Sam entered a garbage dump that seemed both dull yet colorful at the same time. As he peered into the gray and brown stacks of junk, pops of red, green, and blue would stand out as if they were hidden treasure. Piles of junk swayed for no apparent reason in the distance as Sam meandered through the hills. He saw glimmers of faster movement and caught glimpses of haggard faces that made him increase his pace.

The dark haired boy rushed through the yard, suddenly needing to escape and get back to the stone walls covered in moss that held the eyes that followed his every movement. Sam dashed through the piles until he found a path that lead into a dirt path that looked like the one that he originally traveled on. He glanced behind him at the junk and the forest that was beyond that. Turning to face forward again, he plunged back to the maze, hoping that someone would be able to tell him how to defeat the Goblin King.

The dirt path turned into stone walls and Sam entered an area of light yellow stone walls. All the areas suddenly looked the same and he faced several crossroads as he walked slowly through the pathways. Sam searched his pockets and discovered a black market buried deep in his front, right pocket. He pulled it out and examined the thick Sharpie that rested in his palm. It would probably do for marking up the stone walkway beneath his feet.

Sam looked around at the three directions he could go in since he didn't wish to go back the way he had come. He chose right and drew an arrow pointing to the right on the ground before standing and walking in the direction he had indicated.

As Sam began to walk, he thought he could hear soft music drifting toward him from some far off direction. It wafted on the air on delicate spiderwebs of sound.

Jareth, the goblin king, was sitting on his stone throne staring out the window with Tabatha sitting on the circular steps at his feet, her small whimpers tremored on the air just on the edge of hearing. He was allowing his thoughts to drift around of their own accord in spiraling tendrils of recollection. In his mind's eye he saw Sam. He was surprisingly pleased by his satin ebony hair and glowing emerald eyes. The way they were lit by conflicted determination, the way they drifted where they probably shouldn't. Jareth had a fleeting curiosity as to why he didn't mind the visual exploration. The grin slid from the Goblin King's lips as he tried to divert the thought. But once a mind wanders, it has trouble coming back, Jareth was hit by the image of Sam leaving to find a way to defeat him. The slight smirk lifted the corners of his mouth as he re-watched Sam leave. The way his hips swayed slightly as he walked, his surprisingly shapely… Jareth stood up, sharply diverting that train of thought, rapidly concocting a way to distract himself from that tempting creature.

Jareth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The screams of the goblins and the whimpers of the child invaded his ears as he slipped out of his thoughts for just a moment. He couldn't allow the goblins to get much more rambunctious otherwise they would likely tear the entire castle down… again. Jareth stood up from the surprisingly comfortable throne and thought of the new song that he had been creating for just this moment. He scooped up a goblin that had been sitting on the ground near the throne, "You remind me of the babe," he said. An image of the boy crept back into his mind and Jareth wanted to rip his hair out. How could such a young boy be so… delicious?

"What babe?" The goblin questioned,

"The babe with the power," Jareth replied. The power to make me go insane, the king thought to himself but he didn't allow such ideas to escape his lips.

"What power?" Another goblin questioned.

"The power of voo-doo," Jareth said, with a flick of his hands.

"Who-do?" I'll do Sam, Jareth thought. These are very unbecoming thoughts of a king.

"You do!"

"Do what?" A goblin said.

"Remind me of the babe! I saw my baby, crying hard as babe could cry. What could I do? My baby's love had gone, and left my baby blue! Nobody knew, what kind of magic spell do you use?" Jareth sang, dancing around his throne room.

"Slimes and snails," one goblin sang as he swayed across the room.

"Or puppy dog tails," a high pitched, raspy voice said.

"Thunder or light!" a larger goblin sang in his deep throat.

Jareth whirled around and pointed at Tabatha who cooed back at him. "Then baby said! Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance) Dance, magic dance (dance, magic dance)… cast that baby spell on me," Jareth and his goblins sang.

"Jump magic jump (jump, magic jump), jump magic jump (jump, magic jump). Put that magic jump on me!" Jareth bent down and picked up Tabatha and danced with her, and threw her up in the air as the verse finished. A goblin caught her on the way down so she wasn't harmed. That was a relief since Sam would likely be angry if some harm befell the young girl.

"Slap that baby. Make him free!" a goblin added.

The dance music continued and the goblins and Jareth danced while Sam did his best to get through the stone maze of the labyrinth. Sam had been marking the direction he had headed in as he walked, listening to the dance music that had followed him but a noise had been bothering him. Each time after he had made his five marks, he would hear a grinding noise as he turned and left the area. It was making him quite suspicious and when he heard it for the fifth time, he whirled around and saw that there was a tiny creature holding the stone square above its head and was apparently turning the stone upside down. Sam stared down at it in amazement as he realized that all the symbols he had made had been for naught. These creatures had been changing them the entire time so there was no possible way that he could find his way back to where he had entered since he couldn't remember all the directions he had headed. Sam pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and felt the need to scream firm but throwing a temper tantrum would get him nowhere. He huffed and spun on his heel, snarling,

"Someone has been changing my marks! What a horrible place,"

"Let me guess, it's not fair?" Sam whirled toward the source of the grated and high voice. He saw two shields first, one with a blue crooked, curved rectangle in the center with a square divided into four sections on the top right and bottom left corners, the other with a red diamond with a circle divided in half on the top left and bottom right corners. Each had a head that came from behind the shield one on the top and bottom. Both people clinging to the shield were dressed in the colors of their shield and as the two pairs of figures finished laughing at Sam, the top two figures ducked back beneath the shield.

Sam shook his head as he walked toward the the figures. He glanced behind, wondering if there was a way out of a conversation with the strange being only to find that the way had turned into a dead end even though it should be have been the passageway to the left that was a stone wall.

"It keeps changing," Sam whispered as he stood only a foot away from the guards. "What am I supposed to do?" Sam wanted to rip his hair out since it seemed that he was never going to find anyone that would tell him the way to beat the Goblin King. Maybe he should just give himself up to king. It probably wouldn't a bad experience, spending the rest of his life with the tight pants wearing king.

"Try one of these doors," the bottom red guard said. Sam studied the wooden doors that stood behind the two guards and they appeared to be identical. "One of them leads to the castle, and other leads to-"

"Ba ba ba bum!" the guards chorused together.

"Certain death!" the red guard finished. Sam stared at the guards in shock for a few moments. He was going to die trying to get find a way to defeat the king of this place? Oh why had he ever wished Tabatha away and gotten both of them into this mess? Besides that mess, how was getting back to the castle going to help him? But maybe if he went the long way back, he could find someone that could tell him the way to defeat the Goblin King! Yes, that was it. So he just needed to get back to the castle!

"Ohh! Ohh!" the guards said.

"Well, which one is which?" Sam asked, hoping that it was the proper question to ask.

"We can't tell you," the bottom red guard said.

"Why not?" Sam questioned, wondering why the guard had even brought the matter up in the first place if he was incapable of answering a question like the one he had asked.

"Uh… I… Uh… Well we don't know, but they do," the bottom guard said as he leaned his body up to gesture to the two guards that created the top half of the shield. They had been cowering behind the shields but straightened once attention had been called to them.

Sam looked up at the guards and shrugged. "Well I'll just ask them then."

"Uh… you can only ask one of us," the top red guard explained.

"It's in the rules!" the top blue guard cooed. "One of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies! He always lies."

"I do not. I always tell the truth!" the red guard cried.

"Oh what a liar," the blue guard announced.

The bottom red guard laughed as the blue guard pronounced the red guard a liar again. Sam stepped in to stop the argument before it got out of hand. "Answer this yes or no," he said to the red guard. "Would he tell me," Sam pointed at the blue guard at this point, "that this door leads me to the castle?" The guard paused, a hunted look crossing his face. He ducked his tan snout behind the shield he and his inversed companion were holding and had a rapid fire conversation of whispers that were unintelligible behind the red and silver metal. The guard abruptly popped his head and answered,

"Yes." Sam took a deep breath, thinking about the answer,

"Then," he paused puzzling out what he was about to say, "the other door leads to the castle, and this one leads to certain death!" Both of the guards looked utterly baffled, the red one whom Sam had addressed started,

"He could be telling the truth." Sam shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes,

"But then you would be lying. So if he said yes, the answer is no." He pushed his hair out of his eyes, allowing a smile to flirt with his lips. It was nice to do something right, but the two guards still looked muddled with his logic,

"I could be telling the truth!"

"But then he would be lying, so the answer is still no." There was definitely an edge of triumph to Sam's voice now, he started toward the blue door as the two guards started debating if he was right.

"I can't believe that I figured that out," Sam said. "That was way easier than I thought it would! This labyrinth isn't so hard!" Sam said as he pushed open the blue door and was delighted to see that there was no swinging axes or fire or anything else that would kill him. He stepped into the stone hallway with the dirt quieting his footsteps but before he had taken more than five steps, the ground fell away beneath him and he let out a strangled scream.

He tumbled into a dark hole, with sunlight streaming down to caress his face and revealing the things projecting out from the sides of the trap and were snagging his clothes and slowing his fall. As Sam came to stop, he saw that a bunch of bluish hands were keeping him from falling to his doom. The boy's eyes widened and his deep caught in his throat as he wanted the hands form faces in order to communicate with him.

"Stop it!" Sam shouted as the hands squeezed his arms, legs, sides and shoulders. He also didn't trust the beings very much that they wouldn't drop him. Oh this had been a terrible, terrible idea. He was sure that he had gotten the answer right and as long as there wasn't a pit of spikes below him, then he should have gotten the riddle correct. "Help!"

"We are helping!" The hands said as they formed a face with a large, flat nose and a higher pitched voice.

"We're helping hands," Another said in a deeper voice. This face was much larger than the first had been and its hands formed its noise with a triangle and was oddly symmetric since its eyes, mouth, and nose were all made up of two hands each.

"You're not very helpful since you're hurting me!" Sam snapped as he wished that he could wiggled free of the harsh grip of the hands but he was too scared of falling to his death to do such a thing.

He could almost feel the eyeroll that the hands couldn't accomplish,

"Would you like us to let go?" Sam froze,

"No!" Another face was formed by hands and it said,

"Well come on," a new face, "Which way?" they chorused, "Up or down?" Sam hesitated,

"Come on, we haven't got all day!" They said something else too, but Sam blocked them out, thinking. The labyrinth changed, so if he went up he would most likely find himself in a new environment that would allow him to continue on his search for a way to defeat the Goblin King, he was briefly distracted by the image, then the hands said something impossible to block out,

"Too late! Down it is!" Sam's shout of protest was ignored as he fell, decent slowed by the hands.

He landed with a thump on a dirt floor, the jagged grey stone walls were adorned with limp cobwebs and filled with a honey colored half light, Sam looked up as the hole he had fallen though closed. Sam turned his head as he heard footfalls on the soft ground.

Jareth watched Sam's descent into the oubliette with an eyebrow. The boy had traveled a great distance around the labyrinth already, he had moved so quickly that it was almost like the maze itself was arranging itself to help Sam or to exhaust him.

"He's in the oubliette," the king said to the goblins that surrounded him, with a frown on his face. The goblins began to cackle. The noise grinded against the king's ears and he grimaced.

"Shut up!" he snapped as he examined the orb more closely. "He should not have gotten that far. He should have given up by now."

'He should have handed himself over to me by now or just returned home but he has done neither,' Jareth thought to himself, his frown settling deeper into his face as he bounced Tabatha on his knee. "He'll never give up. The dwarf will lead him back to the beginning and then he'll give up when he realizes that he'll have to start from the beginning and he's no closer to knowing the words," Jareth said and began to laugh. The goblins sat silent around him and he nearly sighed. The creatures always laughed at the wrong moments. "Well, laugh!"

The goblins cackled as commanded and Jareth stood up and carried the baby girl back to his throne. This boy was proving to be very interesting but he would give up just like all the rest.

"Who's there?"

"Me," a familiar, crackly voice replied with a chuckle. Sam heard a match being struck and a bright burst of light that was the flame of the match appeared in the inky blackness that surrounded him now. The flame moved and then dispersed into several other places, allowing light to illuminate the room that Sam was trapped in.

"Oh it's you," Sam said as the light revealed the face of Hoggle. The lines in his grinning face were etched deeper by the dancing amber flames.

"Yes… well, I knew you were going to get in trouble as soon as I met you, so I've come to give you a hand," Hoggle said as Sam stared at the dark and dusty room he had fallen into. "Oh, you're looking around. I suppose you noticed there ain't no doors, only a hole. This is an oubliette. Labyrinth's full of 'em," Hoggle informed Sam as he gestured around the small space.

Sam slowly nodded, his long hair falling into his slightly. "I didn't know that," he whispered.

"You don't even know what an oubliette is!" Hoggle said, slightly indigent. Sam paused for a second, thinking about the word. It sounded slightly familiar, oubliette.

"C'est un endroit oublier un personne," Sam said.

"What?" Hoggle asked, confusion crossing his face.

"It's a place to forget a person," Sam translated. "I'm guessing a little bit but oubliette sounds similar to oublier which is to forget in French. My grandfather lives in France and I sometimes visit him for a few weeks in the summer so I can speak some French."

Hoggle just shook his head. "What you've got to do here is get out of here. I know a shortcut out the labyrinth," Hoggle said, sounding slightly proud. Sam had no idea what he had to proud of. Perhaps his knowledge of getting around the labyrinth with ease?

"I'm not going back to the beginning! I need to find someone who knows how to defeat the Goblin King!" Hoggle barked a quick mocking laugh,

"Ha! You? Trust me, you're in way over your head with Jareth." Definitely, thought Sam, he's way out of my league. Then he pretended not to have that thought, looking at the bag at Hoggle's hip,

"You like jewelry, don't you?" Hoggle looked at Sam, large eyes narrowed in suspicion,

"Why?" Sam took a deep breath and reached to the back of his neck and undid the simple hook on the necklace he wore. He held the memento of a vacation preceding Tabitha in front of him, the shiny silver beads between wood and twine knots caught the candlelight and threw it back into the world slightly tarnished,

"If you help me find a way to defeat Jareth," Sam took a moment to savor the Goblin King's name on his lips, "I'll give you this. You like it, don't you?" Hoggle inspected the necklace, desire definitely etched in his rough features,

"Uhh... So-So," Oh, "You give that to me, and I'll show you out of the Labyrinth." Sam's voice cracked with his confusion,

"You were going to do that anyway!" Hoggle's eyes didn't leave the necklace,
"Well that's what would make it a particularly nice gesture on your part." Sam sighed and brushed his hair from his eyes.

"Alright. Just lead me as far as you can," Sam replied.

"What is that anyway?" Hoggle asked, eyeing the necklace that still lay in between Sam's fingers. Sam glanced down at the necklace.

"Plastic and wood," Sam replied, running a thumb over one of the beads. Hoggle nodded, eyeing the bracelet with increased interest.

"I don't promise nothing but I'll take you as far as I can. Then you're on your own, right?"

"Right," Sam confirmed and passed the necklace over to the dwarf. A small smile passed over his face, seeming slightly creepy in the dim light due to the shadows that were being thrown onto his face however the small man soon turned away and waddled over to far right side of the room where he picked up a wooden plank and leaned it up against the door. Sam watched as Hoggle mumbled to himself before opening up the wood like a door and was greeted by the loud clangs and clunks of pots, buckets, and cleaning supplies as it fell on the small creature.

"Bah! Broom closet!" Hoggle muttered as he kicked the fallen items out of the way and closed the door. He pulled it off the wall and flipped it away to it faced the other direction. "Well can't be right all the time," the dwarf said before opening the door once again. The door now lead into a passageway similar to the one that Sam had seen before he had fallen into the trap that he was now in, "Ah! This is it!" He turned to Sam, gesturing to the door, "Well, come on then!" Sam ducked and passed through the low doorway, flipping his hair out of his face as he rose again. Hoggle turned his face, making indecisive noises at the back of his throat until, "Aha! This way!" Sam looked around at the faces that were carved into the stone wall, the grey rock had a few strands of filtered light on it,

"Don't go on!" it said in a resonant baritone that almost echoed in the enclosed space and made Sam jump as he continued behind Hoggle.

"Go back while you still can!" a stone head said, sand falling from its mouth.

"This is not the way!" another said as Hoggle lead the way through the sandy trail.

"Take heed and go no further."

"Beware! Beware!" the fifth rockface said as the two males walked through the passageway. Sam felt doubt rise through his chest and wondered if Hoggle was leading him astray and into a trap. The Goblin King might have frightened him into it. Jareth did seem like the type to do something like that; afterall, he hadn't exactly given off the impression of someone who likes losing. Too bad Sam was far too determined to get his sister back to back down now. Now it was a battle of who could last longer.

"Soon it will be too late."

"Ignore them. They're just false alarms. You get them all the time in the labyrinth, especially when you're on the right track," Hoggle explained as he easily walked down the path. It seemed as if he traveled this way a lot or at least had done it several times before.

"Oh, no, you're not," yet another rockface said and Sam shook his head. It seemed like a sad and boring job to always be yelling at people and if they listened to you then some of your friends would have to remain silent until the next person arrived.

"Oh, shut up!" Hoggle shouted as he glared at the rockface.

"Sorry, just doing my job," he said as Sam and Hoggled moved onto the next stone.

"Beware, for the-" the final rockface started but Hoggle cut him off.

"Just forget it."

"Oh, please. I haven't said it for such a long time," the rock pleaded and Hoggle sighed.

"Oh, all right. But don't expect a big reaction," the dwarf said and paused to let the creature say its piece.

"No, no, no. Of course not," the rock said and cleared its throat. The loud, rumbling voice began anew, "For the path you take will lead to certain destruction! Thank you very much!"

A gleam caught Sam's eye and he turned around to see a round, clear crystal rolling down the hallway. Curiosity gripped him and against his better judgement, he decided to follow the crystal and see where it lead. Maybe it would lead him to Jareth and he could convince him to point him in the right direction. And maybe he wanted to see the king again but that wasn't the point. Hoggle was right on his heels, the crystal rolled toward a hooded creature at a dead end, squatting in the shadows. Sam and the dwarf stopped as it shed its cloak and revealed Jareth. In his regal, predatory grace, and pants that fit him like a second skin. Sam could only manage one noise,

"Uhhhahhhhuh..." The Goblin King's eyes wandered up and down Sam before flitting to Hoggle,

"Ahh... What have we here?" His voice caressed the air in a way that made Sam shake,

"Nothing!" Hoggle's bullfrog melody snapped both Sam and Jareth from distraction. The Goblin king narrowed his mismatched eyes at the dwarf,

"Nothing? Nothing? Nothing tra la la la?" Hoggle looked incredibly shifty under the amused hunter's gaze,

"Your Majesty! What a nice surprise!" Jareth rolled his eyes and they landed on Sam, who was focusing all of his will toward keeping his own eyes, elevated.

"Hello Hogwart." Jareth replied although his gaze was focused on Sam.

"Hoggle," the dwarf corrected quickly.

"Hoggle," Jareth repeating, "are you helping this boy?"

"H-Helping," Hoggle stuttered and Sam finally managed to tear his gaze away from the king. "In what sense?"

"In the sense that you're leading him toward the castle," Jareth replied.

"I was taking her back to the beginning!" Hoggle exclaimed and Sam jumped.

"What?" he yelled in surprised and glared down at Hoggle. That little!

"I told him that I would help her," Hoggle explained nervously. "A little trickery. But actually-"

Jareth suddenly bent down to Hoggle's level and looked at his hand. "What is that necklace wrapped around your hand?"

"Oh," Hoggle said and looked down at his hand which held the necklace that Sam had given him. "Oh, this! Where did this come from?"

"If I thought for one second that you were betraying me, I'd be forced to suspend you headfirst into the Bog of Eternal Stench," Jareth threatened as he stood back up.

Hoggle's eyes widened and he began to shake before throwing himself down to hug his king's knee. "No, your Majesty! Not the eternal stench!" he wailed.

"Oh, yes, Hoggle!" Jareth said as he shook the dwarf off of him and stalked toward Sam. "And you, Sam? How are you enjoying my labyrinth?" The king leaned closer to the boy as he said this, an arm resting on the wall, just inches above the head of black.

Sam pursed his lips to prevent himself from saying something stupid and closed his eyes. "Don't look down, don't look down," Sam whispered quietly to himself as Jareth watched the boy in amusement.

"And just why shouldn't you look down?" Jareth asked, a smile threatening to appear on his lips.

Sam swallowed as the king leaned even closer to him, closing the distance between their lips. 'Screw him!' Sam thought which quickly changed into, 'He can screw me whenever he wants.'

"Bad Sam, very bad Sam," Sam whispered and shook his head in an attempt to clear those thoughts from his mind.

"Oh?" The Goblin king's purr was sultry smoke curling in the minimal air between them, Sam cleared his throat to substitute for any other reprimands and turned his face away, after, well, glancing down, "I'm waiting," Jareth whispered in his ear. STOP IT! Well don't...wait, cut it out! You're too freaking distracting, Your Highness... Sam! Cut it OUT! He smells good...Really? Yeah... Oh wait, he does... Sam almost had to physically jerk to stop his train of thought from going any farther down that track. He allowed his eyes to flit back to Jareth. Against his, albeit distracted, voice of reason's suggestions,

"Your labyrinth is challenging as I would expect it to be on the second go-around." Sam found his voice coming out in a flirtatious little whisper that he didn't know he could manage. He could almost fall into the Goblin King's mismatched eyes, but instead he leaned on the wall for support,

"I'm sure." a light smile caressed Jareth's words, Sam almost sighed, "But, that doesn't answer my question." Jareth's gloved hand tilted Sam's face directly towards him, raising the hairs on the back of Sam's neck and locking the air in his chest. Jareth smiled, and almost melted away. Leaving Sam to slide down the stone wall, trying to remember what air was, and cold. "I'm glad that my labyrinth is living up to your expectations, Sam," Jareth said as he walked back so he stood near Hoggle. Sam was still struggling to remember what his own name was and failed to answer the King.

"But why don't we up the stakes?" Jareth purred as a crystal formed between his hands. Sam stared the crystal, wondering what the king was going to do with it, perhaps offer Sam his dreams again?

Jareth smirked as he whirled around and threw the crystal down the corridor and Sam watched in horror as the crystal burst and from the glittering shards, a dark form rose. A machine with a whirling spikes at the nose of the device roared toward the figures but the Goblin King disappeared as easily as he had come. Sam and Hoggle were left staring in horror at the contraption moved toward them

Hoggle recovered first and grabbed Sam's hand; he pulled the boy toward the other end of the hallway. "The cleaners!" he shouted in horror as the two began to run.