The Most Unlikely Foe
Author's Note:
Thanks so much for your reviews, you've been very kind so far. Well here for your enjoyment is the next instalment. Hope you like it and please review.
Four
Check Mate
Just as Pippin was about to set foot on the board Aragorn stopped him.
"It has to be some kind of trap or he wouldn't have put it there." Aragorn thought out loud.
"Well while you nut it out Aragorn, I'm going to go get Legolas back." Boromir strode out onto the board.
He placed a foot on an empty square to the board's bottom right-hand corner and paused as he contemplated what to do next. There were huge chess pieces scattered purposefully about the board but a direct route from where he was to the other side was blocked by a large bishop piece. Boromir threw up his arms in frustration and strode out onto the stone board until he reached the bishop only two squares away. In order to get past it he had to cross the board on a diagonal as to his left was a pawn.
Suddenly suspicious of the game the Goblin King was apparently playing with them he very attentively placed one foot on the square diagonally from where he stood. No sooner did his foot touch the stone did it crumbled and fall into a dark abyss. Boromir was able to pull his foot back in time but he lost his balance and fell backwards.
"What happened Boromir?" Aragorn called out to the other man.
"I don't know, the stone just fell away!"
"It's a puzzle of some sort then?" Gimli thought out loud.
"Of course it is. It's a chess board." Merry smiled proudly.
"Of course!" Aragorn cried, "we should have thought of it sooner. We'll have to make our way across the board as assigned chess pieces. Boromir you've stepped on as a Rook so you can only move in straight lines!"
"Great!" Boromir called back sarcastically as he began to plan a route across the board.
The remaining four companions stepped up to the board's edge and looked at the empty squares in front of them.
"How do we know which ones to start on? There are move empty spaces then there are us." Gimli stated as they looked on at the board.
"Well the square Boromir stepped onto has a red mark on it and there are four others with similar markings so I suggest we start there." Aragorn suggested.
He stepped onto the board where the King would normally start and watched as Gimli took up the position of the left Knight, Merry the left Bishop, and Pippin took up a place as a Pawn over near Boromir.
"Alright then, chess is a game where you have to take turns right? Boromir's already had his turn so whose turn is it…"
Before he could finish his jaw dropped as a black Bishop on the other side of the board slowly moved of its own accord towards them.
"Guess it was their turn. Now it's ours." Merry said as he moved as far as he could on a diagonal across to the right hand side of the board.
Jareth returned to his throne room to find Legolas pacing back and forth across it in agitation. Slyly Jareth snuck up behind him and lent his head over the Elf's shoulder.
"Well that game ought to busy them for awhile."
Legolas gasped and leapt forward and away from the Goblin King. Jareth simply laughed and advanced swiftly on the escaping Elf. He caught him up in his arms and spun him round; backing him up until the backs of Legolas' knees collided with his throne, seating the Prince and spilling the King across his lap.
Legolas struggled vainly to try and wriggle himself out from under the Goblin King but Jareth had him pinned firmly down. He braced the Elf's arms against the arms of his throne and straddled his lap, raising himself up on his knees to look down into Legolas' worried blue eyes.
"You want this as much as I do Legolas, I can see it in your eyes. It's nothing to be ashamed of, after all we're both consenting adults."
"Consenting to what?" Legolas demanded as he continued to struggle beneath the Goblin King.
Jareth responded by smirking slyly down at the Elf and raising an arched eyebrow. Legolas' eyes flew wide open as he stared back up at the Goblin King in stunned disbelief at what he was suggesting.
"Come now, why the concern all of a sudden? You didn't seem to mind my sitting in your lap before I left to deal with your friends."
"What did you do to them!" Legolas demanded, purposefully avoiding the question.
"I told you, I set up a little game for them to play." Jareth grinned and it suddenly occurred to Legolas that the Goblin King was a sucker for a game.
"How about you and I play a little game?" Legolas queried.
Jareth raised an eyebrow as his interest was defiantly piqued, especially by the tone of the Elf's voice.
"Alright young Prince, what game did you have in mind?"
"I'd prefer you didn't call me that, I'm sure I'm older than you" Legolas requested in irritation.
"Try me." Jareth grinned down at him.
"I'm 2,931 years old."
"Well, that does indeed make you my senior, please forgive me my Elven Prince." Jareth took up Legolas' hand in his and kissed the back of it.
Legolas swiftly pulled his hand away from the Goblin King and glared defiantly at him. Jareth simply laughed and pushed a wayward strand of hair back from the Elf's face.
"Now you were about to suggest some sort of game for us to play…"
"Think of it as more of a bet. Are you a gambling man Goblin King?" Legolas had stilled his struggling and now stared defiantly up at the man above him.
"I can be. It depends on what the stakes are."
Jareth was certainly interested in the Prince's promise of a bet with him but if the prize at its end wasn't to his liking he'd be quick to call it off.
"If my friends solve the puzzle you've just set them, I win and you have to promise to get off my lap and refrain from touching me in such a manner as you have been."
"Well that doesn't sound like much fun to me. Ahhh but what if your friends loose?"
"Then you win."
"And what do I win?"
Jareth lent forward over Legolas till his mouth was only millimetres from the Elf's. Legolas could feel his hot breath flowing over his lips and shivered despite himself. Jareth chuckled low in his throat.
"I know, my pretty Elf. If your friends loose I win a kiss from you."
Legolas had been expecting such a request and so wasn't the least bit surprised when the King requested it.
Jareth watched and waited patiently while the Elf waged an internal war with himself. Finally the Prince seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion and Jareth searched his eyes for any sign as to what that decision might have been.
"Deal." Legolas finally stated.
Jareth grinned triumphantly back; knowing without a doubt, that there was no way the Elf's friends would win this game. He would see to that, and then he would claim his kiss.
Meanwhile the portion of the Fellowship who had set out to solve the Labyrinth were making good progress in the chess game. It was taking longer than Aragorn would have liked and each had nearly been knocked from the board several times.
Merry finally reached the other side and as Pippin joined him the two exchanged words of congratulations before turning to cheer on the others.
Boromir made it to the last square and was swiftly followed by Gimli.
Only Aragorn remained on the board. As the King he was only able to move a square at a time and was now beginning to find himself surrounded by black pieces as they exchanged turns.
"Come on Aragorn. You have to get to this end if we're going to go after that Goblin King to save Legolas!" Boromir called out.
"I am doing my best Boromir but I'm afraid I appear to be running out of options."
Aragorn hopped onto the square diagonal from him, before a black Bishop moved alongside him. Aragorn glanced around, trying to decide where to go for his next move but the more he looked the more worried he became, as he saw no next move.
Suddenly the black King piece before him morphed into the Goblin King, dressed in all black.
"Check mate." Jareth said with a smirk.
As Aragorn was about to protest he felt the ground give way beneath him and cried out as he began to fall. He plunged down into the darkness below him and the smug cackling of the Goblin King echoed above him.
"Aragorn!"
The others cried out and dashed back onto the stone chessboard to help him as he disappeared from sight.
"Oh dear, now you loose." Jareth said to the rest of the group with a satisfied smirk gracing his face.
They felt the earth rumble beneath them and then the stones they were standing on gave way and they too followed Aragorn into the dark.
Jareth stood at the board's edge until every last stone had fallen. Then with a wave of his hand he returned the stone courtyard to the way it had been originally. He smiled at his handy work and that smile quickly turned into a sly smirk as he remembered his bet with Legolas.
He had been watching the game with the Elf through a crystal until Aragorn's failure called for an appearance from him. By now Legolas would be aware that he had lost his bet with the Goblin King and Jareth would have liked to make the Elf suffer in anticipation a little longer but he was far to impatient to claim his kiss from the handsome Elven Prince.