-- Bloody hell but I seem to be making it a habit of not writing! So much has happened since I last updated. I'm now a philosophy major, having finished up her second year and is now trying to save up to go over seas sometime next semester. In this next chapter I shall deviate from the movie (I know y'all are just so upset about that) and begin to get back into the story proper. Sorry that it has taken so long ... but I couldn't just leave out part of the story and graduating from high school and passing my college course has been important. By the by, I did some minor changes to the second and fifth chapters (I corrected Sarah's age, I was off by one year). Enjoy! Oh, yes! "After All" lyrics by David Bowie from his Man Who Sold the World album, original copyright 1971. --

Disclaimer: all original Labyrinth characters and story lines are Jim Henson's and the script writer's. All new characters are mine unless otherwise mentioned. That means Sam, Fred, and Chremslied belong to me (although you won't be seeing them here).

Chapter the Tenth

Jareth frowned at his crystal. Toby slept in the center of the throne room, tuckered out from his earlier song and dance session. He was perturbed that she had gotten as far as she had, and he was even more amazed then perturbed that she had found a way to avoid the oubliette.

He was not surprised that she had not asked the correct question, although he was surprised she had chosen to go through the correct door. If she had gone through the left one she would have slid straight into the oubliette instead of falling into the capable arms of the Helping Hands. At that point Jareth had supposed she would go down, he was shocked that she had chosen to go back up.

Not that the Castle was now a hop, skip, and a jump away, far from it. The Labyrinth was always changing; in fact, it was more organic being than a built structure. True, certain landmarks always stayed in the same general area in relation to one another (e. g. the trash people are always somewhere immediately outside the Goblin City proper, just not always in the same direction), but the ways in which to get to those landmarks always changed.

It was the ever changing features of the Labyrinth that actually made it so difficult and -- at times -- perilous. It became hard to avoid the truly dangerous places. Very few people truly 'solved' the Labyrinth. At most they were able to get in it and out again.

Jareth's frown deepened. He had hoped she would have given up by now. Then he could have shown her 'mercy' and given her Toby back as a human. Of course, then she would -- to all appearances -- be in his debt. He could begin to start visiting her Aboveground as himself, earn her trust and friendship and, finally, her love. It would be all so much easier if she would just give up and he no longer had to play the villain.

But she hadn't fallen down the oubliette. He would have to recall Hoggle and find someplace else to trap her in a seemingly impossible situation.

Jareth sighed, "All my plans seem to be for naught. If only I could ..." he paused, "yes, that would be peachy keen."

He allowed a smile to creep back on his face. By the time Toby began to wake up the small smile had turned into a full fledged grin.

Sarah rubbed her arms where the Helping Hands had pulled her up. Her shoulders felt as though her arms had been wrench out of the sockets. I think it would have been less painful if I had just climbed out on my own, she mussed.

The walls around her were no longer cream but a shadowy gray. The sky above was still blue, but the sun didn't seem to be capable of fully illuminating the path. Looking behind her, over the hole of Helping Hands, she was unsurprised to find that there was no door but a long corridor.

"I was right about one thing: everything in this place does keep changing," she muttered.

Looking at the hole in the ground Sarah decided that the best course of action would be to stay on the side she was on instead of jumping ... besides, it was closer to the Castle on this side anyway. However, when she turned back to face forward to double check the assumption she saw only shadowy gray wall. She couldn't see anything over it, or the other walls.

The air seemed to turn chill. Sarah looked closer at the walls. They were completely smooth and utterly absent of lichen or any other organic form of growth. The stone had been fitted together so seamlessly that it was difficult to find where the masonry work was ... especially in the dim light. Sarah suddenly wanted nothing more than to go back down the hole. The darkness seemed more friendly.

I made the decision to go up and so that's what I'm going to stick with. It's not as though it's night. Although I wish I knew how much time I had left. Nothing to do but keep moving.

With a great deal of effort she made her feet move toward the intersection before her. Above her the sky no longer seemed to be a friendly blue. It began to look like the dead blue of the computer screen at her high school. It was unfeeling and mechanical, staring at her like some kind of superior eyeball.

At the intersection she turned right without pausing to even consider the left passage. She feared that if she stopped she would be unable to move again. She began to hum softly to herself.

"Man is an obstacle, sad as the clown,

Oh by jingo

So hold onto nothing, and he won't let you down,

Oh by jingo ..."

Her voice faded into silence. It was very creepy hearing herself sing, and it did nothing to lighten her spirit.

An eerie malevolence seemed to seep from the walls. With every soft step she made Sarah felt it cling tighter to her skin. At time it even felt as though it were trying to penetrate her skin. He blood began to turn cold. It became hard to think without fear nibbling at her mind.

Maybe this is what it means to be paranoid. Or to be crazy. Perhaps it's crazy with paranoia.

A shadow moved.

Sarah jumped and smacked her right shoulder into the wall. Immediately she jerked away and began walking backwards. All the shadows were still. They remained one blank, single, impenetrable force unto themselves. Here mind had only been playing tricks on her. Her body, on the other hand, was not so lucky as to be tricked.

When her shoulder had hit the wall she had felt an intense, nearly electric, freezing pain. Turning around and continuing to her slow, shuffling walk forward, she peered down at her shoulder. Her shirt had a gray smudge on it ... and a faint stain of red. She could feel something trickle a little ways down her arm.

As her blood (for it surely could be nothing else) softly seeped from her wound Sarah felt the cold creep into it. Tears began to prick at her eyes.

What is this feeling? It's as though all life was heated, as though goodness was anathema. What is this feeling? She thought as the first tear trickled down her cheek.

Almost imperceptibly the malice of the walls began to grow. It turned from a general unspecified hatred to a hostile intent. Sarah's steps became more and more hesitant. Finally, she came to a complete standstill.

So, she thought, quivering like a rabbit before the coyote, this is what it means to be frozen in fear.

After that thought her mind could no longer think coherently, it merely gibbered in terror.

Then somehow (perhaps through sheer dumb luck or perhaps from some unquenchable hope that there was more to the surrounding area than the malevolent silence) her ears picked up a noise. At first it seemed like just one noise. Then, still just on the verge of hearing, it became a distinguishable two. One held all the hopes of the world while the other held only nightmares.

Bypassing her brain the sounds carried straight to her feet and legs and she began running. Blindly she ran as fast as she could, trying desperately to reach the former sound and avoid the latter. For the first was before her and the second most definitely behind her.

As she ran both sounds, unfortunately, became louder. One clearly was a type of song. The other the sound, or sense of sound, was of some wicked thing breathing. The breath seemed to escape from the very walls themselves.

Her ears began to pick up the words of the singer. Whoever it was was singing a very cheerful tune, even if the words did not seem to fit with the melody.

"Oh my lovely

la dee da

it is ve-ry na-sty here

Oh yes, uh-huh

and la la la duh da duh da ..."

Sarah rounded the next corner and there the singer stood before her. It had halted its quick trot, as well as its words, in surprise at finding a stranger girl standing before it. Its shape was tall and thin, but all the rest of its features were indistinguishable through her haze of tears.

"Oh, dear," the singer said, sounding a bit uneasy.

The moment Sarah stopped before it the singer grabbed her hand and pulled her -- back the way she had just come from. Sarah started to scream -- either in terror or protest, she wasn't sure which -- when she was roughly pulled around a corner she not even been aware of, so intent was she in her headlong flight to the singer.

Sarah's legs began to burn. She had only thought she had been running quickly before, now it felt as though her feet didn't even have the chance to touch to the ground. Breathing became difficult. Unused to this much exertion, she began to trip over her own feet.

Without missing a step the singer roughly yanked her forward. It scooped her up and over its shoulder, her head hanging just in front of its abdomen. It continued running down the corridors, apparently knowing where it was headed, singly sweetly all the while.

( Author's Note: a few years ago a friend of mine pointed out a problem with Sarah's logic at the doors. After many a discussion, not only with him but all the rest of the Labyrinthian peoples that I know, and much diagramming I discovered that he was indeed correct. If you want to know more specifically what the error is, please just drop a message, or remark on it in a blurb about what you think about this chapter and I'll message you back.)