Author's Note: Right, so, only one chapter tonight, even though I promised two. Sorry about that. I had some meetings this evening for my job that went later than I had thought they would and then I had writer's block like no other. Anyway, here it is:
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Chapter Twenty-Three: Clever Kelly
"Alright!" The Goblin King paced before the neat rows of his assembled troops. "You've all been divided into four groups." He paused and surveyed the varied heights of his goblin soldiers. "Each group will take a different part of the city." A brief mental count left him with a grand total of ten lizard-knights and thirty foot soldiers. "You know your assignments." He held up his staff and gave the command, "move out!"
The goblins immediately attempted to run in every direction at once and promptly crashed into each other, tripped over each other, and started throwing punches at the stupid goblin who'd just knocked them down.
Jareth covered his face with one hand, resting the other on his staff.
"Hey!" A small, girlish voice shouted from down the street. "You!" A large gray-furred, six-legged creature with a black face and a mouth shaped like a plunger barreled right up to the Goblin King and gave him an enormous suction-cup kiss. "Give me back my brother!" The tiny blond girl punched Jareth in the arm.
"Fluffy! Down!" Jareth scolded the large monster, which obediently plopped down before him. "You'll have to excuse me," he said to the girl as he wiped sticky spittle from his forehead. "I'm afraid I've got a bit of a crisis on my hands right now."
"What about my brother?" She demanded, grabbing his elbow when he tried to walk away.
The Goblin King turned and stared down at her deep brown eyes with his own mismatched glare, "your brother is safe and will remain so for as long as I please. If you'll just be patient while I stop my city being destroyed by fireys, then we can get on with the business of the baby you wished me to take away."
The girl swallowed and glanced around her at the chaos of goblin soldiers and dashing red blurs. "If I help you with these fireys," she asked slowly, "will you give me back my baby brother?"
Jareth glanced behind him at the sound of a crash and he and the girl watched a chicken-legged red ball of fur leaped out of the rubble of a fallen wall and threw its arm at a passing lizard-knight. "And just how do you propose to immobilize them?"
"I have an idea." She crossed her arms and refused to move her feet. "But I'm not going to try anything until I have your word you'll give me back my brother."
The Goblin King faced her again and winced as the entire roof of a building behind her was removed and thrown to the ground by a pair of industrious fireys. "Very well." He sighed. "You have my word that I will offer your baby brother back to you if you can get the fireys out of the goblin city."
"Great!" The girl skipped over to the large gray creature known as Fluffy. "Hey boy!" She clapped excitedly and the monster got up, jumped, and wheezed out a whistle-like yelp. "Come here! Come on!" She jogged over to a goblin who was wrestling with a fuzzy red arm. "Here, boy!" She snatched the arm and yanked it off the goblin, holding it out to Fluffy. "Smell this? Got the scent?" She whipped the arm back and forth a little bit, watching the creature jump after it and take in big gulps of it with its suction cup mouth. "Go get it, boy! Go get it!"
Just then, a bright red firey flipped head over heels across the square, leaped on Fluffy's back, crowed at the sky, and leaped on down a side alley. Fluffy roared and loped after the firey. The blond girl smacked the bright red arm that tried to grab hold of her ear. "Stop it!" She commanded. The arm hung sullenly in her hand.
The Goblin King smirked at her from across the square.
***
"Sarah?" Linda quietly broke the heavy silence after her daughter seemed to have calmed down.
The Goblin Queen took a deep breath. "Yes?" She sounded almost friendly.
"How well do you know the Labyrinth?"
Sarah shot her mother a glare. "Well enough."
"Oh." Linda averted her eyes to the ground. "Okay."
"Sarah!" A gruff voice called in the distance. "Sarah!"
"Hoggle!" Sarah's heart jumped with elation. "Hoggle!" She shouted as loud as she could. "I'm here, Hoggle!"
"Sarah!" His answering shout was filled with just as much excitement.
"Hoggle!"
"Who's Hoggle?" Linda followed Sarah as she turned a corner.
"He's a friend of mine." All of the anger from Sarah's earlier explosion had drained out of her voice.
"Sarah!" The dwarf threw himself at his friend in a fierce hug. "I've been looking everywhere for you! The castle's this way!"
