He led her away from a castle down a narrow gravel path, past carefully pruned thorn bushes that she guessed were probably more roses, through an archway covered in twisted gray ropes of leafless ivy.
"I'm afraid the gardens are not much to look at this close to winter," he said.
"Couldn't you use magic," Sarah asked, trying to match his casual tone. "You know, to keep them alive or change the temperature, or something?"
"I'm not made of magic, Sarah," he said, and he sounded so annoyed it almost made her laugh.
"Still," he continued, and he raised his free hand, cupping it around the crystal that grew within his palm. Sarah eyed it nervously. "I suppose I can do something to improve matters."
He tossed the crystal into the air, and it dissolved into hundreds–no, thousands–of thin, silvery blue-green lights that shone like mercury and swam through the air like tiny fish. They settled on the naked, lifeless plants all around them, clinging to shriveled leaves and dry stalks. Sarah watched, entranced, as the tiny lights swelled and reshaped themselves until they took on the shapes of leaves and flowers that glimmered in the growing dusky-darkness like fireflies.
The thorny bushes they had passed were roses–she could see them now, some varieties small with tightly packed, curling petals, others large with generous, wide-open blossoms. The archway they had just gone through–was that jasmine? She'd never seen it grow so big before, but the shape of the hundreds of tiny flowers, each one a perfect, glowing seven-pointed star, was unmistakable. For a moment she thought she could smell it.
"Better?" he asked, looking down at her.
"It's lovely," she said, honestly; but she avoided his eyes.
They walked for some time without speaking, turning from the narrow gravel pathway onto a wider one paved with flagstones. Sarah saw very few plants that she recognized–she didn't know very many to begin with, and she couldn't use color to help her narrow things down. Everything glowed with the same silvery blue-green light.
"So," she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. She placed a hand on her throat; the bumps of sliver knotwork felt like warm, smooth scales beneath her fingers. "This isn't a normal necklace." She kept her eyes on the path in front of them; eye contact felt too risky.
"No," he agreed after a moment, seeming a bit taken aback. "It isn't."
"Does it come off?" she asked, her voice a bit brittle despite her best efforts.
"It will," he said. "When the last of my guests have left the castle I will remove it."
"Good."
They walked for a moment in silence.
"It is for your protection," he explained, a bit defensively.
"I thought you said that no one would dare harm one of your guests."
"Yes," he said dryly. "That's true. But there are a great deal of unpleasant things that could be done to you without–arguably–harming you." He looked down at her pointedly. "As long as it is around your neck, no one in the Underground would dare lay a hand on you."
"Good," she said.
The word came out more forcefully than she intended, and he gave her a questioning look
"I ran into your favorite cousin," she explained dryly. "Outside the dancing hall."
His grip on her arm tightened painfully, and she winced, her pulse quickening.
"Who?" he asked, his voice tight.
She thought quickly, weighing how much she should reveal. "Thin, dark hair, smug. The guy who did all the laughing."
"Ibic," he said immediately, and his voice was wrathful. "What did he do?"
"Nothing much," she said lightly, trying to hide her alarm at how agitated he was becoming. "He just said a bunch of nasty shit, smirked, and walked off."
When she looked up, the Goblin King's face was rigid with anger. She thought quickly, biting her lip as she considered how best to calm him. Keeping her voice light, almost teasing, she went on. "I mean, I thought you were insufferably smug, condescending, and self-absorbed, but that guy was next level. I'm surprised they didn't make him king."
"Hm." He didn't reply, but the deep lines in his forehead smoothed out a little.
They walked a little further in silence. Sarah bit her lip, hoping she had managed to soothe him. Gravel crunched under her feet as they entered another, wilder-looking part of the gardens. The pathway was narrower, the trees were more densely packed, and there were fewer flowering bushes. It didn't look neglected exactly, but it certainly was not as carefully pruned and maintained as the parts of the garden that were closer to the castle.
When he finally spoke she jumped, startled. "You should not have left the dancing hall without me," he said, his voice low and accusing.
She bristled. Where did he get off being angry at her?
"You shouldn't have invited me here without being upfront with me about what I was getting into," she returned hotly. "What did you do to me in there?"
"I hardly did anything," he said coldly. "It was a simple charm to enable to you to follow the steps of the dance–"
"You took control of my body," she said, and she felt all over again the horror of that moment, when she realized that something alien had taken hold of her, that she could not control her legs. "Without warning me or saying anything–and after that trick you pulled on me last time with the peach?" Her voice was shaking.
"There wasn't time," he said.
"You could have made time," she said.
His arm was rigid underneath her hand. "I hardly see–"
"Then look harder!" she cried. "You invited me here, you weren't honest with me, you used magic on me–twice–without my permission, you dressed me up like a doll and trotted me out in front of all those people and let them stare at me–" Her voice caught, and she stopped, blinking back the tears that were suddenly brimming in her eyes.
"As usual, it would seem the greater share of fault is mine," he said, but his voice was coldly sarcastic. Sarah was silent for a while, her breath shuddering in her chest, trying to regain control of herself. She had to be more careful; she couldn't just go off on him like that, not when he was so obviously ready to blow himself.
She closed her eyes, letting him guide her along the path. The cool, silvery light of the illusory plantlife he had conjured shone through her eyelids. It was soothing. For a long time, the only sound was the crunch of gravel. Finally, when she felt more in control of herself, when she felt his grip on her arm gradually relax, she spoke.
"Why did they all look at me like that?" she asked him softly, remember the paralzying sense of unease, the unbearable pressure–the dark-haired woman's horror struck expression
She felt him tense again. After a moment, he answered. "It has been a very, very long time since any of them saw…someone like you. It was only natural that they were surprised."
She opened her eyes and looked at him. She did not buy that. He did not meet her eyes, but continued looking carefully straight ahead, she guessed he didn't really think that either–or at least, that it wasn't the whole truth.
"Surprised?" she said, and she tried to keep the accusation out of her voice. "They looked a lot more than "surprised" to me."
His mouth tightened into a thin line. Finally, he said, almost grudgingly, "Most of those present tonight know of you–know who you are."
"Who I am?" she echoed, surprised.
"Or, rather, what you did," he said wryly.
"The Labyrinth?"
"Yes," he said. "Many have run it over the years, but very few have survived–even fewer of them were mortal." He paused, seeming to take time to choose his words carefully. "Certainly no mortals have ever returned to the Underground after running."
Survived? Sarah was stunned. She had been frightened often during her run, and a few times she had very nearly been injured–but had she ever really been in danger of dying? She shuddered, thinking of those tall, thick stone walls, all the sharp corners long ago eroded away, the stone statues with worn blurry faces, the cracked fountain. It had seemed ancient to her, far older than anything she'd ever seen. How many centuries had it stood? Millenia? And in all that time, so few mortals had survived?
"So–is my picture in a history book somewhere, or something like that?" she asked faintly.
"No," he said. "It is only that some of them–the older, the more powerful–can see it in you."
"How?" she asked.
He paused, his brow furrowed in concentration, before finally answering. "It would be impossible to explain."
Sarah fell silent, trying to digest this information. This idea that she was some kind of elite champion was difficult for her to reconcile not just with her memories of the Labyrinth, but also with how she saw herself–especially considering the way her life had been going lately.
They passed through another archway, this one much smaller and less grand than the first one that had been covered in jasmine. The wooden frame looked frail and rotted, and the branches clinging to it looked like brambles. There were no blossoms on it, only broad, coarse leaves with jagged edges, and as they walked under it Sarah could not see any more flowers or ornamental grasses. Only old, sagging trees. The silvery lights around them were fading now, no longer taking the shape of the plants they settled on. They hung from the skeletal branches in shapeless droplets, and their silvery glow had faded to a lurid, eerie green.
The spell was ending.
She shook her head, putting her confusion about the Labyrinth aside. He still hadn't answered that question to her satisfaction. "But Jareth, they weren't looking at me like I was some kind of celebrity. They were…I mean, some of them looked angry. One woman looked scared. Why would they react that way?"
"I couldn't say," he said tightly. "Perhaps we should go back and you can ask them."
She glared at him. He might not be lying, but there was something–probably several somethings–he was keeping from her, and she was sure they were important.
"Well, your cousin certainly had a few nasty ideas about what I'm doing here," she snapped. "I wonder if that had anything to do with it."
He stiffened against her. "It sounds like the two of you had a nice long chat together," he said, his voice hard.
"We did," she said, her voice brittle. "He gave me a lot to think about."
"Really?" She could hear his anger, cold and hard beneath the casual disdain.
"Yeah. For example: how many other women have you done this to?"
He stopped walking, forcing her to stop as well, and turned sharply to face her. His face was rigid, every feature controlled. She stared back at him, her chin tilted in a challenge, because this, really, was the most important question. How many women–and girls–had stood where she was standing right now? What false promises or reckless wishes had he used to ensnare them? What had he wanted from them?
And the last, the most important question. The question she wasn't sure she would dare to ask. What had happened to them?
Before he spoke, he took one long, slow breath, as though trying to control himself. "I should caution you," he said, "Against putting too much faith in Ibic, or in anyone else you may meet here. Remember that I am the only one in this realm who has bound himself by oath not to deceive you." He stared at her, his mouth grim, before continuing. "Ibic is particularly untrustworthy. Whatever he told you, he said it for the sake of his own amusement. Nothing more."
She glared back at him. "You didn't answer my question."
His face looked like it was carved out of ice.
"Well?" she persisted, crossing her arms in front of her. "How many?"
Suddenly his face seemed to clear, as though he finally understood something, and his glower melted into a knowing smirk. "Sarah," he said, his voice playful and chiding. He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear in a long, lingering motion, and she was so startled at his sudden change in mood that she let him. He leaned in closer and almost purred, "Have I not just finished telling you how unique you are?"
He lifted a hand to touch her cheek, and this time she did flinch. "I–what?" She took a step back, pulling on her arm and trying to put some distance between them. The growing warmth in his eyes was far more alarming to her than his cold anger had been.
His brow furrowed in displeasure when she pulled away, but it faded quickly. "If my words are not enough to reassure you," he said, his eyes fixed on hers with an intensity that had not been there before. "Let me show you how highly you rank in my affections."
"That's not–I didn't–" She stuttered, her brain short-circuiting as, too late, she registered the slight flush to his cheeks, the heat in his eyes. He wasn't angry anymore–or at least, he was not just angry. Did he think that she was jealous?
She tried to back up another step, but he took her arm in a tight grip, making her wince, and yanked her towards him.
"Stop that–let go!"
He pulled back his hand as if from a hot stove, but the little relief she felt at that evaporated at his rapidly darkening expression.
"Sarah," he warned. "Do not toy with me."
She took another step back, horrified by the tears that were welling up in her eyes. It wasn't her fear that upset her. She was used to being afraid of him.
What dismayed her was how hurt she was by the anger in his voice.
She knew she couldn't let him see it. She tried to keep her face composed; she willed her body to stop shaking, her expression to harden, her gaze to remain level. "Stop it," she snapped. "I'm not afraid of you, Jareth."
"Aren't you?" he said, smiling cooly. He took a step towards her, a challenge in his eyes like he was daring her to back away again. "Maybe you should be."
She bristled at that, lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes. She stood her ground. He could be as scary as he liked; she hadn't forgotten the bargain.
"Drop the act, Goblin King," she said. "We both know you can't hurt me."
To her surprise, he chuckled. "Oh Sarah," he said. His lips curved into a bitter, predatory smile. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. I may not be able to strike you…" He leaned in and slid an arm around her waist, yanking her close to him, his face inches away from hers. His voice was low and harsh in her ear. "But there are so many other ways I could hurt you."
She flinched from his words as if from a blow and twisted out of his grip. "Don't touch me again!" she snapped. She wrapped her arms around her chest to hide her cold, shaking hands.
"What's wrong Sarah?" he asked, tilting his head in mock concern. He took a step towards her and she faltered, taking a step back.
"We agreed," she said, hating how thin and shrill the words sounded, feeling any control she thought she'd had over the situation slipping through her fingers. She struggled to remember the exact terms of the bargain, but her brain would not let her focus on anything other than the easy menace in his eyes. "You said you wouldn't be an asshole."
"I am not 'yelling,'" he said, slowly walking towards her and smirking coldly as she backed away. "I am not 'stomping around'. I have not laid a finger on you without your precious approval." He took another slow, deliberate step. "I have not struck you, sorely tempted though I have been."
"I…" she stumbled—she had backed into a tree. There was nowhere left to go. "Threatening me definitely counts as being an asshole!"
"Then you should have said so." He was on her–he raised his arms and she barely managed to keep from screaming, but he only slammed his hands onto the tree trunk on either side of her, caging her in. He bent his face to hers, draping his body over hers, as close to her as he could possibly get without touching her. She gritted her teeth, trying desperately to hang on to the last shreds of her self control.
"I'm saying it now!"
"Too late." He smirked down at her, so close to her that her eyes had a hard time focusing on his face. He moved his lips to hers; she turned away. She was shivering, her body humming with adrenaline, every hair standing on end. "Let me kiss you," he breathed against her cheek.
Her face burned. "No!"
"Sarah," he hissed, his face reddening. His breath was quick and shallow. "Be ruled by me. Let me be generous, I am tired of being cruel." He raised one of his hands and began to move it slowly down the length of her body. Trailing his fingers as close to her skin as possible without touching her, he traced his hand over her neck, then past her collarbone, over the tops of her breasts. She could feel the burning heat of him on the bare skin that the gown did not cover and swallowed thickly, squeezing her eyes shut. He went on, tracing the air above her chest, stomach, stopping just below her navel and hovering there, cupping the air. Heat pooled in her belly, as if he was pouring it into her through his hand.
"No," she finally forced out.
His eyes narrowed and he somehow leaned in even closer, his lips almost touching her skin. "I can see the turmoil in your mind," he whispered softly, silkily. "Let me take it away." His hot breath against her ear made her tremble. He leaned back, raising a hand to her forehead and softly circled the empty air in front of her forehead, so close that she could feel his gloved finger brushing the tiny hairs of her skin. "The gentlest touch, and your conflict, your fear, it would all vanish. I could do that for you."
He looked directly into her eyes. The irises of his eyes were shimmering like hot metal. "There is so much I could do for you," he said, his voice rough, "If you would only allow it."
Sarah blinked back her tears, feeling something inside of her hardened as the nature of what he was offering gradually became clear to her fear–clouded mind. His face hovered over hers, anticipation hot in his eyes as he awaited her response to his generous offer to violate her mind as well as her body. Her skin crawled as if she really had allowed him to touch her. In a way, she realized then, she had. Earlier that night, hadn't she believed– hadn't she allowed herself to believe–that, despite his flaws, he was different from Ibic? That he genuinely cared about her? Try as she might, as she looked up at the condescending tilt of his mouth, the eager gleam in his eyes, she could no longer remember why. The man in front of her now was every bit as much a monster as his cousin.
With one important exception: he was on a leash.
"Jareth," she said. Her throat was still tight, and her voice was rough, but her eyes were dry.
At the sound of his name on her lips, one corner of his mouth curved up ever so slightly in a fond, contemptuous smile. She was sure he didn't realize he'd allowed it to slip through.
It hardened her resolve. She let her lips curve upwards, slowly, in a smile to match his, and leaned forward, craning her head up to whisper in his ear. "I want you in my head even less than I want you in my pants."
He pulled back sharply, as though startled Frowning, he studied her face with narrowed eyes.
She lifted her chin, leaning further forward so that he was forced to move back to avoid touching her. Her smile widened into a grin, The troubled confusion in his eyes as he processed her words, his retreat–they filled her with a savage sense of triumph. She took a step forward, then another.
He hurriedly backed up a few paces as she advanced; as the meaning of her words sank in, his hands curled into fists. His cheeks grew so livid that, in the ghostly-green light, his face looked almost purple. His chest heaved and his expression twisted until his face was a mass of shadows, and Sarah felt her smile falter.
For what felt like hours, he only stood there in front of her, his whole body rigid and and perfectly still; only his fists trembled slightly. The light, effervescent thrill that had been swelling in her chest began to condense into something heavier, twisting in on itself and sinking to churn in the pit of her stomach.
The air around them seemed to be thickening, charging, and it became difficult for Sarah to breathe. Every instinct she had was shrieking at her to back away, to run, but the prospect of moving, of doing anything, was terrifying. Numbly, her lips now tightly pressed together, she held her ground.
Finally it seemed the Goblin King could take it no more. He raised his face to the sky, and the sound he made then, a snarling, vicious roar, seemed to reverberate through her whole body. It shattered what remained of her bravado in a single instant. She staggered backwards until her back hit the tree trunk and she sank on wobbly legs to the ground as she stared at him, her terrified eyes following his every move.
He turned back to her, she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the small, helpless cry that escaped her at the sight of him. His face was inhuman, contorted almost beyond recognition with rage. The pale iris of one eye glowed in a white-hot ring, so bright it seared orange after-images onto her retinas; the other was a black pit, darker than than the depths of that huge, ancient forest she'd seen on the hilltop on a very different night, so dark that it seemed to swallow the light around it. She couldn't look away. She couldn't think. All she could do was stare back at him, eyes wide, one hand pressed tightly over her mouth to keep herself from taking it back, from pleading, from promising to do whatever he wanted if only he would just stop.
His chest heaving, he lifted his face once more to the sky, raising his hands, and Sarah heard him make that horrible, feral sound again, that savage roar of anger, only this time it was impossibly loud and seemed to be coming everywhere at once. As if in answer, a deafening bang came from the sky, and almost in the same instant a blinding flash of light made her cry out in pain as she screwed her eyes shut against it. A powerful wave of heat and force rolled over her, stealing the air from her lungs and throwing her to the ground. At the same moment a terrible crash shook the ground, and as soon as she had the breath for it she screamed, sure that she was about to die.
For several minutes she lay like that, curled in on herself, panting, trying to get her breath back. When her pounding heart slowed enough for her to realize that she was still alive and in one piece, she rolled over, struggling with her gown as she got up on her hands and knees. Purple and spots still danced in front of her eyes, afterimages of the blinding flash, but the ringing in her ears was already fading, and she could hear loud popping and snapping nearby, and, coming from the same direction, a steady, rising heat.
As her eyes slowly cleared, she put together the pieces of the devastation around her. Chunks of smoldering wood lay scattered all around her. Before her, a fire burned steadily in what had been the heart of the old apple tree. Its trunk had split cleanly down the middle. One half lay ragged and burning on the ground, and the other, still connected to the roots, stood upright. The leaping flames that were consuming both halves reached higher than the garden walls. Rivelets of sap hissed and popped in the flames, dripping down on the long, dry grass below so that it, too, caught and burned in a wide circle around the remains of the tree.
He was still standing in the same place, his back to her, watching the old tree burn. His shoulders sagged and he was slightly hunched over, breathing heavily.
She struggled to get to her feet, with a vague plan to get away from him somehow while his back was turned, but her legs were still wobbly and weak. They got tangled up in the skirt of her gown, and she fell back down heavily on her hands and knees.
At the sound he turned, and she froze. Backlit by the fire, his form was in shadow and it was hard for her to read his expression.
He took a hesitant step towards her. She fell back, scrambling clumsily, her feet getting caught in her gown as she tried to push herself away from him as quickly as she could. Her back hit the tree trunk again, and she could go no further.
He stopped when she flinched away from him; his body went rigid, and he turned his head to the side. The light from the flaming tree behind him fell on his face then, and she could see that his lips were pressed tightly together and his eyes were still unusually bright, catching some of the light from the fire. There was something new in the tight, agonized lines of face that she couldn't interpret. His eyes on the ground, he opened his mouth as though he was about to say something.
Then he seemed to deflate. His shoulders slumped, and his face seemed to fall as he turned quickly away from her, back to face the fire. He lifted his hand and made a dismissive gesture behind his back in her direction. The chimes sounded in her ears, coolness enveloped her, and she faded away.