Hey everyone. Sorry it has been so long...I got tied up in the middle of my exams, and then I was ill. And then I found out I have seven subjects this term instead of the usual four! So it's been very busy. This chapter contains a serious warning...no sex! Don't worry, there will be more, but this chapter is dealing a bit with the story, so I don't completely lose where I'm going with this. Hope you like it. xxx
Jareth was angry. Ice cold flames danced in the mismatched depths of his startlingly blue eyes as he drew himself to his full height, stalking the length of his throne room before turning on his heal and cracking his riding crop against the leather of his boot.
The excited commotion of clamouring goblins ceased immediately. He turned slowly back towards his throne where a cowering goblin huddled at the foot of the dais. He brought the whip up to point at the terrified messenger.
"You," he said and his voice was filled with cold fury. "Are you sure?"
The goblin wrung his hands and looked as though he was trying to melt into the floor.
"Yes, My Lord. Not a short time since. I was grumbling down to the crummage patch Sir. And I is seeing the spiders Sir, I is."
"The crummage patch you say?"
"Yes Sir."
There was a flash of falling glitter as an owl soared from the throne room window, wings opened wide as it spiralled up above the lawn, its keen eyes searching the grounds for the faintest flicker of movement.
Jareth strained his eyes but could make out no movement within the castle grounds, save for a wheezing old dwarf gardener who appeared to be stooping down to lick the edges of the enormous unopened poppies that grew in one border. As Jareth wheeled round, catching an updraft beneath his wings and letting it carry him upwards, the old dwarf collapsed over backwards and lay on his back, regarding his feet, which now stuck up in front of him, and giggling. And then Jareth sensed it. Something niggling at the telepathic centre of his mind. Unrest. Disturbance. Something was wrong. What was it? It was faint. As though someone was trying to muffle it. Jareth let the wind carry him higher, searching for a stronger directional pull. One mistake would be all it took. He silently prayed that the spiders were not as well drilled after their long absence from his kingdom.
Jareth's defeat of the spiders had been a legendary accomplishment, although it was well known that they had not entirely vanished. A few renegades were known to have been hiding out, biding their time, disorientated and leaderless. The spiders had roamed the goblin kingdom since time immemorial. No-one had minded, although people had been vigilant after seeing what havoc they had wrecked aboveground.
The spiders fed off telepathic wave energy, sucking up an unprotected thought process or communication and drinking its essence. For this reason they could be dangerous if given access to unguarded information. Any goblin new of the dangers. Just look at the changelings. The poor human children who had been rescued from a life of cruelty to one of contentment in the underground. They changed, but they were always different. They had no thought projection. The humans capacity for telepathic messaging had been sucked dry. Not only this but they seemed to be no longer aware of the dangers, fear of the spiders being regarded as irrational and childish. In the goblin kingdom the truth was known. It was right to be scared of something that hovers over your bed, or crouches in the cracks in the wall, and sucks out your mental processes. In fact, it was right to be terrified.
But Jareth had defeated them. His power blasting them back to the aboveground from whence the came. The tale was told often. Even now. The battle against the swarms of telepathic scavengers, the goblin king standing tall amid the destruction. Flames raging round him and tangles of hairy legs running from beneath his feet. How in the midst of the destruction he had reached into the air, produced a crystal and stared into its depths, muttering as it had rolled between his hands. How he had raised his eyes and surveyed the scene around him, the flames reflected in his eyes, turning them to a deep blood red. How he had raised his arm and smashed the crystal at his feet. How a wave of power had sent shockwaves across the underground, blasting the spiders back to oblivion as his medallion had glowed and pulsed against his chest. And how, as the howling wind had subsided, he had turned back to his cowering goblins, over which the blast had passed harmlessly, and smiled a genuine smile, before raising his hands to address them all.
"My people," he had said, "it is over but it is not finished. Rest well, be happy and enjoy your lives. But never cease to be vigilant. For they will return. Be it in a year, two, a hundred...they will return. And when they do, we will be ready."
The goblins had cheered and celebrated, but as he turned his back to them, Jareth's brow had creased with worry as he felt the unmistakable feel of six eyes bore into him, before the scuttle of eight legs faded out of hearing.
The events of that day, many hundreds of years before, played in Jareth's mind as he glided above his kingdom. He had known this day would come, when they would be sighted again. But he had still dreaded it. And how had the spiders reformed? They had no leader, no access to power sources...and yet. Jareth's mind was in turmoil....And yet...
A movement flickered in the corner of his vision and he snapped his head round. There. In the hedge. The faintest movement. And again. At the edge of his consciousness. The leaking of a single telepathic phrase.
"We're back."
Jareth folded up his wings, plummeting headlong towards the faint life signature he had detected. His keen eyes picked out the small shape, then the scuttling hairy legs as the arachnid fled, realising it had been spotted. Jareth's shadow opened out over the creature as his wings spread wide, his talons snatching at the fragile body, closing round it and carrying it back into the sky.
"Who sent you?" Jareth spoke into its mind, feeling the creature literally absorb his words.
"Heh heh heh," the creature gurgled through its pain, "why would I tell you?"
"You're right," Jareth answered, "you wouldn't."
And he opened his talons. As the creature fell, too injured to save itself from the bone shattering drop, Jareth heard it speak into his mind once more.
"Beware Goblin King," came the voice, "they are coming."
The telepathic link ended abruptly.
Concealed in the hedgerow below, another set of eyes watched the black shape drop from the talons of the majestic grey-white owl. Excitement danced and the pupils opened wide in hunger for what was to come. Thin lips peeled back from yellow teeth in a sneer of triumph as fingers caressed the black raven feathers that adorned the tail of the iron tipped arrow. The eyes never left the retreating silhouette as sure fingers set the arrow to the spider's silk string of the witch's bow, pulling the arrow back so the yew branch bent under the tension. The shadow circled overhead once more, before turning back towards the castle. A keen eye stared steadily down the length of the arrow.
Jareth caught the faint sound of a telepathic trace and wheeled in the air, hovering high over the ground and searching with his eyes. There was no movement. He turned back towards the castle.
"We are coming."
Jareth spun in the air. The arrow released. In a tumble of white feathers the owl began cart wheeling downwards through the air, plummeting towards the smooth lawns, wings useless, out of control, showers of feathers erupting from the tumbling body to float gently through the air in its wake. Below the falling bird, a hedge burst into flames, an agonised scream erupting from its midst. Jareth fought the fog clouding his brain. The ground was rushing up to meet him at a speed that seemed impossible. He tried to open his wings but could not make his body obey his clouded mind. Painfully, he shut his eyes.
Yeah, I know. Sorry about the cliff-hanger, but the next chapter will be out very soon!! Please let me know what you think. Love you all. xxx