She spun through fog and shadow, her feet tangled in clouds and her hair
dripping with starlight. Her fingers wove themselves through velvet night,
catching the dark and pulling it to her face in long, chilly strands. A
wild laugh escaped her mouth and whipped away on the wind. Before her, a
yellow light sprang into being. It captured her eyes immediately, filling
her vision with heat and flame. The fog suddenly seemed clammy and
grasping, tugging at her ankles like a vicious dog. She kicked it off and
reached for the light, spinning into its bright warmth to set down with a
gentle bump.
She stepped out of the dark into a hall full of people. A sea of heads turned in her direction, a legion of eyes glittering behind fanciful, bizarre masks that transformed their owners into creatures out of a dream. A thousand candles burned in a dozen chandeliers, their flames multiplied ten times over by the great mirrors that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The lyric strains of an orchestra filled the air with music. She noticed the whispers escaping from behind painted fans, saw the jealous looks from vicious female eyes, and heard a soft sigh rising from masculine throats. A question rippled through the crowd: "Who is she? Who is she?" Raising the silk of her gown ever so slightly (and perfectly aware of the male stares locked on her dainty slipper), she stepped into the center of the room and raised an elegant hand. She was immediately surrounded by a dozen masked men, their abandoned ladies pouting at their backs. A gloved hand seized her fingers and she was whirled away into the dance.
Her partner was tall, willowy as a reed, with a hawk's fierce plumage hiding his face. He danced divinely, flashing his feathers ostentatiously before her, but she quickly became bored with him. Pushing him away, she found herself swept into the arms of another man who flexed his broad shoulders for her amusement. He utterly failed to arouse her interest. She danced with short men, tall men, warriors and poets, teasing them to the brink of madness with her caress, her smile, and her inevitable dismissal. She grew impatient and began to search, pushing through the throng with angry strokes. Supplications rose on all sides but she ignored them, intent on her purpose.
The crowd parted before her, and there he was. Like herself, he wore no mask. Their eyes met and all other thought vanished from her mind. He shrugged off the clinging hands of the women who surrounded him, ignoring their complaints, and wordlessly offered her his arm. She laid her fingers on his sleeve and he brought her to the dance floor.
She slipped her left hand along the silk of his jacket to rest gently on the muscle of his upper arm, her eyes never leaving the blue and gold of his gaze. His right hand settled in the hollow between her shoulder blades and pulled her close, holding her like a bird that might take flight if his grip proved too rough. She was barely conscious of the music, her body thrilling instead to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He danced her gracefully down the hall, his eyes drinking her in at every moment, oblivious of the whispering crowd. They spun together in a halo of candlelight, his lips moving soundlessly, promising to fulfill her every dream. She moved her fingers up his neck to rest softly against his cheek. In response, he buried his hand in her dark curls, cupping the back of her head and tilting her face up to his, and she quivered with anticipation as she saw the intent in his eyes. As gently as a summer breeze he bent his head to hers, and she closed her eyes and felt his lips against her mouth. His first touch was brief, the brush of a butterfly's wings, but no sooner had he pulled away than he was dipping his head to her again. His mouth was warm and strong, drawing her gently into a deeper embrace, and she trembled at the fierceness of her response to his touch. She pulled him to her, parting her lips in temptation. A low moan rose from his throat as he bore down on her mouth, and she tasted -
Peaches. Sarah's eyes flew open and she pushed away from his kiss, staring up at his face in shock. His eyes were clouded with desire - and with something much darker. Recollection beat at the deep doors of her mind, and all at once she was flooded with a tide of memories. "Jareth!" she gasped.
Befuddled, he asked, "Who is Jareth?"
She placed both hands against his face and murmured, "You are, dearest. We can't stay here, we have important work to do. You have to help me."
The fog behind his eyes cleared a little. "What must I do?" he asked uncertainly.
"Remember the Labyrinth, Jareth! How can you defeat this spell?"
He put a hand to his forehead, then shook himself like someone coming out of a long sleep. "A spell?" he asked, but his voice sounded more alert. Casting a glance around the room, he said, "It's built around mirrors. Hold on to me; there's no telling where we'll be once I shatter it."
He raised a hand and shouted a single word, and suddenly was holding a ball of icy light. Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes as he leaned back and threw the shining globe at the closest mirror with all his strength.
The mirror broke with a sound like the smashing of a hundred crystal goblets, and the world around them fractured with it. Shards of screaming people flew by them and Sarah buried her face in Jareth's jacket as slivers of the hall and its masqueraders zipped past and disappeared into darkness. They hung in black limbo for a moment and then Sarah felt the sickening lurch of falling, immediately followed by the painful impact of landing. Still muddled from the spell of the peach, Jareth staggered to his knees and knocked Sarah flat on her back.
Neither of them wanted to do anything other than lie quietly for a few minutes and try to come to grips with what had happened. Although they were still engulfed in pitch darkness, the stones pressing into Sarah's back were comfortingly real and their sharp tips gave her something concrete to focus on. The last wisps of fog slowly seeped out of her brain, and the desire to curl into a ball and cry became almost overwhelming. What a terrible place this was! You couldn't trust anything, and as far as Sarah could tell they might be anywhere in the Labyrinth now. From the quality of the air around them, she guessed that they were in a large space, possibly a cave, and something about the dead silence made her sure that they were the only living creatures there. After a little while, Sarah cleared her throat and said, "I guess those peaches had a spell on them after all."
There was a pause, and then Jareth said, "Yes." His voice was flat and expressionless.
Sarah waited for more, but Jareth wasn't forthcoming. A long stretch of silence elapsed, which she finally broke by saying, "So we were under a spell when we -"
"Yes," Jareth interrupted harshly.
Sarah winced at the anger in his tone. The memory of their dance burned like fire in her mind and she fought like a lioness to keep her tears at bay. She knew she could never be that spun-sugar, fairy-tale princess in real life - she, the belle of the ball? Not likely, but he didn't have to sound so disgusted about it! There was no way she would have kissed him either if they hadn't eaten that peach! Of course, that was only because she was too cowardly to go through with it under normal circumstances, but she shrugged that fact off as a technicality. She struggled against the truth for as long as she could, then grimaced in defeat. Who was she kidding? His kiss had been the most wonderful thing she had ever felt, and she had to admit that she'd been thinking about it in the back of her mind for days. His rejection sliced more deeply than she ever would have believed. What she really needed was a good sobbing session and possibly a mountain of chocolate to apply some first aid to this emotional wound, but there just wasn't time. Her poor heart would simply have to bleed itself dry.
The best thing to do was to ignore it, pretend it never happened. They could still accomplish what they had set out to do and destroy the Black Gate. Sarah had found the thought of being trapped in Tir-na-nOg forever to be bearable only because the Goblin King would be her fellow exile, but that comfort had now turned to ashes. She thought of the bleak, eternal twilight and the gaunt, hungry faces of the Land of Eternal Youth and shuddered. Would she end up like that, with a twenty-year-old body and hundred-year-old eyes?
Her thoughts turned to her home, to friends and family. Poor Pierce, how worried he must be! And her father was probably beating himself up night and day trying to find her. Sarah thought of Sandy with her hearty laugh, Becky with her constant hypochondria, and Karen with her antiquated propriety. She wondered if Merlin would eat all of Dad's shoes again to show he missed her. Dogs were funny that way.
To keep them safe, she would destroy her only way home. They were worth it. Hope of seeing them again would keep her alive through the lonely years ahead, and who knew? The universe was full of possibilities, and maybe she would get to feel the sun on her face again after all. One thing was certain: their time was running out. "We should get going," Sarah said.
"Yes, we have dawdled long enough," Jareth said in clipped tones, and a light blossomed in the darkness. He raised his arm and the sphere in his hand glowed brighter, casting white light all around them. At first glance, Sarah thought they were indeed in a small cave, but as she looked closer she saw that the walls and roof were made of hewn stone. "Interesting," Jareth said, surprise clearly showing on his face. "What do you make of it, Sarah?"
She pushed her bruised ego to the side and forced herself to be civil. "A dungeon?" she guessed. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here for ages."
"Likely no one has," he agreed. "The oubliette is something of a last defense and very few ever come so far. Think, Sarah: where does one usually find a dungeon?"
"Under a castle?" she hazarded.
"Exactly!" he said, snapping his fingers. "We were completely in the Labyrinth's power. It could have taken us anywhere, yet here we are - directly underneath the tower, at the center of the maze. It has practically solved itself for us. Why would it do such a thing?" When he received no immediate answer, Jareth looked at her and raised an expectant eyebrow.
Sarah took refuge in irritation. "I haven't a clue," she snapped. "Let's just be grateful about it and try to find a way out. I assume there is one?"
"Usually," he confirmed.
After a cursory search, it became obvious that the oubliette ended in a blind cul-de-sac, leaving them with only one way to go. They set off down the wide passageway, neither talking nor looking at one another. The tension between them was ugly and palpable, but Sarah couldn't think of any way to ease it that didn't involve personal mortification. She kept silent.
They had not been walking for long when they began to hear a strange, muted rumble that reminded Sarah of the sound of a subway train right before it pulls into a station. It grew steadily louder the further they went until it became practically a roar, and Sarah was starting to wonder whether the tower might not sit on top of some weird underground factory when they came around a sharp bend and saw the source of the noise.
A stream of water as thick as a man's waist poured torrentially through a crack in the wall high overhead, plummeting down hundreds of feet to disappear into blackness below. A narrow chasm divided the path in front of them, worn away by centuries of pounding water, and Sarah peeked over the edge to see the white, frothy rapids of a subterranean river. It was a very long way down. Just beyond the far side of the abyss, a rusty iron door was set into the black, pitted stone of old foundations. Sarah was sure that the door led to the heart of the Labyrinth, into the belly of the black tower. Spanning the cleft was a narrow wooden bridge.
They approached the bridge cautiously and Jareth bent his head to yell in her ear, "It's probably nearly rotted away from the spray."
Straining to be heard above the thunder of the waterfall, Sarah shouted, "There's no light down here. Doesn't mold need light? Maybe it's been magicked."
Jareth replied, "There's only one way to find out." He put a tentative foot on the first slat, pressing down with his toes. The bridge swayed slightly but seemed to hold firm. Slowly, he transferred his whole weight onto that foot, lips compressed in concentration, then paused as something caught his eye. He bent to examine the black wood, then straightened and yelled, "There's something written here."
"What's it say?" Sarah bellowed.
He regarded the inscription for a moment. "'That which is hidden shall be revealed, ere you reach the castle.' It doesn't seem very sinister, at least!"
"We've gotten in trouble before because we assumed things were safe," Sarah reminded him.
Jareth turned to look at the little door on the far side of the chasm. "Care to try our luck one more time?" he shouted.
Sarah followed his gaze and realized he was right. They were too close not to gamble a little. "Do you have anything particularly nasty that might have to be revealed?" she asked him. He shook his head and held out his hand. Biting her lip, Sarah placed her fingers in his (probably for the last time, her brain whispered) and wondered if the bridge would suddenly start shouting that she was in love with the Goblin King, since that was just about the only hidden thing she could think of. Oh well, at least it wouldn't kill her. Jareth gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and they started across.
It was relatively easy, actually, provided you didn't look down. The span couldn't have been more than forty feet and the bridge felt remarkably steady. In no time at all, Jareth reached the opposite side and Sarah relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever had built the bridge had placed its far end bizarrely low, so that you had to heave yourself over a lip that came up to the middle of Sarah's chest. Jareth let go of her hand and pulled himself up easily, and she stepped forward to follow him.
It all happened so quickly, yet each individual event seemed to stretch out for an eternity. First she heard a snap, like brittle candy, and turned her head as if in slow motion to see the tethers on the far side give way. She saw the bridge fall away beneath her and felt herself become weightless. She heard Jareth's howl and the gentle slap of her hand as it slid along the smooth boards, then felt her fingers slide into a crack, catch, and hold. The sudden wrench of arresting her fall threatened to rip her shoulder from its socket and she groaned in pain, then opened her eyes to see the whiteness of rushing water far below her dangling feet. She gathered herself, then flung her free hand up to scrabble against the wooden boards until she found purchase between two planks. Hanging suspended over the maelstrom, Sarah raised her head to meet the agonized gaze of the Goblin King.
She had fallen nearly thirty feet, much too far for Jareth to reach her. "Don't move!" he called down to her, then fashioned a thick silver rope with a turn of his hand and started to lower it down. As soon as it passed below the point where the bridge was still attached to the cliff, however, it suddenly frayed into nothing. Sarah could see his mouth working furiously, and despite her situation she had to smile at the creative vulgarity she imagined pouring from his lips. He tried a ladder, a staircase, even a long pole, but everything he conjured dissolved instantly once it passed the end of the bridge. Sarah was in agony by this time. Her left shoulder felt like it was on fire, and it was all she could do not to press her face against the boards and sob.
Jareth seemed to be thinking, then held up a finger and disappeared. While he was gone, she tried to see if she could climb any higher, but the bridge slats were worn smooth with age. Except for the lucky chink she had clutched in desperation, the joins were too tight to get a handhold. At length Jareth reappeared, dragging something behind him. As she watched in horror, he swung himself over the ledge and began to lower himself down a silver rope.
"No way!" Sarah yelled with all the strength she could muster. "Don't you dare! You've got to stop Duath, remember?"
Jareth paid no attention to her and continued climbing downward. His waist was already past the point where his magical ropes had disappeared, and neither leg had dissolved. Sarah held her breath, mentally crossing her fingers for all she was worth. Maybe it would work! Just then, however, he reached out to grab a part of the rope below the end of the bridge. As soon as his hand touched it, the silver cable disintegrated and he was left dangling one-handed above her. Grunting with effort, he pulled himself back up and hovered over the edge, clearly at a loss.
Sarah yelled up to him, "Be rational, Jareth! The Gate is all that matters. Go on, get out of here!"
He called back, "What about you?"
She put on her best brave face. "I'll be fine," she told him, projecting all the false confidence she could muster. In fact, she could feel her fingers beginning to slip already. "I've got a nice good hold here. I'll be here when you get back."
Jareth eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then declared, "If you think I'm leaving you here, you are tremendously mistaken."
Sarah felt the wood grow slick beneath her cold fingers and she slipped a fraction of an inch. It was enough to tell her what was coming. "Don't be stupid," she shot up at him, "I could hang here all day if I had to. Go get Duath!"
"I'm not leaving you," he said stubbornly.
Her grip was becoming more tenuous by the second. "What about the Underground, and the Uplands?" she shouted desperately. "You can't let Duath invade them just because of me. I'm not that important!" Suddenly she slipped, letting out a yell and falling nearly a foot before she caught the overlarge edge of the last board.
"No!" Jareth howled, flinging himself recklessly forward. There was nothing he could do, however. There was no way to reach her. "I won't watch you die," he sobbed. "There must be a way to help you!"
Sarah felt more afraid than she ever had in her life, but he couldn't afford to waste any more time. "If you don't want to watch me die, then you better go now," she called up to him. He flinched, his wild eyes full of madness. She drank in the sight of his face, memorizing each feature. At least she would have this last pleasure to take with her when she fell.
He lay down at the lip of the chasm. "You can't fall," he said almost reasonably, "or I'll throw myself in after you."
"What? Have you gone totally insane?" Sarah felt hot rage boil up inside her. Why wouldn't he leave? Why did he have to stand there making stupid threats like that?
Almost as if in answer, Jareth said in a broken voice, "I love you too much to live without you."
His words were almost lost in the roar of the falls. She caught their echo and for a moment she didn't understand them, but as they percolated to her brain she went numb with shock. He loved her? Looking up, she saw a strange light blazing in his eyes that made her stomach contract. She knew that emotion; she'd felt it often enough herself recently. A sense of peace washed over her. She had been wrong about his feelings for her, dead wrong. The depth of his caring was written on his face as plain as day, but she had only seen it now that it was too late. "That which was hidden is now revealed," Sarah whispered.
Her vision began to swim. Blood thundered in her ears, her breath came in labored gasps, and shadows crept in around the corners of her eyes. Sarah recognized the signs and groaned in despair. If she fainted now, it was all over. How fitting that the illness she had tried so hard to overcome should get her in the end. "Oh god, please no," she prayed, but she had no strength to fight back. Black fog rolled across her eyes and her fingers slipped from the plank.
It was somehow different this time. She didn't see any visions or hear strange voices; rather, it was like watching a dream through a magnifying glass from far away. She saw Jareth move as if to make good on his threat and muttered "Oh no you don't. You stay there." Just like the dreams when you can tell the characters what to do, his figure immediately froze. Looking down, she saw the river rushing up to meet her. Obviously that wouldn't do. Extending a hand, she stirred up a column of water and raised it to intercept her, gently stopping her fall. "Up we go," she ordered, and her pillar of water obediently swelled beneath her and bore her to the top of the chasm. "Just set me down here, thanks," she requested, and the stream broke obligingly over Jareth's head, drenching him from head to foot and depositing her in his arms. "You idiot, you were really going to jump, weren't you?" Sarah said, and fainted dead away.
The first thing she noticed when consciousness returned was that the surface on which she rested was vibrating. She felt warm and comfortable, and the rosy glow of candlelight tugged gently at her eyelids. Upon opening them, she saw that she was in a dusty brick-walled cellar, surrounded by barrels and bottles and long strings of garlic. Jareth's arms were around her and he was rocking her gently back and forth, humming a strange, soothing song. From its gentle rhythm and simple melody, Sarah guessed it to be a lullaby. "This is much nicer than you telling me how foolish I am all the time," she mumbled into his jacket.
His rocking stilled and he laughed, low and sweet, tightening his arms about her. "My dear Sarah, I only do that when I'm angry with you. After the spectacular feat you just accomplished, I swear I shall never be angry again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said, tapping a lazy finger against the silver buttons on his coat. "I had the weirdest dream just now. I think I fainted again, right?" Her memories weren't exactly adding up. Shouldn't she be at the bottom of a river?
"Ah," Jareth said, his chest rumbling delightfully under her cheek. "Yes, you did faint, and I'm very glad you did."
"That doesn't make any sense," Sarah complained. "Why would anyone be glad about that?"
"I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?" She nodded into his jacket and he explained, "When I first laid eyes on you, I thought you had one of the strangest auras I had ever seen. It was literally bursting with strength, but was completely detached from the rest of you. The first time you fainted, just before we escaped from Heldenholm, I was prepared to go down fighting, but there was no need because a bolt of magic came out of nowhere and destroyed half the town. I immediately looked for a mage who might wield such power, but I only saw you, crumpled in the road and quite unconscious. I was suspicious, but you seemed to accept my explanation of the townsfolk's rebellion so naturally that I began to doubt what I had seen. Just now, however, I saw you pull yourself from that chasm with as much invention as the greatest mages in the Underground - though with slightly less finesse, I must admit. You soaked me through, my dear."
"Hey," Sarah said indignantly, "you weren't the one dangling over the cliffs of insanity there. But I don't have any magic, I can't possibly have done those things. You must have done them yourself without realizing it."
His arms tightened convulsively around her. "Believe me, I was trying every spell I know but they all came flying back in my face. I . . . I thought you were dead, and suddenly I was hit with the hardest 'stay put' I have ever received in my life, and that's saying something! Then you rose up before me like a goddess from the waters and dumped the whole lot right on top of my head - ow!" Grinning, he rubbed his arm where Sarah had punched him. Sobering, he turned her to face him. "Think, Sarah: what happens if a man with potential to be the greatest musician in the world never sees a musical instrument, never hears a single song? He dreams of music, but from the time he is a very small child everyone around him tells him that no such thing exists. He grows up, he learns a great many things, and at every step of the way he learns that there is no music, that music is not real. Do you think if he happened to come across a lyre in the woods that it would ever occur to him to pick it up and play it? In your world, magic is dismissed as something imaginary. At every moment in your life, you have been told that there is no such thing. Sarah, you believed so strongly that you could not do magic that your talent was utterly repressed. In those few moments when your safety absolutely required it, your magic resorted to rendering you unconscious in order to free itself from your firm conviction that it did not exist!"
Sarah stared at him. "I can do magic?" she asked, dazed.
"Not only can you do magic, you're one of the best mages I have ever seen," he told her earnestly. Cupping her face in his hands, he whispered, "My beautiful, otherworldly girl, you amaze me at every turn."
"Wait a minute," she said. "We need to test this. Teach me a spell."
Jareth was taken aback by this. "Well. . . try this. It's to summon a light, and it's quite elementary. Hold your hand like so." He positioned his hand in front of her face, palm up, and she copied him dutifully. "Now think of light. Not fire, or you'll burn yourself, but light - bright, white light - and command it to come to you."
Sarah stared at her palm and commanded light to appear. Nothing happened. "How can I be a mage if I can't do something simple like that?" she asked miserably.
"Belief, Sarah, your belief is the key! Magic does exist." He took her hand in his. "Magic does exist, and you are a mage."
"Magic does exist," Sarah whispered. She knew it was true, she had seen far too much empirical evidence over the past few days to harbor any doubts, but it was her own abilities she was not too sure about. Casting her mind back, though, she could see a clear pattern in her fainting fits now that she knew what to look for. She had always been in trouble, or someone near her had been in trouble, and things had generally sorted themselves out before she regained consciousness. "I am a mage," she breathed, trying to make herself believe it, and commanded her palm to fill with light. A silvery radiance sprang into being above her hand, bathing her face with brilliance. "Oh wow," she said. "Am I doing this?"
"Yes!" Jareth cried triumphantly. Jumping up, he spun her off her feet into a fierce embrace, murmuring into her ear, "My little mage, my little mage."
"Hey," Sarah said shyly, "I feel pretty great. I mean, it's like a huge missing piece has suddenly been fit back into my life."
He gave her a searching, slightly unfocused look and nodded. "Your aura looks healthier than I've ever seen it," he told her. "It's come back to the rest of you."
"Will you teach me?" she demanded. "How to see auras and make silver swords and things?"
"All kinds of things," he promised. A shadow fell across his eyes and he said hesitantly, "Sarah. . . "
"I know," she said, laying a gentle finger across his lips. "All this can come later. Right now we have to do something about Duath." He nodded, a stricken look on his face. "Hey, it will be okay," she said softly. "After all, I'm still a total novice here. I might blow him up without even knowing what I'm doing."
Jareth laid a trembling hand against her dark hair. "To have waited so long, finally to have found you, and now to risk losing you. . . I do not know if I can bear it."
"You can't face him alone, so don't even think it!" she warned him.
His eyes were extraordinarily gentle as he held out his hand. "Shall we, my lady?" he offered.
"Of course, my lord," she replied, placing her fingers on his. Trembling only a very little bit, Jareth led her up the stairs toward the tower, and Duath.
She stepped out of the dark into a hall full of people. A sea of heads turned in her direction, a legion of eyes glittering behind fanciful, bizarre masks that transformed their owners into creatures out of a dream. A thousand candles burned in a dozen chandeliers, their flames multiplied ten times over by the great mirrors that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. The lyric strains of an orchestra filled the air with music. She noticed the whispers escaping from behind painted fans, saw the jealous looks from vicious female eyes, and heard a soft sigh rising from masculine throats. A question rippled through the crowd: "Who is she? Who is she?" Raising the silk of her gown ever so slightly (and perfectly aware of the male stares locked on her dainty slipper), she stepped into the center of the room and raised an elegant hand. She was immediately surrounded by a dozen masked men, their abandoned ladies pouting at their backs. A gloved hand seized her fingers and she was whirled away into the dance.
Her partner was tall, willowy as a reed, with a hawk's fierce plumage hiding his face. He danced divinely, flashing his feathers ostentatiously before her, but she quickly became bored with him. Pushing him away, she found herself swept into the arms of another man who flexed his broad shoulders for her amusement. He utterly failed to arouse her interest. She danced with short men, tall men, warriors and poets, teasing them to the brink of madness with her caress, her smile, and her inevitable dismissal. She grew impatient and began to search, pushing through the throng with angry strokes. Supplications rose on all sides but she ignored them, intent on her purpose.
The crowd parted before her, and there he was. Like herself, he wore no mask. Their eyes met and all other thought vanished from her mind. He shrugged off the clinging hands of the women who surrounded him, ignoring their complaints, and wordlessly offered her his arm. She laid her fingers on his sleeve and he brought her to the dance floor.
She slipped her left hand along the silk of his jacket to rest gently on the muscle of his upper arm, her eyes never leaving the blue and gold of his gaze. His right hand settled in the hollow between her shoulder blades and pulled her close, holding her like a bird that might take flight if his grip proved too rough. She was barely conscious of the music, her body thrilling instead to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He danced her gracefully down the hall, his eyes drinking her in at every moment, oblivious of the whispering crowd. They spun together in a halo of candlelight, his lips moving soundlessly, promising to fulfill her every dream. She moved her fingers up his neck to rest softly against his cheek. In response, he buried his hand in her dark curls, cupping the back of her head and tilting her face up to his, and she quivered with anticipation as she saw the intent in his eyes. As gently as a summer breeze he bent his head to hers, and she closed her eyes and felt his lips against her mouth. His first touch was brief, the brush of a butterfly's wings, but no sooner had he pulled away than he was dipping his head to her again. His mouth was warm and strong, drawing her gently into a deeper embrace, and she trembled at the fierceness of her response to his touch. She pulled him to her, parting her lips in temptation. A low moan rose from his throat as he bore down on her mouth, and she tasted -
Peaches. Sarah's eyes flew open and she pushed away from his kiss, staring up at his face in shock. His eyes were clouded with desire - and with something much darker. Recollection beat at the deep doors of her mind, and all at once she was flooded with a tide of memories. "Jareth!" she gasped.
Befuddled, he asked, "Who is Jareth?"
She placed both hands against his face and murmured, "You are, dearest. We can't stay here, we have important work to do. You have to help me."
The fog behind his eyes cleared a little. "What must I do?" he asked uncertainly.
"Remember the Labyrinth, Jareth! How can you defeat this spell?"
He put a hand to his forehead, then shook himself like someone coming out of a long sleep. "A spell?" he asked, but his voice sounded more alert. Casting a glance around the room, he said, "It's built around mirrors. Hold on to me; there's no telling where we'll be once I shatter it."
He raised a hand and shouted a single word, and suddenly was holding a ball of icy light. Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist and closed her eyes as he leaned back and threw the shining globe at the closest mirror with all his strength.
The mirror broke with a sound like the smashing of a hundred crystal goblets, and the world around them fractured with it. Shards of screaming people flew by them and Sarah buried her face in Jareth's jacket as slivers of the hall and its masqueraders zipped past and disappeared into darkness. They hung in black limbo for a moment and then Sarah felt the sickening lurch of falling, immediately followed by the painful impact of landing. Still muddled from the spell of the peach, Jareth staggered to his knees and knocked Sarah flat on her back.
Neither of them wanted to do anything other than lie quietly for a few minutes and try to come to grips with what had happened. Although they were still engulfed in pitch darkness, the stones pressing into Sarah's back were comfortingly real and their sharp tips gave her something concrete to focus on. The last wisps of fog slowly seeped out of her brain, and the desire to curl into a ball and cry became almost overwhelming. What a terrible place this was! You couldn't trust anything, and as far as Sarah could tell they might be anywhere in the Labyrinth now. From the quality of the air around them, she guessed that they were in a large space, possibly a cave, and something about the dead silence made her sure that they were the only living creatures there. After a little while, Sarah cleared her throat and said, "I guess those peaches had a spell on them after all."
There was a pause, and then Jareth said, "Yes." His voice was flat and expressionless.
Sarah waited for more, but Jareth wasn't forthcoming. A long stretch of silence elapsed, which she finally broke by saying, "So we were under a spell when we -"
"Yes," Jareth interrupted harshly.
Sarah winced at the anger in his tone. The memory of their dance burned like fire in her mind and she fought like a lioness to keep her tears at bay. She knew she could never be that spun-sugar, fairy-tale princess in real life - she, the belle of the ball? Not likely, but he didn't have to sound so disgusted about it! There was no way she would have kissed him either if they hadn't eaten that peach! Of course, that was only because she was too cowardly to go through with it under normal circumstances, but she shrugged that fact off as a technicality. She struggled against the truth for as long as she could, then grimaced in defeat. Who was she kidding? His kiss had been the most wonderful thing she had ever felt, and she had to admit that she'd been thinking about it in the back of her mind for days. His rejection sliced more deeply than she ever would have believed. What she really needed was a good sobbing session and possibly a mountain of chocolate to apply some first aid to this emotional wound, but there just wasn't time. Her poor heart would simply have to bleed itself dry.
The best thing to do was to ignore it, pretend it never happened. They could still accomplish what they had set out to do and destroy the Black Gate. Sarah had found the thought of being trapped in Tir-na-nOg forever to be bearable only because the Goblin King would be her fellow exile, but that comfort had now turned to ashes. She thought of the bleak, eternal twilight and the gaunt, hungry faces of the Land of Eternal Youth and shuddered. Would she end up like that, with a twenty-year-old body and hundred-year-old eyes?
Her thoughts turned to her home, to friends and family. Poor Pierce, how worried he must be! And her father was probably beating himself up night and day trying to find her. Sarah thought of Sandy with her hearty laugh, Becky with her constant hypochondria, and Karen with her antiquated propriety. She wondered if Merlin would eat all of Dad's shoes again to show he missed her. Dogs were funny that way.
To keep them safe, she would destroy her only way home. They were worth it. Hope of seeing them again would keep her alive through the lonely years ahead, and who knew? The universe was full of possibilities, and maybe she would get to feel the sun on her face again after all. One thing was certain: their time was running out. "We should get going," Sarah said.
"Yes, we have dawdled long enough," Jareth said in clipped tones, and a light blossomed in the darkness. He raised his arm and the sphere in his hand glowed brighter, casting white light all around them. At first glance, Sarah thought they were indeed in a small cave, but as she looked closer she saw that the walls and roof were made of hewn stone. "Interesting," Jareth said, surprise clearly showing on his face. "What do you make of it, Sarah?"
She pushed her bruised ego to the side and forced herself to be civil. "A dungeon?" she guessed. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here for ages."
"Likely no one has," he agreed. "The oubliette is something of a last defense and very few ever come so far. Think, Sarah: where does one usually find a dungeon?"
"Under a castle?" she hazarded.
"Exactly!" he said, snapping his fingers. "We were completely in the Labyrinth's power. It could have taken us anywhere, yet here we are - directly underneath the tower, at the center of the maze. It has practically solved itself for us. Why would it do such a thing?" When he received no immediate answer, Jareth looked at her and raised an expectant eyebrow.
Sarah took refuge in irritation. "I haven't a clue," she snapped. "Let's just be grateful about it and try to find a way out. I assume there is one?"
"Usually," he confirmed.
After a cursory search, it became obvious that the oubliette ended in a blind cul-de-sac, leaving them with only one way to go. They set off down the wide passageway, neither talking nor looking at one another. The tension between them was ugly and palpable, but Sarah couldn't think of any way to ease it that didn't involve personal mortification. She kept silent.
They had not been walking for long when they began to hear a strange, muted rumble that reminded Sarah of the sound of a subway train right before it pulls into a station. It grew steadily louder the further they went until it became practically a roar, and Sarah was starting to wonder whether the tower might not sit on top of some weird underground factory when they came around a sharp bend and saw the source of the noise.
A stream of water as thick as a man's waist poured torrentially through a crack in the wall high overhead, plummeting down hundreds of feet to disappear into blackness below. A narrow chasm divided the path in front of them, worn away by centuries of pounding water, and Sarah peeked over the edge to see the white, frothy rapids of a subterranean river. It was a very long way down. Just beyond the far side of the abyss, a rusty iron door was set into the black, pitted stone of old foundations. Sarah was sure that the door led to the heart of the Labyrinth, into the belly of the black tower. Spanning the cleft was a narrow wooden bridge.
They approached the bridge cautiously and Jareth bent his head to yell in her ear, "It's probably nearly rotted away from the spray."
Straining to be heard above the thunder of the waterfall, Sarah shouted, "There's no light down here. Doesn't mold need light? Maybe it's been magicked."
Jareth replied, "There's only one way to find out." He put a tentative foot on the first slat, pressing down with his toes. The bridge swayed slightly but seemed to hold firm. Slowly, he transferred his whole weight onto that foot, lips compressed in concentration, then paused as something caught his eye. He bent to examine the black wood, then straightened and yelled, "There's something written here."
"What's it say?" Sarah bellowed.
He regarded the inscription for a moment. "'That which is hidden shall be revealed, ere you reach the castle.' It doesn't seem very sinister, at least!"
"We've gotten in trouble before because we assumed things were safe," Sarah reminded him.
Jareth turned to look at the little door on the far side of the chasm. "Care to try our luck one more time?" he shouted.
Sarah followed his gaze and realized he was right. They were too close not to gamble a little. "Do you have anything particularly nasty that might have to be revealed?" she asked him. He shook his head and held out his hand. Biting her lip, Sarah placed her fingers in his (probably for the last time, her brain whispered) and wondered if the bridge would suddenly start shouting that she was in love with the Goblin King, since that was just about the only hidden thing she could think of. Oh well, at least it wouldn't kill her. Jareth gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and they started across.
It was relatively easy, actually, provided you didn't look down. The span couldn't have been more than forty feet and the bridge felt remarkably steady. In no time at all, Jareth reached the opposite side and Sarah relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever had built the bridge had placed its far end bizarrely low, so that you had to heave yourself over a lip that came up to the middle of Sarah's chest. Jareth let go of her hand and pulled himself up easily, and she stepped forward to follow him.
It all happened so quickly, yet each individual event seemed to stretch out for an eternity. First she heard a snap, like brittle candy, and turned her head as if in slow motion to see the tethers on the far side give way. She saw the bridge fall away beneath her and felt herself become weightless. She heard Jareth's howl and the gentle slap of her hand as it slid along the smooth boards, then felt her fingers slide into a crack, catch, and hold. The sudden wrench of arresting her fall threatened to rip her shoulder from its socket and she groaned in pain, then opened her eyes to see the whiteness of rushing water far below her dangling feet. She gathered herself, then flung her free hand up to scrabble against the wooden boards until she found purchase between two planks. Hanging suspended over the maelstrom, Sarah raised her head to meet the agonized gaze of the Goblin King.
She had fallen nearly thirty feet, much too far for Jareth to reach her. "Don't move!" he called down to her, then fashioned a thick silver rope with a turn of his hand and started to lower it down. As soon as it passed below the point where the bridge was still attached to the cliff, however, it suddenly frayed into nothing. Sarah could see his mouth working furiously, and despite her situation she had to smile at the creative vulgarity she imagined pouring from his lips. He tried a ladder, a staircase, even a long pole, but everything he conjured dissolved instantly once it passed the end of the bridge. Sarah was in agony by this time. Her left shoulder felt like it was on fire, and it was all she could do not to press her face against the boards and sob.
Jareth seemed to be thinking, then held up a finger and disappeared. While he was gone, she tried to see if she could climb any higher, but the bridge slats were worn smooth with age. Except for the lucky chink she had clutched in desperation, the joins were too tight to get a handhold. At length Jareth reappeared, dragging something behind him. As she watched in horror, he swung himself over the ledge and began to lower himself down a silver rope.
"No way!" Sarah yelled with all the strength she could muster. "Don't you dare! You've got to stop Duath, remember?"
Jareth paid no attention to her and continued climbing downward. His waist was already past the point where his magical ropes had disappeared, and neither leg had dissolved. Sarah held her breath, mentally crossing her fingers for all she was worth. Maybe it would work! Just then, however, he reached out to grab a part of the rope below the end of the bridge. As soon as his hand touched it, the silver cable disintegrated and he was left dangling one-handed above her. Grunting with effort, he pulled himself back up and hovered over the edge, clearly at a loss.
Sarah yelled up to him, "Be rational, Jareth! The Gate is all that matters. Go on, get out of here!"
He called back, "What about you?"
She put on her best brave face. "I'll be fine," she told him, projecting all the false confidence she could muster. In fact, she could feel her fingers beginning to slip already. "I've got a nice good hold here. I'll be here when you get back."
Jareth eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then declared, "If you think I'm leaving you here, you are tremendously mistaken."
Sarah felt the wood grow slick beneath her cold fingers and she slipped a fraction of an inch. It was enough to tell her what was coming. "Don't be stupid," she shot up at him, "I could hang here all day if I had to. Go get Duath!"
"I'm not leaving you," he said stubbornly.
Her grip was becoming more tenuous by the second. "What about the Underground, and the Uplands?" she shouted desperately. "You can't let Duath invade them just because of me. I'm not that important!" Suddenly she slipped, letting out a yell and falling nearly a foot before she caught the overlarge edge of the last board.
"No!" Jareth howled, flinging himself recklessly forward. There was nothing he could do, however. There was no way to reach her. "I won't watch you die," he sobbed. "There must be a way to help you!"
Sarah felt more afraid than she ever had in her life, but he couldn't afford to waste any more time. "If you don't want to watch me die, then you better go now," she called up to him. He flinched, his wild eyes full of madness. She drank in the sight of his face, memorizing each feature. At least she would have this last pleasure to take with her when she fell.
He lay down at the lip of the chasm. "You can't fall," he said almost reasonably, "or I'll throw myself in after you."
"What? Have you gone totally insane?" Sarah felt hot rage boil up inside her. Why wouldn't he leave? Why did he have to stand there making stupid threats like that?
Almost as if in answer, Jareth said in a broken voice, "I love you too much to live without you."
His words were almost lost in the roar of the falls. She caught their echo and for a moment she didn't understand them, but as they percolated to her brain she went numb with shock. He loved her? Looking up, she saw a strange light blazing in his eyes that made her stomach contract. She knew that emotion; she'd felt it often enough herself recently. A sense of peace washed over her. She had been wrong about his feelings for her, dead wrong. The depth of his caring was written on his face as plain as day, but she had only seen it now that it was too late. "That which was hidden is now revealed," Sarah whispered.
Her vision began to swim. Blood thundered in her ears, her breath came in labored gasps, and shadows crept in around the corners of her eyes. Sarah recognized the signs and groaned in despair. If she fainted now, it was all over. How fitting that the illness she had tried so hard to overcome should get her in the end. "Oh god, please no," she prayed, but she had no strength to fight back. Black fog rolled across her eyes and her fingers slipped from the plank.
It was somehow different this time. She didn't see any visions or hear strange voices; rather, it was like watching a dream through a magnifying glass from far away. She saw Jareth move as if to make good on his threat and muttered "Oh no you don't. You stay there." Just like the dreams when you can tell the characters what to do, his figure immediately froze. Looking down, she saw the river rushing up to meet her. Obviously that wouldn't do. Extending a hand, she stirred up a column of water and raised it to intercept her, gently stopping her fall. "Up we go," she ordered, and her pillar of water obediently swelled beneath her and bore her to the top of the chasm. "Just set me down here, thanks," she requested, and the stream broke obligingly over Jareth's head, drenching him from head to foot and depositing her in his arms. "You idiot, you were really going to jump, weren't you?" Sarah said, and fainted dead away.
The first thing she noticed when consciousness returned was that the surface on which she rested was vibrating. She felt warm and comfortable, and the rosy glow of candlelight tugged gently at her eyelids. Upon opening them, she saw that she was in a dusty brick-walled cellar, surrounded by barrels and bottles and long strings of garlic. Jareth's arms were around her and he was rocking her gently back and forth, humming a strange, soothing song. From its gentle rhythm and simple melody, Sarah guessed it to be a lullaby. "This is much nicer than you telling me how foolish I am all the time," she mumbled into his jacket.
His rocking stilled and he laughed, low and sweet, tightening his arms about her. "My dear Sarah, I only do that when I'm angry with you. After the spectacular feat you just accomplished, I swear I shall never be angry again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said, tapping a lazy finger against the silver buttons on his coat. "I had the weirdest dream just now. I think I fainted again, right?" Her memories weren't exactly adding up. Shouldn't she be at the bottom of a river?
"Ah," Jareth said, his chest rumbling delightfully under her cheek. "Yes, you did faint, and I'm very glad you did."
"That doesn't make any sense," Sarah complained. "Why would anyone be glad about that?"
"I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?" She nodded into his jacket and he explained, "When I first laid eyes on you, I thought you had one of the strangest auras I had ever seen. It was literally bursting with strength, but was completely detached from the rest of you. The first time you fainted, just before we escaped from Heldenholm, I was prepared to go down fighting, but there was no need because a bolt of magic came out of nowhere and destroyed half the town. I immediately looked for a mage who might wield such power, but I only saw you, crumpled in the road and quite unconscious. I was suspicious, but you seemed to accept my explanation of the townsfolk's rebellion so naturally that I began to doubt what I had seen. Just now, however, I saw you pull yourself from that chasm with as much invention as the greatest mages in the Underground - though with slightly less finesse, I must admit. You soaked me through, my dear."
"Hey," Sarah said indignantly, "you weren't the one dangling over the cliffs of insanity there. But I don't have any magic, I can't possibly have done those things. You must have done them yourself without realizing it."
His arms tightened convulsively around her. "Believe me, I was trying every spell I know but they all came flying back in my face. I . . . I thought you were dead, and suddenly I was hit with the hardest 'stay put' I have ever received in my life, and that's saying something! Then you rose up before me like a goddess from the waters and dumped the whole lot right on top of my head - ow!" Grinning, he rubbed his arm where Sarah had punched him. Sobering, he turned her to face him. "Think, Sarah: what happens if a man with potential to be the greatest musician in the world never sees a musical instrument, never hears a single song? He dreams of music, but from the time he is a very small child everyone around him tells him that no such thing exists. He grows up, he learns a great many things, and at every step of the way he learns that there is no music, that music is not real. Do you think if he happened to come across a lyre in the woods that it would ever occur to him to pick it up and play it? In your world, magic is dismissed as something imaginary. At every moment in your life, you have been told that there is no such thing. Sarah, you believed so strongly that you could not do magic that your talent was utterly repressed. In those few moments when your safety absolutely required it, your magic resorted to rendering you unconscious in order to free itself from your firm conviction that it did not exist!"
Sarah stared at him. "I can do magic?" she asked, dazed.
"Not only can you do magic, you're one of the best mages I have ever seen," he told her earnestly. Cupping her face in his hands, he whispered, "My beautiful, otherworldly girl, you amaze me at every turn."
"Wait a minute," she said. "We need to test this. Teach me a spell."
Jareth was taken aback by this. "Well. . . try this. It's to summon a light, and it's quite elementary. Hold your hand like so." He positioned his hand in front of her face, palm up, and she copied him dutifully. "Now think of light. Not fire, or you'll burn yourself, but light - bright, white light - and command it to come to you."
Sarah stared at her palm and commanded light to appear. Nothing happened. "How can I be a mage if I can't do something simple like that?" she asked miserably.
"Belief, Sarah, your belief is the key! Magic does exist." He took her hand in his. "Magic does exist, and you are a mage."
"Magic does exist," Sarah whispered. She knew it was true, she had seen far too much empirical evidence over the past few days to harbor any doubts, but it was her own abilities she was not too sure about. Casting her mind back, though, she could see a clear pattern in her fainting fits now that she knew what to look for. She had always been in trouble, or someone near her had been in trouble, and things had generally sorted themselves out before she regained consciousness. "I am a mage," she breathed, trying to make herself believe it, and commanded her palm to fill with light. A silvery radiance sprang into being above her hand, bathing her face with brilliance. "Oh wow," she said. "Am I doing this?"
"Yes!" Jareth cried triumphantly. Jumping up, he spun her off her feet into a fierce embrace, murmuring into her ear, "My little mage, my little mage."
"Hey," Sarah said shyly, "I feel pretty great. I mean, it's like a huge missing piece has suddenly been fit back into my life."
He gave her a searching, slightly unfocused look and nodded. "Your aura looks healthier than I've ever seen it," he told her. "It's come back to the rest of you."
"Will you teach me?" she demanded. "How to see auras and make silver swords and things?"
"All kinds of things," he promised. A shadow fell across his eyes and he said hesitantly, "Sarah. . . "
"I know," she said, laying a gentle finger across his lips. "All this can come later. Right now we have to do something about Duath." He nodded, a stricken look on his face. "Hey, it will be okay," she said softly. "After all, I'm still a total novice here. I might blow him up without even knowing what I'm doing."
Jareth laid a trembling hand against her dark hair. "To have waited so long, finally to have found you, and now to risk losing you. . . I do not know if I can bear it."
"You can't face him alone, so don't even think it!" she warned him.
His eyes were extraordinarily gentle as he held out his hand. "Shall we, my lady?" he offered.
"Of course, my lord," she replied, placing her fingers on his. Trembling only a very little bit, Jareth led her up the stairs toward the tower, and Duath.