Sarah was a little worried about finding her way, but after walking for several minutes this did not seem to be a problem. There were no turns or rooms branching off the hallway. It curved gently inwards at an upward incline. Sarah guessed it was winding around the outside of one of the castle's tower, enclosing the enormous, high-ceilinged dancing hall.
This part of the castle was entirely different from the dark, tunnel-like passageway she'd traveled down to get to the dancing hall. The ceiling was almost as high as the one in the antechamber, and the hallway was wide enough for four or five people to walk abreast comfortably. Torches crackled softly, filling the air with warm yellow light and the comforting smell of woodsmoke. Clearly this part of the castle was intended for entertaining guests; was she likely to find anything useful here?
She was debating turning back to try the corridor on the left when she saw brighter lights ahead. Walking fast, she came upon a set of large wooden double doors banded with iron, similar in style and size to the doors of the dancing hall. Cautiously, she stuck her head inside–and gasped.
It was a library–the largest, most magnificent library Sarah had ever seen. It was at least as big as the dancing hall and packed floor to ceiling with what must be hundreds of thousands of books. It must go all the way up to the top of the tower she thought, marveling. Maybe further. She counted five levels, the uppermost four all with bookshelves lining the entire circumference of the wall and encircled. The bottom level where she was standing had large fireplaces carefully placed between the built-in bookshelves that lay flush against the curving walls, each burning merrily and surrounded by a set of carefully arranged furniture, elegantly carved chairs and benches piled high with cushions. Low tables were laid out with small crystal glasses and decanters full of amber liquid and sparkled in the low, flickering light.
Sarah grinned, running to the nearest set of shelves. On it there was a set of slim books all bound in dark green leather. It reminded her of a set of encyclopedias. She grabbed a volume at random. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. The title, inscribed in gold, was indecipherable, written in a strange script that was not any alphabet that Sarah recognized, all straight lines and sharp corners. She studied it doubtfully and turned back to the shelf to find something else.
"Are you a human?"
She whirled around, clutching the book guiltily—but it was only a couple of children, a boy and a girl who looked like mirror images of each other—large, widely spaced hazel eyes, wide mouths with thin, pale lips, small pointy chins and turned up noses. Their fine dark brown hair pulled back at the napes of their necks, the girls in two long braided pigtails, the boy's gathered in a short ponytail at the base of his neck. They looked maybe eight or nine years old and were dressed like miniature adults in white, blue and gold. The boy wore a tunic and hose, and the girl was in a kirtle and surcoat. She was looking at Sarah with open curiosity and excitement—the boy seemed somewhat more wary.
When Sarah didn't answer right away, the girl continued. "I thought you were a human, but Mother said you were a poor creature. Which are you?"
"Idiot, of course she's a human," the brother said.
"Haven't you ever seen a human before?" Sarah asked, trying to crane her neck to scan the corridor. Were their parents anywhere nearby?
"No," said the brother, like he had never heard anything more stupid. "No one gets to see humans anymore; except for him."
That was interesting. If she couldn't get any information out of the books, maybe she could learn a few things from these kids. She certainly didn't want to chat up any more of the adults.
"Well I," she said, trying to imitate the Goblin King's grandiosity, "am not just any human. I am the Champion of the Labyrinth."
The brother snorted. "A champion of the Labyrinth, you mean." He eyed her outfit scornfully. "And you don't look like much of a champion."
Sarah felt her face grow warm and took a deep breath. "What, this?" she said airily, gesturing to the gown and necklace. "This is all part of my plan."
"Really?" asked the girl skeptically. Sarah nodded solemnly. "Though dangers untold and hardships unnumbered," she recited trying to sound impressive, "I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin city." She shrugged. "This is nothing—I'm just lying low while I prepare for my final move."
"Against…the Goblin King?" the girl asked dubiously. Sarah nodded solemnly. The brother rolled his eyes, but the sister looked interested.
"Mother's scared of him," the girl confided. "She hates coming to this damned castle because he always dances with her and she doesn't like it, but Uncle says what does she expect him to do about it, and then—"
"Shut up!" the brother said. "You just stop talking. Don't tell her anything about us!"
"Why not?" the sister asked defiantly. "She's only a human, they can't do anything."
"It doesn't matter who she is," hissed the brother, and he pointed to the necklace. "Remember who she belongs to!"
Sarah put a hand on the necklace; suddenly she did not feel as comforted by its protective charm. She felt unpleasantly like a tree a dog had pissed on to warn the other dogs to stay away.
She did her best to conceal her discomfort. "You don't have to worry," she told the boy soothingly. "I wouldn't tell him anything about you."
The brother gave her a look of withering contempt. "As if it mattered what you did."
The girl was eyeing her book. "What's that?"
Sarah held it up. "I'm not sure; I can't read it."
"You can't read?"
"No," she said patiently. Was this what the Goblin King's cousin had been like as a child? "I just can't read the language." She turned the book around and showed the girl the strange, pointy script.
"Dummy!" The girl came towards her—her brother tried to grab her arm but she twisted free, ignoring him. "Nobody can read that anymore." She reached out and lightly stroked the page. Where her finger touched, the script seemed to ripple on the page and settle into letters that Sarah could recognize. She flipped through the book—the whole thing now appeared to be written in English.
"How did you do that?" she asked the girl, wonderstruck.
The girl preened. "Imagine not knowing how to read," she said smugly.
"You're going to get in so much trouble," warned the boy. "Mother said we weren't to touch anything of his!"
"Mother said!" the girl mimicked, simpering.
Sarah ignored their squabbling and flipped back to the title page of her book. An Accounting of the Expenses of the Court of King Leograd XII, 927-932. The pages were filled with blocks of densely written columns of words and numbers that made her head ache just looking at them. She sighed and put the book down on the table—she wasn't sure what she had been hoping for, but that was not it.
She looked up—the two children had scampered off. She went to the door to see where they had gone and saw flickering lights far down the corridor, slowly coming closer. The murmur of distant conversation echoed against the stone. Shit. The ball must be over.
Sarah looked up and down the corridor, considering her options, before slipping out of the library. She did not want to spend any more time being ogled and toyed with. She couldn't go back the way she came, but she found the other end of the corridor ended in a very narrow, very steep set of stairs. Sarah hurried down them, holding her gown up with one hand and pressing her other hand to the wall to keep her balance.
The staircase was dark and dusty, and Sarah found that she had to keep one hand in front of her to keep from running into thick cobwebs. She wondered uneasily whether any of the spiders underground were poisonous.
The air gradually grew colder as she descended, and after what felt like forever, she could see the gleam of silvery light. The staircase ended abruptly in a long, open-air walkway with walls that ended at around waist level. Sarah stepped onto it, shivering in her off-the-shoulder gown. There was no moon, but the stars were bright enough for her to see another tower, shorter than the one she came from, at the other end of the walkway. Bending over the wall, she could see carefully arranged clumps of small trees and shrubs, most of them leafless and naked in the chilly late autumn, and long, winding paths that wove between them. Gardens. A high wall surrounded the gardens, stretching all around the castle. Out past the wall she could see the Labyrinth, the twists and turns of its own walls just barely distinguishable in the starlight.
As soon as she laid eyes on it she felt a tugging sensation in her chest, the feeling so physically powerful she staggered forward slightly before finding her footing again. She remembered reading about "heartstrings" in old poetry, and now she knew she had them, because something was pulling on them so hard she was afraid they might break. It was similar to the feeling that she had felt the last time she saw the Labyrinth, shining with thousands of tiny lights from the high on the hilltop, but this feeling was a lot stronger. She leaned over the wall towards the Labyrinth, her heart aching, really aching, at the distance between them, and she wished she could close that distance in a single leap and hide herself within its walls.
Something scraped painfully against her knee, and, irritated, she turned her longing gaze away from the Labyrinth and looked down. She shrieked when she found that she was in the middle of hoisting one leg over the side of the wall, as if to climb down. Thrusting herself backwards, she stumbled on the sweeping hem of her dress and fell against the opposite wall, scraping her back against the rough stones.
Breathing hard, she clutched at her heart with both hands, as if to protect it, and tried to ignore her pounding heart and think. Something was going on, and she needed to figure it out. She remembered how she had longed for the Labyrinth the last two times she had seen it, but the feeling had been nowhere near as strong as this. Was it part of the spell the Goblin King had cast on her? Could it somehow be getting worse over time? Whatever was happening, it didn't seem to affect her unless she actually saw the Labyrinth. Sarah kept her eyes carefully trained on the stone walkway and considered turning around and running right back up the dark staircase and trying to slip back into the party in the library–but, after all, wasn't this why she was here? To find out more about how this world worked? About the magic he had used on her? If she backed off whenever things got too scary, she was never going to find out anything.
When she felt a bit calmer she stood and, carefully, took a quick glance towards the Labyrinth. There it was again–that bone-deep, heartsick yearning, the sense that all her problems would quickly become meaningless if only she could find her way back to the Labyrinth's heart. She looked down quickly, and the strength of the feeling faded, leaving only a dull hollowness in her chest. Cautiously, Sarah bent over the wall. She was still a good distance from the ground, maybe as high as twenty feet, but there were large wooden trellises lining the whole length of this wall that looked like they went all the way to the ground, supporting thick, woody vines.
She eyed them speculatively, wondering whether the slim latticework of boards would support her weight. Tugging on her dress, she gathered the wide, heavy skirt and managed to get it mostly out of her way by tucking the hem into the ridiculously low neckline.
She bent and twisted, trying to gauge her range of motion. The corset kept her back stiff and straight, but she could still bend at the hips; she managed to touch her toes without much effort. She wrestled with her voluminous sleeves until she was able to slip out of them and knot them behind her back where they would stay out of her way. Sarah rolled her shoulders back. It felt good to be able to move her arms again. She considered taking off her shoes as well, but they were so thin and fit so snugly that she decided she was better off with them on.
Carefully, keeping her eyes averted from the Labyrinth, she swung a leg over the side of the walkway and lowered it until she felt the trellis beneath her. Clinging tightly to the sides of the walkway, she bounced up and down, testing to see if the trellis would take her weight. It barely moved. Before she lost her nerve, she quickly swung her other leg over the wall and began climbing down. It wasn't like it was a huge risk she reasoned as she carefully avoided looking down. The Goblin King had as good as told her that nothing could really hurt her while she was here. The worst that could happen is that she might have a broken leg for a few hours.
When she'd finally reached the bottom, she was sweating profusely despite the cold night. One of her sleeves had gotten caught on the trellis and torn from her gown; it hung several feet above her head. The dress itself was ripped in several places, her hair had fallen halfway out of its elaborate style, and she was completely out of breath—but as she looked up at how far she had climbed in that ridiculous gown and flimsy slippers, she smiled, feeling very pleased with herself.
That was, until she heard someone clear their throat not five feet away and nearly jumped out of her skin.
When she whirled, she saw the Goblin King. Not a hair on his head was out of place; his black jacket and fitted trousers were still smooth and crisp.
"Making a run for it?" he asked.
She folded her arms across her chest and said nothing, trying to gauge his mood. His face was carefully blank except for one carefully raised eyebrow, but she thought there was the suggestion of a smile hovering about his lips.
"The King's gardens were an excellent choice," he continued smoothly. " There are plenty of places to hide." He offered her his arm. "May I show you?"
She extended a cautious hand. "All right."
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