The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully at Tieran's home in the Underground.

On Monday, Tieran went to work to perform his espionage. First he went to the sound recording department and inquired whether they had found a voice for Jareth yet. When they said they had not, he explained that several people had recommended he stop by. Tieran read a few lines and they declared him a perfect match for the character. They gave him a schedule to come by to record episodes and said they would arrange something with the human resources and payroll departments about the extra work and salary. Tieran was grateful to have that hassle taken out of his hands –the unending paperwork was something he would definitely not miss about this world.

That task taken care of he returned to his office to find the e-mail address for Caereh so he could send Jareth off to her. As a cover he sent her a message informing her of his new position in her company, jack-of-all-trades. "Next I will be working in the cafeteria," he thought wryly as he sent it on its way. "Now, what else can I do while Jareth is off on his little errand?"

He halfheartedly attempted a little animation to pass the time until Jareth returned, but soon tired of it. He gave up all pretense of work and sat staring out the window. He absentmindedly produced Jareth's crystal and a few mates for it and spun them as he gazed out the window.

Amy came to his office door, which he had left open, and left again unnoticed. She fetched Thomas to show him what Tieran was doing.

"Thomas, c'mere, you've got to see this."

"What?"

"Just come here." Amy quickly walked back down the hall to Tieran's office where he sat oblivious to his audience. "See," she said in a whisper from across the hall. "Look at what he's doing. He sounds like him and spins crystals like him. He just looks different. He might as well be GK in disguise."

The whispering out in the hall finally caught Tieran's attention. He turned to look at his door and the spinning crystals stalled. Amy and Thomas standing in his doorway had attracted other people and now he had a small crowd watching him.

"How do you do that?" Amy was the first to break the silence and enter his office.

"Practice." He began spinning the three crystals again. "How long have you been watching?"

"Not long – a few minutes," Amy answered.

"Can you show us how to do it?" asked Thomas.

Tieran began explaining it to them when the computer chimed discreetly. "I have returned," Jareth announced.

"Wait a moment. I have company." "Here, take these with you and practice," he told Thomas as he handed him two of the crystals, carefully retaining the one Jareth had given him. "I need to get back to work."

He waited until the last member of the audience had dispersed, then closed his door. He turned on the monitor and told Jareth, "They have all gone. Did you find anything?"

"Piece of cake, to coin a phrase. I manipulated her into revealing that she keeps the copies of the software in her office. The computer support personnel must come to her to get them."

"What about the netgoblins?"

"They are playing with her computer as we speak." The animation of Jareth smiled in a self-satisfied manner. "I told them to make a few changes to her personal settings as soon as I was transferred from the computer."

Someone knocked on Tieran's door.

"Behave yourself," Tieran admonished Jareth as he answered the knock on door, "Come in."

"I just read your e-mail and came straight down to congratulate you.

Tieran stood up as Caereh entered his office and closed the door behind her. "Thank you. It is too kind of you to take such a personal interest in one of your employees. Would you like to sit down this time?" Tieran thought he would try offering her a chair again, for all the good he expected it to do him. "Really too kind. Jareth, you are not behind this are you?"

"Why would I want to be exposed to this woman again? You would not believe what I found on this woman's computer. And you tell me to behave myself."

"I never want to know."

Caereh ignored the invitation again and approached Tieran. "This is just too wonderful. Now I know why you sound familiar. You sound just like Him."

"Was that capitalized?" Tieran asked Jareth.

"Him?" Tieran asked to make conversation.

"I'm afraid it was," Jareth replied with distaste.

"Jareth, of course. Who do you think inspired me to create this company? Hoggle?" Caereh replied as she continued around behind Tieran's chair.

"Come, come, Jareth. I am sure you could always use another worshipper. It sounds as though I am only a substitute for the real thing. Shall I let her in on our little game?"

"Definitely not!" Jareth was horrified.

"I see. You wanted to write your own adventure stories about him?"

"Mmm. All kinds of stories."

Tieran found it hard to keep from laughing. "Are you sure, Jareth? Just think of the stories she could write you into."

"But now I have the perfect substitute." She leaned on the back of the chair.

"Now who's going to be written into stories?" Jareth taunted back.

"And who might that be?" Tieran asked.

"I think you know," she said in a low voice next to his ear and pretended to adjust his collar, making his skin crawl. "I also came to tell you that I will see personally that you will be suitably reimbursed for your extra work for me."

"That will not be necessary. I do not foresee doing any extra work... for you."

"You never know," she persisted. "Has anyone mentioned the upcoming masquerade to you?"

"One of the modelers mentioned it Friday afternoon, yes. You plan to debut the first episode then? Will it be finished in time?"

"Of course." Caereh decided she preferred watching Tieran's face and walked back around his chair to lean on his desk. She picked up the crystal Tieran had left sitting out. He restrained himself from seizing it back from her. "Now that we have someone to take care of the Goblin King, everything will go exactly as I planned. Everyone is to come in costume suitable for the ballroom hallucination scene, but I have issued orders that no one is to come as one of the main characters. But you must come as Jareth. "

"Then I should not dress as Jareth. It would not be fair to the others if I ignore your rule."

"What's your basis for comparison?" Caereh smiled, pleased at her reference. "Rules are made to be broken and who better to break them than the one who makes them? You will come as the Goblin King," she mandated. "If you like I can help you with your costume."

"That will not be necessary. May we bring guests?"

"The others are. Do you think you'll need to bring someone else?"

"Of course I will. Why would I not?"

Caereh abruptly handed the crystal back to Tieran. "You'll see," she answered and turned to the door. She stopped with her hand on the handle. "Keep running. Soon you'll come to a dead end and have nowhere to go. Then we'll see who you need."

"Ah, but Caereh, you forget who controlled the Labyrinth," Tieran

said as she opened the door and walked through.

"I must admit, you handled that better than I thought you would. You might have a backbone and teeth after all."

"I am rather beginning to enjoy that," Tieran admitted

"Enjoy what?"

Tieran turned away from the computer screen where he had been talking to Jareth and saw Amy and Thomas standing in the doorway.

"Baiting Caereh," he answered truthfully.

"That's a dangerous hobby. She didn't look happy when she left again."

Tieran shrugged. "Not as dangerous as it could be. She needs me for her series. I do not need her job."

"But you do need to stay employed here for a while longer," Jareth reminded him.

"And what do you suggest? That I allow myself to be led meekly along? I refuse to go anywhere with that creature."

"Have you two decided what you will wear to the masquerade?" Tieran asked while examining the play of light on the crystal he still held.

"We thought maybe the clock or some other pieces of furniture, but probably it'll just be two more dancers," Amy answered dispiritedly. "What about you?"

"It has been dictated to me from on high that I am to go as Jareth, so Jareth I shall be. People will be expecting more than just two more dancers from you two. You must not let them down. Be creative."

"Yeah, right. We do that all day," Thomas groused. "Now everyone expects us to do it in our free time, as well."

"But it will be for yourselves this time, not for Caereh." Tieran slowly smiled worthy of Jareth. "Perhaps you could be creative at her expense?"

"There's some inspiration," Thomas said with growing excitement.

Tieran had second thoughts. "No, never mind. I do not want you to endanger your jobs."

"Do we look like we worry about that?" Amy asked him. "You're not the only one around here who doesn't need Caereh's jobs at the expense of character and dignity. Come on, Thomas. Let's go do some brainstorming." Amy left Tieran's office, pulling Thomas after her.

.….

That afternoon, Tieran was lost in thought when Alia found him sitting in the entrance hall of the building.

"You were a million miles away. I had to call you five times. What were you thinking about?

"I received an official invitation to the masquerade this morning as a result of the e-mail I sent with Jareth."

"You drew more attention to yourself? Why?"

"I did not really have a choice now, did I? I had to send something with Jareth for Caereh to open. I had stopped by the recording studios already, to see what they thought of the resemblance. They gave me the part, so I wrote to Caereh to tell her. She would have found out more than soon enough anyway."

"But doesn't that encourage her?" Alia asked sitting down next to Tieran on the planter.

"Yes, it did. She came down to my office immediately to 'congratulate' me. Also to assure me that she would personally supervise my compensation for my extra work. Then she told me I must come to the party dressed as Jareth. I asked if I could bring a guest. She asked if I thought I would need to. I asked her why I would not."

"I think you're making yourself an enemy."

"Yes, and it brings me to my current problem. Now I must bring someone to the masque. Who? You or Cara?"

"Or Irielen, you could take her," Alia suggested while trying to hide her excitement at the thought of being invited to the costume ball.

Tieran shook his head. "I do not think she would want to come here, nor do I think she would want to attend a ball with me. How do I choose?"

"Well, Cara would certainly enjoy the party." Alia tried to sound casual.

"Yes, and she has been wanting to celebrate for some time now, but quite honestly I..." Tieran trailed off uncertainly.

Alia waited for him to finish his sentence, then prompted, "You what?"

"I would rather have you there. How do I invite you without offending her?" A thought occurred to Tieran. "You do want to go? I am not worrying over nothing, am I?"

"Yes, I'd love to go with you, but I do see your point. We've kind of become the Three Musketeers, with Cara and I as the junior partners, despite the fact that you and I are supposed to be the ones doing this."

"I do not see how it could be any other way, following the plan we have. The person playing my part would have to run most of the risks and do most of the work. I was just the best choice for the position."

"Yes, well, I don't feel like I'm doing much. I'll have to take a more active part in the rest of the plan. Come on. We should get home and talk over your new information with Cara. Who knows? Maybe we'll have this all taken care of before then and there won't be a party."

.….

"So what did you find out?" Cara asked once they had all settled into their favorite places in the living room of the apartment: Tieran sat in one corner of the couch, Cara sat in a chair opposite and at right angles to him, Alia sat between them on the other end of the couch and Jareth's crystal rested on the low table in front of them.

Tieran ticked things off on his fingers as he listed them. "One: Jareth found the backups. They are all in her office. Two: By some creative questioning, I found that the electronic security is all on one system. Either it is all on or it is all off. Three: I sound enough like Jareth, or David Bowie," he added before Jareth could make any comment, "to be hired to perform his voice for the series. Four: Caereh is still interested enough in me to personally invite me to this masquerade. And I have to bring someone with me."

"What, to the party?" Cara asked.

"He snubbed her by saying he would need someone else, not her, at the party. I couldn't have done it more smoothly myself," Jareth explained through the crystal on the table. "Now he has to bring someone with him or she'll never leave him alone."

"So who are you taking?" Cara asked watching Tieran closely.

"I do not know."

Cara shrugged. "Well, if we're quick, there probably won't be a party anyway. What are we going to do?"

"It is not likely that I would be able to both steal the backups and install your virus during the day. I will have to do it after everyone is gone."

"But then there's the alarm system," Alia pointed out. "This keeps getting more complicated."

"Maybe not," Cara said in a tone of voice that said she was working on a plan. "Where did you say this ball was going to be?"

"I believe it will be held at the company in the large entrance hall."

"Bingo!" Cara smiled as a fully formed plan revealed itself to her. "Here's what we're going to do..."

.….

Once Cara outlined the plan, Jareth left to keep an eye on his netgoblins. They had been hanging about the computers of Virtual Pencil ever since he had called them, looking for more mischief to get into. Thus far Jareth had been able to control them out of habit and intimidation, but they would require almost constant supervision until they grew bored and tired of waiting and wandered off again.

"So, if we're going to do this at the costume party, who's going?" Alia asked after the Goblin King left.

"You are," Cara said. "You're the one who's supposed to be fixing things. I've already done my part coming up with the plan. Besides, I've seen the dresses they wear in that scene and I wouldn't be caught dead in one."

Alia suspected an ulterior motive in Cara's generosity, but could not quite put her finger on it. Cara's taste didn't usually run to dresses like that, but Alia would have expected Cara to adapt them to her liking, not reject them altogether. Her other reason was plausible, but again not in Cara's normal character. Ordinarily, Cara would have been trying to get into the party invitation, not out of it. Alia shrugged mentally and chalked it up to another effect of the peach. Meanwhile, Tieran had made a comment that she had missed.

"Hmm? I'm sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?"

"I said, 'We need to go find our costumes.' When would you like to do that?"

"I don't even know where to go to get a costume like that."

"Irielen showed me trunks full of them when we looked for my clothing for here."

"Even something like Jareth's outfit?"

"If we do not find anything Irielen has plenty of time to work something out."

"Can we go now? Are you sure you don't want to come, Cara?" Alia asked as she stood up.

"Nah, I've got the virus to work out, in case the netgoblins don't work. You go without me."

Tieran and Alia transferred to his Underground home and searched for Irielen. They soon found her supervising the rehanging of a tapestry and Tieran explained what they needed.

"What we are looking for is clothing like that worn in the ballroom hallucination scene of that movie about the Labyrinth. You remember that one I showed you about Jareth some time ago?"

Irielen nodded. "Yes, I remember and I believe I've seen clothing that might work, stored in with the rest of the old things. I'll show you," she said and obligingly took them to the storage room where the old clothing had been packed away.

"I think those trunks and wardrobes along that wall there hold the style of clothing you're looking for," she said, pointing.

Alia walked to a trunk and opened it. Bundles of fabric carefully swathed in layers of tissue filled it to the top. "Are they all full like this? Where did they all come from?" she asked, amazed.

"They've been stored away by various family members over the years. Who knows why? I've never asked Tieran what to do with them, so here they are."

"I, for one, am grateful for your lapse in efficiency. I do not have the first idea about creating clothing," Tieran said as he opened another trunk.

"I think I've got men's clothing over here," Alia said, holding up a coat of white satin. "We should find your costume first, since you absolutely have to go."

"We have to start somewhere," Tieran said as he joined Alia and Irielen sorting through the trunk.

Alia handed the white coat to Irielen who refolded and wrapped it. Alia pulled out the next large, heavy bundle. Pulling away the layers of tissue protecting it, she exposed a large coat of fuchsia satin.

"Here you go, Tieran. Look no further. This is the coat," she said holding it up. The coat obviously belonged to to one of Tieran's larger ancestors. "Here, try it on. See how it looks," she teased, grinning.

Tieran looked at her doubtfully.

"No?" Alia responded. "All right, what did you find?" she asked as she helped Irielen fold the monster coat again.

"The other end of the spectrum," Tieran sighed, holding up a lavender coat of the right style, but much too small for him.

"How much do you think you'll be able to change? The size? The color?"

"The color, perhaps," Tieran answered. "The size would be beyond me, I think."

"Well, how did you find all of that clothing for me?"

"I found them or ordered them," Irielen said. "You could just find a tailor and have it made."

"And add to all of this clothing stored away here? We will look first and if we do not find anything, then we will have something made."

"Besides," added Alia, "this is much more fun. It's like playing dress-up and make-believe when we were kids. Well, when I was a kid. I don't know what you guys played when you were children. You were children once, weren't you?"

"I was and I cannot say I ever played dress-up, but there was make-believe. I pretended just like the rest of the children." Tieran smiled at the memory, then it faded a little sadly.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just a memory from a long time ago."

"What about you Irielen? Did you ever play dress-up, dreaming you were a princess in a fairy tale? Or since you live in a fairy-tale world, what would you pretend to be?"

"We dream of princesses here, too. And explorers and adventurers. And different lands to dream of living in," Irielen explained as she folded a scarlet coat.

They continued looking through the old clothing, talking about the styles, who might have worn what. Tieran and Irielen told of some of the other regions of the Underground to Alia, both the outrageous tales they remembered from their childhood and the truths they learned as they grew older.

They were on the fourth or fifth trunk of men's attire when they finally found a coat that might work for Tieran. It was the right style and size, with embroidery spilling over the shoulders and down the front and back. But instead of the iridescent, metallic blue fabric of the coat in the movie, this coat was a dark green satin.

"I don't think we'll find anything closer. I'd leave the fabric as it is. Do you think you can get the color closer?" Alia asked Tieran.

"I believe I can do both," Irielen said, taking the coat off Tieran, who had tried it on for fit. She draped it over a nearby trunk covered with the tissue it had been wrapped in and passed her hands over it. Where her hands had passed the forest green satin changed to an iridescent, midnight blue shot through with metallic threads. "Close enough?" she asked when she had finished.

"I don't think I'd know the difference without at least a picture of the other one in front of me. It doesn't have the gemstones set into the embroidery, but we'll be adding those anyway. That should do it for you, Tieran. The rest of the costume can be almost anything. My turn now," Alia said surveying the trunks and wardrobes full of ladies' dresses that they had skipped before.

"No, it is getting late. We have plenty of time to do that tomorrow," Tieran decided.

Irielen joined them again the next evening to look for a dress for Alia. Since there were so many choices and they had nothing specific to look for, Irielen queried Alia about her preferences.

"I don't really know. I don't usually wear colors like the ones in the ballroom scene. They seemed to be mostly pastels and a few earth tones. I like dark bright colors better. I'd like it better if we could find a dress of the right style without ruffles, too. I don't like ruffles."

"Right. No pastels, no ruffles. That gives us a starting place. Although we can always change the color again, if we have to."

"Remember it also needs to have embroidery. We will need somewhere to incorporate the stones," Tieran pointed out.

They started looking through the dresses. They set aside a few candidates for later consideration and kept looking. They had four or five to choose from and were running out of trunks and wardrobes when Alia found one that she loved.

"Look at this one. It has the embroidery and the skirt is right. It doesn't have the ruffles either, but it also doesn't have the puffed sleeves. I didn't really like the puffed sleeves anyway, but aren't they necessary for that style?"

"It looks as though it should fit you, if you really like it." Irielen encouraged her. "If I remember correctly the men wore different styles and Jareth's costume was unique."

"I like it better than the other ones we've found so far, even if it is the wrong color. There's no way I'm going to wear white. That would be like copying Sarah. She was the only one wearing white. I love the velvet, though. We could just change the color. But what color?"

"What if we made it the same blue as Tieran's coat?" Irielen suggested. "That would look wonderful in velvet and would show the silver and gold embroidery nicely, perhaps better than the white."

"I like that color," Alia agreed.

"Then blue it is."

Once Irielen had changed the color of the velvet gown, she turned on Tieran. "Now, you go find something else to do."

"Why?"

"Because she has to try it on."

"Oh. Yes. Of course. But why not take her to her room where you will have space to turn around to try it on? I will try to put these away here, then come see how it works."

"That is a wonderful idea. I may keep you after all. Make sure you wrap them properly," Irielen directed as she threaded her way through the trunks and litter of tissue to the door.

When Tieran finished putting things away and checked on them, Alia still wore the dress, but Irielen was gone.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Alia asked excitedly. "Look at the embroidery." It ran around the neckline of the dress, which exposed her shoulders and a short way down the tight sleeves, as well as around the waist where the full skirt joined the bodice, spilling down the skirt in several streams.

Tieran smiled at her excitement and said, "Yes, you look wonderful."

"It weighs a ton. Irielen found me the skirts to go under it. Did you find the rest of your costume?"

"I do not think that will be a problem."

"We'll have to practice the makeup between now and the party. And find you a wig. Are we expected to wear masks? If we are we'll have to find them, too."

"Makeup? Wig?"

"If you are going as Jareth, they will expect you to wear the makeup, as well. And you'd have to get a wig for the hair. Yours is nowhere near long enough."

"I am not wearing a wig," Tieran declared adamantly.

"All right. No wig. You'd look silly in one anyway. But if you're not doing the wig you'll have to wear the makeup."

"What about the masks? You mentioned masks. If I wear one of them there would be no point in the makeup."

"What if you want to take it off? Masks can be hard to see out of. You should wear it just in case."

Tieran sighed loudly and resigned himself to makeup.

Disclaimers, credits, trivia:

Labyrinth, etc. belong to the Jim Henson Company.