A quick update. Tanx Rosakara13, Velo and Prinsess of Rivendell. Little question to Prinsess though: what do you mean with asap? I'm not realy fermiliar with these kind of abbriviations. :D


Chapter 7 'The Guards and the Goblins'

Kranlar walked over to the chair next to the table. It just fitted, together with two more chairs, a bed and a small cupboard, in the small room. This was Kranlar's own room.

"So, you know now what to do?" he said. The three hired Goblins nodded.

"Go to the house, kidnap the girl, and bring her to you," the biggest, and clearly the leader, said. Kranlar sat back on the small chair against the stone wall. He smiled. This was all going exactly according to his plan. He took the glass of red wine and sipped.

"Good, good. Now go, and don't dare to return before you have the girl," he spoke careless. "Alive," he added, with a deadly glare at the three Goblins, who had grabbed their weapons. The three grumbled, and walked out of the room, leaving a devilish smiling Kranlar behind.

-

Sarah fell with a loud bang on the ground. She quickly stood up and looked around. Her friends were not next to her, as she expected.

"Hoggle? Sir Didymus? Ludo?!" Sarah yelled. No answer. Sarah suddenly noticed that she didn't saw the full view over the Labyrinth, nor that she was in the Goblin city.

"Hoggle! If I get you, you'll be sorry!" Sarah yelled against the dirty black walls of the Labyrinth surrounding her. She let out a scream. From all places she'd had to land here. Sarah looked around, in search for anything she'd recognise, but nothing. Sarah screamed again, and slammed her hands against the wall.

"Hé! 'Allo! Watch what you're doin'. Oh! It's you 'gain." A tiny voice said from behind Sarah. She turned around and saw the blue worm sitting in a ridge.

"You again ain't it?" On a brick sat the small, blue worm with a red shawl. Sarah bowed till she was on the same level as him.

"Good to see you're still alright. Watcha doin' here?" it asked.

"I need to get to the Goblin city. But we can't find a opening," Sarah said.

"Again? You must like a challenge hé? Goin' into that labyrinth. But you ain't looking right. But why don't you come to see the mippits now eh? You can have a nice cup o' tea," the worm continued.

"Could you tell me where there is a opening?" she asked not really interested in, whatever they were, the mippits.

"Right over there," the worm said, and it pointed his little head on the direction of the wall on the other side. "Déjà vu" thought Sarah.

"Thanks! You're such a great help," she said to the worm, smiling. Sarah stood up and walked to the wall. Still a little scared, she walked right through, what she thought was, a wall. Sarah gave the worm a swift 'goodbye' and then ran to the left corridor, again in the opposite direction of the Goblin city.

-

"A magical roof of course. Never seen one?" a voice said from behind. Other voices laughed. Jareth turned around and saw two big shields, with behind those, four dog-like creatures. Jareth walked over to the shields.

"You know what that was?" he asked. The upper red dog nodded.

"Well?" said Jareth annoyed, waiting till one of them gave an explanation.

"Well what?" the bottom blue one asked.

"What do you want?" the upper blue one said. Jareth now got angry. He didn't have the time for this.

"Tell me what that is or I'll throw you head first into the Bog of Eternal Stench," Jareth said, pointing at the blue shield while looking straight at the creatures. To Jareth's surprise, they laughed.

"To the Bog of Eternal Stench?"

"Who do you think you are?"

"He must think he is the Goblin King!" the dogs bursted out with laughter again.

Jareth sighed annoyed.

"I AM the Goblin King," he said calm between the laughter of the dogs. The creatures were all of a sudden quite. They gulped unanimous and smile nervous.

"We are terribly sorry…" the bottom red dog said.

"Never mind that. Just tell me what that thing was," Jareth said in his usual arrogant tone.

"That was a magical roof."

"Has been here since the beginning of time."

"How do you know?"

"I don't." All laughed again. Jareth cleared his throat. "As soon as I'm on the throne again, remember to punish these idiots" he thought. The upper red dog apologised.

"Keeps the visitors in so that the only way out is running the Labyrinth," he explained shortly. Jareth looked dark at the sky. He had to run his own Labyrinth. This was keeping him from Kranlar and Sarah ever longer. It all had to stop soon.

"Does any of you know how I get to the castle again?" he asked arrogant.

"The only way out of here is to try one of these doors," the bottom red one said.

"One of them leads to the Castle in the centre of the Labyrinth and the other one leads to.."

"pumpumpumpum"

"Certain death!" the upper blue one exclaimed. The others let out a big "oeh!" and grinned.

"And which one leads to the Castle?" Jareth asked, unknowing about this entire ceremony.

"We can't tell you. You can only ask one of us," the upper blue dog said.

"But we should warn you that one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies."

"He always lies."

"I don't!"

"What a lie!"

The bottom two laughed again. Jareth sighed. He wasn't good at thing like this. Finally he walked over to the blue upper dog. He conjured a crystal.

"I don't have time for this, so just let me pass this door," he said, while holding the crystal very close to the dog. "Or I'll send you all to the Bog of Eternal Stench."

The dog gulped and ordered the bottom one to move. Jareth pushed the heavy door open and walked through the gate. Without spending one more word to the dogs, he closed the door behind him and walked through the corridor. He was thinking about his Sarah, and stopped only just in time before the hole in the floor. Jareth looked down and saw all sorts of hands under him. He faintly remembered that he had seen Sarah fall through them and ending up in the oubliette when he'd looked into his crystal a year ago. Jareth didn't want to end up in the oubliette, so with a small run-up he jumped over the hole. Jareth followed his path and smiled, very pleased with himself. "If you want to have me Kranlar, then you should get me first," he thought.

-

The three Goblins, who Kranlar had hired, sat behind a bush. The stared at the white house on the corner of the road. It was exactly as Kranlar had described. This was the house in which the girl lived, who they had to kidnap.

"When will we strike?" The smallest Goblin said. He looked with his red eyes at the Leader.

"When night falls," the fat Goblin answered. The third Goblin, a long and thin one, with a stretched mouth like a bird and teeth like a shark, grumbled.

"Why wait? I wanna go back to the bar. I'm thirsty," it whined. The Leader slammed him in the face.

"You won't! First the girl, then back to the bar," he yelled. The long Goblin remained silent for the rest of the time.

Hours passed slowly, but eventually night fell. The three Goblins walked from behind the bushes to the house on the other side of the road. With some Goblin tricks and a bit of cursing, they climbed in the tree next to Sarah's room. When they were up, they peered in, but saw no one.

"Bu she is not in her room! Where is that lousy girl?!" A high woman's voice screamed form in. The Goblins growled.

"I hope that she isn't the one we need to kidnap. She'll scream the entire Labyrinth together with that voice," the small Goblin said. The door in Sarah's room suddenly opened and a man and a woman stepped in. The Goblins quickly his in the leafs and watched the two people.

"She has run off!" the woman screamed. "She's not here, not downstairs, she's nowhere!"

"Clam down Karen. Sarah probably had a good reason to go. Let's look around. See if we can find a note of her or something," the man said. He laid his hands on the shoulder of the furious woman and walked over to the desk.

The Goblins in the mean while, had climbed out of the tree.

"The girl is gone," the long one said.

"The boos is gonna kill us!" the small Goblin said frightend.

"But we can't find her here, and so we can't bring her to him," the fat leader interrupted. He walked to the bushes again.

"Lets just go. There's nothing to find here anyway," he said.

"But what about the boss?" the small Goblin asked.

"We'll just tell him. And if he isn't kind to us…" the fat Goblin pulled his axe out of the belt and let his short fingers run over the cold metal. "We'll make him kind." He said with a grin.