Hey everyone. Here is chapter 26. Hope you enjoy! Thanks to all my lovely reviewers...you know who you are, and a mention to Tenishii too, who has been with this story from the start and always reviews! Thankyou. And I love all my reviewers...equally and with no bias, especially those who have reviewed more than once. Anyway, thankyou to you all is what I'm trying to say. Love you!
On with the story. xxx
Jareth held Sarah tight as she went limp in his arms. He lowered her back to the ground with a wry smile on his lips. He stroked a hand over her smooth cheek.
"Wouldn't be the first time a beautiful woman had fainted from the excitement of my kiss," he told her unconscious form.
Leaning back on his heels, he regarded her recumbent body, noting the twitch of her left index finger, and the quivering shake of reaction and cold that was slowly gripping her. He longed to whisk her home, make her safe, warm and comfortable so that she could recover from the trauma, but he knew that at that present moment he held higher duties to his kingdom. He raised his hand and waved it through the air, so that Sarah was at once wrapped in a thick blanket. He had been unwilling to dress her without examining her first, lest any form of clothing exacerbate any injury his cousin may have afflicted. Jareth frowned at Sarah. Something was still wrong, affecting his powers of accuracy. Patterning the blanket was a design of intricately embroidered spiders. He waved his hand and they writhed, but did not disappear. Deciding that it did not matter for the moment, Jareth sighed and rose.
The door was still smouldering as it lay in splinters on the floor. The tangy, metallic smell of heated copper was infusing the room where the hinges and lock glowed with red hot magic. Jareth stepped carefully round the wreckage to where Raemon lay on the ground. His back was twisted at an unnatural angle from around his waist, meaning that while his hips and pelvis faced one way, his chest twisted back at a ninety degree angle, compacted and hollow due to the multiplicity of broken ribs. His head was thrown back, his hair falling away to reveal a deep cut above his eyebrow. Raemon's lips were parted a fraction, and were coated in drying blood. More blood leaked from his mouth, and the glimpse of teeth showed that they too were stained black. Copious amounts of sticky black blood coated the floor and Jareth could not help a horrified gasp escape him as he realised its source. Protruding from Raemon's neck, jagged and approximately five inches long and tapering to a point, was a shard of wood. It had embedded itself deep, the only thing preventing horrifically fast blood loss being the splinter itself. As Jareth approached his cousin, his eyelids flickered. He was still alive. As the King of the Goblins knelt beside his renegade cousin, Raemon's pain filled eyes opened and sought his. His mouth opened and blood trickled from his lips. His eyes closed again. Jareth reached out his hand and placed it tenderly on Raemon's shoulder.
"You are brave, cousin," he whispered.
Raemon's face displayed the great effort that it took him to open his eyes. His cold blue eyes met Jareth's mismatched gaze.
"But you cousin, are valiant," he replied, the trace of a smile finding his dry and bloody lips.
"I am vain. More so than you. Had I been in your position, would I have done different?"
"Yes Jareth, you would have. You have capacity to love..." Raemon's eyes flickered in Sarah's direction.
"But it is easy to love one so beautiful..."
"...you show mercy... and valour towards your goblins...something I never could."
"We are the same, you and I."
"We could never be the same. I sought out the evil, you sought out the good."
"You are not evil."
"Do not pity me Jareth, never pity me." Raemon's eyes travelled to the stone roof as bitterness crept into his voice. "I do not seek approval of those who ousted my claim."
"Don't say it Raemon."
"My will was not as strong as yours. Evil spoke in my mind and I listened. And your kingdom is greater. I fought against the power you have over me..."
Raemon's breath hissed through his teeth and his eyes rolled up into his head as an agonizing wave of pain gripped his body. A sickening gurgle issued from deep in his throat as he fought to breathe through the blood filling his lungs. Jareth leant forward, pulling Raemon's torso into his arms.
"No Raemon, stay with me. Use your power, you can do it."
Raemon's glazing eyes sought out Jareth's face, but his cousin seemed distant and faraway. He tried to speak again, but blood bubbled into his throat and the words were lost. Jareth bent his head, trying desperately to hear his words. When he finally made them out, his body went cold.
"I lost them Jareth. Lost...control. And now...they have...mustered. Jareth...they are coming..."
Raemon's breath escaped in a gurgling sigh. Jareth sat still, cradling Raemon's body as the chill of dread marched through him. When he next looked down into the face of his cousin, Raemon's eyes had glazed over, staring sightless at the ceiling. Jareth stroked his hand fingers through Raemon's jet black hair, before drawing his hand down his face, unable to bear the ice blue vision of death.
"I'm sorry Raemon," Jareth whispered. "I never understood you, what it was like for you. I failed you. I am sorry."
Lifting Raemon's lifeless body from him, Jareth laid him tenderly on the floor. He straightened his twisted and broken form, laying his hands across his chest.
"Rest in peace Raemon," he said as he drew himself up and squared his shoulders, blinking back moisture that he would never admit to.
A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and his head snapped round. Nothing. He blinked and shook himself, wondering whether the events of the day were causing his mind to play tricks on him. He crossed carefully back to where Sarah lay and was about to gently shake her awake when he realised that something had changed. The spiders on the blanket had vanished. He frowned, knowing that they had failed to disappear when he commanded them. He held still, listening with all his might. A faint rustle caught his attention, but he forced himself not to react. Instead he sought the room with his mind. Listening to the telepathic fields at a purely subliminal level. The silence was eerie. Something was very wrong. And then he caught it. The faintest sound on the highest level of subconscious telepathy. Not more than a murmur, quickly suppressed. Coming from behind him.
Reaching carefully with the hand shielded by his body, Jareth pulled a crystal from the air, carefully shutting his consciousness and screening it from prying minds. He fought to keep his breathing steady even as adrenalin began to course in his system. He lowered his eyes to the crystal, willing it to show him that which was directly behind him. The crystal cleared and a picture formed.
Spiders were swarming and seething, giving the uncanny impression that Raemon's body was moving as they teemed over him. Hairy legs found footholds in the corners of his closed and sightless eyes, no breath issuing from his lips to disturb them as they pushed into his mouth. Silver haze was flowing from his mouth and nose as the spiders devoured the vestiges of life's thoughts that had remained within the body. Jareth closed his eyes slowly and took a steadying breath. Any mistake now would mean the difference between life and death. Slowly, Jareth erected a shield against his conscious mind, before banishing the crystal back into the ether. Diverting as much strength as he could spare to the protection of his thoughts, he reached with his mind across the plain, seeking the consciousness of the Labyrinth, needing more than the constant emotional connection provided. No connection. Jareth drew his mind back and strengthened the shield. He raised his hand and wrapped it round the medallion that hung against his chest. Grimacing against the pain, and suppressing a gasp, he tightened his fingers so that the Labyrinthian metal bit into his skin, his blood staining the smooth surface. He reached into the emptiness again.
"You're faint Jareth, are you injured?"
"Iron my friend, but it is healing."
"They are coming Jareth. They are stronger than before."
The words echoed hauntingly in Jareth's mind, not so much a voice as a stream of sentient consciousness, sent straight into him as though synonymous with his own thoughts. The feeling was anxious, and overpowering. Uncertainty gripping his heart in a vice. Pain at the groping within the telepathic fields. Sickening and twisting. Jareth gritted his teeth at the confirmation of his fears.
"We must once more work together, my friend."
"The Goblin King asks for my help. None before have dared. I have power you can only dream of."
"I honour your power. I would use it for the protection of your people. I cannot do it alone."
"It is known. As is the pain. We are one Jareth, but I must ask again, Goblin King, as I did before, how came you to your powers, so much greater than those of your people?"
"From the day of my birth I heard your presence in my head, speaking with the voice of God. It is to that voice I am faithful, to that voice I am true."
"Well answered Jareth. Your pain disturbs me from my peace. It is twisting Jareth, coming ever closer. But what of the Champion, your bride?"
"She appeased your anger. She is clean."
"I enjoyed her torment. Felt it in the rocks and heard it in the water. It echoed silently throughout my entirety. I revelled in it. And she loves you?"
"Yes."
"Then all is well."
"My friend, we do not have much time."
"And your voice is so weak, they must be near. Are you shielded?"
"Yes."
"Use the power wisely."
Jareth broke the connection. Although he knew that the Labyrinth was always present in his mind, that he and it were intrinsically linked, the awe he felt of the power it vested in him, with permission to breach that scared rule and use, was something he could not win without. He felt the Labyrinth's tension in his mind, knowing that at this moment they were together and weak. Jareth closed his eyes and took a few steadying breaths. His eyes opened, and in them blazed the anger of betrayal and the force of his protection of his people.
Light flared and ice blue flames of magic swept through the room, devouring everything in its path. At the same moment, Jareth and Sarah disappeared. The spiders that covered Raemon's body screamed out in telepathic pain, legs curling up to low slung bodies as they burned. Raemon's body seemed to wither, the freezing hot flesh retreating from the bone, which turned shiny silver and crumbled to powder, carried upwards by the force of the flames. Better burned than devoured.
Out on the lawn two figures appeared, Jareth holding Sarah in his arms. Jareth leant forward, fighting against the effort it took to transport Sarah's unconscious form. Tenderly, he laid her on the grass at the base of the statue of a noble centaur. Her eyes flickered open and she smiled up at her rescuer. Jareth quickly fought to hide the signs of the crippling pain that was taking hold of his mind and heart.
"What happened? Where's Raemon?" Fear flashed across her face.
"He's gone," Jareth said briefly. "Sarah I need you to listen to me. Whatever happens, you must not move from the protection of this statue. Do you understand?"
Sarah nodded, her eyes wide, trusting implicitly that Jareth new best. He reached out a hand to her, but she involuntarily shrank away from the physical contact. Jareth withdrew his hand as though burned, his eyes sliding from hers.
"I'm sorry Sarah, I should have thought."
Sarah's eyes filled with tears as she fought to keep her lip from trembling. She shook her head mutely at him, unable to voice what she was feeling. A blinding bolt of pain shot through Jareth's head and he raised his hand, screwing up his eyes in an attempt to blot it out. Sarah let out a cry of alarm.
"Jareth, what's wrong....Jareth you're bleeding." As she caught sight of his hand. She caught hold of it and pulled it closer, examining the slice caused by the medallion.
"It's nothing Sarah...see?" Jareth reached for his magic, which seemed further away each time he needed it, and caused the cut to knit itself back together. "Better now," he stated, trying to conceal the great effort it had cost him to perform even this simple task.
Sarah nodded briefly and let go of his hand, as though wanting to have as little possible contact with him. Jareth desperately wanted to say something, do something to help relieve her anguish, but at that moment another bolt of pain shot through his mind, searing his physical being. It was accompanied by the Labyrinth's mental scream of torture.
"I'm sorry Sarah..." Jareth muttered, "I have to go. Don't move."
Sarah saw the intense battle of emotions that contorted his smooth features, felt his pain in some back chamber of her mind. She nodded again. Jareth rose and walked round to the other side of the statue, so that she would not see his weakness in the summoning of his magic, and wrapped his hand once more round the medallion.
"Take me to your pain...take me to your source."
Jareth, King of the Goblins, vanished into thin air, while his bride, The Coming Champion, finally dissolved into tears.
Poor Sarah. She has been through a lot! And I almost feel sorry that Raemon is dead...it was quite sad killing him off, although he was very nasty...especially what he did to Sarah! Cahpter 27 is nearly ready too...although it's not very long. Please keep reading and let me know what you think. Love you all. FY.A xxx