Chapter Nine: The Hanged Man

Soundtrack for Chapter 9:

"Mirrorgate: The Southern Oracle"—The Neverending Story soundtrack, Klaus Doldinger & Giorgio Moroder
"Flesh and Blood"—Oingo Boingo
"Corporate Cannibal"—Grace Jones

The wind was killing-cold. It struck through his feathers like teeth. It wanted to take him in its jaws and bite down to his heart.

Jareth cut his wings against the wind, fighting it, attempting to master it. It objected to his existence, needing to beat him down to the ground, hating him. He refused to be beaten. He tested it in one direction, and then another, looking for a way up, a way through.

You need not be so fierce, Jareth rebuked the wind. It responded with another rebellious gust that sent him into a flat spin, head over tailfeathers… and then he was above it, in a current that thrust him ruthlessly toward the crouched hulk of the mountain.

He tilted his head, an owl's frown, and watched the Labyrinth passing underneath him.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer's call. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

At the foot of the mountain, great fissures cracked open within the snow-blocked paths of the Labyrinth, and spread. Out of some of these, great stabbing pylons of ice rose up, quick as dew turning to frost. The mountain shaped itself into a fortress in front of his eyes, thirteen-tiered, diamond-iced.

The razor-sharp points of the curtain-wall reared up as though to chew him as he reached the perimeter of the Observatory. No, not just an observatory any more. A castle. A castle fit for the King of Winter.

This isn't right, Jareth thought. There is one castle at the center of the Labyrinth. One castle, one King!

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed," the poetic voice murmured fiercely, "and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned."

He backwinged, answering the instinct to retreat, but the gale mocked his efforts. It gripped his body hard and hewed him to his course. He felt like a crystal, ice-cold, being thrown at a target. He felt manipulated.

Lightning struck the apex of the mountain again, close enough to puff his feathers with static, close enough to make the tips of his wings glow with St. Elmo's fire. Struggling to fly with cold-numbed wings, his body was reflected in zigzag trails of ice and glass of the trails below. The adversarial wind pushed him upward, impatient to deliver him to his destination. He surmounted the last crystalline rampart and plunged into the caldera, shaking himself down into man-shape as he landed.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity…"

Jareth stumbled a moment, disoriented. No more wind to howl madness into his skull; the air was perfectly silent, perfectly cold. The snow hovered in midair, a snow-globe filled with syrup. He combed heavy flakes of white and grey from the air and looked around with growing panic. The laughing crows were frozen to their branches and rookeries, cocoons of ice containing dead flesh, or—he caught a whiff of cooked meat and burnt feathers—lightning-zapped, their black feathers and ash floating down with the snow. These were the grey wisps that smeared his hands. He fanned the air to keep the ashes from landing against his skin, with minimal success. His feet slid on the treacherous ice under his feet. It sealed over the broken portal, clear as glass, revealing only darkness underneath. "Neringia?" he gasped out. It was cold, so cold. He gagged on the taste of ashes and meat. "Errolan? Rephaites?"

Silence, and silence. He heard a crack like a shot, and flinched. The ice underfoot was now ruptured by a whistling hairline break. Carefully, so as not to break the ice any further, he crept closer to examine the bent shapes of the stone giants huddled before him along the periphery of the ice, and understood why they hadn't answered him.

The three stone ancients who guarded the portal to the Observatory had been blasted apart, the rock itself shattered and metamorphosed by the King of Winter's vulgar use of his power. The lightning had utterly destroyed them.

Neringia, Errolan, Rephaites. Ah, no. No. His heart jumped in his chest. This was worse than the King of Winter's arrogance in erecting a castle in his kingdom, yes, far worse.

Jareth reached forward, seeing the outline of Errolan's face in the rubble, and withdrew his hand as quickly. The stone was still hot. He wondered when and how he might be able to stack them upright again. When Winter ends? When will that be? Never?

"Please," he said. "Help me. Speak to me, please."

Nothing, nothing. And there was nothing now he could do here. John Company's opening move in this game had been a devastating one. He decided it was time to leave. As he stepped sideways, preparing to leave this grave-pit and return warm and snuggly next to Sarah, he remembered what he'd told Bee about mastering the art. What had he said? "When you can hold your right elbow in your right hand, I'll teach you." Ridiculous to talk of moving to a place in oneself that was oneself; the Labyrinth was his, a piece of himself as absolutely himself as the colors of his eyes. He stepped, and he felt something in his head shatter.

The pain was indescribable. He squeezed his temples between his hands, trying to keep the shrapnel from exploding through his skin. He blinked, feeling tears leaking out from his left eye. When he wiped them off, there was a smear of red on the cuff of his glove. The horrifying awful pain in his head became a viselike ache. And he could still see from his injured eye, though his sight was dim, and tinged bloody.

This isn't possible, he thought. It's just not possible. He reached out with his essence, trying to feel for the thousand, thousand cords that bound him to the Labyrinth, and instead felt… nothing. Dizzy, helpless, he stumbled.

"Surely some revelation is at hand for you, my fine feathered friend." With a sinking feeling, Jareth finally recognized the voice. It was Channard.

No. Not you. He shook his head.

"How are we today?"

Jareth sighed. Those were the first words that Channard had spoken to him, and Channard had been the first person whose words he had understood. Coming to consciousness in a purely human body had been painful, even though he had prepared as thoroughly as he could for the experience. There had been a sense of pieces falling into place, parts aligning into form, chemical fires ricocheting in his skullpan, and then those words. Angry, honest, his response had been a request: Set me free. Set me free from this box of iron, this house of bars, and the low stink of food. Set me free from the burden of my own flesh. I thought I wanted it, but I do not. I would rather be nothing than be this. "How are we today?" Deeply apprehensive, sir. My heart is a metronome in my chest, a ticking clock that will never run down. It is very loud, my heart.

And the doctor had smiled. It had been a beautiful smile, the smile of a collector lowering a particularly beautiful specimen of Lepidoptera into the killing-jar. Then to stretch it. Then to pin it. Jareth had understood, all at once, that this man was his adversary. His words had been calm and professional, signifying nothing. His scent, the tightly-concealed edges of his secret desires and fantasies, had said much more. He is my enemy, Jareth had thought.

How am I, Doctor-Phillip-Channard? I'll tell you how I am. I'm angry, and very much put-upon.

"You're the one who summoned my ghost, Tyto Albans. I suspect you miss me." Channard's voice, a parasite of memory, wriggled through his mind.

"No," Jareth muttered. He took his fur-lined gloves from his belt and stuffed his stiffening fingers inside. The crack in the ground had become a trench, and it was angrily sucking in snow and ice. He braced himself against the ambient warmth of Neringia's ruined body. He could almost imagine that the doctor was physically present with him, young and handsome, moving in and out of reality like the shadow of leaves, cold as death. He shuddered, reached around for some sort of shield for the doctor's voice. Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish, I wish he'd go away. Go away. Go away, Philip.

He felt the doctor's touch on his skin, dry, soft, strong fingertips stroking the back of his neck. Panicking, he opened his eyes and flailed against those hands, but only touched himself. His gaiter had left his neck bare; his glove-tips came away with handfuls of dark feathers and ash.

"Enough!" he shouted to the empty air, disgusted and enraged. He wanted Sarah, who held him in her open hand. He could fold her up warm in his arms, warm from her eyes, enclosed in her eyes, safe. Human being, stars and green. There were dreams he could play with, and dreams he could fight with, but this particular nightmare always undid him. "Sarah," he said raggedly. Sarah, help me!

"There's no help from that direction, Tyto Albans. Not that there couldn't have been, but you were arrogant enough to want to face the King of Winter alone. And let's not forget, your wife is having quite a dangerous pregnancy on top of all your other troubles. You need me. I won't sugar-coat hard truths, or gently coax you to eat them. Your Labyrinth is in desperate straits. It's starved of life and magic. It's iced up and walled off from human perception, and it's feeding from the only source it can—your child. It will kill your child. Then it will devour Sarah, and then, depending on how long Winter lasts, it will feed on you as well. You are all going to die."

Jareth shivered and clung more tightly to the fading heat of the wrecked cairn. No we won't! I command the powers of the Labyrinth! I am King! Otherwise what was the point of enduring you, Channard? What other point could there have possibly been to all that misery, if not to have my kingdom?

"Jareth."

And here he was startled out of his reverie; shocked into perception of how cold he was, how angry the sucking whirlwind of the portal had become. He began to shiver again, and the blood slowly worked back into his near-frozen extremities with glass-shard prickles. Channard had never spoken his name—had never known how to speak his name.

"Jareth, the King of Winter will take the Labyrinth."

Jareth stood up straight. It took effort to unbend himself against the lee of Neringia's back. The heat of the ancient's destruction had almost entirely dissipated. He tilted his face up and let the snow and ash paint his face.

"If I were you, I'd do anything to hold on to my kingdom, and damn your wife and your baby. If you were me, you'd hew to pride. But then, if you've truly become like me, then perhaps I've had the last laugh after all."

The ice over the portal cracked wide, brittle ice under the weight of a careless skater. Jareth clutched instinctively at the ground and came up with handfuls of slippery snow and loose scree, and hung kicking at the edge of the pit.

"Farewell, Jareth."

And then the wailing vortex grabbed him, and pulled him down, into the icy hateful dark.

Wooden cradle, rocked in sleep. Rockabye baby, Sarah thought, becoming lucid. The taste of peaches was still on her lips from the night before, despite rigorous tooth-brushing and face-washing. Jareth would never tell her where the peaches came from, but he had offered one a night for the past seven nights. Fairy food, she thought to herself, pure magic.

"It will help you. It will help the baby," was what he had said, as he took up the fruit and sliced it with his knife. Bisected, it bled golden syrup into his gloved hands. "Trust me, Sarah." He cut down to the stone, and fed her the slices, one by one.

"Still worried you don't have enough power over me?" she had joked lamely, but it was a rebuke. She had pushed the slice back, pressed it against his lips until he ate.

"It feels like self-cannibalism when I eat it," he'd said, swallowing as though the taste were bitter. "This fruit was supposed to be the inheritance of the one who would rule here after me. It is dangerous, but I don't know quite what else to do with it but feed it to you. You need it. To make the kind of magic I can't." He caressed her belly, his meaning obvious. "Please obey me," he'd murmured. And she'd obeyed.

She found herself weak and limp after the second slice, and unable to protest further. Pure magic, forbidden fruit, enchantment. His power was like a smothering weight, but it was too comforting to fight.

The fruit made her languid, but it also brought on that peculiar state of comprehension between the waking and the sleeping world. She could see around corners that weren't there. She could sense states of emotion and being in flux, smell them like delicate odors. She realized she'd been craving dangerous and immortal fruit the way other pregnant women had cravings for watermelon, or radishes. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, fruit from the enchantress's garden. So she ate, and didn't worry about the soil that fed the hungry, thirsty roots of the Goblin King's fruit.

It's for you, Egg, Sarah thought, excusing herself.

In that strange edge of existence between waking and sleeping, she could find and feel the power the fruit bought. She could feel her way inside herself, and find the baby, sleeping curled-up inside her, find the torn edge of the placenta and encourage her body to take it back up, reweave blood vessels, tie life and breath back to Egg. Grow, she thought to the baby. Grow, live, breathe! It was difficult to know how much time this took; she was spending twelve hours out of every twenty-six sleeping, resting, recovering, hanging on to the lucid edge of dreams as long as she could, doing everything she could, and wishing she could do more…eat more.

Zoe hadn't approved of this; she said Sarah was losing flesh at the time when she should have been in full fluffy bloom. But the knots in the green ribbon kept coming further apart; the baby was thriving, even if Sarah felt worn out, like a patch of carpet under too many feet. "As long as the baby is fine, I'm fine," Sarah insisted.

Zoe had pursed her lips. "You're starting to smell like him," she said dolefully. "Whatever you two are up to, you should probably stop."

No, Sarah had thought, rolling over on her back. Not until the baby is born. Not until I've made Jareth a father. Then I can stop. Please let it be soon. I'm so tired.

So now, sleeping in her cradle without a bough, she felt herself rocked outward, outside herself.

Where am I?

She was on a mountaintop, at the top of the world. She could see Jareth; he was talking to someone she didn't like. She tried to catch his attention, but his interlocutor moved in subtle ways so he was always between her and her husband, casting a shadow that hid her. She couldn't quite hear the words, exactly, but she understood that the man with the sandy hair was giving Jareth confusing and doubtful advice.

"Jareth!" she shouted, but he didn't hear her. She couldn't seem to get any closer to them, no matter how she tried, and Jareth wasn't listening to her.

"Winter has taken the Labyrinth," the sandy-haired man told Jareth. "Winter will destroy you all, if you let it."

"Jareth!" Sarah shouted. She seemed to get through to him, but the faceless man lunged at Jareth before she could touch him, and shoved him backward over the edge of the pit. Jareth held on to the edge, and she could have helped him up, but his demon interlocutor turned and looked at her for the first time.

"See what you've done?" he sneered. His face was a worm's slimy questing snout.

She screamed—

—and woke, sweating, her hand gripping for a weapon which wasn't there, looking to fight an enemy who wasn't there. She let go of the bedclothes slowly, and tried to calm her breathing. Egg thumped her with silent empathy. The adrenaline rush of the nightmare had woken them both. Sarah reached instinctively over for Jareth, and found his place in the bed empty and cold. She pressed her belly between her hands and squirmed over on her side.

The window let in faint light, and the wind howled and shrieked around the Castle. It was all so dark.

She'd been dreaming about… killing the worm. But it was dead, wasn't it?

There were wet footprints on the floor, as if someone had let himself in and closed the door behind him, waking her with the slam and a gust of cold air. There was a strange smell in the room, too, faint and unpleasant, like the air from the Bog of Eternal Stench when the wind was blowing powerfully in the right direction.

A bolt of lightning lit the room in momentary brilliance. And she thought she saw a shadow in the corner of the room, near the bathroom door.

"Who's there?" she asked, fearfully uncertain. She reached over and lit the lamp with a single quivering match. The flame was reluctant to take hold of the oil, and the light was small.

"It's me," a dark and gravelly voice replied.

"Hoggle!" she said, delighted. But then… not so delighted. Something was wrong. Something wasn't right. She clutched the covers up to her bosom. "How did you get in here?"

"You know well as I do I can open any door fer you, Sarah," he said, and his voice was full of bitter irony. "I did before, and I c'n do it again. So here I am."

"Come into the light," Sarah said. "I want to see you."

Hoggle stepped forward. He looked different. He wore a three-piece black suit perfectly tailored to his awkwardly squat body, and his hair had been carefully cut and styled and his eyebrows plucked. But the difference wasn't just in his appearance. It was something about the way he held himself—bolder, less craven. There was something hard and secretive in his eyes. There was something… cold in that face now, as if something evil were inside her friend, driving him like a goblin drove Humongous.

"So," he said, "I'm here ta rescue you." He smiled, and the smile was unpleasant.

"From what?" she asked, baffled. She remembered her dream. She was suddenly afraid for Jareth, which helped her forget the nagging edges of fear that were creeping around her heart, gripping it tight. "Rescue me from what?"

"I'm here ta rescue you from your marriage. You were my friend when nobody else was. Jareth's nasty and bad, but you ain't. So I've come to get you out, before he takes you down with him!" Hoggle paced back and forth on the edge of the light, consumed by some strange and hateful passion.

"I don't need to be rescued from Jareth," Sarah said coldly.

"Oh yes you do!" Hoggle shrieked, blue eyes blazing. Yes, good, Sarah thought. Raise a riot. Summon the goblins, summon Sir Didymus and Zoe. I feel like I'm in danger here with you, Hoggle. That scares me.

"What's he ever done for you that I didn't do?" Hoggle raged. "He didn't show you through the Labyrinth. He didn't fight the goblin army with you. He never came to visit you or took care of you when you was sick. I did that!" He shook himself out of his reverie and looked at her.

"And I owe you for that?" she said neutrally.

"Damn straight," Hoggle hissed. "It's time I had what's mine. I earned it and he ain't. He's never been kind to anyone a day in his life. He's a user, and a thief, and he never pays what he owes. And you went to him and laid down with him like a whore, and I'm stupid enough to forgive you for that, Sarah!" His chest heaved, his hands were spiders creeping up the lapels of his suit. "Things are going to be fair in the Labyrinth, for once, just as soon as we get a change in leadership."

"I suppose that means you, sitting in Jareth's place." Her eyes felt hot and weepy. My gun is in my bedside table, she reminded herself. Do I have it in me to hurt Hoggle? To shoot him? The tears spilled down her cheeks. "Sitting on his throne? What else? Fucking his wife, too? Is that what you want from me?"

"Them's nasty things to say," Hoggle said, jabbing an accusing finger in her direction. "You got a nasty mind. That's his influence, I bet, but there's still time for you to learn manners."

"You were a better person when you were running scared of Jareth than you were when you threw in your lot with the King of Winter." Her heart froze inside her as an obvious piece of the puzzle fell into place. "You set the King of Winter free," she whispered. "It was you."

Hoggle puffed with pride. "It was me."

Jareth didn't have far to fall before he landed, which was something of a relief. What was less pleasant was that he hadn't had time to transform into an owl and land properly, instead of being smashed against an icy floor like an unimportant parcel. The portal overhead clashed shut with a spray of snow.

He picked himself up, testing himself for injuries. His ears and nose felt frozen. His left hand, his smart hand, felt painfully numb and swollen, and the pain spread all the way up to his shoulder. Ah well, he wasn't here to play guitar.

It was dark. It was very dark. And… tight. He could feel the walls pressing in around him.

Stop, he reminded himself. For every room, there is a door. You simply have to see it.

The Labyrinth, in a beginning time that was hard to recall, had been only one passage, one center. It was one of the first changes he had instituted, carving doors and apertures where there had been none before. Not shortcuts, exactly—the Labyrinth never allowed for shortcuts. The journey was the journey. Rather, he had wanted places of egress, emergence, openings which were the reflections of possibility. It was still all one Labyrinth, and this place would be no different. If he were in an oubliette, that was one thing. But Company was expecting him. There would be a way through to the center of this icy copycat castle, if he could just find his way.

But it was so dark.

You aren't now as you were then, he told himself. You aren't frightened and naked and alone. The King of Winter would like you to feel that way, but that's not how things are. Who are you?

A man, he thought, and choked back a moan of fear. I am a man, of indeterminate middle years, who was King of the Labyrinth not five minutes ago, with no weapons but my wit, my waning magic, and the murderer's knife sheathed near my heart.

A mortal man with a wife and a child waiting for him. Time is wasting. Don't just stand here waiting for your beard to grow.

Slowly, achingly, he summoned a crystal. It wasn't a very large one, but it contained a soft warm light, the memory of summer. See? he jollied himself along, You're still capable of working some magic. The light hovered somewhere near his ankles, and he could see the narrow passage out of the cold receiving-chamber. He walked slowly, since the corridors were made of ice upon ice which reflected light and sound back upon him in disorienting confusion. He could see images through the ice—the outer gates of the Labyrinth. An army mustered there, dwarves in fur and plate mail, some riding upon white bears, and others driving teams of mammoth. It was an invasion force.

So, he thought, It's to be an army of dwarves versus a city of goblins. That should be amusing.

He saw other things, as well, but ignored them. They were images from the past, or images from the present, and he could do nothing about them. This castle, despite whatever décor the King of Winter might have chosen to add, was still quintessentially an observatory. After a quarter-of-an-hour of choosing his way inerrantly, always down, always counterclockwise, Jareth hit a dead end. He turned around, but the ice had burgeoned from the passageways, blocking them.

This is the way, though, he thought, turning back to the choke point. He could never be confused about direction. It was one of his gifts. The way was through. The black ice had the qualities of a mirror, and he approached his reflection with trepidation.

He had to admit, he didn't look good. His left eye was rimmed with blood, and his hair had gone flat. It still remained a shock, after all these years, to see his own body, and to know it was his. The flesh was a companion that he could never leave behind. Well, I might as well tend this kingdom, since I can't tend the other, Jareth thought with resignation. He ran snowmelt through his hair and pricked at it until it all stood on fluffy end, and applied some lip gloss to mouth and then, after a moment, above his eyes, bubblegum flavor, highly soothing. Clothing… he readjusted the fall of his coat shoulders and the drape of his gaiter, over neck and chest until it ended precisely where his amulet began. He backed up to get the full effect. Peasant was the word that came to mind. Rustic peasant, in brown wool and snow-stained boots. Worse yet, human peasant. Well, there was no hope for anything better. He had dressed this morning for butchery, not for an audience with royalty. He raised a finger and scolded his reflection with a sardonic smile.

There was movement in the space beyond his reflection. Jareth stripped off his gloves, picked up his glowing crystal, and hid its warming light in his naked hand. Ah, there. Beyond the pane of ice was a banqueting-hall, the long table dressed in white. He drew his knife, and bashed the hilt against the glass until it shattered.

A heavy shriek of wind shoved him as the barrier fell, laden with the scent of dark wine, the color of despair, and glitter. He shielded himself with one arm, and when it had passed, looked again as he sheathed his blade. He could smell roasted meat bubbling steam and juicy fat from beneath one of the silver covers of the salvers on the banquet-table. He realized he was quite hungry, but he didn't think he'd have the stomach for whatever meal the King of Winter intended to serve him. Behind the table, nine ice-caked television screens projected the image of snapping white-green-blue fire on a cavernous hearth, but did nothing to alleviate the cold.

Jareth stepped up on the dais. Shards of ice crackled under his feet, very loud in the silence of the room. One chair was a glacial throne, well-padded with cushions of velvet brocade in the jade-white colors of American money. The other was little better than a stool made out of bone and leather. Near it was a cushion, suitable for kneeling. He smiled grimly to himself. John Company's metaphors had always been apt, if a trifle obvious.

So where was his host? Jareth lifted his chin and sniffed the air carefully. He could smell the petroleum wax of the candles, and the faint scent of cash, and the dusty acidic scent of toner, and the greasy-sweet reek of corn syrup. The smells spoke to him of emotions in the absence of their producer—gnawing hunger, aesthetic delight, tooth-grinding ambition, and… something else. The satisfaction of vengeance? These scents were all faint, though. Really, it was as if the stage had been set but the star had missed his cue.

He drew off one of the covers of the silver dishes. It contained a fragment of writing, just the half-finished piece of a poem on blue-lined paper, singed at the edges, as if someone had attempted to burn it, and someone else had rescued it from the fire.

FEAR
Once upon a time he stole her and kept her. He forced
her body to yield to his. She tried to run away. He cut off
her feet.
"Now you will not run," he said.
She tried to crawl away, and he cut off her hands.
"Now you won't try a third time."
But she tried a third time to escape, and he cut out his heart,
and forced her to eat it.

Their relationship prospered thereafter.

So, Jareth thought, picking up the paper and crumpling it in one hand. He stuffed the note in his pocket. That's why he threatened to cut off Sarah's hands and feet. He got the idea from this, from me. He felt ashamed and slightly embarrassed. There had been a time, and that time hadn't really lasted that long, two years perhaps, when the idea of luring back and fucking with the very nubile, very alluring, very young Sarah Williams , triumphant conqueror of the Labyrinth, had run like a fever in his blood. He had made a few plans, but when he wrote them down they had seemed so base, so low, that his pride had kept him from putting them in motion. The idea of cruelty, as with everything else, had eventually become boring to him. But still, the King of Winter's threats to hurt Sarah had just been iterations of his own thoughts, and that scraped Jareth in a very tender spot.

The illusion of the fire gave off no heat, but the screens projecting the illusion warmed the room infinitesimally. They shed their skins of frost in soft plops.

He drew off another silver cover, since it seemed as though John Company was determined to be not just fashionably late but downright careless with his most dangerous and doubtful guest.

A chess set.

"Chess?" Jareth asked aloud with distaste. "Must you be so trite?"

The assignment of pieces was obvious. John Company's set was made of crystalized ice, bubbling with green fire. Jareth's pieces were made of brass and bronze and gold, and his King was in the shape of his amulet. What's the intention here? To play a game for ownership of the Labyrinth? But doesn't he have it already?

What if he doesn't? he answered himself. Jareth scrutinized the pieces. His Queen was formed like a woman, a little doll all of brass, holding her own severed head in the stumps of her hands. Jareth picked up his Queen, and she was cold, cold enough to burn his hands. But he stroked the metal with, slowly letting her warm. In a sudden burst of anger, Jareth flipped the heavy board and scattered all the pieces. Damn him! Where is he?

He reached for a third dish, one from which steam poured, and the mouthwatering aroma of fat-marbled meat. His fingers hovered over the handle, warmed against the heat of destruction.

"Ah-ah-ah," The King of Winter's lilting, juicy voice chided from the darkness. "It's bad manners to begin your meal without your host."

There, Jareth thought to himself. I can't see it, but I know where the door out of here is. It's just behind him.

I'll have to go through him to escape.

Sarah swept the bedclothes down off her body and set her feet on the footstool. Gently, she smoothed her hand down her embroidered shift, cupping her Egg. She waited for Hoggle to take her in.

"Do you see?" she said. "Do you see what I've done, Hoggle? Do you still want me, with a bellyful of the Goblin King's baby?" She opened her bedside table and pulled out her gun and nudged the safety off. She scrubbed her free hand against her eyes. I'll make it quick, she thought. God help me, I'm a murderer three times over.

"It's not possible," Hoggle said, cramming his hands against his mouth in horror. "It ain't true and it ain't possible!" Then his anger flickered up again. "It's not fair! Why does he get everything?"

"Because he's not a complete shit!" Sarah screamed. "Like you and John Company. Both of you throwing your weight around, thinking you could intimidate me! Don't you understand?" She stepped down from the bed and advanced on him. He backed up, terrified of her, and she was small enough to find that satisfying. Her voice was quieter now, hoarse from strain. She took a breath and she took her aim. Hoggle cowered and covered his face. "You've never understood that I'm the dangerous one. Jareth isn't the killer. I am." She cocked her weapon, and prepared to fire.

"My lady!" she heard Sir Didymus shout on the other side of the door. "My lady!" Didymus knocked on the door with his staff, and she heard him joined by a chorus of "Sawwah!" and "Yes-ma'am-lady!" and the counterpoint of Zoe leading the pack, barking at them, "Dios mio, if she's in trouble, yelling at the door isn't going to help!" By the last word, Zoe had opened the double-doors with a crowd of rescuers hot on her heels.

"Grab him," Sarah commanded. Hoggle threw punches and kicks wildly, trying to get away, to dodge and escape. Sir Didymus parried him with his staff and landed several painful-sounding cracks against knees and shins and elbows. Ludo picked him up before he could sustain too much damage.

"What's going on?" Zoe asked. Swollen palm-shaped bruises made her face grotesque. She was wearing her coat and her boots, too, which dripped water across the floor.

"I could ask you the same thing," Sarah said, but her words were drowned out as the dwarf, struggling, shouted and cursed them all. "Shut up or I'll shut you up," Sarah said. "They just saved your life, Hoggle." He quieted. "That's better," Sarah said. Her throat hurt from shouting. She clicked the safety on and tossed the gun on the bed, and eased herself down onto the bedstool. Zoe came over to her immediately and took her pulse.

"My Lady," Sir Didymus said, "Art thou hurt?"

"I'm fine, I think," Sarah said.

"Who's the dwarf?" Zoe asked, stroking Sarah's shoulder, darting glances over at Hoggle, who continued to jerk in Ludo's grip. Sir Didymus barked and shouted at Hoggle as he searched him, and declared the "varlet" to be "free of hidden arms."

"He's an enemy who used to be a friend." Sarah realized she was shaking. She didn't have time to cry. She'd cry later. "I ought to kill him. I know that's what I should do. But I can't. I can't."

"Doesn't this castle have sixty layers of dungeons or something? It has that kind of vibe." Zoe carefully massaged Sarah's shoulders, and lifted her hair up off her forehead, and blew a cool breath over it.

"I don't know. Anyway, I don't want him escaping. He's good with finding escape routes." Sarah was struck by inspiration. "How about the wardrobe?" she asked. "I can lock him up tight in there."

"That might work," Zoe agreed.

"Take my stuff out first," Sarah said. She wasn't sure if Hoggle could MacGuyver some sort of way out of a solid oak cabinet using just her dresses, shoes, jewelry, or lingerie, but she wasn't about to take that risk. And anyway, Jareth had given her these things; he'd made some of these things himself, with his own hands. She wasn't going to let Hoggle be in close proximity to things that were precious to her. Very quickly the wardrobe was emptied onto the bed and ordered up around the floor. At the very very back, where she'd forgotten about it, was the backpack she'd carried with her on her last journey through the Labyrinth.

"In you go, Hoggle," Sarah said. "Ludo, put him in." Flanked by Sir Didymus and Yimmil, Hoggle was deposited inside, and the heavy door shut on him. She took up her key and turned it in the lock.

Hoggle banged on the door once. "Let me outta here!" he yelled.

"If you use up too much air, you'll suffocate in there," Sarah yelled back. "And good riddance!" She looked at Zoe. "Where's Jareth?"

"He turned into an owl and flew off toward the mountain," Zoe replied. "And he told me to go with you and stay with you. He said something about 'disaster and ruin.'"

"Well, that's just great," Sarah said with the shreds of her voice. "Now someone's got to go rescue him." She waddled over to the bed, and worked angrily at the laces in her blue silk. The velvet will go on top. What am I going to do for shoes? Maybe I can borrow a pair of Jareth's boots.

"What are you doing?" Zoe asked, helping her get the blue bodice over her head.

"I'm going to save him," Sarah said raggedly. "Isn't that obvious? Do me up please."

"Your Majesty," Zoe said, worriedly.

"Don't start," Sarah said, and realized that the tears had finally come, just when she was weakest. She sobbed her fear right into the crumpled green velvet of her second dress.

"Here, let me help," Zoe said, lacing up the back of her dress. "Now," she said, when Sarah was secure. "Here," she said, taking the velvet away from Sarah's face. "Please listen, Your Majesty."

"Don't tell me to get back into bed," Sarah said, hiccupping.

"I wasn't about to, though you should. I was going to say…" she glanced over at Sarah's friends, who had come close to comfort and assist her. "I was going to say, you're acting like a woman and not a Queen. You're not alone. You're never alone, if you're a Queen. Command us. Tell us what to do. We'll do it."

"That's right!" Sir Didymus said proudly.

"Yeah!" barked Yimmil. He crept up close under her arm.

"But he hit you," Sarah said, swallowing, and staring hard at the bruises on Zoe's face. "Why would you help him?"

Zoe looked surprised. "Well, for you," she said calmly. "I made a vow. And if you want me to rescue that verga, I suppose I have to do it."

"My lady," Sir Didymus said, doffing his cap to Zoe. "Hast thou considered a career in chivalry?"

"Not really," Zoe said, crossing her arms over her chest. She suddenly smiled at Sir Didymus. "You could make me change my mind, perhaps." She looked over at Sarah. "Now will you get back into bed?"

Sarah felt another wave of tears coming on, but these were tears of gratitude. Really, she was going to dehydrate if she wasn't careful. "I will, but I want to try something first before sending you all off into the snow." She wove and juggled the air, thinking of Jareth, wanting him, needing him. She thought of his strange brooding eyes, and the music he sometimes hummed under his breath, music that when voiced aloud seemed to command a thousand twangling instruments out of the ether to accompany his tune. She thought of his featherlight hair, his scent, his rare and edged laughter. A crystal formed at her fingertips. Come to me, she thought. Be brought back to me.

She remembered her own words thrust back at her just as surely as if she were lakeside at the Swamp of Unfiltered Speech: "I have to face him alone… because that's how it's done."

The King of Winter stepped into the ice-washed light of the make-believe fire. Hair perfect. Clothing, also perfect, a pin-striped three-piece suit charcoal with digital information flickering in the seams. Rubbish and receipts and banknotes blew from his footsteps.

"Hallo, John," Jareth said. "You're late. Shall we commence with the ritual insults before getting down to the business at hand?"

"By all means." The King of Winter tossed his ridiculous stovepipe hat onto the table. Jareth instantly recommitted himself to his anti-hat position. "Of all the entertainments to be had in this world or any other, baby-un-brother, I do believe the most amusing ones are your failures. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You were once the most treasured member of our siblinghood, but you've finally and completely ruined yourself, transformed into this hunk of manipulated monkey meat that now stands before me. The most spectacular of all failures; the funniest joke. Well done."

"Ouch," Jareth said. "That was a good one."

"Thanks," John Company drawled, easing himself down into his throne. "I've been saving it up." He stroked the amulet around his neck, a piece of rectangular obsidian. "Your turn."

"I'll defer until the end of the conversation," Jareth said.

"Oh, fine, spoilsport. I suppose I can forego cutting out your tongue, to let you have the last word. But don't expect any more generosity from me." The King of Winter waved his hand negligibly at the covered dish. "Go on, see the surprise that I cooked up for you."

Carefully, Jareth removed the cover.

"Of course, it may not be a dish to your taste."

It was a head. Cooked, the eyes gone to jelly and the meat sloughing off the cheeks, features unrecognizable, but the flesh still brown as milk-tea, and as tender. The stubble where a wealth of dark curly hair once grew. Two ivory horns curved out of the forehead.

"They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I was always one to appreciate the heat. The mouth," Company said suddenly, viciously. "Look what's in the mouth! Chef's signature."

Finnvarrah, oh Finnvarrah. My beautiful boy! This can't be you. There was a thin roll of parchment held between soft lips. With trembling fingers, Jareth drew it out, and unrolled it.

It was skin, young Finnvarrah's skin. There was no mistaking it. The skin was tattooed in blue ink, and the words written there, in letters that Jareth himself had traced with the cutting edge of the very knife he had sheathed at his breast, were the Robin's child, beloved of Prince Owl.

"And before you make yourself a weeping mess beyond hearing me, know this, Jare'th. He earned his death. He killed she-with-asses-feet, Onoskelis, who was our sister. I made him pay for crossing me, your boy. I made his brothers and his fathers pay as well. Red Branch is destroyed, as are all the refugees you sent there from the Labyrinth."

John Company stared at Jareth coldly. "And this is just for an insult done to one of the lesser Gentry. Do you know what I intend to do to you and your apewife for the insults you've dealt me? I am going to break your heart, and then I am going to make you eat it. This is just the first course."

Next… Chapter Ten: "Death"

Thank you, patient readers, for coming back for another helping of the hot n' juicy story I'm cooking up. Isn't it tasty? Isn't it sweet? Hopefully the quality of the meal makes up for the wait.

Multiple kudos and succulent tidbits of gratitude for my beta du maison, FrancesOsgood, who does the final quality-check before items arrive at your table. Any continuity or grammar errors are the fault of yours truly.

Since my lag time has been so long between chapters, I've had the opportunity to respond to all reviews for Chapter 7 via PM, and omg, you guys inspire and delight and help me so much. Thank you for your wonderful correspondence and for letting me natter. Reviews are always appreciated, and so a special thank-you to

Fanny, Panda, Jetredgirl, brylcreemqueen, Askeebe, Whyndancer, comicalfreaka, Jalen Strix, Tamha, kzal, and various anonymous but kindhearted guests and others I may have unfortunately forgotten to mention.

The character of John Company is directly inspired by Andrew Scott's masterful portrayal of Jim Moriarty from Sherlock. That line about eating hearts? "Burn the HEART out of you." Yup. Thank you, Moffat and Gatiss and Scott.

This series (Exile's Lament, Kingdom Come, and Nephilim) is now boxed under the title "The Judex Cycle" for your convenience and pleasure. All three of these stories take place in the same version of the Labyverse.

The poem that Jareth recites as a charm against Channard, "Yesterday upon the stair…" is an excerpt from "Antigonish," by William Hughes Mearns.

The phrase "a thousand twangling instruments" is a riff on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

I am tired and I want to get this chapter out from under the heatlamps and onto your table—so if you see a reference I missed, please note it in a review, and you shall have a sweetie.