6 Confused cards

Immediately she found herself in the stone part of the beginning of the labyrinth and started to vaguely follow the path she had taken before. Vaguely because she couldn't remember her exact route, but she felt she was going in the right direction at least, the only thing that worried her was the fact she couldn't find any of her old marks. She knew they'd been changed somehow, but didn't think they'd disappeared completely. Eventually though she found her last mark, the one that had been turned around, and from that arrow she retraced her steps to find the stone she had put the previous mark on.

Bending down to take a closer look and the one she thought was right, she noticed the edges were quite worn, even more so than the rest of the path. She managed to get her fingers in the gaps between the stones and gradually prised the stone up to reveal a hole beneath it, a hole that was quickly filled by the faces of two tiny, extremely angry goblins. Not even bothering to climb out of the hole the first one started shaking his fist at her and shouting in a slightly high pitched voice.

"Ey you, what you think you doing, prying open me door, you got no respect, now you put that back before I, before I… Wait a minute, I know you, I know, you the one who wrote on the friggin walka walka, what you do that for, took me ages to clean off, Jareth no like mess, course we ad to leave the last one, don know why, but he said, so we did, but the others, they took ages, you got no respect woman? Writing on people's roofs an all, your mother really must be a friggin aardvark, not knowing right nor wrong, now you go now, leave, go on, shoo, we don want your kind here, putting arrows on the walka walka, opening people's houses, no respect, that your problem that is…"

And mumbling as he did, he dragged the stone back in place, leaving Sarah to stare at the floor in stunned silence. Well at least she knew what had happened to her marks now, although it didn't explain the last one which she gathered Jareth had told them to leave, why would he do that? Did he know one day she'd be back, did he leave it as a guide? None of this made sense, so once again, resigning herself to the fact she would get no answers anytime soon, she headed back to where she had first met the card guards. She was surprised to find them already there, last time she'd been here it had been a dead end the first time she entered, but there they were, stood as though waiting for her. In fact as soon as she turned the corner the bottom red one spoke, his Scottish accent surprising her again,

"Well hello, it's been a while, I heard it turned out quite well last time, even though they did lead ye in the wrong direction, they can barely remember which one o' them lies and which tells the truth, then ye go and confuse them by asking them riddles. What he meant to say was no, but I guess ye know that now, clever though, your question, but saying down to the Helping Hands, now that was a wee bit silly, still ye got there eventually, but why are ye back? Surely you didn't wish that wee Toby away again did ye?" he said.

Giggling a little at the comic expression on his face Sarah replied,

"No not this time, something happened above ground and I woke up here, I don't suppose you know why do you?

"Me? Oh no, we only got told a few minutes ago ye'd arrived, but we didn't get a reason."

"You mean you spoke to Jareth?"

"Oh, aye, he didn't say much though, just said ye were coming and this time we should forget about the truth and lies thing, after all the imbeciles up there can't get it right."

"Hey, we're not that bad, I mean, well, she did ask a complicated question, and how are we supposed to know things like that?" The top Red Guard asked. "He just told me to lie, he never said nothing about saying what the other one would say, I mean if she wanted to know what he would say why ask me, she should have just asked him." He said indicating the top blue guard.

"But that's the point," said the bottom blue guard, "it's a riddle, if she asked him she wouldn't know if he was lying or not, by asking ye about him she puts both lies and truth into the equation getting the correct answer, or she would if ye had any kind of brain."

"Hey, but, I mean, well…"

"Well nothing, look we've been over it, ye'll never get it, now lets just help Sarah, and then we'll go over it again, I don't know, maybe it's a gravity thing, the brain falls to the bottom guard, if we turn ye upside down ye might understand it." Said the bottom red guard.

"More likely they'd just fall over." Replied the bottom blue guard. "Now I'm guessing this time ye want to try the other door?"

Smiling, Sarah answered,

"Yes, but the door I entered last time, if I'd have said up where would I have gone?"

"Ye'd have taken three steps and ended up in another oubliette, the whole corridors full of them, there's no way out of them down that one."

"The other door it is then." Sarah said, feeling more optimistic than she had in a long time. "Thanks for your help, it's nice to see friendly faces again, at least I know you're not working against me this time."

"Well how could we not be friendly to such a wee pretty girl such as ye, now red ye move aside so she can go through, she's got a long way to go, and I imagine she's eager to get started."

Smiling, Sarah went through the door after the Red Guard had moved aside, thanking the guards for their kindness once more. There was something so soothing about her trip through the Labyrinth this time. Without the worry of losing her brother she was able to truly appreciate the beauty of her surroundings and the amazing creatures that lived here. She could feel the cares of her world falling away and so it was on happy feet that she walked down a corridor identical to the one through the other door. This time, however, she got through it without falling down any holes.

As she reached the end of the corridor she found a corner and going round it was met with the most magnificent of sights. Stretching out as far as she could see was an enormous ocean. As she stepped out of the corridor her feet sank into sand and she couldn't help sitting down to remove her shoes, giddy with a childish joy she hadn't felt in a long time. There was something incredibly therapeutic about a warm beach. It was only as she stood back up that another wave of complete exhaustion swept over her. She fell to her knees unable to support herself and for a while it seemed as though she couldn't breathe, she lost all sense of her surroundings, all she could focus on was the pain inside her that seemed to be taking over her body. It was as though she was no longer in the labyrinth, no longer anywhere, she was contained by the pain shooting through her and for just an instant she could see a faint blurred vision of a man bent over her, but at that point the pain increased to such an intensity all she could do was scream as she finally collapsed on her back unconscious.