A/N: Thank you guys for great reviews! I probably won't be updating as quickly as I have been, from now on. Trying desperately to rein myself in... (thumps self on the forehead) Anyway. Continue to review, cuz... that makes me happy. :)

Chapter Four: Wyrm

Abandoned in the dark, she felt more alone than ever she had done; she discovered a direction in which to go, and clung to the wall that led that way. She walked on for hours before discovering that the wall was, in fact, facing the other way, and she had been walking backwards, getting nowhere...

Sarah walked forward into the Labyrinth, conscious of the stalking presence of Erik just behind her. He moved much more surely than she did, avoiding the twisted roots and tumbled stones that made up the Labyrinth's floor, even as she tripped over them, managing, but just barely, not to fall. As she crossed through the arched gateway, she stumbled again, this time enough to fall completely.

Erik stood above her, looking down with impassive yellow eyes.

"This is not a promising beginning."

"Gee, sorry," she said sarcastically, pushing herself up and brushing herself off. Her billowing white sleeve had caught on a twig, ripping up the centre. "Can't help it if I'm human enough to trip over objects in my path."

He stared down at her.

"If you're going to be disrespectful, we can cease this working relationship right now."

She opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again. Erik nodded slowly at her.

"That's what I suspected."

Sarah crossed her arms and stared about her at the interior of the Labyrinth. The inside was no more prepossessing than the out. Impossibly tall brick walls, dirt-encrusted and shiny with minuscule bits of isinglass, the grey-blue of the sky a thin strip far, far above, the corridors stretched out on either side of her seemingly forever, sounds echoed strangely, Erik's voice caught in nooks and crannies and returned vastly changed, odd to the ears, entwined with whispers from invisible beings. She shivered.

"There's no way forward! These corridors go on forever!"

"Is that so?" The sardonic tone had returned to Erik's voice, if indeed it had ever left. "You know so much about it, one would think you had been here before. And yet I distinctly recall your saying you never had."

She leaned against the brick and spread her arms to either side. "Look at it. It looks exactly the same both ways, and I can't see any turns or anything, anywhere."

"Perhaps you just don't know the correct way to look," he suggested lightly.

"Fine, then, you've been here before, you tell me which way to go." She folded her arms again.

He turned his head from side to side, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I don't suppose anyone has mentioned to you that the Labyrinth is an Inconstant— that means it can change at any minute, and likely does. It alters almost constantly, and has no stable state, no set pattern. I would defy anyone to find their way without making a mistake— perhaps even Jareth himself."

Sarah's jaw dropped.

"Do you mean to tell me that after we made that deal, and you were intending to help me, that you can't?"

"To a certain extent— yes."

She shook her head, overcome with a sudden, intense feeling of betrayal. "But I thought—"

"Regardless of what you thought," said Erik, his heavy-lidded golden eyes boring into her, "I can do no more than is possible. Would you ask the impossible of me? There is little potential for or prospect of success when making your way through the Labyrinth— I offer what help I can give. It is not much, and if you thought it was more than it actually is— well, that would be your mistake, then, not mine."

She gritted her teeth in a sudden access of anger at him, unconsciously clenching her fists.

"Look, I don't know just who you think you are, but I have to find my brother, and I'm not letting anyone get in the way. If you can help, fine, if you can't, then you can just leave."

He stood still, then swept her a bow.

"As mademoiselle wishes," he said, and melted into the interior of the Labyrinth, apparently disappearing through a wall.

Sarah gaped at the place where he had been.

Slowly, her brain managed to get a few messages through to her mouth, and she said, "Fine! I don't need your help! I'm doing just fine on my own!"

But, quite clearly, he was gone. At the edges of her hearing, lurking like a predator, she heard laughter, echoing back to her so faint and faraway that she couldn't be sure if its source was Erik or if it came from the walls themselves.

She whirled away and, for lack of anything definite to do, began to run.

She ran for as long as she could manage; it wasn't long, perhaps seven minutes or so. But in all that time, there was only the long, straight stretch that she had come into upon first entering the Labyrinth. She turned and cast a despairing glance back at where the gate had been— she couldn't distinguish any difference in the walls from where she was. She told herself it was just the distance— but from her perspective, it looked as though there were no gate; only endless, impenetrable brick.

This scared her rather badly, and, overcome with a combination of claustrophobia and frustration, she banged her fists on the wall in front of her, shouted aloud, kicked one of the stunted little trees by her feet, and finally slumped down, back against the brick, and buried her head in her hands.

A tiny voice from just beneath her elbow said, "Problem?"

This scared her even worse.

She jumped, and let out a startled shriek, looking around with wild eyes. She looked up, looked down, looked behind and in front of her, and it was a tense few seconds until she discovered the source of the voice.

It was a small worm, about the size of her pointer finger, with a shock of blue hair and bright golden eyes looking up at her with curiosity.

"Er— yes?" she said.

The worm blinked. "Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Telling," said Sarah, and tried to believe that meeting talking worms was an everyday occurrence. She limited herself to marveling that it had a working class British accent instead of, say, a French one.

It didn't work.

"You— you're a worm, aren't you?"

"A wyrm," said the worm— or wyrm— self-importantly.

"Isn't that what I said?"

"No, you said 'worm,' as in your common, everyday nightcrawler. I am a wyrm— descended from dragons, I am, raised by chameleons, taught by fire salamanders, surprised by gimlets."

"Gimlets?"

"Gimlets," said the wyrm, definitely.

"What are gimlets?"

"I don't know," said the wyrm, with the tiniest shrug, "that's why I was surprised by them."

"I see," said Sarah, though she didn't. "Do you happen to know the way through the Labyrinth?"

"Who, me? No, I'm just a wyrm."

"Oh," said Sarah, and slumped back down.

"Tea?" suggested the wyrm. "I'll wash a cup out for you."

"No thank you," said Sarah. "I have to find a way to rescue my brother."

"Ah, yes? And what's the holdup, luv?"

Not odd, Sarah told herself strictly. Being called luv by a talking wyrm, not odd at all. She took a deep breath.

"I've been running for hours— it feels like it anyway— and there aren't any turns or openings or anything, it just goes straight on forever and ever!"

"No it doesn't!" the wyrm contradicted her cheerfully. "There's openings all over the place. You just have to know where to look."

Sarah blinked at him, then looked around her again, examining her surroundings with, she thought, a especially keen and incisive eye.

"No there's not."

"Yes there is."

"No there's—"

"Yes there is."

She sighed. "No, there—"

"Yes there is."

Talking, arguing wyrm. Not odd in the least.

"Where, then?" she finally asked, exasperated.

"There's an opening right in front of you!" said the wyrm, blinking at her in a kindly manner.

Sarah looked.

"No there isn't."

"Yes there is."

"N—" She stopped herself before she prolonged the argument; the wyrm, who clearly enjoyed it, waited for her to argue, his mouth open. Instead, she stood up and stepped forward.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course! But never mind that, come inside, have some tea, meet the missus. She's a bit drunk at the moment, but—"

She stepped forward, arms out, waiting to be stopped by the brick.

But she was stopped, as it turned out, by nothing.

She stepped straight through the wall, turning with amazed eyes to look to either side, discovering that the entrance was cleverly concealed by virtue of the walls all being exactly identical. When walking, or in her case, running, by them, it was impossible to tell the difference between the wall of her corridor, and the wall of the next one. A smile broke over her face and she walked forward. She could see in the distance, a sort of green section, perhaps plants; at any rate a change from the brick. She called a thank you over her shoulder, and walked on, suddenly hearing the tiny voice of the wyrm behind her.

"Don't go that way!"

"What?" She turned and came back, searching slightly before locating where the entrance was. The wyrm blinked urgently at her.

"Don't go that way!"

"No? Oh, alright. Look, thank you— that was the first really helpful thing anyone's done for me thus far." She saluted cheerfully to the wyrm, waved a little, and ran on, the other way.

The wyrm watched her go, generations of dragon genealogy displaying themselves in the wisp of fire and smoke that accompanied a slight burp. He shook his head.

"If she'd have kept going that way," he said to himself, "she'd have gone straight to that castle."