Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth, that belongs to the awesome late Jim Henson and awesome still kicking it Brian Froud and the still sexy David Bowie. Thanks guys for such an such a wonderful movie!
Warnings: This story is rated for mild language, some violence, David Bowie's Area, and of course sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Oh yeah and David Bowie's Area, I mention this twice because there is going to be a lot of it.
Current Music: Glass Spider by David Bowie
Merry Christmas everyone! I decided to post this early as a Christmas treat... if 's servers were working yesterday. Anyways this is unbeta'd and will get the beta'd version as soon as I can. Also I'll try to finish and post chapter 12 in time for Bowie's birthday, but no promises. Have a happy New Year everyone!
Chapter Eleven
Mommy Come Back 'Cos It's Dark Now
Sarah trudged on forward, with a globe of light that Merlin created and directions from a giant snake to guide her. She had the sword Excalibur drawn ready for any danger she might encounter. The stone walls of the cavern became more and more encompassed by white threads of silk. The tunnel opened up to a complex spider web, layered like a building. In the center of this palace of spider silk were shining round objects like large glass beads or dewdrops, assembled with apparent care on what could almost be called an alter.
Sarah saw the exit on the other side of the spider silk palace, but no spider. She felt apprehensive of willingly entering a spider's web, but she reminded herself of Jareth. Mustering her courage she put a foot on the silken web. The web rippled, announcing the presence of potential prey. Still nothing came. Deeper into the web Sarah walked, her hairs standing on end as she walked through the spiders web. She was halfway through when she tiny wails. She looked up and in the center were dozens of glass-like spiders the size of a toilet bowl hatching from their eggs. They looked at her with blue eyes. Sarah paled. She didn't like spiders one bit and now they were coming toward her. She ran screaming from the fast approaching spiders toward the known exit. "God Dammit Jareth! The Cleaners and the Bog are one thing but why do you have to have spiders!?"
In the distance she heard the scuttling of many legs and tiny cries. "Mommy! Come back Mommy! It's dark!"
Sarah stopped in her flight. What she thought was an exit was a dead end. The large glass-like spiders were coming toward her like a large pack of small dogs greeting the return of their master. They had Sarah surrounded and were crawling up her legs. She felt her inside freeze over in fear. The spiders starting joyfully crying out, "Mommy!"
A thought broke through Sarah fear driven mind. 'Wait do those eight-legged horrors think I'm their mother?' She had an internal debate whether to follow her instincts to try to run from her least favorite animal or her maternal instincts and sense of compassion. Her maternal instincts and sensed of compassion won out. She tried plaster on her best fake smile and tried to keep her self from trembling in pure terror. She didn't have much success. "H-hello! So I'm y-your m-mommy, huh?"
They were clicking their mandibles and scuttling around her feet excitedly. They reminded Sarah of puppies. 'That's right Sarah, just imagine they're all just really creepy mutated puppies and not spiders... Oh God! I have to get out of here!' Sarah gulped. She really didn't like spiders. Sarah did her best to swallow her fear and imagine the eight-legged monstrosities at her feet were anything else. "Okay... kids. Let's get out of this dreary place, shall we? Now where's that exit?"
The large spiders answered Sarah in tiny cheerful voices. "Oh we know! There's one exit over there!" They pointed to the tunnel that Sarah just came from. "And there's the other exit up there above our hatching place!" The spiders pointed to a large hole in the ceiling above where the spiders just hatched from.
Sarah looked up not seeing how she could get up there. She might be able to somehow take the webbing around her and maybe fashion some kind of rope to climb but that would take time she didn't have. "How am I supposed to get up there! I need to rescue Jareth and I'm running out of time!"
The spiders clicked excitedly. "Oh we can help you, mommy! We'll take you up ourselves!"
Suddenly Sarah was encased in silk and she felt herself being hauled up by dozens of spiders on a thin and surprisingly strong line of silk. The loud screaming echoing across the chamber emanated from Sarah throat. What went through Sarah's mind were of past nightmares involving spiders had this exact scenario and ending with her being devoured. They hauled her through the hole in the ceiling and crawled all over her. The webbing that encased her fell apart as the spiders chewed through their own silk to free her. As soon as Sarah was free she scooted away from the spiders. They were clicking excitedly and waiting for her praise of a job well done.
Sarah swallowed her fear of spiders and put on her best fake smile for the creatures that helped her. "Thank you for your help, but I need to go rescue Jareth, he's my... husband."
The word husband felt strange on Sarah's tongue but at the same time it felt very right. As she got up and started walking the spiders continued to follow her. She cringed inwardly and reminded herself that to the glass-like spiders she was their 'mommy'. She sighed. 'As soon as I fix things with Jareth, he can fix my eight-legged problem. Until then I'll just tolerate them. Remember Sarah, think of them as ducklings or puppies, or anything that isn't a spider.'
Sarah continued down the stone tunnel with Merlin's light alway's floating just a few feet ahead of her and the sounds of too many legs scurrying behind her. The tunnel ahead stopped at a gigantic vault-like door marked with the same symbol as Jareth's pendant, the very same that was around her neck. Sarah put a hand on the door and as soon as she touched it, both the pendant and the symbol on the door glowed briefly. Sarah heard the rumbling and grinding of uncountable locks and cogs and gears. Then the door opened like vault that had not been touched in years.
Before Sarah were many relics and objects from all around the world. They were piled haphazardly on rows and rows of shelves. Some looked obviously valuable with gems and gold, others looked like pieces of junk. What they all had it common was this air of a great story to tell and locked away in this oubliette like place to be forgotten. Sarah then noticed the lack of dust on these objects. "Do they have a caretaker around here somewhere?" Sarah thought aloud.
A gruff voice answered her. "That'd be me an' me brothers, your majesty!"
Sarah whipped her head around and saw a large goblin in dingy but well made armor wielding a feather duster in one hand and a very old spear in the other. He bowed low to Sarah. "I be Candlewic, you majesty! One of the Keepers of The Goblin Hoard! I'll have to ask you to keep your pets from messing up the place, I jus' got rid of the last cobweb."
Down in a cold, dark and unforgiving place is the realm of Hel. On her throne of bones Hel sat, her dress and her face matched gloom of her realm perfectly. She glared at the unwelcome intruders; Slepnir, Fenrir, Jorgunmundr and even Merlin. She would have gladly killed them, but they were her siblings, all bound by the blood of the father she hated. A terrible toll is enacted to those who slay their kin. Hel sneered at Merlin. "You will not kill me, just as I can not kill you. We both know of the terrible curse to those who become kinslayers. As much as we dislike one another, it is not worth it..."
Merlin scoffed. "But would killing our father be worth bearing that curse? We all know what you have done. If our father dies from you actions —"
Hel's threw her head back and laughed coldly. "Oh! I hope that bastard does! This time when he does snuff it, he will not be in my realm! And I will be blameless in this!"
Fenrir growled. "Blameless?! You helped created that horrid creature that's destroying our father! Those black vines are of your creation!"
Hel lost her cold smile and for a moment her glamour slipped with anger showing a rare glimpse of her real face. While half of her face looked like a beautiful young woman the other half resembled a rotting corpse. "Yes, I took what that chit Sarah had shed. I took her selfishness, her childishness, and her mortality and gave it to the Worm of Death! The fruit from the tree of life that that chit was tricked into eating was quite rotten. Little Abyss has grown quite a bit since its emergence from that half eaten peach." Abyss smiled coldly, her eyes glinting triumphantly.
The Midgard Serpent cocked its head. "Abyss? You named it?"
Merlin groaned, feeling a headache, the kind when one tries to put logic in stupidity. "You created it! You put in the peach! You gave it a name! And you still think you will come out of this with out sin? You will go this far to punish a man for what he did not do?"
Hel's mask slipped completely, showing her deformed face and she screamed with raw fury. "HE MADE ME! IT'S FAULT THAT I LOOK LIKE THIS!"
Melin shook his head sadly. "All this time you blame your deformity at birth to our father..."
Fenrir looked at his sister sadly. "Look at myself and Jorgunmundr whom we share the same mother, and look at all the other children our father sired with different mothers. Our mother is a monster that could only birth monsters. You never knew our mother, there was a reason the Asgard called her 'She-Who-Brings-Sorrow'."
Jorgunmundr snorted. "The man that was our father is gone forever. Haven't you heard, little sister? Sarah destroyed all memory of us and the pain it brought. He will not see any of us as his children anymore, we may as well be strangers. For you to lash out at him...you may as well argue with a glacier."
Hel froze in shock. "What?!"
Slepnir whinnied angrily and snorted. Merlin nodded and seemed to understand the eight-legged horse. "I agree with you completely, my brother. Hel, you had so many chances to try to find peace with our father, so many chances wasted. This is your punishment, sister, to wallow in self-loathing in your realm trapped by the thought of what could have been. The rest of us have long since forgiven him and gave his new wife our blessing. Through her we can still have some small connection to him, but you? Your bond with him is severed completely. As we speak Sarah is undoing the damage you help create, she is in the vault right now."
Hel stared at them, her deformed face unreadable. And what happened next the brothers thought would never happen, nor until now did they think her even capable. A single tear slid down the good side of her face. "The way is blocked. My vines will feed off of all the magic from the labyrinth, finally killing it. The Glass Spider was the only way through and I have killed her. She will not make it."
Merlin, Slepnir and Fenrir, all roared in rage, feeling hopeless. Jorgunmundr however laughed drily. The others gazed at him angrily. "Why are laughing?!" Fenrir growled at him.
The great serpent, laughed still. "I'm laughing because, our dear sister seems to have forgotten about the Glass Spider's eggs. When I sent Sarah on her way I sensed them hatching."
Hel stared at her brother. "What eggs?"
Merlin waved his hand a crystal sphere appeared. In its depths they could see Sarah in the vault meeting one of the guardians of The Goblin Hoards, behind her were dozens of glass-like spiders following her obediently. Merlin smiled. "It seems the Glass Spider hatchings see Sarah as their mother." Merlin's smiled disappeared and looked sternly at his sister. "We all will stay here and watch her. She must fight Abyss, as you have unwisely named it, on her own. She will receive no more interference from any of us, especially you Hel."
Merlin, Slepnir, Fenrir, and Jorgunmundr all stared down Hel threateningly. Hel knew when she was beaten. She backed down and sat back in her throne of bones. She stared up at them defiantly. "Fine. We will all stay here and watch. Let us see if the little chit has what it takes to slay my monster and rescue her beloved." She spat the word out like it was venom. The children of Jareth looked into Merlin's crystal sphere watching Sarah's progress.
Candlewic introduced her to the other two keepers of the Goblin Hoard, Lampsonius and Agmour. Similar large goblins in dingy well made armor wielding weapons and cleaning utensils. They had been giving her the grand tour and had provided some questionable green tinged meat for the hungry Glass Spider hatchlings. They claimed the meat was dragon and that it was supposed to look that way. The spiders didn't seem to mind and gobbled the food up, Sarah on the other hand lost her appetite. They showed her a set of grand doors they said led to a goblin run bank called Gringotts. Sarah remember Jareth mention something like it.
Sarah learned from Candlewic that the Goblin Hoard was an oubliette that Jareth put important mementos of his past. A past that Sarah was beginning to understand was a painful one. Merlin and the children of Loki were only a small sampling of all the bastard children Jareth has had and can never see again, mostly because they had met untimely ends. 'Poor Jareth, no parent should outlive their child. And those women... They want nothing to do with him once they meet his subjects. Can't say I blame them entirely. Sometimes those goblins are a real pain.' Sarah seethed at the recent event involving a camcorder.
Lampsonius pointed a broadsword toward a pedestal that held a plain old wooden cup. "An' this Queen Sarah is somethin' tha belonged to one 'is majesty's best friends, uh... I think 'is name is Jeebus Chris or something, really famous. He was this carpenter that was born in barn thousands of years ago, he always called 'is majesty Peter. Ha! What a funny name! He had this great idea no one seemed to think of before, I think it was be nice to each other, of course then the poor bloke got nailed to a stick for three days until 'e died. Broke the king's heart it did. He tried to teach people to be nice to each other like 'is friend would've wanted him to, an' e' even started a religion, but I don' think tha he did a very good job of it. So he put everything that belonged to 'is friend down here and tried to forget the whole thing. We still get people looking for that stupid cup, they even call it 'The Holy Grail'. Why it was only in this century that we had an human archeologist look for this thing. I can't remember 'is name, but I know that wore a fedora and wielded a whip, kept shouting 'It belongs in a museum!' Yeah, we get all sorts looking for tha thing..."
Candlewic laughed. "Ha! I remember that! You know the humans have a book about 'is majesty and his friend. I think the humans call it 'The Holey Beeble'. Though they left out a lot of good stuff. Like 'is majesty, known as Peter, and his friend's little misadventure involving a corrupt Roman Senator, A Brothel in Pompeii and a donkey. That story's my favorite, makes me laugh my socks off every time I hear it! Ha!"
Sarah stared at the plain unassuming cup with shock. 'That's the Holy Grail?! Wait a minute, Jareth was Peter... Saint Peter?! The disciple Peter?!' A part of Sarah's brain broke trying to process that the same wicked man that took her brother and wore those sinfully tight pants as a saint of all things. Sarah wondered if it was possible that pigs could fly. As she heard about the lost friends and children Jareth once had a thought occurred to her. 'What of Jareth's parents? Where did he come from? I'm not even sure what he is. Was he a human child that got wished away to the goblins? Is he a demon? An angel? A particularly tall and good looking goblin?'
As Sarah looked at all the old relics in this oubliette of a long and best forgotten past a shining object caught her eye. It was a tall large mirror, the edges wrought in ancient silver. On the edges was writing in an strange script that Sarah did not recognize. When she stood in front of it she saw her reflection, but she was not wearing the frothy white gown of an innocent maiden she still had on, instead she had on armor suitable for a mighty warrior queen. Then she noticed the background in the reflection was not shelves of old relics, but of a forest covered in deep snow. Sarah suddenly realized something, 'This isn't showing a reflection of my face, but the future!'
Sarah watched as her armored reflection walk over to a snow covered garbage pit filled with refuse and pulled out a crying baby. Sarah saw her reflection say something but it seems the mirror can only show images not produce sounds. She saw in the mirror curious goblins and a few trolls poke their heads from behind the frozen trees. Sarah saw her armored self cradle and coo the baby lovingly and produced a familiar silver sickle shaped pendant with the looping symbol for eternity engraved in gold in the center. 'That's the pendent that Jareth always wore!' Sarah put a hand on the very pendant around her neck. 'The one he wore as a symbol of his sovereignty, the one he gave me...'
Sarah watched her reflection give the child to an old troll matron with a long warty nose and a long tail covered in decorations of wood, stone, feather, and bone. The goblins looked at the child and danced and cheered. Sarah watched her armored reflection disappear and the mirror went blank, not showing anything at all. "Huh, so Grandma's story's true. The Looking Glass never lies."
Sarah jumped and turned around to the source of the voice, behind her stood the Keepers Agmour, Candlewic, and Lampsonius. Sarah stared at them for a moment and asked, "What did that mirror show? I know that was me, but what was that scene it showed me?"
"That troll matron was our grandma. She told us the story of the days 'fore Jareth was our king. It was a bad time, your Majesty. Goblin Kings only lasted a few fortnights. The new Goblin King picking the old king's corpse off of the throne. It was bloody and violent and so many got forgotten. Grandma says that all changed when a mysterious woman of peerless beauty and piercing green eyes appeared out of nowhere. She called herself the Queen of Memory. The woman picked an abandoned baby out of an old pile of garbage and told everyone that this child is Jareth the Goblin King, Lord of the Labyrinth, and Guardian of the Lost and the Lonely. After that there was no more fighting between goblins over who gets to be king. The woman disappeared as mysteriously as she appeared. We still don't know who the parents are or what 'e is. There are still arguments going on that he be human, elf, goblin, troll, and god. Whatever King Jareth be, he be our king and he be king over all anything that gets forgotten.'
Sarah took in the information, shaken by what she had learned. 'Someone threw Jareth away... like he was trash to be forgotten. Oh poor Jareth, no one should be forgotten.' Sarah's heart gave a painful squeeze, knowing all to well what it was like to be abandoned and forgotten. She felt relieved that Jareth was found and a little confused by seeing it was her that picked Jareth out of the trash and crowned him king. 'Well, if Jareth is a saint...' Sarah thought, 'then perhaps time travel isn't all that farfetched. Oh Jareth, as soon as I rescue you I'll give all the love that was denied to you and more.' She turned back to the Keepers of the Goblin Hoard. "Hey guys, does this place have anything to help me fight evil weeds or evil doppelgangers?"
The keepers of the Goblin Hoard dragged Sarah before a suit of armor that gleamed like the night sky. It was fit for a woman and in the breastplate was an indentation in the shape of the sickle shaped pendant around her neck. She felt herself drawn the armor and before she knew it she pressed the pendant into the indentation and she heard a faint click. In a flash of light and glitter Sarah's frothy white gown lay on the display mannequin where the armor was and the armor was on her. "Wow, this feels pretty comfortable for metal armor, it feels like I'm wearing nothing at all. Is this how Jareth manages all those costume changes so quickly?" Sarah panicked as she suddenly remembered the time limit. "Listen, guys, this is all really fascinating but I'm on a tight schedule. Can you direct me to the way to the castle? I need to rescue Jareth."
The three keepers where snapped out of their stunned stupor and looked nervously at each other and motioned her to follow them. Silently they guided her to one end of the vault to a tunnel that led to the castle's cellar. It was completely blocked by those black vines that had infested the labyrinth. She started hacking her way through with the borrowed Excalibur and to her horror she noticed that the tunnel had collapse. Underneath the rubble was a leg sticking out, one that looked like belonged to an enormous glass-like bug. The mystery as to where the glass spider hatchling's real mother went was solved. She immediately turned around and shooed the glass spider hatchlings from the area before the saw what was under the rubble. In mere seconds the vines she had hacked away grew back like they were untouched. Sarah kicked the wall in frustration. "Damn! How am I going to get inside the castle now?! Oh Jareth..."
Sarah slumped against the vault's walls, feeling a weight of hopeless. She tried to use magic to transport her like how Jareth showed her, but every time she tried nothing happened. She was still very new to using magic. She had a strong feeling that told her that it could be her death if she teleported in the Labyrinth while it was so badly damaged and Jareth once told her to trust her feelings when it came to magic. The glass spider children crawled toward her and nudged her in their own spider way of comforting her. "Mommy? You want to go to the Labyrinth's center? We can take you there! Follow us!"
Sarah was skeptical. "What are going to do?"
"We are Glass Spiders! We can travel through the looking glasses!" A spider replied.
"We are young, but we are born with this knowledge!" Another added.
Sarah jumped up excited and beamed brightly at the spiders. "That's wonderful! Thank you so much!"
The spiders scuttled toward the mirror and tapped on its surface with many legs. The Surface changed and changed. Images of different places, flashed in the mirror. To Sarah it looked like the Glass Spiders were tuning the mirror like a television. Suddenly she saw Jareth lying unconscious on his bed in very center of the castle with a half eaten peach still in hand. The situation reminded her of the fairy tale of sleeping beauty, with him as the princess trapped in an eternal dream and Sarah was the heroic prince in shining armor. All Sarah had to do was wake him with true love's kiss. The barrier keeping the black vines and the creature that looked like Sarah at bay was weakening. "Hey that's him! I'm coming, Jareth! You kids stay here, the Keepers will look after you, tell 'em I said so."
Without a second thought she stepped through the looking glass and into Jareth's bed chamber she stood in armor that shone like the night sky and the gleaming edge of her borrowed sword Excalibur. Black vines with dagger like thorns grew through the walls and the floors reaching for the prize Sarah sought. A weakening barrier of light was all that kept the poisonous plants away as they pounded against the barrier like serpents. She hacked her way through the vines with the sword, Excalibur severing them as easily as a warm knife through butter. The vines stopped attacking Jareth to strike Sarah down, but as they tried to entwine her the armor became a little warm and the vines touching her erupted in silver flames. Between Excalibur and her armor Sarah made it near effortlessly through the vines and to Jareth. The barrier of light rippled like water in a pond as Sarah walked through but it didn't fall.
Sarah let out sigh of relief as she made it at last to Jareth. She sat on the bed, setting Excalibur by Jareth and looked down at her sleeping king. Never did Jareth look so beautiful to Sarah than he did now. She leaned down toward his lips, intending to awaken her beloved with true loves kiss. The pounding on the barrier became more frantic and Sarah's lips were just a hair's breadth from Jareth's when the barrier keeping out the cancerous vines fell. Sarah felt her lips connect with Jareth's and she felt a spark of magic ignite between them before she was ripped from Jareth's side. The vines had wrapped themselves around the parts of her that was not armored and they threw her against a wall.
Sarah looked up and saw the cold pasty face of her doppelganger, it had her face but it looked aged and withered. Around them the vines were wilting and crumbling. The stench of the bog hit Sarah as the thing drew near. It looked at her with the blackest hatred Sarah had ever seen. Sarah glared angrily at the creature. "Why? Why do this?" Sarah choked out.
"Because I am Abyss! I am the Worm of Death! So I can take your life and do with it what I had wanted before you threw me away."
Sarah shook her head. "I don't understand."
"Remember the peach you have eaten? I was that worm inside! While you gained eternal life bound to that man, I gained the darkness in your heart. I fed on it and nurtured it and helped it grow. I am the part of you that want that brat Toby out of the picture! I am the part of you that wants to leave that whole wretched family and be just like your mother! I am the part of you that put your own value above everyone else! I am your shadow of doubt, the disbelief in magic and fantasy!"
Looked on at the creature in horror. Sarah remembered the peach she had eaten and the worm that crawled around inside, she threw it away. She saw reflected in its eyes the times she treated Karen like a wicked step-mother in a fairy-tale. She saw her hubris that refused to believe that she was anything less special than a spoiled princess. She saw the part of her that didn't believe that there could be anything more wonderful than the grey world she lived in. And worst of all she saw the hatred and jealously she held for Toby.
The creature that called itself Abyss continued its rant. "After I was thrown away, I crawled from the Junkyard and to the Bog of Eternal Stench to feed on the great darkness there. I rose from that bog fattened and powerful from the evil souls that had been cast there by Jareth. In that bog were the worst examples of parenthood that attempted the Labyrinth to avoid the trouble they would get with a missing child, the most evil of children taken away by the Goblin King when he roamed the Earth on Yule night as the dreaded Krampus, and dictators with no value for human life. Those black souls had been there so long and the bog had nearly digested them so it was easy to consume them. We can still be one again, with me you can be mortal, you can walk away from this world of fairy-tale nonsense forever and that bastard Goblin King can still die! And we shall be one, whether you are willing or not!"
Sarah struggled against the magic stealing thorns. The creature leaned closer to Sarah, it was going to give her a kiss, one that would bring a fate worse than death. Sarah knew that the creature would steal her immortality, her magic and everything she loved. Jareth and the Labyrinth would die and it will wreak havoc on the mortal world using the life it would take from her. Sarah struggled against the creature, her armor burned the creatures flesh, but still it did not let go. Its breath smelled of the bog, making Sarah gag. Its rotten lips drew closer to Sarah and Sarah felt her body grow weak as she felt her soul being drained. She was becoming mortal again. Words of a prophecy written a little red leather bound book written by a friend floating to the surface of her thoughts; "And when night is at its darkest and a new love is seemingly lost to the Abyss, evil will be driven back when sundered king is made whole by true love's kiss."
Abyss screamed in agony, letting go of its grip on Sarah, and she heard a familiar voice that had sang to her words of love. A voice that filled her heart with hope. "You are not a part of Sarah anymore, nor will you ever be!"
The withered body of Abyss crumpled to the floor and Sarah saw Jareth stand there with Excalibur in hand standing victoriously and smiling triumphantly at Sarah. Abyss's form shrank and collapsed. The magic stealing thorny vines that grew like a cancer all over the Labyrinth receded into the shrinking form. Eventually all that was left of the vast growth of parasitic vines and Abyss was a tiny little worm no bigger than a finger nail. Sarah squashed it beneath her boot with a satisfying swish, ending the evil that plagued the Labyrinth.
Author's Notes: Yup the final boss was that disgusting little worm in the peach... Okay so cookies to anyone who got the Indiana Jones reference. As for Jareth being a saint, well to the goblins he's the patron saint of bulging crotches. Why do I feel like I'm going to Hell for this?
Anyways so my version of Jareth's origin is that he was an unwanted child like the children that gets wished away to him and was raised by goblins, trolls, elves, brownies, random fey creatures etc... As for who or what his birth parents were, only God knows. In this case I've too many ideas on that subject to decide, so a mystery it will have to remain. I think with this fic that I wrote that I had too many ideas that I wanted to cram in with Jareth's origins.
Anyways, next chapter: Jareth and Sarah finally have sex! And I promise that there will be no more interruptions!