Another short one, but the idea came to me as this neat little package. I wanted to present it before it slipped away.
The labyrinth stretched out before them, vast and intricate. He warned her to turn back; this was a dangerous maze. Her wish provided the key that unlocked his power, her desires and imagination sustained it. If she should lose her life or her mind, his own power could be lost or corrupted. But she was not to be deterred.
"It doesn't look that far."
He choked back laughter. "It's farther than you think." Or rather, closer than you think. "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth, or your baby brother becomes one of us. Forever."
He prepared to leave, but found that Sarah's imagination held him a moment longer. As Goblin King, it wasn't enough for him to simply set her an impossible task. In the depths of her mind, she expected more. As if transporting her to an entirely different world he'd created wasn't enough? He waved his hand and created a clock with thirteen hours, with which he could mark her progress. In this world, time worked differently, altered by their harmonizing desires: hers to witness his power, and his to exert it.
And with that, he disappeared to his castle, to let her try to solve the twisting, turning labyrinth, if she could, for the winding paths were a most intimate course of passageways, and yet totally unfamiliar to her by sight. It was a maze not of the Goblin King's creation, and completely unsolvable by anyone other than the girl: the labyrinth was a map of Sarah's own brain.
I'm thinking of following Sarah for a while, to explore the Labyrinth-as-brain idea, since Jareth isn't up to much besides some singing and ordering his goblins around.