Hey everybody! Took me quite a while for this chap to come, but I wanted it to be PERFECT! It is a verrrrrrry important chappie so it needed to beperfect written. Anyhow.: Thanx for the reviews! Thanks princess of rivendell (again :-)), and of course Moonjava (also again), and thanks Arrna!
Arrna: your idea of you checking my spelling is very good. I always think everyhing is good 'coz my spellingchecker never finds a mistake, but I'm dutch so I probably used some words wrong and stuff. I'll mail the next chap to you when it's finnished so that you can correct it. But please do me a favour and write down what I did wrong. That would really help me :) Oh, and you can't steal Jareth! He's MINE! MINE!!!!!!!! Right Jareth snooshypoo?
Jareth: yes Ma'am
Good boy. :P Isn't he sweet? -.-'
this chap is not very cheerfull. Even better, it's as dark as the night! Dieing people ( everybody is going to kill ME for this as well) and Sarah in a very difficult sytuation. This chap is only about Sarah, but it has a reason. But you will see that in the next chap. Enjoy yourselves!
Chapter 13. 'the Cursed Night
Sarah slowly opened her eyes. "I must have fallen asleep," she thought. She looked dull up and saw she hadn't been sleeping for long. The sky was still dark and the stars, the crystal stars, shone brighter then ever in the dark blue sky. Sarah yawed and stretched herself. She stood up and walked to the centre of the room.
"Hoggle, has Markla come jet?" she asked sleep-drunk. No answer.
"Hoggle?" Sarah looked around but saw no one.
"Sir Didymus? Ludo?" nobody answered. Sarah frowned. Where were her friends? Sarah walked through the room, but no one was to be seen. Could it be that Jareth had jet arrived, and that her friends had already left, planning to pick her up when she was awake? No, they wouldn't do that.
"Oh, they would leave you alone," a voice in her head said. Sarah shook her head and ignored the thought. Hoggle, Didymus and Ludo were her friends. Friends don't leave each other alone.
"Things are not always what they seems in this place," the same voice said. Sarah looked up from the fire in the fire place. What was she thinking? They wouldn't leave her alone and she was just overreacting. She was just going to look for them and then she would find them in the kitchen where they got a snack or something. Sarah walked resolute to the door, but it didn't want to open.
"Open up stupid door!" Sarah grumbled. She kicked the door, but was immediately sorry when a sharp pain raced through her foot. Sarah mumbled some curses, and then focused on the door again. Why was it locked? And who had done that? Sarah looked doubting at the wooded boards of the door.
"It won't open if you stare at it you know," a sharp voice said from behind. Sarah jerked around. It was the same voice she had heard in her mind.
"Who said that?" Sarah asked nervous. There was a long silence. Sarah looked around the room, but saw no one.
"Who said that?" Sarah repeated more briskly. Still no answer. Sarah fell uncomfortable with the idea of someone watching her. Then she got an idea. She walked to the other side of the room to the closet and swiftly opened the two large wooden doors. She gave the clothing a quick glance, but there was nobody between Jareth's cloths as she expected. With a deep sigh she closed the closet again. She turned around and wanted to check the fire place, but she suddenly let out a scream. A small goblin stood behind her, grinning impish. He wore a old iron breastplate and a helmet with two small horns on it. His grey-red hair was all messy and his red eyes stared at Sarah.
"Who are you?" Sarah said, a little more rude than she mend it. The goblin's smile became broader and Sarah saw pointy teeth.
"It doesn't matter who I am. Who you are, that is more valuable," it said. Sarah frowned.
"Are you the girl who defeated the King a year ago?" the goblin continued undisturbed. Sarah nodded confused.
"Good, good," the small Goblin said. His smile suddenly faded, and was replaced by a sorrow look. He lowered his head.
"Then you are the one I need to have," it said gravely. Sarah was now even more confused, but she lowered till she was on his level.
"What is wrong then?" she asked.
"I'm sorry to say that our Majesty has just…passed away," the goblin said. Sarah gasped. She fell her hearth skipping a beat and it was like a sudden wind storm had just blown out all light in the room. He was dead. Dead, just when she realised that she loved him. Dead...
Sarah fell on her knees and began to cry. Tears like tiny crystals rolled over her cheeks and fell apart on the cold floor. The act was almost symbolic.
After a while Sarah calmed down a little and she looked up to the goblin, who still stood in front of her.
"What…what happened?" she asked with a shaky voice.
"He committed suicide," the goblin answered. "He was so devastated that he couldn't find you, that he lost his will for life. He ended his life by plunging his sword through his hearth," the goblin said matter-of-factly. Sarah howled and began to cry again. It was all her fault. All her fault. The tears covered her eyes. She suddenly thought she saw the goblin grinning between her tears, but when she wiped them away and looked again, she was sure he hadn't smiled, though no other expression was seen on his face either. Sarah cried long, but she had lost all knowledge of time. She didn't care for anything now, she was devastated.
When after what seemed like ages, Sarah looked up again The Goblin was gone and she was alone again. Sarah wiped sobbing the tears of her cheeks and walked to the window where she again sat down. Sarah stared at the stars high above her and she suddenly fell so little, so alone as the only one looking to a thousand stars. The pale moon light was a pale as Sarah's face. The Labyrinth lay motionless spread over the horizon. Nothing moved under the nearly black sky. The last lights of the goblin City had gone out and the city was left in darkness, darkness, like in Sarah's hearth. Sarah's spirit suddenly lifted when she saw a white creature flying in the sky. White, as a barn owl. As Jareth. Sarah opened her eyes wide to see it, but her hearth sunk even deeper when she looked closer. It was no owl, not Jareth. It was a star falling from its place in the air.
Her grandmother once told her that the stars represented the spirits of the dead ones. Sarah gazed up at the crystal filled sky and knew that Jareth had to be there somewhere. Somewhere between all the tiny twinkles was Jareth, looking down on his Labyrinth and Castle. "And maybe looking down on me," Sarah though hopefully. Sarah tried to put up a smile to him, but she could not. The sadness was to deep. Sarah closed her eyes and lowered her head. She thought of memories, of the last time in the Labyrinth.
Sarah fell a sweat drop rolling down her forehead. It was very warm. "Strange. It usually gets colder in the night," Sarah thought. She stood up to see if the fire had gone out but she abruptly halted when she saw a roaring fire behind her. The bed, the bookshelves and the tapestries were burning with a huge fire. The beams on the ceiling were ablaze. The heath was terrible and Sarah wondered why she had not noticed that before. But there was no time to think. The beams were coming down as burning wood and nearly hit Sarah. With a scream she stepped back to the corner with the window. The other beams fell down as well and she was surrounded with the roaring fires around her. Desperately Sarah looked around to find a way out of the room. In her search she saw that the seat of the fire was the fire place. Sarah wondered how the fire could have spread but was interrupted when sparks began to fly around. The scarlet flames came closer and closer, pushing Sarah deeper in the corner of the ablaze room. Sarah screamed for help, for anyone to help her, but her cries where not answered. The flames where now so close that Sarah nearly died of the heat. The whole room was on fire and there was no way out. Sarah began to cough of the heavy smoke. She cried again in one last attempt to save herself. Suddenly she saw in a quick glance around her that the window was still save. With all her force she pulled herself to the window and climbed in it. The fire burned on the place she had only stood a minute ago. Sarah knew she was save for a moment, but not much longer. The window was for the time being save, but soon the flames would reach Sarah's safe haven as well. Sarah turned around and looked straight down the walls of the Castle. There was nothing to jump to, nothing to climb down. Only a straight wall that reached for many meters under her. Sarah shouted for help to the Goblin City under her, in hope that some one, anyone, would hear her and get help. But it seemed like there was no one in the entire world who heard her. No one. Tears rolled over Sarah's red face. So this is how she would die. All on her own, slowly burned by the warm flames that would eat over her clothing and skin.
Wait. She could still jump down. She could jump and hope for survival. She would die here for sure. Maybe she could survive the jump with only a broken leg and arm. Maybe. There was a chance and Sarah was willing to take it. She could die, but she would die in the flames as well. With a deep sigh she stepped for to the edge of the window. She took hold of the stones next to her with trembling hands. "If I'll die, I would see Jareth again," Sarah thought in a attempt to lift her spirit. With a tear filled face she took a last look on the Labyrinth around her. The Labyrinth, that changed her life, "and my death," Sarah thought gravely. And with a last deep sigh she stepped forward into the thin air.
