Jareth returned to the throne room to check on things at the castle. The babies were asleep, and the goblins were still making a mess. Life was good, thought the man as he loped into his throne. Lounging in his draped throne, Jareth looked at the bawling of two goblins over a peashooter. Jareth watched them with an amused smile. The little buggers never ceased to be a squabbling lot. He had gotten use to it after the first hundred years or so. After the second, he would even go so far as to find things to cause the squabbling. He wondered if he would have been different if over the years more children had been wished away, then dismiss the stray thought.
He held out his hand and his favorite riding crop appeared. There was a moment of silence, as the goblins waited to see if he was going to strike any of them with the crop. When he began to tap at his boot, they went back to making merry. Jareth legs tossed casually over the arm of his throne lay back and thought. Things had not gone well for Sarah and yet she was still trudging away. The woman was stubborn, he'd give her that. Jareth yawned, and looked wearily around the room. "Think we should do some redecorating boys." He called out.
One goblin looked at him with big eyes. "Why?"
Jareth reached out, plucked him off his feet and tossed him against a wall. "Because I say so." He stood up from the throne, stretched his arms and paced restlessly. "How long has the throne room looked like this?" he asked.
The goblin leading the black pig around the room paused and said. "Years."
Jareth frowned, "Time for a change. No more pigs or chickens in the throne room." Waving his hand the offending animals vanished from sight. There was a loud protest and he smiled nastily. "I can make goblins vanish as well." The protests died quickly. "Good." He tapped his boot. "What we need is music and dancing." He reached up and drew sound from the air. The goblins began to dance round the room. Jareth laughed.
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While his mocking laugh still rang, he had vanished. Leaving Sarah with the knowledge that he knew she had thought of him from time to time over the years. How she had thought of him over the years now bothered her, and the fact that she had vented her thoughts on paper. "Why the hell didn't I burn those damn drawings?" she asked herself aloud. "No, I had to hang on to them, and draw even more. Stupid Sarah! Very stupid."
She walked down the hall, a quick glance over her shoulder to be sure he had not changed his mind and sent the cleaners after all. The path was dark and still. A solid wall of furiously spinning knives and chopping cleavers was bearing inexorably down upon Sarah and her dwarf companion the last time she was in this tunnel. Sarah looked for the collapsed door she and Hoggle had escaped though, on the wall was now a large locked panel with a sign that read. 'Closed for Repairs.' She shook her head twenty years, the door had not been repaired. There had to be some way out, she told herself. That was how the Labyrinth worked. There was always some trick, if only she could find it. The makeshift ladder was out, clearly. The path that Cleaners had taken seemed to be her only course.
Hoggle had been with her the last time she was at this point in the journey. She missed him now. Again, she remembered that Jareth had called him a 'traitor'. She had never once stopped to think in all the years that there would be payback for Hoggle having helped her. Now, traveling over steps she had taken before she wondered just what kind of punishment had been dealt to her friends. She knew that Jareth had threatened Hoggle. He had said "Hoggle, if I thought you were betraying me, I would be forced to suspend you headfirst in the Bog of Eternal Stench." Sarah was certain that it was not the first nor the last threat used by Jareth against the sniveling little dwarf. Yet sniveling or not, she missed him right now.
Hoggle had been the first to tell her he was a coward, and Jareth scared him. Not that she could blame him, Jareth scared her too, if for different reasons. The fear she had had twenty years ago was not the fears she felt now. Then she had been a child, and all adults and adult situations unsettled her. She had blamed her mother and father's divorce for that at first. Now she knew it was just being on the threshold of adulthood that had given her that fear. There were times back twenty years ago when Jareth had caused feelings in her she was not ready for, desires that she could not effectuate. Today, it was a whole different story. She was no fifteen-year-old virgin anymore. Perhaps that was her problem.
She walked further up the corridor that the Cleaners had traveled. An opening in the wall showed a staircase that went up. She looked back at the 'Closed for repairs' sign, and shook her head. "Hoggle you idiot! The stairs were right here! We didn't have to go up that ladder and chance breaking our necks." She looked at the stairs to be sure they were safe, and not spread with oil, or jelly or something else to stop her. It looked safe, so she took a tentative step up. In the distance she heard music, music she had heard twenty years ago when she was frantically trying to reach Toby. "One would think his taste in music would have evolved." She complained.
Breathing deeply, and looking resolutely upward, Sarah forced herself to think of happy, secure things: her apartment, her car, and her sketches. She stopped climbing the stairs. "How did he find my sketches?" She shuddered, thinking of him rifling though her drawings. It was a violation she had never considered possible. More than that he had been critical of her skill, the nerve of him. What was he said, proportions are wrong. She stopped and pinned herself to the wall. Why did she egg him on? Why had she made the comment about a codpiece is deceptively large. She had spent enough time in this place the last time to know he was vain, and would never let a comment like that one pass unanswered. Now she was stuck with thoughts of him on her mind, and parts of his body she had no right to even wonder about. "Bad thoughts, bad thoughts," she mumbled. "Out of my head."
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Mismatched eyes looked deeply into the orb, a picture of her silent face was clearly beamed to a crystal in the throne chamber of the Goblin King. "Bad thoughts eh?" Jareth spoke quietly mostly to himself.
The goblins cackled wickedly, dancing and prancing around. Their jaws gaped with merriment, and they slapped their thighs. Jareth had been their King for as long as they could remember, and they hoped he would be King forevermore. His words were funny and made them laugh.
"Shut up," Jareth told them. Jareth was still staring at the picture of Sarah's face in the crystal. He seemed lost in deep thoughts. They froze. Their heads twitched around to look at their King. "I need a moment to think."
"Think?" one goblin inquired.
Jareth nodded, still gazing at the woman. Her face distressed by thoughts she was no longer in control of. "So determined." He commented. " Too old to be turned into a goblin." Jareth examined her face in his crystal. "Too old to be a goblin, but too young to be kept last time. Now we play on a vastly different board my dear." His voice was a low growl from the back of his throat.
The goblins looked at each other.
"Time to go back to the game my precious." He chuckled, imagining Sarah's face when she found herself facing the next of his obstacles. Then he threw back his head and roared.
The goblins watched him uncertainly. Was it all right to laugh now?
"Well, go ahead," Jareth told them. "Laugh."
The goblins launched themselves into their full routine of cackles and snickers. The King directed them, like a conductor, bringing them up to a crescendo of malign mirth. He laughed and danced with them.
Jareth let evil thoughts fill his mind, darkening his soul, and feeding his already over active libido. Sarah had dark thoughts as well, he told himself, and now he was going to use them against her to win. He had held back the last time she had visited his realm, telling himself she was a child. This time he was not making that same mistake. She may have been unknowing, and unknown, but she was no innocent. She was a dark soul she was his equal. This time he would make sure she knew it. Jareth danced a dark dance filled with sexual tensions.
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Sarah took a deep breath, and moved up the stairs again. "Think happy thoughts. Whiskers on Kittens, and all that jazz." She said aloud. Fiddling with a sliding bolt at the top of the stairs, she pushed open a wooden hatchway. Outside was a clear blue sky. Sarah had never seen anything so beautiful, and it brought tears to her eyes. "Made it." She sat down and sobbed. "Hoggle, I made it."
Looking at a garden, where birds were singing, surrounded by well-trimmed hedges -- box hedges, she thought. Not a thing had changed in the garden she thought. Not a blessed thing. It was a rather formal garden, with carefully positioned stone monuments. On the stones were runic carvings, and a few faces. She touched one of the faces only to have a stone tongue slip out and lick her hand. "Yuck!" she was disgusted.
"Nice," the lips of the face said in a lascivious manner. "What's the hurry, sweet thang, I could lick you all day."
Sarah pulled back quickly. "I'm sure you could."
"Haven't tasted anything like you in the garden for years." The stone face wiggled its great brows.
Sarah looked around trying to remember just where the urn was that she and Hoggle had come up though. She had taken his bag of jewels from him to force his help. It had not been fair, it had been a rotten trick, and it had worked. If she had seen Jenny do that to Gwynn she would have read her the riot act. She saw the urn, resisted the urge to run over and hug it. She retraced her steps. Jareth had said he did not have to steal time, she was moving much slower than that last time. Well what did he expect she wondered she did not have help this time.
Over the hedges, she could see the castle's spires, turrets, and towers gleaming in the sunlight. "There's the castle," Sarah said buoyantly. "I'm making progress." She walked through one of the gaps in the hedges, into a hedged alley. It looked like the same one as before. Then remembering that it lead right back to the garden, she stepped back though and called out. "Hello!"
A curious robed figure strolling across the lawn, apparently deep in thought. An old man, with a long white mustache and white eyebrows. The most striking thing about him was his hat, topped with the head of a bird, with a sharp beak and eyes that were darting glances everywhere. He was sitting gravely down on a garden bench as she approached.
"Excuse me," Sarah called out as she came near. "Do you remember me?"
The bird's head on the Wise Man's hat suddenly spoke. "Why, have you forgotten who you are? How do you expect us to remember who you are?"
The Wise Man slowly raised a finger, rolling his eyes up toward the bird. "Sh," he said.
The hat looked wryly at Sarah. "You don't reallly expect him to remember you, do you? He can't even remember his own name…Hey, Don Quixote, we have company." The hat shouted down to the man.
The Wise Man noticed Sarah. "So, young woman," he pulled softly on the long white mustache in a manner that was a bit on the lecherous side. "What can I do for you, and what will you do for me?"
The hat wiggled it brows up and down, winked and whistled. "Yeah baby."
Feeling a little confused by his ribald suggestiveness she suddenly put a hand at her blouse to be sure it was buttoned. "I need to get to the castle. I cannot get out of this garden, I've forgotten how. Could you tell me how to get out of the garden?"
The man patted the bench, inviting her to sit, "But it's such a nice garden. Moreover, you look like a nice young woman. Come sit, keep an old man pleasant company." He winked.
Sarah shook her head at the invitation. "Thank you, but I don't think so."
The Wise Man nodded slowly, closing his eyes. "Perhaps," the Wise Man said, "If you sit with me I'll remember the way out of the garden." He opened his eyes and leered.
"And we can talk about how you can repay me my kindness. I'm a very lonely old man…so few pretty young things wander into the garden these days." He reached out and pulled her toward him. Quicker than a jackrabbit on a date, he had his arms wrapped around her slender waist and was resting his head on her bosom.
Sarah shoved him off. "Get off you dirty old man!" She felt sick. "What is wrong with all of you? None of you acted like this before!"
The Wise Man said, having dozed off after so much mental travail and more physical activity then he'd had in a good many years. The hat looked down at the dozing man and then at Sarah. "Now would be a good time to leave, unless you'd like to try me on…."
Sarah turned on her heals and walked away quickly. Once she had left the Wise Man, Sarah remembered that by walking forward she could move ahead. Frequently the castle, its spires and turrets looming in the distance above the hedges could be seen, yet no matter how far and fast she walked, it remained in the distance. "Was it this hard the last time?" she asked herself. She stopped and looked around and moaned. "This is not fair!"
She shuddered. Would she have the courage to go back, start over in that subterranean passageway? She remembered the hands, and the oubliette, that thought drew another shudder. What was Jareth's problem anyway? So she beat him last time, so what? He was dangerous and powerful, obviously, but he was also a mean cheat, and a bully.
"He has a certain style about him," she could concede that much as he spoke aloud to herself. "He's not unattractive. How could you respect, still less admire, someone like him? The best word to describe him is cad." on she trudged. "He's a cad and a rascal and a rogue. That's what he is, and he's not worth the time it takes to spit!" She peered over the hedge, "I beat you once, I'll beat you again." She promised herself.
When she reached a gap in the hedge, she stopped. "Ludo." Her voice filled with sad emotions. The second of her friends here in the Labyrinth. She had rescued him just past this hedge when he had been tied upside down in a tree. Only God knew what punishment the poor beast faced after having helped her. God and the Goblin King, she corrected.
Sarah walked past the hanging tree. Behind the tree, two high doorways had appeared. On each door was an iron knocker. Each had the form of a repulsive face, with a ring set in it. The knocker to her left had the ring coming out of its ears. The one on the right held the ring in its mouth. She looked from one to the other. "One lewd remark and it will be your last." She warned the pair.
The one with its ears stopped up glared at her. "It's very rude to stare."
The other one, with the knocker in its mouth did not try to speak but was making lewd noises and rolling his eyes.
Sarah shook her head and lifted the knocker. "I'm not even gonna bother." She knocked and stepped though the door.
Cautiously, she put her head through the doorway, to see beyond. She heard giggles, splutters of suppressed laughter, honks and hoots. "The Firey's." she whispered not wanting to alert them that she was again in 'their neck of the woods'. As one had said on her last visit. She was in a sunlit forest, with clumps and banks of flowers, shady trees all around. Each step she took was very careful. She spun around and saw a tree's branch moving to cover a hollow in its trunk.
Remembering her last time in this forest all she wanted to do was get out of it fast. She moved quickly, but not quickly enough. In front of Sarah was a Firey. Seeing it, she screamed, it screamed back.