"Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time."

From "Siren Song", by Margaret Atwood

~*~

The sun had vanished behind the hills in the distance, but the sky in what Katherine assumed was probably the west was still lit up in roses and purples. She knew what caused spectacular sunsets: air pollution. Smog. Particulates.

She hoped Jareth would choke on them.

That was a "Kathy" thought, wasn't it, not a "Katherine" one? It was hard to imagine a Katherine cursing her enemies with pollutant-sensitive asthma. A Katherine would probably… oh, probably a Katherine would never have gotten into a situation like this. Katherines were Queens. Tough. Noble. Courageous. Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry the Eighth. Catholic. Divorced in favor of Anne Boleyn. Spent the rest of her life pining over her fat, syphilitic husband. Prize doormat. Maybe not. How about Katherine the Great? Russian. Took hundreds of lovers. Collected thousands of pieces of art. Maybe. Except didn't she die on the toilet?

Maybe not.

"Great role models," murmured Katherine, and then wondered if Katherines talked to themselves, and tried to recount other times when Kathy had thought aloud.

"Which way, miz?" asked Screwtape. The path had come to a fork. Both of the routes seemed to lead approximately in the direction of the castle, hulking on a hill, its windows lighting one by one. One road was a faint, grassy track, the other was well traveled, wide, and made of cobblestones.

"I don't know. I'm guessing there's probably something awful down both," she replied. She reached into the little fifth pocket of her jeans, and pulled out a quarter. "Heads, we go left… Tails, right. Ready?" She flipped the coin into the air, where it caught the red light of sunset, and vanished at the apex of its toss with an audible "plop" of displaced air.

"And just what the HELL is that supposed to mean?" she shouted at no one in particular.

The goblins conferred among themselves, and Gutbucket came back with, "It means that neither of them is the right path, miz. Some'ow we've come astray. Probably somefing to do wif events at the bridge, Miz." Both goblins looked at her reproachfully. They had repeatedly explained how it was insanely stupid to give up your name to a stranger, albeit without actually calling her "insanely stupid". Some things, to them, clearly went without saying.

"Oh, Christ," she grated out, and sighed, "Fine. Let's take the path more traveled by. At least we'll get to the next stupid damn symbolic task quicker."

The three walked onto the cobbled lane that wound through the ferny grasslands.

~*~

Torches, candles, and oil lamps lighted the throne room. The hundreds of flames heated it, as did the breaths of the goblins packed around a circle in the center. It had been cold, and silent, but now it was warmed, and riotously noisy with the voices of goblins, the high laughter of a boy, and the clipped accents of its King.

"Look over there! A squadron of elephants in Sopwith Camels!"

Eric turned around, tricked by the tone of voice rather than the content, and Jareth's blunted practice blade touched his back above the heart.

"Touché."

"Hey! That's not fair," complained Eric, although he was laughing.

"Oh, honestly, when will you people give it up?" replied Jareth, laughing in his turn, "This isn't chess, boy. All's fair, and cheating is encouraged. If I were concerned about fairness I wouldn't play at blades with a ten year old."

"I'm eleven!"

"As you say. But sit down. You're panting." Snapping his gloved fingers, Jareth strode to his throne and flung himself into it. He wasn't even breathing hard. Drawing a white handkerchief from the air with a gesture, he handed it to Eric. "And sweating."

Eric sat down at the foot of the throne, mopped his freckled forehead, and drank deeply from the glass of water proffered to him by a servitor-goblin.

"Thank you," he said politely to the goblin, which blushed black and scurried off. "Gee, what'd I say? Can I have a crystal, your highness? I want to see what Kathy's doing."

"In a moment, boy. First I was wondering if you've considered what we discussed earlier."

"What that we discussed earlier?"

"If you would like to stay of your own free will. Now that you've seen a bit more of what the Underground has to offer, perhaps you have reached a decision?"

Eric looked down, and Jareth knew the answer in that averted glance. Damn, he thought. "Um, sire…" said Eric, "Thank you very much, but, I want to go home. Even if the others wouldn't miss me, I would miss them too much."

Damn damn damn.

"Very well, young Eric. Speaking of games of chess, do you play?"

"Sometimes, with Jared."

"Jared being…"

"My big brother, your majesty."

"Your mother named her firstborn son Jared?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hm. Well, perhaps you might be a worthwhile opponent, then. You can't be much worse than a goblin, anyway." A board on a round, marble-topped table materialized before him. "You can play white."

"Actually, I probably should look in the crystal for Kathy…"

Jareth exhaled an exaggerated sigh. "Of course, if you like. Although it will do her no earthly good, and you have very little time left to try and best me in anything. Certainly I'm the better swordsman… I suppose the question of who is the better strategist will have to go unanswered."

Eric stiffened, staring at the Goblin King on his throne, "What makes you think I want to beat you at anything?"

"It's obvious. You're a human boy, and a young wizard. As such, naturally you will want to test your teeth against your elders and betters. So…" extending a gloved hand, he pushed the board an inch towards Eric. "Your move."

"Bring it on."

They're so very easy to distract when they're young.

~*~

The ferny path had faded into a maze of privet hedges higher than her head, so subtly that Katherine had not noticed the change. And it wasn't really a maze. There was only one path, and although its course was tortuous, it clearly was aiming towards one final goal. What was the word for a maze like that?

Well, duh. A Labyrinth. Sheesh. This was from the practical, sensible part of herself that Katherine hadn't heard since coming on the magical mystery tour section of her Christmas break. It was something of a relief to hear that hectoring voice again.

A Labyrinth. She had seen one at the cathedral at Chartres, the summer after she graduated high school. It was a spiral on the floor, worn into grooves by the generations of pilgrims crawling towards its center on hands and knees. Hopefully the center of this was the Castle Beyond the Goblin City.

Well, it's a relief not to have to make any more decisions, anyway, piped up practicality again. Katherine scrunched up her brow at that one. Sensibility was a bitch sometimes, but she never had told her to stop thinking before. Maybe that little voice in her head had changed her name too.

There is a problem with being practical and sensible, although most people will never encounter it. In a rational world, practicality and sensibility are the best way to get you through the day. But in a world where rationality is not on a first-name basis with reality (It has to call him "Mister Reality") the practical and sensible thing to do is to be neither practical, nor sensible.

This makes no sense. But it's true. That's a characteristic of the lands beyond the fields we know.

Katherine raised her head at the sound of women's voices ahead of them. They were sweet, and melodious, and very much human. Practical-sensible said, Oh, let's hurry before they go away. Perhaps they will help us.

Instinct said, Actually, it might be a good idea at this point to cover our ears and run like hell. But Katherine couldn't hear her instincts as well as Kathy once did, and the voice was faint.

She picked up her pace. The goblins glanced at one another, and said, "Miz Williams?" Katherine ignored them, and started jogging.

"Wot's she about, then?" asked Gutbucket.

"I dunno, but I don' like it," replied Screwtape, unsheathing his sword. "C'mon, lad."

They trotted along behind her, sprinting when they saw Kathy start racing ahead. The hedge-path led them along its meandering path for a few minutes, until the turning of a corner revealed a small silver lake. On an island in the center, three women, dressed in white gowns that shone like the scales of a fish, or the plumage of a bird, played upon lutes, and sang in sensible, practical voices:

"The truth is this,

All are snared in their dreams each night.

But sometimes there is an opportunity

for the wise to see clearly, and say:

this is not the truth of the world

for such things as these do not exist!

And on saying such, the dream most often changes.

But if it does not, one may still triumph

by riding the night mare, and not vice versa!

By stepping off the path of the evil dream.

And saying, This dream is mine, and I its master.

Thus, refuse to be carried in the eddies and swirls of hollow fantasy!

So you shall awaken in the morning,

seeing the folly of the twisted logic of the dream

that seemed so sensible before.

And all that shall remain is a fading memory

Gone even before breakfast."

"It don't even rhyme," said Gutbucket.

"It's a siren song, 'alfwit. The rhyming ain't the point," replied You-know-who, looking up at Katherine. She had waded out to her ankles, and now stood staring at the three feathery women on their island. The silver water lapped around her ankles and soaked her sneakers, but she was oblivious. "It's wot she wants to 'ear, see? And they make 'er believe it's the truth."

"Well, now wot?"

Screwtape stretched out a knobbly hand and extended his four black claws. "Well, we've got to try and snap 'er out of it, eh?"

And he took a swipe across her calf, cutting through the fabric of her jeans as easily as a razor, and opening three deep cuts in the flesh of her leg. She didn't even flinch.

"Bugger."

~*~

Eric stared at the board intently.

"Take your time, boy."

Eric reached out his freckled hand and moved his bishop. Jareth smiled his wolf's grin, and moved a knight. "Check. It's important to take control of the center, Eric. Your move."

"Crap."

~*~

Time passed. Too much. The pocket watch, sitting forgotten in Katherine's backpack, ticked ever closer to thirteen o'clock.

~*~

And then a figure appeared in out of the darkness. It seemed mightily misshapen, until it became clear that it was in fact, two figures, a dwarf carried on the shoulders of a beast.

"Ohh…" grumbled Hoggle, "Put me down, will you? This doesn't look good."

He splashed through the shallows of the lake, to where Katherine stood, still gazing out towards the now shadow-hidden island. The scratches on her leg had scabbed over long since. She stood bent at the waist, since hanging off of her front (One gnarled hand gripping the front of her t-shirt, iron-booted feet planted on her slim stomach) was Gutbucket, waving his sword in her face and shouting "WAKE UP, YOU DAFT BINT!"

"Climb down off of there. Ye've got to stop her from hearing the song, idiot. Otherwise we'll be here forever. Give us a boost."

The two goblins, mightily relieved to have someone giving them orders again, each took one leg and lifted Hoggle to the level of Katherine's face.

"Well, you don't much take after your mum, do you? At least she didn't get stuck in her fantasies for hours." He reached out his hands and pressed them firmly over her ears. "Damn. She's good n'thralled. Ludo, see what you can do."

The beast nodded, and raised his horned head towards the starry sky. He knew how to summon the rocks, and this was more or less the same principle. The low bellowing note he sounded spoke to Katherine's bones, which passed a message through her blood and finally up to her brain.

Her blue-gray eyes cleared, and she wobbled where she stood. "What the…" she whispered.

"NOW GRAB HER AND RUN!" shouted Hoggle.

The goblins and the dwarf pushed her down, and catching her on their shoulders, splashed off around the shallows of the lake like the world's oddest hunters hurrying home from a successful foray.

Ludo ambled on after them. "Ludo friend." He waved amiably to the sirens on their island. One of them made a very rude gesture in reply, and all of them shouted imprecations that he ignored easily.

When Hoggle adjudged them to be out of earshot, he and the goblins slowed to a stop, and set Katherine down. "Okay…" she said, "So what just happened? And why are my feet wet?"

"You got snared by some sirens," said Hoggle, "It was lucky your mum sent us after you, or you might still 'ave been there."

"My mother sent you? How… who… you're… Hogwash? And Ludo?"

"Hoggle," growled the dwarf, "What's so hard to remember about my name?"

Katherine was ignoring him and rummaging through her backpack. She tugged out the silver pocketwatch and fumbled it open. The blood drained from her face, and her hands went cold at what she saw.

"Oh no…" she moaned, "No no no no no… there's less than an hour left."

She stared up at Hoggle and Ludo, in a panic. "Do you two know a shortcut from here?" she pleaded.

"There's no shortcuts in the Labyrinth, miss."

"Oh no…" she ran her hands through her hair, "Screwtape, give me your sword."

"Now, miss," hastened Hoggle, as Screwtape unfastened his sword belt, "Don't do anything rash. There's always a chance."

"I know," replied Katherine, in grim tones, stuffing the watch into her back pocket and taking the sword, "And I'm taking it. Screwtape, Gutbucket… thank you for your help. But you'll have to follow me as best you can, if you still want to."

She raised the sword, which was shorter than she would have liked, but would have to do. "From here on out, I'm going in straight lines."

The windows of the castle were lit, glowing out into the darkness. She tensed her legs and lunged, whirling the sword before her, into the first privet hedge between her and the goal. The brambles tore at her clothes and scratched her bare arms, but she pressed through.

One down. One maze-worth to go.

~*~

It was really a valiant effort.

But time was too short. She heard the whirring of the clockwork as the hands reached the end of their circuit, but kept running desperately. With the first chime, she vanished from the maze, her borrowed sword clattering to the ground.

She didn't make it.

She didn't even come close.