Sarah's footsteps echoed through Jareth's citadel, and even further, throughout the silent maze of the Goblin City...
She finally reached the room she remembered... From last time... Where the walls were floors, and the floors had stairs; it was so confusing to her. But that didn't matter anymore... Nothing did. Only him. Only The Goblin King.
He wasn't there. Sarah let out a sigh, and moved towards a window. Nothing. No movement, no sound. Both Jareth's castle and the Goblin City were abandoned. She slowly started to descend the staircase once more; a glum feeling of disappointment wracking her senses. He had promised her everything... Where was he?
Sarah let her body slump into Jareth's throne; angrily kicking a large, fat rat that had started to amble it's way across the floor infront of her. She was sure that she heard the rat scream as it hit the stone wall, hard. The dazed rodent scurried away with a distinct air of violation... But Sarah did not follow it, as it beat a hasty retreat to the far wall...
She was staring at what rested on a plinth, to one side of the room.
'That crystal...' Sarah breathed, quickly jumping to her feet, and picking her way through the Goblin-made debris, towards the crystal. Even as she approached, she could practically feel the magic, swirling around inside the enchanted glass.
Sarah lifted the ball, gently. It looked to be heavy, but was suprisingly light when she hefted it to her chest, and made her way back to the throne. She sat down, and gazed into the depths of what was most definitely Goblin magic.
Instantly, pictures appeared. First, they seemed to be faded memories; her first encounter with Jareth, her journey through his Labyrinth, his defeat by her hand... Then other pictures started to form... She saw her house, reduced to a derelict pile of rubble...
Her whole street, infact. As she looked harder, she couldn't actually make out anything that was still intact. Phonebooths and postboxes had been uprooted, and carried off; lamposts were collapsed, burnt-out wrecks of cars littered the road.
A small, black shape tittered, as it ran across her viewpoint from one house to the next. As her eyes became accustomed to spotting their movements, more and more black shapes appeared to be present, each engaged in some sort of vandalistic activity. Sarah thought she could just make out their evil little eyes, always on the look out for something easy to steal, or another small furry animal to torture...
The image faded away, and another took its' place. Even before it had properly formed, the picture in the crystal ball made Sarah cry out in a mixture of misery and guilt.
'Hoggle!'
She could see her friends; real friends, that had stood by her, even after her first adventure had ended - Sarah could see them caged. All of them. Ludo, Sir Didymus, Ambrocious, even Hoggle. The word 'Traitors' was spraypainted on the wall, just above their heads, and they were chained with vicious strands of what looked like barbed wire. She could definitely see one particularly ugly Goblin relieving himself over the cage; while another seemed to be engaged in trying to spear poor Ludo's nose.
The crystal silently swept the image from her, and another took shape...
It was him.
At first, Sarah thought it was another flashback; Jareth was surrounded by his Goblin minions, and mounted on a large throne in the centre of the room. As the image cleared, however, she notcied subtle differences...
The throne was made of gold. Solid gold. Jareth was always smiling; his silent laughter rang out clear in Sarah's mind... The Goblins were not fighting over scraps of meat anymore... The room was filled with gold, and jewels, over which most of the Goblins seemed to be engaged in a mass brawl. A great banquet had been lain out on a massive table to one side of the room, while the other was taken up by a large steel cage. Sarah thought, just for a second, she could see Sir Didymus' tail sticking out of the bars...
Suddenly, Jareth's eyes turned a dark red. He looked straight at Sarah, and she flinched as the crystal ball exploded in her hands...
Sarah started to softly sob, as the shards of glass burnt her skin...
This was not normal pain... Her blood was running freely, but that wasn't what hurt the most...
She could feel the crystal's Goblin magic seeping through her veins... The glass disintergrated, and the blood stopped flowing from her wounds. Her skin bonded, and a pleasant, refreshing feeling overcame her entire body. Sarah felt rejuvenated; she felt powerful.
A very familiar, very fat rat limped out into the throne room once more, sniffing at the small pool of blood at her feet. 'Hmmm... I wonder...' Sarah thought to herself.
She pointer a finger at the rat, sharply.
Nothing.
The rodent just sat there, gingerly tasting her blood.
Sarah stretched her entire hand in the general direction of the rat, and thought 'BAM!'...
Nothing. Not even the faintest puff of smoke, or whiff of brimstone. Sarah felt slightly disappointed...
The rat glanced up at her, and she caught it's eye for a second... She saw it mocking her. It was making fun at how pathetic she was. How helpless she was. It reminded her of Jareth... Sarah felt a strong surge of anger boil up inside her, bubbling like a cauldron.
She thought of how he made her suffer in his Labyrinth... How cruel he had been to her...
The cauldron seethed, and churned, and finally bubbled over...
Sarah was brought out of her trance by the smell of smoking flesh. She cast her gaze to the rat, who was now but a charred, smoking corpse.
Sarah smiled, and mounted the stairs once more. She could remember only one way to get back to real-life...