Thy Bog Overfloweth

Chapter 18

Sarah Williams, for all her attempts to be otherwise, was a fairly normal person. She read trashy gossip magazines, didn't visit home as often as her parents would like, left Christmas shopping to the last minute, binged on chocolate whenever she had a chance, hit the snooze button on her alarm clock more than she should, didn't match her socks when she folded them, was proud to get a B minus on her Calculus final in High School, watched sappy chick flicks, cried when she read Marley & Me, and she would rather have curled up with a Calvin and Hobbes treasury than a classic. And if she quoted such brilliant minds as Oscar Wilde, Joseph Heller, Jane Austen, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, Desiderius Erasmus, Douglas Adams, or William Yeats, well, she was studying to be an English major, wasn't she? And if she laughed unexpectedly at seemingly nothing, well, who hasn't laughed at their thoughts? And if she was a little fonder of fantasy than most, well, with her turbulent childhood, who wouldn't be? Yes, all in all, Sarah Williams was fairly normal.

The key word, of course, is fairly.

Actually, to reach the true key word, a few letters have to be swapped or added, and the "f" has to be capitalized. In the end, fairly becomes Fairie, not the diminutive, biting, winged pests, but the massive, oft-biting, pest of a dimension. Fairie, honestly, simply refers to every layer of Earth's universal occupancy-onion that the person referring to Fairie is not in. To put it more clearly, if you were Aboveground, Underground, Inverse, Outverse, Diagonal, and Slightly-to-the-Left would be the realms that consist of Fairie. Or if you were in the Underground, Fairie would be Aboveground, Inverse, Outverse, Diagonal, and Slightly-to-the-Left. The only exception to this line of reasoning is that on Slightly-to-the-Left, everything else is Slightly-to-the-Right Fairie.

So Sarah Williams, a mostly ordinary human, was extraordinary for her ability to see and communicate with the inhabitants of Fairie. The magic she held came from this ability to connect with others, and it was, quite possibly, the only thing keeping Sarah from snapping and turning all of Jareth's family into a giant pile of charred Fae.

Jareth's new Castle had been raised, and she was going through the floor plans with his family to start planning how to get Jareth to attend his own party. The problem with Fae families, Sarah soon found, was that they made up for their low birth-rate by building families into clans over millennia. Jareth's immediate family consisted of Chame, Naomhan, four sisters, two brother-in-laws, 'six' brothers, and four sister-in-laws. This was not even getting into the rather complicated knot of relations to aunts, uncles, cousins, second-cousins, second-cousins x-many times removed, grand relations, great-grand relations, and the many children adopted by one of the clan. There were, all in all, about sixty Fae milling about the new Great Hall. The Goblins had packed in about twenty of themselves, most of them swarming Sarah, who was seated at the center of one of the many seating circles in the Hall.

"We'll probably host most of the festivities in the open-air Courtyard," Jareth's great-aunt thrice-removed commented. Hilde, Sarah thought, but she couldn't be sure. "If we can find a way to lure him to his tower first, we basically rebuilt it, and he won't realize renovations were made until he reaches the armory."

Jareth's cousin from Inverse, Niyol, nodded. "The problem isn't which path to lead him through; the problem is how to get him here." The young lady beside Sarah, Jareth's sister Liadain, spoke up.

"I think I have a plan," she said, looking at her uncle Samael and his son Addanc. They gazed back, querying, but she said only, "I'll explain later. Sarah, you'll have to be there, too."

Most of the talk, Sarah found, was just the many Fae congratulating one another (and occasionally the Goblins) on the good work done in raising the Castle. She could not fault them for that, really, because the Castle was... magnificent at best, terrifying at worst.

The Fae had built the Castle on the highest hill in the center of the Labyrinth, had built it fourteen stories high, and had taken a leaf from the book of the men who'd built Blarney Castle--the Castle walls sloped ever-so-gradually inward, so that the soaring towers and battlements seemed to reach even higher towards the Labyrinthian sky. The windows were many, thin but long, offering only vertical glimpses into the Castle walls. The ceilings were high, vaulted affairs in all the public rooms; in the rooms for guests and permanent residents of the Castle, the ceilings were lower, but enchanted to give off however much light a person needed. Detailed stone carvings decorated much of the Castle, some merely art, others wards; some of them depicted battles or heroes or people (one looked exactly like Jareth, and Sarah had almost thought it was Jareth watching her); these stones moved about to some degree, speaking and keeping watch over the Castle. Other stones were carved in circuitous runes, spirals and swirls and the occasional jagged line; those stones thrummed softly, singing warmth and peace to those who took the time to listen to them.

One of the Goblins beside Sarah tapped her on the arm. When she looked down, he motioned for her to follow him. The Goblin introduced himself as Detrum as he led her to the Throne Room, where the Goblins were gathered. The Goblins greeted her with the warmth of a golden retriever greeting a friend, and when they finally settled down, a Goblin crone stepped forward to speak.

"Lady has seen the Fae and their building," the wizened old Goblin started. Sarah nodded, and the crone continued, "All well and good for Fae, but Goblins did building, too, and Goblins live in Castle. Lady knows King, and Lady knows Goblins. Lady make changes," the aged Goblin decreed. Sarah blinked in surprised amusement.

"How would I make the changes?" The Goblins stared at her for a moment, before one tiny Goblin man skittered forward.

He tugged on Sarah's shirt sleeve, jumping to reach it at all-- the Goblin was only about five inches high, but he was remarkable agile. Sarah scooped him up and set him on her shoulder.

"I," the Goblin claimed proudly, "am the Wyzard Rience, at your service, milady." Rience bowed to her, and Sarah curtseyed automatically, apologizing when the action nearly sent Rience toppling off his perch. "Just point out what needs to be changed, and I will fix it accordingly."

"Alright then... Shall we start at the bottom and work our way up?" The Goblins nodded enthusiastically, and Sarah smothered a grin as one of them started panicking when his helmet slid down and got stuck.

Jareth and Faolan idly hung upside-down in a pocket of space-outside-of-space. It wasn't big enough to be a dimension, but it was bigger than a point on the Dreamspace continuum.

In other words, it was damn roomy, just not big enough to be a world of its own.

Jareth had decided against orientating the gravity in his little pocket of the Universe, and at the moment, he was watching Faolan try to defy some rather complicated physics and chase his tail in a completely zero-gravity vacuum. It wasn't working very well, but that had never stopped a determined wolf before, and it wasn't about to stop one now.

As he floated and snickered at Faolan's expense, Jareth was thinking Deep Thoughts. He wasn't quite as good at it as the Magrathean supercomputer, but he was fairly good at pondering puzzles such as the one he was currently undertaking. Actually, he had several puzzles to riddle through; he was just focusing on them one at a time.

For one thing, he was turning eight hundred and forty three years old in a mere three days. This may seem old for a human, and indeed, eight hundred years on a Fae calendar is nearly fifteen hundred years on the much faster human calendar, but for a Fae being, this was about the equivalent to turning twenty-two: young enough to not be taken seriously, old enough to be a slight bit jaded, young enough to know what one 'wants' to do, old enough to wonder: 'what the hell am I actually going to 'do'?'

Do I really want to be the Goblin King for the rest of my life? If I don't does it really matter? I can't just up and leave, after all... Jareth Thought. He Thought about Goblins and ruling them. He Thought about how much responsibility it was, keeping the Labyrinth and protecting the Goblins. He Thought about how much fun it was, taunting runners (and Sarah, when he didn't have someone running the Labyrinth to taunt) and drinking with the Goblins. He Thought about where he'd been, and he Thought about where he'd wanted to go, and he Thought about Home. Home was a very important concept to the Goblins and to the Fae. When he'd taken over being the Goblin King, Home had been his mother's Court or the family Keep in Diagonal (he still had a Diagnese accent, come to Think of it). Somewhere along the line, between arguing for the first time with the Labyrinth and arguing that last time with Sarah, Home had become the Castle beyond the City.

So, I guess I do want to be the Goblin King. At least for a couple more centuries. But...

No buts, Sid broke in firmly. If you want to be the King, you're staying the King. Think about your other problems.

...You're supposed to be dead. I killed you for getting me arrested, remember?

Not dead, just maimed. You can't kill an inner voice; it's suicide. Of a sort, anyway... You're paying the hospital bills, by the bye.

There's a hospital for subconscious voices?

Nope, which is my point. You'll be developing a lovely little migraine any minute now for trying to maul me. It was really mean of you to break my fingers, you know, and I extremely disliked it when you bashed my head against that brick wall you call Will.

Hey! A new voice broke in.

Sorry, Will.

'How many voices do I have and why do you all sound suspiciously like my great-grand aunt Mia?

Well, now, there's me, and Will, and Maggie, and Clerval, and Percy, and Ned, and there's you, of course, and there's Jareth, naturally.

I'm Jareth! And if you're my conscious, who're all those others?

No, no, you're just the forefront of the general Jareth. Will is will power, obviously; Maggie is magic; Clerval is emotion; Percy is instinct; Ned moved in two years ago, we don't actually know what he does; and Jareth is the bizarre paradox that both controls us all and is controlled by us all. Anyway, what's your next problem?

Sarah, as always. She's getting... paranoid.

You sent a guy to the hospital yesterday by giving him a heart attack. I think she's quite justified in being paranoid.

It was a two-way materialation lane! He was on the wrong side of it!

Mortals don't have materialation lanes, much less sides to stay on. Hey, maybe she needs a change in scenery...

I think he's right, Will added helpfully. I mean, Sarah's been cramped in the dorm room with you and Faolan and Izzi, not to mention studying for those exams...

I have an idea, Sid announced smugly.

That's what you said last time, Reason protested.

Yes, but this one's fool-proof!

You said that last time, too!

Having properly equipped the dungeons (Sarah had very carefully avoided looking at some of the torture devices; the Goblins assured her they were just for show, but still...) and re-webbing the corners with good old-fashioned cobwebs, Sarah had started the trek up the stairs and frowned.

"Rience? These stairways need to be wider. And there needs to be two handrails, one at human hand height and one at Goblin hand height." There was an affirmative sound from the Goblin on her shoulder, and then a stretching noise as Sarah's orders were followed.

She moved up the newly changed stairs and nodded in satisfaction as several Goblins ran past without jarring each other or her. The next change included embrasures for archers, small dumbwaiters, larger windows at the top of the tower, a murder-hole, rebuilding the Escher room, and a window seat looking out over the inner Courtyard and gardens. Because she couldn't resist, she summoned four plaques and told the goblins to hang them on four different doorways in the Escher room. Each one contained one line of the famous Antigonish, by Hughes Mearns.

Sarah had Rience set up a spell to haul the firewood to the fireplaces in the upper floors, and she ordered tapestries to keep out drafts in the servants' quarters (for which one Goblin woman nearly sobbed with relief, thanking Sarah as she told the human about her arthritis); in the kitchens she ordered a magic-operated refrigerator, and throughout the entire Castle, she ordered indoor plumbing. It had taken Rience two tries to get that right, but he did, and so the Goblins rushed Sarah (exhausted as she was by running around the huge Castle) to the City and the Royal Stables and Aviary.

The City, she had to admit, was beautiful, in an odd, lopsided, Goblinesque way. It was certainly easier to defend with the new street patterns, and the fountain they'd built to replace the old one wasn't nearly as... crude. It was still questionable, but it wasn't pissing gnomes, just spitting faeries (literally. The faeries had been turned to stone, but they were spitting the water instead of just spouting it). Several gargoyles had been made and posted at the City Gates, massive, lupine creatures with long, curving fangs in snarling, twisted mouths. Their looks were deceptive, though; each gargoyle had impeccable manners, crystalline voices, and were remarkably gentle with the Goblins and Sarah.

To replace Gigantumus, the old City Protector, the Goblin tinkerers had gotten their hands onto PVC pipes, duct tape, old tires, rubber cement, and sheet metal to create a new, automated protector that looked suspiciously like a certain King in armor. The new Protector was thirteen feet tall, in accordance to building laws, and looked to weigh about half a ton, but he bowed regally to Sarah when she met him. This one was equipped with two shining falchions, and for all that he should have been clunky, he was eerily silent and agile.

The Goblins lovingly referred to him as Rivenshear.

The Stables were very impressive, but half the stalls were empty. This puzzled Sarah, until the Goblins explained that the sturdier Bidrakes were out to pasture at the moment. Sarah asked why there were no troughs in the Bidrake stalls; she was soon informed that the draconian creatures ate only once every two hundred years or so, requiring water only every twenty, and were out feeding at the moment.

She made the mistake of asking what the Bidrakes ate and paled as she learned the little steeds--hardly any bigger than Ambrosias--ate fully grown rhinoceros bulls.

The only thing left was the Aviary, which housed Jareth's falcons, owls, and hunting hawks; it was also where the riding-rooks were kept. As Sarah knew little about falconry, she listened to the Goblins' suggestions and ordered the round tower to be widened and to have a sun roof added. Each bird received their own labeled niche within the thick walls, and the supplies room was organized by jesses, gloves, food for falconers' birds, and food for rook-riders' rooks.

Just because she knew it would annoy him, Sarah used her own magic to make a niche, perch, and name plate for both of Jareth's bird forms.

She was quite bleary when she walked into her dorm, so when she first saw the spacious, elegant set of rooms, Sarah thought she'd fallen asleep standing up and walking.

When she heard the sounds coming from the kitchen, a kitchen she didn't have, she became suspicious. She stepped into the room and recognized the sound to be Jareth attempting to cook. Note the word attempting--Jareth's cooking method generally involved throwing something in a pan, heating it on an oven, and swearing when it started to do... anything. Cook, burn, boil, saute; he cursed them all with words and clattering pots. The background for this was usually Faolan and the Goblins laughing and Izzi watching for an opportunity to bite the Goblin King.

That stray thought sent warning bells ringing, and Sarah poked her head into the not-hers kitchen to see Jareth trying to deal with over-boiling pasta while not-so-stoically "ignoring" the way Izzi's teeth had sunk into the fleshy part of his palm through the glove.

"Jareth? This isn't my dorm," Sarah called uncertainly. She watched the Goblin King swallow the next (particularly vile) curse before he uttered it, compose himself, and turn to grin at her.

"Of course it is," he insisted. "I just realized, well, we've been rather crowded, and with my magic, why couldn't I shuffle the space within your dorm? I mean," Jareth continued even as he turned back to the burning pasta, "I can rearrange it before I leave, and I'm just kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner... I could re-order time, if you'd like," Jareth suggested in an all-too-innocent voice.

"No! Leave the time space continuum as it is," Sarah snapped. Jareth snickered.

"If you'll give me a moment, I'll have this blethering pasta finished, and we can sit down for dinner."

"Why?" Sarah asked, staring at Jareth.

"Would you rather eat standing?" He responded, genuinely sounding puzzled.

"No, why're you making dinner... in a kitchen I don't have, by the way... instead of waiting for me to order out?"

"You've had your finals lately, and you need to relax. I thought it would be a good idea to make dinner for you... Do you not like spaghetti?" Sarah assured him that spaghetti was fine, thanks, and after he'd served them both, she unhooked Izzi so Jareth could eat.

It was odd, but there was nothing quite like eating burnt spaghetti with a Fae King who happened to be one of your best friends while watching even a wolf refuse to eat the leftovers and a wood drake snuggled into your hair. Maybe Sarah Williams wasn't so normal, after all.

Oro: This chapter is not as funny as usual, and it is also incredibly late. I have a reason for this, and in one word, it is: Ireland. My mom took me on a surprise trip to Ireland for my birthday, and I learned a lot about castles and falconry from the trip.

Oh, and I met a ghost.

It was awesome and inspirational, and a lot of the changes Sarah made are things my mom and I talked about while exploring Bunratty Castle, Blarney Castle, and the grounds at Kinnitty Castle. The doorways are short enough that people tell you to watch your head (my mom and I were short enough that we didn't even need to slouch, damn it) and the stairways are so narrow, two people cannot walk by each other, at all. I have no idea how servants managed to climb those stairs with a tray, or the ladies in dresses. Ick.

Quill: I was most displeased. Deprived of my subject for a whole week? I had no one to torment!

Jareth: It wasn't that bad... I didn't get bitten by Izzi for two weeks!

Sarah: A feat for which he is amazingly proud.

Oro: Anyway, I own very little here. The Goblins are their own, though they do enjoy be written, Sarah and Jareth belong to the movie company (in as much as such characters can be owned), and the Labyrinth... No one dares to claim the Labyrinth save Jareth.

If anyone wants to take Jareth's family off my hands, I'd be most pleased...