14. Magic

"I did not… expect you to return," Sankrėl said. He shook out one clawed hand, and a bone walking stick appeared before him. He leaned into it, looking for all the old like a stern schoolmaster lecturing an unruly student. "I suppose you think… I am grateful."

"No," Jareth said. He crossed one arm over his stomach, the elbow of his other arm resting on it, index finger keeping thoughtful time against his lower lip. "After my last run-in with you, and that nasty business with the slime, I came to the conclusion that you'd be rather unhappy with my return." He stroked his chin, eyes narrowed in the pretence of deep thought. "I wonder now, could that have been you shifting the castle away from me?"

Sankrėl said nothing.

"Well, it hardly matters, does it?" Jareth said. "Because you failed. And your slime failed to kill me, and you will fail to kill me now, assuming that's what the murderous look on your wrinkled old face means."

"Jareth was a good… king. He loved… his people." Sankrėl gripped the pommel of his walking stick. "You… abandoned us, on a whim. And you…" His film encased eyes swivelled towards Jareth's left eye, and there was such hatred in their lightless depths that Jareth could not suppress an intake of breath. "You… have kept… his form. You have remained within a wretched… human… body." He spat at Jareth's feet. Thick, green phlegm splattered against his boot. "You do not… deserve… the name Jareth."

Jareth gazed down at the phlegm marring his new boot. He shook out his foot and made himself new, black boots.

"I am Jareth," he said, a mocking tilt to his voice. "Didn't you know? My parents—rest their goblin souls—named me after our noble, bold, heroic first king. They must've wanted great things for me. I seem to recall mother died before my coronation, but my dear father saw it. And you saw it too, didn't you?"

All this while, Hoggle had stood behind Jareth, unable to move and unable to speak. He had graduated from uncomprehending stares bouncing back and forth between Jareth and the old creature he called Sankrėl to a disbelieving frown at the blackness below him.

Sankrėl had been the second King Jareth. He was dead. Was supposed to be dead. Hoggle did not hold with dead things coming back. Nasty business all around. He was less pleased with the realization that Sankrėl's voice bore an uncanny resemblance to the voice that had ordered Hoggle to lead David out of the first maze. He thought with a pang of David's accusation about flesh eating fairies.

And he felt a deeper, greater pang at the thought that The Labyrinth, which—as did most of its other inhabitants—he had thought of as his own and as a part of him, might just be this warped, blind creature glowering hatred at Jareth.

I refuse to believe that, he thought, eyes shut tight.

"You're very old, Sankrėl," Jareth said. "Much too old. You would give human children nightmares. Which might not be such a bad thing, really, but your continued existence greatly displeases me nonetheless." He waved his left hand at the ancient goblin, and, this time, Hoggle felt the crackle of magic in the air, like fine sand rubbing against his skin. "Why don't you just go?"

Nothing happened. Jareth stared, and Sankrėl's beak cracked open in undisguised pleasure.

"Sorry… to disappoint you… boy."

He brought the tip of his walking stick down with a sharp jab, powdered shards of glass rising up where it struck. The shards gathered together and snaked in a rasping tinkle towards Jareth's feet. A few metres away from him, they dipped down in the darkness. When they re-emerged, they were the gelatinous, cream coloured substance. One tendril wrapped itself around Jareth's right foot.

"Not very original, old man," Jareth said. He gave one impatient jerk to his right leg, even as he shook out his left. The black leather boot on his left foot rippled out into a bright pink, sturdy Wellington boot. Jareth brought it down hard on the goop spreading up his right leg. He kicked and scrapped at it, until it fell away in shards of glass.

Then he pulled off his left glove and tossed it at Sankrėl. It bulged and spread in midair, seeming to sprout rubbery legs and arms. It latched onto Sankrėl's face, its limbs lengthening out so that, within seconds, his face was completely smothered. His claws jerked in the air, seemingly unable to get a hold of the bulging substance.

Sankrėl waved his walking stick in a desperate arch, then pointed it upwards.

The blackness was immediately replaced by a chequered floor. Jareth barely had time to fathom what Sankrėl was planning before the white square he was standing on shot up into the air. In a cascade of tiles, a ceiling spread out above. Jareth threw his arms over his face. Bits of plaster struck the floor as Jareth was slammed into the ceiling. The square sunk back down, and Jareth dropped to the floor.

He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, then bared his teeth in a savage smile. He shook his arms out to the side, and the chequered floor fell away. Tiles crashed and splintered below him, a great cloud of dust and debris rumbling and yawning out to engulf him.

Hoggle pressed his palms against his eyes, momentarily very happy for the fact that his mouth was glued shut and therefore safe from gulping in a lungful of dust and tile shards.

If he could holler, he would love to holler, "Jareth, you DOLT!"

But Jareth was having too much fun. He summoned up broken bits of tile and hurled them at Sankrėl, who had at last managed to rip the glove from his face. He swung his walking stick left and right, batting away tiles that were bursting into scaly creatures with rows of needle thin teeth. Some of the creatures found their mark, and Sankrėl wailed in pain as they bit down into his arms and legs. He ripped them off, bright splotches of blood blossoming beneath his white robes, and hurled them right back at Jareth. They slammed into him as disembodied hands, closing over his wrists and ankles. Jareth jerked this way and that in midair, his hair an untidy curtain over his face, eyebrows knotted in concentration as he muttered counter spells at them. Eventually, he managed to transmute the flesh hands into wax, then banged his wrists together to shatter them off. He pulled the ones around his ankles off as two apples. He bit onto one, crushing the other in his free hand. The pulpy remains of the second apple he hurled at Sankrėl, watched as it engulfed the old goblin from head to foot. The first one he simply ate, to Hoggle's astonishment.

The fight went on for a good, long while, magic rippling and bouncing and ricocheting around and against Sankrėl and Jareth. For every spell summoned, another was called upon to counter it. Jareth laughed and dodged a poisonous snake he hurled back as a javelin. It burst half-way through the air in a shower of splinters. Sankrėl panted, his robes bloodied and sweat trickling down into his beak.

"Give up, you old fool," Jareth said. He stood, upside down, on a Byzantine, mosaic ceiling he had constructed mostly for the striking contrast between its golden and lapis lazuli tiles and his own, deep blue clothes and bright red hair. Changing his appearance constantly had been part of his tactics. It made Sankrėl shake with rage, and had served as a lovely distraction. "I'm only getting started, and you look close to a heart attack. Just let me banish you into nothingness. I'm getting tired of this."

"You… will… not…" Sankrėl panted out. He could not even finish, merely waving his hand so that a glass orb appeared before him. He threw back his arm, and the orb raced towards its target.

With a sharp intake of breath, Jareth realized that he was not the target. The orb was headed towards Hoggle. Mosaic tiles dropped down all around him as he dove down. He stretched out one hand, shouting out unintelligible words, and Hoggle felt something that was almost physical shove him backwards. At the same time, Jareth's silencing spell on him was removed. Hoggle gasped, drawing in huge gulps of air. He slammed into a huge, bronze birdcage, his head ringing as its door swung shut. Magic hummed all across Hoggle's skin, and he knew the cage was somehow serving as a shield.

Jareth crashed to a stop against the bars.

Hoggle stared at him. His hair was mousy brown once more, tangled and wet with sweat, hanging down in rivulets. His face looked pinched and tired, dotted with sweat and smudged dirt and bloodied scratches and cuts, something Hoggle had not noticed as he had pranced and laughed in colourful costumes all around Sankrėl. He gave Hoggle a tired smile, rubbing at the shoulder that had taken most of the brunt of his landing.

"Why…?" Hoggle said.

"We're even now," Jareth said.

Sankrėl summoned a wide, wooden tile to stand on. He leaned forward on his walking stick. "You cannot… fool me, Jareth." He stood in silence for a while, steadying his panting breaths. "You… do not care… for us. You left. Spare me… your little show of… concern for that… creature."

"Dwarf," Hoggle said in a dignified voice, at the same time that Jareth said, "Think what you will."

Sankrėl shook his head. He lifted his walking stick high above his head, where he began to swirl it around, as if he were stirring thick air above him.

The blackness below Jareth's feet began to spread open, like a widening tear along fabric, darkness pushing back darkness. Jareth's hands gripped the bars of Hoggle's birdcage, alarm and fear plain on his face as he looked down. Hoggle wanted to grasp his arms, keep him away from whatever that darkness was below him, but a still dread within him told him that nothing could save Jareth from this spell.

"This looks bad," Jareth said. He tried to laugh. The sound came out as a shuddering breath. He could only watch—and Hoggle with him—as the darkness rose up his feet and his lower legs, swallowing and erasing him as it went. His thighs disappeared, then his hips and his belly. Soon only his shoulders and his head remained. He gave Hoggle a rueful, resigned grin.

"Jareth…" Hoggle said.

Silently, impassively, the darkness closed over Jareth's face.

Hoggle turned to glare at Sankrėl. But he was gone as well.

"No! You can't do that! Where did you go?! Both of you!" Hoggle rattled the bars of his cage. "Curse you! BOTH OF YOU!" He slammed his fists against the sides of the cage. There were tears stumbling down his cheeks, but he did not care. David was gone, and now Jareth was gone too. "You STUPID, stupid Jareth! Damn you, you bas—"

A rush of air crusted in powdered glass swept Hoggle violently towards the other end of the cage. When he picked himself up, rubbing dust out of his eyes in angry jerks of his hands, he saw that what had knocked him over had been Jareth ripping open the darkness once more.

He was restraining a white owl. One hand kept a tight grip on its legs, while the other gripped its neck. The owl hooted and jerked, its wings flapping and striking at Jareth's face. White feathers rose and fell all around them. Jareth's face was covered in talon scratches, and one sleeve hung down in a wide rent, blood shining wet and red underneath.

"Hoggle," Jareth said, calm as anything, "you may want to close your eyes now. This is either going to be really bright, or terribly unpleasant. Either way, it's not something I feel you should be looking at."

"Don't do me any favours," Hoggle muttered. But he closed his eyes.

He heard the owl struggling, its hoots rising to a frantic pitch. Then the darkness behind his eyelids exploded into a bluish white light. A wet, hot something splattered against Hoggle's nose, more of it striking the birdcage with a sickening, pinging squelch. Hoggle's stomach tried to clamber up his throat.

Jareth's voice came to him in a low tut of annoyance. Then, with impossible cheerfulness, "Woops. I guess it was really bright and disturbingly disgusting. Should've closed my own eyes. Good Lord, the nightmares. Eyes still closed, Hoggle?"

"I ain't opening them!"

"Well you can now."

Rumbling curses, Hoggle cracked open one eye. He trained it on the tip of his nose. Nothing. He opened his other eye. Still nothing at the end of his nose. He looked around him, and couldn't find any trace of the owl. He sagged in relief, one hand pressed over his heart. His heart did a wonderful cartwheel within his chest as Jareth removed the birdcage.

"Stop doing that!"

"Oh?" Jareth said. The blackness shot upwards with dizzying speed, the walls and floor and ceiling of the castle coming in behind it like the reel of a sped-up film. "I thought you'd prefer to be out of it."

Hoggle straightened out his leather cap. He fixed the floor with a weary look. "Is he… gone?"

"Quite gone. Old bastard still had a hold on this place." He looked thoughtfully at Hoggle, seeming to struggle with something, then shrugged. "Guess I owe you an apology for the fairies. For all of it, really. Sankrėl was a very powerful goblin. It's hardly your fault he fooled you into believing he was The Labyrinth."

"So, The Labyrinth…?"

"Is still The Labyrinth." He raised his eyebrows in polite incomprehension at Hoggle's obvious and somewhat maudlin relief at his words. He supposed he would never get used to the sight of tears trickling down the dwarf's bulbous nose. "Yes, well, and that's all good."

They passed on from the throne room in silence. It was almost an amiable silence, and Hoggle wondered if maybe Jareth's previous attitude had been nothing but bravado before facing Sankrėl. He shot him sideway glances every now and then, as if he could catch a glimpse of Jareth's true personality in between the blond hair and the high-collared, black leather suit he wore at the moment and the traces of powdered glass that never seemed to leave him now.

But Jareth never looked at him, merely strode on to the main gates again. He flapped both arms in front of him, and the rectangle windows to either side of the gates shifted and deepened in a scrape and roll of heavy stone, arching along the top and receding towards thick glass in deeply cut grooves.

"Romanesque," Jareth said.

Then he gestured the gates open.

It was time to face his people.