watching the throne with horrified, pitiful stares. Jareth strained his eyes, searching for one body in particular, and praying he wouldn't find it. One of the walls had been knocked in, and a huge knobby black head was leering in through the opening. Its pus-oozing snout rested inches from the foot of the throne itself, upon which sat a small, bony dark featured man, a half-fae from the looks of him. Jareth suppressed a growl as he held up a crystal in his bony hand, surveying it with great relish, though he was holding it carefully. Half-fae, then, for no other creature could hold the thing without it vanishing and no whole fae would worry about popping it.
The image blurred, and they were looking at the outside of the castle, covered in languishing wyrms, ranging in color from black to scaly gray to crusty yellow-brown. All of them were repulsive, scabby monsters that scaled from ten to fifty feet long. They draped their gnarled bodies over walls and ramparts, growling and snapping at each other as they lolled in the setting sun. A few of them flapped up into the sky, and the wall image followed them as they flew to various places in the Labyrinth, to forage, he thought. But apparently the beasts had no other intentions but to merely destroy as much as they could. He bit back a growl in his throat as he watched them rip and burn and lay waste to everything around them. He watched as they flushed out and hunted down several creatures hiding in the remains of the Labyrinth.
Once more the image wavered, and then cleared to show a large underground cavern, full to the brim of bustling creatures. Despite the almost forced activity, the atmosphere was subdued, as if every creature was listening with one ear and watching with one eye for something to come swarming into their mists. The image seemed to fly over them all, searching, and then settled on a small, brunette figure in bright green and leather clothes. It moved closer, and Jareth felt a combination relief and fear contract in his guts. Sarah. Pale. Frightened. Alive.
His captor moved forward. "Interesting," he purred. "Look, my dear fae. That is the true glory of mortals, isn't it? They adapt to situations, especially crisis, with an almost unfathomable speed, and not only adapt, they take charge of the situation. Look at her already, she can't have been down there more than an hour or two." He chuckled again as she marshaled a group of nervously chittering garden gnomes setting up a series of tents and lean-tos. "Head-strong, stubborn, and yet at the same time so quick to bend to circumstance. Interesting."
*Oh, Sarah.* Jareth thought to himself, a quiet kind of despair wrapping around his heart. *If only I could warn you...*
He threw a burning glance at the dark man beside him. *I know what's going to happen now, Sarah, I know a game when I see one. Be careful, Sarah. The powers I gave you are useless against this one. I know. He gave them to me...*
"They ain't moved." Hoggle grunted and spat on the floor in disgust. "They just sit there. But yer right on one bit," he waved a hand to Ludo. "They're watchin' that castle alright. I saw a goblin get too close, and then," he snapped his fingers. "Dead, jus' like that."
"So we can't get close to the castle at all?" Sarah handed Ludo a plate with a few mounds of what looked to her like purple tongues, but her hairy friend dug into with relish, offering her one to taste. "No thanks, Ludo. You go ahead. I wished them just for you."
"Sarah eat." He admonished. "Sarah rest."
"Yeah, when was the last time you got some sleep?"
"I'm fine," she told them flatly. "I couldn't sleep anyway, even if I was tired. My mind is too...busy. Oh," she slammed a fist into the stony wall, then jumped back, cradling her bruised fingers. "It isn't FAIR! There has to be a way into the castle. There just has to be. Doesn't anyone know a secret entrance or something? This is the Labyrinth, after all, there's always a secret way in or out."
"They've all been blocked off. Wyrms at every doorway. It's like that Early or whoever knew where they all were." Hetta grumped, bossing her son around their little camp space.
"Erlar," Sarah corrected absently. "There's no way he knows all the entrances. How could he? He's never been here before, and even if he had been, they change too often-"
"Well, he knew anyway, didn't he? That ain't the point."
"What *is* the point?"
"The point, Sarah, is that we can't get in. All the wishes you make against him are just twisted to his advantage."
"So I'm pretty much powerless to stop any of this?"
"I dunno."
"Thanks for nothing, Hoggle."
Abruptly, words from long ago danced into her head, from the first time she'd ever entered the Labyrinth.
~~'You know what your problem is; you take too many things for granted.'
'That's your opinion.'
'Well, it's a lot better than yours!'
'Thanks for nothing, Hogwart.'
'Oh! It's HOGGLE, and don't say I didn't warn you.' ~~
"Maybe," she muttered. "Just maybe."
"What's that, Sarah?"
"Nothing. You know what, I am kinda tired. I think I'll get a quick rest. And then, we figure out this Erlar guy. Okay?"
"Deal." The dwarf scrambled to his feet and beckoned to his hairy friend. "C'mon, Ludo, let's leave her Highness to 'er rest."
"Don't you dare start with me tonight, Hoggle. I'll...I'll...kiss you!"
"And send me tumbling into the Bog of Eternal Stench again? Ha! Not likely." The dwarf trotted off in mock fear, Ludo lumbering good-naturedly behind.
"Night-night Sarah."
"Good night, Ludo. 'Night, Hoggle." She sighed, watching them fade into the crowd. Above, the fairies were burrowing into the nooks and crannies of the ceiling, the junk people were huddling together, looking like a small junkyard themselves, even the fireys were settling themselves down in boneless heaps around a snapping blaze. Sarah sighed again and wished for a warm, thick blanket, which she wrapped herself in and huddled down in a corner. But she didn't sleep, images, voices, thoughts were swirling madly in her brain, shaking up a mental storm. She saw again the horrible destruction wreaked on the Goblin City and the Labyrinth itself (she had been watching in her crystal, horrified, as the wyrms had plundered and destroyed the place she had come to love so much). But most of all, she saw Jareth, as he had been that morning, smirking down at her.
*I fought with him. I fought with him and then avoided him, and now I might never see him again-*
"He isn't dead," she whispered fiercely, pulling the blanket tighter. I would know if he were dead. We'd all know. He's just trapped somehow. The invader caught him off guard, I bet. If I could just get into the castle!
"I wish..." she trailed off. "Oh, what's the use? My dreams aren't any good against him."
"What dream may fight a nightmare?" She jumped at the wheezy voice, and sat upright, looking around.
"You!"
The Wise Man took no notice of her surprise, though his Hat giggled a little and winked at her. "You were expecting maybe Amber then?" (Sorry, had to do it.)
"I was speaking!" The Wise Man wheezed irritably at his Hat. "Do you mind?"
"No, not at all." the Hat chirped.
"Thank you." The Wise Man harrumphed loudly, and then stated, "A nightmare cannot be fought with a dream; the dream will only become the nightmare. And then we have simply another enemy where once-"
"We did not." The Hat finished.
"We did not," the Wise Man echoed tetchily, rolling his eyes.
"Is this making more sense to you than it is to me?" the Hat asked Sarah.
Sarah expected the Wise Man to snap at his talkative head wear again, but instead all she heard was a gentle snore. Yep, he had fallen asleep again. If only she could that easily.
"Nightmares can't be fought with dreams," she muttered. "Then what can nightmares be fought with?"
Her eyes drooped...hmm...she must be more exhausted than she thought. Well, now that the adrenaline rush had faded off, it was no wonder...dreams cannot fight nightmares...what do you fight nightmares with?...nightmares.....
"Nightmares!" Sarah sat bolt upright so quickly that a small goblin wandering close by jumped and spun around, scrambling away.
"Sarah? You okay there, dear?" Hetta was suddenly by her side, putting a worried gnarled hand to her forehead. "You was screaming about nightmares."
"No, not nightmares. Nightmares!"
"Err......eh?"
Sarah surged to her feet. "Where's Hoggle? I need to talk to him!"
"He's gone out. Down to see what's lefta the Labyrinth. Left while you were sleepin'."
"I've only been sleeping a few minutes at most!"
Hetta eyed her. "You've been out cold fer about five hours."
"Really?" She shook her hands and pulled at tangled brown hair, trying to smooth it back into a ponytail. "Well, where's Didymus? Or one of the other officers?"
"Went with Hoggle or else different places of the Labyrinth. Tryin' to 'assess damages,' he says."
She reached up and clutched her pendant tightly. "I wish Hoggle and Didymus were here! Now."
"Here now, what mischief is this?" Suddenly, a small, irate red fox was sitting casually astride a hairy sheepdog about a foot away. "What sorcery hath brought-Oh, my Lady! Art thou the cause of this?"
"So, yer awake," Hoggle didn't seem surprised at all to find himself standing back in the cavern, despite the fact that two minutes ago he had been balanced precariously on a thin ledge not eight feet above a rioting wyrm...well, given the alternative, maybe it was better to be in the cavern. "Miss me already, didjya?"
She waved an impatient hand at him. "I need to get in touch with the Nightmares."
"The Nightmares...? Oh, yeah. Them." Hoggle's eyes darkened. "Whatcha want with them? Nasty as them things be, even they ain't a match fer the wyrms."
"It's not the wyrms I need them for." Sarah began pacing in the limited space, brow furrowed, deep in thought. "No, them I'll need against Erlar himself, I don't have anything else to throw at him...but how to get past the wyrms? Oh, there has to be a way..."
"Well, ye've got an army, doncha?" Rilum piped up from behind his mother. "Aren't they good fer nothing'?"
"Hush, you," Hetta rounded on him. "And before you even say it, no, ye can't go fight with the army."
"Ma..." Rilum looked disgusted. "I'm almost all grown up now. An' I was a messenger in the war against the Nightmares, weren't I? I can do it!"
"Actually," Sarah cut in, "I only have about half an army. The rest of the goblins are in the castle. Maybe dead. And even if I managed to train all them," she gestured to the mass of creatures, many of whom had never seen battle for blatantly obvious reasons (such as in the case of William the worm, whom Sarah had met on her first trip in the Labyrinth, and his infamous 'Missus'),"they'd never stand a chance against a legion of wyrms. So how do I get my Nightmares past them?" She resumed her pacing.
"While yer running in circles, maybe ye'd like to know what state yer labyrinth is in, Sarah." She froze and turned to look at the dwarf.
"I'm almost afraid to know," she whispered, then shook her head and sat cross-legged in front of him. "But I need to just the same, hmm?"
"Well, my lady," Sir Didymus crouched in the dirt and accepted the plate of roast mouse that Hetta offered him. "The foul fiends have laid waste to all-excepting the Bog where once I stood guard, fulfilling my sacred vow." Didymus paused to crunch hungrily into what looked suspiciously like a crisp mouse-tail.
"I guess the Bog of Eternal Stench was too much even for them." Sarah laughed slightly.
"No such luck," Hoggle sniffed. "The monsters like it in there. You shoulda seen it, about ten of 'em were rolling around in the muck like birds in a puddle. Some of 'em even drank the gunk. O' course, once they roll in the Bog, ol' Erlar won't let 'em back in the castle-can't say I blame 'im there."
"That's disgusting. Not even the *goblins* like the Bog," Sarah wrinkled her nose and set aside the cup of soup Hetta had supplied her with. So much for an appetite.
"It's just the way wyrms are, I guess."
"Ick."
"Now there's a properly royal word," Hoggle waggled his eyebrows comically at her, and she burst into a small fit of giggles.
"Thanks, Hoggle," she told him when she had recovered. "I needed a laugh."
"That's what I thought."
"She really is quite remarkable, your lady wife."
Jareth ignored the drawling voice and concentrated on her face. She was staring thoughtfully into space, almost right at him, obviously letting her brain wander as he had taught her. After all, the best ideas often came when you weren't even thinking about the problem.
"She came up with the Nightmare solution a bit faster than I expected-but then, you impressed on her the importance of time, didn't you, my dear fae?"
~You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth.~
"I wonder how long it will take her to find her way in?"
*That depends on you - on whether or not you do anything to interfere,* Jareth thought, being careful not to think so that his warden could 'hear' him. Since that first conversation, he had maintained his silence. He wasn't going to give the jailer even that much.
"For one so carefully raised in the art of kingcraft," the voice drawled nearer, "you certainly are being rude. Where are your manners? Won't you even answer a direct question?"
*Not for you,* he thought savagely. *Never for you.*
"Well, I suppose if you'd rather keep your sullen silence, I won't attempt to stop you. The woman is much more interesting, anyway."