Chapter: Can't Live Within Me
The shattered remains of the once gravity defying Escher room hung above and below her, each piece glowing softly in the starless blackness. Standing on the slowly revolving slab Sarah rubbed her stinging eyes as she scanned the desolated landscape. This was the last place where she had seen Jareth those seven years ago. Here he had turned into a barn owl, and been pulled down by the collapsing bridge as Sarah had been hurtled back to the aboveground.
Biting on her lower lip, Sarah turned a full circle as she tried to figure out what to do because there was no use in trying to figure out how she came here. Well first things first, and the soft glow of the stone blocks was not enough for her to see by.
Holding out her hand Sarah relaxed as she called a crystal to light her way, only nothing came, no rush of power, and no glowing crystal.
"What the?... Oh fuck, of course, I'm in the goddamn spell": Slapping her forehead with her empty hand, Sarah groaned: "And of course it won't let me use my magic... okay I'll figure this out anyway... Fine first thing first, getting out of here. "
Staring at the floating broken masonry Sarah felt the cold fingers of dread wrap themselves around her fluttering heart. Nothing she knew or remembered was of any help when it came to reassembling the Escher room to find a way out.
Originally the room had shattered when she had take a leap of faith, to get Toby.
Toby..
Images of her baby brother flashed through her mind.
Toby crawling through their living room and learning to stand, against the hideous pastel flower patterned couch.
Toby staggering after her on his little stubby legs, as they played in the first snow of the winter.
Toby sleeping in his cot, with his chubby arms wrapped around a tattered Lancelot. The bear had never been far from him, not even on that final night.
Tears burned as Sarah saw Toby sitting in his car seat still fast asleep with the tattered bear clasped tightly in his little arms as the car plummeted towards the ravine floor.
"Dead": The cold serpentine voice hissed:" Dead because you could not keep your temper in check you spoiled drama queen. "
Images of the final time she had seen Toby, flashed mercilessly before Sarah's inner eye.
Toby hanging limp in the harness of his car seat, his tiny hand still gripping Lancelot as blood dripped sluggishly from the tip of his nose to be soaked up by what shabby fur remained on the bear.
It had been painless the coroner had said, he had slept the whole time, and his neck had snapped like a twig on impact.
But what did it matter, dead was dead, and his bright blue eyes would never shine up at her again.
And her parents who had been trapped in the front seats, still aware as they bleed to death impaled on the same trees that had stopped their cars descent and saved Sarah's life. They had died slowly drop by drop, fearing that both their children were dead. Even now two years later Sarah could still hear their gasping voices calling out to them, begging them to answer to let them know that they still lived.
Pain awoke in her abdomen, forcing her to curl into a kneeling ball as she struggled to breath around the remembered agony of being skewered through, by the same branch that had taken her father's life. But this pain was so much more than just physical.
It was the pain of knowing, that the wood had not only stolen her parents life, but the life of any children she might have had.
Plastic surgery and good genes might have erased the surface scars.
But the fact remained that below the skin she was forever maimed.
"Useless": The voice cooed with mock sweetness: "Not even a true woman, unable to create life and fulfil the role of a wife. Why would he want you, a barren spoiled child... an evolutionary dead end, when he could have any fertile woman he wants."
"No no no no": Gripping her hair with enough force to rip out her long ebony locks Sarah shook her head forcefully and chanted:" No No No No... "
Holding her head in a death grip she fought to block out the cold droning voice, as it continued to rip her conscious mind to shreds.
No, she didn't kill them, the tiny creature, that she now knew was a ghast, had killed them, it killed them as it ran across the road, and the person who had summoned it, they killed them. Not she... no not she...
The voice, that cool cruel whisper: "...You were too young, it was the ghast, you don't need children... excuses, excuses, excuses so many excuses. It's just never your fault is it.. no never you, never Sarah. "
The words of the voice cut into her slicing away at her courage and refilling the gaping holes with bitter bile and cold fear. Shuddering against the mounting pain, Sarah bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. The words rung with the sound of truth, but it was not an absolute truth. It was twisted and warped, intended not to help her grow, but to crush her soul and resistance.
" No" : The word spilled from her lips, as desperation gripped her, was this a voice that had tormented Jareth? Was this the kind of cruel dagger thrusts that he had endured, while still appearing whole and confident. Sarah had only been it's victim for a few minutes, how long had Jareth felt its vicious sting?
Jareth.
The thought of Jareth enduring this for years on end and not breaking, put steel back into her spine, she had to help Jareth that was why she was here in the first place. To save him, not to fall sway under the same spell that held him.
Shaking off the crippling despair, Sarah fought her way back up. It took her longer than she would ever admit to anyone, but finally she stood tall once more. Though no longer alone.
It stood before her tall and lean, its black armour gleaming in the dim light as it cocked it's perfect head, watching her with a cold curiosity through the golden fringe of its wild hair.
It was perfect in every aspect, from the polished gleam of the cuirass, to the curve of the high collar as it framed the creatures graceful neck and chiselled jaw. Cold solidified in the pit of Sarah's gut, as she recognised the being as the creature, she had fought in her dream.
"How quaint": It mused: "My host was far more resilient than you, and yet he could not brush me aside in this manner, but no matter, you will succumb in time, I am too well crafted for you to prevail."
Bristling at it's mocking word's Sarah brushed off her jeans, which she dimly realized were the same as when she had run for Toby.
Toby, once more the thought of her dead brother brought a twinge of pain, but this time that was all it brought.
Using that pain to further reinforce her spine, Sarah turned hard green eyes on the perfect creature and stated boldly: "Well I'm mortal, and we have stronger metal than that..."
"Hmm indeed": Came the doubtful reply: "In any case it matters little, for you will never leave this shattered memory, and I will not be goaded into revealing the way. Farewell Sarah ..."
And then it was gone. No glitter, no poof of magic, just gone.
" Oh god fucking dammit! "
Screaming into the darkness, Sarah kicked a softball sized stone, only to be instantly reminded that soft moccasins were not designed for kicking solid objects. Grabbing her throbbing foot, Sarah let herself flop to the floor with little grace and a vile curse, containing several anatomically impossible acts which she wanted the perfect creature to be subjected to.
Time seemed to stand still as she sat silently fuming, rubbing her throbbing toes and considering her possibilities.
She was in a spell and one thing that she remembered about spells, was that they were always guided by specific rules, and that there was always a weak point, a way to break it. It might be virtually impossible, but it was there, she just had to figure it out.
Bolstered by that thought, Sarah rose and walked the four steps from the centre to the edge of the slab, and looked down into the endless drop below. Okay originally she had ended it all by jumping down to get Toby, so maybe that was the answer. Just believe that she would not end up falling for all eternity, or splattered all over one of the slowly spinning fragments, and jump.
Wetting her suddenly dry lips, Sarah reached up and grasped her sigil for strength. Only to freeze.
Where she had only had one pendant earlier, she now had two.
Moving slowly as if the pendants in her hand was about to bite her, or turn into something dangerous if she moved too fast, Sarah stared not at the still blank oval of her own pendant, but at the achingly familiar shape of Jareth goblin sigil. Power thrummed beneath it's polished silver and ebony surface, giving it an almost living aura. And she couldn't stop herself from tracing the intricate runic knot at its centre as she whispered his name, wishing fervently that Jareth, the true Jareth had been there to hear her.
And as if he had heard her wish, she heard him.
" My precious love, I have done what I must for our kingdom, and for you. Know that, even if I could not tell you this or my last words were cruel. "
The disembodied voice sighed, and it was a sound filled with longing and bitter regret: "I once accused you of starving, and exhausting me. But how could you, when you are the nourishment my soul craves, the haven I run to for rest... I live only within you. And if you know nothing but this, know that though I may seem to give my life for the Labyrinth, I will do it all for you. Please Sarah, live, love and in time forget. I beg of you... don't remember, rejoice in the knowledge that you can find love again, and banish me from your mind... Farewell my love... Farewell.."
"Jareth?.. Jareth what the hell are you talking about? Don't remember you... don't you think that, that is just one crystal too late? Jareth where are you? Come out here... Jareth?"
Nothing... Nothing, but silence and darkness met her plea's. Turning full circle Sarah stared into endless shadows with a rising sense of dread. She was alone, he wasn't here, he hadn't been here.
Gripping the pendant tightly Sarah's breath hitched as tears began to burn behind her eyes.
These words were the kind of words one would speak as one prepared to die. As Jareth prepared to die...
These were the last words Jareth had wanted her to hear, his last words of love. He had spoken them, into the spells of his sigil and sent it into the veil, to find her.
But...
Bile rose with the furious roar of blood, drowned out the still whispering voice, as Sarah imagined him dead. Only he couldn't be, death had given them three hours of labyrinth time, and that equalled one hour in the aboveground. Which again equalled ...Well it equalled what ever Sarah needed it to. This was her world, and this world that she had created was still young, still not anchored in the bosom of the great earth mother, and the crucible of the veil. And thus still beyond the grip of time.
That meant that Jareth could not be dead, not physically at least, and any other alternative was simply too painful for her to contemplate.
Quickly running her trembling hand over her wet cheeks wiping the tears away.
Or my last words were cruel...
Those six words made ice form in Sarah's veins. He had known about the spell even then, and this had been his way of working around it, and giving her this gift of his final words.
And yet the spell had somehow prevented him from sending the sigil into the veil. Instead it had trapped it within its own strands, keeping her from hearing what Jareth had believed to be his last words to her. Keeping her from learning the truth.
Until now.
Well no more.
Fresh determination flooded her as she fixed her gaze at the clock with the thirteen hours on its face. She had jumped to get in here back then, maybe another leap of faith would bring her out.
No more thinking it was time to act.
Drawing in a deep breath, she leapt.
Stairs and plateaus whirled through the air, finding their places and fusing back together as the Escher room reassembled around her. Accompanied by loud cracking sounds and the rough scream of stone against stone.
It took mere moments, but suddenly Sarah found herself standing in the so familiar gravity defying room.
Only this was not the enchanted room of her childhood, this room was dark and cold in a way that the original had never been. The stone of this room was covered with grime, and putrid rusty coloured water seeped from the cracks that wove through every wall, to create large pools. The smell was... well it was not as bad as the bog, but it was still rank enough to make Sarah's eyes water, and her breathing shallow.
But that was not what was making her heart pound a like jackhammer as she struggled to make out anything in the threatening gloom. Shuffling feet were moving amongst the shadows, ever moving and constantly staying just out of sight in a horror house imitation of how Jareth had originally stalked her. And every fibre in her body were screaming at her to move before whatever it was that were laboriously moving closer, caught her.
Swallowing convulsively, Sarah backed slowly away from the oncoming sound until her back collided with the slimy but solid stone of a wall. Leaning against the deceptive feeling of safety Sarah's head swivelled on her neck as she tried to watch every shadow close enough to hide a threat.
Great goddess she wanted to run.
Her instincts screamed at her to run, to race blindly into the warren of stairs, archways and narrow platforms. But her mind told her to wait, and see from where the danger came. And bowing to reason, Sarah stayed with her back against the slimy wall.
Growled sounds echoed around her from several directions as if a pack of large creatures were slowly encircling her. Fear was slowly getting the best of her as forms began to gather, and solidify into tall hunched over creatures.
They were dead things, cold as the grave and half eaten by maggots and decay. The grey skin sloughing off twisted faces, frozen in expressions of agony and hatred.
Terror, cold, sharp and all consuming, clouded her mind and launched her into blind panic as the shuffling creatures moved closer, with their clawed and soiled hands outstretched and reaching for her.
Frigid flesh trailed over her face as a dead Jareth groped at her face, and locked her in place with his milky white eyes, that wept black blood.
" No" : She whispered as she squeezed her eyes shut:" No you can't be dead, no."
No her lips said, but her mind and muscles screamed as one: "Run, Run for your life flee... "
Only she couldn't, every muscle were frozen solid as the decaying fingers continued their leisurely exploration of her body. Painful cold flared to life everywhere it touched, a cold that crept into her bones like carnivorous worms, and yet she couldn't even whimper, let alone scream, as her life was drained through her very skin.
Darkness bloomed on the edge of her vision as the cold began to fester in the very centre of her, stealing the sensation in her fingers. This was it, the end was closing in, and still Sarah could not comply.
Cackling softly, the creature leaned in closer, sniffing her like a giant cat, and yet the entire movement seemed stiff and threatening.
"Run.. Run my precious girl, if he touches you much longer he will drain you... run do not allow him to capture you...run"
Jareth. The true Jareth's voice whispered through her mind like a warm breath of spring, banishing the crippling cold, restoring strength to her muscles.
Fueled by the sudden warmth Sarah raised her trembling hands and pushed against the rotting creature with all her might, sending it stumbling back into the greedily grasping arms of the other approaching creatures. Grasping the sudden chance as it offered itself, Sarah pushed her revived muscles into a flat out run up the closest set of stairs, taking the steps in two's and three's, as she raced past the slower dead things.
This was the Escher room, and she knew it, she had walked it countless times in her dreams, retracing her steps night after night.
It didn't matter that this version was a rotting and decaying place, it was still the same twisting and gravitationally incoherent mind boggling abyss, but it was her abyss, and it was Jareth's. Gripping Jareth's amulet with white knuckled strength, Sarah ducked under grasping hands and side stepped gnashing maws bristling with broken filthy teeth. They had been her friends, both as she had see them in her childhood, and now after her return, in their true form. But now she fled from them as they stumbled after her with pus like saliva dripping from horribly disfigured jaws, and hunger burning in their sunken hollow eyes.
Speeding up a nearly empty staircase, Sarah dodged an outstretched claw with the bones sticking out like broken twigs, and let herself be pulled around the landing to run up what had just been the underside, and slip through a dark portal and onto another crumbling landing plateau. Instinct told her to run up yet another flight, but memory told her to go down. Running through the grimy pools of murky liquid, Sarah stopped only long enough to see whether the stairs were clear or she would have evade yet more ravenous creatures.
Relief washed over her as she looked down the empty stairs to the equally empty plateau. But still Sarah didn't allow herself to dwell on this stroke of luck as she hurried past the barely visible carvings that were showing her the way.
Each landing had its own knot design, its own unique twisting and flaws, to most they would just be worn decorations. But to Sarah they were a roadmap to the final arch way that hopefully would take her out of this room, and get her closer to finding Jareth.
And she was almost there... Just a few more flights of stairs and she would reach her goal. Eagerness began to fill her, as she danced gracefully out of reach and sent two decaying versions of Didymus and Beinhill plummeting off a landing and down into the awaiting darkness. If the markings were true, then she was almost there, almost close enough to taste it. All she needed do was traverse a final set of stairs, and then let the room rotate around her one last time, and then she would be there.
It was all around this final corner...
The stench reached her before the sounds did, but it was only seconds that separated them, making the question moot.
Slowing down, Sarah swallowed the rising bile back down, and crept up to the archway, behind which the final landing lay, as stealthily as she could.
Dead things packed the landing.
There was at least a dozen, and they were obviously just waiting for someone to drain. Gnawing on her lower lip, Sarah groaned and rested her head against the slimy stone. She was so close it hurt.
No! She could not give up, not yet, not while she still drew breath, not while Jareth still needed her.
Jareth.
Running her thumb over the intricate lines of the runic knot in his sigil, Sarah whispered softly:" Jareth... if you can hear me, then please, help me.. I'm caught here, and I don't know what to do... Jareth? "
Nothing, not even the slightest sign that he might have heard her. Okay that just meant that she would have to do this on her own. Poking her head around the crumbling masonry, Sarah sighed with frustration. This was the only portal with just one access route, and she had no other choice but to go through them. For Jareth and for herself.
Steeling herself against the fear that threatened to crush her, Sarah pushed away from the stone and squaring her shoulders, she strode out to face the milling throng.
The stench rolled over her as Sarah grabbed the shirt of the first creature and thrust him into the abyss. Speed was her only defence as she grabbed hold of being after being and either hurled them into the darkness below, or shoved them down the stairs, using their flailing bulk to trip those creatures she had just sidestepped.
It was working. Holy hell it was actually working!
Elation filled as she gripped slender shoulders and threw another shrieking decayed version of Beinhill into the outstretched arms of the emaciated husk of the butler Bolton, sending them both tumbling down the stairs behind her, accompanied by loud cracking noises and the wet sucking slap of bones breaking, and rotting flesh being ripped off.
Sarah's legs burned and screamed as she forced herself to leap the last three steps, and use her own forward momentum to topple two white eyed and salivating goblin maids, that she vaguely recalled from her brief time in the true goblin castle. Jumping over their blindly searching claws, Sarah speed past a tiny hairless and dried out Didymus, crushing it's brittle skull as she stomped on it.
So close, just a few more yards, just...
Reaching the very edge, Sarah stopped and sucked in a deep shuddering breath as the magic of the Escher room pulled her forward, revolving the entire room around her. Fuck she would never get use to that feeling, but she did not have time to dwell on it as she emerged on that final landing.
The landing was empty save from one figure, who sat pale and shivering on his knees, with his right arm wrapped tightly around his midsection, obscuring the view of his left arm. Not that Sarah needed to see that arm to know that it ended in a raw stump just a few inches below his elbow. Pale hair hung in ragged filthy dreads from his scalp, and had it not been for the low haunting song he was chanting he would have seemed as dead as the others.
How you turn my world
You precious thing.
You starve and near exhaust me.
Everything I've done,
I've done for you.
I move the stars for no one.
You've run so long.
You've run so far.
Your eyes can be so cruel,
Just as I can be so cruel,
Oh I do believe in you.
Yes I do.
Live without your sunlight.
Love without your heartbeat
I... I...
Can't.. live.. within.. you...
I can't live within you
I...I.. Can't live within you
Spellbound Sarah stood rooted to her spot and watched him sway as he slowly staggered to his feet. And as the song faded with the last anguished repetition of "I can't live within you" he finally raised his head to lock eyes with her.
Pale milky white eyes, which bled bright ruby red blood, unto transparent alabaster skin.
Swallowing thickly Sarah broke the sudden silence with a whispered: "Jareth? Is that really you?"
Angling his head slightly, as if searching for the source of the sound, Jareth replied in a fearful whisper: "Sarah? Sarah find me... please... I am so lost... I can not see... he took my eyes... please Sarah I can not feel... He took my hands away... I can not think... he has my mind... Please Precious find me... find me and make me whole again... "
Terror washed over her in heavy waves, as she slowly moved towards the swaying figure. Find him he said, okay well that did make a certain kind of symmetrical sense, seeing as she had tried to find Toby the last time. And learned so much about herself in the process, maybe she would learn about Jareth this time.
Reaching out, as she came within arms reach, Sarah asked softly: "Can you hear me Jareth? Can you feel this? "
His skin was soft as she tenderly cupped his face, and ran her thumb along his protruding cheekbone. Soft like silk, but dry as the desert wind. And like dry silk it parted under her claws like paper under the shears.
" Oh fuck I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you... I..."
Pulling her hand away before she could hurt him anymore, Sarah stared in wide eyed astonishment at her outspread fingers. One and a half inch golden claws glistened at the end of each finger, there edges honed like razors, sharp and deadly.
Holding them up into the meagre light, she watched the light play in the ruby droplet that trailed along the edge: "wow so this is what they looks like, when they are allowed to grow. Wow. .. Why would you keep these hidden?... Jareth?"
It was the inside of Jareth's mind, and it was being controlled by a malignant spell. Thus she should have expected it when she turned back to him, and found him gone. But still it filled her with sadness that he would vanish so abruptly. Catching the trembling droplet with her tongue before it could fall to the barren stone, Sarah rolled it's rich metallic taste around her mouth, savouring it familiar taste and the sharp spark of power. Yes this had truly been Jareth, at least she knew that now, the blood confirmed it.
And now she knew what to do.
She had to find him in the labyrinth and somehow restore him.
He was in here trapped blind, numb and deprived of his mind. And she would find him or die trying.