Sarah groaned as she sat down back at the encampment, her feet were swollen and she was aching all over.
"I'm so tired," she complained to David, who simply laughed at her.
"You should do more exercise then, you lazy sow!" He teased, dodging as she threw the boot she had just been wearing at him.
"So what's next then?" She asked with forced cheerfulness "creeping around the goblin city?"
"No" replied David, scratching his head thoughtfully. "I think that we should check out this castle. We need to relocate. Despite what Beth says, I don't trust King Jareth to keep his word, and we can't just wait like sitting ducks for the Beast and god knows what else to come after us."
"Good plan" said Sarah. What he had said made complete sense, but there was one teeny tiny flaw.
"Yeah?" he asked feeling pleased with himself, compliments were few and far between these days.
"Yeah" replied Sarah, then paused thoughtfully. "Good enough to start including other people." She saw him, preparing to disagree, David hated doing things by committee. "No, David, I'm right about this!" She raised her hand to hold off his objections "We have to have some support on this. We can't just tell the whole encampment to pack up and move on our say-so. It's too big a decision for just us. And you have to admit it would be a lot safer for a group of us to go up there."
He relented "Yeah, I guess…safety in numbers, I suppose." Sarah was pretty sure that he was only agreeing because he couldn't come up with a counter-argument, but she was sure that she was right.
So the next morning, unwilling as he was David called a meeting. It was the first time that Sarah had seen everybody altogether since the night of her arrival. She was amazed by how few of them there really were. Sarah watched as David told them the train of events that had led to the current meeting; Sarah's wish for more information about the Goblin King and Queen, David's suggestion of finding the library and their visit to see Russell and his tale of a castle in the mountains, once inhabited by humans.
"How do you know we can trust him?" one voice shouted from the crowd.
"Well, basically we don't" replied David frankly, running his hand through his hair. "But we can't just sit here and wait for the beast!" There was a general murmur of agreement "So what I propose," he continued "is that tomorrow morning a small group of us walk up to this castle and check it out."
"And then what?" another voice rang out, this time it was familiar, it belonged to Beth, "We all just pack up and move into this castle? You have got to be kidding me."
"Well it's better than sitting around here waiting to be massacred" another voice added their support.
"We're not going to be massacred" Beth countered smoothly "the Goblin King…" Before she had time to finish her sentence she was interrupted.
"He's not somebody we can trust!"
"He hasn't let us down yet!" she replied angrily.
"Yet is the operative word though isn't it Beth?" David chimed in, "you may be able to trust him. I doubt he would let anything happen to you." The words were said with such bitter insinuation that many of the crowd almost winced.
"He won't let anything happen to the rest of you either" she replied.
He looked straight at her, his anger subsiding "I don't trust him" he told her simply.
Despite David's cool tone Beth was still fuming "Of course you don't! And not for the reason that you claim. You're just jealous of the relationship between me and Jareth!"
"This isn't about that" he replied, now firing up again "that's completely beside the point!"
"I don't trust him either" Sarah joined in suddenly, "and if you trust him Beth, you're a fool."
"Leave it Beth, they're right" Catherine interceded soothingly "and you've got enough on your plate at the moment" she added with a knowing look towards the other girl.
""Fine!" she relented "looking for a new place to live: that's one thing, but sneaking into the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, it's madness…it's dangerous and….it's an act of war" she added dramatically
"Of course it's not" David scoffed.
"King Jareth wont like it" Beth warned argumentatively.
David, unfortunately took the bait, and he was angrier now than Sarah had ever seen him "Well unfortunately I'm not an expert on the Goblin King's likes and dislikes, like you Beth."
"I was just saying…"
"Well don't" he finally snapped "I would prefer the opinions of somebody who isn't whoring herself to the Goblin King." The moment the words slipped out of his lips he regretted it, he had gone too far.
Tears welled up in Beth's eyes, she had never known him to be so cruel. "Screw you" she said hoarsely as she turned and walked away "do whatever the hell you like" her retreating back told the crowd, and a couple of girls followed her. Sarah watched on as Catherine slipped a comforting arm around the other girl's waist and Beth's head sagged onto her shoulder, she looked so lost.
Sarah turned her attention back to David, who was now choosing the people who were to be in the group to go and find the castle. Sarah wasn't too sure if she was pleased to be picked or not. On one hand she really wanted to go and see the castle, after all she had earned that right, but on the other, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for the next three days.
The next morning they set off for the castle. Sarah was the only girl that had been chosen for the trek; the other half-dozen or so were the men who did most of the hunting – it had been decided that they would be the most able to defend themselves, if the need arose. Sarah hardly knew any of them with the exception of David, however they all treated her nicely making sure that she didn't get too tired, and offering her drinks. But she soon became tired of being patronised; just because she was a girl didn't mean she was weak and feeble!
She voiced her complaints to David, who replied soothingly "They're from another time Sarah, and they're just showing good manners."
"Yeah, I supposed" she muttered mutinously, but her irritation didn't lessen. David smiled warmly; not really understanding her feelings, after all his view of women was almost as warped as the other's.
They kept walking and despite her earlier protests Sarah soon became glad of the offers of drinks and rests. They had been walking up the side of a mountain for over three hours when they finally caught a glimpse of the castle, it's grey stone warm and inviting. Soon they exited the forest and were able to see it clearly. It held a defensive position, with three sides surrounded by cliffs and the main entrance facing the overgrown road which they had followed. It wasn't what Sarah had been expecting; she had imagined ruins, similar to those of the monastery near the encampment, but the castle was almost entirely intact. The roof had collapsed in a few places, and there was general debris, as time tends to gather, scattered all over the place. With a small amount of work the castle would soon be inhabitable.
"The only problem," David pointed out "is the main gate." And he was right. On closer inspection Sarah could see that the castle's main defence was broken, rotten and starting to fall of its hinges.
"Can we fix it?" she asked, a note of concern in her voice, if the gate could not be fixed the castle would be pretty much useless. They would be safer staying at the encampment, and the whole trip would have been for nothing.
"Nah" Rhett, one of the other men, replied casually "thing's rotted through; it'll have to be completely replaced."
"Can we do that?" she asked impatiently.
"Yeah, could take a couple of weeks, mind" he paused thoughtfully, "it's a big job that. Got to cut down the tree, carve the wood, get it fitted. It'll take time and effort" he grinned brightly.
"We're going to do it though?" she asked again excitedly, hoping for a real answer this time.
"Three guys have already gone in search of a suitable tree."
On his answer Sarah flung her arms around him and laughed out loud; this was brilliant! In receipt of her hug, Rhett grinned, brown hair falling in his eyes, Sarah suddenly noticed he was actually quite cute in his own way. She pulled away from him mumbling her apologies, starting to go slightly red. However when she caught the eye of David, who was watching the scene with amusement, she turned the colour of a beetroot.
However she wasn't going to let this slight mortification ruin her fantastic mood. Though she would be sad to leave the encampment, over the last six months it had become her home, the castle would be a safe haven, guarded, warm and protected.
"Are you two ready to go" David called, the rest of the men were gathered by the gate, waiting for Sarah and Rhett, who were pointedly not looking at each other. "We have to leave now if we're to make it home by nightfall. "
As always, time moved faster when you headed towards the centre of the labyrinth, however this effect was coupled with an unwritten rule of physics; time moves faster on the homeward journey compared to the journey out. Baring in mind these two facts, the journey back to the encampment seemed to take no time at all. Even still, there had been a lot of walking that day, and by the time they got back Sarah was completely exhausted. Her feet were tired and swollen inside her boots, her legs ached and her entire body was sore. In comparison her companions, who were used to walking for days at a time, were barely tired.
When they arrived back, half the encampment was in an uproar. People were running back and forth with buckets of water, and at first Sarah wondered if there was a fire. But there was no smoke, and on closer inspection the water was all being poured into a large tub with curls of steam rising from it.
As the group wandered closely they could see that the tub was nearly full and the kitchens had the fires running at full capacity, each cauldron full of bubbling water. Soon the trail of people carrying buckets slowed and then finally stopped, The tub was full. All attention seemed to be turning to Catherine, who was walking away from the crowd, concern was written all over her face. As soon as Sarah looked towards where the other girl was looking she understood the concern.
Beth was sitting on the roots of a tree, one of the giant ones that supported the structure of the encampment. Sitting, really, was a loose description, half lying was possibly more accurate. One of her hands was fiddling anxiously with a strand of her curly hair, the other was clasped tightly around the neck of the bottle. Sarah recognised the bottle instantly, it contained the moonshine liquor that one of the boys had distilled the previous year, but he had died of a fever the previous spring and nobody else knew how to make it. 'Strictly for medicinal use only' she had been told firmly on her arrival, not that Sarah would have touched a drop anyway. By the look of Beth, however, Sarah thought that she'd probably drank more than a drop, she looked completely wasted. She was unable to sit up, let alone focus. Sarah wondered why she'd been allowed to get her hands on that much liquor, the bottle she was holding had been full yesterday, and it didn't look like anybody else had been drinking.
"Come on Beth, it's time for your bath" Catherine told her gently "everything is ready." From her vantage point, Sarah was too far away to make out Beth's slurred reply.
It was really nice of everybody, Sarah thought, to run Beth a bath to try and sober her up. She'd never seen anybody have a proper bath at the encampment before, everybody normally just bathed in the river.
She turned to voice her opinions to David, but she was silenced by the look on his face, he was almost white with anger.
"Are you ok?" she asked softly, praying that he would calm down.
"Leave it Sarah" he growled, before turning and stalking back into the forest, from which they had just arrived.
"What's going on?" She asked one of the other men, she didn't know his name.
"You're young Sarah" he replied gruffly, "probably best you don't know".
Eventually Sarah went to bed, feeling frustrated, she wasn't that young after all. However she was still too young to realise that sometimes it's best not to know. After all;
Ignorance is bliss.