CHAPTER TEN

Blood Under the Bridge

"Well all right, no stars tonight.

The moon must hide,

Can't bear to see my face.

So many moons have passed,

So many suns gone down,

Too much blood under the bridge,

Too many worlds turned upside down.

And when I grasped for life

I always killed the things

for which I yearned.

I wish to be a flame

and reduce to ashes,

But I have never burned.

I long to fly in freedom,

And yet,

these chains keep dragging me down.

I want to be an angel

Or the devil himself,

But I am nothing but a creature

Longing for the things I can't have."

-"Confessions of a Vampire" from Jim Steinman's musical "Tanz der Vampire."

He had not meant to fall for her.

It was not something that he was proud of, nor could he explain how it had happened in the first place. It just was. He had shown weakness that he could not tolerate, and he had been justly punished.

He had not been in love with her, that much was clear from the very start, but she had been a sort of obsession of his, her poised dignity and defiant spirit were attractive to him, and had drawn him in irresistibly like a moth to the flame.

He could not remember her name, it had been hundreds and hundreds of uncountable years since he had spoken it last, but he remembered her face with perfect precision.

He remembered all of their faces, incidentally, but hers especially.

She and Sarah looked much alike. The Goblin King had been taken aback when he first saw Sarah's face, for it was so similar to that of her infamous ancestor. He supposed it was one of the Guillemin traits, the dark hair and viridian eyes, along with the headstrong nature and incorrigible disposition for rebellion. However, the two of them could not be more different in terms of character and heart.

The Goblin King had grown lonely. He was not proud of this, and would never admit to it, even if his life were at stake. He remembered the night when his goblins were called forth by a desperate young woman, who had wanted his goblins to take away her younger sibling, but who had lost her courage and fled with her baby brother before the deed could be accomplished. He had watched inquisitively, his curiosity piqued by this strange young woman. She seemed as though she were not completely human, as though she had the blood of the fae in her. She walked with an airy grace and acted with a proud dignity that bordered on cruel. In that moment, he was lost. Fate was playing a cruel trick on him, and he had no control.

It had been a mistake to bestow fae magic upon her. The Goblin King had not meant to do so, it had just happened. True, it was a trifling amount, but it had been enough to corrupt her and encourage her to call upon the goblins a second time to give up her brother. This time, though, the Goblin King decided in a fit of madness to go to the young woman, to try to take her as well.

He did not know until he was face to face with her, the extent of damage his magic had wrought on the girl. The proud dignity that had walked on the fringes of cruelty had disintegrated into outright conceited malice, the charm of her human quirks had soured, seeming more like the typical banality, human ignorance, and apathy. Even so, the Goblin King still offered her everything, and she rejected him.

It had not been the solely the rejection from the Guillemin girl that had made him curse the entire family line. It was also his own anger towards himself for falling so low, for becoming so weak as to think that he was in love with her. As if he could love her, a mere human.

He felt anger the likes of which he had never felt before. It guided his hand, making him lash out blindly and change the course of the future, making him act as humans expected fae to act, with unimaginable cruelty and terrible wrath. He forged his curse thusly, taking inspiration from his rejection to supplement his curse with an addendum. He would have a Goblin Queen, and the young woman would provide one for him, come what may. He watched at the young woman's face convulsed with horror and pain.

He felt triumphant. He felt vindicated. He felt guilty.

No, he must not allow himself to debase himself with such petty human emotions. He was not human, but fae, and was above such things. He was incapable of human emotions. He was incapable of making mistakes or erring in any way. He was as near to being a god as any being on this earth could be. He had incomprehensible power and unfathomable knowledge, the likes of which no human could ever hope to conceive.

Perhaps he had always been fated to cast that curse, or perhaps he really truly had changed the course of destiny with his rash actions. He had been a fool to fall victim to such a cruel thing as love.

Perhaps he was damned. It was not the first time he had wondered such a thing.

He watched as the young woman grew into an adult and marry a handsome young man who loved her. He could not deny feeling viciously vindictive when he saw that the young woman did not love the young man in return, for who could ever look at a mortal man the same after being offered the world and then some by the king of the goblins?

The Goblin King knew when her first child was born, and he knew without even sparing a minute of thought to debate the possibilities of the young woman's actions, that she would do everything in her power to not have a second child, so that she would not activate the curse that she had brought about by her selfish actions.

Of course, the Goblin King did everything in his considerably more magnificent and influential power to ensure that she would have another child. He could not have her live life without experiencing the ramifications of her foolishly selfish actions. That was just not how things were done in the Goblin King's realm.

He took the child before it had reached its first birthday, not allowing the young woman the courtesy of knowing her child for very long, nor allowing her to steep in her paranoia for too long. The Goblin King did not have the patience for it. He needed to bring unto her a swift reminder of her folly and to provide a memorable start to what was certain to be a long career of personally destroying her family line.

After her, he took the children whenever it pleased him to do so, sometimes after only a year, sometimes after nearly a decade. He did not want to become predictable in his cruel terror, for that would be unseemly and unbefitting of the king of the goblins. After many years, the terror and heartache that he wrought no longer caused him any discomfort or moral quandaries. It hardened his mind and soul. Most importantly, it hardened his heart. His heart had been weak once, and he would never allow it do make the same error. He would never make the mistake to love again.

He must choose his Goblin Queen from among the ranks of the firstborn Guillemin daughters, and he must pick the one for whom it will cause the most pain and heartache. Most of them had been dull and disgustingly human, and he had not hesitated to steal their younger siblings away from them, the siblings that they had offered to him so freely. They were all too aware of the caveat to the curse, for it was still so relatively new. The Goblin King watched with a vindictive satisfaction at the looks of relief on the girls' faces as they handed over their siblings. He was disgusted that they would feel relief at such a moment. They would never be worthy of the title Goblin Queen.

The pleasure he took in acting upon the curse was almost savage. Although in hindsight, it was as much a curse on him as it was on the Guillemin family. The two factions were bound so tightly together, that neither could live without fear or thought of the other. It was a strange relationship, and the oddity of it was not lost on the Goblin King.

And so, the Goblin King waited patiently, taking children when the time came for it. He grew ever more detached from his emotions, thinking himself stronger for his lack of such troublesome things. Time passed as it always had, and the Goblin King lapsed into a disillusioned boredom.

It had been many years since the Goblin King had been able to lay claim on a Guillemin child, and he was ill-tempered because of this. The Guillemin family had begun to forget about him, something that he was ill-used to. No one forgot the Goblin King.

Then, one day, he noticed her.

It was as though something inside his head changed, and he began to think like his mischievous self again. Something about her roused him from his perpetual ennui and brought about some of his old spark.

The first thing the Goblin King perceived about Sarah was her hair, which was the same shade as her eponymous predecessor. He had been taken aback for a few moments, thinking that he was seeing an exact replica of the girl from so many years ago. On closer inspection, Sarah was a little taller than the girl had been, and her figure not quite so thin as her ancestor's had been. Her face was different too, the curves softer, the planes of her cheeks smooth and rosy, not angular and elfin as her forbearer's visage had been. She was graceful and proud, though her pride was not marred by cruelty, but transformed by love and honor.

He had watched her from afar, until one day, he dared to use a bit of magic to lure her into the wood so that he may see her up close.

She had not seen him, but he had most certainly seen her, and he could not help but be intrigued by her.

Her younger brother had just been born, and she had fled the castle in a guilt-stricken grief, trying to escape from all of the turbulent emotions that were welling up inside of her. The Goblin King sent out his tendrils of magic to her as she collected leaves in the family orchard, enticing her and drawing her into the woods.

He noticed the iron amulet around her throat, and he frowned. Someone who knew of the old tales had surely given her that. No one else could know of the fae weakness to iron.

A twig snapped in the wood close to Sarah, and she jumped, her hand flying to the necklace at her throat. Ah, so she knew of its power. That would prove to be problematic. He must find some way to dull its power against him. It would not do to let a human have the upper hand against him. It was just not done.

The Goblin King returned to his castle not long after, brooding over the girl for quite some time. She was almost exactly similar to her forbearer in appearance, but there was some quality about her that made him pay attention to her more so than any other Guillemin. Was it merely her beauty that enchanted him, or was it her casual acceptance of the magical, from her bold intrusion into the forest to the amulet that rested at the base of her throat. She was one who would not balk at the strange or mysterious. She would not be a wilting flower, afraid of anything out of the ordinary, no, she would be curious and headstrong, capable of defending herself against external foes, and clever enough to understand the subtleties and intricacies of magic. In short, she possessed the qualities of a Goblin Queen.

The Goblin King made up his mind almost instantaneously.

It was time to pay a visit to the Guillemin family.

AN: Sorry for the lateness! I worked late tonight and forgot to post the chapter right away when I got home! (Hey, it's still Friday on the west coast!) And how does this author repay her dear readers in her tardiness? An EVIL cliffhanger! Mwahaha! I am quite diabolical when it suits me!

In case you missed it, I posted pics of my copy of "The Labyrinth" I got for participating in NaNoWriMo, along with (minor) spoilery pictures of the chapter titles!

Disclaimer: Labyrinth and its characters do not belong to me. Quotes from the movie belong to Henson, Froud, and Lucas. Quotes from the book belong to A.C.H. Smith.