Return to the Labyrinth

No, I don’t own any of it, except for the parts I do. See prior disclaimers. The title of this chapter is taken from the lyrics of a song called “Catacombs” by Poi Dog Pondering. The full text is at the end of the chapter, as usual. Like Sarah, hopefully you will all be a little less in the dark after this chapter...but only a little.

I would like to thank Leia for her invaluable help in the last couple of chapters, including her nagging to make me finish writing them! Also, thank you Kookoo Kitty for being the only person to review…it was nice and very satisfying!

P.S. I need a little beta help on this story, so if anyone would like to volunteer to beta for me I would be very grateful. Just mention it in a review or send me a PM.

P.P.S. There were 200 hits on that last chapter and I got only 1 review! I am very sad! Please, please review!

In the Dark, I am left, to find the Light

“Now don’t you worry none, Aisling,” the vixen, whose name was Gertrude, advised as she and Sarah walked back into the front room of her very cramped house. Sarah nodded as she crouched down to avoid hitting her head on the hanging lamp like she had when she arrived. Gertrude herself seemed oblivious to how awkward the tiny space was for her guest to move in. She opened the door to the street, waiting for Sarah to catch up. “I’ll be sure to send Reggie up to the palace with Nel’s order. Shouldn’t be more than an hour, I ‘spect.”

“Thank you, Gertrude,” Sarah said politely, ducking to avoid another lamp. “I’ll…” her voice trailed off when her eyes were caught by a painting that she hadn’t noticed when she first arrived. She paused, and didn’t even realize she had been staring until a small squeaky voice piped up behind her.

“That’s my great-great-grandpa,” Reginald, Gertrude’s eldest grandpup, squeaked. Barely half as tall as his Grandmother, who herself only reached Sarah’s knee, the small fox pup was an energetic ball of red fur with bright black button eyes. His plain shirt and pants were embellished with a ragged homemade red sash and a tiny wooden sword. “His name was Sir Didymus and he was the most famousest knight in the Kingdom.” Sarah just nodded, unable to do more, as she stared at the remarkable likeness of her old friend. Reggie just prattled on proudly. “He worked for the King, and some day, I’m gonna be a King’s Knight too!”

“Reggie!” Gertrude snapped, “What have I told you bout botherin’ my customers with yer nonsense stories?”

“It’s alright,” Sarah said quickly, feeling her eyes stinging. “He looks like quite a hero,” she said softly, glancing down at Reggie and Gertrude. “What happened to him?”

Gertrude snorted softly, but there was fondness in her gaze as she looked at the painting. “Don’t really know. Died when I were a wee girl. M’ Granny said he got himself killed on some fool quest.”

“It was not, he was…” Reggie was silenced by a look from his grandmother. He glowered at her, but held his tongue. Sarah just nodded, blinking back tears. It would be just like Sir Didymus to ride off in search of a glorious quest.

Sarah smiled down at the boy, although it looked more like a grimace on her disguised face. “I believe you, Reggie. I’m sure he was a brave and loyal knight. Maybe you can come to the palace and tell me sometime, hm?” Reggie nodded, his eyes bright. He looked like he was about to start gushing again when his grandmother stopped him.

“Enough now,” Gertrude chided. “Aisling needs to get back to the palace, and you’ve chores to do, young pup.” Reggie nodded, but as he left the room he looked back at Sarah and grinned. Sarah smiled back before saying goodbye to Gertrude and ducking out the door and onto the street. The door closed behind her with a smack.

She hadn’t taken more than five steps when she realized she was crying. And she couldn’t seem to stop. Sarah hunched deeper into her disguising cloak, grateful for the illusion it showed the world, as silent tears streamed down her face. Poor, sweet, valiant Sir Didymus. Although she had wondered what had happened to him, never had she believed he might be dead. Some part of her had always thought she would see her friends again. But now she knew that was a false hope.

She wondered again how much time had passed since she ran the Labyrinth. After all, if Reggie was his great-great-grandson, then that meant he had been Gertrude’s grandfather. How long ago was that? A hundred years, two hundred? Not that it mattered. There was no doubt in her mind that if Sir Didymus was gone, so were her other friends. The pain she felt at that thought was more than anything she had felt in the last 10 years. It washed over her until she could no longer put one foot in front of the other. Devastated, she sat down on the ground, put her head on her knees and let herself cry it out.

Sarah had no idea how long she cried, mourning dear friends she would never see again. When she resurfaced from her grief she realized that, in her wandering, she had gotten herself hopelessly lost among the warren of streets and alleys that was Faerie Mews. She had no clue where she might be, and could see not a soul to ask directions of. The neighborhood itself had a wild, rundown look about it that made her nervous. Worried, but not yet panicked, she looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the castle past the rows of drunken buildings, but to no avail. The looming structures crouched so close together that she could see nothing beyond the street she was on.

Still sniffling back the last of her tears she tried to figure out the best way to proceed. Logic told her that she should probably stay put. That someone would wander by eventually and she could ask them to show her the way back. But what if no one came? It was already late afternoon, and she didn’t relish the thought of being trapped in this deserted neighborhood after dark. Neila might notice she was gone, but given her expectations that Sarah was bound to disappear on her any day, she might or might not send someone looking. On the other hand, if she tried to retrace her steps, she could wind up becoming even more lost, but she could also run into some city dweller who could help her.

In the end it was the eerie, vacant buildings surrounding her that convinced Sarah she would rather be lost in any other part of the city but this one. Pushing to her feet she picked a direction and started walking. Hopefully she would stumble back into a busier part of the city soon. After all, she couldn’t have wandered that far.

Sarah hadn’t walked very far when her gamble paid off. Shortly after turning onto a third street she finally saw a corner she recognized. Picking up her pace she turned past the building and saw another familiar path. Relaxing now that she had found her way again, she quickened her pace. After several turns, however, she started wondering again. The route was certainly familiar, but there were still no people, and she couldn’t clearly recall walking this way when she was looking for Gertrude’s house. She turned another corner and was suddenly confronted with a solid wall of stone covered in a curtain of ivy. A dead end.

Feeling increasingly frustrated she turned around to head back the way she came when she was assailed by the feeling of déjà vu. She knew this street, she was sure of it. But she hadn’t passed any walls on her way into the city. As if walls never moved in this place, she thought to herself with a groan. Still, she was sure she knew the place, but not sure how.

Turning back she looked at the wall again. What was it about the wall that was bothering her? There was something...A trickle of a memory came back to her. She turned the corner of the hedgerow and a stone wall rose up before her. It was the Goblin City wall. She slipped past with ease and loped through the city toward the castle. “It’s not what it seems,” she muttered to herself. She didn’t know when she came this way, but she remembered it. She did.

“It’s an illusion,” she said aloud. As soon as the words left her mouth it was as if a veil was lifted from her eyes. She could see, clearly, where the wall was real and where it wasn’t. There, near the base of the wall, concealed by the thick ivy vines, was an irregularly shaped hole, just large enough for a small animal to crawl through. It seemed so obvious now that she knew where it was. Crouching down, Sarah peered through the break in the wall, seeing strangely familiar hedgerows on the other side.

“Not possible,” she muttered, “I couldn’t have fit through here. It’s too small.” She started to get up again when she noticed that, in fact, the hole was NOT too small. It was, in fact, just about the right size for her to crawl through. She blinked, thinking she must be seeing things again. She was SURE it had been a smaller hole a moment ago. She peeped back through the hole and felt an overwhelming curiosity to follow this eerily familiar path.

Sitting back on her heels she looked back behind her. She should head back to the castle. She knew she could find her way back to the kitchens from here. She didn’t know how, but she knew it as sure as she knew her own name. Which name, her mind countered, Aisling or Sarah? She scowled and brushed the thought away.

Not to mention the fact that the last thing she should do is venture into the Labyrinth and risk getting lost. But, deep down, she was sure she wouldn’t. Even the thought of the twisting maze didn’t overwhelm her like it had ten years before. And that deep tug of curiosity was getting stronger. She needed to know WHY she knew this spot. And she was sure the answers lay beyond the wall. Curiosity got the better of the argument, and Sarah, crouching down on all fours, crawled through the mysterious opening.

On the other side Sarah found herself among the familiar paths of the Hedge Maze. Yet even while they were familiar to her from the first time she ran, they resonated even further with another memory. She tried isolating the thought, but it slipped away again. Almost as if the memory had a mind of its own and didn’t want to be caught.

Cautiously she began walking the maze, but after each turn her confidence grew. She wasn’t lost at all. Just three more turns and she would be at the garden. She paused at the thought. What garden? How can I know how to get somewhere I don’t know I’m going? She looked back the way she had come. Perhaps she should turn around. But no, she had already come too far. She might as well continue.

Three turns later and she was once again confounded by a wall, but this one was a hedge. Or…no. “It’s another illusion!” she realized out loud. Once again, as soon as the words passed her lips, she could clearly see what was real in the illusion. This section of wall was two hedges that overlapped in such a way as to create the illusion of being solid, but in fact was one hedge set in front of another. She stepped around the forward hedge and found herself in a small alcove, looking through a stone archway into the most spectacular garden she had ever seen.

“The garden,” she breathed, wide eyed. As soon as she saw it she knew why she remembered it. Within the ivy covered walls was an enchanting sight. A variety of trees, crystal trees, stood around in clusters. In the center of the area stood a small stone fountain, presided over by a set of weeping willows. The trees’ delicate prismatic branches swayed in the warm breeze, chiming soothingly in time with the singing of the fountain. Radiating out from the fountain in an ever widening spiral was a pathway made of silver tiles set into intricate interlocking patterns. Planted between the pathways and the trees were beds upon beds of wildflowers, bursting with color and life, that seemed to shimmer as if a mirage. They danced in and out of her vision, and no bed of flowers looked the same from one glance to the next. “I dreamed this.”

With a sort of awed reverence she stepped into the garden. It seemed different than her dream, smaller, but at the same time more vibrant and full of life. The silver walkway was cool beneath her feet as she followed it, just for fun, in narrowing spirals until she reached the fountain. “How is this possible?” she muttered. She had never been here. How could she know this place? How could a dream show her something real? How could she dream of somewhere she had never been?

Sitting on the edge she looked down into the water clear as glass and was startled to see the strange, dark and furry creature that was reflected back at her instead of a small blue cat face. Following that thought was the surprise she felt that she hadn’t expected to see her own face, her real face. Shaking her head, and watching her shaggy reflection shake its head as well, she tried to make sense of it all.

She leaned closer, touching her face lightly with her fingers. It felt rough, weathered. She remembered how it had felt the first time she wore it. She had still been able to feel her own smooth skin beneath the illusion. A chill fear gripped her. Perhaps this was the catch that Amaranth hadn’t told her. A disguise was one thing. But she didn’t want to permanently give up her true form in exchange for her dreams. Is that really true though? she asked herself. Didn’t you once say you’d do anything to get your dreams back? Would you really go back to that empty place just to keep your pretty face?

The thought panicked her. She didn’t want to have to make that choice. With fumbling, nervous hands she pulled the hood of her cloak back off her head. The reflection in the fountain wavered, hazy, before clearing to reveal her own human features. A wave of relief washed over her. She touched her face, and it felt smooth on her fingertips, even as those same fingers, still under the magic’s sway, felt rough and gnarled against the skin of her cheek.

Her shoulders slumped in relief as she sighed. For the first time, she realized, as she gazed around at the crystal garden, she was really thinking about what she might be doing here. She had come here for her dreams, and as promised she was dreaming again. But at what price? She still didn’t know, and shouldn’t that worry her? Sure, she knew what she was supposed to do in exchange for their return, but not why. Did it matter? It hadn’t then, when she’d agreed to Amaranth’s terms on that cliff aboveground. And it wasn’t as if the Fae’s terms would hurt anyone. And since when could she understand the motive’s of a Fae anyhow. Jareth has been as much a mystery 10 years ago as today.

What if she were to not do her part of the task? Would she lose her dreams? Of course, she doubted she could stop herself from doing it. Amaranth had bound her to the terms of the agreement with what amounted to a Fae contract. A Geas, she’d called it. A magical binding that would essentially make her perform her half of the agreement until the contract was fulfilled. And what then? Would she go home? Could she stay here? Did she want to?

Her old friends were dead, and to be honest none of her new acquaintances seemed too attached to her. Everyone she had met this time around treated her with a wary curiosity. Not the most welcoming of environments. And last time, she had been here with a purpose, a goal. What would be her purpose here after this? But at the same time, what waited for her aboveground? 10 years of her life were lost. She would be starting over in a cold, uncaring world. Could she do it? Did she have a choice?

The questions beat at her brain, swirling around in mad, chaotic patterns. The singing of the fountain and the chiming of the trees were a soothing background noise. But then another sound broke through her churning thoughts. Like a whisper on the breeze it floated to her ears. Saaarrraaaah it whispered, almost humming. Startled, her first thought was that someone was watching and had seen her without the hood up and recognized her. She snatched the hood over her head and looked around frantically, but the garden was empty and still, just as before.

Saaarrraaaah, the whisper came again. She spun around looking for where the voice was coming from. Nothing. A third time it breathed her name, and this time it seemed right beside her ear. Turning her head she didn’t immediately see anything until she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. A butterfly, the color of red crystal, hovered just above her hand resting on the fountain. She blinked. That couldn’t be the source of the whisper, could it?

Curious, but strangely not alarmed, she lifted her hand up beneath the fluttering butterfly and let it land delicately on her skin. It moved as if exploring its perch, tickling her skin with its tiny feet. Sarah watched the crystalline insect with delight as it bent its head to touch her hand with its proboscis. It reminded her, strangely, of the liquid quicksilver dream that Amaranth had given her aboveground, as if it was tasting her in some way.

And then it launched itself off of her hand and fluttered away. Sarah watched it, bemused, as it fluttered over one of the flower beds. A soft rustling sound, like a thousand tiny voices laughing in the distance, seemed to surround her. And then, the garden seemed to burst with an explosion of color. Every flower launched upwards as a glittering butterfly until the garden air was thick with them. They seemed to move as one, homing in on Sarah like bees to honey. She stood, backing away slowly before she realized she was surrounded.

Her heart jumped into her throat as the butterfly swarm began circling her, forming a vortex of shifting colors. There were so many of them that they created their own spinning wind around the hapless girl, faster and faster, until she could no longer discern the individual butterflies any longer. As the funnel of color began to tighten she knew real fear. She could hear the wind calling her name. Sarah! it sighed, almost joyfully. What was happening?

As the first butterfly dive bombed her she gave short scream. “Get away!” she shouted, her voice getting higher in her terror, “Don’t touch me!” She flailed her arms, trying in vain to swat the swarming insects away. Her hand made contact with one of the little monsters and she felt a stinging heat. She turned it over and swatted at it. The butterfly was crushed, but did not fall. Instead it smeared, like a drop of oil paint rubbed over her skin.

She watched in horror as the smear of color seemed to melt into her arm, the searing heat sinking into her skin. She felt another one land on her other arm, and several more on her cheek. She could feel them being absorbed into her body. Into her very bones. She started to scream again, but it was cut off as her vision went blank. Her mind was assailed with images. They came so fast, so many, that she could catch only a few out of the multitude, rather like a hundred people all talking at once.

She was flying over a forest of blue and purple trees. A white owl looked at her through a window. A mermaid laughing in a lake. A vaguely familiar dark haired, sorrow-eyed girl begging to booted feet, “Please, let me stay with him.” Dark, sinister, faceless golems rising up out of the mud. Goblins and Fairies dancing in the streets of the city. A rose dying. A shooting star. A young Sarah crawling out of a pile of garbage. A chimera roaring. Twiggy singing a “ballad” to his “Dear Nel” outside the castle kitchens. A shoe came flying out of the darkness to hit him in the head. “I love her,” the little goblin said, a stupid grin on his face, as he lay on the courtyard cobblestones.

When the last image of Twiggy (of all things) finally faded away, Sarah realized she was curled up on the ground. No, not away, she thought. They were somewhere in her mind, she was sure of it. She could hear her own heart racing, her breaths panting, but a careful tally revealed no injuries, other than a humming warmth that seemed to suffuse her body. She opened her eyes to see the evening sky over the Labyrinth. The butterflies were gone, and only the soothing chime of the willow trees broke the silence.

Groaning, Sarah sat up slowly and looked around, noticing that where the flowers had once been there were now evergreen hedges with red crystal roses. She was getting to her feet when her eye caught movement in a corner of the garden. She turned her head and stopped, breath freezing in her lungs.

Beneath the spreading boughs of a crystal oak sat the Goblin King, lounging, like some great cat, in a wooden swing. It seemed almost incongruous to see such a menacing man dominating such an innocent perch. Sarah tried not to admire the picture he made, but it was difficult. She knew it would be burned into her memory.

His lean legs were stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, encased in dark grey hose. His shirt was white and flowing, the deeply plunging neckline showing off not only his medallion, but a smoothly muscled chest as well. He was studying, her, with glittering, crystal eyes, like she was the most fascinating thing in his world, his chin resting on one gloved hand. Sarah shivered beneath his gaze, and knew, could her face be seen, that she would be blushing under the scrutiny. This was the Jareth she had been trying not to remember, the deeply seductive, devastatingly handsome King who had engendered both fear and fascination in a 16 year old girl on the verge of womanhood.

“You’re still here,” he remarked in his arrogant, elegant voice. Sarah shivered again, and forced herself to breath. Her skin seemed oversensitive after the butterflies, and his voice seemed to crawl over it like seductive fingertips.

“So are you,” she managed to say, before berating herself for the imbecilic response. She took a short step back as he began to chuckle.


Catacombs

by:Poi dog pondering

I’m dusting off the old ghosts now
And they’re giving me a run for my money.
I’m down here with the skulls and bones.
Down here in the Catacombs.
Swimming through the flood of years,
Chipping away at this wall of tears,
With no lovin hands to hold me
In the dark, I am left, to find the light.
Down here in the Catacombs.
I can hear my friends and family
Walking and talking up there on the ground.
We’re all truly alone,
Down here in the Catacombs
They can’t help me now.
Gotta chase these demons out.
With no lovin hands to hold me
In the dark, I am left, to find the light.
Down here in the Catacombs.