A/N: Again, as always, a huge thanks to Anaknusan! You rock! Also thank you all for your comments. They make my day every time!
And the obligatory disclaimer applies...I do not own Labyrinth or its characters. I have written the story only for enjoyment and fun.
The Land That Is Not
Chapter Nine
Sarah's sneakers slipped against the slimy walls as she, holding desperately on the ropes tied around her body, slid down the chute. "No offence, but I thought you had the Bog for this kind of stuff..."
Itys peeked down from the brim of the pit. "The Bog?" his voice rung sharply in the pit, and Sarah glanced up, the echo of his words resonating in her ears.
Bog. Bog. Bog…
"Miss Sarah's above the Bog," he continued.
"Above?" she gasped and regretted it immediately. The foul vinegary-like stench of dirty underwear, rotten meat and vegetables nearly smothered her, and she swallowed down a vomit she felt creeping on her throat. With a choke, Sarah grasped on the ropes more tightly and crammed her eyes shut. She dangled in mid-air, holding very still, dead silent, before finding the courage to peek down, and gagged another time. Twirls of mist like a translucent veil of poisonous gas dispersed momentarily, revealing the mouth of the pit beneath her and black dead boughs of the trees the toxic environment had withered and killed over time. If possible, the disgusting smell got stronger.
"Oh, no…" She shivered, squeezing the ropes more tightly. If they were to break down...
Unexpectedly, a loud screech, a sound of someone opening a crammed door, tore through the loaded silence of the garbage chute. Clouds of red flecks rained down. Rust, she realized as she stretched her arm forward to catch the floating substance and thoughtfully rubbed her fingers together, feeling the slippery metallic material against her skin. She glanced up at the sound of snickering. Just below Itys' white-streaked head, in the gleaming clammy wall, a small hatch hung half-loose. As she watched, a furry face peeped out: a tiny goblin with round cheeks and big dark eyes. He stared at Sarah, who dangled just below the hatch. Sarah blinked, and the goblin repeated the gesture. She could have though him cute without the half-mad grin stretching from corner-to-corner on his face. The goblin put two fingers into his mouth and let out a sharp whistle.
Two other goblin faces appeared the next instant next to him. Silently, they stared at each other: Sarah swaying in the air, and the goblins in the safety of their small grotto. Then the small goblin grinned at her with all of his yellow razor-sharp teeth. With a wave of a hand he pulled back inside, and the other goblins stepped closer to the brim of the hatch dragging something in their hands. She saw a black cover of a huge bucket.
"No!" Sarah barely had time to scream when they tipped a rain of smelly, black liquid on her.
The group cheered with laughter, the hatch slammed shut with a loud bang, and they left her alone.
Sputtering and trying to hold back the acid taste rising to her mouth, Sarah clung to the ropes while suppressing the tears burning her eyes. The black smelly water oozed out of her hair and soaked clothes. This couldn't be happening! He had said he wanted to humiliate her, but this…this was worse she could have ever imagined.
"Miss should hurry!" Apparently indifferent of what had transpired, Itys shouted at her. Sarah sent daggers at the little creature and froze when he continued, "The trash taps will soon be opened!"
She noticed then dozens of similar bronzed hatches around her. Shuddering, she sniffed, wiping her face and reached for the broom tied behind her back.
After a smelly eternity, Sarah climbed out of the shaft with her hair and clothes still dripping of black foul juice. Her eyes burned in resentment, and she clasped her teeth together, staring at Itys. "I want to wash," Sarah spoke in a dangerously low voice, "right now!"
The place, silently gushing fountain in the courtyard, maybe wasn't the best spot but with little options left she had to satisfy with that. At her request, spoken through clenched teeth, Itys hurried to fetch for her a broken bucket and a piece of soap. The little goblin also found somewhere a mismatched pair of relatively clean socks, pink-colored underpants with "My Little Pony" embedded in them and grey patched dress into which she doubted she would barely fit.
The goblin left her tactfully alone as she set on for a task to get most of the black debris out of her and her clothes. Despite the fact that she scrubbed her hair five times with soap, she still thought she could discern a lingering smell of garbage in her skin and hair. Even though she had scrubbed some off her clothes, it had not been enough to salvage them. Sarah sighed, fidgeting with a huge riff in her knitwear. The underwear, her sneaker and her jeans were as good as gone.
"The King! The King!"
Sarah screamed in fright, yanking her waterlogged shirt to cover her breasts, when she heard an unfamiliar voice screaming at her; without her noticing another goblin had sneaked next to her.
"What now?" she snapped, her mood turning foul and looked down. "Don't tell me there's another chute he wants me to clean!"
The goblin, a filthy little creature with a bronze pot as a helmet and black slimy rat-like thin tail, fluttered his eyes, looking at her innocently. But his eyes gleamed in a way Sarah realized she shouldn't have said that aloud. "The King wants to see you," he told her instead.
"He'd found Toby!" Sarah cried, almost letting go of the blouse. Just a nick of time, she remembered it was the only thing preventing the testy little creature from seeing her naked. "Umm, I come as soon as I'm dressed…" she mumbled uneasily. "Can you wait somewhere else?"
"I stay," the goblin crossed his arms, sensing her distress. He leered at her, answering, "The King told to fetch Sarah immediately. Mikos's a good goblin. He obeys."
"Whatever…" Sarah sighed, looking up to the cloudless sky and noticed then a brooding crow sitting on the shoulder of a dwarf statue. She jolted, momentarily taken by the sight. The bird croaked at her in a low threatening voice, eyes just a gleaming void of blackness in its head, its beak gleaming in the shafts of the day.
"Shoo!" She plunged out her tongue at the bird, flapping her hand. The crow croaked another time, jumping off from the statue. Only a flustering of his wings rustled in her ears, and the bird was gone, flying from the courtyard toward the Labyrinth and the dark lines of mountain.
Sarah turned away, shrugging her shoulders. At least, she could be happy it wasn't the King.
"Toby?" Sarah inquired after entering the King's study, searching the man with her gaze.
Unlike the room she'd been in earlier that day, this was a crowded room with exclusive paintings on the wall and packed book shelves. The gilded furniture appeared extensive and luxurious; dark-red drapes hung on the windows, and soft rugs covered the grey stone floor. Her eyes hooked on the King standing by the window with his back turned to her. His raggedy-like cape swayed behind his back, and the sparkles and the glitter embedded in him glimmered distinctively. At the sound of her voice, he slowly turned around.
With her cheeks burning crimson at the mocking quirk of his brows she imagined seeing on his scrawny face, Sarah compelled herself to remain unmoving. Her hands itched to cover the tattered blemished gown she was now wearing; knowing very well, Sarah's face darkened, she looked like a barefooted rag-doll in her drenched hair, too short dress and the only sweater she succeeded to salvage from her clothes.
"You've found him already?" she asked instead.
"Patience is a virtue, and apparently an unknown concept to you," Jareth dryly commented with a deliberate delight still flickering in his eyes.
Her heart fell in her chest; the disappointed nearly strangled her voice. "Frankly speaking, I couldn't come up with other reasons for you to call me," Sarah muttered reluctantly
The King shrugged without answering, turning around, and walked toward a small table. "Come and look, Sarah," he ordered, uncaring to check if she obeyed. "This is my scrying glass. It shows me what I wish to see, and when I wish to see." His voice was soft as he stared at the gleaming surface of a glass bowl filled with quicksilver-like liquid.
"Why do you use crystals in that case?" Sarah asked, taking a careful step closer. "Only for illusion?"
He glanced at her, and something, a fleeting ghost of a smile tugged in the corner of his mouth - and vanished.
"However, there are limitations to what I can scry," he went on.
"And?" Sarah reached the Goblin King and the light wooden bench with a silver bowl resting atop it.
"I want something of or from Toby. In order to make the spell strong, I need to have something that belongs to him: a cloth, a piece of hair, a picture of him," Jareth said
Sarah hesitated, tugging her hands in her pocket and probing it through.
"I snatched a photo of him with my phone," Confessing softly, she jiggled the cellphone in her hand and noticed without a surprise the lack of reception. To her relief, the cell worked otherwise as she shuffled through the settings and opened her image gallery. The picture was from the harbor with Toby making funny face at her. Tears stung in her eyes, and quickly she handed the phone to Jareth. "Is this good enough?"
"It's new?" Jareth asked, looking at the picture a long time with an odd expression on his face, almost rueful.
"Took it today, in the morning." She folded her hands, fidgeting her fingers nervously. "Is it okay?"
He didn't answer with his eyes fixed on the image. Only by great strength did he succeed in ripping his gaze from the picture and turning to Sarah, opening his mouth. Instead of answering, he only inclined his head as in approval and turned back to his scrying glass.
Extending his hand, Jareth's shoulders tensed, and Sarah sighed loudly when a crystal appeared to his fingers; not an empty bubble or a mere light ball she had seen him producing earlier. The crystal was like the one she's seen years ago, when she had whisked Toby to the goblins, just before her drugged dream. The crystal reflected a transparent image; Sarah gulped, recognizing the picture of her brother.
Jareth's hand fell but the crystal remained in the air rotating softly around its axis and revealing also the limitations of magic. Like the original image, Toby in the crystal remained two-dimensional. Toby's smiling eyes perpetually returned Sarah's gaze despite the fact that the crystal kept on spinning around, and created an oddly disorienting and slightly nauseous image of Toby having nothing but a face.
Hesitantly, Sarah looked at the scrying glass. Her own reflection returned her stare, and she furrowed her forehead, doubtful. The item didn't look like anything special: just a glass bowl filled with some sort of water. Sarah's contemplations were broken with a sudden movement of Jareth next to her; she cried softly.
"For heaven's sake, woman," Jareth snorted, giving her a nasty glance. "Try to rein your paranoia. I'm not doing anything to you yet."
"That's hardly convincing," Sarah muttered but the man didn't answer. He slowly slid his palm over the bowl and straightened. Like released from invisible straps, the hovering crystal plummeted down, into the bowl. She back-stepped, expecting the crystal to cause the water to splash around but nothing happened: the surface remained just as smooth, even and ripples. Curious, she bent closer with an unwavering attention. The clear liquid transformed to opaque. Like a mass of clouds, darkness slid over the silver-clear surface, hiding hers and Jareth's reflections, and coated the liquid in obscurity.
Jareth narrowed his eyes and hissed something under his breath.
Steamy faint fingers of mist rose from the bowl, slithering and slinking through the air like grey tentacles, folding around Sarah and Jareth and concealing the outlines of the King's room.
She stared into the bowl through the whirling locks of gauzy mist but her eyes perceived nothing. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned to Jareth, opening her mouth. Words never came out. The perspiration pearled on the King's forehead, and he breathed raggedly. His eyes had turned nearly black, and his whole body trembled. Suddenly, he twisted as if in pain.
"Jareth!" Sarah cried, placing her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
Her touch seemed to break the spell. He started and snapped his head in her direction, the pitch-black darkness of his eyes prickling the hair on her neck. He snarled, baring his teeth, and snatched his arms further from her.
"Don't touch me!" he hissed.
"I'm sorry," Sarah apologized, shivering at his sudden transformation. "I got worried." Her voice faded at his expression.
The man regarded her with his brows in deep furrows. He didn't reply, breathing heavily, apparently exhausted. "Something's blocking me," he replied in a thoughtful voice.
"Blocking?" she repeated, biting her lip, and jerked up her head.
At her gesture, his eyes thinned; a rapacious expression slid over his face, and, for a moment, there was a trace of wildness, desire and something - dark. The façade shattered. With a long sigh, his expression turned tired.
"As I said," he repeated, running his glove-clad fingers through the flocks of his errand hair. "Someone has placed strong wards around the boy. I can't see through them," he muttered.
"But can't you break them?"
He glanced at her sharply. The corner of his mouth twitched sourly, and an angry glint appeared in his eyes. "You saw what happened just a moment ago."
"You're saying there's nothing you can do? Please, Jareth…" Disappointment churned her chest.
He took a long breath. His gaze flickered as he watched her, and Sarah's heartbeats accelerated as she returned his gaze. "I guess I could try something else." Jareth muttered at last and turned back to the bowl.
This time something appeared. The darkness gave way to a bright nearly transparent clearness. The steaming mist vaporized, and her mouth fell down as she heard her own voice echoing in the room.
"…half-brother."
And then Sarah saw familiar view of her living room reflected by the scrying glass. Paling, she recognized the scene with her and Toby sitting on her couch.
"I'm sorry, Toby! I didn't mean that!" the other Sarah apologized but the boy only frowned and looked at Sarah furiously while jumping to his feet.
"Sure you did."
She heard his voice, and her heart ached when she recognized the emotions playing over his face: anger, resentment and hurt.
"You're such a prig, Sarah!" Toby moved as trying to hit her with a book he held in his hands and cursed. "Up yours!"
Did she hear Jareth chuckling? She didn't dare steal a glance at him with her eyes fixed on the sight in front of her.
She saw herself aligning straighter and speaking up. But Toby only snapped back at her, and then she heard those dreadful words once again in her ears. Sarah closed her eyes, knowing that the Goblin King was seeing and hearing all with her.
"You know, Sarah, were I to wish you to goblins, I wouldn't even bother running through Labyrinth. I rather take my dreams than you!"
From there on the image shifted and changed, showing Toby to storm away and leave Sarah alone on the couch. The boy running through the small entry hall. The planks creaking underneath his hasty steps as he pushed the door open and entered her room. Toby slammed the door shut behind him and leaned against the white painted cover, frowning. He clenched his fists.
"Stupid! Stupid!" he ranted under his breath, staring at his feet. "And stupid Sarah!" he spat. Actually, 'stupid Sarah' was the mildest of the terms escaping his lips. Sarah stared into the bowl shocked by the words her brother used with such an ease she knew for certain he wasn't saying them for a first time. And he was only 12 years old!
"Rather colorful language," Jareth commented amused. "Wonder where he's learnt all those terms."
"Not from me," Sarah didn't bother to be offended by his words. "I haven't lived at home for the last eight years," she muttered with her gaze fixed on Toby as he hurled himself on her bed. The springs moaned beneath him and quieted as he laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. She tried frantically to calculate the time that had transpired between their argument and the moment she got up from the sofa, and came to Toby.
Toby ruffled his head and rolled on his stomach, gazing towards the still closed window.
Her eyes narrowed as she expected to see the person who abducted her brother.
Instead, the image shifted, trembled, and disappeared.
"No!" Sarah cried desperately, hearing through her own voice the low cursing next to her: Jareth. "What happened?" She turned to Jareth.
His face was ashen as he stared into the bowl, muttering, "He - or she has taken excellent precautions. Even time has been covered." He turned to look at Sarah.
"Then…" Strength left Sarah's body, "you can't find him?"
"Don't be an idiot! It doesn't become you!" Jareth snapped though he didn't appear as confident as previously. "It's only matter of time and patience."
"Tell me. What will happen if you don't find Toby?" Sarah asked quietly.
His eyes darkened. "Why are you suddenly so concerned?" Jareth snapped.
"And why aren't you telling me?"
With a curious glance, Jareth furrowed his forehead. "Since that's none of your concern," he answered in a low voice.
Sarah froze, odd tingling rushing through her body. Lie! lie! lie! lie! Every fiber in her body cried to her with so strong a feeling, her legs nearly gave out on her. She gasped, blinking furiously. What was that? No time to think now, Sarah shook her head.
He strode next to her with one swift step, bending closer, "Rest assured, Sarah," Jareth hissed staring into her eyes. "I will find your brother. And when I do, I'll send him straight to his parents as agreed." He straightened, glancing at the dark rooftop and gilded chandelier. "Until then, I expect you to obey my orders and do your work."
"As the castle's junk lady?" She couldn't prevent her snappy remark.
The amusement was written everywhere in his face as he looked at her. "Consider it as a welcoming present…" He grinned wolfishly. "Though I admit, I was disappointed you so meekly agreed to your task. The Sarah I knew wouldn't have." He tsk'ed, tilting his head and watching her with veiled eyes. "I am disappointed." He sounded surprised. "Where's the spirit, Sarah? Where's the fire?"
She clenched her teeth together and pulled back her shoulders. "Unlike others, I grew up."
He regarded her silently, sighing, "What a pity…" He inhaled deeply and turned his face away towards the window. "Leave now," Jareth said resignedly his back turned to her. "I'm exhausted and have but little patience with you."
She obeyed, almost.
Sensing her lingering presence, Jareth twirled around. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at her exasperatedly. "What now?"
"I…" Sarah hesitated. "What did you do to Hoggle?"
His brows jolted up in surprise. "Losing yourself over such a scum?" he mocked.
"Hoggle's no scum!" Sarah snapped. "He's my friend, and I love him!" His eyes darkened at her words, but Sarah didn't care. "Tell me you didn't kill him!"
"Demanding things again?" he asked with his voice only a dangerous hiss, "My, you are a slow learner…"
She suppressed the shudder, returning his glare. "And I would be despicable person if I didn't care about my friends. Hoggle's innocent! He only wanted to help me to find Toby."
"And neither of you," Jareth snarled, "thought about contacting me first…" He shook his head with annoyance. "The dwarf at least should have realized…" Jareth clasped his mouth tightly shut, preventing himself from continuing whatever he was about to say. He studied Sarah for a moment, his pale lips drawn in a thin line. "I warned him," the man hissed. "He knew the penalty, knew the Law. Whatever was his intention, I cannot overlook constant breaking of the rules. I am the King; I have a kingdom to protect. I have to keep my words."
Sarah's feet wobbled. "You killed him?" she whispered.
Snorting, he replied, "Sarah, I don't give death sentences without a very good reason." His eyes grew dark, and he leaned closer, "though I admit that I was tempted…"
She retreated, gasping, "He-he's alive?"
His mouth twitched. "Yes," Jareth spat. "I spared your pitiful little dwarf-friend's life." He straightened, staring at her with contempt. "But, as I said, he broke the law even when I deliberately warned him." He waited a moment, but when Sarah didn't say anything, continued, "He has been expelled from his duty, his home and this country." Jareth's eyes drew toward the window and the peaks of the mountain line. "I banished him to the Black Widow's Mountain."