Chapter 5: Over The Wall
Sarah takes a moment to steady herself, leaning against the Labyrinth wall. The prickling line of kisses he left on her neck and jaw feel raw, the sensation refusing to fade away, scorching her skin like acid into an etching. It makes her shiver. The knowledge that she'd been using him as a fantasy still spins her head. Nights she thought she'd spent alone, now are tangled up with him.
The Labyrinth hadn't remained in her mind after she'd defeated it. Those 13 hours had changed her, from a spoiled child to a someone ready to be part of her family. Build bridges with Karen, let go of the betrayal she'd felt at her father remarrying. And be there for Toby. A decade of patience learnt in less than half a day. And after she'd made it home, after she'd tucked in her sweet baby brother, after she'd laughed and danced and embraced her own little army and said goodbye, and after she'd made a hasty wager that she didn't understand, it had left her mind. Faded into a dream. A castle in the air, floating away on the breeze.
But now that castle looms over her, casting a long cool shadow as she leans against the wall. All that had remained of it had been Jareth. The look in his eyes, the cut of his frame. Just something a little dangerous to play with in her mind. Someone just enough of a villain for her to feel a thrill at the thought of it all playing out a little bit further than it had. His hands on her... his tongue against her... skin on electric skin. If the vivid, glittering dreams had been anything to go by, a waking version would be more than thrilling. Would be so much more than the fumbling trysts she'd had in the handful of years since.
Five years. How many teenage fantasies linger that long?
How many steal you away on your 21st birthday?
She'd nearly crumbled against him. Let him play out her dreams to their end. As before, in that twirling ballroom of nightmares, it had taken everything she had to pry herself out of his arms. She sighs.
Some birthday...
She levels herself off the cold bricks, casting an eye along the wall looking for the gate, but there's nothing. Just an endless mass of curving stone.
Not this again.
"HOGGLE!" She screams, waiting a moment to see if the dwarf will appear, fairy poison sprayer in hand. Nothing.
"HOG-GLE!" She bellows again.
"You won't find 'im here." A small voice squawks off to the left side of her head.
Sarah jerks, noticing the apple faced goblin dangling from a hole in the brickwork a couple of feet away, like a gargoyle made of butter. She'd mistaken his uni-spiked helmet for a wall ornament.
"What?"
"I said, you won't find 'im here."
"You know Hoggle?"
"I know a Hoggle."
Sarah eyes the little goblin suspiciously. It grins from ear to ear. The sight of his toothless grey gums makes her wince.
"He'll be off at the Wes' side. Won't be back roun' this way f'ra couple-a weeks."
Sarah rolls her eyes. Back to the beginning, with no way in. She sighs.
"What's your name?"
The goblin mashes it's lips, looking like an old woman sucking on a sweet.
"Grüempy."
Sarah furrows her eyebrows.
"...Grumpy?"
"Not partic'arly." It smacks it's mouth, eyeing the hat down at her feet. "'Nd you are?"
"Sarah."
He looks at her incredulously, casting a weepy, yellow eye over the length of her.
"Huh. Thought you'd be taller."
"I don't have time for this. How do I get in?"
"Get in?"
"To the Labyrinth!"
"Alrigh', alrigh'. Keep yer hat on." He slyly casts another look down at the hat. A rubbery little tongue darting out to lick a wrinkly lip. He looks left. And then stretches out to look right. "Spose you could try climbin' over?"
"Climbing over?!"
"S'bunch of vines there, they'd prolly s'port ya. What wif you not been all tha' tall."
Sarah scowls, and casts an eye over the vines. Long deep tentacles of ivy stretch up and over the wall. She gives them a hard tug and dislodges nothing but a shower of dust that settles in her hair and on her shoulders. The wall of the labyrinth seems to stretch endlessly upwards. Monstrous in its height.
Sarah swallows. I thought things were supposed to look smaller the more you grew up...
Alright. You can do this. It's just... rock climbing, Level: expert.
She sets a boot against a knot in the lowest vine and starts hauling herself up, searching out the next knot with her hand before shifting her weight to another vine.
It's slow going, and about halfway up a stitch flares in her side. She dangles precariously in a tangle of vines until it passes.
"'Ow's it goin'?" Grüempy's wrinkled face pops out of another crack in the brickwork by her right ear and she screeches, nearly losing her grip on the vines.
"Piece of cake." She growls. "I'm... just taking five."
"You really goin' up over the wall then?"
"Yes."
"Seems like a lo' of effit." He casts a look down at how far she's come.
"Doesn't it." She snarls, stealing her nerves to start the climb again. The next vine she pulls on crumbles in her hand and she screams, clinging to the one she was about to let go of as a heap of rope like ivy tumbles down past her, crashing into the sand below.
Oh God, this has to be a nightmare...
She takes several deep breaths, grabbing another set of knots as her thighs start to tremble from the effort, begging her to stop. There's a ripping sound and Sarah almost looks down, but catches herself.
No, no. Don't look down. Just keep moving up.
She bites her lip, shoulders burning, legs aching, until with one last gasping heave she's up and over the parapet of the wall. She pants, taking stock of herself. A deep long tear in her jeans runs from her thigh to her knee down one side, a long red scratch decorates her skin underneath.
I've probably used up about an hour and I'm not even on the right side yet.
The thought makes her want to cry.
No, come on... I'm doing ok. Don't give up...
After resting for a few minutes more she swings her legs down over the other side, settling her feet into the vines again. It's easier going down. After a thick web-like mass of knots the vines stretch out and she slides down a handful of them like a fireman's pole, stopping just at the end of them.
It had looked like they went all the way to the bottom, but to her horror they ended abruptly still 10 feet away from the ground.
"Oh God."
"Doin' alrigh'?" Grüempy's ugly head pops out next to her arm. Her knuckles are starting to turn white at the effort of clinging to the vines.
"Uh.."
"Dya git lost?"
"Lost?!"
"You gotta keep goin' tha' way." Grüempy nods downwards.
"I KNOW THAT. There's no more vine!"
"Bedder let go then."
"Let go?!" Sarah whimpers.
"Well... S'tha or up, aint it?"
Oh God. Oh God, Ok... You can't break your ankle in a nightmare...
Sarah takes a deep breath, scrunches her eyes and lets go. She hits the ground hard, knocking the wind out of her, and slumps down in the dirt. Nothing broken, but she feels tears swell her eyes from the exhaustion. Muscles spasm from the effort of the climb and she stays lying in the dirt for a good few minutes before she can bear to sit up.
When she finally struggles into a sitting position she freezes in horror. There, right in front of her, obnoxiously as if had been there all this time, is a gateway looking out to a sandy wasteland. With her abandoned hat lying in the dirt.
"There's..." She swallows a furious scream.
Grüempy pops his head out of the hole he'd originally been dangling from.
"I wouldda gone through the door me'self but you made that look righ' easy."
"AAAAARGH!" Sarah grabs a handful of sand and hurls it at Grüempy, who ducks back into the wall with a wicked cackle.
"YOU CHEATING SON OF A BITCH, JARETH!"
She struggles to her feet, furiously wiping the dirt off the seat of jeans.
He did that on purpose. Let her struggle and toil, just to throw how easy it could be in her face afterwards. He could be generous after the fact. It was all a game to him, and he still thought it was a game to her. Still thought she could be twisted and turned around until the Labyrinth bent her out of shape, bent her into a more malleable form. Still thought she would thank him for it afterwards.
Fat chance, you ethereal bastard.
She shoots a last glare out into the wasteland, as she turns her back.
Right. Come on, feet.
The first corridor of the labyrinth stretches out and over the horizon. No twists. No turns. No corners. No anything. Just cobwebs, fallen branches, and miles and miles of goblin trash.
Nice try. Sarah glares at the never ending hallway of stone.
She sets a hand on one wall and starts walking, running her hand along it, waiting for a hidden opening.
None materialises. After what feels like hours Sarah breaks into a run.
Come ON!
Nothing. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING.
Nothing, tra-la-la.
She feels like she's going to lose it. Going to start kicking and screaming the way she did five years ago, slumped down on the walls. But the thought of Toby, transformed into a grotesque squawking goblin breaks her anger. Melting it into grief. It's all her fault. It's still all her fault. One tiny moment of teenage selfishness and she'd doomed him.
I should call it quits. Stay here... for him. At least he could grow up...
Maybe I'd be allowed to see him...
She bites her lip hard, forcing the bitter tears down her throat. It feels like swallowing glass.
"MMPHM!"
Her tracing fingers brush over something warm and furry and she yanks her hand back.
On a little ledge between the bricks is lodged a bright blue worm. She blinks, taking a deep breath.
"'Ello." She grins.
The worm spits, as if the taste of her hand was excessively sour.
"'Ello." He murmurs back, shaking his violently blue tufts of hair back into place. When he blinks his big red eyes open, a surprised smile suffuses most of his tiny head. "Oooooh it's you! It's been a while!"
"It has." Chuckles Sarah, sliding down the side of the wall to sit eye level with him. "How's the wife?"
"Oh she's very well, come inside, you can meet the family!"
"No I can't I... I don't have time." Or the ability to squeeze through a crack in a brick. "I've got to get through the Labyrinth. Again."
"Still haven't found the doorways in?" He chuckles.
"It's impossible!" She sighs, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. She's still exhausted from the climb over the wall, but there's a little bit of a relief in her voice. "Can you point one out?"
She misses the sly little shiver that ripples through the worm. Or the plotting little glimmer in it's eye.
"Oh sure. There's one right in front of you."
He watches as she moves to get up, clambering sorely against the bricks until she's on her feet. At the wall she steps to one side, and there it is; this shift in the bricks as the illusion pulls back for her. She steps through, taking a thankful gasp.
"Ugh, thank you! I promise next time I'm round this way I'll stop in for that tea!" She lies.
This is the last time I'll be caught dead in this stupid place.
"Mmhmm." Mumbles the worm, watching her carefully. "If I were you I'd go left." He smiles, as innocently as he can.
"To the left?" Sarah clarifies, glancing down the long stone corridor.
"To the left." The red of its eyes darkening a little.
"Thanks!" She disappears round the corner, out of sight.
After a minute a second worm, deep blue with soft red eyes the colour of poppies wiggles out of the crack, scooching up to the first worm.
"'Ello, luv." Says the first.
"That the Goblin King's girl?"
"Mm."
"Pretty little thing. Thought she'd be taller?"
"No accounting for legends, luv."
"You sent her down to the left?"
"Just like he asked."
"Well, dinner's on the table."
"Coming, pet."
