Caereh produced a crystal to check on Hadrian's whereabouts and the progress of the game.
"I think I'll take you up on your suggestion," she told Tieran after a quick survey.
"My suggestion?"
"Yes, let's go find you a closet. There has to be one around here somewhere. I have things to do and Hadrian is... occupied," Caereh told Tieran with a pause and twist of her mouth that made him hope something other than his friends occupied Hadrian.
They left the dining room, the black cat slipping out the door with them, and Tieran followed Caereh docilely down the stairs.
"Why not leave me in the dining room?"
"And have you taking off on an owl? Not likely." They had reached the floor below the dining room and Caereh tried doors, unlocking them with a key she carried. "Here we are," she said at the third one. "Home sweet home."
Tieran stood looking in at the little room while Caereh held the door open. The cat wandered in to inspect the accommodations.
"Don't just stand there. Get in there," Caereh said and gave him a rough shove. Tieran stumbled into the closet and Caereh closed the door behind him.
"Enjoy your stay," she told him as she turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. She checked a crystal again and nodded to herself as she walked down the hall. "I think I'll make her the first stop."
.….
Cara sighed as she watched the owl fly away. "Easy come, easy go."
She looked around and sighting the castle in the distance, made her way down that side of the hill. Surprisingly, she seemed to have stumbled onto a path in the rocky hillside.
Winding her way down the hillside, Cara thought about the encounter she had just had. She had thought she had everything figured out, that everything came in black or white, right or wrong. Now everything had become muddied shades of gray. She had answered the goddess so definitely at the time, but she no longer felt the same certainty.
She had to admit that her parents were probably only trying to do what they thought was the best thing for her, but it still felt like a betrayal. She supposed she had just become too Americanized to understand them and their customs anymore.
She sighed again. And whether she understood them or forgave them or not, it did not matter at this point. They still were not speaking to her anymore. They would only forgive her if she gave up and did what they wanted her to do.
"Fat chance of that. They can just stay there in India," she muttered and the comment triggered another thought. Where had the goddess come from? Was she only a computer character? A real god from the world outside the computer? No, kill that idea. The owl would never have let Cara ride it if it belonged to a real goddess. And if the goddess had been real, she probably could have gotten them out of this computer – a proposition that would have made a good bargaining chip when trying to persuade Cara to do as her parents said.
"Not that I would have taken it. I wish I could do something and get us all out of here, but it's not worth it. I don't think I could manage it, not even for Alia." She shook her head.
"So if she's not a real god, but just a computer animation, where did she come from? They must have pulled references to her out of my mind. Or done a lot of research. Either way, Hadrian must have done it. It's too subtle for Caereh, totally out of character for her and it has nothing to do with the movie."
"Well, if it isn't you. And... ah... where are you going?"
Cara looked up from the path in the direction of the voice. Speak of the devil, Caereh reclined on a rock in front of a skeletal tree.
"Gee, I don't know. I thought I'd run out for a pizza. Where do you think I'm going?"
Caereh smiled indulgently, ignoring the sarcasm as she stood up. Instead she exclaimed, "You've lost your friends!" and pulled a sad face. "Where are they?"
"You tell me. I haven't seen them in quite a while."
"You expect me to know something about it?" Caereh feigned innocence.
"No, nothing at all," Cara muttered. She had just recognized the scene around her. "So what's the point of this little visit? I can't think of anything you would want to warn me about. I don't suppose it's to give me directions? No, I didn't think so. If you'll excuse me then, I have places to go," Cara said as she turned to continue. She found Caereh blocking the path in front of her.
"But I have a much better plan."
"Yeah, like what?" Cara took a step back and crossed her arms across her chest. "I can't wait to hear this," she thought.
"You could wait right here. Your friends won't win without you and that would please me very much. I'm sure I could have Hadrian reward you nicely for it. I think he likes you anyway. There's no telling what he would do for you. You could leave Alia here with Tieran, Jareth with me, and do whatever you wanted with Hadrian."
"No thanks. I don't want anything to do with Hadrian. You can keep him. If he will do anything you want him to, why don't you just keep Hadrian? He has to be more powerful than Jareth anyway, if he can keep him here."
"But he's not Jareth and Jareth is what I want."
"Whatever. I don't have time for this."
"Wait. If you change your mind, you can always use this." Caereh tried to flip a crystal out of thin air, but missed and flung it across the clearing where it rolled to a stop at Cara's feet.
"Is this what you were trying to do?" She picked it up and demonstrated what Jareth had taught her, rolling it from arm to arm with a smile. Caereh glared at her murderously and disappeared.
.….
Jareth frowned worriedly and rubbed his forehead as he looked at the forest around him. "I hope she turns up or Tieran will kill me," he said with a sigh.
As Jareth walked deeper into the forest a mist grew between the trees, thickening until he could follow the path only a few feet in front of him. The low sun lit the mist with a golden glow and where it found its way through a thinning in the mist it gilded the branches as they loomed in front of him.
"Very impressive animation. I could not have gotten more atmospheric myself," Jareth admired. His voice fell dead in the silence of the forest, muted by the fog.
As he walked further into the forest the golden glow dimmed, the sun reluctant to brave this part of the forest. The mist faded and grayed around him, swirling and eddying uneasily among the trees as if it wished to follow the sunlight and leave this unwholesome part of the forest to slumber alone.
Jareth caught the movement from the corner of his eye. "Good, a breeze. The dark is bad enough without the mist."
But the fog did not clear. The light faded more and more and the movement between the trees grew more agitated. Jareth continued walking.
When the rhythmic tapping began, he knew the encounter that he had hoped to avoid had arrived. Wild cries joined the tapping and shapes darted through the mist around him. When he reached a clearing they surrounded him and a prepared bonfire burst into flames. The mist melted away into the darkness.
Jareth tried to slip through the ring of Fireys, but they would not let him go that easily, moving with him to keep him surrounded as they sang their songs. He decided to wait them out and hoped their fit would not last long before it moved on.
He stood aloof in the middle of their ring, arms crossed and scowling with disapproval and impatience. This attitude made him a magnet for their hilarity.
"This is the way you dare to treat your King?" he demanded as he threw one off his shoulders.
"King? What King? I don't see no King 'round here. You see a King?"
"No one here but us. I don't see no King. Who needs a King?"
"No King! No King!"
"Idiots! I am the King!" Jareth stormed
"Hey, maybe it's one of us!" the Fireys continued, oblivious.
"Yeah! You the King!" one of them told another.
"Why thank ya. Thank ya vurry much," the second one answered with a sneer and wiggle. The temporary lull of semi-sanity collapsed into chaos again and first one, then another jumped on Jareth, trying to induce him to join in on their fun.
He shook off each one as they tried to grab his hair, his ears, tried to remove his head. "Let me pass or you will regret it."
"Ooh, I'm trembling. Whatcha gonna do to us?
"This." Jareth moved to produce a crystal ball.
"How soon we forget. Old habits are so hard to break."
Jareth quickly looked up at the voice. Hadrian's pale face floated disembodied in the tree, Cheshire cat-like. He had chosen to exaggerate the planes of his face with the computer animation and they reflected the firelight like an angular sculpture. A slow grin spread across his face, bending stone, as he saw Jareth realize what he had tried to do.
Hadrian dropped lightly from the tree into the midst of the Fireys that had run clamoring to the foot of it when they saw him. Jareth took advantage of their distraction and left the clearing.
Hadrian pulled his attention from the fawning Fireys and called out after Jareth, "Leaving so soon? Your guest is leaving, gentlemen. You're not going to let him go already, are you?" he asked the Fireys.
"Leaving? He can't leave yet."
"No, he can't leave."
"He hasn't played the game."
"We haven't taken his head off yet." They ran in pursuit of Jareth.
Jareth glanced over his shoulder at the pursuit as he began to run. What he saw made him run faster. These Fireys went beyond the creatures of his Labyrinth. While both fun-loving creatures, their definition of fun varied. Where the Fireys he knew had no idea that other creatures were put together differently with different ideas of fun, these animated Fireys knew other creatures were different. He could see it in their glowing eyes. They knew he did not come apart naturally and it was there that their fun lay – in taking him apart anyway.
Hadrian knew this as well, judging by the evil, satisfied half-smile on his face as he watched them run.
"He's running. Traveling." One of the creatures whistled stridently.
"Yeah, we get a free throw."
Jareth stooped and picked up a branch, then turned to face them. He swung at the nearest Firey, making solid contact with a thwack and crunch as wood fibers in the branch splintered. The head sailed deep into the woods.
"That's it. Hit it over the fence," Hadrian cheered from a low branch in a nearby tree.
Jareth swung again, catching the next one under the chin and sending it back into the one just coming up behind it.
"Well played." Hadrian applauded politely.
If he had had time to aim, Jareth would have sent a few heads in Hadrian's direction in an attempt to knock him out of his tree or at least silence him. The next head he swung at took the limb in its mouth and hung on like a terrier, pulling Jareth off balance with the unexpected weight and resistance. He jabbed the branch at the nearest abdomen, head and all, and took a leg in exchange.
"Just how many of them are there?" he wondered as he took off two more heads.
After a few more swipes he ran out of heads and began pulling and tossing limbs for good measure. During a lull when no more bodies came within reach, he realized he had not heard anything from Hadrian since he lost the branch and glanced up to see what he was plotting now. The branch was empty.
Panting lightly, Jareth saw that he had exhausted his supply of Fireys. He ran through the woods, putting as much distance between himself and the Fireys as he could before they reassembled.
When he saw the wall ahead, Jareth congratulated himself on running in the right direction. "But perhaps every direction is the right direction here," he thought.
Surveying the wall from its base he saw the climb was not long or difficult, but would have been made easier with the addition of a rope. Of course there was no rope in sight. "Why is it that the helpful bits from the movie are always missing, but the nasty bits are all left in?" he sighed and began climbing. As he started, the Fireys pulled themselves back together and launched a second assault.
"Hey. Come back here. You still owe us a free throw."
"Yeah, we get to take your head off."
"What should we do with him?"
"He looks like he'd make for a good game."
"Maybe a couple of games."
"Yeah, he might last that long."
They jumped him halfway up the wall and began pulling at him in earnest – no stopping at just an ear for this crew. Jareth kicked away a Firey dragging on his foot and kept climbing.
"I want a leg. I never get a leg."
"Okay, but I got the right arm. It's mine."
"Can I have the hand? You don't need the hand."
One of the Fireys grabbed his head, wrapping its long fingers around his face and covering his eyes. Jareth panicked for a moment. He had to get the thing off – he could not climb blind. But how? He could not afford to let go of the wall long enough to pull it off with all of the other creatures hanging on him. He shook his head trying to loosen its hold.
"Hey! Let go the head. You gonna mess up the face."
"What do you care?" asked a voice directly behind him, the owner of the hands. "It's gonna get messed up in the game anyway. They always do. Remember that last one? His own ma wouldn't a recognized him." But the hands loosened and moved back to his ears, using them as handles instead, and Jareth could see to climb again.
He pulled himself and two or three Fireys up the wall, moving as fast as he could so they would not be able to find handholds for leverage to start pulling him to pieces. Suddenly he ran out of wall to reach for and dragged himself over the edge. Jareth dislodged the hangers-on, tossed them over the low parapet on the wall and stood up. He turned around face to face with a hovering head and swatted at it to shoo it away as he began to walk to the right along the wall.
They followed him for a short way, continuing to threaten him, but without their bodies – thankfully left at the foot of the wall – the threats were empty. Eventually they gave up following him altogether.