Chapter Eight
"I'm just saying that he could have done it," Hoggle grumbled. "He shouldn't have put the enchantment on them to begin with, least he could have done was remove it. It shouldn't have been up to you to use one of your wishes."
Sarah chewed on her words. A part of her regretted telling Hoggle the whole truth of the matter, including that she had thirteen wishes. There were things she and Jareth had spoken about that were none of her friends business, but where he had been open with her she tried to be truthful back.
"I think that he couldn't," she said at last. "He said something about swearing on his heart's blood. I think it would have physically hurt him if he went against the vow."
"Good."
She gave him a gentle whack to the arm. "Hey, not nice. You said you'd try."
"I am trying. I'm coming with you on a bloody campaign instead of staying home and governing the city like a sensible dwarf." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Have I ever told you that I'm a coward? I don't want to go to war."
"Then don't," she said. "Ludo and Sir Didymus are coming as well. And there's Neira. Plus Ja—The Goblin King said that he's assigning me my own guard so that she can take breaks in guarding me." At these words she glanced at the guardswoman in question, who stood about fifteen feet away, keeping her head on a swivel and her hand on her weapon.
The courtyard was enormous, and filled with over a hundred people doing last-minute preparations for the long march to come. Sarah had studied the maps of where they were going and, with some help from Jareth, deduced it to be over a thousand miles that they had to traverse before they would be at the wellspring. Jareth expected it to take months, perhaps as long as a year or more.
"Couldn't I use one of my wishes to transport us there?" she had asked him the night before.
"I would not risk it," Jareth said. "I have never seen magic on a scale such as that, and I worry about the repercussions."
She knew what he had meant, and wondered just how sure he was that she would die at the end of this. There had been a book she had found during her perusal of Jareth's study and library which had talked about fae rules and governance over magic. She had taken the little palm-sized blue book and flipped through it, finding near the back a notation that all magic, no matter how large or small, had repercussions. A balance.
So far, however, there had been not a whisper of such a thing from the use of two of her wishes.
And that was a particular detail she had withheld from Hoggle. He could not know that this might end in her demise, or he would do anything in his power to keep her away from danger.
Now, they were less than an hour from departure. Anxiety twisted her guts and made what little breakfast she had put back sit heavy in her stomach.
"I want to go. I want to be with you, after all this time." Hoggle said softly after a long beat of silence. "Remember who your real friends are, Sarah."
She sighed. "I'm sorry. I just don't want to be in between you two the whole next—however long we have before this is over. If only you all would treat each other with a little more respect. And I'm not saying it's just you," she added hastily, holding up her hands. "But you have to admit that you're both a bit much."
"You're too invested in him already," Hoggle said with a suspicious look in his eyes. "But I might see what you mean. I'll try harder."
She sighed. "Thank you."
Neira approached. "Majesty, your howdah awaits."
Sarah furrowed her brows. "My what?"
"Your castle in the sky!" Hoggle cried with a grin. "You're fond of animals, aren't you?"
There was a bellow and Sarah jumped, looking to where the sound came from to find—"Those are... are those woolly mammoths?" Her voice was incredulous.
They were massive. Almost twice the size of an African elephant, with great shaggy coats that had been brushed to a gleaming mahogany streaked with copper. There were three of them, one which carried solely supplies, but the other two holding canopied seats upon their backs.
Sarah paled. "How am I supposed to get up there?" She was not confident about approaching, either, worried that one wrong move would see them shaking their heads, whipping those wickedly long tusks toward her before she could get out of the way.
"I'll help you there, precious," Jareth spoke from behind her, and she turned to find him standing not far off. He smiled at her glance, the motion a flash before he returned to his severe courtly mask. "Let me know when you're ready."
"Am I supposed to be telling that thing where to go?" she asked, pointing at the mammoths.
Jareth gave her a look that telegraphed incredulity. "I have no small amount of magic of my own. They will be docile. Yours is a female, by the way. Her name is Lily." He gestured.
It was the mammoth closest to them and the smallest of the three, though not by much. Sarah eyed her for a while, noticing how the creature long-extinct in the Above shifted from foot to foot, trunk swaying and occasionally picking at something on the ground with her trunk to examine.
Sarah took a breath. Best get it over with. "Okay. I'm ready."
She felt the brush of magic a moment later, tingles erupting from where her pendant lay on her chest. She blinked, and she was on the thickly cushioned seat atop Lily, who lifted her trunk in greeting and let out a lowing call.
"Um, hi," Sarah said, raising her hand in greeting before looking around.
There was a canopy above her head of richly patterned blue and green fabric, and on the poles between which there stretched curtains that could be drawn against the sun. She sat in the middle of a long high-backed bench seat, and there was another facing her closer to Lily's head, with a low table between that had a hinged lid. She lifted it and found a store of food and drink within.
"Well, that's nifty," she said, leaning back in her seat and surveying the world from above.
It truly felt like what Hoggle had said, a castle in the sky. It was like being on a rooftop, watching the last of the preparations. Lily was about a hundred yards from the front of the line, but it snaked out behind her for what looked like a mile, at least.
A moment later and Jareth was on the cushion before her. He gave her a devastating smile. "Ready?"
She shook her head. "This feels weird." She should have been looking at vacation rentals in New Zealand, Italy, or Brazil, not this. This was so far from where she thought she would be sitting after Karen's death. "Stupid to ask now, but there's no way to stop this war, is there? We're really going to be fighting the fae?"
"Their retainers, primarily, but no, precious, I have found no way to avoid this." He turned to look forward at where some of the general and lieutenants took up the front ranks. He raised his hand, and the line started forward.
Sarah's heart began to pound, more so when Lily took her first lurching step. "Woah—" she said, flinging her arms out as the seat dipped under her.
"Spread out your legs like so," Jareth said, demonstrating. He looked so damned relaxed.
The cushioned seats were low and deep, the backs high enough that it only vaguely reminded Sarah of a roller coaster. She could not help but tense and grip the edges of her seat as Lily took one step after another, her back rolling and dipping slightly with each motion. There was a part of her that really, really wanted a seat belt right about now.
Jareth laughed, looking so at ease she wanted to throw something at him. "You won't fall. I've enchanted the area around here," he motioned at the edges, where there was a sheer drop twenty feet down to the ground. "So that if, for some ungodly reason, you did? You will be brought safely back into your seat. Do you want to try?"
Her stomach lurched. "No, thank you." She spread her legs out as he showed her, bracing against the floor of the howdah and beginning to relax into the motion. In some ways, being on Lily's back was akin to being out on a boat. A little smellier, perhaps, but otherwise…
"You're so tense," Jareth said, his head fell back as he grinned, his laughter silent as his chest heaved.
"I'm glad you find this funny," she snapped, relaxing only to whip her hand back out to grip the edge of the seat again once Lily turned as they crossed through the main gates out of the city. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she swore. "You're sure I can't ride a horse? In a carriage? A cart? Donkey?"
Lily trumpeted, and the howdah trembled with the bellow as the other two answered the call.
Sarah could feel her face draining of blood.
"She says she's far superior to any horse or carriage," The Goblin King translated, shoulders shaking with laughter.
"You speak woolly mammoth?" Sarah asked, incredulous.
"I speak many languages," he said enigmatically.
Sarah opened her mouth to ask more, but then Lily trotted forward and she gasped, sliding down in her seat and feeling as though she were going to be thrown any moment. Jareth, meanwhile, looked as though he would double over. His eyes were streaming tears, and he wiped them away as he spoke between gasping breaths. "This is," another peel of quiet laughter. "The most entertaining thing."
"To hell with you," she breathed, still gripping the edge of the seat until her knuckles were white. Her legs shook as she tensed and then relaxed against the sway of the creatures long steps.
Lily lowed, and her trunk appeared over Jareth's shoulder, snuffling at the air. He reached up and gave it a few solid pats, grinning. "She says you'll get used to it. Just relax."
"That's what you've been saying."
"Well, she's not wrong, and neither am I." He shrugged as the trunk disappeared again. "You will become accustomed to it. These even become a bed," he motioned between the seats, and raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Should we give it a go?"
"You want to fuck here? Now?" Sarah hissed. "In front of the entire army?"
"You think they won't know what we get up to when we stop for the evenings?" he challenged. "Everyone knows we share a bed, lover mine. We have not been quiet about it."
Now her cheeks flamed. "I don't think so." She changed the subject. "Is that yours?" she motioned toward the empty howdah on the slightly larger male mammoth.
Jareth nodded. "I'll be taking meetings there, but for the most part I thought we could share the journey. Of course, if you wish to have your friends here instead, I can certainly help accommodate such things. Though, I will warn that Lily may have issue with a rock troll atop her back. Not least of all because he's a heavy creature." He grinned again. "I don't think you would like it if she tried to shake you all off."
"She'd do that?" Sarah asked, her voice a squeak of fear.
He shrugged, still smiling. "As I said, I would not try with Ludo. But Sir Didymus and Hoggle I could bring with a snap." He raised his hands as though to demonstrate.
"Let me ask them first," she said hastily. "If you go transporting them suddenly they're going to be pissed."
Jareth tilted his head. "Why would that be?"
She stared at him, arms and legs still thrown wide. She knew she looked ridiculous. Like a spider monkey. "Gee," she said, deadpan. "I wonder why, terrorized by a sleeping curse for over a decade, they would be nervous or upset if you used more magic on them without their permission."
He shrugged, expression unconcerned before stark amusement took over once more and he grinned at her. "Come here."
Her jaw dropped. "Why?"
"I want to see how you'd try."
She scowled at him and remained firmly in her seat.
Jareth transported himself over to his mammoth with a smile and not another word, and she could see him well enough to know he was rummaging around in the storage chest in the center of his howdah.
Strange to her that, without him there to watch, Sarah began to relax a bit at a time. Still keeping an eye on The Goblin King, her fingers began to loosen their grip. Lily rumbled beneath her, as though in approval, and gradually Sarah began to focus less on the strange movements, and more on their surroundings.
Sliding to the edge of the bench seat, closer to the support holding the canopy aloft, Sarah saw the great twisting stretch of The Labyrinth, through which wrapped the company of soldiers and retainers that made up the war party. More than thirty thousand souls, Jareth had told her. Gazing out at the weak sunlight glinting off thousands of metal helmets, she believed him.
A blink and Jareth was next to her, holding out a familiar red box.
Sarah laughed to see it, taking it from his hands and only noticing a little that the fear of Lily's movements had almost entirely abated. "Scrabble?"
"It's a travel set, see?" he pointed at the letters emblazoned across a bright yellow sticker. "It has raised edges, and the tiles are magnetic." He flashed another smile. "You and I can play in the evening, precious, and there will be stakes. But I thought this might appeal to you during the journey. Do you wish for me to summon Didymus and Higgle?"
"Hoggle," she corrected automatically, eyes burning with emotion. "Where did you get this?"
Jareth looked a little ashamed. "I have a collection of games, from the Above and Underground."
"Chess?" she asked, raising her gaze to his.
"Of course."
She nodded, distracted by the box in her hands. A reminder of home. "We'll have to play sometime."
"Sarah…" Jareth squeezed her thigh, drawing her attention. "I should have asked if there was more from your world that you missed."
"Can you bring me some of my things?" she asked, hope blooming.
He smiled. "Of course. Not all of it right away, but after the campaign we can arrange for the rest."
Her stomach plummeted. "Oh."
Another touch, feathering to her waist. "Love, this is not exactly the place—"
"It's fine," she interrupted, forcing a smile and lifting the game box. "I want to see if Hoggle and Didymus want to have a game."
Lily lowed, and Sarah jumped, realizing that she had been moving with ease alongside the mammoths steps. Flashing a grin at Jareth, she asked, "Would you see if they'd be willing to come here? Or you can transport me down there."
"I don't think so. This," he motioned at the four corners. "Is spelled not just to help keep you contained, but threats away from you. I would not have you leaving the safety of your seat here unless necessary."
Chills went down her back. "You think that there would be a threat here? I'm in the middle of your army."
He gave a solemn nod. "With that in mind, may I bring you Neira? She can be your fourth player."
Sarah regarded him suspiciously for a moment, then waved him away. "Please." There was a lump in her throat that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with missing home, and fear over what was to come.
Jareth brought each of her friends plus Neira one at a time, and soon the howdah was filled with laughter and general merriment. The Goblin King left them to attend to his own seat, where Sarah observed him hosting generals and soldiers alike. What they spoke of she did not know, as the distance and general clamor of the marching soldiers kept anything of interest from her ears.
Didymus turned out to be a formidable opponent at Scrabble, knowing some of the most archaic and point-heavy words possible. When they tallied their games, he beat them by as much as forty points.
After the third sound defeat, Sarah checked through the storage chest and came up with wine, cheese, fruit, and bread. She and her friends feasted and drank, even Sir Didymus, though Neira abstained from the alcohol. Her gaze was constantly on the move, taking in their changing surroundings.
"You can relax a little," Sarah said after a while. "Jareth has spelled it to be as safe as possible."
Neira shook her head, flame-colored hair coming loose in tendrils from her braid to frame her strong face. "It is not for me to relax. I am here to help guard you."
She raised her eyebrows. "From what?"
Neira was silent, and Hoggle grumbled from Sarah's side. "She's here to protect you from us." He motioned between himself and Didymus, though his gaze was only for the guardswoman. "Because his royal smugness doesn't trust us an inch."
Sarah opened her mouth to deny, but Neira's continued silence was damning. The wine turned sour in her stomach. She asked the guard, "Is that true? Are you here to protect me against my friends?"
"Things here are not always as they seem," she said, color high but conviction in her tone. She did not look directly at any of them. "What's important is your safety."
Sarah huffed and turned away. It might have been alright with her that this was what Jareth wanted Neira here for, but she had not been asked. She was going to have to talk to him about permission and autonomy. She had the feeling a king was not used to taking the desires of others into consideration.
"My lady," Sir Didymus said, his voice a little loud from drink. "I swear on my life's blood we will never harm you."
Sarah gazed at him and smiled. "I know, sir knight. Thank you."
A pall had crept over the group where there had been merriment and celebration just moments before.
A scroll appeared suddenly on the table between the bench seats, and Sarah reached for it. Before her fingertips could touch the parchment, however, Neira had snatched up the missive. Sarah glared, but the guardswoman examined the scroll without breaking the seal for several long moments before passing it back to her. "It appears benign."
"Why, Neira, could you be a dear and check that the letter isn't a destructive weapon?" Sarah asked, her voice syrupy sweet as she batted her eyelashes.
Hoggle choked on his wine and Sir Didymus let out a peel of laughter. Sarah unrolled the scroll and quickly read the message scrawled there by a flourishing fae hand.
Tucking the letter against her breast after giving it a quick read, Sarah smiled. There had been a good deal of salacious details that her friends did not need to know. However, "The Goblin King says that we're to stop for the midday reprieve in another hour."
Hoggle let out a rude noise. "I'm sure he wants to rest already the great uppity—"
Sarah whacked him with the back of her hand, drawing a smile. "You said you'd try," she reminded him.
"Aye, I hear you."
###
The Goblin King had ensured there was a mass of rations once the train came to a stop, cooks coming up the lines with pots of stews that had been simmering the entire walk in great cooking wagons. The cauldrons had their own legs, walking careful so as not to slop their contents.
They were stopped just outside the walls of the Labyrinth, the structure rumbling behind them, walls shifting in agitation. Sarah had the sense that the Labyrinth was unused to letting so many people through so casually. Even still, she had heard rumors that a handful of goblins had gone missing. Whether through desertion or ineptitude or the Labyrinth's intervention, no one was yet sure.
To her eyes, it was like a kicked anthill. The goblins scrambled over the dusty hills, some climbed the scraggly trees and draped from the branches like great jungle cats, others collapsing into the dirt and snoring loudly.
Sarah watched it all from the top of her howdah, and smiled when Jareth appeared beside her.
"I have set up a pavillion, love, where we can retire for an hour while the army eats and rests."
"I can't believe it took this long just to get out of there," she said, taking his offered hand and bracing for the rush of magic that erupted from her pendant. It left her in a rush of dizziness, and she leaned against Jareth's chest. He caught her around the waist and the next thing she knew, his mouth was slanted over hers, the kiss deepening as she moaned into it. Her fingers tangled in his fine hair, and she pulled back with a gasp, looking at him with hooded gaze. "I can't have you telling Neira to protect me against my friends," she said, voice low but firm. "It's ridiculous. They would never do anything to hurt me."
Jareth's eyes glimmered in the low light filtering through the multicolored canopy. "You mean everything right now, Sarah. I can't have anything happen to you."
"I'm surrounded by your people," she pointed out. "You barely let me out of your sight."
"You're still human, with little magic of your own," he argued, the backs of his gloved fingers tracing over her cheek, her jawline. His gaze went to her mouth. "We're about to march out of my domain and across Faerie. What we face along the way I can only guess and hope at, but I know this; you will be a target."
"Then protect me," she breathed, leaning in. "But don't be paranoid. My friends? That's going too far."
Jareth gathered her to him, his body hardening in response to her closeness and their kisses. "Whatever you say, precious."
The pavilion had fabric walls staked down in a wide circle, encompassing a giant bed and washing area, plus a long table that looked to be covered in scrolls and maps. It had the feeling of something that Jareth had used previously, but she barely took it in before he was stripping the clothes from her body, exposing her to the warm air and the hard press of his touches.
Sarah tried to be somewhat quieter knowing that they were surrounded by the entire goblin army, but Jareth would have none of her silence. When she bit down on the back of her hand to keep from crying out, he pulled it away and kissed her before growling, "None of that."
It was what he had said to her when she pulled her hair, too, on that first night when he had come to claim her. Sarah wondered at that, briefly, before Jareth was sliding into her and she could think of nothing else but the touch of his flesh and the heavy pressure of his cock between her legs.
Sarah did make more noise then, moaning with every thrust and clinging tightly to the body that was making hers come alive so spectacularly.
After, when Jareth's attention moved to the table of maps, Sarah wrapped herself in a sheet and came to stand beside him, looking at the array of topographical features and the foreign splendor of Faerie cartography. Some of them focused on a wider view, but many were of highly localized features.
Jareth traced a route with his finger. "This is going to be us for the next week or so. We need to travel through the narrowest part of the wastes, and then we'll be in the centaurs kingdom." He tapped the edges of the map, where it darkened to show great forests.
Sarah shook her head. It still seemed incredible to her that she was here, in the Underground, with a bonded or betrothed fae lover, and in the midst of a horde on some magical quest.
A thought suddenly stole her breath, and Sarah grasped Jareth by the arm. "My wishes."
He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. "What about them?"
"Could they bring back Toby? My dad?"
The flicker in Jareth's eyes made her stomach sink. He cupped her face with his hand, his words soft. "It is the most forbidden of magics, to bring back the dead. They would not be the same. I think it would work, after a fashion, but you don't want that, my love. They would not age. They would decay before you. There is no good life for the undead."
Her eyes burned but she refused to let the tears fall. "It was just a thought."
Jareth kissed her, lips soft against her own. "A good thought, precious. I wish I could say that it would work, but I do not think it would, even with your great power."
"I wouldn't want to see them like that, either," she whispered, looking anywhere but at him.
"Quite right."
Sarah sighed, then looked at the floating clock that gave the illusion of hanging on the canvas wall of the pavilion. "How much more of that hour do we have?"
Jareth's smile was slow and lascivious. "For a mortal, you have quite the appetite."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head at him. "Are you complaining?"
"Never."
###
By the time the army bedded down for the evening, they had traveled approximately six miles from the gates of the Labyrinth and into the wastes. Sarah felt twitchy, cooped up as she had been in the howdah and in Jareth's tent. Even though she had kept company with Didymus and Hoggle the remainder of the day, she missed Ludo. She missed exploring things. Especially in the later afternoon into early evening, when the trio of friends had been quietly reading together in her howdah. While peaceful, it was also so intensely slow-paced.
And then there had been the evening meal, taken with the generals of the forces. A long banquet-style picnic table, put together from collapsable parts. They were a rowdy lot, goblins through and through despite also being part of leadership. There were some representatives of other species, but they were drowned out, Sarah unable to get to know any of them in the cacophony of the others.
Something in the air smelled medicinal, starting around mid-day and growing stronger as the hours dragged on. It made her think of the times she had gone under for her wisdom teeth and appendix. Now the scent and taste was thick in her nose and mouth, covering up the taste of the food she was served alongside the others. The roast and vegetables were like paste in her mouth. She barely ate.
Jareth kept his attention partly on her at all times, making her feel at times both adored and also annoyed. The medicinal smell and pressure increased, making everything feel dream-like. He asked her if she disliked the food, and she said she had eaten throughout the day, even though she could not remember if that were true.
Then he took her hand to bring her to their pavilion, set high above the others. At this point, the drink had started flowing in earnest. "Time to retire, precious?"
She smiled at him, suddenly clear-headed. "If you say so."
Bathing, dressing, lovemaking. The taste of him. She had never wanted someone so much.
But when Jareth's breathing deepened into sleep that evening, Sarah slid from the bed, throwing on a deep emerald dressing gown and padding silently to the entrance, peeking out. Twin torches burned on tall spiked poles near the only official egress point, casting a contingent of six guards into relief. Sarah withdrew and crept around the edges of the tent, pulling up a stake near the bathing area and slipping under the flap of fabric, dusting herself off as she came to a stand on the other side.
It was stupid, she knew, but a pressure urged her onward, and made her take several stealthy steps away from the pavilion and those that flowed away from it.
Star and moonlight were so brilliant upon the dusty, glittering soil that she could see her way as though strung by fairy lights. Wrapped in dark fabric, Sarah knew that she blended easily into shadows. Only her pale skin would make her stand out.
She was most of the way to the cooking tents when hands grabbed her.
There was something about this that seemed correct, even as she fought against the palm clamped down over her mouth, muffling her cries. The burly goblin who stank of grease and unwashed body pulled her into a supply wagon with high wood walls and a ceiling that blocked her and her captors from sight. The wagon door slammed shut behind them, throwing everything into deep shadow.
The shudder on a lamp was thrown up, casting a yellow glow into the space, and Sarah's eyes widened. There were two goblins, the one holding her and one crouched in the corner, but close enough to kiss was—she's got to be fae.
The features were too sharp, the gaze too piercing, to be a human. Her hair was just as fine as Jareth's, though hers was a smokey quartz color, translucent. Eyebrows were swept up on the ends here, too, with gold shadow dusted near the tips. Shadowing eyes as clear as glass. They picked up the yellow from the light, but it was a watery reflection.
A smile revealed pointed teeth. "Oh yes, you would be his type."
Sarah bit against the calloused flesh holding her, teeth aching with the pressure and eyes watering with the smell. It yielded her a sharp slap across the back of the head, making it ring, and the hand against her mouth never ceased its hard press.
"Stupid girl," the fae said. "What are you doing out here all alone?" The tone was mocking.
Sarah wanted to say, you know. You know very good and well why I'm out here.
Now that she was in the wagon, she could sense the magic dissipating. Her pendant hummed against her chest, and Sarah wondered if it would warn its duplicate about the danger she was in. Would it wake Jareth?
She wanted to be able to wish for him, or wish these people away.
The fae woman tilted her head like a bird, leaning heavily into the motion until she was no longer looking at Sarah, but at the skinny goblin crouched in the corner. The move was something out of a horror movie. Struggling harder against the huge goblin who had hold of her around the waist and mouth, she felt a thread of dark danger here she had experienced in few other places. Maybe once, when she fell into the oubliette, and realized she might be there forever. What forever would mean. Her death, her decaying body in the dark…
She wondered, still, if Jareth might have let her rot there if not for Hoggle's help.
If she could not get out, it would have meant she was not the one he was looking for.
The fae woman whispered to the goblin in the corner, "Do it."
I can get out of this, Sarah thought now, even as the skin-and-bones creature slid toward her, two quick movements on the rough-hewn boards of the wagon.
Even as the light caught the knife, gleaming.
It wasn't until the blade slid across her throat that Sarah realized that this time, there was no escape.
Author's Note:
Hi!
Omg I am so sorry it has been so long. I am very bad about this. I do always return to my stories, and things are starting to look up in a weird way despite things being, on paper, super shitty right now. Meaning that I'm writing more. A lot more. But I don't know how long that will last.
Make hay while the sun shines?
I hope to have the next chapter up SOON? Ahhh I hate to say anything anymore. I really am trying.
Also I really apologize for any typos I did NOT run this by anyone because I wanted to get it up the moment I finished it and ran it through the ever-trusted grammar program.
Thank you for your enduring patience. Cheers and, if you enjoyed, please leave a contribution in the little box.
CrimsonSympathy