A/N: Thank you, so much!, to everyone who has read this, and especially to those who have reviewed this. I'm happy that anyone has the stomach to read what I write. Reviews are very encouraging! They remind me that I'm supposed to be writing, and keep me on track with what I need to improve. So again for emphasis: Thank yer, thank yer, thank yer!

And uber-thanks to my loverly beta, Genesis Grey!

Quaint Note: this is the chapter that proves I should let things sit for a few days. It used to be two chapters, and in revising them into one, I was able to put to work more of my 'useless' faerie knowledge! Enjoy. : )

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Blood Magic

As she trod down the hill, Faryn tried to remember everything Eric had ever taught her of his religion of magic. He had made quite a point of instructing her, and only now did she wonder why. Placing Ukee on her shoulder as she pondered, she was startled to find the goblin had a very long tail, which it wrapped loosely around her neck.

Faryn found herself laughing in spite of herself, and very glad for the critter's company. She scratched Ukee on the head as they neared the shining barrier, and the goblin purred in return.

Then she set to staring at the shining wall. Crouching beside it, Faryn found tiny symbols burned into the ground where the shield met it. Magic circles, she had learned, needed some sort of physical mark to create them. If one were to upset this mark, the circle would fall. Shrugging, she reached to wipe a few symbols away, and squeaked in shock as the barrier cut her. A moment later, she was bent over, heaving everything she hadn't digested onto the ground, as her body was wracked with an overwhelming sense of hunger. Ukee made worried chirps in her ear.

When she recovered, Faryn hurried quickly from the spot, patting her goblin on the head comfortingly.

"Sarah!"

The sudden cry made Faryn stumble, but she righted herself, peering through the odd wall to see who had called out. She was barely able to make out a very short man - or at least she thought it was a man. It could have been a goblin or the dwarf her mother had told her about.

"Oh, it's you," he scoffed at her. "That's a bad illusion, Eric. I wouldn't use it."

"I haven't a clue as to what you mean. Who are you," Faryn demanded, suddenly angry at the reference.

"Hoggle. Who are you?"

"Faryn," she snapped in return.

The dwarf stood staring at her for so long, Faryn was sure he'd freeze that way. "But you look like."

"Yes, yes. Sarah is my mother and Eric was my father. I thought everyone here would know that."

"Jareth's the only one who can get out, anymore. And He spends all of His time in his castle watching something or other. Half the goblins in the city are starving because they aren't allowed in the kitchens for months at a time. That bastard of a father you have ruins everything he touches," Hoggle ranted.

"Starving," Faryn mulled, having tuned out everything the dwarf had said after that. It meant something. And then she remembered.

Eric's face floated in her memory, a disembodied hand wagging one finger at her as he lectured mutely. Pressing at memories she never thought she'd need, the scene opened up. The walls of their foyer became clear behind him, the rest of his body appeared and the words became clear.

"Yes, I'm sure you could just create a field out of the will that no one get in." She had asked why magic had to be so painful. "However, it's easier and much more preventive if you take a Loose Spirit and stretch it over something." Every time she had asked that question, Eric had said that if it wasn't someone else's pain, it would have to be her own. "The stretching angers it. Then it becomes very hungry and will attack anything that touches it." That had never really answered her question. His anal retentive posturing to teach her only his way of doing things, Faryn hoped, was about to give her answers she hadn't known then that she would need.

Biting down on her lip, she shoved her hand into the shimmering field. Faryn didn't so much as grunt when she felt millions of needles assault her flesh, and watched cuts open and bleed. She watched with eyes held wide, and in the same breath that the field faltered she shoved her foot out, dispersing several of the tiny symbols in the dirt. The barrier fell with an audible scream, mirrored by Faryn's own quiet cry, and the screech of Ukee.

The girl immediately pulled her hand in toward her shirt, but never connected with her chest. She looked up to find that Hoggle had grabbed her wrist. She looked a question at him, and the dwarf shrugged. "Your shirt isn't very clean. You don't want it to get infected, do you?"

Faryn had to stare at him before her pain-muddled brain translated what he was slurring. "No. No, that would be bad."

"Right. Hold on." Hoggle set to retrieving a leaf from the edge of a square stone bath. When he tried to put it around her hand, she moved out of the way.

"That's supposed to be better?"

"Of course!" When Hoggle was fixed with her incredulous gaze, he mumbled, "Okay, so it might turn you blue and make your hair fall out." The dwarf dropped the leaf and kicked dirt over it. "Cor. I can't lie to that face. Can't you wear a different one?"

Faryn shook her head in disbelief. "It's kinda the only one I've got."

At that moment, Ukee displayed a burst of energy, leaping from Faryn's shoulder to race around Hoggle three times at a dizzying pace. She then climbed atop his head, hooking her claws into his hat to stare upside down into Hoggle's face. "Yer is just a big meanie, Hoggle. Don't yer talk ta my Faryn thatta way! Is rude!" Then she leapt from Hoggle's head to Faryn's before either had a chance to react. Perching regally, her tail twitching, she proclaimed, "My Faryn."

Between fits of laughter at the red coloring to Hoggle's cheeks, Faryn managed to ask Ukee why she hadn't spoken before.

"Di'na see a need ter. Taut yer speech were good 'nuf fer me," she explain, curling onto Faryn's shoulder again. She rubbed her head against the girl's cheek, adding, "Thank yer fer sevin me."

"Cor," Hoggle cursed. He looked at Faryn from the corner of his eyes, asking, "What'd you do that for, anyway?"

"Break the barrier?" Hoggle nodded, and Faryn stood up, shrugging. "I have to solve the labyrinth, and that involves breaking any of Eric's spells I come across. Why do you have such a problem with it - don't you want out?"

Still not trusting her, Hoggle asked, "Why would you break your father's spells?"

"Because that's the way it is done," Faryn growled through her teeth, causing Ukee to hiss and Hoggle to take a step back. Clearing her throat, the girl apologized.

Distractedly, Faryn ripped the cuff from the wrist of her shirt while they stared at her. She wrapped it once around her hand before tying a small knot to hold. "Now. I really need to get on to the labyrinth, so if you could kindly tell me how to enter?"

Hoggle nodded. "Right." He pointed to a gap in the vines that ran the length of the walls. "You gets in, there." The wall became a door, then opened onto a lone corridor running straight in from it. He looked at her oddly as she started across to it. "You're really going in there?"

"That's what I said, my man," she laughed, turning her head to avoid seeing Ukee snatch one of the fairies and eat it. "Coming with me?"

"No."

Faryn looked back at the dwarf in dismay.

"But, if you don't get eaten, or killed, or worse, you may see me again." At her smile, Hoggle added, "A bit of warning: the Labyrinth's gone crazy. er, since it was locked in on itself."

"Thank you."

It wasn't until Faryn took her first step into the labyrinth that she began to worry. The doors slammed ominously behind her, leaving her with only one path to follow. Ukee crowded against the side of her face, placing strange talon-claws delicately in her curls. She'd gotten no further when a strange cry startled both girl and goblin.

"Damn you, Gravity!"

The flying, or rather falling, bundle of molting feathers, armor, and bad smells shrieked as it tumbled out of the sky to land with a sickening crunch barely two feet in front of Faryn and Ukee. It ended up in a lump of different kinds of feathers stuck at odd angles, mixed in with mismatched pieces of metal. The little blue goblin promptly settled into a fit of high- pitch giggles that Faryn had to wince at.

"What is that," Faryn asked, before blinking to herself in dismay over repetitive bad dialogue.

Ukee was too lost in laughter to answer, but Faryn soon got her response as the bundle of pieces and parts shook and stood up. This seemed to startle the goblin on her shoulder, as Ukee's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "That is'a Amam Pherruginus. They is tarible flight-thingies. Dey'd be 'xtinct if they weren't sho good at breedin'."

Faryn peered at the mass of mismatched parts as it shook itself and turned to face them. It had a pointed beak-like visor that appeared razor-edged suspended over much of its face. A large, misshapen helmet that was once painted blue was strapped onto its head, one curved spike running from the crown of it. A breastplate that seemed too large for the goblin to flap its wings properly had several straps wrapped over it from smaller breastplates that were tied to its shoulder joints. The long, scrawny, legs were so covered in mail that when it tried to crouch against the wall, it only managed to sit down halfway, as if on a chair. Faryn imagined that it couldn't have been terribly comfortable.

"Shouldn't you be dead," she asked it without any prelude.

"Shouldn't you," it spat back.

"I didn't just fall out of the sky," Faryn countered.

"So? I was reinforced by the mighty Eric Talenka, ward of the King (until that nasty business with his nieces) and I am unkillable!" When it finished babbling, the bird-thing stood up to its full height, which was about waist level to Faryn, and threw its head back. Then promptly fell over.

Righting itself as quickly as it had fallen, the Amam Pherruginus opted to stay hunched and instead glower at the girl.

Warily, Faryn posited, "So, Eric reinforced you for a reason?"

"Yes," it stated in its shrill voice, the visor bobbing as it nodded. "I am to carry messages to him, and be sure to tell him if anything goes wrong with the shining wall."

"Oh," Faryn said, her voice suddenly silken. She sauntered towards the creature as it shuffled against the wall again. "How noble," she praised it, one hand smoothing its feathers into alignment, as the other fastened them in place. "And have you anything to tell him today?"

"I-I-I'm not s-s-s-supposed to tell an-n-nyone." Its head swiveled wildly back and forth.

Faryn stroked the Amam Pherruginus' neck hairs carefully. It seemed to immensely calm the bird, so she tried again, "You already told me what you're supposed to do. Obviously you can trust me. I won't tell."

The bird-goblin was making contented chirping noises when it answered, "No. My eyes fell out a few falls back, so I never have anything to report."

"Good Amam," Faryn purred. She scratched under its beak, which was greasy, and hairy, and not at all beak like. "Would you like me to hold you up so you can fly again?"

When the goblin nodded, Faryn picked it up by its hips, very careful not to unduly disturb any of the patched-on feathers. As she held it over her head, it flapped its wings several times before taking off. Leaving Faryn with a face-full of mismatched feathers.

"Thanks," she said sarcastically after it.

Peeling feathers from the girl's face, Ukee peered at her new master oddly. "Wot d'you do that fer?"

"Let it go, you mean?" Faryn brushed the rest of the smelly feathers away, turning back to the labyrinth and continuing her walk. "Its a stupid, harmless creature. Its not like it can follow us."

"I taut yer was s'pozed to break Eric's shpells?"

"It won't tell on us, Ukee. There's no reason to be unnecessarily cruel." She had to heave them over a rather large tree trunk, then. It grew from the wall and seemed to have no tree connected to it at all. She added as an afterthought, "Besides, knowing my father - killing it would probably be the only way he'd find out we'd met it at all."

She grinned at the blue goblin's uncertain look, scratching behind her ears. "Trust me."

Ukee gave her a moment of silence before asking, "Why din'int yer ask about ther King's nieces?"

Faryn tripped over a tree root that grew out of the wall. She regained her balance a moment after she'd lost it. "Oh, fantastic," she swore. "I was so worried that the goblin might rat us out that I didn't even notice he'd said it." She smiled sideways at the goblin, keeping an eye out for more roots. "Do you know anything about them?"

"It were b'fore my tiome."

"Ah, well. Sooner or later someone will tell us."

Half an hour later found Faryn disgruntled. "Good goddess, this corridor never ends!" As soon as the words left her mouth, the girl felt immensely stupid. She put her hand on the wall, chuckling to herself. Her good spirit was diminished again when she had spent nearly as long trailing her fingers along the walls, and still discovered no opening.

"Any ideas, Ukee?"

The blue goblin shook her furred head. "I ain't been outta der castle scents tha shealing. And then I were on'y in ther enchanched ferest."

Faryn ran her fingers over the goblin's fluffy tail more for herself than to comfort Ukee. "It's okay. How long ago was that, anyway?" It had to have been over twenty years, she pondered to herself as she stepped over treeless root after treeless root. Hoggle hadn't seemed to know Sarah had even been pregnant, let alone a mother of two.

"I were on'y a wee gobling then. I donna 'member, rightly."

They continued on for some time, Faryn fretting lightly over how things might have gone differently if the labyrinth had never been sealed. "What do you know about the labyrinth, Ukee?"

"Not much, m'fraid. I know dat it's diff'rent 'pendin' on whoshe walking it."

The treeless roots abruptly changed direction, instead of growing out of the wall, they were growing straight ahead. Where the path had been clear moments before, it was now shrouded in mist. Distractedly, she prompted, "What do you mean?"

Ukee, unaware of the changes, continued on. "I mean if'n this is yer labyrinph since you is walkin' it, it'sa gonna be differn't from my labyrinph. If i'twere my labyrinph, it would be much shorter, and dirker, cuz I'mma scered of da dirk."

"Uh-huh," Faryn acknowledged, not really listening as the mists closed in around them. The tree the roots belonged to was very close. She could feel its great mass pressing from in front of her. The mist weighed heavily all around. Faryn was given the impression that the mist was there to keep something in, not to disturb the unwary.

Then the mist was not there. Like walking through a wall, Ukee and Faryn pressed out into a clearing that seemed to be quietly breathing. A great wall loomed before them, reaching up into the vermilion sky further than they could see. It was no wall, however, but a great tree. An old tree that was more than a tree.

Faryn was so drawn to it that she never felt her feet move, yet she was beside the great tree in half a breath, gazing up at its great height, longing to touch it. The girl leaned against it, undisturbed by the warm slickness that greeted her touch. She pressed as much of her free skin to it as she could. Faryn cried. Her eyes sealed against the wash of tears, and she cried. Great sobs fought against her body, forcing her to curl into one of the hollows between the roots that stood taller than she. Still she cried.

What seemed like an eternity later, Faryn was finally able to open her sore eyes. Ukee was perched on her knees, tail flicking back and forth nervously, as her forepaws rested on Faryn's temples. "My Faryn okay?"

"I'm all right, Ukee," she whispered harshly, finding her voice gone raw. She raised a hand to stroke the goblin's fur, only to find it covered in a think red goo.

In blood.

Disturbed, the girl looked up at the tree. Upon close inspection, the tree was secreting blood, as one might find sap on a maple tree. It ran in slow, thick, rivulets here and there. One side of Faryn's body was covered in it. Ukee was remarkably untouched, but Faryn suspected that the small goblin had used her taller body as a shield.

The girl stood up, using the tree to balance in the pool that had formed at her feet. The sadness and pain she felt came from the tree, as the blood did. Someone had hurt it terribly, but somehow, she was supposed to make it better.

"Who did this to you?"

The wounds flooded for a moment. She felt accused, as if they indicated her, but not her. Faryn understood. "Poppa," she whispered to herself. "Why were you so cruel?" She took a deep breath, balling her good hand into a fist. "For his sake, I hope it wasn't our friendly Goblin King."

"How can I make you better," she called up to the tree. Her father had started training her in defense and offense, and in barriers and potions. He had never once brought up the subject of healing. Only the labyrinth had allowed her to understand why.

Tiny goblins seemed to come from nowhere, swarming over roots and down the side of the tree. When they came closer, she noticed that they were not the goblins she thought them to be. They bore great similarity to the bug-like fairies from the gardens outside the labyrinth. Only, these wore brighter, more delicate clothing that seemed to be made entirely from petals and leaves. They chattered happily in a language she almost understood, and drug with them vines from above. One ventured too near, causing Ukee to hiss and snap at it with her claw.

"Pillerwiggins!" She said the word as though it were a curse, her lips drawn back in a snarl. "They be from ther Nixen kentry! This be one o' ther trees!" The blue goblin twisted her body in ways Faryn hadn't thought possible, as she warded off the little creatures and their vines. "Why it be here?"

Faryn stared at the Pillywiggins, wondering the same thing. She remembered stories her mother had told her of many Fae things, but she didn't remember it all. She was quite certain, however, that they tended to care for things their size or smaller. Unless the tree's past protectors had been. removed.

The vines they held writhed with a life their own, occasionally trying to shake one of the tiny sprites off. It seemed they had not the strength to escape the grasp of their tiny masters. Wincing, Faryn realized what they wanted. Briefly, she wondered if everything Eric Talenka had broken would require the same thing.

"There's got to be another way," she demanded of the tree. Her hands were shaking as they brushed Ukee's fur for comfort. "Show me your wound. Maybe I can dress it."

The mists darkened. The great tree seemed to lean over them. Faryn realized that this Faerie Tree was probably as old as the labyrinth and as arrogant as the King. It wasn't the sort to ask for help, but the kind of monarch that demanded compliance.

It wouldn't let her leave without giving up what it wanted.

Her eyes wandered up the trunk of the great tree again. The rivulets drew her eyes like any sore on her own body might have. In the corners of her vision, the Pillywiggans danced anxiously, awaiting her decision.

"Have you asked the Goblin King," she tried desperately. "He knows some," her voice cracked, forcing her to swallow before continuing. "Something of Eric's magic - he might be able to help." She felt stupid as she forced a smile out for the tree. It wasn't that she didn't believe what she had said, but that the tree didn't. It oozed skepticism all over her.

There was no other choice, she realized. The deeds of her father had to be undone, and he wasn't about to do so. Given the option, she would offer herself over her brother, though either would likely do. She had chosen this responsibility, and she would bear it. Strangely, for all the rationale to do the deed that she had, Faryn didn't feel the least bit resolved.

"Faryn," her little blue goblin called gently, placing one foreclaw against her face. "Yer donna have to do this. We can run away."

"Ukee," she addressed the goblin with her raw voice. The blue goblin girl immediately recoiled, afraid. "Be calm." Faryn then lifted the little goblin placing her on a clean root bend. Ukee whimpered, but stayed where she was put.

"It's okay," she promised the Ukee as the vines were freed to wrap around her. "It'll be all right." Faryn offered a winning smile.

The tendrils enclosed her entirely. Some of them merely stroked her face and back in an almost soothing manner. Others wound tightly about her appendages, sinking deeper and deeper into her flesh. Faryn felt the first bite on her upper right arm, then they came too quickly for her to follow. It didn't bother her. She felt at ease, doing what she knew was right. The tree seemed sated by her willingness.

Then there was anger. Great rolling waves of it, pouring over her. The vines tightened further, and none tried to soothe her. Faryn knew something was wrong as her heart raced to keep her blooded. Something had gone horribly wrong.

The blood. The blood was too similar. In its hunger, it thought she was her father.

Faryn struggled, tried to break free, but she had lost too much. She faintly heard the shrill screech of Ukee enraged, and prayed that the little goblin had the sense to get away instead of attack.

Light suddenly flooded the girl's senses, banishing things like pain and fear. Her heart slowed. Faryn had just enough time to wonder at how unfair it was to die inside the labyrinth, before she lost all sense, and fell into darkness.