Chapter VI
Jareth was in a foul mood. He was pacing the goblin throne room, kicking the occasional tardy goblin out of his way, which did wonders to relieve his tension. As far as he was concerned, it was a win-win situation all around, since the goblins were practically indestructible he did not have to worry about hurting them, and kicking them made him feel somewhat better even though they were not the wished-for target of his anger. What he really wanted was a confrontation with Lleu king of Ardar Iforas. When he felt the urgent call of the labyrinth in his mind, he moved to the window with a hiss and threw himself out, turning into his familiar barn owl shape in a heartbeat. Yet even the flight did not ease his fury and tension as it usually did. The situation was getting worse at the winter border, Lleu was forcing out the last of his dwarves, and in terror and despair those who could fled into the goblin kingdom, to their kin in the Simien mountains, ragged, hopeless and brutalized. Inexplicably and against all sanity Lleu had begun to put pressure on other kindreds in his kingdom as well; as time passed more and more of the denizens of Ardar Iforas left, and not all of them of the persecuted kindreds. Fae might be narrow-minded and bigoted, but mindless slaughter and torture had never been their way. In a world where children of all races were rare and cherished, the killing of any young ones was well-neigh unforgivable. Jareth felt a shiver ruffle his feathers. Lleu had always been an ambitious bastard, but he had always been cunning and an excellent strategist. He had no compunctions about violence, as long as he did not have do his own dirty work, but he had never shown hatred of other kindreds, and he had never acted without a plan. Yet now, Lleu's actions made no sense. He achieved nothing by his actions but headaches further down the road. Who would mine the ore in Ardar Iforas once the dwarves were gone, and who could work the metal? Unrest was brewing on the other side of the winter borders, but Jareth knew the inbred caution of the fae and their tendency to take their time about all actions meant that he could not expect any changes in Ardar Iforas to develop fast enough for his liking. Much as he hoped that some enterprising fae would go ahead and usurp Lleu's throne already - night, he was willing to give a generous helping hand with barely any prompting at all -, uncertainty was clouding the future. Yet the threat was much bigger.
Evil was touching the goblin kingdom from all sides.
Here on the winter borders Babdh crossed over into the labyrinth, never long within its borders, yet her much-too-frequent sojourns set his temper on edge. By the time the labyrinth could pinpoint her presence and Jareth arrived ready for fight, she had vanished again with her red-beaked crows, the lingering memory of her presence befouling the land and the air, the pitiful torn remains of her prey strewn about carelessly in nightmare scenarios. And never did she hunt any sworn to the labyrinth, only the refugees hoping to reach the safety of the mountains as if she knew that there was no safety for her if she ever touched any of the labyrinth's blood-bound.
Turning himself back from his owl shape Jareth looked over the grim scene before his eyes as he went down on a knee to hug Etain close to him. As always she had been waiting for him at the crossroads in the borderlands, fast as the wind herself and guided and availed of the labyrinth's magic she always anticipated his arrival wherever he went, assaying the scents on the air and the lay of the land, prepared to protect her master. He leaned back dispiritedly against the crossroad marker, Etain huddling close to him, the thick leather jacket closed against the snow winds that blew needles of ice over the desolate road. Etain pushed her body as close to his chest as possible, the stench of terror and blood piercing her nose and the memory of screaming echoing in her ears as was the ability of the Cwn Annwyn. Had Jareth set her to find the perpetrators of this abomination, she would have led him on to the end of the world to find those responsible, but he did not need the hounds of Annwyn to know who they were. His face starkly beautiful, harsh and as immobile as an ice carving, he beheld the carnage. The little group that had fallen into Babdh's vicious claws had been less than a furlong from a sanctuary grove, they had died in screaming distance of the tall sanctuary trees. Dwarves, one warrior, four women and a child. If he counted the limbs right. He did not know what Babdh had done to her unfortunate victims, and he did not care to know. He only wanted to get his hands on her. With a violent twist of his hand he conjured several crystals and hurled them at the sickening remains. They touched upon the bloodied snow without a sound and broke into a silvery shower of light which quickly spread over the ground, mercifully covering all the signs of what had happened under a pale glow. When the light died down, the untouched snow showed no sign of the outrage that had been committed. "You shall be avenged," Jareth said quietly into the frozen air. "I swear on your deaths that the abomination who has done this to you shall pay the price in full."
And evil was touching the goblin kingdom from all sides.
Jareth stood in the shallow waters close to the banks of the Haliakmon, in his arms the pitiful body of a slight shedim boy, the grey feathers plucked from the small body, the clawed feet hacked off and the mouth open in a silent scream, filled with metal that had been poured in red-hot. From the Plains of Ashes, a wild, untamable expanse of grassland not yet dried to cinders in this cycle, the Haliakmon flowed unfettered into the goblin kingdom. And for months now, the Haliakmon had carried in its gentle arms the dead bodies of the shedim from the mists down to the mouth of the sea. The shedim were a reclusive kindred, feared and loathed among the peoples of the underground as the touch of their voices caused any hapless listener to fall in to a maniacal, violent fugue that they would come out of only hours later. Oftentimes they found that their doings in the fugue were vile and unspeakable beyond imagination, leaving death, horror and destruction in their path. Thus the shedim had been hated, shunned and hunted in the underground since times immemorial. Jareth was immune to the shedim's voices, which he had found out quite by accident as he had certainly never intended to come into listening distance in the first place when he had happened on them during one of his explorations of all corners of the labyrinth. Once he fully comprehended that the Shedim posed no danger to him, he had quickly found that they were a gentle people without guile or evil. Yet their un-pleasing appearance and the terrible aftermath of all contact with their voices had condemned them to a marginal existence in constant danger, which they considered but the rightful punishment for the results of their songs, however unintended. Jareth and the labyrinth had offered them a safe haven in the mists where none other dared to live as the mists were the borderlands of reality. Reality being an uncertain concept to the Shedim in the first place, they were at peace for the first time since their voices had been heard in the underground. For many great years they had lived their lives in dreamsong in the mists, sworn to the labyrinth and prospering, but now an unknown enemy was stalking and killing them, inexplicably and without a trace. Jareth turned back softly towards the river banks. He carried the still body of the young shedim boy to the banks and gently lowered it to the ground. The selkies, who had called to him when the body had floated by, stood in a semicircle around him, horrified at the fate of a young boy even if he was shedim. As they looked on, the king raised his voice in song, singing a shedim lament for the child that had gone to the other side of night. For the first time since the beginning of time, a shedim dreamsong was heard by creatures of the underground other than the labyrinth and the chosen. Since Jareth was not shedim, his voice could not cause the fugue, and the selkies cried at the unmitigated pain of the lament. As the powerful magic of the lament for the dead washed over his listeners, the still body of the child began to shimmer and loose definition at the edges, slowly dissolving into pale light that finally died, leaving behind nothing but memory. The killings of the shedim weighing heavily on his mind, Jareth was incandescent with fury.
/
"He has a new lover," Toby said, paler and thinner than when they had met last time, crouched tiredly on the steps before the throne. "Aylmer. He's nice enough, friendly, personable, doesn't seem to abuse his position to his advantage as everyone at Lleu's court in Tahat had been expecting. But he is slippery as a fish though I can't really say anything bad. Just that he gives me the creeps." Cuchulain was asleep at his feet, the direwolf had succumbed to exhaustion the moment they had sat down. Toby just wished he could join him. Ever since the night Toby had pledged his oath to the labyrinth, the direwolf had decided to accompany the young fae and now one could not be found without the other.
Jareth sat on the edge of his seat, elbows on his knees and juggling some crystals between his fingers without pause, coiled with tension, Etain at his feet keeping a good eye on the direwolf. Sed, the captain of his guard, stood alert and clear-eyed at his king's side as he had done ever faithfully since he had bound himself to Jareth, the first goblin to do so when the labyrinth had chosen its new king. He unobtrusively checked the entrances to the goblin throne room, carefully guarded by the king's personal guards who stood attentively and kept an alert eye on the doors. For the crowd inside the room needed no watching. All the many goblins in attendance were fully become, not controlled by their unfathomable impulses or the wild magic they were created from, and each of them would fight to the death to defend their king.
Porr paced restlessly back and forth on the stone pavers before the throne, occasionally stealing a guarded glance at the lady Sindri. The dwarfism lady sat decorously on a chair close to Jareth's throne that the chancellor had thoughtfully brought for her to sit in, calm and composed to all outward appearances but for her hands' birdlike, restless movements, picking apart her kerchief of finest linen. The bookish lady Sindri was the last person anyone might have expected to encounter at the king's war council, a quiet lady of the court, unassuming, reticent, without airs, graces or beauty, only her sparkling eyes and rich voice hinting at a depth the eye could not discern. Yet the lady Sindri was one of Jareth's most valued advisers, a mind as sharp as the edge of broken glass and the most prodigious strategist in the underground. Jareth understood well his own shortcomings, and while he could hold his own against anyone in battle and was an excellent tactical leader, he knew he couldn't hold a candle to her ability to develop an overarching strategy. This she had proven time and again in the past, and Jareth thought grimly that her skills seemed likely come in handy in the near future.
Lord Ningyo, formerly of the Maighdean-mhara, had joined them at Jareth's request, ramrod straight and ill-at-ease. Ningyo had too sharp and military a mind not to be called to a war-council like this, having won the final victory in the drawn-out war of the Maighdean-mhara against the Uncegila whom some called the Leviathan, when the struggle had seemed inevitable to come down most unfavorable for the children of Llyr. He was but recently blood-bound to the labyrinth, having fallen into his oath drawn by the love of a spirited odei who could not consider joining him in the sea, for what happiness could a storm-bound sprite find under the waves? He had thought himself hardened by countless loves in countless millennia, only to find himself unable to take his leave of 'Lo lani or to imagine any future without her. Sao Llyr, ever a ruler with foresight, had graciously agreed to release his sister-son from his service, his only condition Jareth's oath to leave the sea's secrets rest quietly in his newest subjects mind, an oath given without reservation or hesitation.
As Toby was recounting his observations from his extended visit in Ardar Iforas, the door to the throne room was pushed open by an ample behind and a small, brown woman turned her squat body sideways through the door, moving carefully as her hands were occupied by a heavy tablet she carried. One glance, and the goblin guard at the door took barely a heartbeat to hold the door wide open for her and her goblin helpers behind her. Ikiaq was a haltija, more commonly called brownies, from the tulen väki, the fire clan. She had chosen her life's work in the running of the royal household, putting her fire to good use. First she had been apprenticed to her uncle, who oversaw the household of the Ard Ri, and much later she decided to move with her family to the goblin kingdom, to go and keep her eyes on her milk-son Jareth whom she knew from exhausting experience to be in desperate need of a little oversight.
"You are dead on your feet, Toby," the tidy little woman walked up to the steps the young fae was sitting on and moved the immediately alert direwolf out of her way with nothing more than a sharp look and a short word. She made Toby grab a streaming mug of lapis-colored larak and a sandwich off the tray. "You need something to eat, boy, and it looks like it has been a while since anyone fed you properly. I'll get you some real food later, but this should tide you over." She moved around the council as her helpers did among the goblins, and with a few more admonitions she had made sure everyone had a cup of larak in their hand to wake them up and keep them sharp, and some food in the other hand to keep them calm. A short check of the room assured her everyone had received some sustenance, and her helpers were mingling with their brethren happily, food and drink in their hands if usually more than they had handed out to the others.
Jareth grinned at his milk-mother with affection, a look she returned with a smile of her own. She made it seem easy, everything just happened they way things should with nary a hitch anywhere. He knew that but few appreciated the skills necessary to run a court smoothly, distributing and overseeing the work of several hundred people catering to several hundred more courtiers and ambassadors of many different kindreds without a hitch, organizing the acquisition, storage and preparation of food, clothes, supplies, cleanliness, just about anything that made life civilized, and keeping everybody in the process happy. Ikiaq did it without noticeable effort, her work was invisible. The goblin kingdom had to be the only place where goblins willingly, happily and productively worked in the kitchens and stables of a court, appreciated, valued and useful. No war council was ever complete without the castellaine Ikiaq, for she had the pragmatic ability to see through the why to the how. She used magic every day and more than most understood its uses and shortcomings, and her clear-eyed, matter-of-fact approach had more than once cut through the fog created by the endless possibilities of a future influenced by magic - the fancier magic got, the harder it was to sustain. The best way to get something done reliably was usually the most straightforward way, and generally unmagical. And as experience had proved, the easiest, most likely approach tended to be the one that was taken even by magical kindreds.
The food and the hot larak calmed everyone down, and the war council continued in earnest. "When did Aylmer first come to Ardar Iforas?" Sindri asked the young man, who was feeding the remains of his sandwich to Cuchulain.
"Aylmer is footloose, a wanderer like Jareth before he came to the labyrinth. He is very close-mouthed, nobody knows where he is from, or who his family is, but to tell from his stories he has spend good time at many courts all over the underground. I understand he has been visiting Ardar Iforas often, not only the court in Tahat, but wandering the whole country. Some of the courtiers have known him for countless great years, but he never stays more than a few short years and is gone again for centuries. It is only in the last few hundred years that Aylmer came often, and he and Lleu became lovers only in the last few decades. I heard him tell of the court of Danu, and I am confident that he has truly been there, for he knows the soul of Danu. As far as I can tell from my own limited experience at other courts, I believe that the knowledge he exhibits stems from personal experience as well." Toby knit his brow in deep concentration. "There are rumors at Lleu's court that he was banished from his demesne for some unnamed trespass, but nobody has to offer anything but speculation. "
"You said he gives you the creeps - what did you mean by this, Toby?" Ikiaq inquired gently.
"It is hard to describe. Keep in mind that I was but one of many young visitors to the court, and Aylmer is much older than me, a man to my youth, so we did not spend much time in the same company. Yet I met him on hunts and at balls, and he talked to me gracefully and kindly. I liked him too much." Seeing Ikiaq's surprised face, Toby tried to explain. "Before I met him I knew he was Lleu's lover, and Lleu is an abomination. Yet when I met Aylmer I felt nothing but goodwill to him, I felt sorry for him for loving a madman, but why should I feel so? I did not know him at all. He never once said anything to make me doubt his honesty or intentions, but then he never said anything I could hold on to in the first place. I felt for him like the puppy Jareth calls me, a puppy that looks at its master with love and admiration no matter what the master does. I desperately wanted him to like me, and he talked to me amiably, asking harmless questions that yet always had one goal: What is the goblin kingdom? He could not know that none of the blood bound would ever answer this question, but he tried. I knew then that he used magic to draw me, but I have never heard tell of such magic. I know not who Aylmer is or what he wants, but he is searching for information about the labyrinth. I was terrified of him yet I was drawn to him still. I asked him a good many questions as a smitten young man may of one he admires, and he readily answered me, yet nothing he said gave any insight into the man he is. I could not find out if he is a decent man, which makes me doubt he is. And yet I loved him and wanted to please him. Aylmer is a man to beware of." An ominous silence ensued, and Toby looked up in confusion.
"Heart magic," Ikiaq said with incredulous reluctance. The sound of indrawn breath echoed through the room.
"None would dare touch heart magic", Sindri protested weakly, "none has ever tamed it. It has destroyed everyone who has tried to bend it to their desires in the end, and who would be mad enough to dally with that which will kill you?"
"When has risk ever stopped those with burning ambition and no other way to address it?" Jareth answered her silent plea gently. "This puts a different spin on things. We are facing a bigger threat than we ever have. Whoever is harnessing heart magic has great power at their disposal, and we need to know if it is the goblin kingdom which is threatened. The target may be Ardar Iforas, which seems ready to fall already."
Lord Ningyo did not agree. "It is far more likely that the goblin kingdom is the target of these machinations, " he said succinctly. "I believe most of you know why U Llyr send the lady Morveren and me to court? The Maighdean-mhara do not wish to foment discord, but U Llyr felt that it was time to give a quiet warning to the goblin king. We have ever been on good terms, and the king of the sea felt that dealing with someone we know and can work well with is a valuable asset well worth conserving. Of course, having you indebted to the sea was an added incentive," Ningyo flashed an unexpected grin towards Jareth. "In the last few hundred years we have heard inquiries so discreet they are barely discernible about the goblin kingdom and its king from various visitors, harmless discussions about what might have caused the vanishing of the labyrinth after the murder of the last goblin king and his queen, or general musings about how and where the goblin king managed to so increase his magical powers. The visitors did not have any connections to each other as far as we could ever tell. And then U Llyr was approached with an ever-so-subtle inquiry whether he would feel the need to take sides should there be ... succession problems in the goblin kingdom.
It was so subtle that indeed it would have been impossible to be sure it was not but a misunderstanding. But it wasn't. Someone feels he would be a much better goblin king than present company. The lady who asked the question died that night in her sleep, and the healers could not say how or why." His sharp mind had been mulling possibilities while he was talking, and he addressed Toby with another question: "When did Lleu first start his campaigns against the dwarves? And what is the reaction at the court in Tahat?"
Eagerly Toby looked up to the distinguished soldier. "I had been wondering the same thing, that's why I went to Ardar Iforas when I learned from the dwarves in the Simien mountains that Lleu had a new lover and that his behavior had been becoming erratic and turned violent." He looked down at his mug of larak in surprise, the cup had been magically replenished, steam rising from its surface. He smiled his thanks at Ikiaq and continued. "Lleu had begun levying the dwarves in Ardar Iforas with high taxes and imposed strict rules on dwarfish mining and trading more than three hundred years ago. That was long before he and Aylmer were lovers, and Aylmer was not even in Ardar Iforas then." He took a deep drink of larak and took up his story bleakly. "There is much unrest today in Tahat, and not only the court. The dwarves are gone, they have either fled the country or were executed as traitors." He swallowed and quickly lifted the mug to his mouth for another draught. "They all confessed to treason. I went to several executions. You see, everyone is required to come bear witness to the king's justice. From the look of them it was easy to tell why they confessed. One was a boy of perhaps thirteen, only a child. His teeth were gone, an eye gouged out, and he had to be dragged to the block because he could not walk on his ruined feet. He didn't scream only because they had cut his tongue out. The great market square of Tahat was full of people, but it was eerily quiet, just sometimes you could hear weeping, quickly hushed. Most of those "traitors" were old men and women, faithful citizens of Ardar Iforas for uncounted great years. They had stayed behind to conceal the secret escape of their younger brethren for as long as possible and to delay their pursuers. Some younger men were dragged to the blocks as well, they'd left with their families and covered the escape of the women and children whenever they'd come across Lleu's mercenary troops. Lleu has hired orks and falin to do his dirty work. Everyone wonders what he pays the falin mercenaries, but they are too afraid to ask. Few of the dwarf warriors were ever captured alive, but those who were unlucky enough to be caught were made an example of." He laughed bitterly. "I guess it worked. Everybody is afraid now, and none dare say a word against Lleu or his doings, not even the fae at court. I could not bear it any longer, I needed to be coming home."
The silence in the throne room was deafening, even the goblins had quietened at Toby's words. Violence in the underground tended to take the form of spontaneous acts of individuals, it was not a policy as was wont in the above. There were some aberrant individuals in all kindreds that enjoyed inflicting pain and terror, yet such abominations were rare and were dealt with quickly, decisively and terminally when caught. The underground had seen wars, but they were mostly fought by mercenaries of kindreds not minding murder and mayhem nor missed when they died. And while the fae were not known to be too worried about the welfare of "lesser" kindreds, genocide was not a pastime they fancied. They would resort to murder if their ambition required the removal of someone occupying a position they felt was rightfully theirs, and there had been some sad occasions when ambition required some ... bigger... sacrifices, but this was generally frowned upon and not usually a topic for polite conversation. Lleu's actions were without precedence, and thus there was no established way how to deal with it.
Porr said aloud what all were thinking. "Smart move to just go for the likes of dwarves, and I hear pixies and harpies now. It's a pity, of course, but none of the fae will feel obliged to actually do anything since it's not their hides on the block. How many have made it to the Simien mountains, Jareth?" He turned to face his king.
"Many thousands have now arrived, most of them in Kuhmo, as it is the biggest town, but many also in Joensuu and Rovaniemi. I understand that less than three quarters of the dwarves in Ardar Iforas have escaped to the goblin kingdom, many of them women and children. So many of the men died making sure their families got away alive." Jareth got up quickly and gripped the arm of his chancellor, forcing his trembling friend to sit down on the throne. Porr buried his face in his hands, as did the lady Sindri at Jareth's words. Both their shoulders were shaking. Jareth took up pacing back and forth restlessly. "Those who made it to the mountains are heavily burdened by what has happened to them, and many of them need much help. No taxes will be levied in the mountains for the next great year, and all possible help is given to the dwarves. Ikiaq has long dispatched mule trains of food, building materials, clothes, tools, everything the dwarves need to absorb the newcomers to their communities, they have begun to arrive months ago, and she keeps organizing more mule trains with the materials that the Elders of the Dwarf Council have asked for. She will keep this up as long as there is need. The snow giants are coming down from their mountain caves in the clouds to help the dwarves in the low mountains in the building. Gnomes from all across the kingdom are traveling to the mountains to work alongside the newcomers. The trolls have sent a large group of their most peaceful and cooperative members to Kuhmo to help with the hard physical labor. I understand that there are some misunderstandings occasionally, but generally the trolls seem to be performing admirably. The Elder Bryndis Ragnarsdottir has send a missive to me and to the trolls. She was heaping praise on the trolls who seem to shirk no duty however hard, dirty or dangerous, and vowed a debt of gratitude to the Trolls. I was astounded, this was not what I had ever expected, on neither the trolls nor the dwarves side." Jareth was pleased to see a short smile touch the face of Porr, and the lady Sindri seemed to have regained her composure again. "You might have noticed - or if you are lucky, you did not - that there is a certain dearth of healers in the labyrinth at the moment. They have gone to the mountains, fae, pixie, Aos Sidhe, huldra, all kindreds have send as many of their most gifted healers as they could possibly do without. The very ground in the Simien mountains is pulsing with magic, the labyrinth is pouring all its strength into the earth and its binding to the dwarves. A majority of the newcomers have already sworn the blood-oath to the labyrinth, and more of them are doing so every day. They are ours now, and none will hurt them again."
"I am glad to hear this," the lady Sindri said with a barely shaking voice. "I doubt that Lleu's latest campaign against the pixies and harpies will be quite as bad, thank the night. Pixies have the kind of innate magic which will allow them to just vanish, so I believe it is safe to assume that the day after Lleu's first attack on a pixie none of them remained in Ardar Iforas. And as for the harpies, well, I'd imagine the harpies will take to the air and flap the night out of there. I can already picture them decimating our mountain goat populations. I hope they understand that any attack on sentient creatures will not be acceptable?"
Porr squared his shoulders and got up, bowing to the lady Sindri. "Your observations are quite right, my lady, as always. The harpies have sworn themselves to the labyrinth in exchange for peace and quiet. They mostly just want to be left alone, and they did not put up any arguments against the limitations of their hunting. I think they like the idea that they will be similarly protected against anyone with a dislike of harpies. Or perhaps they just don't much like the taste of the kindreds.
And as for the pixies of Ardar Iforas - tens of thousands of them decided to take over the White Plains with the herds of wild horses living there. I understand the wild horses are not so wild any more, and very well groomed indeed." A laughter rippled around the room, the pixie's love for horses was well known. "Once they were given to understand that their continued presence in the plains would require their pledge to the king, they decided to swear their oath on the spot." A wide grin suddenly broke on Porr's face. "I am still sorry I missed that one. It seems the labyrinth decided to get Jareth there right away for the oath-taking, so he found himself on the White Plains just after sunrise, half-drunk still from last night's revels and absolutely starkers, around him thousands of pixies, and a herd of bemused horses. I understand the horses were the only ones not ogling him." The laughter in the room grew louder. "However, our king kept his countenance as always and gracefully accepted the blood oath of the pixies without ever doing something as gauche as conjuring himself pants. I hear he looked very regal in an unusual sort of way."
Jareth stood with a slight grin on his face, utterly unruffled and patently unconcerned. "But my dear Porr," he asked sweetly, "do I detect a note of envy in your voice? Pray tell us, do you think the pixies would have been quite as impressed if it had been you?" The raucous laughter that erupted now helped to clear away the sorrow that hung heavy in the air.
It was Lord Ningyo who brought the topic back to the threats facing the goblin kingdom. "It would seem that Lleu of Ardar Iforas has gone mad, yet it is not the madness of heart magic. Thus the direct threat of this is worse to his own people than to the goblin kingdom. Simply knowing that he is violently unstable will allow us to prepare a defense at the winter border in case he is irrational enough to attempt a direct attack of the kingdom, the labyrinth is warned now. This strikes me as the smallest of our problems," with these words he bowed deeply to the chancellor Porr and the lady Sindri, "not to make light of the plight of the dwarves or any that suffer Lleu's wrath.
Yet even in the sea I have heard of the white Babdh and her blood-beaked crows, and I never heard it said that the white vulture answers to anyone's summons. It is well known that she hates fae, and she is outside the bindings of heart magic. So what is her part in this?"
From the crowd a goblin piped up. "Babdh hunt at winter border all the time now. Never kill blood-bound, only those traveling our roads. Many refugees on the roads now, not only dwarves, also haltija, human, troll, many kindreds afraid of Lleu from Ardar Iforas. They is killed in goblin kingdom, and Babdh laugh in the wind." Jareth recognized Awk, who had bound himself to the king in the very early days of his reign, but restless and footloose Awk had apprenticed himself to a blacksmith and had taken to the back roads and hamlets of the goblin kingdom as a traveling blacksmith journeyman. Become he was a very smart and observant goblin while looking amazingly stupid and harmless, and he collected valuable information as a respected blacksmith and well-liked drinking companion from people of all wakes of life, and brought it back to his king. "I sees Babdh hunt ten league away from winter border where earth is green and no snow covers ground. Red-beaked crows attack dwarf woman heavy with child, she alone on road. I kill one crow and Babdh come and scream and threaten and hiss but not touch me. She leave. Woman and I find sanctuary, I make her take oath so she safe. How Babdh know not hurt oath bound?"
Toby sat up straight, disgust on his face. "I heard tell at court in Tahat that Babdh hunts the borderlands of Ardar Iforas as well, but Lleu claims everything is peaceful at the borders. I overheard some hushed discussion whether he is unwilling to admit anything is wrong or whether he has part in it. The court does not want to dwell on it too much."
Porr spoke up. "But there are attacks on the oath bound. The hags in the fens are under attack. The skins of five hags have been found nailed to the crossroad markers along the trade roads in the fens in the last year. They are afraid enough to live close together now, but it is hard on them since the craving for solitude is in their nature. They know not what is hunting them. And the bodies of shedim keep drifting down the Haliakmon. They have asked for protection for their children if not themselves."
Ikiaq cleared her throat, looking worried. "Nerromiktok did not come to the meeting today because she has not left the stables for the last ten days. The great-horses fell sick, first one, then all of them. She found that the last delivery of oats had been poisoned with wolfbane seeds, too small to see unless you look for them, too many for an accident." Ikiaq looked up at Jareth with an apologetic expression in her face. "She did not want to tell you until she was sure that the horses would live, she did not sleep these last days to save the breeding lines." Nerromiktok was Jareth's milk-sister, but a few months older than him. When they were children, she had kept him in his place by clipping him over the head whenever he displeased her, but as he quickly grew much taller than she did, she had changed her tactics to poking his belly, hard. Yet as was the way with big sisters, she loved him dearly and was fiercely protective of her milk-brother while trying her best not show it. She had followed her parents to the goblin kingdom and together with her father Pakak, who had taught Jareth how to ride his first horse without maiming himself or the horse, took over the duties of the keepers of the royal stables. She knew each of her horses by name and could recite their linage in her sleep. Her breeding had created the famed great-horses, the envy of the underground, priceless steeds with unmatched speed, strength, agility and intelligence. "She does not know where and how the poison was introduced. The oats are grown in the goblin kingdom, the farmers, the traders and the teamsters are all oath-bound to the labyrinth. And it is goblins who work in the stables. Once Nerromiktok realized that the horses had been poisoned, the first thing she did was to get me to make sure every bit of food and supplies was checked. Not a morsel of food has left the kitchens for the last week that has not been tested for poison."
"But there is a pattern here, Ikiaq, can't you see?" Sindri's voice had taken on an excited edge. "Think of it, Jareth, you have spend most of your time at the winter border these last months, the need there and in the Simien mountains the most urgent. Both you and the labyrinth directed your attention to where it is most needed, and so in the border lands Babdh does not dare to touch the oathbound. I know not how, but Babdh knows that the labyrinth would destroy her it she dared touch our own, there.
The poisoning of the horses is an attack in the heart of the goblin kingdom, yet the horses are animals, not bound to the labyrinth and the king. Killing them would send a message yet it would not alert you or the labyrinth.
Now the hags, they are blood-bound, yet in the fens they live alone and far apart, spectral, cloaked in their own magic they are more a dark sweet dream than reality as they dance with the peat-lights, haunting the dreams of the wanderers in the fens. And the shedim live in the mists, barely touching reality at all. Tell me, Jareth, can you feel them in your mind as you feel all of us?"
Surprised, Jareth stilled, his mismatched eyes turning distant and unfocused. As he stood unmoving and withdrawn, the bright summer sun outside the throne room was extinguished by dark clouds that appeared in the sky, sudden gusts of wind howling through the treetops. After minutes of silence, he spoke, his voice dark and rough with the power of the labyrinth. "We can feel them, but distant and flickering, not a solid presence like most of you. The hags, we need to search for them and keep our mind on their presence else they are but a butterfly touch, barely felt, a gentle caress whose cessation we forget immediately. The shedim are even stranger a touch in our mind, there yet not, like the memory of a song yet not the notes itself. We feel the mists are part of us yet a part we barely know, like hair or nails - touch we feel not there, nor pain. We have not felt the deaths of our hags and our shedim as we should, less than a pinprick, nary a touch, so scant a sensation that we forgot to inquire. We did not grieve their loss as we needed to." A cold, hard rain fell over the labyrinth, sending everyone in the open looking for shelter from the sudden storm. The goblin king looked up, his beautiful features contorted in anguish. "We have failed them. We forgot our duty to those who have claim to our protection. They have sworn fealty on their blood, and we have not kept our promise to them."
With a tortured breath, Jareth fell to his knees and covered his face in his hands.
For a moment none moved in the room, startled and frightened at the passion and the pain in the goblin king's voice, but in a heartbeat the goblins, never known to know their place, were stumbling all over their king, in a cacophony of shrill voices offering love, reassurance and their willingness to dismember anyone who ever looked askance at a shedim or whatever. Goblins being goblins, however, even become ones, the goodwill could not last. Within moments the goblins started turning on each other, loud complaints of "Get yer foot off my face, you cretin" and screams as teeth closed around limbs started filling the air, and fists began to fly. Nothing could have worked more efficiently to bring Jareth back to himself. The goblin king pushed himself up from the ground and shook his body, spilling goblins off his whip-thin frame. He looked at the goblins crowded around him with exasperation and affection.
"While I am moved by your expressions of devotion, I am sure I would have found them more comforting if they had not been accompanied by your stifling weight on my chest and kicks in the face." He stared ominously at the unruly crowd in front of him, quelling the half-suppressed fighting with a dark glance. "I believe that any of you who still feel the need to express their ... devotion quite so physically need a cold bath in the bog." This resulted in an astoundingly quiet goblin crowd looking at their king in fear and love. With a sigh, Jareth grinned at his goblins. "Well now then, entertainment for today is over, so I believe you can just return to whatever it is you ... committed previously. I thank you for your attempts at comfort, they were truly appreciated. That said, thank you and now just sod off and try to stay out of my way for a bit." With one final glance at their king the goblins practically stumbled over each other trying to get out of the throne room before the king might change his mind about the bog.
The hard rain outside the windows had stopped, but still the sky was dark with clouds and the air had cooled down noticeably. With a wary smile Jareth turned to his councilors. "I must thank you for your keen insight, my lady Sindri," he said with a courteous bow. "I never realized how my very own lack of attention put my subjects into danger. But forewarned is forearmed - I will not be caught unaware again, and I will know where and how mine own are. So should you at times find me less than fully present in the here and now in the future, rest assured I am trying to pin down those of my subjects that have a tendency to hiding from my mind. I have taken your oath of fealty, and I owe you protection in return. It seems clear now that whoever wields the heart magic is trying to gain the power of the labyrinth. Yet whoever has their sights on the goblin kingdom will have to attack me directly in the future." He smiled. "My lords, my ladies, I thank you for a most instructive meeting. I had not hoped to achieve as much in a single meeting. I will speak more with each of you in the next days, but barring any unforeseen developments I want to convene the council every ten-day at the same time here in the goblin throne room. Think over what we discussed, talk about it with your friends and the next time we gather here we will see what we can make of this."
Jareth walked to Toby and sat down next to him on the stairs. Cuchulain immediately tried to climb on his lap, but Etain nipped his flanks and growled to let him know that he was trespassing. "Sed will bring you to your rooms. You need to rest, Tobias. You have served me better than I could have ever expected, I do not believe another could have done as well. You are a young man, Tobias, so let go of your worries and enjoy the present. The present is all we ever have, do not waste it with bitterness and fear. I will not let you leave here before you had time to grow strong again. Hrafn Gunnlaugsson has only recently returned from the fens where his family breeds sheep. He will be glad to see you - I am sure you are more interesting than sheep. I have also been invaded by family, Tiernan has come for an extended visit. He said nothing made him feel as alive as war, and it seemed I had one on my hands. I am sure you will meet him soon, he has asked for you."
He got up gracefully and walked to the exit. "And please try to remember the All Hallows masque in a sennight - do not dare to excuse yourselves. If I have to be gracious to all those benighted courtiers, I at least want the satisfaction of knowing that others suffer with me." With these word he turned to Ikiaq and took hold of her arm. "But if you will forgive us now, I need to talk to Nerromiktok and have a look at the great-horses."
/
In the early afternoon a deep, resonant bell tone rang out through the air of the city in the heart of the labyrinth, calling those with a grievance to the king's court to seek justice and redress. As usual, the court convened in the biggest hall, the main market in the center of town as it was the biggest structure in the city. The citizens of the city in the heart of the labyrinth considered court day one of the more entertaining holidays and space was at a premium. Some enterprising huldra had established betting tables in the corners of the hall and offered ad-hoc bets on the outcome of the cases, carefully gauging the cases and the king's mood before deciding on the odds. They always did brisk business. The attempts of the equally gambling-mad gnomes to take over some of their business had proven short lived as the crowd quickly realized that the forest sprites were more reliable to follow-through with the payout. Today's crowd was even bigger than usual; everyone wanted to hear the king dole out punishment to the those broke the labyrinth's peace. Jareth was talking to the bailiffs and city guards, his brother Tiernan by his side, a dark shadow to Jareth white glow. Tiernan was a hand-span shorter than Jareth but wider in the shoulders, his hair fell like a silk waterfall down his back, black as a raven. His black hair made his skin seem even paler as it was, as pale as his brother's. His eyes were the color of the summer sky, laughing and merry, and his low booming voice had seduced many a woman. While two men looked nothing alike, they both bore the imprint of their parents, the sons of the Ard Ri and the queen Eriu would never be taken for anything but brothers. Around them the many courtiers who had decided to witness the hearings were milling about chatting. The lady Morveren was animatedly talking with her ladies-in-waiting, she had arrived early as she had done most court days. She could not know that a good many bets had been laid on her and Jareth and a lot of money hung in the balance of her choice. It was widely known in the goblin kingdom that while their king had bedded many ladies, although maybe not as many as wanted to bed him, he was a man of discerning taste and did not enter lightly into any relationship with a woman unless she was truly unique, charming, accomplished, beautiful and generally the object of utter envy of all other men. Yet in all the uncounted great-years as ruler of the goblin kingdom he had never seemed inclined towards marriage and he had been clearly content with some of the ladies that had in effect been his queens, sometimes for long years. It had always been the women that left him, and being the kind of women they were, it had not been because they wanted to be goblin queen. The general consensus was that he was first and foremost the goblin king, chosen of the labyrinth, a high-handed and brilliant ruler but a smug and arrogant man: too much of a king to be much of a life-mate. Best bloody king the labyrinth ever had as far as his subjects were concerned. The odds at the betting tables clearly demonstrated his subjects conviction that he was headed for another round of single life, overwhelmingly predicting that the lady Morveren was going to be fed up with him in the near future and would not share his bed much longer. Jareth knew of the bets on the court cases and applauded the enterprising spirit behind them, as long as the whole matter was handled discreetly, but his subjects knew full well that the betting would be over for good if he learned of their other long-running wagers; the sense of self-preservation bred into all the denizens of the goblin kingdom had made sure that not even a rumor of their other bets had reached his ears.
The atmosphere was in the old market hall was festive and lively, the first cases being judged as always the usual petty grievances that made the bulk of the king's cases. It was hard not to be entertained. The goblin king sat on the dais at the head of the hall, lounging impossibly relaxed on a high-backed chair, the dark brown jacket open over his linen shirt and brown boots folded over the narrow pants. As usual his riding crop was drumming idly against his heels. The interest in the hall always perked up whenever the rhythm changed or Jareth sat up in his chair. These were not necessarily good signs for the claimants, but always promised high entertainment as the king proceeded to shred to pieces the self-serving arguments of his hapless petitioners. One of the claimants had already managed to raise the crowd against him with but a few words. Trader Malen, a wealthy and influential man in the city, had brought a complaint against his erstwhile companion Idra, the woman who had shared his house and his bed for a goodly time but had recently left him, taking with her the presents he had given her over the years and a babe in her belly. He wanted her to return the gifts as he claimed they were given in good faith of her staying with him and he wanted her to deliver the child to him once she had given birth. Idra, who had left him only when his infidelities and carelessness had finally killed her love, looked at him contemptuously and said that she was planning on a bonfire with his "generous presents" and that nothing would dissuade her from this. She would not return anything that was rightfully hers. Applause branded up in the hall, Jareth stopped drumming and sat up smoothly, smiling at the trader with intent.
"I am not quite sure what your complaint is, Trader Malen," he said with some malice in his voice. "The lady Idra was not your house keeper, so she did not break any contract when she left you, and since you have never bothered to hand-fast her she has no responsibilities to you as your wife either. As for her taking with her the gifts you have given her over the years, you seem to be inexplicably unclear about the concept of presents. A telling inability." His smile showed altogether too many teeth. "Let me enlighten you - a gift means it that you give a token of your affection from the fullness of our heart and it passes into the possession of the person who receives the gift." Jareth glanced down at the list in his hand with contempt. "And tokens they were indeed. Four pairs of shoes, three sets of everyday clothing, one set of fair-day clothing, a couple of silver bangles, and the list goes on. Not for long, though. Considering that we are talking the course of five years." Jareth looked up and smiled at the heavily pregnant Idra, sitting anxiously next to her parents. "My lady Idra, it seems I am badly overpaying those who work in the castle. I believe the castellaine Ikiaq would skin me alive if even the kitchen grudges were outfitted as poorly as this. And I strongly suspect you never saw a single coin in all this time you were keeping his house." Idra blushed and looked to the floor.
Her mother Sanaz could not constraint herself any longer and jumped up, staring threateningly at Malen with barely suppressed fury. "Idra does not need this man's clothes, Bahram and I will gladly help our daughter until the babe is born and for however long she needs it, but a bright, hardworking woman like Idra don't need handouts from anyone. But if this sorry excuse for a man believes he will lay hands on the child ...".
Jareth quieted the enraged woman with his voice barely lifted. "Lady Sanaz, while I have no doubt that your daughter is hardworking, I cannot vouch for her discernment since for five years she did, as a matter of fact, work for no pay for a man who would not even hand-fast her for a limited marriage contract." He smiled at Malen, his voice deceptively understanding and amused. "But I digress. Trader Malen, I would have imagined that a livestock trader understands the finer points of the law when it comes to offspring. What would you say to a man who claims possession of a foal without ever having made an attempt to acquire the brood mare?" A titter went through the room.
Malen was an important man in his circles and small enough to surround himself with those of lesser stature than himself, so in his delusion he did not recognize the threat in the king's voice. "Your majesty, I am sorry if I left the wrong impression with my poor choice of words. But I beg you, sire, try to understand my entreaties: this woman has lived in my house, eaten my food, worn my clothes for the last five years, she has lived off my goodwill and love, and now she has taken all she wants and decides to walk out, taking with her my child to live as a pauper, for how can such a mother take care of a child? I can give this child all it deserves, and it is the right thing to do for any child," and Malen kept talking on and on and on while Jareth's smile got wider and more predatory with each sentence.
"So you say she lied when she claims she ran your household all this time, or that you had other lovers beside her?" he asked silkily.
Malen recovered quickly. "I never said she did not, but that does not mean she did not live of my labor, now does it? And I had never promised her I would be faithful, so why should she care if she had no problem with it for all those years?" And he went on to describe the life any child, especially his, deserved, and how Idra was not a fit mother while he would want to help the child of the goodness of his heart.
Finally Jareth cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I believe I heard all I need. I will give my judgment now. We have determined that by definition it is not possible to ask for the return of gifts - and if I may say so, my lady Idra, I hope you have realized the true price some ...gifts carry. You would have been much better off if you had hired out your labor those last five years. At least your nights would have been undisturbed. However, I must agree with Trader Malen's evaluation of your opportunities in the near future. Now be honest with me, lady Idra, both you and I understand that you will be overwhelmed by the attention of men who want to court and marry a woman with a newborn child, yet will a woman of your experience really want to rely on another man to look after her in the future? " Jareth sat impassively as Idra and her parents voiced their opposition. When the noise had died down, he went on, smiling at the triumphant face of trader Malen. "I agree with Trader Malen that any child deserves the best upbringing possible, and as he has made so abundantly clear, he is concerned about children in general, not about his in specific. He obviously has no legal claim at all on your child, my lady Idra, and he surely knows this as well as anyone. Yet I believe you have a somewhat skewed opinion of your erstwhile mate. As an outsider I can see his generous offer for what it is and I accept it in your stead to assure the child's welfare." Malen's face took on an anxious look. "This is my decree: Trader Malen, who has made very clear that his concern is for the welfare of the child more than anything else, will gladly give a quarter of his profits every year for the proper upkeep of the child to the lady Idra until the child is old enough to be fostered out. After this he will pay an appropriate amount of pocket money to the child until his or her majority, and of course he will supply a generous dowry or bride price when the time comes. Since he is an honorable man, he will agree with me that the royal burgrave will audit his books every year to assure an honest distribution." He overrode the trader's mumbled opposition with a last threatening statement. "The lady Idra will forgive all possible future claims for back pay and punitive fines contingent on his agreement to this judgment." Any further words were drowned out by enthusiastic clapping in the hall.
The other cases of the afternoon droned on, of little interest to all but those intimately involved. Jareth had countless great-years of experience dealing with the squabbles of share-croppers and shop keepers, and while his judgments occasionally might have left his supplicants wishing for another judge, none felt that he did not deal out justice.
/
At the end of the afternoon came the last case of this session, the one the congregation had been waiting for. A fortnight ago the king's troops had come across a band of mercenary troops from Ardar Iforas, ten furlongs from the winter border, and after a short fight had managed to take them prisoner, a small band of ten ork, three falin and their commander, a fae from Lleu's court. In their power was a small group of dwarves from Tahat, bound and shackled, two men, three women and a child. The citizens of the goblin kingdom knew of the atrocities at the winter border and they understood clearly that none in the underground would help them should they ever find themselves in the refugees place. They wanted to hear their king's justice.
Jareth stood up from his chair and walked to the edge of the dais, three crystal globes materializing in his left hand. Before the dais was an empty half-circular space, and without any warning he threw the crystals to the ground. As they touched the ground they broke into splinters of light, and quickly grew into bright orbs of white glare, the silhouettes inside resolving into the bodies of the prisoners, the tall fae commander to Jareth's right, the falin in the middle and the orks to his left. The crowd surged backwards, those closest to the light spheres beating a hasty retreat as best they could. A good view was desirable, but none cared to be too close to falin.
Slowly the glare of the light died down, but the globes drained the magic of their prisoners and bound them inside so they might hear and move within the limits of the spheres yet not let their curses escape nor their bodies. With a turn of his hand the sphere of the falin moved forward to the center and grew, the magic barrier to the falin inside thinning, allowing their voices to be heard. Their hissed curses and attempts at magic sent shudders of revulsion over the crowd suddenly silenced by a wave of fear. Falin were the darkest creatures in all the worlds, their very name the vilest curse, their presence alone casting a veil of dread and despair over the assembly. Falin did not look terrible, their heads were at height of the withers of a great horse, with pale silver skin and a dark grey mane of wispy hair falling from the top of their heads over their backs, their faces no stranger than any in the underground, their eyes of the most brilliant amethyst without any white showing. Had they not been the byword for everything that is hateful, they would have been thought handsome. Yet falin lived off the death of others, spending their lives plotting, ensnaring, hunting other kindreds and drawing pleasure from the unspeakable magics they performed on those that fell into their hands, not from any need but for the enjoyment of the acts and the power they derived from the life force of those they destroyed. Those caught by the eaters of souls would beg for an end to their torture, but it was interminable long in the coming, and none of them would ever go to the other side of night, but any trace of their existence would be wiped out from all but memory of those who had known them, never to go on to whatever promise held out after death. Falin spend their lives trying to assuage their insatiable hunger for more victims, always willing to barter the power they had gained over the years from the life force of those they had destroyed for more sacrifices. And ever there were those willing to deal with them, willing to do anything to gain an advantage, no better than the falin themselves even if were other kindreds.
Jareth looked at the falin, his face stark and quiet as death. "You have been forbidden to ever sully the soil and the air of the goblin kingdom with your presence on the threat of death since the first goblin king made the laws. You have been named herem, anathema. Yet you chose to ignore the laws." His smile was beautiful and terrible and the falin began to shriek in terror. "I will not have any dealing with such as you. Creatures as evil as you do not deserve to be sent to the other side of night, and I will not kill you. You will spend eternity alone, encased in magic, without hope of escape or succor until the end of time, never to be released until creation itself unravels." The light sphere around the falin split into three parts, encasing each body in its own shell, and as the pulsing globes shrunk around the wreathing bodies, the last thing the terrified falin saw was the merciless and cruel smile of the goblin king catching the crystals in his hands. As his subjects looked at their king in rapt awe and fear, he carelessly threw the three crystals high in the air, and when the balls reached the apex and began the descent, they lost substance, vanishing into nothingness before they reached the floor. "Thus all falin will be dealt with should they attempt again to stain the goblin kingdom with their presence. They will live forever, alone, unable to move, speak or close their eyes, kept alive in a sphere of magic, buried in the heart of the sun, the bottom of the sea or the core of the world." A shudder went through the assembly. Bloody best king they ever head, but a cruel bastard, Jareth was.
An imperious gesture brought the sphere with the orks to the front, and as the other globe before it grew and became increasingly transparent and open. The orks inside were a pitiful sight, watching the falins' punishment had reduced them to frozen despair. Orks were one of the more unpopular kindreds of the underground; misshapen, violent and narrow-minded without a shred of empathy they were nobodies friends. They hadn't any special talents and were not usually minded to hard work, so most honest occupations were out of their reach. They were however possessed of a strong streak of entitlement, which together with rather elastic morals and a self-serving intelligence made them ideal mercenaries, fighting for anyone if the pay was right, without a care for wrong or right. While orks were generally loathed, they were not without virtues. While rare and far apart, there were ork families in all underground demesnes who had by dint of hard work and perseverance made a place for themselves among other kindreds, as accepted as any other on their own merits and not on the deeds of their kindreds. There were a few small well-respected ork communities in the goblin kingdom, and it had been found that they made truly excellent soldiers and commanders once they cared about what they were fighting for. Yet even while the unrepentant majority of orks were but muscle and sword for hire, and killed without remorse or mercy in battle, they would not kill once the fighting was over. They would easily rough up any who resisted after a battle was won, but they would not kill those unarmed. As the earliest master's of hired orks had found to their short-lived dismay, ordering orks to kill unarmed women and children was an excellent shortcut to have those swords turned against you. This did not mean that the orks would not rob the defeated of anything of value and leave them behind without a care, but they did not hold with killing the helpless. The captured orks looked at Jareth with utter hopelessness in their eyes, all fight having left them as they hoped against hope to be allowed to the other side of the night at least.
"Now look at these evil minions of destruction here," drawled Jareth with a contemptuous smile on his lips. "The dwarves fought like marozi, men and women alike, and though only five of them, they nearly managed to keep at bay their attackers, four falin and ten ork, the falin bearing the brunt of their fury and desperation. They even managed to kill one, but were eventually overpowered and bound. We can be quite confident that our intrepid mercenaries here were not going to put up any resistance if the falin took one or the other of the dwarves as their payment." Jareth looked at the defeated orks with a nasty grin on his face. "What is the point in killing you? There's countless more were you come from," he mused with a malicious smirk.
"Well, there be less of them by at least ten, so kill them already, why donncha?" shouted a rather cheeky voice from the crowd.
Jareth laughed. "Ah, but you lack finesse. Where is the punishment in this? Isn't the idea of punishment that it should sow fear in the heart of others? Orks assume to die violently, a death in their dotage is not something they count on. How would killing these worthless creatures deter the others? And much as I hate to admit it, they have not killed anyone within my borders. I am sure they have done enough to deserve death anyway, but if I dealt out punishment for all crimes committed in the past, and outside of my jurisdiction, I am sure I would not have many subjects, judging by the dodgy look of you lot." He conjured a crystal in his hand, shimmering in a beautiful golden color, endlessly soothing and warm. The orks stared at it from the inside of their prison of light as if it spelled the end of all their tomorrows. Jareth grinned wolfishly and hurled the crystal at the orks' light prison. Upon impact the crystals merged, and the light globe enclosing the orks turned the color of sunrise. Slowly the color filled the whole globe, touching the orks with its luminous light, embracing them until their eyes closed and their terrified faces relaxed. Slowly the light around the orks faded, leaving them standing before the goblin king, their faces blank and uncomprehending, their moss colored hides permanently tinted with a golden glow.
"I've brought you a gift," Jareth told the dazed orks. "Something you never had. Empathy. You will know exactly the effects of your acts for you will feel the same emotions as those you have dealings with. Never again will you be blind to the consequences of your actions. Two gifts, actually. Honesty as well. Never again will you be able to tell a lie, the truth must out whether you want to or not." He turned a stern eye on his people. "Your king forbids you to harm these orks in any way. You do not have to aid them, you do not have to show them kindness, but on your oath I forbid you to offer them damage." He turned back on the orks. "You are free to go. You may stay in the goblin kingdom if you want to, or go back to whatever godforsaken hell has spawned you. I am sure they will eat you alive there." He looked at them harshly. "But get out of my sight. Now." The orks turned on their heels and ran out of the hall as fast as they could, the crowd parting for them in disdain and closing again after their passing.
At the king's beckoning the third sphere slid before the dais, the shimmering walls dissolving before his glare.
"Such an unexpected visit, Tadhg. Didn't you once say you would never pay a visit to a degenerated place like the goblin kingdom? Yet here you are, and in such lovely company as well." Jareth's voice was full of solicitous concern, befitting a sovereign inquiring about a visitor's health.
"I demand you release me at once," Tadhg hissed with barely suppressed fury. He was unusually tall even for a fae, his muscular frame much wider than the goblin king's, with arresting grey eyes framed by dark brown lashes, his honey blond hair an incongruous contrast. His lips full and generous, his features classically beautiful, he was the very personification of all that is alluring in fae. Jareth and Tadgh knew each other as most fae did once they had lived a great year or longer, near-immortal life ensured a ever-increasing sphere of acquaintances, but they had never been friends since Jareth did no believe in fae superiority even before he was chosen, while Tadgh felt naught but disdain for all "lesser" kindreds.
With a polite smile Jareth walked up to his blustering prisoner and looked him over coldly, blithely ignoring the stream of insults that Tadhg hurled at him. Despite his advantage of size the imprisoned fae seemed insignificant next to Jareth, whose cold, harsh features and whip-thin, lightly muscled body should have paled in comparison yet impossibly managed to look more haughty, powerful and simply alive.
"Your manners seem to have deserted you together with your sense, my dear Tadhg," Jareth said mildly when the other man had to stop for breath. "Your language may be perfectly acceptable with your .. associates, but you should really try some restraint when ladies are around."
As the prisoner caught sight of the Maighdean-mhara courtiers on the dais, he blushed. Morveren inclined her head and smiled at him. "Please forgive me, my lady Morveren, I was overcome with passion and did not realize that my outburst might insult innocent ears. Yet do not take my words as an insult, lady, I am astounded to see you here. I cannot understand how your father could allow his only daughter to visit in the goblin kingdom, what kind of company does this place offer to a fae lady?"
Jareth laughed. "Well done, Tadgh, you still have not lost the ability to insult people the very moment you open your mouth. The lady Morveren is Sao Llyr's ambassador to my court, and she is well able to take care of herself without any man's guidance or guardianship." He pursed his lips in mock deliberation. "You on the other hand are obviously unable to do so. Tell me, Tadgh o Conghaile, is your mother proud of you?" Jareth spoke calmly over the other man's fury. "If my subjects are degenerate, what would you call falin? By fae law no falin is allowed to live, they are killed where they stand when found, yet you were the commander of four of them. Soul eaters, abominations, and they followed your orders. Tell me, Tadgh, how many helpless victims have you delivered to them? You have led a war party of mercenary orks and soul eaters into the goblin kingdom and taken prisoner six innocent dwarves, abused them and were dragging them back to their death in Ardar Iforas - that is, if they were the lucky ones not given over to the falin. Yet you stand here and insult me. Is there a epidemic of madness in Ardar Iforas, or are you simply stupid? Not even you can have the sheer nerve to pretend what you do is honorable."
"I was doing my king's bidding, as I have sworn to do," Tadgh replied stiffly. "I had been ordered to bring back these traitors to my king's justice, and your filthy rabble stopped me delivering these criminals to their due punishment. You have no right to keep me here, I am a citizens of Ardar Iforas and answer to nobody but my king."
Jareth looked at the tall fae with contempt. "Traitors? Two tired miners, a pregnant miner's wife, an old shopkeeper and a healer, not to forget a six year old child whose parents are dead? What secrets did they have to betray, Tadgh? What ill can dwarves who have never left Ardar Iforas in all their lives do the country? Have you not seen the slaughter on the blocks in Tahat? Have you not heard the screams from the torture chambers under the castle? You know as well as I that by fae law you deserve death by giving aid and shelter to falin. Treason is not even on the list of unforgivable crimes. Yet you do not even talk about committing the most unacceptable crime but put the blame on the backs of innocents. May your mother curse the day she bore you, and may your father deny your name." Jareth's voice had gone deathly quiet, barely containing the fury that tried to break free. "How dare you show your face in company, Tadgh? A mindless slave is what you are, a fate you freely chose, you decided to forgo you obligations to decency in favor of your so-called duty to Lleu. You know as well as anyone that any court in the underground would have gladly welcomed you had you decided to resist Lleu's sick orders. Yet you abrogated your free will and your conscience to a madman's machinations." With a visible effort Jareth restrained his fury and calmed himself, once again the mocking, careless goblin king. "I am however not here to judge you on your worth, however non-existent, but on your actions." Tadgh tried to resume his stream of insults, but with a careless flick of his fingers Jareth took his voice. "You brought a war party into my demesne, in itself an act of war. I could have you executed as an enemy. But worse, the falin would not have been able to walk in the goblin kingdom if you had not shielded them from detection with your magic. By fae law I would be within my rights to kill you right here for the crime of aiding falin." He smiled mockingly. "Of course there are enough fae who would still call me a murderer anyway, since I am the degenerate goblin king. So you will live. For as long as you will. But I believe I will rather make sure you cannot aid falin in the future. Let me give you some final advice, though: You may want to steer clear of anyone with a dislike of fae in the future, my dear Tadgh. A fae without magic is the perfect target for those who hold a grudge. Can you think of anyone who might hold a grudge against you, Tadgh?" Beads of sweat began to form on the forehead of the prisoner in the sphere of light, his face a study of panic. With another flick of his fingers Jareth restored his voice.
"You cannot take my magic," Tadgh screamed. "You are but a traitor to the fae, surrounded by freaks, monsters and worthless rejects, when you should use your power for your own kind. My magic is part of me, you would not dare to take it from me, you abomination. Your are worse than those things that call you king, you and your kind should be wiped from the face of the earth, and ..." Whatever else he was going to say was stopped by another movement of Jareth's fingers. "I am tired of the ravings of this lunatic. It is time to pay for your crimes."
In the blink of an eye the goblin king stood on the dais, garbed in all his dark finery, slowly and carefully weaving a complex spell with his voice and hands, poetry of movement and sound. As the spell grew, a pulsing light began to form around all the creatures in the hall, the innate magic of each become visible as a halo of light, beating with the rhythm of their hearts. Everyone in the underground had some magic, so the light emanating from the windows and doors of the old market hall shone brighter than the sun. Inside, the light on the dais was blinding, so bright and white it was impossible to look at it, while the light emanating from the prisoner's globe was getting paler and thinner by the moment, until the fae in its middle stood in a pool of shadow created by the lights around him. Jareth finished the invocation and stood motionless on the dais as the light in the hall dimmed quickly, and looked at the broken man before the dais without pity. "When the sun rises the second time from now, Tadgh o Conghaile must have left the goblin kingdom. Any who see him after such time may kill him without fear of punishment or retribution. Tadgh o Conghaile is herem, and like falin he shall be killed by the first who sees him." Without a further word the king turned away from the prisoner in contempt and walked to the back of the dais, not sparing as much as a glance at the desperate fae who tried to attack him from the behind, easily stopped by Sed who had been expecting such an act. Without further ado Sed dragged the much bigger fae to the doors of the hall and threw him down the low stairs at the entrance.
"You better leave now, fae. If I see you after the time given to you I will kill you myself, with pleasure. Life is more than scum like you deserves," he growled, and after a short look at the hostile faces staring at him Tadgh turned his back to the hall and began his long walk out of the goblin kingdom.
Inside the goblin king concluded the day's proceedings as the crowd in the hall was eagerly discussing the judgments. The lady Morveren and her ladies-in-waiting bid their leave early while Porr was talking to Tiernan with some curiosity. "I did not know you had such strong magic. Your light was second to none but Jareth, much stronger than any others. With power like that, why aren't you the ruler of some demesne?"
With a wry grin Tiernan answered him lightly. "You have found my weakness in a moment, Porr. I am the black sheep in the family, the one that just could not be bothered to find a proper calling. I admit, I had long thought that Jareth was like me, footloose, restless, unable to settle, yet then he found his place in the goblin kingdom. I have never found any place that called to me as much as the road, so I wander the underground. And by the look of it, it is just as well - kinging it seems to be an exceedingly time-consuming and boring affair. Jareth has become ... responsible, a fate worse than death." He grinned at Porr conspiratorially. "You should ask Jareth to perform the spell when my parents come for a visit some time. None of us is as powerful as he is, though he was not so strong in the past, but still, all of our magic glowing is quite a spectacle. There is a reason why nobody ever has tried to attack Danu. I am as strong as my father, but my mother outshines our magic easily."
/
When Jareth caught up with Morveren in their quarters in the castle, she turned on him in a flash. "How could you do that? This was the cruelest thing I have ever seen," Morveren raged at Jareth who looked at her bemused and decided the best course of action was to keep his mouth shut and wait for the storm to blow over. "I have known Tadgh for countless years, he belonged to the staff of the ambassador to Ardar Iforas at my father's court for centuries. He may not be wise and he is not the smartest man I have ever met, but he did not deserve this. How could you tear his magic off him? What are we without our magic?"
Jareth could not help himself. "Would you rather I had killed him? Is that your desire, my dear?"
"No! We are fae, immortal and steeped in magic, it is what it means to be fae. How could you destroy his core?" Morveren was shaking with emotion. "Punishment, yes, but this is a cruelty beyond belief, for as you said, he had not killed anyone."
Jareth gave up on the idea of silence being the wiser course. "He was with falin, shielded their presence with his magic. Helping falin is punishable by death by the laws of the fae. Have you conveniently decided to forget this detail?"
Morveren faltered, and her shoulders fell. "I know he deserves punishment, Jareth, but he is not evil, just a narrow-minded and stupid man, and is not the blame for all this on Lleu? I cannot bear for you to be so cruel as to tear his magic off him, for what kind of existence may he have now?"
Jareth looked at her and choose his next words carefully. "Morveren, he used his magic to protect the soul eaters. He led a war party into the peace of the goblin kingdom. It does not matter if he was ordered to do so. He is a man grown and responsible for his own actions, and his actions are unforgivable. I am the king of the goblin kingdom, and my first duty is to protect my own. I cannot, not do I want to, show mercy to those who aid in murder and violate my demesne. It is my duty to protect my country and my subjects, and the kindred either my subjects or my enemies belong to does not matter to me."
"The dwarves were not your subjects. They belonged by rights to Ardar Iforas, so why did you have to take their side?"
"You do niot mean this, Morveren. You have been to the Simien mountains with your ladies, and I know you have given as much help as possible, you did not stint on either your magic nor your wealth. I do not believe that you would want some innocent dwarves to be destroyed by the falin or murdered by Lleu."
Morveren turned to him, her eyes of sea dark grey with emotion, and bit her lips. Then she asked in a tense voice: "Do you love me, Jareth?"
The tall man before her seemed taken aback by her question, but looked into her eyes without hesitation. "I did not expect this loaded question to come up this early in our relationship. Most of the women who decided to ask me this question and all it entails had shared my life much longer than those few years you have spent at my side." Morveren stiffened under his intense look. "But to answer your question, yes, I do love you. This answer has obviously never been enough in the past, but I am hoping you can understand. My life is better because you are here, you are a smart, educated woman, beautiful and accomplished, you have listened to my conflicts and solutions ruling my demesne and have given me invaluable advice and help. My court admires you and follows your lead, and I am a better king with you at my side. But you also make me a happier man, I enjoy your presence in my life, and in my bed, and I always thought you felt the same way."
"Would you show mercy to Tadgh if I asked you for it?" Morveren asked him softly, her elegant hands touching his hesitantly.
Jareth's eyes closed for a moment, then he stepped back a fraction and smiled at her resignedly and with a touch of bitterness. "What's said is said, my lady Morveren. I can not break my oath to mine for love. Is that what you want, a man who will forsake his duties and all that is right at your wish?"
When Morveren did not answer, he continued determinedly. "I am the king of the goblin kingdom, and I am sworn to protect my people and my country. I am bound to the laws even more than any other, for what is the law worth if the king only follows it when it pleases him? Morveren, I want to do right by you, but my duty comes first. You are a king's daughter, and U Llyr has been a ruthless and cruel ruler when it has been necessary. It is what a king does, the price we pay: Our first commitment is to our duty." He looked at Morveren with a silent plea in his eyes. "This does not mean that I do not care for what you desire, and I will do my best to give you what you want, but the power and the privilege of royalty come at the price of giving up some choices we want to take for decisions we must make."
Morveren looked at the beautiful, dejected man before her with tears in her eyes. "What you are saying, Jareth, is that I will always be less important in your life than your duties. If I need you, and at the same time your subjects do, even those disgusting goblins or those horrible hags and harpies, you will choose to attend to their needs, not mine. This is not what I call love, Jareth, and it is not enough for me. I will not be your entertainment, your plaything, discarded when you have more important things to do." Morveren stood straight, her hands tightened to fists at her side. "And you are wrong about my father. He is not a cruel man, he does not enjoy inflicting imaginative punishment. You do. You did not for a moment feel pity for Tadgh, and you were glad when you could punish him."
"Tadgh deserved everything he got and worse. You are right, Morveren, I feel no pity for him or his like, and am content to be able to mete out the punishment for such as him. If this makes me cruel, so be it." Jareth looked at her in silence for a moment, his face cool and composed, then he bowed deeply to her and said with regret in his voice. "I believe you have made yourself perfectly clear, my lady Morveren. I am more sorry than I can say that I cannot give you what you need, but I hope you can find it in your heart to believe me when I tell you I wished things were different. Yet I must accept your choices, my lady, as you have every right to make your own decisions. Please accept my apologies for any pain I may have caused you, I never meant to hurt you." He moved gracefully as always to the doors, but turned back to her the last time: "I will have my things removed from your quarters within the hour, my lady Morveren, and I shall bother you with my attentions no more. Good bye, my lady." He closed the doors quietly behind him as he left the room.
/
The morning of All Hallows dawned without any portents, a beautiful day in autumn, as perfect as can be. The sun stood gloriously in a sky of the most beautiful turquoise, not a cloud marring its perfection. The air was mild, unusually so for Samhain, and it promised to be a day made to spend outside, the light crystalline and with the golden red glow of autumn, the slight eddies of wind caressing the skin with a warm touch, the last kiss of summer before the sunlight ceded to winter, the days getting shorter and the air cooler. Ikiaq and the castle servants had been busy working since dawn, the preparations for the masque reaching a fever pitch. The atmosphere in the city was joyful and festive, Samhain was ever one of the most popular fair-days, none worked but for the necessities of life, and celebrations were going to be held all over the labyrinth, and indeed the whole goblin kingdom. A jubilant feeling of celebration touched lightly on all minds in the goblin kingdom, a gladness filled every heart. With the preparations for the masque ball in full swing, every hand in the castle was happily busy with some task or another to finish the arrangements for the celebration in the evening. The fact that the lady Morveren was not going to be the at the side of the king presiding over the ball had thrown some unexpected spokes into the planning, but the palace servants could deal with any emergency as working for the goblin king did offer more than the usual amount of unexpected change. The rather unexpected separation had the tongues in the castle wagging, yet since none knew what had happened between the two and both were perfectly amiable and polite to each other, the gossips had to nothing to exchange but suppositions and rumors, which did not make for very satisfying material. The lucky punters in the city at the heart of the labyrinth had no such problems, they were sure that the lady had decided that the king just wasn't offering what she wanted, and so decided to call it quits. She was not the first, and would not be the last. The first bets were already being placed as to when the king would take another woman to his bed. The citizens of the goblin kingdom had no finer feelings where their king was concerned, and this is how they liked it.
When the king had not risen by mid-morning nor had the lady Morveren, the first unease surfaced. It had not been unusual for them to rise late occasionally, but the king was an early riser, not prone to sleeping late. Now, that he slept alone again, why was he still not up? Worried but elated, Sed hesitantly entered his bedroom and found Jareth in deep sleep on his bed. Late in the morning someone had finally noticed that none of those not oathbound to the labyrinth were about. When the maids and menservants investigated, they were found in deep sleep, not always in their own beds, and they could not be woken. Neither could the goblin king.
By midday a full alert had been called and the city was alive with lively rumors that did not squelch the joyous atmosphere. In the goblin throne room the war council had convened, the frantic chancellor trying to determine what was going on. Ikiaq, Nerromiktok and Pakak were too worried to be much help, but between Porr, Ningyo, Toby and Sindri some semblance of order was maintained. Sed had joined the meeting with two of the guards, the others were not only guarding the doors of the king's bedroom but also unconscious body of the king himself, the windows closed to prevent any possible attack. Sed and the goblins of the king's guard had found themselves shaking, their eyes red and whirling, their hearts beating fast and an eerie joy coursing through them that terrified them since they did not understand it, their worry for their king driving them near mad.
"I do not know what is happening," Porr spoke faster than was his wont, clearly rattled. "I have never heard of an attack on the labyrinth without all the oathbound knowing of it immediately. I have asked several of the fae at court to cast their scrying spells, but they have observed nothing out of the ordinary. The odei have gone to the borders on the wind to see if anything untoward has occurred, but none have returned yet. None of those who belong to the labyrinth have been affected by the untouchable sleep but Jareth and all those who are not of the goblin kingdom. There are many who have lived here for great years who never swore the blood oath, and they are asleep. It does not seem that anyone is awake who would hurt the labyrinth." He shook his head as if to remove cobwebs from his brain. "I should be terrified, and in some way I am, but I cannot be afraid. Something in me is glad."
Before he could continue, the door opened and 'Lo lani blew in. Her hair was the color of storm clouds before thunder breaks, it whipped around her face as if buoyed by an invisible wind, and the countless small pieces of cloth that twirled around her small, lithe body as if carried by a wind hose formed an near perfect sheath of color, allowing for the occasional tantalizing glimpse of her silvery skin. She moved quickly to Ningyo's side and touched his outstretched hand with a sweet smile, then turned to the chancellor. "All roads end at the border. The other demesnes have vanished in a wall of mists, and as you enter them to follow the road, you emerge at another spot in the goblin kingdom again." she said in a reedy, light contralto. "The labyrinth has closed itself off from the underground again." Stunned silence greeted her words.
Ikiaq broke it first, her worries about her milk-son stronger than the strange feeling of well-being that was flooding her mind. "What is going on? The last time the labyrinth closed itself off the king and the queen had been killed. But Jareth lives. He is in a slumber we cannot wake him from, but alive. Has someone poisoned him? Will he wake up again?" She took out a dirk from her belt. "It is time the labyrinth gave us some answers. I will call it with my blood."
Before she could proceed however, a squeaky voice spoke up from the door. "No lady, no hurt yourself. King is well, only sleeping, nothing is wrong." All eyes in the room turned to the small goblin who had spoken. Sed was next to him in a heartbeat, holding him by the neck of his power ranger sweatshirt and shaking him rigorously. "What is wrong with the king? Why is he asleep? Tell me now, now!"
Toby was by his side in a moment, calming the overwrought captain of the guard down, and talked to the unperturbed goatish goblin. "You are Eek, aren't you? I have seen you when Jareth brought Makemba and her children to the underground. If you know what is going on, tell us."
Eek looked at the group in the throne room with a wide grin. "Can you not feel it? The joy, and the welcome? The king is called to join the labyrinth, for the binding, and he will wake up when it is done." He looked at the unconscious smiles breaking on their faces even though they did not understand what he was saying. "The labyrinth has chosen a goblin queen. Sarra is coming home."
He giggled as he looked at the stunned faces turned towards him with dropped jaws, but quickly the look of astonishment was supplanted by a disbelieving joy, mixed with consternation.
"Goblin queen? We have a queen?" Sindri usually sounded more competent, but mindless joy had taken hold of her emotions, much like what a dog might feel when the master comes home after a long absence. Porr and Ikiaq were no better, though they tried hard to keep their faculties together, but finally they gave up. Porr pulled the smiling Sindri into an impromptu dance as Pakak embraced his wife Ikiaq. Ningyo held his lady 'Lo lani in his arms, his face buried in her hair, laughing with abandon at something she said. Nerromiktok and Toby sat on the ground next to Eek and tried to extract information from him, somewhat hindered by the fact that they kept bursting into giggles. Sed and the guards had given up any dignity they had acquired in their long life with their king and were running wild in the throne room like some barely sprouted goblins who could not even dream of becoming. The goblin queen is coming home. The exuberant ecstasy of the labyrinth touched on the minds of all the oathbound, and a scream of joy rose from countless mouths into the sky over the labyrinth. The celebrations for Samhain began early this year, and they lasted for days in delirious elation. Food and drink seemed to be in unending supply, and the magic of the labyrinth thoughtfully took care of pets, farm animals, and whatever unavoidable duties there were. A milk cow needed to be milked if the farmer was stocious or not, and a dog or cat needed to be fed and let out to the garden if the owner wanted to come back to consciousness in a livable place. It was an unforgettable welcome celebration for the goblin queen if her subjects could but remember it.
It took well over a week for the population of the goblin kingdom to fully recover from the festivities, but the king remained asleep, and the feeling of joy and welcome remained warm and strong in everyone's mind. It was a time of recovery and renewal for all in the kingdom, and it gave hope and healing to the many new oathbound in the Simien mountains who had escaped from Lleu's madness.
/
Slowly but without worries Jareth's councilors began the process of taking stock of the strengths and weaknesses of the goblin kingdom, comforted in the knowledge that the new queen had already bought them time. Lleu would be hard pressed to lead anyone into the goblin kingdom now.
At the winter borders mountains were growing, wider and higher every day, a far distant wall of stone capped in white, an impenetrable obstacle to any plans of invasion by stealth or force. Porr had paid it a visit with Sed, and he was impressed. The road from Ardar Iforas led through gentle foothills higher into the mountains until it came to a sheer face of rock and vanished into a huge gate cut into the mountain, edged in elaborate patterns carved into the hard stone, wide enough for a hundred people to enter side-by-side. The gate opened into absolute darkness which could not be lit by torches or magic. Coming up to the gate, a knowledge grew in the mind of the wanderer that to enter with hatred of the labyrinth and the desire to rent and destroy was a death warrant, but those led by curiosity and no ill feeling, or those in fear for their lives knew that the darkness would hold them in its embrace like a mother and lead them safely to the other side. And whatever their fears may have been, the refugees from Ardar Iforas passed through the gate on the other side of the mountains and beheld the goblin kingdom in all its splendor before them. Porr had stationed a garrison at the gate, and a bustling village was springing up already to welcome the travelers and if possible be the first trader to take advantage of them.
"I wonder what happens to any bastards that want us ill," wondered Sed aloud. He was quite taken by the gate but would have easily given the life of an enemy to know what would actually happen to them. He and Porr grinned at each other companionably. To judge from the long stretches of quicksand that had extended the fens, the goblin queen had a mean streak. Anyone trying to get close to the hags in the fens had to cross those sands, and not only were they treacherous and deep, easily trapping and killing any careless enough to walk were they should not, it was also home to some unknown creature that swam through the sand as if it was water, long of tooth and vicious. They both approved.
And more changes were wrought every day, too much to apprise of immediately, but growing and fortifying the kingdom yet also adding a countryside of strange and unexpected beauty, and creatures not seen or heard of before. When Jareth woke up well over two months later, the goblin kingdom had grown larger by half, and its beauty and danger had increased.