Chapter X: Nefarious Deeds

A/N: This chapter is secretly titled, "Girl's Night Out." But I decided, "Nefarious Deeds," was far more appropriate…

There's a scene in here you'll recognize from the last chapter. Or, I hope you will. I didn't change any of the spoken words, just the actions as they were seen from different eyes. Took me forever to decide which should go first. Hope it isn't too repetitive!

The next chapter probably is what you're thinking it is, by the way.

A/N2: Okay, now I've caught my beta up. She's so lovely. Everyone praise Genesis Grey, and go read her Mists of Valinor story, if you like Lord of the Rings. Chapter 11 should appear in less than an hour of this update, so, huzzah! Then chapter 12 next week, as long as my wrist doesn't keep me from completing the update. Not much longer to go until the story's done!

Read happily!


Were she not spurred on by the imposed time limit of the labyrinth, Faryn might have been wholly content to lay there staring at the sword-wielding goblin. As it was, she took back her footing the moment she realized the goblin would come no further.

She had to reason it out logically, Faryn thought, holding the shivering Ukee like a comforting doll. The labyrinth seemed to present threatening obstacles only when she was lost or there was a spell of Eric's to be broken. Yet, her mother's old warning rang in her ears as she stared at the goblin.

Nothing is as it seems in this place.

Pinning the goblin with what she hoped was something resembling a death glare, Faryn covered Ukee with her sleeves and squared her shoulders. Then she commanded, "I am on a quest for the King. Get out of my way!"

The goblin didn't move. Instead, the deep monotone voice countered, "Even King Jareth wouldn't send a girl into the Goblin Hoard."

"The path has lead me here," Faryn continued. She was desperately trying to seem important and imposing, but doubted she appeared anything other than plain arrogant. "So here I must pass. Who are you to bother me?"

"Candlewic, Keeper of the Hoard."

"And what is in the Hoard that you deem too terrible for a female to see?"

If it weren't for the very frightening sight Candlewic presented of himself, Faryn would have thought the shifting of his feet from one to the other to be a sign of nervousness. "You don't need to know," he answered at last.

Ukee chose to make her presence known, poking her blue head out from the safety of Faryn's arms. "His madge-resty might have let ther blockering of his Lady pass, but he will be very upshet when he hears that yer refoosed to ansher her queschurn."

That seemed to cause actual fear to take root in the goblin guard's heart, as the glowing yellow eyes widened, and his pointed nose peeked out from the shadows of the helmet in distress. "You," the goblin said, half in command, half plea. C„ndlewic seemed to still be uncertain, but finally continued. "You can pass if you beat me at something."

Wary, Faryn tilted her head to one side. "What thing?"

Candlewic inclined his head to the blue goblin who was now perched regally on Faryn's shoulder. "She can decide."

"Riddles," Ukee announced without hesitation. "My Lady will ask yer a queschurn, and if yer gets it riot, we gots ter go a differn't way. If yer gets it wrong, we get ter pass."

The goblin guard shifted feet again, but finally agreed, much to Faryn's dismay. She did well enough at answering them, but didn't know any riddles herself. She had no idea what she was supposed to ask. Being a denizen of the labyrinth, a home of riddles and mischief, she assumed the goblin would find most of her ideas simple. Before she had much chance to despair, Ukee began whispering something in her ear. A riddle that she repeated aloud.

"I hound your every step, and you cannot outrun me. Neither wind, nor water, nor extremes of temperature can sway my path. I stalk you night, and day - and though you may lose me in the dark between twilight and dawn, I will not lose you. Who am I?"

Faryn had assumed the goblin would protest Ukee's aid, but he either did not notice, or did not care as he set to scratching his chin. A look of puzzlement crossed the creature's face which peaked out of the shadows of his helmet as he thought. Then sadness.

Finally, Candlewic bowed his head and stepped to one side. "I don't know," he answered, his voice so forlorn that Faryn almost wished she didn't have to pass him.

But time was running out.

"Thank you," the dark haired girl congratulated as she dashed passed.

"Wait," Candlewic called out. He clanked and banged, chasing after her. "What was the answer?"

"Your shadow," said a baritone voice ahead of them all. Faryn and Ukee screeched to a halt, the human girl nearly falling over as she used her heels to avoid colliding with the new goblin.

Faryn glowered at the goblin who was half her height and shaped like an upside-down pear. His round helmet was the largest part of him, with a shaped nose and eye slits like eye lids. It rose to three points to the back of its head and sprouted a wilted feather from each. Lengths of unwashed and unkempt hair flowed from under the helmet, giving Faryn the distinct impression that even if the goblin were helmet-less, one could not make out his face. Next was the spear it had pointed squarely at her chest. Twice the goblin's height, it slimmed to a wicked set of points that dripped a yellow syrup. Its armor consisted of a breastplate, boots, and guards at knee, elbow, and hand that each resembled a goblin face - undoubtedly his own. The sword sheathed and held in its other hand was ornate, though not beautiful to her eyes, and seemed more a part of the armor than the weaponry.

Faryn was slowly deciding that goblins were very vain creatures.

Her temper appeared as goblin after goblin insisted in forestalling her. She took a deep breath, flicked her long hair back over her shoulder, and demanded to know who now dared to bar her path.

"I am Lampsonius, Keeper of the Goblin Hoard," the goblin drawled, uncaring of Faryn's rolling eyes. "He," Lampsonius pointed to the wall on his left and slightly behind, "is Agmour, the last Keeper of the Hoard."

Faryn's throat froze as she remembered losing sight of Hel'lsiott. The fair-voiced goblin was being held at sword-point by a goblin only half her height. Agmour's armor appeared well made. The helmet swooped to points here and there, was studded with horns, and hinged to close like a knight's helmet. All of the armor gleamed blue-silver and was jointed for ease of movement, down to the guard that shielded its hairy tail. The sword Agmour threatened Hel'lsiott with was twice the goblin's size. He seemed to have no problems holding it aloft to press under Hel'lsiott's chin, forcing her against the wall.

So goblins were not only vain, they went about using weaponry that was too big for them.

Faryn shook her head, staring at the new goblins through a slimly restrained haze of anger. Normally she was quite good at keeping her temper, and showing people only what they needed to see. At the moment, the brunette felt like screaming at the top of her lungs. Faryn had read that damned book from cover to cover a million times, and remembered her mother's story as clearly as a traumatized nine year old could. Yet, she could not recall sweating hedges, or ghosts in the junkyard, or goblin warriors outside the city, or hulking ogre-things beating people over the head with turnips! Why, oh why, was this labyrinth so vicious?

Faryn stomped her foot and let out a shriek, "This is so unfair!"

All the goblins were shocked by an outburst from the quiet girl, but Hel'lsiott and Ukee recovered faster. Hel'lsiott batted the sword from her throat, taking it away from Agmour in the same motion. Ukee launched from Faryn's shoulder, clawing at Lampsonius' unprotected shoulders until the goblin dropped his spear and sword to bat her off.

Accidentally, the human girl caught the wicked spear before it fell into her face, turning it on the scratched goblin before she had a chance to think. Then she looked for her friends. Ukee had picked up the hefty sword in her small mouth and dropped it behind Faryn's legs. Hel'lsiott smiled at her from where she held Agmour pinned at the point of his own sword.

"Candlewic," Lampsonius shrieked. "Don't just stand there!"

Faryn tensed, expecting a blow from behind. It never came.

Instead, the most imposing of the three Keepers of the Goblin Hoard stepped up to her side and fixed a glower on his comrade. "I cannot fight her," he snarled in a low, gravely, voice. "It's in the rules."

Hel'lsiott's captive croaked, "He's right, Cap'n. We saw her beat him."

"Shut up, Agmour," Lampsonius grumbled as he awkwardly stood up. "I don't need to be reminded that you two have gotten us slaved to one such as her."

The way the goblin slurred his reference to her made Faryn want to scream all over again. "What rules?"

Candlewic turned his yellow eyes to her. "If you best a Keeper in contest, they are bound to your service." He pressed his mailed fingers gently over Faryn's, releasing the spear from her hold. When he held it out to Lampsonius, she made a noise of protest.

The goblin held out his hand to stop her. "These rules are older than Jareth. Your contest with the Labyrinth will not affect our loyalty." Over his shoulder, Agmour took his sword back from Hel'lsiott, sheathing it along his back.

Faryn looked to Ukee for reassurance. The blue goblin merely shrugged. Faryn had to ask, "How do you know I'm not simply a visitor?"

Agmour snorted and Candlewic seemed to recede into his helmet for shame. Lampsonius, who Faryn was fast figuring to be the smartest of the three, finally responded. "His majesty would not allow a relative of Eric Talenka's to wander the Labyrinth in any other capacity."

"Faryn," Ukee interrupted the girl's fuming before it had begun. The blue goblin held the silver clock before her. The hands moved in a mesmerizing counter-clockwise manner, ever slowly. Not slowly enough, she realized as the hands settled to read three hours, twenty five minutes - and counting.

"I've got to get to the castle at the center of the labyrinth," she told the Keepers quickly. "Do you know the way?"

The goblins looked between each other. Lampsonius and Candlewic settled on staring at Agmour, who sighed and nodded his head. "Aye, we've been to the heart before."

Faryn clapped her hands, then blushed at her reaction. "Good, let's go then!"

Agmour took the lead down the path they had guarded. Lampsonius and Candlewic lingered behind, bickering. When she glanced back at them, Lampsonius was securing something to a door in the wall that she hadn't previously noticed.

"Jareth's going to be miffed," Candlewic admitted forlornly.

"You're worried about Jareth? Do you realized that we haven't left the Hoard unguarded in millennia? I'm miffed!" He pulled his hand away, dragging with it the disk he had twisted into, or out of, the door. Faryn's eyes caught the device as though it had called her name. Lampsonius tucked it into a pouch of some sort under his armor. Not before Faryn had seen the woven star etched in black on the surface. A strange jagged star, with two too many points.

"Faryn, hurry," Ukee urged. The human girl picked up her pace, catching up to Agmour in a breath. The other two Keepers caught their heels quickly. She longed to ask what the disk was, but the goblin had hidden the bag away beneath his layers of gleaming armor. She didn't need any more distractions. There was little more than three hours left, and she had a long way to go.

Their pace was quick, the goblins moving along at a trot beside Faryn's long-legged stride. The time was telling on her as she trusted her fate to Ukee's guiding lisp. The blue goblin directed the others as to what was safe and what wasn't, occasionally having a quick argument with one of the Keepers as they negotiated their path. Hel'lsiott and Faryn remained silent as the human girl's mind slipped away.

Joshua.

She was worried about him. More than she liked to admit. Her mother had said no harm had come to Uncle Toby while he'd been the King's 'Guest.' But he was just a baby when he'd been there - he didn't even remember it. And there were the other matters. Everyone seemed angry at her because of Eric. Joshua was just as guilty of being his offspring, but he was just a kid. Just a fifteen-year old, shy, boy. He played computer games and hacked the Internet. He stammered when a girl tried to talk to him at school. He'd been beaten up in elementary for being the smallest. Joshua was no match for the terrors the labyrinth could present.

Yet, Sarah had been fifteen when she had entered the labyrinth.

"Girls mature faster," a voice echoed in her head. The soft stone walls around her dissolved or twisted, widening the corridor into a great room. A swooping throne lay at one end, strewn with cloth and bone. An archway opened opposite the throne, a small glow pouring up the stairs it showed. The wall across from her had three great empty windows. Faryn knew she had to be in the room to see it, but she felt she wasn't. Nor did she knew how she got there.

Only three goblins were in the throne room, if that's what they were. They reminded her more of Norse hell-hounds than anything, with four eyes and huge teeth dripping saliva. They stood next to the human figure with glowing blond hair.

Jareth stood beside his throne, his arms crossed in disdain, glowering at the woman the goblin hounds guarded. For her part, the woman seemed unfazed. She had been the one to speak, and now stood with a smirk that oozed sarcasm. Something was strange about her. Her hair gleamed a bright gold, rivaling the blinding white of her open-sided dress. It took Faryn a moment of confusion to realize that the dress was actually held on by two belts, not magic.

The moment the woman opened her mouth, Faryn realized what seemed so off. She was a feminine mirror of King Jareth. She was more rounded than the angular King, and her nose turned up instead of swooping down like an owl's beak, but there was no mistaking the eerie similarities.

"What do you think she'll do when she realizes that you don't have the runt any longer," the woman asked in a voice that sounded like poison.

"You have no right to interfere in the working of my Kingdom, Calypso," Jareth bit each word short.

The woman, Calypso, turned to the goblin hound at her heel and winked. "Oh, he can speak!" She straightened, giving the dog a pat as she lowered her lashes at the Goblin King. "I'd begun to think you'd lost your voice. Surely my brother wouldn't be so inconsiderate as to neglect greeting his own twin."

If looks could kill, Faryn thought, it was little wonder Jareth had become the Goblin King.

Suddenly, Calypso beamed. The look transformed her into something cute and sugary, while making Faryn's stomach clench. It was such an easy move that the woman had to be methodical or maniacal, and either one spelled trouble.

"I was unaware that I was restricted in any way in any of my kingdoms, my darling brother," she said, her voice still having the hard edge of murder to it. Then her tone changed like her expression. "Let's not fight, though. It all works out in the end, isn't that what Eric was always saying?"

Jareth gave a short, loud laugh. "First you ask not to fight, then you say his name. What do you want, my Queen?" He sneered her title as if he'd done it a thousand times before.

Calypso's jaw clenched. Faryn silently cheered the Goblin King, even as she wondered what Calypso ruled.

The Queen relaxed, her delighted smile came back on her face. She crossed the distance to her brother, laying a hand on his crossed arms. "I want to make things right, Jareth. I've brought you a gift."

Calypso swung her other hand elegantly in the air. Beside one arched window, four barrels resembling ancient kegs appeared. Then she twisted her wrist, bringing hand and arm before the Goblin King's face. A blue crystal, a mirror image of Jareth's water-clear version, manifested on her fingertips.

"If you want to leave alcohol for the goblins, feel free," Jareth scoffed, pushing her hand away with an identical one of his own. "I don't want your crystal."

Calypso shook her head, then walked slowly for the door, the goblin hounds trailing behind her. She paused in the archway, glancing over her shoulder at her brother. "Why must you always make things difficult? I have to give the gift to her now." She seemed honestly remorseful, but the pronoun floated in Faryn's head like an accusation.

She snapped her gaze back to Jareth for some form of reassurance. Faryn was unknowingly rewarded with his smug grin. "But you can't find her, can you, little sister?"

Calypso let out a shriek, tearing down the stairs. Her scream deepened, changing to a repetitive term, until Faryn realized that it was Ukee poking her in the face with a claw and saying her name.

"I'm sorry, I was lost somewhere," Faryn said dazedly as her true surroundings became apparent. They'd just stepped out of the stone maze into a thick forest with a single pathway. The castle's highest tower loomed very near, giving Faryn confidence that it wouldn't be much longer.

Had she seen something real? Did Calypso have her brother, or had she been daydreaming in her worry?

"The cashle is just across ther way, my Faryn," Ukee explained, pointing her tail for emphasis. "But ther Bog of Eternal Stench is between us'n it. You gots ter snap outter yer shock, or we'll have ter go about."

Faryn felt like she was five and being lectured by her mother. With a frown she insisted, "I'm not in shock." When Ukee gave her a look that demanded an explanation, she had nothing ready but the truth. "I had a vision.. I think..."

"What was it," Hel'lsiott asked.

All of the goblins looked her way intently. The human girl shrugged. "I think a Queen Calypso has my brother..."

Ukee squawked, and all eyes turned to the blue goblin. "She'll be after yer next, my Faryn!" From seemingly nowhere, she produced a small peach. "Quickerly, eat this. It will keep yer sahf!" She held the fruit to Faryn with both foreclaws.

She took it from her goblin friend, but warily. The lesson of her mother's peach weighed on her heavily. The book, too, had goblin fruits painted in a dangerous light. Yet, Ukee had been nothing but kind and helpful toward her, looking out for her well-being. The goblin girl wasn't afraid of the King, as Hoggle had been. Faryn trusted Ukee.

Snuffing the fear that boiled in her gut, Sarah's daughter took a large bite of the peach, chewed thoroughly, and swallowed. She had a moment of elation at realizing nothing had happened, and took another bite. The euphoria wasn't to last.

The world swayed, and she was not surprised. She stumbled, catching herself against a rotten stump. The brunette slipped to the ground, the goblin's worried voices little more than an echo in her head.

Faryn never heard Hel'lsiott scream accusations at her blue goblin; her ears were lost to a sweet lullaby of voiceless exotic music. She never saw Ukee scamper toward the castle, the other goblins giving chase; her eyes were lost in the dancing of trees and vines that soon became masked figures. Then came the scent of ash and perfume blends. The feel of silk against her arms. The taste of sweat on the air she breathed.

Her drugged hands slowly smoothed across the front of the broad violet and silver gown of silk and satin. The collar was high and stiff, the sleeves little more than mists against the dark indigo of opera gloves. Ridiculously Faryn's slow mind mused; the bell of the skirt ballooned too much for her tastes, but the slippers were soft.

Her movements were coming more quickly to her, though the crowd pressed in around her. A clock lay suspended beside her, reminding her that she only had two hours left.

But two hours left till what?