Labyrinth and Leroux

Chapter 3: The Two Magicians Meet

Jareth destroyed the Maze of Mirrors as easily as he had created it. No use for it now. Sarah had already escaped this trap. She would not go near it again. The Masqueraders around him clapped at the spectacle. Sarah, that little minx, had brought him down to this. Cheap parlor tricks for dumb simple folk. Tonight he was determined to drag that girl back to the Labyrinth at any cost. Blast the rules.

Jareth had tried to lure Sarah before. Small bits of magic sent her way. A vision of that dolt dwarf Hoggle in a mirror. A waft of stink from the bog of Eternal Stench. Those things she ignored. But when he watched her in the guise of an owl; that seemed to stop her for a moment. But no, she would not relent. As Sarah grew into womanhood she seemed to grasp stronger and stronger onto the misguided notion that the Labyrinth was not real. It was all in her imagination. Sarah thought she was crazy and refused to wish herself back into his Labyrinth.

And so Jareth decided to change the rules. He watched sheltered little Sarah and her habits trying to find a weakness. Even in her skittish present day form she still liked to believe that she was special. She had taken a new interest in writing. A flick of Jareth's wrist and Sarah won a writing contest. The grand prize would take her out of the country to Paris. If she happened to disappear on this trip, well that family of hers would just chalk it up to some terrible traveling accident. It was a crude plan to get her isolated, but good enough. Then Jareth would just blur the line between her world and his. The Masquerade the writers had planned was a perfect place. Sarah would willingly walk from her ball into his. When she discovered the truth of where she was it would be too late. Jareth would block her path and keep her in his world.

Of course, Sarah had to be difficult. She hadn't worn the white dress he had left for her. She wore a rather comely looking Senorita costume instead. Not that he was complaining. She looked very fetching in it, its just the change had made him loose precious time finding her before she realized what was happening. No matter. He would capture her in a few minutes and make short order of the come hither dress she was wearing when he got her back home.

Jareth adjusted his waistcoat and strode towards the grand staircase. Masqueraders stopped and starred at him. Nothing particularly new to him. He was quite a sight to see. As he walked forwards he slowed his step. Something was off. Gas lights instead of electric. The men around him had greased back hair instead of the wild modern cuts of Sarah's time. The women had waist length hair twisted into elaborate styles. Jareth stopped and smiled. He knew enough about bending time to realize he was not in Sarah's modern world anymore. The crystal he tossed into the Maze of Mirrors must have sent his magic haphazardly into the opera house and caused some strange damage. Jareth quickly gazed into another crystal. There was Sarah wandering through the halls of the opera house. She passed the same sort of gaslights and the same sorts of Masqueraders he was surrounded by. He laughed.

It wasn't what he had planned, but it would do. He had unintentionally trapped Sarah and himself in the 1800's from the looks of it. Once she realized the predicament she was in, she might be a little more apt to go with Jareth to the Labyrinth. She certainly wasn't going home to her boring life anytime soon.

Jareth threw the crystal into the air and froze the world around him. If he were going to play a part in this new game he had to dress the part. In a blink of the eye, a simple elegant tuxedo replaced the outlandish clothing of the Labyrinth. Jareth's wild hair and made-up face were downplayed to more neutral tones. He gave himself short slicked-back hair and a tannish glow to his skin. He took a look at himself in a mirror and was quite pleased with the transformation. Very elegant. Very genteel. Jareth looked around him. Everything in the opera house lay frozen, including his lovely prey Sarah somewhere up above. He thought it rather easy to simply walk and find her before restarting time again. Jareth moved towards the grand staircase and stopped suddenly. From the corner of his eye he swore he saw something red move.

Jareth looked up. A man dressed all in scarlet with a huge feathers hat on top of a death's head stared down at him. The Red Death seemed still. Jareth thought it must have been his imagination. Perhaps it was just a draft blowing the feathers on the man's hat. Jareth started to climb the stairs. The Red Death moved his head. Jareth stopped.

"Who are you?" Jareth called up to the Red Death.

Erik glared down at the foppish magician. He had seen the man freeze people around him and change his appearance at will. This was no ordinary man. Was he somehow connected to the woman Sarah Williams? Was this the "creep" she said she was running from? Erik had to proceed cautiously.

"This is my opera house. You trespass at your own risk."

Jareth rolled his eyes. It must be some sort of a ghost. He forgot how common they were in Sarah's world. Ghosts do not adhere to the same rules of time that mortals do. No wonder he was moving about.

"I have no interest in you opera house. I am simply here to collect what is mine."

"Everything in this opera house is mine." Erik bellowed.

"Not her" Jareth snapped back.

"We shall see" Erik replied.

Jareth had no patience to stay and play with some common little ghost. The easiest way to be rid of this pest was to restart time. Ghosts hated being around bustling breathing mortals. At least, that was Jareth's understanding. He really didn't study much on the subject as a child. He found it dull.

Jareth set the world back in motion. The nineteenth century masqueraders returned to their revelry. The people who had standing next to Jareth moments before looked confusedly around for the magician. Jareth looked down at them from the staircase turning round and round like confused little ants. He looked back up towards the Red Death. He was gone. Good riddance. Time to find Sarah.