Shadows, Whispers and Destruction

Chapter 3

Sarah Williams, Queen of Goblins

 

   Jareth was now huddled in the corner of a windowless room, dressed in dirtied rags of clothing. His hair, once flyaway and straw-coloured, was now limp and dirty, and his once apparent muscles were gone— he was extremely thin and skeletal. The man who had once been a powerful, magical and malicious Goblin King was now shaking from head to toe, cowering from the world. At Sarah’s scream he flinched and replied with a low moan of fear. The only piece of furniture in the whole room seemed to be a bed, with shredded sheets. The room was windowless and the walls had several phrases carved into the stone.

   “What… he… I…?” came out of Sarah’s mouth, the shock of seeing Jareth so diluted making her unable to form coherent speech.

   “I told you, His Majesty is ill,” said Jace swiftly, as if not noticing the frightened man curled up in the corner.

   “Sarah, His Majesty’s insane,” Hoggle said quietly, looking up at her sadly. “He’s been like this for half a year now.”

   “It’s your fault,” said Jace bluntly. “Because you were his one and only love, and despite the fact that he offered everything he had to you, you refused him.”

   “I said no to a ridiculous offer and he went insane because of it?” Sarah gaped, unable to tear her eyes from Jareth.

   “His offer was not ridiculous, it was loving,” Jace explained. “The Fae are condemned to love only once. Until we find that love we usually take more interest in pleasure than affection, but when a Fae falls for another, nothing else truly matters.”

   He finally turned to look at her, with a genuinely concerned look on his face.

   “And if a Fae has their heart broken by that love,” Jace said softly. “It is almost impossible for them to move on. They could die.”

   “You can actually die of a broken heart?” Sarah said, still gawking at Jareth. “Why didn’t Jareth die?”

   “He’s one of the lucky ones,” Jace said bitterly, turning back to the broken Goblin King. “It’s a miracle that he’s lasted this long.”

   Sarah fell totally silent, watching as Jareth’s mismatched eyes darted toward her. A bubble of devastation began to swell in her chest— she’d honestly condemned such a powerful, magical man to a life of lunacy just because she’d said no. Sarah slowly and hesitantly stepped into the room, approaching Jareth cautiously. He flinched back as she advanced on him, and tried his hardest to press himself to the wall as though hoping to sink through it to safety. As she approached she managed to make out some of the writing on the walls. Several times it said ‘Give me the child’, ‘You have no power over me’ and ‘It’s not fair'. Other times it listed the complete set of lyrics to the song he’d attempted to serenade her with in the Escher room, and more often that anything else it said her name, sometimes on its own, sometimes in a phrase like ‘Beautiful Sarah’ or ‘Sarah, forgive me.’

   Sarah tore her eyes from Jareth’s handiwork, bent down low next to him to eye-level and whispered, “Jareth?”

   He didn’t respond, but his tense body did loosen slightly and his head lifted to stare back at her with eyes as wide as coins.

   “Jareth, it’s me,” she said quietly.  “Do you recognize me?”

   Jareth’s brows furrowed together and his mouth opened. “Are… are you one of them?”

   “Who, Jareth?” Sarah asked confusedly. “One of who?”

   Jareth face immediately contorted to rage and he shouted, “YOU WANT TO HURT HER!”

   He lunged at her immediately, and with a sharp cry Sarah fell back onto the stone. Jace swiftly pounced on Jareth, knocking him backward and pinning him to the wall. Jareth struggled for a moment before falling limp and sinking to the ground. Sarah sat up off the ground and saw his shoulder’s shaking, and his face twisted with agony and tears pouring down his cheeks.

   “I’m sorry…” he cried, and Jace let him go and backed away, apparently unsure of what to do. “I failed you…”

   Sarah crawled over to him, despite the fact he’d just attacked her, and sat down next to him. Slowly and steadily, she slid one arm around his neck and pulled him closer, cradling the sobbing Jareth in her arms, his head resting on the peaks of her breasts.

   “Shh…” she soothed him, as he clung to her like a child and sobbed into her robes.

   “I’m sorry…” Jareth wailed again. “It wasn’t enough…”

   “I know,” Sarah said quietly, smoothing a lock of hair from his face. “It’s okay—”

   “No, no…” he moaned, shaking his head vigorously. “I’m sorry, Sarah, I didn’t mean it!”

   Sarah stared down at the weeping man she was embracing in utter shock. Despite being utterly mad, the man still knew her name, and still continued to speak it. Sarah slowly began to realize that in his own demented way he was trying to apologize to her for two years ago.

   As Jareth cried in her arms, Sarah bowed her head over his own protectively, and whispered in his ear, “I forgive you, Jareth.”

   Jareth gradually quietened, and soon he was sleeping soundly in Sarah’s embrace. Jace stepped forward to take Jareth, but Sarah shielded him with her arms and mumbled, “Please don’t.”

   Jace obediently withdrew, and Sarah watched as Jace stepped out of the room and ushered Hoggle away with a sharp wave of his hand. The door closed behind him but Sarah knew perfectly well that Jace was still standing guard just outside— there was no way in hell that he’d leave her alone with Jareth in such a condition. Sarah was just thinking about how unusually peaceful Jareth looked when he slept when she, too, nodded off.

 

   Sarah was woken that morning by a man’s soft voice crooning in her ear, “Sarah…” and a light shaking of her shoulders. She stirred, unwilling to open her eyes, and then suddenly remembered Jareth, and the condition he’d been in when she’d fallen asleep. Her eyes snapped open when she realized Jareth was no longer in her arms, and when her vision cleared his beautiful, smiling face was only inches from hers. The wild look was gone from his mismatched eyes— all that was left was peace and an unexplainable longing.

   “J-Jareth?” Sarah stammered, looking positively dumbstruck. “How… what…?”

   “Thank you, Sarah,” Jareth murmured. “You saved me.”

   “I— what?” she managed to say. “You mean… you’re okay now? But… how? What did I do?”

   “You forgave me,” Jareth said softly, reaching out with one hand to gently caress her cheek. “Like I thought you’d never do.”

   “Oh Jareth!” Sarah wailed, and he dove forward to kidnap her lips with his, and Sarah gladly kissed him back as tears streamed down her cheeks, because Jareth was actually okay…

   Sarah woke from the dream, half expecting to see Jareth’s smiling face looming over hers again. When she realized that it had all been a dream, that Jareth wasn’t okay, her heart seemed to fall apart in her chest right there and then.

Sarah blinked in the darkness when she realized that Jareth was no longer in her embrace. She sat up, wincing at the pain in her back that had developed from hours of leaning against a solid wall, and looked around the room, trying to squint through the darkness to see the Goblin King. She spotted him watching her from on top of the bed, his head poking out of the sheets like what Toby did when playing hide and seek. When Sarah turned to him and spotted him, his head disappeared underneath the covers. Sarah raised her eyebrows, got up and walked towards the lump in the sheets that was Jareth.

   “What are you doing under there?” Sarah asked softly, slowly lifting up the sheets just as Jace barged in through the door. The door hit the wall with a loud bang, causing Jareth to scream at the loud noise and curl up into a ball.

   “Jace,” Sarah said angrily, giving him a look that clearly stated ‘Now look what you’ve done.’

   “My apologies,” Jace said briskly, striding over to her and putting one hand on her elbow to steer her out of the room. “But we must talk immediately if you wish to save His Majesty’s life.”

   Sarah snapped to attention and obediently followed him, trying to ignore the whimpers Jareth was emanating from underneath the sheets. Jace closed the door again behind him, and Sarah spotted Hoggle standing a few feet away watching her with a bothered expression.

   “Give me the child…” Jareth wailed from underneath the covers.

   “We must discuss the options to save His Majesty,” Jace said urgently, as if Jareth hadn’t said anything. “There are only two, and I’m quite sure you shall dislike both of them.”

   “I’ll do anything,” Sarah said quickly. “Tell me.”

   “Yeh have to take his powers, Sarah,” said Hoggle quietly, taking a step toward her. “And make him human.”

   “Humans do not die of broken hearts as we do,” Jace explained. “If he were to be human and powerless your rejection would affect him less and—”

   “I can’t do that to Jareth,” said Sarah desperately. “You of all people must know that Jareth adores his magic! He’d probably rather die than be turned human.” Jace nodded, as if he’d expected this to be her answer.

   “Then there’s only one other option, Sarah,” Hoggle mumbled. “And yer gonna hate that one even more.”

   “What?” Sarah demanded, her gaze rapidly switching between Jace and Hoggle. “What’s the second option? Tell me!”

   “The second option,” Jace started. “Is for us to alter his memories so that he believes you had never rejected his offer in the first place.”

   “Yeh’d have to make him think yeh said yes, Sarah,” Hoggle said, his eyes reflecting extreme pity. “Yeh’d have to become the Goblin Queen.”

   Sarah stood there and gawked at the servant and the dwarf, clearly taken aback. For the last two years, Sarah had been proud of herself for not giving in to the Goblin King’s offer, and now… to save a man she’d hated with all her heart from insanity, she’d have to go back on that proud decision and accept his offer.

   “I…” came out of Sarah’s mouth. “I have to marry Jareth?”

   “Yes, that would also become a necessary step,” said Jace briskly, clearly hard-hearted to the desperation of her situation. “As well as eventually siring his child.”

   “Shut up,” Hoggle advised Jace coldly.

   But Sarah hadn’t heard the last thing Jace had said due to the fact that she was lost in her thoughts, in her guilt that if she didn’t do this for Jareth, for the entire Kingdom… she and the rest of the kingdom would probably never forgive her.

   “I’ll do it,” Sarah said firmly, snapping out of her trance and looking Jace firmly in the eye. Jace looked mildly shocked at her answer but nevertheless nodded in agreement.

   “I shall erase his memories now,” he said, sweeping into the room again with Sarah on his tail. “You must aid me afterward in creating a new one.”

   “How do I do that?” Sarah asked confusedly, her eyes wavering back to the lump in the sheets that was Jareth. 

   “It’s not fair!” Jareth suddenly howled, flinging the sheets off of him. Jace pinned him down onto the bed, where Jareth writhed and kicked before falling silent and still. His crazed eyes darted back and forth from Jace to Sarah. Jace conjured up a crystal ball, much to Sarah’s astonishment since she’d thought only Jareth had that power, and dropped it over Jareth’s head, where it popped like a bubble on his forehead. Jareth’s eyes closed immediately, and he slumped unconscious. Sarah quickly pulled the sheets back over his body, which earned her an annoyed look from Jace.

   “He does not remember anything in the past two years,” Jace said quietly. “Now you must make the new memory, of the time you rejected his offer.”

   “Wh-what do I do?” Sarah stuttered, suddenly feeling nervous.

   “Say the first thing you said to him that time.”

   Sarah leaned over and said tentatively, “Give me the child.”

  All of a sudden the scene before her vanished — Jace, Hoggle, the bed, the room, Jareth — to be replaced with the broken ruins in the middle of nowhere. Sarah touched her face, shocked to find that she was sixteen again. And then, from the shadows, emerged the malicious Goblin King, dressed in the pale white robes of the owl. His mismatched eyes were set on Sarah, who was fighting not to cry at seeing Jareth normal again (and partly at being back in this awful memory).

   “Sarah, I have been generous up until now,” he murmured. “But I can be cruel.”

   “Generous?” Sarah said quietly, playing out from memory. “What have you done that’s generous?”

   “Everything!” snapped Jareth, in the child-like tone that was so reminiscent of him. “Everything you wanted I have done. You asked for the child to be taken; I took him. You cowered before me; I was frightening.”

   Jareth began to pace angrily, and behind him a large clock appeared with the hands spinning rapidly backwards.

   “I have re-ordered time,” he said darkly. “I have turned the world upside-down, and I have done it all for you. It’s exhausting living up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

   “Yes, I suppose it is,” Sarah said softly, shocking both herself and Jareth. “But perhaps it isn’t enough to keep me from my baby brother.”

   “But look at what I’m offering you,” said Jareth in a whiny tone. A crystal ball appeared at his fingertips. “Your dreams. I ask for so little. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want.”

   Sarah had never noticed it before, but Jareth’s face did look genuinely pleading as he held out the crystal to her. Back when she’d been a child she’d assumed he’d been bluffing, just trying to distract or trick her from her goal ahead.

   “Everything?” Sarah whispered. She hated to admit to herself, but she was actually tempted, and for a moment she forgot that she wasn’t actually sixteen again.

   “Everything,” Jareth said firmly. “Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.”

   He held out the crystal to her one last time, his face practically shining with hope and anticipation.

   “On one condition,” Sarah said softly. “My brother goes back to the Aboveground.”

   “Yes, precious, of course!” Jareth said hastily, looking thrilled. It made Sarah want to both smile and cry at the same time as she took the crystal from his hand. Jareth suddenly pulled her into the most loving embrace she’d ever been in—

   Sarah opened her eyes; she was back in the room again. She turned to Jace and said, “It’s done.”

   Jace nodded seriously and the two of them turned back to Jareth, who was now sleeping soundly.

   “He will recover quite soon,” Jace said seriously. “When he wakes, we will tell him that after your wedding, he fell ill over these past two years and has been unconscious.”

   “You really think he’s going to believe that?” Sarah said incredulously.

   “Two years to us is practically nothing,” Jace said with a shrug, rising from Jareth’s bedside and turning away. “And there are indeed some rare diseases that may prolong recovery for up to ten years. He’ll believe it.”

   Then Jace pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment and a quill and handed it to Sarah.

   “You must sign your name, princess,” he said. “It will make your marriage to His Majesty official without a wedding.”

   Sarah raised her eyebrows at the quill (Why not just use pens? She thought) and obediently signed her name at the very bottom of the page.

    Jace took the document left without another word, and Hoggle replaced him at Sarah’s side looking up at her sheepishly.

   “Sarah,” Hoggle said softly, patting her shoulder. “I hope yeh know what yeh just agreed to.”

   “I agreed to save Jareth’s sanity and life,” Sarah mumbled, keeping her eyes locked on Jareth. Her eyes drank in every detail of his face, the abnormal peace that it held when he slept, because she knew that once he woke she’d probably never see that peaceable face again.

 

   For the next week Sarah stayed at Jareth’s bedside, waiting for him to wake, only leaving at twilight to sleep in her room or to practice the story of why Jareth had been bedridden for two years, until it was lodged so permanently in her mind she almost believed it herself. Sarah’s hopes were beginning to fall each passing day when Jareth remained unconscious; she wondered if maybe Jace erasing Jareth’s memories hadn’t worked. And then…

   “Sarah!” said Hoggle’s gruff voice, shaking her with his tiny, stubby hands. Sarah groaned and rolled over, her forehead sweaty. She’d just had quite an intense dream where she and Jareth had been in the Aboveground in Sarah’s old apartment, where Sarah was handcuffed to the bed and they were making furious love.

   “Sarah, wake up!” Hoggle insisted, and Sarah obediently but grudgingly opened her eyes to see Hoggle’s face looming over hers, reflecting urgency and, if possible, a little anxiety.

   “Wha…?” she mumbled, sitting up and yawning. “What is it, Hoggle?”

   “It’s His Majesty,” was all Hoggle said, but it was enough for Sarah to snap to attention immediately, yank on a pair of slippers and lunge out of bed. Sarah threw on a robe over her nightgown and jogged down the hallway and around the corner to Jareth’s windowless room, but the bed in there was devoid of a Goblin King.

   “Where’s Jareth?” Sarah demanded to nobody in particular, before spinning around and running back down the hall. She nearly smacked into Hoggle as she sprinted around the corner again, and then down the stairs to the only other room she knew. As Sarah ran down the hall again, she heard happy voices chattering from around the corner in the summit room, and with a determined burst of speed she dashed around the corner and once again smacked into somebody’s back.

   Except that somebody was Jareth this time, but now he was healthier looking, his hair voluminous again and he was once again attired in the shockingly tight riding pants and a white poets shirt that revealed most of his chest. She and Jareth stared at each other with shocked gazes, while other astonished (and some anxious) eyes rested on the couple, watching, waiting for someone to react. A smirk immediately blossomed on Jareth’s thin mouth, and with his familiar airy tone he said, “Interesting way to greet me after so long, precious.”

   “My son is okay!” beamed Queen Lavender, stepping out of the shadows and embracing Jareth as if Sarah hadn’t just rammed into him— or stepped into the room, for that matter. “We’re currently preparing a celebration. The kingdom is overjoyed that you are alive and well. And you’ve gotten far too thin— we shall have an enormous feast as well.”

   “Do not kill the boy right after he’s recovered, dearest,” said King Minos with a jovial smile and a laugh to match.

   “Indeed,” was all Jareth said, except that the entire time his parents were talking he was not even sparing them a second glance. His mismatched eyes rested solely on Sarah, who couldn’t even react big enough; all she could do was stand there, look positively shocked, and not bother to control the heat that was creeping up over her face.

   At that moment Hoggle waddled in, huffing and puffing and indistinctly wheezing out how impossible it was to catch Sarah, and Sarah used him as an excuse to look away. She gave Jareth one last tentative smile before stepping out of the room and around the corner again. Immediately, an enormous grin exploded over her mouth, and she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around Hoggle’s neck.

   “I did it, Hoggle!” she laughed happily, giving him a giant squeeze. “Jareth is okay!”

   “Yeh did it, Sarah,” Hoggle agreed, patting her on the back. “Yeh definitely did it.”

   “Okay, so next step is to fix the Labyrinth,” Sarah said as she withdrew her grip, looking thoughtful. “Now how am I going to do that…?”

   Hoggle’s face blanched as he looked past Sarah’s shoulder to the person behind him, and the deep baritone voice of Jareth emanated from behind her, “Be gone now, Higgle.”

   Sarah’s face blanched of its smile as well, and Hoggle, this time without correcting him, turned around obediently and power-walked down the hall. Sarah turned her head meekly, to see Jareth now towering over her with his hand outstretched.

   “Rise, precious— it’s quite filthy down there,” he said with a smirk, and Sarah flushed and obediently took his hand.

   “You’re… okay now,” she said lamely, looking at him with a blank face.

   “Indeed,” Jareth said. “You have changed quite a bit in appearance over the last two years while I was ill. You have become a woman.”

   “I… turned eighteen a week and a half ago,” Sarah mumbled.

   This was her first time talking — really talking — to Jareth since two years ago, when she’d rejected him.

   “In that case,” Jareth said softly, his eyes flashing. “Let me give to you a belated birthday and wedding present.”

   With hungry eyes he pinned her to the wall and, with the exact amount of lust Sarah had dreamt about, kissed her ferociously.

   Except the kiss was nothing like the one in her dreams— those had been passionate and loving and amazing. Now, Jareth’s lips were crushed against hers, and he forced her mouth open, and Sarah couldn’t help but cringe at it. It was her first kiss, and she hated it— it was disgusting. True, Jareth was kissing her with all the passion and love he had… and it reminded Sarah with a jolt that she was now stuck living with her former enemy, a man she used to loathe, tried to forget and most certainly did not, could not and would not love. 

   And whom she happened to be having erotic dreams about.

   Jareth’s lips suddenly left hers when the two of them heard footsteps sounding from down the hall, and the two of them turned to see Jace emerge from around the corner. Shock just barely shadowed his face, and he bowed his head and said, “My apologies.”

   “I-It’s fine,” Sarah said quickly, avoiding Jareth’s eye as he straightened up. “Er, do you know where Hoggle went?”

   “He went down to the Grand Hall to oversee the preparations,” Jace said swiftly, approaching them with a loping grace.

   “Preparations?” Sarah repeated confusedly, which earned her a look from Jace.

   “For His Majesty, princess,” Jace said. “The entire kingdom is rejoicing the recovery of the prince.” Sarah at first blinked confusedly and then, remembering that Jareth was next to her, forced a smile.

   “Right,” she said tentatively, still avoiding Jareth’s gaze and still keeping that smile plastered onto her face when Jace passed them and entered the conference room. She’d forgotten that Jareth had been ‘ill’ these past two years— she’d also forgotten that she wouldn’t just be living with him; she was married to him, sharing a bed with him…

   Bearing his children.

   Sarah started when Jareth leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Isn’t it wonderful, precious?”

   Sarah didn’t know how to answer his question, so instead she said quietly, “I am Sarah Williams, Queen of Goblins.”

   And then she looked up at Jareth and smiled tentatively. “It does have an interesting ring to it, doesn’t it?”

   She almost giggled at the look of shock that crossed Jareth’s face and started down the corridor in search of Hoggle.

   If I were a Grand Hall… Sarah thought to herself, stepping down the spiral stairs and choosing one of several corridors. She heard voices coming from around the corner, and so she hurried towards the source of the sound to find an open door leading to an enormous room.

   Clearly, this was the Grand Hall, for it was extremely magnificent. It had tall, arching ceilings that sparkled with gold, enormous glistening windows stretched from ground up, and diamond chandeliers hung and twinkled in the morning sun. There was an enormous, black oak table in the centre of the grand room, and there were decorations that dozens of Fae servants were bustling around to put together— white lilies blossomed here and there, and an enormous, long silk carpet stretched from the doorway to two white chairs at the far edge of the table — Sarah knew they were to be for her and Jareth — that were also draped with white silk and lilies. Hoggle was standing amidst the crowd, and Sarah giggled when she noticed a white lily petal stuck to his hat.

   “Yeh’re alive,” Hoggle grunted, when Sarah hurried over to him.

   “Er, yeah,” Sarah said quietly, flushing. “Geez, they’re certainly making a big deal out of Jareth’s… recovery.”

   “Of course they are,” Hoggle said happily. “He’s the Fae Prince, and the Goblin King! And yeh’re the Champion of the Labyrinth, the Fae Princess, the Goblin Queen… well, a lotta stuff,” Hoggle added.

   “Right,” Sarah mumbled uncertainly, before remembering she was in a robe. “I should probably go back upstairs and change into something more appropriate.”

   “And I should get goin’, since the crew’s finished preparin’ the feast,” Hoggle added, as the two of them started out of the Hall together.

   “Going?” Sarah repeated. “Where are you going?”

   “Well… I kinda gotta see someone,” Hoggle mumbled, and Sarah noticed the rounds of his prominent cheeks turn red. “And I’ll have to tell Ludo and Didymus all about what’s goin’ on up here.”

   “Oh. Could you tell them…” Sarah started, suddenly feeling upset. “Tell them I’m sorry?”

   “They know,” Hoggle said, patting her on the elbow since he couldn’t reach her shoulder. “And, uh, they gave yeh messages when I left to get yeh from the Aboveground. Didymus’s was too long and had too many big words to remember—” Sarah giggled “—and Ludo’s was, ‘Sarah and Ludo friends.’”

   Sarah’s smile widened, even though tears filled her eyes, and she got on her knees again to give Hoggle another huge hug. After pulling away she asked, “Why are you leaving so early though?”

   “Got a long trip ahead of me,” Hoggle replied.

   “Can’t you … I don’t know…  just appear there like you did in the Aboveground and the Labyrinth?”

   Hoggle shook his head before pulling out something from his jewellery bag— a bracelet. To be specific, Sarah’s old plastic bracelet she’d given him in exchange for passage through the Labyrinth. 

   “This is what got me through yer mirror, Sarah,” he said with a smile. “It’s got magic, but it only works with yer mirror, and the Labyrinth, ‘cause those were the only two places yeh went to on yer first visit.”

   “I can’t believe you still have that old thing,” Sarah laughed, as he put it back in his jewellery bag.

   “I’d never lose it,” Hoggle said embarrassedly, before quickly adding, “Er, try to survive by the time I get back, ‘kay Sarah?”

   “I’m only married to the Goblin King,” Sarah said with a hollow laugh. “What could possibly go wrong?”

   “Everythin’,” Hoggle reminded her darkly.

   And then Hoggle left down the hall, taking with him Sarah’s old bracelet and a well-earned kiss on the cheek that left his face burning red.