Nothing Is What It Seems

(( A/N: I do apologize for the delay, my uncle passed on last Wednesday, probably as I was inputting my last update, and I've had other matters to deal with. I compensated with an extra long chapter for you.))


Jareth studied Sarah as she stared at him. Her Hazel eyes were wide open and framed by dark lashes, her mouth hung just slightly ajar. Still pale for a human, her skin was clear, if a bit worn under her eyes from exhaustion. If he had had the slightest hope that she would sleep before hearing his news, he would have deposited her in the chamber alone. "What?" He was surprised at how calm her voice was.

He paused, knowing that his words now must be picked with the utmost care, lest he push Sarah too far. His tone was moderate, almost soothing as he spoke. "Your ... friends. The dwarf Higgle, -"

"Hoggle." She sounded annoyed, and he suppressed a smile. However in appropriate it might have been, he had simply had to test her. Of course, he knew the dwarf's name, he only wanted to toy with her a bit.

Jareth suppressed the giggle bubbling inside him and continued in his flat, soft tone. "Yes. The dwarf, the beast known as Ludo, and the demikit Didymous."

"What about them?" Anger was now palpable in her eyes and the steely chill of her voice, but he continued.

"Hoggle is a thief. I will not be interrupted." He made a soothing motion with his hand and Sarah, who had partially risen from her chair, was pushed back down while the protest died on her lips. "His possessiveness over his jewels... He used to have real jewels. Dwarves are notorious for their love of all that glitters, and Hoggle had made it his business to invade homes and rob the owners of their precious baubles. When he victimized only other dwarves, he was punished by Lord Braunagh, the Dwarf King, and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment in the dungeons of the Dwarf City."

Sarah listened wide-eyed. She had never thought that there was more to the Underground than Jareth's kingdom and the information he conveyed brought the realization that she had been told the High Sidhe Court would try her. Lychin and Arrym, even the Lady Gizelle, they were all like Jareth, all foreign glittering beings. 'Of course, stupid girl,' she chided herself, ' what did you think, he was a goblin?'.

"During his imprisonment, it is suspected that he was ... poorly treated at best by his Fae guards. When he was released it was only a week before he committed his greatest offense. He broke into the home of a Sidhe Lady to steal her belongings. This would have been enough of a crime to see him exiled, but he was surprised in the act by the Lady herself. I can only imagine that he was overwhelmed with hatred of the Fae that had imprisoned him, and took this Sidhe woman for one of them. He -" Jareth swallowed in distaste. He had been gazing at a point just beyond Sarah's right ear as he spoke, and now he turned to the fireplace, staring into the dancing flames and forcing his voice even flatter to stave off any emotion. "He forced this Lady. Conscious, she would have been able to defend herself easily, but he struck her. I doubt it had ever crossed any Sidhe's mind that a lower order might raise a hand to her, and the attack took her by surprise. While she lay on the floor of her own dressing room, the dwarf forced her. He then left the house with everything of value he could carry. He was caught forty minutes later."

"I don't believe you." Jareth looked from the flames and into her eyes, and Sarah flinched back at the fury contained there.

"You don't believe me? When have I ever lied to you, Sarah? When have I played you false? Hoggle was sentenced to a fading death, and I gave leave for him to be exiled to the borders of my territory, where the magic is wild and raw, where lower beings cannot touch it. He was to die there, carrying out my orders to dispose of the biting faeries. He might have been dead within the year if you had not let him into my Labyrinth." Jareth's voice remained low as he spoke, but heat built in his tone steadily until Sarah was cringing against her chair back. He might well have been screaming at her for all she felt his fury.

"Let him in? He was the only way in!" She couldn't allow him to walk over her, no matter how furious he was, and her own indignant anger bubbled up as she spoke.

"He was not. I know my own kingdom, Sarah. Hoggle let you in through a backdoor, as evidenced by how close you came to the direct route," She opened her mouth to question him and once more had the sensation that he had merely stolen the words from her lips to stop her interrupting. "Just around the bend from where we stood, within view had you cared to look, there was a Gatehouse. But when you asked that repulsive little dwarf to let you in he had to obey. You're a human, and a woman, and he was compelled to obey all higher orders as part of his sentence, with particular care to women. Once the door was open and unguarded, he was in. And the magic renewed him."

Jareth was enraged. Speaking about the dwarf’s crimes always upset him. It was the most degrading thing that could happen to a woman, Fae or Sidhe, to be forced by one of the lower orders. Even the Unseelie, whose rules were not as stringent on the matter of interbreeding, punished rapists with impunity. While he knew that Sarah had done no intentional wrong in letting the dwarf in, while he knew that he should have been more careful where he placed her, the idea that she had spoken with and befriended this monster disgusted and infuriated him. He had never been more grateful that a compelling held than when Sarah arrived safely at his castle, and that was the most thought he had had for the little dwarf or her other motley companions then, trying to prevent Sarah from retrieving the baby had been his only concern.

“Magic renewed him? What do you mean?” He could tell she wasn’t oblivious to his mood, but she was doing a steady job of pretending that he wasn’t terrifying her.

Jareth made esoteric motions with his slender gloved fingers yet again, and Sarah felt some of her fear subside, though she couldn’t know he had been calming the magic, soothing his feelings from it to lessen her discomfort.

“Death by fading is a harsh sentence. Deprived of magic, any creature of the Underground will whither away. The forces that sustain us will be gone, and as our reserves diminish, so too shall we. In the final stages of fading, intense pain and delirium often result, though some are said to fade without suffering. I do not believe that.

There is magic outside the Labyrinth. Even you could feel it, taste it, smell it in the air,” Sarah remembered. Outside the Labyrinth everything seemed always on the verge of thunder. It had hummed with incredible power. The power within was only slightly less, and had a different feel to it, a different structure. “but that magic is untamed. It is the purest essence of the Underground, lingering on the borders of the kingdoms. I myself can draw on it, as can other Sidhe, some with more difficulty than others. Some Fae can use it, but their workings with untamed magic are usually erratic, unpredictable. The lower orders cannot touch this force. They are aware of it, but control of it eludes them. Outside the borders of my kingdom, exiled between lands, Hoggle was dying. He had been for almost a year. I doubt he would have lasted more than another week if you hadn’t come.”

Now Sarah was upset. Jareth’s description had bewitched her for a moment and brought out the girl inside her hungry for anything not of her world, but as he fell silent the anger reared.

“No one deserves to die like that!” Jareth looked for a moment like he might speak, but held his silence. “You said yourself theft was in his nature, and you said that his guards mistreated him!”

The words fell away from her lips and she yelped a silent protest at Jareth as he stood and again used magic to force her into her seat.

“Whatever his guards did, they were within their rights. And they were Fae. Nothing more. The dwarf forced a Seelie Sidhe noblewoman. It was an abomination, punishable by death in the Dwarf Kingdom as it is in the Goblin Kingdom and all others, including both Courts.” Jareth leaned over her, scowling into her eyes. “He is the worst kind of criminal, and you would do well to consider that. Drink this.” He handed her a cup and stepped away quickly, ashamed at the fear he had seen in her eyes, ashamed that he was reacting so strongly to the situation. She was tired, exhausted even, and he pushed her, excited her emotions, wore her thinner. “It will help you sleep. We can finish this discussion when you are rested.”

“No.”

Jareth turned. “Pardon me?”

“I want to know the rest.”

“You know all I will tell you tonight Sarah. It would be wise to drink the tonic and to sleep. You – both of us – will think more clearly in the morning.”
Sarah scrutinized the Goblin King and saw something unfamiliar in his eyes. He was tired. Not annoyed or resentful, only tired and upset. Despite her desire to hear more, to know what gentle Ludo and he ridiculous Sir Didymous could have done, her head was already turning with what she had learned already, and standing was a trial. But stand she did, and inclined her head to Jareth. “Fine.”

It wasn’t a bow, or anything like a proper curtsey, merely acquiescence, but it surprised him into bowing to her. “Goodnight Sarah.” He met her eyes once more and saw the trouble in them. “Sweet dreams.”

And with another odd motion, he had gone from the room. Sarah crossed to the bed and kicked off her slippers before sitting. As she pulled her arms into her shirt to unhook her bra, she saw the Goblin King’s eyes, full of unrest. They weren’t simply one blue and one green like she had thought in her childhood she mused, pulling off her jeans and folding them neatly on top of her bra at the foot of the bed. One eye was rings of glacial and sky blue with a gold circle around the pupil that radiated jagged lines out through the lapis, and the other seemed to be stacked blossoms of green, each slightly overlapping the other to eerie effect.

The picture of those mismatched eyes haunting her and that cool flat voice ringing in her ears, she did not notice the crystal, as fine as a soap bubble, which she popped on the pillow as she lay down her head and nestled beneath the covers.