Disclaimer: the same old drill, do not own what's not mine.
Thank you for you attention. Reviews would be very welcome. :) (hint-hint-hiiint)
Chapter 3.
Puppets never argue
You want to play a new game
You put on this blindfold
You do what we tell you
You do as you're told
Used to be the leader
Now comes the time to serve
Maybe we'll show some mercy
Maybe you'll get what you deserve
"Meet Your Master"
Nine inch nails.
The Fae lingered with the answer, the pale eyes skimming over her face and figure. She would have felt uncomfortable under such a profound scrutiny, if not for the fact that her brain was floating in the clouds beyond the reach of anyhow normal challenge and response operations.
"If no one else lays claim on the title," chuckled the stranger, having stared his fill of her asinine stupefaction, "It is me."
His pupils were black and even, though a bit too small to her liking. So, the disproportion was a purely Jareth hallmark, not something race-inherent, as she'd come to believe for no apparent reason. For a short moment of obliviousness Sarah wondered whether her once-enemy had been born this way or left with those mismatched eyes by some accident. She heard such things happen to people. Was it the same for his kind?
"So," repeated the Fae, seemingly losing hope of obtaining any intelligent reaction from his guest, "To what do I owe the honour of a personal visit? I do not recall if I had a chance to introduce myself to you before."
He seemed younger than Jareth, too. The features more roundish, the cheekbones less pronounced, the thin mouth less...experienced-looking, for the lack of a better word in her vocabulary.
The fair hair with a muted sheen of platinum was cropped short by a skillful hand, and from where she stood Sarah could swear she caught the scent of his perfume, cold and besotting, and with the price probably hitting her monthly income.
"There's some mistake," muttered she at last, "Is it the Underground?"
"Positively," nodded the blonde with a slight smile, "Would you care to take a seat? I'm afraid I feel somewhat ill at ease when forced to conduct a meeting on foot."
Still a bit dazed, Sarah plunged into a wide leather-bound armchair, while her host lazily settled himself in even a huger seat on the opposite side of a weighty mahogany desk.
"Coffee? Anything stronger, perhaps?" offered he good-naturedly, "I happen to own a fine bottle of the Aboveground whiskey. Royal Salute, it should be. Or does my lady prefer some fruit liqueur?"
At the mention of the local fruit Sarah's brain finally clicked back into place, and she bristled almost instinctively, as the taste of that dream-infused peach rose in her mouth, and the ballroom lights shone before her mind's eye, making her wish to waltz and vomit all at once. Those memories always did.
"No," snapped she roundly, yet checked herself at once, suddenly embarrassed by the shrill sound of her own voice. Goblins or no goblins, that didn't seem a nice way of conversing to a little-known royalty, "I mean, no, thank you."
The Fae uttered a peal of dry laughter.
"Do not suspect me of such things," urged he on a note of nearly offensive indulgence, "We no longer use the pleasures of the table to keep mortals in our realm. In fact, I'm even starting to think we should introduce some limitations on the number of the Aboveground visitors per month... So, please, allow me."
His hand moved up swiftly, drawing an invisible pattern in the air. The patch of free space above the desk, close to where her fingers were rataplanning nervously, warmed up, thickened and slowly took shape of a dainty cup. The rich brown liquid inside exhaled the unmistakable aroma of freshly brewed coffee – at which Sarah's mouth immediately reacted with its own interpretation of the Great Flood. Swallowing down the lake which drowned her poor tongue, she allowed her finger to curl over the slender cup handle and paused, unsure if the trust she was putting in her host's words was redundant.
The Fae continued watching her invitingly, so in the end she had no other choice but to pick up the cup and take a tiny sip, ready to spit out the treat at the first signs of giddiness or vision coning.
The coffee was marvellous. Flawless, in fact, from the strength to the velvety aftertaste, perfect in a very personal Sarah-Williams way.
An approving, if not delighted noise broke out of her quite on its own, at which she blushed violently.
The thinnish lips of her host parted in a smile of what must have been contentment, but looked like contempt, anyway.
"Thank you," murmured Sarah, this time with absolute sincerity, "So...All those visitors in your waiting room. Are they wishers? Why so many?"
"Greed, indolence, patience deficiency," the Fae shrugged his narrow shoulders, easing against the old leather of the backrest, "People lapse into helplessness, and helplessness is the mother of complaints. But you didn't come here to ask me about it, did you?"
Sarah was slowly relishing another sip of her coffee, unwilling to speak as yet, but knowing that half-a-minute of the safe silence it spared her would hardly be enough to conjure a decent excuse for her persistent – some hardly polite – summons of the Underground authorities. She couldn't just say there, back in her room, she'd been howling like a singed cat for the sake of a mere "hello".
"What's become of Jareth?" the question seemed to her the most logical one she could think of under the circumstances. After all, her wish was to speak to him, not to the one she was shown in his stead. And there seemed no use inquiring after her friends – at least, not for now.
The beverage might have proven free of any spells or substances to hurl her into the middle of another goblin feast, but that didn't mean she came to feel more at ease with the otherwordly being in front of her. Definitely not to the extent to pour out her soul to him. He didn't look the type of the creature to form a friendly alliance with, or at least not the alliance beneficial for someone other than himself. And somehow she felt he wouldn't think it beneficial to let Hoggle or Sir Didimus pop in the Aboveground at her whim.
One could only presume what good it did to Jareth, for Sarah positively refused to believe he'd allowed it out of pure generosity.
"His former Majesty, Duke Jareth, retired further inland, to his own domain. We do not hear from him often. He is in good health, if you need an assurance of the kind. Is the coffee to your liking?"
"It's really good," nodded Sarah, not letting him lead her astray, which he was obviously aiming at, "He is no longer a King then?"
"No, my dear lady," the host shook his head, smiling patiently, "The Goblin King is in front of you. Edmyg, at your service."
That should have been the point at which someone more practical would embrace the state of the things to the full, and, may be, try to act accordingly. But not her, no matter how foolish she herself realized it was. It still failed to come home with Sarah the reality had changed beyond repair. Somewhere in her there lived a deep-rooted conviction that in some inconceivable way she just missed her Underground. It was still out there. And Jareth was out there, too, lounging in his taste-abusing throne, toying with his crystals, stealing babies...
A sudden, distinctly unpleasing idea crossed her mind.
"Is it because of me?"
It was not at once that she received her answer. The Goblin King, however strange it was to attach the title to someone other than Jareth, was tasting his own coffee, which loomed into existence while she'd been digesting all the news of the day.
"The sense of your question evades me, I fear," uttered he evenly, returning his cup to the saucer.
"Did Jareth retire because of me? Because I passed the Labyrinth?"
It came out ridiculous, to the extent where she was not especially surprised when Edmyg let out an amused chuckle.
"Your human vanity...No, I'm afraid not. I wonder whether you'd find it a personal insult if I told you almost none in the Underground remembers your very name, including my assistant, as I was surprised to discover. Why do you think I call you the Last Champion?"
"There were others," replied Sarah calmly. The knowing that she didn't have to feel guilty for leading someone to their ruin somehow made up for a hardly agreeable realization she wasn't a one-of-a-kind phenomenon, praised in two worlds at once.
"Seven of them, counting you out," confirmed the King, "Some men, some women. You came up to the dawning years of Jareth's reign. He would have relinquished the post even if you'd failed to be born, let alone cross his path. He was tired."
There was no reason for her heart to skip a beat, and then another, but it had all the same.
The feeling was unpalatable, as if a person she'd for many years considered leading a steady, predictable life, happy or otherwise, all of a sudden appeared long dead.
"And the Labyrinth?"
"The Labyrinth no longer exists. It was King Jareth's brainchild, his know-how, if you wish. Although now that I think of it, I heard of his recreating the thing somewhere. To indulge his guests, I believe."
"And I thought I wasn't a guest person," said Sarah with a small grimace.
His laughter was as unpleasant as his smile, and even more so, as he didn't bother to conceal that he was laughing at her rather than her words.
"And you're almost unique, maiden Williams," stated he in a purring undertone, "I wonder, how Jareth..."
The phrase trailed off, leaving her in a tense expectation of the rest of it, which never came. The quietness, that settled in the chamber for a fair two minutes, appeared awkward only for her. The King made no attempts either to finish his thought, or to start a different subject, having opted for another round of a staring contest. Not that speaking to him brought Sarah some unearthly delight, but being forced to share that uneasy silence appeared even worse.
"But if there's no Labyrinth, how do you deal with those who wish someone away?" asked she some time later, when it became clear, he was probably determined to keep her hanging till she gave up and took herself off on her own.
"In an up-to-date manner," replied Edmyg promptly, as though it wasn't him who had let the conversation go to naught, "They hand in a notice of appeal and we deliver it to the Court of Elders. The rest is the matter of time."
"And...Has anyone got their children back?"
Her host was polishing his nails with the pad of his long thumb, looking about as interested in the discussion as his own desk.
"The first hearings are scheduled for the end of the decade. Our decade, of course, it would be next to impossible for the Court to bend to your time standards."
"It doesn't seem fair."
Since her fateful travel outside the borders of the Aboveground Sarah normally knew better than to state something of the kind, but now that it didn't involve her personal interests, she just couldn't refrain from the comment, useless as it was.
"It didn't seem fair when my mother wished me away. Neither was it fair when the child she delivered two years after found his death in a bucket of filth and was thrown away like garbage lest someone should discover he ever existed. I find it that the mortal concept of fairness is highly egocentric. A born Fae as he was, King Jareth deemed it amusing. I don't."
"Was?" echoed Sarah with a frown. The word fell down like a rubble, eery in itself and eerier when repeated.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said the King without any expression, keeping his gaze locked with hers, "It doesn't mean he's no longer in the ranks of living. More like that he's no longer a king. The Aboveground tongues fail me sometimes."
His face was handsome, so handsome that any move of a muscle made it ugly. Up to the moment she'd been subconsciously comparing him to Jareth, but now the two Kings stopped being one, may be, because it occurred to Sarah they could have been rivals, and the rivalry could have ended in a violent way.
What reasons this Edmyg had to be honest with her? None. How could she be sure Jareth, indeed, was "in good health"?
And if he was not...If even he was not, what could be said about those he ruled and protected?
"But the children are still taken away by the goblins, aren't they?" inquired she, trying to sound indifferent.
The King curled his mouth in a mien of profound distaste.
"No, I beg you, there's magic for that. I prefer not to employ dimwits unacquainted with the basic notion of discipline. Most of the goblins and their like chose to go after King Jareth, which I cannot say I fret about. We are trying to keep up to the mark, and it's hard when one has to work with an army of numskulls."
Sarah was studying the bottom of her coffee cup. The common sense she'd developed in the recent years told her that, perhaps, it would be better to call it a day. If Hoggle and the rest were with Jareth, and Jareth was really safe and sound, the most reasonable thing she could do was to let it be.
And if Edmyg lied, letting it be became the only way someone with a normal self-preservation instinct could choose, even if it meant a shameful retreat.
"Well, then," the King stole a look at his watch, "As much as I wish to hear the first-hand tale of your own conquest, my schedule is not that allowing. What is it that you wanted to discuss with my predecessor?"
Sarah licked her lips nervously, then smoothed her hair in an automatic gesture.
"The things left in the Labyrinth...has Jareth passed them on to you?"
"No, I do not tend to collect souvenirs of the kind."
That made it easier. Or a whole lot harder.
"My ring," said she at last, "I had to leave it there."
"If you say so," nodded the King courteously.
"I believe that...Since I'm a Champion, last or whatever, I can claim my property, can't I?"
"Decidedly. We do not keep anything that is not ours," her host rested his elbows on the desk to lean into her in a fellow-conspirator manner, "But I'm wondering – it's been a while since you left us. Why now? I didn't see your ring, but I assume it shouldn't be too precious a possession, if you didn't care for having it back for all that time."
Sarah had to repress the wish to flatten herself against the armchair.
"I promised my mother I'd wear it for my wedding," replied she in the most serene voice she could manage.
A spark of emotion, one she couldn't interpret, flickered in the piercing gray eyes, and the King sat up straight, his relaxed bearing replaced with alertness.
"Ah," murmured he in the tone of renewed interest, "So, should I take it so that our Champion laid down arms to some lucky adversary?"
"Yes, I'm engaged to be married," his florid parlance was little by little affecting her own mode of speaking, "So you see, I must get that ring back."
"Congratulations, my lady. I don't think I can be present at the event, but please, feel free to send your wishlist to my assistant. I'll be honoured to pamper the newlyweds."
"There's no need in that, I assure you," refused Sarah loftily, "Or send me to Duke Jareth, if you can. I'll just ask him to give my ring back."
"I gladly would, but there's one problem, my dear lady. That piece of our territories is completely closed for mortals. The lands outside of the Goblin Kingdom – any part of them – cannot be visited by your kind even as a special gesture. It requires too many temporal and material changes."
"But I made my wish..."
"I'm afraid you didn't," interrupted her the King, "You see, personal interactions do not count as an object for a bargain. You asked for an audience, which I heartily granted. Even had it been a wish deal, it would have been closed by now."
"Can I make another?" Sarah preferred to ignore the hints at annoyance in his voice, "What if I wish myself to wherever King...I mean, Duke Jareth is at the moment?"
Edmyg was regarding her from under the half-lowered eyelids with something akin to curiosity, as a bug-hunter could regard a rare insect, estimating whether it would make a decent addition to his showcase.
"The ring must be really important to you," he mused out loud.
Sarah chose not to answer. The whole thing was already slippery enough for her to run the risk of spoiling it all with another clumsy lie.
"Very well," resolved the monarch with a small smile, "Only because it is you. Go on."
Sarah gave him a blank look.
"Word your wish," elucidated he wearily.
"Oh. All right," she searched for the right words, but, eventually, the simplest way felt the surest one, so she went for it without further waverings, "I wish to be taken to Duke Jareth. Right now."
And...nothing happened again.
It proved to become a good tradition with her already.
The King picked up his coffee and opened a day-timer which had popped out of the thin air under his left palm.
"I'll bid you farewell now. You can go out the way you came here, and I'll see to the rest."
"Do I have to sign anything?" asked Sarah just in case. The prospect of waiting for another decade didn't smile upon her at all.
"You already have. That draft will change into a solid contract with all the proper terms and conditions once we are done here."
Sarah stood up, a little surprised at how simple it appeared to have her way.
"Goodbye, then?" offered she hesitantly.
"Farewell, maiden Williams," murmured the King against the rim of his cup.
The waiting room was empty, the chairs and the front desk abandoned, like every living being just dissolved into nothing, or rather never existed at all.
Her skin reacted to the change in the atmosphere quicker than she realized it, growing cold and breaking out with a wave of goosebumps. Sarah trembled in the piercing draught that seemed to be seeping from each chink and corner. The walls exhaled that spine-chilling dampness again, and this time the watery smell was intermixed with the reeking of rot and decay, and something else that brought to mind long-forgotten, slumbering marches.
Someone moved behind her noisily. Someone snickered in the far end of the room. Something grabbed her by the waist and jerked up to leave her hanging a meter away from the floor.
And then there was shiver, and headache, and the air turning into tar around her...She was struggling like an ant drowning in a drop of molasses.
The lights went out with a puff.
Sarah screamed.
Pain came from nowhere, stabbing him in the abdomen and sweeping up to blossom with a clod of thorns in his chest. He stumbled on a ribbon of harsh wind and somersaulted ungracefully, sick of the cold waves of the aftershock, which rolled on and off him without stop.
Somewhere far below the land that was his gave a moan of irreparable grieving, and fell silent again.
Regaining balance, he swooped down to where the pyres of a time and weather-grazed mansion bathed in sunlight. A owl hovered an inch above the ground, but no owl's talons touched it, and the prints, the now walking creature left in the dust, were those of boots, not bird's feet.
He couldn't run – not he, not here, not under the unwinking stare of the dim lancet windows, each possibly hiding someone else's unwinking stare. At this season his house was traditionally open for guests, who didn't fail to make the best of his hospitality.
Yet the pace he chose was close, so close to running.
Jareth glided over the paved terrace to a small pavilion of red and blue glass, tangled in ivy and clematis.
The safety charms went down in a flick of a wrist, and he dove inside to nearly clash against a young keeper, unlucky enough to travel past the doors at the moment.
"Which one?"
The youth sprang to attention, dropping the pile of books he cradled in his arms. The old tomes fell heavily, a cloud of dust soaring up to envelop the two Fae up to their knees.
"My lo-?"
"Which of them did we lose?" snarled Jareth in a voice which not many heard, and fewer could ever wish to hear, "Are you deaf? Who?"
The keeper's eyes grew wider. With the desperation of a drowning man he bolted through the small arch and set to a frantic race around the inner chamber, tearing stiff velvet covers off the columns of fine marble to reveal faintly glimmering orbs – one by one, each perfect in its untouched, unblemished wholeness. The Duke's lips twitched at each new crystal, which came into the light. Two, five, seven...
"None broken, my lord," reported the youth with a broad grin of relief and cut off, muted by the look, which settled on his master's face as, numb and subdued, he stared at the last orb with unseeing eyes.
"None," echoed the older Fae vacantly.
The keeper didn't dare stop him, when he turned around and left the pavilion in a slow gait, shoulders stooped as though his feathery cloak was weaved of rock and iron.
Once outdoors again, Jareth shook himself up and strolled towards the flank gallery of his mansion, from where, unseen for guests and shunned by servants, he ascended to his private chambers. Reluctantly he moved across his study, carefully he unlocked the small writing cabinet, lingeringly he lay his hands on a modest casket of blackened laurel it held only to jerk them back as though the silky wood scorched his palms.
He took his time before venturing another move, a whole eternity, until further procrastination seemed laughable.
The Duke opened the lid slowly.
For a second his eyes went shut, deep wrinkles forming at their corners.
The casket kept nothing but shatters of lifeless, lackluster glass. He touched one of the splinters with the tips of his fingers only and cringed at the hollowness that it was. No echoes. No images. Nothing.
"I-ness!"
Jareth didn't give a start. He knew the domestic had been there, behind his back, for some time already. Goblins stunk of primitive witchery for rods around. After ages and ages of rubbing shoulders with them the smell ate into his very being, so now when the concentration of their kind per square mile was not as thick as it used to be, even deep in thoughts he could sense a goblin limping two passages away from his chamber.
"Yes," responded he prosily.
"I-ness, keeper say no worey...checked more-"
"Shut up," muttered the Duke almost without spite, "Begone now."
The servants in this place never needed to be asked off twice. The goblin gave a small jump and attempted to take himself away as quickly as possible.
"Stop, you," hailed Jareth in a sluggish drawl, as the creature was wiggling himself through a crack-open door hastily.
The goblin froze obediently, his tiny eyes glistening with apprehension.
"If you meet Hoggle, tell him the love of his life is kissing angels now," the Duke bared his teeth in a wry sneer, "Would he like me to bog an angel for him?"
The creature attempted to snicker, but the lack of the relevant command, as well as the lack of air in his chest, squeezed between the jamb and the heavy door, smothered the thin laughter right in his throat.
"Go. Off with you," the Duke waved his hand dismissively.
Left alone, Jareth sank into his chair heavily, his eyes chained to the remains of the broken crystal. The mantle of cruelty slipped down from him, although the coldness was still there, coldness and arrogance of a centuries old being, used to regard the life itself as an inferior personal opponent.
His hand rose, palm upwards, a ball of pure power dancing between the slowly clenching fingers. With a whispered incantation he sent it to the insides of the casket, where it spread over the splinters in a glimmering web of magic.
To no avail.
The orb was as dead as...
He sorely wished he could shut up his mind, when it finished the thought for him in all its painful clarity.
"Oh, precious..."