Chapter 11

Bartimeo

So there I was, flat on my back, staring up at the sky and wishing like mad that I was dead. After the longest and most graceless tumble in Lara history, I ended up in a crumpled heap at the base of the stairs down which I had been flung by the most easily butt-hurt plant I had ever encountered. All the air had been thoroughly knocked out of me and I was fairly certain that my battered body would burst into flames if I forced it to move so much as an inch, so I lay there a moment, dizzy, sore as heck, waiting for my breath to return, and just...existing.

Soon enough the fire in my lungs began to subside and I was able to steady my breathing. I found, however, despite the urgency of my mission, that I was not in any great hurry to leave that place. Staring up at the sky, at those pale wisps of cloud drifting along so high above, I was struck afresh at just how insane my whole situation really was. That sky above me was not the one I was familiar with. The stones beneath my back were not of my world. I found myself wondering just how in the hell I was supposed to explain any of this to my family. Dare I even try? Telling Kat was out of the question, she'd almost certainly have a heart attack and die...but Will? Part of me yearned to tell Will all about it. He was my brother, my twin. We had few enough secrets from one another and we shared a strong similarity in our senses of adventure. It didn't seem fair for me to keep all this from him... And yet there was some other part of me...something that I greatly suspect may have been the looming shadow of maturity that compelled me not to say a thing. Somehow I knew that this place, this mad, magical, wonderful place was a precious secret...only to be known by a select few. And I was one of them. This understanding left me feeling sort of sad, and more than a little humble. You don't even know how lucky you are, Lara... Silly, insignificant little thing, you. Lucky...and so terribly alone.

"The Gods forgot that they made me," I murmured softly, the lyrics drifting uninvited from the weary depths of my subconscious mind in a seemingly accurate description of my situation. "So I forgot them, too..."

I didn't really know whether I wanted to laugh or cry at that point, so in the spirit of optimism, I selected the former and an exhausted, half mad chuckle rolled from my lips. I was scrambled, I admit it. Seriously though, who can blame me for a bit of loose sanity after the things I had seen and done that day?

"Ahem," said a voice.

I choked on my own cackle and fell silent immediately.

"Do all humans make a habit of acting like pure lunatics?"

I raised my head slowly and looked around. I was in a Labyrinthian intersection. Four passages, including the steps of doom behind me down which I had just been flung, carved through the tall hedges and converged there to form a perfect cross. At the intersection's center, just a few feet from me, was a babbling fountain sculpted in the shape of some creature similar to the Greek god Pan—a sort of faun or satyr—holding a large pitcher in his hairy arms from which he poured crystalline water that fell to splash and sing in the pool at his cloven, goat-like feet. It was from Pan that the voice had emanated.

Without moving from where I lay, I stared up into his stony face in confusion. His eyes remained fixed, still, but I had learned by now that little was what it seemed in this place.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Excuse you, indeed. It's difficult enough for a being to catch some quiet around here without being bombarded by the intrusive ramblings of a mad woman..."

The voice came, I realized, not from Pan, but from the dark interior of the pitcher he held. Even as I watched, something began to move within its shadowy depths. Six clawed toes of two reptilian feet curled themselves gracefully around the lip of the pitcher's spout, followed by a horned, scaly head attached to a long serpentine neck. I stared, dumbfounded. It was a dragon. A small one perhaps, but a dragon nonetheless. The creature peered down at me as cool water ran gently over its taloned feet. "Didn't your mother teach you not to stare?" it said. "It's very rude, you know."

I realized that I was gaping, and corrected myself hurriedly. "I apologize. It's just, I've never seen a real dragon before..."

The little beast snorted derisively. "Hardly a surprise that one..." He then (I was certain it was a he...his voice, surprisingly deep for a small thing, carried aristocratically masculine tones) crawled forth from his watery den to climb up on Pan's elbow, spreading his wings and shaking water droplets from his scales. He was about the size of your average house cat, gracefully proportioned and magnificent. His scales were black and iridescent, like oil spill on dark water, and he shimmered beautifully as he moved, casting reflected rainbows across the stony face of Pan. His eyes, bright and burning gold, shone brilliantly from that small yet noble face, scrutinizing me skeptically. "Mind you, I've never seen a real human before and yet you don't see me forgetting my manners, do you?" he continued.

I raised an eyebrow. Love dragons as I did, this one seemed to have a bit of an attitude... "That depends on your perception of manners," I said. "Let's be honest, we've only just met and already you've accused me both of madness and rudeness. That's hardly polite footing for an introduction."

The dragon flared his nostrils, folded his wings and sat, catlike on his haunches, wrapping his long spiky tail around his feet. "Well, forgive me for assuming the worst of you, madam...but you are lying flat on your back in the middle of a Labyrinth. Only moments ago, you were staring up at an empty sky, singing to yourself and laughing at nothing. In my experience that is hardly the trademark behavior of a sane person."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "True enough..." I sat up and shifted gingerly to my knees. "May I know your name?"

"Bartimeo the Second. At your service." He inclined his head gracefully, in a courteous imitation of a bow.

I had to stop myself gasping aloud. Could he really be? "Bartimeo? Bartimeo the Wishing Dragon?!" My heart leapt in elation as that old story flooded my mind. Bartimeo the Wishing Dragon...anyone to seek him out and present him with a suitable gift would be granted a single wish. And didn't I already know exactly what I would wish for? Could this be the answer to all my prayers? Oh, if only...

"No, fool girl," the dragon said, rolling his golden eyes in irritation. "You are thinking of my grandfather. I don't grant wishes."

"Ah..." My heart sank. It was a disappointment. I shouldn't have allowed the possibility to lift my spirits so in the first place, but it was a disappointment nonetheless. "Well... Even if you don't grant wishes, perhaps you could show me the way to the castle? Beyond the Goblin City?"

"Oh, having difficulty are you, Champion?" the dragon asked, smugly.

"Need you ask so obvious a question?"

"A simple inquiry. You know, it surprises me that you've made it this far, given your prickly disposition."

I frowned, beginning to grow properly agitated. "Well, perhaps you can excuse my prickly disposition... As you can see, I haven't been faring too well." I got to my feet, somewhat stiffly. "Now, if you're not going to help then you'll have to excuse me, I've got to resume my pointless journey..."

"Why do you call it pointless?"

"Because every second that ticks away diminishes my chances of winning this thing. And I don't have that many seconds left." I rubbed grumpily at my bruised elbow.

The dragon examined a claw in casual nonchalance. "You haven't lost yet."

"No, but at this point it seems inevitable."

"Did it ever occur to you to ask for help?"

I gaped, thoroughly confused now. "I just did, didn't I? And then you accused me of being prickly."

"You asked me if I would show you the way to the castle. What if that is not the kind of help that I am prepared to offer?"

I scowled at the smug little beast. Normally I rather enjoyed a bit of banter, but in that moment I really wasn't in the mood for mind games. "If you can't help just say so."

His eyes sparked impishly. "And what if I can?"

"Can you?" I asked impatiently.

"Why don't you ask politely and find out?"

Oho, now didn't this sound familiar? Rather like a certain manners obsessed king some hours ago, no? Careful to keep my sudden fury at those memories in check, I sighed deeply and asked, "Please, Mr. Dragon, will you help me get to the center of the Labyrinth? By whatever means you see fit?"

Bartimeo the Non-Wishing Dragon smiled, exposing long rows of small but disastrously sharp looking white fangs. "Come, Champion. While I will not show you the way to the castle...I can show you a shortcut. Through the Library."

I felt my eyebrows raise in involuntary interest. "Library?"

"That's right," the dragon said. "It won't see you immediately to your destination, but it will save you half an hour. Maybe more."

"Thank you," I said, not even bothering to disguise my relief. "Anything to save time. Thank you."

—x—

You are going to develop worry lines if you keep scowling like this, Jareth... Unfortunately for his vanity, however, it just couldn't be helped. His frown stubbornly persisted as he ran his palm over the patch of demon light once more, trying to ascertain just how much strength was behind it...how much Dark Magic was able to bleed through. The Rift was not a large one, thank Heaven for that, little more than a feeding tube waiting to snare unsuspecting passers by and deliver them to the monsters beyond. Its presence, though...its presence was a terror to endure. Jareth could feel the dark effects of its fell gravity snatching and grabbing at his fingers, pulling at his consciousness, enticing him to lean closer. It was this same gravity that had swept his young opponent out of his world and into that cursed one on the other side not long before. He marveled that she had even survived the ordeal...though he did half wonder if he shouldn't have just left her down there and freed himself of a headache. But no...even he wasn't monster enough for such cruelty. Or perhaps you are just going soft in your old age, eh, fool boy? Jareth pulled his hands away from the wall in disgust. As if he didn't have enough to trouble him today... If all this wretched sentiment didn't kill him, it would be a miracle.

He paced backwards until he was almost leaning against the tunnel wall opposite the Rift and conjured a crystal to hand. Pressing the crystal to his lips, he closed his eyes and whispered ancient words. The Right Words. He then hurled the crystal at the wall, striking the Rift dead center. The tunnel exploded in silver light that sparked and snapped like colliding stars. Smoke and the smell of gunpowder filled the air and then all was still again. The deed was done. Jareth couldn't be sure...but he thought he could hear a faint and dwindling howl dying away in some far off place.

He released the breath he had been holding, surveyed once more his work, and, satisfied with his efficiency, turned and walked away in the dark, keeping his awareness sharp for any other unwanted breaches of his domain.

This whole issue of the Rift worried him. Jareth had been noticing a number of strange occurrences lately...perhaps one might even call them omens. Water running uphill...chickens strutting in tight, counter-clockwise circles...nannies from the goblins' prized goat herd sloughing their young and giving sour milk. And as if that wasn't strange enough, the king had been hearing rumors. While the Labyrinth was by far the most isolated of the Thirteen Realms, some news did manage to get through from time to time. Dark whisperings had reached his ears of goings on in the kingdoms adjacent to his. A bloody rain over the Castle of Perseverance... The two headed silver kelpie born in Tintagel... There had even been reports of a dead unicorn in the Amalthean Forest. And now the Rift. The Rift, the Rift... It was but another indicator of some great trouble brewing dark and sinister just under the surface of reality. Jareth knew he was duty bound to alert neighboring rulers of the incident, and loathe as he was to do so, he fully intended to. But not now. Not yet. Surely it could wait a few hours more... There was another challenge demanding his attention just then, and it was costing more of him than he would have liked to admit.

Jareth stifled a yawn and summoned the magic that would deliver him from that place. He did not particularly care where he ended up, just so long as he was transported away from the darkness...away from the cold. It would not do, however, to return immediately to his throne room. Silence was what he wanted just then. Silence and a little time to think.

He found his magic taking him to a favorite haunt of his, high up on the battlements of his castle. The view from up here was purely spectacular. One could see for miles and miles in every direction, almost to the very boundaries of the Labyrinth. Jareth's eyes traced the imposing twists and turns, stealing comfort from the ancient familiarity of his domain. How many times had he come here in the past? How many great problems had he pondered whilst allowing the cool breeze to tug at his hair and caress his face? Jareth could not have counted them. Problems of his past. Problems of his future. So many problems... Even now he found his gaze settling on the green of the hedges in which he had left his primary problem. With any luck, Clutch had found her, returned her sword, and would be proceeding to lead her down some confusing snipe hunt of a course.

Jareth leaned against a parapet wall and breathed a long sigh, trying to will his body to relax. He wanted to further analyze his actions of earlier, and perhaps to explain his own behavior to himself...but, while he sensed deeper motives behind it than mere sport, he found that he didn't have the courage to probe into that particular snake pit. Rather, he allowed himself to experience again the whole encounter, start to finish: the shock he'd known when he looked into his crystal and found that he could not see her, the spark of dread when he'd realized where she'd gone, the thrill upon finding her relatively unharmed, the surprise and even relief on her face when she'd recognized him. He marveled at how she'd run to him, straight to him without question or hesitation. He felt again the impact of her small frame crashing against his own, the unassuming strength in her shoulders as he'd caught her. And she had held on to him...how tightly she had held on to him, clinging to him like a trembling leaf clings to a tree. When was the last time a woman had done that? He literally could not remember. And she hadn't immediately distanced herself from him once they had reached the surface either, had she? No. She had stayed in the closeness with him for several heartbeats, just breathing, just existing. As if for a moment she had felt safe there...with him. Safe because of him. What a strange idea...

The girl's unremarkable face danced in the empty air before his eyes. How pale she had been. Ashen. Shaken and confused, though the stubborn set of her mouth had been quick to return after a bit of exposure to sunlight. He smiled to himself, thinking of how the fire in her eyes had flashed a bit too brightly during their altercations after, as if in attempt to hide her shock, fear, and embarrassment behind their burn... Bold Lara. Proud Lara.

Had he been there but a few seconds sooner, she needn't have suffered any of it...not the fall, not the broken wrist, none of it. He could have caught her. He could have pulled her away from the danger and sealed the Rift right then and there. As it was he had only arrived in time to find her sword abandoned on the Oubliette floor, discarded by the Darkness itself. What a strange time Fate had chosen to send her to him. A time of such uncertainty, when so much was on the verge of beginning...or ending.

After a few moments of dark contemplation, Jareth used magic to transport himself to his throne room. The children were there now, their goblin nursemaid watching over them affectionately while knitting some ghastly looking article of bright yellow clothing. The boy was seated on a pile of blankets in the middle of the depression in the floor, humming to himself and stroking the inky black feathers of a chicken comfortably nestled in his lap. Young Calpurnia noticed the king's presence before anyone else and looked up momentarily from the parchments and charcoal pencils with which she was drawing childish images of unicorns.

"Hi, Goblin King," the girl said. She smiled sweetly at him, a gesture Jareth found himself returning far too easily.

"Hello, Little Callie."

She returned contentedly to her drawing.

The king watched her a moment, envying her blissful simplicity, before sinking into his throne and conjuring a crystal to hand so he might look upon his opponent's progress again.

Oh yes, there she was. No sword. No Clutch yet either for that matter, idiot. Sending him had been a mistake. His incompetence was staggering, but truth be told, Jareth had very few reliable options at his disposal ever since that blasted Hogbrain had betrayed him all those years ago... But never mind. He realized to some annoyance that the girl had acquired something far more useful than goblin or sword or even dwarf for that matter... She travelled with Bartimeo. Ah, little Bartimeo. The Labyrinth's best kept secret. If Lara could manage to ally that curmudgeonly dragon to her cause, she could find no better companion Aboveground or Under it. He was easily one of the most capable beings in the world entire. With his help, victory would be that much closer to her claim, three hour penalty or no. The cheating little she-wolf. Why did she have to keep bending the rules like this? Why was she so bloody infuriating? It had been bad enough when Sar-...when the previous competition had forged an alliance with not one, not two, but three of Jareth's subjects and cheated her way through by that method. And now, here was Lara doing the exact same thing, going so far as to briefly recruit himself to her aid, for God's sake! And all whilst behaving like an unpleasant little piranha-fish at every turn. This should have made him furious. He should have been screaming his rage and unleashing his goblin hoard to finish her once and for all...but he did not. Despite it all, he had to smile...for little by little he realized that he was beginning to like this unpleasant little piranha-fish.

"Watcha watchin'?" Little Callie, having abandoned her artworks, clambered up onto the curving arm of his throne and squinted into the orb in the king's hand. "Is that Aunt Lara?"

"Yes, it is," Jareth said, holding the orb closer for the girl to see.

"Oh, good," she said casually, clear blue eyes never leaving the crystal. "Look, Alec, she found the Wishing Dragon!"

Alec left his chicken and hurried over to the throne, reaching his little arms out for Jareth to pick him up. Jareth felt that wretched warmth in his chest again as he lifted the wee lad onto his lap, the same warmth of contentment he'd felt all those years ago, back when he'd had firm reason to believe that Little Jarethkin would be staying with him forever...

"Tan I wook at it?" Little Alec asked, reaching out his chubby hands for the crystal.

"Certainly, my boy," Jareth said, allowing the child to take the sphere from his palm.

There was comfortable silence while the three of them watched Lara and the dragon in the crystal's depths, but only for a moment. Jareth soon became aware that Calpurnia was scrutinizing him closely, an expression of contemplative puzzlement upon her youthful features.

He raised an eyebrow in question. "Something on your mind?"

"You're not scary like the book says..." the girl said.

Jareth smirked. "Oh no?"

"No. You're nice."

A bitter chuckle escaped him at that. "Nice? Me? Well, not many people would agree with you, I'm afraid."

"Why not? Are they all a bunch of dummies, or something?"

This time he laughed fully. What a delight this child was... "No, no..." he said. "They're not all dummies. In fact, your Aunt Lara's certainly no dummy and she doesn't like me at all, remember?"

Callie shrugged. "That's just cuz she didn't like it when you took us away. Maybe she'll like you better after she gets us back."

"Oh? And what makes you so sure she'll get you back?"

She raised an eyebrow, unamused and reminding him greatly of her aunt. "Cuz', silly! Aunt Lara's the bravest. She's not scared of anything!"

Wasn't she? Jareth had to disagree... Regardless, the girl's unflappable faith in her aunt was admirable.

"But wouldn't you like to live here?" the king asked. "Little Alec could be the Goblin Prince, and you could be the Goblin Princess." In his mind's eye, the image was a pleasant one. Jareth could one day teach Little Alec how to ride a warhorse and how to duel with rapiers. He could show Little Callie how to balance a crystal ball on her fingertips and teach her how to sing with him. He dared picture a future in which the children, his children, might respect and admire him as much as he had his own father. Perhaps they might even grow to love him...

The little girl laughed at that. "I can't stay here! I have to feed my cat, Smokey...and I have to go to Kindergarten in Fall. But, you can come to my house! You can come to my house for 4th of July and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas! Christmas is always the best. Grampa and Grama will be there, and Uncle Will, and you can sit by Aunt Lara at suppertime and she will like you then."

For a moment, a surprised Jareth allowed himself to entertain yet another fantasy...this one a stark alternative to the first, but no less pleasant. He imagined himself seated at a simple yet festive table, preparing to celebrate one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar. The faces of the combined Tyler and Evans family members, though unknown to him, might look upon him without wariness or distaste. The children would be there to chatter at him and make him smile. Lara might for once be at ease in his presence, free of skepticism or disdain. He wondered how it would be to taste a normal life...a human life...what an idea. Ha. All this silly daydreaming, Jareth...it is beginning to run away with you. He banished the images and gave a tired smile. "Is that what you think?"

"Yup."

"Well, how sweet you are to invite me, Little Callie..." Now to try something... He almost felt guilty for what he was about to do, but he could not allow all this foolish fancy and wishful thinking to cloud his judgement, to make him forget himself. He had a role to play in this game, after all, and to do so successfully he would have to at least try to keep the upper hand. And what better way to keep the upper hand than by learning all he could about his opponent? "I wonder...what else can you tell me about your Aunt Lara? What else does she like?"

Calpurnia answered without hesitation. "She likes swords."

"Yes, yes, I knew that already. Is there anything else?"

"Dragons."

He stifled a sigh. "Anything else?" Perhaps there was less to his opponent than he had previously imagined... How disappointing.

"Umm..." The girl tapped her chin thoughtfully, her eyes sparking brightly when an idea came to her. "She likes to ride horses. My great grandad has two and Aunt Lara likes riding them when she visits."

Not surprising, that. Young Lara seems determined to embody all the attributes of an Arthurian knight, the barbaric little madwoman. But at least now we're getting somewhere....

"Please...tell me more."