Thanks for all the reviews. Still struggling with the last chapter, but it'll sort itself out, I suppose.
Sarah reached the castle half an hour later and went to the throne room immediately to see if she could find Jareth. He was there pacing restlessly in a mob of laughing and yelling goblins that made an infernal noise, and he was carrying a small grey bundle which seems to give off an even louder noise, two little arms waving frantically in the air.
"Jareth," she shouted and ran to him, and he turned around with a look of relief on his face.
"Ah, Sarah, just the person I was waiting for," he said – loudly to be heard over the baby's wails. He trust the baby at her, and she grabbed it instinctively and supported the little head, and the child silenced for a moment and looked up at her as if to see who was holding it now.
"Now that you are here, please take care of it for me," Jareth continued and brushed off his clothes. His eyes narrowed into a cold hard stare, but the anger was not directed at her. "I have… business to attend to with that one's babysitter! Like making sure she doesn't get out of the Labyrinth alive!"
And with those words he vanished, and the baby started wailing again. Sarah looked after him in shock and then helplessly down at the baby for a moment, but she had had years of experience taking care of Toby, so this baby didn't feel much different, except that she had almost forgotten Toby had ever been this small. She cuddled the child closer and headed off for the kitchen to get away from the annoying goblins and their infernal racket.
Hoggle was still there and jumped to his feet when he saw her enter with the baby.
"I heard the calling," he greeted her, "do ye need any help with the wee one?"
The baby in her arms was still screaming and trying to wiggle out of the blankets, so she gently laid it on the table to see if it was just scared or perhaps hurt. When she opened the blanket, she felt pity and anger mingling and suddenly didn't care quite so much about what Jareth was doing to the child's babysitter. The baby was clad only in a soggy half-torn diaper that was leaking up its back and down on the legs, and here and there were old bruises on the scrawny body. It could not be more than three months old, though Sarah remembered Toby at that age, and this child's thin malnourished frame had little resemblance to her chubby baby brother.
"Hoggle, we need to get the child clean and warm first of all. Can you take that big bowl over there and pour some of the warm water into it? Yes, and then you fill up with cold water until the temperature is nice."
Sarah undressed the baby – a boy, she noticed - while Hoggle prepared the bath, and then she eased the screaming child into the water and gently washed him with a soft cloth. The baby grew quiet when the water enclosed it, and he closed his eyes in exhaustion and let Sarah handle him without struggling. By the time Sarah had gotten him all clean, his breathing was light and even and she could see he was almost asleep. Hoggle brought a clean blanket and some more cloth she could use as a make-shift diaper, and Sarah carefully wrapped the baby again and sat down near the fireplace, humming a little tune and rocking the child fully to sleep.
"Hoggle," she said in a low voice, so she wouldn't disturb the child, "Jareth threatened to kill this little one's Quester – he didn't mean it, did he?"
The dwarf shrugged and looked away. "He might or might not. Usually he doesn't kill anyone – they just make a mistake in the Labyrinth that means their death. Like falling into an oubliette or drowning or bothering the wrong creatures."
"But that's horrible!" she whispered angrily. "What if they really regret it and love the child… and just want to get their little brother back… like me?"
"Sarah, look at the child," Hoggle cautioned. "That is not yer wee brother and that wish was not a foolish teenage girl's ranting. Someone has been neglecting this child all its short life. And this is not the worst I've seen – Jareth has retrieved children in such a bad state that they wouldn't even survive the 13 hours."
Sarah looked at him horrified. "You mean – the parents have hurt them before they call on the goblins?"
"The parents. Or a sibling or some other relative. Fortunately, those are the cases where the guardian is least likely to want to run the Labyrinth, so Jareth simply speeds up the Labyrinth's time around the child, and once the Labyrinth embraces it, it is healed and happy again."
"But then it's a goblin," Sarah said with a frown. "Is there really no way he could return it to the world above, so it could remain human?"
"Sarah, me friend," Hoggle shook his head. "Look around ye. Do ye think the goblins are unhappy creatures? Simple creatures, yes, with simple needs – but down here they are safe. Jareth might be scary to cowards like me, but he does take care of us all and protects us."
"'From dangers untold and hardships unnumbered'," Sarah murmured. The goblins did seem like a happy bunch of children. No real responsibilities, the same magic enhancements as her and Jareth, so they needed very little food and shelter, and in the time she had been here, she had seen them throw messy parties every other day, where they were dancing and singing and playing happy music. At one time, Jareth had joined them, and she had watched in amazement, as he smiled more freely in those few moments to the goblins than in all the time she had been together with him.
"I wonder why someone is even questing for this baby," Hoggle remarked and brought two mugs of tea to the table before joining her there.
"Jareth said something about a babysitter," Sarah offered and carefully rearranged the sleeping baby in her arms, so she could reach the mug without risking spilling on him.
Hoggle grunted and nodded. "A case of bad conscience, then. Or fear of having to explain to the parents afterwards – which means she's really dim-witted and doesn't understand that the King will remove all memories of the child in the Above."
"So no one will remember…" Sarah suddenly thought about her own situation as she sipped the hot tea. "I left a note, when I went with Jareth. Will they remember me at home – my father, Toby? Does it make a difference that I called him myself?"
"Hmmm, I really don't know," he replied after a pause. "Maybe. Depends on what Jareth did – ye'd better ask him sometime. Do ye want me to take that baby somewhere to sleep?"
Sarah noticed the deliberate change of subject and knew from the past weeks that Hoggle did not want to discuss her previous life and the night she was taken to the Underground. She thought he might still feel guilty about arranging the arrest, even though she had assured him several times that she understood why he did it and had forgiven him.
"The crib is still in my room," she said and stood up, and Hoggle came over and reached for the child.
"Let me help ye," he offered and took the little bundle from her with a gentleness and expertise that surprised her. "I'll stay with him while he sleeps and then we can warm a bottle afterwards - the goblins brought a few from the house where Jareth picked him up. They generally do - we don't have anything down here suitable for small human children and he obviously can't eat what the goblins feed their young ones...! Why don't ye fly out and see if Jareth wants an audience? He usually does!"
The last comment was muttered under his breath, but Sarah heard and smiled wryly.
"Ok, I'll see if I can find him – I'll be back soon."
Sarah had noticed dark clouds and a slight drop in the temperature as she flew back earlier, but the weather that met her when she came outside, was unlike anything she had seen before in the Underground. Every other day, it had been, if not sunny, then at least pleasantly warm and dry, but now heavy clouds completely covered the sky, the wind was chilly and thunder rumbled in the distance. She frowned - it was unlikely to be a coincidence that this weather happened just now when a quester was in the Labyrinth – it had to be Jareth's doing. Or the Labyrinth's.
She took out the tracker crystal that she still carried with her always and placed it gently on the sandstone tiles.
"Find Jareth," she asked, and the crystal immediately started rolling off to the right at a quick pace. She scooped it up and secured it in her pocket, before transforming into and owl again and setting off in the direction it had shown. As she beat her wings to gain height, she winced inside at her sore wings – she had flown much further today already than any other day, and she could feel the strain. The cold and the stronger wind didn't help either, so she would not fly for more than ten minutes, she decided. If she hadn't found him by then, she would turn around and go back to the castle.
The weather got steadily worse and darker, and as the sandstone labyrinth beneath her changed into a swampy forest scenario with winding almost invisible paths, she almost decided the ten minutes were up. Suddenly, she spotted something on the ground. It was a goblin – running in her direction towards the castle. And another. And two more, all of them looking terrified. And then a group of fauns darted past and she heard a terrified human cry in the distance. She slowed her pace and peered cautiously around, and then as a glint of lightning illuminated the entire area, she suddenly saw what they had been running from and straight out forgot to flap her wings in shock and disbelief. She fell towards the ground, but managed to catch herself and land safely at the top of a tree, clutching the branch tightly with her sharp talons. She peered out from between the leaves to the clearing below, which was illuminated by some bushes that had caught fire, and in the flickering light, she saw it again and huddled down to make herself as small as possible in order not to be seen.
But it was too late. With a soft growl, the terrifying dragon in the clearing below lifted its pointy head and stared directly at the tree she was hiding in with menacing yellow reptile eyes.