Worlds Of War

Chapter 6: Sinking into Quicksand.

 

                Sarah turned and fled.

 

                Jareth watched her run, his head cocked to one side, his eyes following her until she vanished around a corner. A high pitched giggle from behind him shifted his attention.

 

                 “I remember her from the labyrinth, sire.”

 

                Jareth didn’t face the goblin but spoke to it nonetheless, “You should, she defeated the labyrinth as few have and is the only mortal who has made it through.”

 

                 “I think she’s very pretty, sire.”

 

                A smile twitched at Jareth’s lips, the taste of Sarah still there, “As do I. Go, follow her, keep her safe, and make sure she doesn’t leave this area.”

 

                 “OK sire.”

 

                Jareth heard more laughter and numerous goblins scamper from hiding places to do his bidding. Almost immediately it was replaced by slow, thumping footsteps. This time the king turned to face his subject, “Ludo, so glad you could come.”

 

                The shaggy orange creature gave a low rumble, “Sawah fwend.”

 

                 “Yes, Sarah is a friend and I’m hoping by the end of the night that she’ll be much more to me.”

 

                Ludo gave Jareth a confused look and Jareth smiled at the large animal’s innocence, “Ludo, I need you to go to the humans’ hiding spot and protect those that are there. If any of the bad people come, call me. Can you do that?”

 

                 “Ludo help,” was the growling reply before he ambled away.

 

                 “Yous actually going to help them?” asked Hoggle, “Sarah hasn’t even agreed to the deal yet.”

 

                Jareth looked down at the dwarf, “Sarah doesn’t have a choice. Willingly would be better, but if I have to use force I will. Helping the other mortals is just generosity on my part.”

 

                Hoggle flinched at the words and poked a foot through the dirt and dust on the ground, “I’s don’t like this. This is wrong. The peach dream was bad to begins with, but this is much worse.” Hoggle could feel Jareth’s glare on him.

 

                 “If Sarah had accepted the peach dream in the beginning none of this would be necessary and she would have already been mine.” The words sent a powerful image into Jareth’s mind, heat rushing to lower parts of his body. Sarah lay entwined in his sheets, naked save for the sweat of their earlier exertion sill sliding off her smooth, hot skin. Hair – the colour of night – fanning out and embracing her body. Her eyes opened and darkened with the promise of more passion. Jareth breathed deeply to calm himself and dispel the sweet apparition. “Go back to the Underground, Hoggle, you’re not needed here tonight.”

 

                Hoggle nodded, understanding the implications and turned, his form fading away to nothing.

 

                Jareth sniffed the magic the night gave out and grinned, “Time is up Sarah. You can’t hide from me any longer.”

 

                ***

 

                Sarah’s feet pounded along the ground while her heart beat faster. She raggedly drew breathes in, her throat constricted by the dry sobs that tore at her throat. A cold wind whipped her hair back. How could Jareth do that to her - control her life to the extent that he obviously had. All those times she had tried to find a little pleasure in a world full of pain, it had been taken from her.

 

                Luke, who had been shot down by force groups,

 

                Tyler, who was captured and forced to live by the Superior’s laws.

 

                And Paul...

 

                Paul who had been her partner before Johnny, whom she had been separated from in a fight and had never seen since.

 

                After Paul, she couldn’t bare to love anyone like that again. She loved Johnny and the others, but only as family. Now she knew the real reason for the loss of the ones she had loved - they weren’t taken from her by some cruel twist of fate, they were taken from her by Jareth. Jareth, who seemed to manipulate every aspect of her life. This had to be the very definition of unfair. She had her basis for comparison now!

 

                High-pitched laughter stopped her dead in her tracks and she spun around towards the sound. The laughter was gone as if it had never been and Sarah stood frozen like a deer caught in headlights. The wind grew colder and stronger, howling in the absence of the giggling.  Someone laughed behind her and as soon as she whipped her head around to face it, it came again to the right of her.

 

                 “Stop it!” she yelled, her voice catching on the last word. Laughter surrounded her and shadows moved across the ground. “J-just stop it!” she sobbed and sank to the ground, her legs no longer having strength. “Just l-leave m-m-me alone.” The mocking laughter and the gale of wind grew and rose together – invading her senses, filling her mind. It was like a madness that crawled across her skin and she just wanted it to stop. She screamed out to be heard above the noise. “SHUT UP!”

 

                The giggling stopped. The wind dropped and no longer assaulted her senses. The ground beneath her was soft, not hard. Warm arms wrapped around her and drew her towards a strong chest. Sarah’s mind dimly registered the changes, choosing instead to focus fully on the source of comfort offered. She cried into the bare skin and felt gentle hands run up and down her back, rubbing in wide, open circles. The chest vibrated slightly as a deep voice hummed a soft melody. Eventually a baritone diapason voice sung words:

 

I wait to hear your breathing

I watch you as you’re sleeping

Inside a garden blooming live the roses that you seek.

Inside a tunnel glowing

Peace is there, I’m here

Flash in darkness falls like snowing

The messages are clear.

 

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Watching every movement

Holding close to you as you cry.

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Closer than your shadow

Though I may be gone

I’m here indeed.

 

In your familiar dreaming

You look at your surroundings

And find there’s something missing

Yes, I know it’s true

 

And while you search the longing

I come to you

I hear my name you’re calling

My promise is still true

 

I won’t forget the time

When I’d not said goodbye

But even when I’m gone

I’m standing by your side

 

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Standing by your heartbeat

Holding close to you as you cry

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Watching every movement

Though I may be gone

I’m here indeed

 

When you think there’s no one watching over you

Call my name and you will hear my flame

 

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Standing by your heartbeat

Holding close to you as you cry

Indeed I’m here

Indeed

Closer than your shadow

Though I may be gone

I’m here indeed*

 

                Sarah calmed slightly, now only the occasional sob jerked from her while tears still trickled down and stained her face. Thoughts became less fragmented and slowly formed into more concrete convictions. Why shouldn’t she just jump into bed with some guy? Today everyone snatched at what little comfort they could. She was a 27 year old virgin! An old maid! True that it was Jareth’s fault, but why shouldn’t she take what he was offering? Why not experience what she could before she died? Life had been shitty to her, why couldn’t she be shitty to it? Let the rest of the world go to hell, she didn’t care anymore. Didn’t care… didn’t care…

 

                Her thoughts started off a fresh wave of sobs as she lightly thumped against the chest and whispered brokenly, “don’t care… don’t care anymore.”

 

                One hand left her back to grasp her fist. She watched through blurry eyes as her fingers were uncurled and her palm kissed. Sarah pulled in a sharp breath as two mismatched eyes stared into her own. Jareth brushed the tears from her face and pushed her thick hair back behind her shoulders.

 

                “You do care Sarah, sometimes too much for your own good. But for tonight let me make you forget the pain. Forget what your world has done to you and just feel.”

 

                Jareth swiftly captured Sarah lips with his own and she clung to it like a lifeline. His kiss wiped her mind blank – a balm to the burning pain inside her – and she wrapped her arms around her neck, desperate to keep him there. His hands traveled up and down her back, pulling her closer to him. ‘This feels so good, so right,’ thought Sarah and she gulped in breath as Jareth moved his lips from her mouth to skim along her still wet cheeks. His fingers worked quickly at her clothes, sliding her shirt open to reveal her bra-clad breasts.

 

                She felt herself tipped backwards, her entwined arms about his neck bringing Jareth down with her. The surface beneath her was soft and gave slightly with their weight. Jareth’s tongue darted out to taste her breast and Sarah’s eyes shot open as it roamed around her nipple. A hand covered her other breast, fingers brushing over the sensitive cloth-covered tip. Sarah arched up into him, threading fingers through his hair, holding him to her. Hazily, she noticed that she was not looking up at the stars as she would have been had she still been out in the streets. Instead there were dark drapes hanging off oak wood. Jareth’s bedroom…

 

                Dazedly, Sarah saw Jareth suddenly lift his head and look to the side as if he had heard something. He swore and she snapped back to reality… and embarrassment as she realized that she was partly naked underneath Jareth. Before she could shove the fey off her, Jareth gave her a hard kiss and moved away from her. More colour flushed to her face as she noticed that Jareth was fully dressed. Sarah suddenly felt extremely vulnerable and clutched at the material below her to cover her state of undress, as her top seemed nowhere in sight.

 

                Jareth watched her put up the protective barrier of sheets and gave a thought to removing the sheets altogether – she shouldn’t hide any part of her from him. But time enough for that later. He gave her a smirk, “It seems we’ll be slightly detained, some urgent business has come up. It is just as well. You’re quite filthy and badly in need of a bath, no doubt a natural consequence from living in the sewers. I’ll be back to finish what we started.” He vanished before Sarah took the breath for a retort.

 

                Instinct took over and Sarah looked for an avenue of escape, her mind working furiously at logic after her disastrous attempt of going with the flow. Besides an archway leading to a bathroom, there was nothing.

 

                 “You bastard,” she grated out quietly, “what sort of person has a room without doors?” Sarah suddenly realized what her mistake had been all along. She had been treating him as a person, as a human and he was anything but. Time to change plans.

 

                 “Right Sarah,” she said to herself, “first thing is first, find some clothes, then call on a few old, not so human, friends.”

 

                ***

 

                If it was possible to kill his king, he was sure he would do it, Charlie thought. ‘Charlie’ – the name he had adopted for this insane mission Jareth had sent him on. After seeing Sir Didymus on his way he had taken off into the heart of enemy territory – Superior headquarters. He had grabbed the name from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but he felt like he was more of a ‘Charlie in the Fucking Insane Castle of Doom Because His King Was A Bastard’ kind of character.

 

                The past few hours had had been an intense air of excitement – the bad kind. The Superiors were in a right tizzy and everyone was feeling the effects. The maids were running as fast and as silently as they could, the guards were actually standing more rigid than paying attention and a lack of either could get them killed, the manservents were running as if they were chickens without heads – in fact everything was running at top speed except for-

 

                “Charlie!” the snapped whisper breathed hot air into his ear and he flinched, “What’s taking you so long?”

 

                Charlie turned to find his overseer, Gary, standing much too close in his personal space, close enough to see the pores on his nose. Charlie fought not to breathe in too deeply in case he inhaled in the other man’s body odour. Not a pleasant prospect “Sorry sir, I got lost.”

 

                “Lost?! The Superiors won’t care that you got lost. They’ve already killed two people today. You don’t want to be their third. Hurry up!” Gary shoved him to get him moving.

 

                ‘Really’, Charlie thought, ‘why would the human race put up with a government who killed them? Why serve them in a place where death was possible at every turn? Where was their rebellion?

 

                Fear

 

                Lots of fear.

 

                And with good reason, the Superiors had supplied many reasons for the Aboveground residents to be scared of them. Petrified. Yet,’ and Charlie gave one last glance at Gary as he scuttled away, ‘why put yourself in the very middle of it? Unless, of course, your king had ordered you. The bastard.’

 

                Charlie dashed down the hallways and skidded to a stop in front of one door. He knocked once loudly. After the command to enter, he bowed low at the waist before opening the door and walking in. Never once did he lift his eyes from the ground as he held the clean bath towels in his arms.

 

                “Put them next to the bath, servant. Then run my bath for me,” came the imperious order from the male Superior. Charlie bowed lower in acknowledgment and scurried to do the task, as well as listen in on the conversation.

 

                “Amol, if Jareth had appeared Aboveground then we should attack him as one right now, before he can do whatever it is he has come here to do.”

 

                “Calm down, Jerode,” the other male Superior said quietly, “Jareth has never cared for mortals before. Whatever his purpose is up here, it is for some malevolent trickery. There’s no reason for him to interfere in what we are doing.”

 

                “Except for his perchant for malevolent trickery!” Jerode paced his room, “Jareth has the power to stop us, he-”

 

                “He cannot defeat us, not all four of us together,” Amol reasoned, “Why cause trouble when there’s no need? If we interfere with whatever Jareth may be doing then he will turn his attention on us. Though I have no doubt that together we can defeat him, he is a wily enough opponent to separate us. However, if we leave well enough alone, I’m sure he will return soon enough back to the Underground.”

 

                “But he helped those damn Resistors! He’s up to something!” Jerode slashed a hand down in frustration.

 

                Amol frowned, “Perhaps. But we have our best eyes on him. Our servant in Seattle is beyond human, we have made him so, and he will not miss Jareth’s tricks.”

 

                “There’s something wrong,” Jerode insisted. “Even now I swear I can smell the stench of the Underground.”

 

                Charlie froze for a second in adding oils to the bath.

 

               

*Indeed, I’m here. Copywrite Drew Lane (2001). From the CD No Categories. For his musicals go to his website www.captivationmusicals.net