Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.
"Wait, I'm confused," I said. "I never was as good at magical theory as you were, Elien. How is Sarah connected to the Labyrinth?"
She turned to me. "You must have noticed that stone maze she was in; you were working in it. Did it seem at allunfamiliar to you?"
I nodded. "I'd never been there beforewhich is odd, because I've been exploring the Labyrinth for years. But it felt like I knew where everything was."
"You hadn't been there before because before today, it didn't exist. When a mortal goes through the Labyrinth, if their imagination is strong enough, they create whole new sections of it. Sometimes they create new creatures too, and sometimes they just pull in old ones. Sarah made the shifting maze and the hedge maze, and pulled people and things into it. She created the Escher room, a bunch of the goblins, and the Fireys."
"And the part Sarah created is now tied to her. If she's ever angry at us, she could tear it up again, which would cause terrible problems in the rest of the Labyrinth, not to mention to anyone in those sections-which are pretty big now, let me tell you," Jareth added.
"Forget angry-the Labyrinth does have enemies. They could grab Sarah and use her to get us," said Elien bleakly. "And I'm sure someone will."
"Someone's going to go after Sarah? And Toby? And then attack us?" I asked.
Jareth nodded. "Her tie is too clear for our enemies to overlook. Eventually-and probably much sooner-someone will see it and jump her, someone not constrained by the Labyrinth's rules for giving mortals a chance."
"Who?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I wish I knew."
I swallowed, scared. The idea of an enemy reaching out and destroying my world, without being able to do anything about it, shook me. I hated not knowing things. I'd always hated not knowing things. "I wish I knew who was going to go after her."
There was a blip in my mind, and suddenly a picture unfolded, obscuring my sight of the real world. I saw a man lying beside me, and a baby in a crib across the room.
I recognized the baby. It was Toby.
In the-vision? hallucination?-I stood and walked across the room. I heard a woman whispering, "It's tireth has beensomehow. Tostepbrat of mine hasearthquake."
The picture was jumping around in my head. One second "I" was standing by the window, the next I was in bed, the next I was sitting up again.
I'd done telepathy before. Telepathic pictures did not jump around like that. Voices didn't fade in and out. Once a true connection was established, the message was always crystal clear, and it never .
A false telepathic send-deliberately inducing hallucinations in someone else's mind from afar-did have exactly this kind of fading in and out and sudden jumps. Someone was sending me hallucinations.
"No!" I screamed. "Stop it! Get out of my mind!"
The pictures continued. "Stop!" I screamed, clutching my head and sobbing.
"Koren!" Elien said, kneeling before me and grabbing my arms. "What's wrong?"
"I'm hallucinating," I whispered. "Someone's sending me hallucinations!"
She picked me up, carefully, and carried me to my room and put me to bed, then waited there with me, stroking my back, as I sobbed and moaned, watching the distorted pictures running through my mind. Eventually they faded out, and I fell asleep.