Once upon a time, when the earth was still new and whole there were three beings of incredible power: a husband, a wife and their son. This family were incredibly devoted to each other and as a triumvirate ruled over the four corners of the earth and all the lands in-between. Between them they had amassed as many names for themselves as there were tongues in the lands; Zeus, Mars, Brigit, Thor, Hera, Jupiter and Kali were only a few of their many names. The three, or the triumvirate as they were known as to those with the wit to recognise them and what they will be known as for all time in underground legend, were as cruel as they were powerful.
Of all of them the son was the most powerful and with that also the most cruel. Eventually after thousands of years of enduring their tyrannical reign the humans rebelled. A great army was formed, a host of many thousands upon thousands and they marched upon the great temple of the triumvirate, killing any true servant of the three that laid in their path.At the entrance to the temple a bloody battle commenced, the like of which has not been seen on earth since that evil day. Eventually a sword was put through the heart of the youngest of the three. He died in his mother's arms. In their despair at the loss of their son and seeing the terrible force that lay in front of them they relinquished their rule. But at a terrible price, the earth was split into two parts: the aboveground and the underground. The two remaining members of the triumvirate, Jareth and Morgana, retreated to the underground, but not before the magicians of the earth lay one final curse on their former gods. That Morgana would never again bear another child and that the power of the triumvirate would never again be complete.
As these words were spoken Jareth and Morgana and all of their remaining followers; the dwarfs and the centaurs and the imps and the trolls and the goblins fled to the underground. The various species scattered across the lands in terror until all that was left were the remains of the triumvirate and the goblins.
Out of the ground Jareth drew a mighty walled city and a great castle, and then with the aid of his wife he created an immense labyrinth to protect the labyrinth in order that no hurt should come to his family again.
They then proclaimed themselves the King and Queen of the Goblins, stealing children from the aboveground, where their name had become merely a myth, whenever the chance came upon them to take revenge for the son that had been taken from them so long ago.
Three months had passed since Sarah's arrival and it had passed in a blur. Time had been moving quickly recently, not that anybody was really bothered about this, save Sarah who found it slightly unsettling. She was finding living in the labyrinth quite peaceful, her days were preoccupied with patching up old clothes, laundry, cleaning or helping out with the cooking. Hunting and fishing remained out-of-bounds activities for the women-folk of the camp, despite Beth's and now Sarah's continued protests. The days and nights had recently passed with little activity, the beast had once been spotted by a hunting party a few miles off the encampment, but this was nothing out of the ordinary.
Sarah had just been to bathe in the river, which was located about half a mile from the encampment and was the only place nearby that was deep enough to use to have a proper wash. The summer sunshine ensured that it was quite a pleasant activity, though Sarah wasn't looking forward to the winter. She had squeezed most of the water from her hair before she started the walk back, however it still hung down her back in a damp braid, water was dripping onto the back of her shirt causing an unpleasant damp patch. But it was soon forgotten about as Sarah stepped into the clearing of the encampment. A tall figure stood alone in the centre, staring up at the trees, the sunlight was shining through his frost coloured hair making it look as if light was shining out of his body in an ethereal manner. He was breathtakingly beautiful, but at the same time terrifying. There was no warmth in his gaze, no softness in his face; he was distant and cold as he surveyed the surrounding area carefully.
Then someone grabbed her arm. Sarah bit back a scream as David started to haul her to the nearest ladder, to climb up into the trees, as he did so the Goblin King turned round and as his eyes met her he winked as a slow smile spread across his face.
He had found his prey.
His smile was not at all friendly. It was the smile of somebody who knew a joke that you had not been privileged to hear. Sarah was paralyzed, she wanted to move, to run, but she couldn't get her limbs to move. Sensing this David tried to galvanise her into action, pushing and pulling her towards the trees, but it was to no avail. And the Goblin King was getting closer.
"You wanted to see me Jareth?" A voice rang across the clearing, confidently addressing the monarch. Jareth turned to the speaker and as he did so Sarah scurried up the rope ladder with a cursing David not far behind her. She immediately went to join the others, who were sitting and standing on the walkways, watching the scene below them.
"Ah yes. Beth. You're not exactly who I wanted to see, but never-the-less you'll do" he smiled cruelly at her and to Beth's credit she didn't flinch. "I believe you have something of mine."
She played his game.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The girl. Sarah."
"Oh, I didn't realise she was yours, I simply found her lying around in an oubliette. I never dreamed anybody would have a prior claim."
He frowned "The point isn't where you may have found her; the point is that I want her back."
"Surely we can come to some arrangement?" Beth asked in a brisk, businesslike manner. A grin spread across his face as he stepped closer to her. They now spoke in hushed tones that didn't carry up into the trees.
The group started to disperse, they had seen this kind of thing unfold before and the end now was really a forgone conclusion. David spat down onto the forest floor angrily before climbing back down the ladder and storming off into the trees. Sarah was left alone, sitting on the walkway, she looked back down at the clearing, the Goblin King was gone now and Beth was scanning the tree-tops urgently, probably looking for David. When she failed to find him she climbed up and sat with Sarah.
"Hey" she said warmly as Sarah greeted her with a smile.
"Is everything ok? With the Goblin King, I mean. He's not going to come after me again is he?"
Beth smiled, mostly to herself "No, it's sorted. Don't you worry now." She patted Sarah's arm affectionately before heading off, presumably to find David.
Beth and David had been a couple for the past eighteen months or so, and their relationship was stormy at the best of times. According to Mary and Alice, who had been filling Sarah in on all the camp's gossip, before they had started dating they had never stopped arguing, never seen eye to eye on any topic and never managed to agree to disagree from almost the moment they met. "It was a nightmare!" Alice had added, but then paused "they're much better now though", apparently this was a common theory as nobody had enjoyed listening to them argue. Since they had been going out the bickering had lessened, and they always made up afterwards, meaning that the encampment was very rarely divided on matters. During the few days after Jareth's appearance a stony silence had settled on the couple which Beth didn't seem able to breach, while David didn't seem willing. However within a week things had settled back to normal and Sarah assumed they had put whatever had been bothering them behind them, which Sarah assumed was Beth's apparent readiness to strike a deal with the Goblin King, who David famously loathed.
The day that Sarah met the Goblin Queen dawned bright and sunny and warm. It was a perfect day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, which was an unimaginable deep blue colour that instantly puts to mind one-thousand-and-one memories of eating ice-cream at the park. Two weeks had passed since King Jareth's visit and it was slowly beginning to slip out of people's minds. Sarah had spent most of the afternoon sunbathing and making daisy chains with Mary, in a vast meadow that lay just north of the forest that housed the encampment. Mary, whose turn it was that night to help make dinner had headed home a short while earlier, but Sarah, who was enjoying the peace and the sunshine, had opted to stay out for a while longer. She pulled up the long woollen skirt she had borrowed from one of the other girls a few days earlier, so the hem rested just above her knees, while she laid back, enjoying the feeling of the sun soaking into her skin. She dozed like this for a while before she decided that she should get back, Beth especially tended to panic if people went off on their own for too long and Sarah didn't want to cause her any necessary aggravation as she was enough of a fuss-pot at the best of times. As fond as Sarah was of Beth, she found the woman's almost control-freakish habits a bit claustrophobic at times.
However as she began to walk towards the trees she noticed a figure dressed in dark clothes standing in her path.
As she grew closer the figure came into focus, like her husband the Goblin Queen was devastatingly beautiful, unnaturally so. Sarah had heard the legend of the fall of Troy and of a woman so beautiful she had caused a war that had lasted ten years. She had never believed a word of it, until now.
The Goblin Queen's beauty could end lives.
Everything about the Queen was icy in its perfection. Her white-blond hair, which was at current scraped back and pinned up, highlighting the sharp angles of her face. Mis-matched eyes regarded her coolly. She was dressed entirely in black, which only stood to emphasise the ethereal paleness of her skin. The dress, a rather severe creation was made from the finest black silk, and hung elegantly from a strapless bodice, wide black ribbons had been attached to her wrists, like some form of cufflink while another band was used to cover the edge of her hairline.
She had her husband's elegant grace, the same crackling aura of power which made Sarah feel distinctly nervous. Whatever she and the Goblin King were, they were evidently cut from the same cloth, as Sarah could not imagine a more fitting companion or more perfect match than the Goblin Queen.
As Sarah approached she spoke disdainfully "Do you not know how to greet a Queen?" Sarah dipped into a clumsy curtsy, which seemed to appease her majesty for the time being. "I thought you might have completed the labyrinth" she sniffed elegantly, "after all you had plenty of help; I even sent one of my own servants."
"What servant?" Sarah asked, finding her tongue for the first time since she set eyes on the Goblin Queen. She felt disgustingly nervous, like a deer caught in the headlights and she wanted to run away, but she thought this would be an even more dangerous course of action.
"He's my dearest darling" the Queen told her with a hint of a smile on her face, she obviously harboured some affection for the creature. When Sarah didn't seem to know who she was talking about she cleared it up "His name is Ludo."
"Oh, Ludo" Sarah relaxed, if the Queen had sent Ludo to help her she couldn't be nearly as bad as the others had made her out to be, after all Beth was always worrying about things that never really seemed to happen. She suddenly started to pay attention again as the Queen was speaking to her.
She was gesturing at the ground as she spoke and to Sarah's amazement a stone bench began to materialise out of thin air. Pieces of it flew together like a 3D jigsaw, but when it was complete it looked as if it had been there the entire time, there were no cracks in the smooth stone. The Queen patted the bench beside her, indicating that Sarah should sit down next to her.
Sarah did as she was bid, after all who was she to deny a queen, and after all this woman was so lovely. At the moment she was laughing at the antics of a bird who was hopping around a few feet away, Sarah suddenly felt a wave of contentment wash over her, she could listen to this beautiful woman laugh forever.
"How are you finding my labyrinth Sarah?" the Queen asked her.
Sarah hated the labyrinth, she would give anything not to be here, to go home, back to her Dad and Karen and the comfort of normality. But she desperately wanted to avoid offending this woman. So she lied.
"It's very beautiful" but before the words had even passed her lips she knew that the Queen knew that she wasn't telling the truth.
Her reply to Sarah was perfectly warm "I know that you don't truly like this place, and why should you?"
Sarah hung her head sadly "I want to go home."
"My dear child" the Queen said her voice melodious "you cannot ever leave the labyrinth. And even if you could" her voice was beginning to cool rapidly like a winter's frost "you would have nobody to take you in."
"I… I… I don't… I don't understand" Sarah stammered.
The Queen held her hand out and where there had once only been empty air there was now a crystal resting in the palm of her hand. She gave it to Sarah who looked into it but merely saw a distorted view of the world around her. "Well?" she demanded to Sarah "it awaits instruction."
Sarah paused, as if she didn't understand, but eventually she spoke "I want to see my parents."
The crystal went dark.
When Sarah looked again the crystal was showing her the living room at home, it was all achingly familiar, the faded blue wallpaper that Sarah had never liked, it was more in Karen's taste than her own, the mottled beige carpet, the lumpy furniture that her Dad had owned even before him and her Mom had separated. She recognised the back of her Dad and Karen's heads, they were curled up closely together on the sofa, apparently watching TV, Karen's head was resting on his shoulder lightly, they looked contented.
Sarah's worst fears had been recognised, they had forgotten about her and Toby.
But then the crystal began to move, to zoom in on the TV and as it did so sound started to come out with the tiniest of vibrations. They were watching a local news broadcast, the anchor woman looking vaguely familiar wearing a deep burgundy suit, but what drew Sarah's attention was the fact that there was a picture of herself behind the anchorwoman. She listened to the voice carefully.
"The search for fifteen year old Sarah Williams and her half-brother Toby ended in tragedy today, as their bodies were found in local woods. Sarah the daughter of actress Linda Williams and her brother, the son of Sarah's father and his second wife were reported missing three weeks ago by their parents when they returned home one evening to find both their children missing, with no sign of a struggle. Since then police and close friends have been scouring the area in hopes of finding them safe and well, these hopes however have now been quashed.
"Both Linda and her ex-husband Robert have been unable to make a statement, though close friends have told us that they are 'beyond devastated' at their loss. Our condolences go out to the families. Meanwhile police have no leads so far and…"
Sarah was unable to hear any more as her father now turned the TV off, the crystal now panned round and she could see her parent's faces, and it tore out Sarah's heart. They looked a far cry from contented, they were both pale and drawn, as if they hadn't had much sleep in recent weeks. Karen's eyes were puffy from frequent bouts of crying, while her father looked like he had completely fallen apart. Sarah had never seen them look so lost and helpless.
And it was all her fault.
She couldn't watch anymore. She hurled the crystal as hard as she could into the long grasses before turning to the Goblin Queen.
It was like a fog had been lifted. The woman who she had before thought of as warm and sweet and kindly was now truly revealed. She was watching Sarah's distress with a look of amusement on her beautiful face. Sarah realised now that the Goblin Queen had been toying with her all along, like a cat playing with a mouse for fun.
She was getting a sick, twisted pleasure from showing Sarah what had happened at home.
Sarah stood up, staring at the Queen before turning on her heels and running as fast as her legs could carry her back towards the safety and the haven of the woods.