Sarah and Deverell sat in her office, “I’m very sorry miss, but the rules are specific. The phrase used to call the goblins cannot be changed.”
“I see,” she sighed, catching her head in her palms. “Well, we’ll think of a way around it then. There’s always a way around everything.”
“I admire your way of thinking, milady and if, by chance, I’ve not mentioned it before now, I would like to take the opportunity to say I am truly honored to be chosen to help craft this idea of yours. It’s just the sort of thing needed around here. You’ll make a wonderful queen and a glamorous one at that.”
“Hush, I’ve never taken flattery well and some silly title won’t change that.”
“Milady you should adjust to flattery for the king bestows it upon you even when you are not in his presence. And besides, flattery makes me sound as if the things I feel compelled to tell you are said out of some contrived plot to win your trust that I may abuse it in the future, when in fact, I wish only to show my appreciation and my loyalty.”
“Duly noted,” Sarah blushed. “And forgive me for sounding cold or presumptuous.”
“There’s nothing to be forgiven,” he added beginning to pace the floor, brainstorming as he did.
For a while, she watched his methodic dance, eight paces right, stop, turn, eight paces left, stop, turn. Finally she asked of him, “Deverell, I wish you would stop that. I get dizzy only watching you.”
“My apologies, it’s just that I seem to think better when I’m moving about.”
“Now there’s an idea. I’m going for a walk, perhaps to the edge of the Labyrinth. With a bit of luck, Hoggle will be around and despite what Jareth thinks of him, he is incredibly adept at problem solving.” Sarah closed the book she had open on her desk and slipped her feet back into her shoes, which she had kicked off when first she sat behind the desk.
As she stood to leave, Deverell interjected, “Apologies again miss, but his majesty left explicit orders you were not to be alone outside the castle.” At her chastising glance he added, “For your protection, until your citizenship is official and you’re not so vulnerable to Tiberon.”
Conceding to the king’s wishes, Sarah suggested, “Then would you like to walk with me for a bit?”
“If milady wishes for me to accompany her, I will.”
“Milady wishes it,” she chuckled as she wondered if anyone here would ever learn to be less formal with her.
***** ***** *****
Outside the sun was low in the sky. Late afternoon was cool and comfortable in the kingdom. Milling about, this way and that, goblins carried out menial tasks. The less educated and less coordinated ones were in small groups fooling around or drinking. One particularly young goblin stopped before Sarah and stared up at her. She pretended not to notice, not wanting to seem disturbed or aloof. “Here now, Balmek. Don’t go staring at the queen that way. You’ll be sailing head over heels you keep that up.”
At hearing the odd instruction Sarah stopped entirely. “Balmek, is that your name?” The little goblin nodded. “Well Balmek, while I agree that staring isn’t particularly polite, I can assure you I’ll not send you sailing because of it. But one who stares usually does so as a precursor to some question. Is there a curiosity I can satisfy for you?”
Balmek’s mother dropped into an obedient curtsey. “Apologizes to you miss. I don’t give a fig who you are,” cried out the same woman as earlier. “You’ll not talk to my son that way.”
“What way?” Sarah asked in surprise at the way she’d run defensively to protect her child. “I was just wondering why he was staring at me.”
“I didn’t understand you then,” the goblin woman admitted. “I’m Sari,” she said extending her hand.
“No need to be sorry. It was a simple misunderstanding.”
“Not sorry miss, Sa - ri,” she said slowly, pronouncing each syllable separately.
“Oh my,” Sarah said with a giggle as she shook the woman’s hand. “Seems as if I’m the one misunderstanding things now. Sari is it and this is your son Balmek. I’m Sarah and this is the king’s assistant Deverell.”
“Sarah,” Balmek squealed.
“Hush,” Sari corrected him. “This lady is the queen and you’ll not call her by anything other.”
Contorting in confusion, Sarah’s eyebrows danced wildly on her face. “I’m not the queen, not yet,” she added. “Even if I were, there’d be no reason to not call me Sarah. It is my name after all.”
“Pardon, word round the city is you were queen.”
Deverell chimed in, “It’s true the king intends to make this woman his queen, but there are certain formalities we must follow to make it official.” He tried his best to use words he thought the goblins would understand.
Chuckling Sari almost toppled over. “Oh you mortals! Must be a powerful magic you have to make the king abide by the rules.” Even Sarah had to laugh at how tickled the goblin seemed to be. “I’ve taken up enough of your time, Sarah. It was awfully nice to make your acquaintance.” Sari started away.
“Before you go,” Sarah called to her, “do you mind my asking why you have such trouble with the language when I’ve been struggling to learn how to talk like everyone else here?”
“Everyone of nobility or connected to them no doubt. We lesser folk aren’t educated miss. We’ve no books, no scrolls, no one to teach us. We pick up enough to manage and what we don’t know we take to the smarter of us who does their best to explain it.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It is what it is. In centuries no one’s changed it, but then why bother, everyone seems happy with the way things are,” Sari explained as she looked at the dirt beneath her feet.
“I’m not happy with it!” Sarah exclaimed.
Balmek in the mean time had gotten right up close to her, “Why do you look so different?” he asked.
Distracted for a moment from her own frustration, Sarah bent to face the tiny goblin. “How do I look?” Balmek shrugged, unable to find the words. “Well if we all looked the same, then we’d have to go around sniffing one another to tell each other a part and that’s just very rude.” Balmek laughed. “Truth is I have no look at all. I am only the reflection of what you see. Were I an ogre, you would see me as an ogre. Were I a witch, you would see me as a witch. Were I a chicken, you would see me as a chicken.” With each outlandish example, Sarah accompanied wild gestures and skewed facial expressions. “So the real question to be asked is how do you see me Balmek?”
He thought for a moment about what she had said. She was kind to him, didn’t turn her nose or walk away when he spoke to her. She was smiling which meant she was no chicken for chickens did not have lips with which to smile. And an ogre would have stomped him flat without even looking. It left him with only one option, “You’re pretty,” he announced. “Pretty like my mama.”
Sarah’s eyes began to well and through her tears the squat, dirt covered goblin child became her baby brother, became every small child she had ever held. “And you are precious as a stone, no,” she said quickly, “as a gem.”
At first Balmek just looked at her and giggled, wondering why her eyes were filling with water the way they were, but then in a burst of energy he went off dancing. “Precious as a gem, precious as a gem,” he sang without really knowing what he was saying. “The lady queen says I’m precious as a gem.”
Choked up at the exuberant display of her child, Sari bowed to the mortal and followed after him with a wave of her hand. Sarah stood straight once more, grinding the moisture from her eyes. “Why doesn’t anyone teach them?” she asked Deverell.
“Miss, it is my understanding that education was a thing passed on by the elders. As goblins grew to become industrious they’re need for education subsided. Their elders taught them trade and even that over the years has dwindled to the few capable of work and the others barely capable of play,” he explained.
“Preposterous! Become industrious, slaves is what they’ve become. Send them out here to dig ditches and move dirt. March them into battle because they’re expendable. The need for education is not a subsiding kind of need!” Sarah was furious at the insinuation and as with all great thinkers, their emotions sometimes lead them to glorious conclusions. “I’ve got it.”
“Got what?” Deverell asked.
“The solution to the problem we were having, and perhaps, to a problem we didn’t even know we had.” She was turning around and heading back to the castle. “We’ll educate the goblins. I’ll compose a reader, maybe a book of arithmetic as well and we’ll teach them. It’s got to be something basic,” she continued. “Something to be used by young and old a like. Something to hold their interest. Pictures, it should have pictures.” By now the king’s assistant had practically broken into a sprint in his efforts to keep up with her. “And once they’re educated, we’ll teach them how to use crystals.” She stopped just outside the castle door. “And then they’ll watch the mortals. When they see a baby in a horrid situation, they’ll go and deliver an invitation, we’ll work on the wording later, but they’ll deliver an invitation to wish the child away with positively no repercussions. Then we’ll house the children here in the oubliette where time stands still, only we’ll turn it in to a nursery and when the goblins come across someone worthy of a child and incapable of having one, they’ll deliver the child to them. It’s so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner!”
“Simple?” Deverell sighed when she went inside finally able to stop his mad pace.
***** ***** *****
The tip of the king’s quill beat rhythmically on his blotter while he tried to find the words to scribe in his journal, words worthy of describing the last few days. Rather than inspiration, he met only frustration. Their time Aboveground had been unspeakably divine and the ease with which they’d managed to accomplish their mission, nothing short of amazing. Though he’d have never permitted Sarah to go alone, Jareth could never have imagined how important his presence there would be, nor how fortunate a find it was Sarah had asked him to remain visible to some as the Goblin King. Were it not for his appearance Toby would never have reacted as he had, thereby forcing Robert to believe the wild story Sarah had come to tell and had he not reminded Linda of their previous encounter, she surely would have denied her daughter’s happiness. Now there was nothing to consider but the reaction of the Leanan Sidhe to all of this. He had, in the new found interest he’d developed in fairness, imagined both outcomes to the scenario.
There was the outcome he desired, where his mother listened to his plea with an open mind, recalled all the love she herself had once been able to share with a mortal and granted her permission for the king to marry the woman he had selected. Then there was the outcome he expected, where the Leanan Sidhe refused to listen to a single thing he said, cast him from her tomb and ruined every chance he stood to remain eternally blissful in the company of his mortal. The idea of some other scenario, some bad start with a happy ending perhaps, was beyond his scope of imagination. And so he remained in an extremely deep pattern of thought, so deep in fact, when his assistant came knocking at his door, he barely batted an eyelash.
Repeated attempts failed to elicit a varied response from within the king’s office and Deverell, having exhausted all his patience when contending with Sarah earlier, came in without waiting for permission from the king, only to find him as oblivious face to face as he had been beyond the berth of the thick wooden door. “Your majesty?” Deverell asked timorously.
“What is it?” Jareth asked without particularly caring, his quill still thumping on the blotter.
The king’s assistant took a seat facing his superior, “Your majesty, there is something about which we must speak; however, the matter I’ve in mind would command your full attention sire.”
“Go on,” the king paltered.
“It involves Sarah,” Deverell told him. The time for passivity had been spent as Jareth straightened in his chair, returned the quill to its well and folded his hands before him on his desk. It was easy to see, Deverell now had his complete attention. “Your majesty, I think milady has done herself in. She’s taken what was a brilliant plan to improve our kingdom, one guaranteed to get the attention of the Triumvirate and turned it into such a futile anomaly I fear she may be laughed out of the great hall, my grace.”
In as consuming as his worries over his mother had been, it had slipped Jareth’s recollection there was a final piece of the puzzle which remained in Sarah’s control. “Do I want to know what that is?” he edged on warily.
“Most probably not,” Deverell concluded. “I doubt it will please you.” Jareth’s hand caught his head as it fell. Between slightly parted fingers he peeked out waiting to hear what was coming next. “Your majesty, the lady Sarah believes, in order to best utilize the goblins in her plan of managing children in the Underground, she needs to educate them.”
“Educate them?” the king asked, still hidden behind his glove.
“Educate them, your majesty. Teach them to read, write, use language and mathematics.” He heard Jareth chuckle. “I know your highness, it’s ludicrous. I would have attempted to dissuade her, but she ran off in such an excited state of motivation it broke my heart to say anything to the contrary.”
Thinking of the seer who had long ago warned him this girl would be his undoing, Jareth slid his hand from his face revealing a wide smile. “What’s ludicrous is that we, myself included, have allowed the goblins to assume such insignificance in our society.”
“But your majesty,” Deverell attempted to interject, but was cut off by the king.
“But I myself kick them around and bully them, was that your argument?” Deverell nodded at Jareth’s accurate presumption. “Yes, well, the mortal has a point. We’re asking them to accept her as queen, perhaps if they see she wants to better them, they’ll be less disinclined to accept her.”
“But your majesty,” this time the assistant gave a moderate pause in anticipation of Jareth’s interruption, but for no cause, “don’t you find it a dangerous idea? What, with so many of them and if they are all to become educated we could have rebellion on our hands.”
“The possibility exists I suppose; however, think of this. We’ll be giving them purpose and functionality and with them being so fiercely loyal by nature, don’t you suppose this will only encourage them to be more loyal.”
“When did you become such an optimist?” A female’s voice asked from the doorway.
Jareth turned to see Arulan standing there. “I have always been an optimist,” he said pointedly before supplementing, “I just went through a skeptical phase.” The three of them laughed heartily.
Temporarily the raucous kept Sarah from her thoughts, but as quickly as her attentions had been diverted, they returned to the reader she was preparing. Once it was complete she’d have Jareth duplicate it a number of times. Then she’d begin assembling the goblins, recruiting the more educated to assist her in teaching and dividing the remainder into manageable sizes for attending class. Sarah was not completely unrealistic. She knew it would take a year or more until they could functional use language, longer to make them proficient and to teach them to write, longer still to train them for the jobs she had in mind for them. Eventually they’d take on mathematics, maybe art. Suddenly she found her mind spiraling out of control with ideas of what she could teach them.
In the plan she’d created for herself, Sarah had decided on staying in the Underground. It was, after all, what she wanted, what Jareth wanted, but some crack in her plan let doubt come seeping in and she wondered who would do these things if she weren’t here. Returning Aboveground had gone beyond disenchanting her, it was an unacceptable punishment now. Were the Triumvirate or the Leanan Sidhe not to accept her they wouldn’t just be sending her Aboveground, they’d be banishing her. To love Jareth was to love his world, his subjects and his servants and Sarah did love Jareth, as much as she loved everything that came with him.
***** ****** *****
The king lie in his bed beside his mortal. Unlike other nights they shared, Sarah was not wrapped inside his tight embrace, instead she was curled on her left side, her rump pressed against his hip. Jareth stared up at the ceiling watching the shadows dance as the torchier flames flickered in the breeze from the open window. Sarah’s eyes were closed, but only lightly, and she was fiercely aware his breathing lacked the normal rhythm of his sleep, but rather seemed interrupted by heavy sighs and the occasional undecipherable grumble.
‘Fifteen more minutes,’ she thought as she pictured his strained face behind her eyelids. ‘Fifteen more minutes and I’m rolling over to call his bluff.’ It wasn’t as if Sarah didn’t know why he was awake and restless, she just didn’t know why he insisted on keeping it all to himself when she gladly would have talked it over with him or helped him keep his mind off their impending visit to his mother’s tomb. Yes, that was what kept him staring into space long after it was too dark to really see anything, long after the only things still stirring in the castle were shadows. It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand, after all she had been afraid to face her parents too and look at how it all turned out. If anything, she came away from her trip with a new found understanding of her mother and a sense of closure with her father, one which left her feeling less abandoned than she had in decades. She tried to think of something, anything positive she could imagine coming from his confronting his mother’s ghost.
Jareth eyed Sarah’s form beneath the duvet, the steep dip of her waste and the voluptuous rise of her hips which set up the easy roll of her long sleek legs that zig zagged right down to the point of her toes. Another heavy sigh escaped his throat and Sarah noted he had only three more minutes remaining before she confronted him. It occurred to him to reach out and smooth his hand along her silhouette, but Jareth quickly thought better of waking his love when the king’s mood was sub-par to say the least. Fidgeting a bit, he managed to fold his arms across his chest without disturbing what he thought was the sleeping mortal.
‘One hundred seventy-seven, one hundred seventy-eight, one hundred seventy-nine,’ Sarah counted in her head before she spun around to face the king. Propped on one elbow, she looked down upon his deceptively calm face. Jareth had closed his eyes in an effort to mislead Sarah as she hovered above him. His chest rose and fell in an all too patterned way. If that weren’t enough to give him away, the forced air noises he pumped from his nose betrayed his horrible acting. “I know you’re not sleeping,” she told him as her hand smoothed over his chest. “You haven’t been asleep for hours.”
The king fluttered his eyes before looking sleepily up at her, “Surely I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been asleep for hours. I must have been having a nightmare.”
“Last time I checked, you didn’t need to be asleep to have one of those.” Her lips kissed his forehead, along the side of his face, stopping at his chin. “Call it woman’s intuition, but” she went on kissing down his neck and over his chest, “I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because of your mother.”
“My mother?” he asked her as if it were the most asinine thing he’d ever heard. “That’s ridiculous. What could possibly make you think that I’m...” In a way which said she knew he as lying, Sarah looked up at him from just above his navel. “...losing sleep over...” he continued, hoping his calm demeanor would keep her from pushing him further, but Sarah only kept her hard eyes on his in an unforgiving stare. “...my mother. Yes, my mother. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for hours.”
Caressing his sides, she eased back up parallel to him, “I know, but you should have said something, we could’ve talked about it. I could’ve helped you.”
“Could you?” He asked a bit more abruptly than he had intended, “Could you make me understand what it is a child can do to make it’s mother hate him so strongly those feeling survive even death?” There was a pause as he looked away, unable to accept the reality that he had caused the tears which shimmered in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he pleaded taking her into his arms. “I didn’t mean to come across so abrasively.”
Her warm tears ran along his lithe chest as Sarah held to the king. “I can’t,” she admitted. “I can no more make you understand that than I can understand why my mother packed up to leave the man she loved as well as her only child. No more than I could make my father and his wife understand a fantasy world where foolish persons so easily wished away infants to a goblin king.” Her sniffling met silence as she lie there searching for more to say, something consoling. “But I would have liked to try to soothe you, put your mind at ease and bring you rest.” Her feet swung from beneath the duvet and slid into her waiting slippers. Sarah rose from the bed, her hand sweeping her robe from a nearby chair as she headed for the door.
Jareth was on her nearly instantly. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed Sarah by her hips and planted his left ear against her womb. “Please Sarah,” he pleaded as his leaking eyes stained her silk robe,” I can’t stand to have you leave me again. I was wrong not to wake you, wrong not to tell you all I was feeling.”
Compassionately Sarah ran her long fingers in rows through his flattened blonde hair. “Foolish man. Haven’t you learned. We may not always agree, at times we have hurt each other deeply and in the long future we stand to share, we will most probably do it again, but we have never been better apart than we are together, not even in the bad times.” Her gently hand guided him to his feet and back to their bed. Kissing him tenderly on his lips as she stared into his wet eyes she told him, “I’m going to get us some warm milk. It will help you sleep.” The king held her hand and her gaze until she stepped from his reach.
‘Whatever it was he had done to push his mother away,’ he thought as he watched her glide through the open door, “I shall not do again with you,” Jareth promised the empty room in which he now sat.
***** ***** *****
It was no march of confidence, no hopeful stride which took the duo into the labyrinth this day. Instead four distinct skids marked their shuffle through the gate and down the path toward the tomb built for the Leanan Sidhe. Hoggle watched them as they plodded over the dirt floors in between the stone slab walls, their hands joined, their heads hung, their eyes oblivious to everything put the placement of their next heavy step. He sighed. “The two of ‘em has come so far,” the dwarf thought aloud. “Never thought I’d say it, but I hope they makes it.”
From the bottom of the staircase, Sarah could hear the barely audible clattering of toenails on the stone floor and she knew they were merely steps away from the goal they had set out to accomplish only hours earlier. Curving the corners of her mouth was the tiny voice of a regal fox as he alternated the accent on the phrase he repeated, “None may enter without my permission.” “None may enter without my permission.” “None may enter without my permission.” For a time they stood a top the stairs watching Sir Didymus continue his erratic patterns, his fuzzy brow wrinkling as he attempted to seem foreboding. As he finished what Sarah thought was the most astute version, “None may enter without my permission,” she let loose a demure cough. Didymus spun on his heels to face them, “I shall fight anyone, anywhere...” he cried. Sarah’s warm smile quickly quieted him. “Milady?”
“May we have your permission?” she asked as she sunk to his level.
For as much as a fox could smile, Sir Didymus did. “Milady, for you to ask my permission is like asking the sun to shine, the deed is done before your sweet lips part.” He bowed low before her, the feathers of his cap skimming the ground as he did. When he straightened himself once more, he met the watchful eye of the king, “Your...your...your majesty,” he stammered. “I have offended thee. Doest though wish to send me to the bog, for I, your humble servant, will willingly obey any command his highness gives.”
Jareth’s knees bent, his long legs doubling back on themselves. “No need, but keep in mind I won’t be so liberal when she is queen.” For the first time all day, Jareth smiled. Then he stood, took Sarah’s arm in his and approached the door to the tomb of the Leanan Sidhe. “Ready?” he asked before they crossed the threshold.
A pregnant pause fell between them as the mortal considered the magnitude of what they were about to do. Only briefly she weighed the best and worst possible outcomes and then, drawing in a sigh of courage, she stood straight at his side, looking up into his mismatched eyes and calmly replied, “I believe I am.”
Her confidence drove his right foot forward, obediently his left followed and so a pattern was begun, one which soon brought him before the overwhelming oil replica of the woman who was once more than stone and spirit. The peacefulness normally inherent to these types of places was missing, in fact, Sarah got the distinct feeling they were not welcome here, not in the slightest.
“Mother,” she heard Jareth’s voice draw out. “I’m not leaving. You might as well accept that now.” He seemed to be warning the air around him, but it became evident as the floor beneath their feet began to quake something more than the air had heard him. The king continued his tirade, “Honestly, you’re behaving like a spoiled child.” The eyes of the painting seemed to glower down at him as the frame beat against the wall of the mausoleum. Sarah tried to back against a wall, searching desperately for a way to stabilize herself, not wanting to show neediness by clinging to Jareth, but not wanting to show cowardice by sinking to the floor. “Go on, then throw this tantrum of yours if it will satisfy you.” The ruckus caused a stone to fall from the middle of the far right wall. As it hit the ground, it cracked. While the display distracted Sarah’s attention, a tiny gasp escaping her, so small it could not be heard above the noise, the Goblin King continued his threats, “Bring this place down around my feet if you feel you must.”
Quickly as her fury had begun, the Leanan Sidhe grew quiet. A low growl permeated to the corners of the tomb as it replaced the rumbling which had shaken the room. A guttural sound, deep and nearly unnatural that hummed and made them vibrate from within. Sarah’s heart beat wildly in her chest, her breath coming in quick whistling draws. Everything inside her told her to go, to turn tail and run, but she stayed her feet steadfastly planted on the ground where moments earlier they had ridden out the tremors. Forcing herself, she drew in deep, even breaths through her nose and pushed them out between her quivering lips. Jareth’s soul had rooted within her and the Sidhe wanted her to leave, she felt it.
The indeterminable growls began to take shape, forming simple one word commands with drawn out vowels, “Leeeeave!” “Goooooo!”
“Sarah,” Jareth shouted above the cries. “Do as she wishes. Leave.”
“No,” the mortal cried back. “I’m not leaving. We are not leaving.”
“She has the power to drop this entire building to the ground Sarah, a catastrophe you will not survive. Please do not argue with me.”
“I’m not leaving. There’s nothing to argue over.” The wind around them howled as Sarah reiterated, “I’m not leaving.”
“Get away from my son,” a swift breeze blew passed her, pushing her toward the door. Fighting against the shove, she staggered back to where she had stood.
Rushing to her side, the king wrapped his arm around her waist, “Mother!” he chastised.
“Leave,” she replied once more.
“No mother. Sarah and I wish to be united, unfortunately, the Triumvirate won’t permit it without your consent. It would seem to me, seeing as how you have been unable or unwilling to do anything for me up until this point, you might see your way to granting me this.”
More angrily than she had been the Sidhe wailed, “I have done more for you than you know, boy.” Sarah thought she heard noises, like a dog sniffing, before the phantom continued, “She’s not worthy of you. She’s human, mortal! She reeks of it!”
“Father was a mortal,” Jareth reminded her.
The same breeze which had guided Sarah toward the door began shoving at Jareth. “And we see how successfully that worked out.”
Sarah thought of all the books she’d read. She knew she could not fight he Sidhe but, perhaps she could outsmart her. “Jareth, I need you to trust me. I want you to step outside.”
“Have you gone completely mad?” he asked her. The urgency in his voice silenced the activity in the room. “You seriously expect I’m going to walk out of here and leave you alone with the Sidhe so, what exactly? What will you attempt that I haven’t attempted a thousand times before? Will you reason with her? It can’t be done! Will you promise her things? None of it will matter! Will you threaten her? Because she can cause more fear in you with a word than you could manage with the strongest magic!” Sarah’s eyes remained on the floor as she thought of how dutifully she had left him alone with Linda. It wasn’t long before Jareth was thinking the same thought. “I will do as you ask of me, but if...”
“You’ll give me the time I need, as I gave you the time you needed,” Sarah told him sternly before she moved to kiss his cheek. “And when we’re ready for you to return, you’ll know.” Her eyes added the I love you, she hesitated to express in the presence of the Sidhe. As he left the tomb, his fey eye returned her emotion with ten times the sentiment a human was capable of giving.
Slowly he took the stairs outside to the garden and sat wearily on the bottom one where he could watch as Didymus paced nervously to and fro. Upon noticing Jareth sitting there, the fox cried out, “In the name of the Supreme One, the Leanan Sidhe has taken her!” Dashing toward the mausoleum, poised to fight for his beloved lady Sarah, the small fox charged, scepter drawn, teeth bared. “I shall fight anyone, anywhere, any time, dead or alive in the name of milady!”
“Just a second,” Jareth said scooping up the enraged guard. Didymus’ legs flailed wildly when they left the stone floor. “If anything, I would worry for the Sidhe. Your lady Sarah is about to give her a better fight than I was ever capable of.” Gently he set the fox back on the ground.
“And so milady lives.”
“Were it any other way, good sir, I would not.”
“I believe you,” Didymus said with conviction as he joined the king on the bottom stair. “And so we wait?”
“I’ve found in dealing with women, waiting is the most often employed method,” the Goblin King smiled down at his guard whose tiny palms caught his falling head. “Now you’re getting the hang of it,” he chuckled.
Inside the walls of the tomb, there was no where near the comradery there was outside. Sarah stood eyes tight on the painting before her, locking her stare with eyes that couldn’t look back. “You have his soul,” the room seemed to speak to her. When Sarah did not reply to the taunt, the room continued on in its sweetly eerie dictation, “Jareth’s soul, you have his soul.”
A sharp wind whipped furiously around the tomb. Beneath her portrait, the mound of flowers, in various stages of decompose, rustled, battling against one another as they succumbed to the harnessed power of the spirit. Eyes narrowed, to spare them from the spinning debris, as Sarah used her magic to attempt to quiet the Sidhe. This only infuriated Jareth’s mother more. A distinct current blew through the tomb extinguishing the torch flames. Blacker than night, it was impossible now to see a thing.
Sarah’s back stiffened as a chill ran through it. Temporarily distracted by the loss of light, her magic faltered and she stumbled back, in the force of the gust, against one of the cabinets. Before the Cleric, the mortal would have sworn she felt the sweep of hot breath against her neck, coupled with a low growl. ‘You’ve come too far,’ a voice in her head told her. ‘You mustn’t give up now.’ Sarah knew her magic was not strong enough to pit against the Sidhe but, if she could distract her long enough to force her into a battle of wits, there she would triumph. Sarah’s knowledge of fey had given her much more insight into Jareth and what she hoped would be enough insight into Leanan Sidhe to bring this situation to an amicable end. She shut out the wind, ignoring the warm stream crossing the back of her neck, paying no mind to the growl. Her eyes fell closed and she pictured the red hot tip of a match, lowering to meet the virgin wick of a tapered candle and that flame igniting a fire. Moments later she felt the warm glow of the lit torches on her skin. She opened her eyes and took in the destruction around her, the chaos. The eyes in the portrait seemed to burn through the mortal with anger and confusion. Sarah seemed positive she saw a sneer that hadn’t been there before. “I do,” she said confidently. “I do have the king’s soul.”
“That is not possible. My son has never learned to love.”
“Never learned to love from you,” Sarah said defiantly from some place deep within, some place she didn’t know existed inside her, but she could feel courage bubbling up, desperate to get out. Sarah didn’t stand in its way. “You mean to say your son never learned to love from you.”
“The Goblin King is not capable of learning to love. He is cold, he is calculating. I am evil and he is evil’s son.”
“I don’t believe that,” Sarah bit back.
Before her eyes there were swirls of smoke and a strong odor of cedar she thought, something woody, something earthy and natural. Slowly the swirls began to take shape until striding side to side opposite her in the tomb was the Leanan Sidhe, or some supernatural duplicate of her made up of many shades of opaque grey which seemed to glide leglessly on a breeze, ruffling the bottom of her multi-layered skirt which hung to the stone floor. As Sarah had seen the ban Sidhe of the Northeast sector do, the Leanan Sidhe left the ground, sailing the limited height of the tomb from corner to corner, before her, beside her, behind her, wailing as she did so. When the spirit at last settled, face to face with the mortal, it demanded, “How do you call yourself, girl?”
“My name is Sarah Williams.”
“Sarah Williams, do you know who I am?” the ghost asked as it loomed closer to her.
“You are the Leanan Sidhe former queen of the Underground, mother of the Goblin King, daughter of the former king Darien.” She spoke soft, calm, hypnotized by the beauty that even her shadow held.
“Don’t you mean the former Darien.” Sarah’s jaw gapped a bit. “You’re not the only one with connections in more than one world you know.” The ‘breath’ that carried her words smelled like lilies. “Jareth killed his own grandfather and you mean to make me believe this same ruthless beast is capable of love.”
It was the mortal’s pace which forced back the phantom this time. “That ruthless beast you speak of killed your father to keep himself alive, after watching his horse and his friend murdered, after I took a blade to the chest to keep it from piercing his skin. I mean precisely to tell you he is capable of love.”
“The power of preservation can be a strong one.”
“There are powers stronger,” Sarah went on, drawing from the well of courage she’d tapped earlier. “Let’s look at your powers for instance.”
The Sidhe summoned the earth to quake as she had earlier, “Be certain you want to explore my powers before you wander into them child.”
“I’m certain,” she said flatly. “You have great power over the elements it’s true, but I’m thinking of something a bit more personal. You drew inspiration from the hearts of men like water from a well.” The room stopped it’s quaking.
“You know nothing of me, nothing of my kind.”
“But I do,” Sarah interrupted. “I’ve read volumes on the Sidhe. I would wager to say I know more of you than you know of yourself.”
“Prove it,” the spirit purred, “prove to me you have this knowledge and I will let the two of you have one another to destroy if it pleases you.”
“Every man you loved died. Some faster than others, but eventually they all died. Only it wasn’t because you were cursed, or evil, or incapable of love. They died because you loved them so strongly their hearts swelled until they burst. What you never knew was that when they died, they died of joy. Overcome by so much emotion they didn’t know how to live with more happiness than they knew what to do with. Ian was a good man, willing to accept you and your world, all of the fantasy that came along with it, just the same as I am willing to accept Jareth.”
“And it destroyed Ian,” the Sidhe cried practically tearfully.
“Only because he loved you truly and in doing that, refused to take of you, without that piece of your soul he couldn’t survive here. It went against all the rules to christen him and so he too fell victim to your love. But by then you were pregnant with Jareth. You hoped he would be born a girl. For it seemed the women in your life were immune to the curse, but no, he was to be king. And so you cast him away to Arulan’s care.”
“Quiet!”
“You gave away your only son to keep him alive. You taught him love that moment, only you won’t admit it and he doesn’t know it, because you never told him why you gave him away.”
“I said quiet!”
“You loved him. He was all that was left of the love you shared with Ian and you wanted him to live, to thrive, to be the king he has become. Giving him to Arulan, keeping him at a safe distance where your love couldn’t ruin him pained you so much you couldn’t bear it. More than you could stand and so you willed yourself to die, only you couldn’t accept that either.”
The Sidhe shaped cloud rose high and quickly came swooping low, seeming to go through Sarah’s body, filling it with chills. “If you insist on continuing...”
Sarah cut her off as she continued, now practically shouting over the rushes of air the Sidhe was creating. “That’s why your soul returned to torment the Labyrinth, why you remain here. Because in all this time, even dead, you long to be near him, to be able to see him. And at the same time you’re so terrified to love your son you would rather send him running from your tomb than have one moment’s compassion with him.” There was a long silence before Sarah’s voice fell soft again, “But that’s where you’re wrong. A woman doesn’t love her child as she loves her spouse. Jareth was always safe in your care. You could have held him, raised him, shared his birthdays and kissed his sweet head at bed time. He was always capable of accepting your love. Deep down you hoped for that, you were just too afraid to take a chance.”
The Sidhe sniveled, tears staining her grey face. “I couldn’t take the chance. He was all I had left. All the evidence I would ever have to prove I existed, all the evidence there would be left of Ian. He wasn’t even given a proper grave. I watched Jareth all these hundreds of years, flourishing in Arulan’s care. I prayed some day he’d find a woman to love and to love him, but he never seemed suited to anyone, nor anyone to him. He had the same drive for the kingdom my father had and I feared he would turn out the same way.”
“But he hasn’t. He has all your beauty and Ian’s good sense. Best of all he has a heart of gold, one which he has opened to me, one which I gladly accept.” Sarah waited for her reply.
As if nothing had interrupted her confession, the Sidhe continued, “And I prayed she wouldn’t be human, fearful theirs would be a relationship as terminal as mine once was.”
Sarah’s eyes grew moist as she felt the pain in the spirit’s speech, “I understand,” she empathized.
“I’m glad,” Jareth’s mother agreed. “So you understand why I can’t allow this marriage.”
“No,” the mortal said. “I love your son. We’re no danger to one another. I will fulfill the requirements made of me by the Triumvirate, I will be christened fey and Jareth and I will spend forever together.”
“Forever, what does a mortal know of forever?” Her fury shook the glass cases to either side of her. “Taking a husband in the Underground isn’t like taking one in your world.”
“This is my world now,” Sarah objected.
As if she hadn’t heard one word, the Sidhe went on. “Aboveground you choose a man at random as long as he’s able to stimulate your loins and please your eye, but as time wears on and your beauty fades, your robust for life settles into the mundane. Suddenly this man who you once doted on, who you worked so hard to please is nothing more than a forgotten pet, left to fend for itself. It leaves him searching other places for the fulfillment of his needs. Soon the mortal woman is crying on the shoulders of some new male pleading for sympathy in the name of what the former male has done. In your world, Sarah Williams, love is as disposable as tissue. Here your unity with Jareth must be honored for a period of time I fear you cannot imagine. If you’re christened, it is possible you will both survive for tens of thousands of years. Do you honestly believe yourself capable of loving him, as intensely as you do now, for all that time?”
Before she replied, Sarah spent a moment attempting to truly fathom tens of thousands of years. Then abandoning what her mind told her she spoke from her heart. “I don’t know. How can anyone know? Did you know when you married Ian whether or not he would still charm you a hundred years later, let alone an eternity? Our love may last a day or a lifetime, I’ve no way to know that, but I know this. I know that when I’m not with him, I don’t feel whole. I know that even in the arms of my father, I’m not as comfortable as I am in his world. Your son taught me love when I was a child that could not conceive what love between a man and a woman was, why would I believe that he could not maintain that love for some period of time I can’t conceive? When he has been my basis for comparison for all other men since, how can I imagine that another would ever turn my head? You ask me if I know forever and I won’t lie, I don’t. You ask me if I can love forever and I’m not certain, but ask me if I can live a day without him and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I cannot. He is all that I am, all that I know, I would as easily die without his love as you did. We’ve that much in common, you and I. Can’t we start from there?”
“Start what?” The Sidhe’s eyes refused to meet Sarah’s as she spat out the words.
“Start to heal this rift between us. You don’t hate me, you don’t hate Jareth. You hate yourself because you blame yourself for Ian’s death. Love doesn’t always have to mean heartache and despair, it can be a warm and rewarding experience.” Leanan Sidhe put her eyes upon the mortal dripping with sorrow. “An experience you are worthy of, an experience we are all worthy of. If I were you, milady, I’d not waste anymore time with sorrow and self pity, rather I would call to my son, call him into your arms and tell him how you feel for him, be, what until now, you weren’t capable of being.”
“You mortals are an interesting thing, so wise and yet with so much to learn. So disbelieving in magic and yet so trusting in the power of love, when they are one in the same.” Her form seemed to mope away from Sarah. “I can call him here, I can tell him all I think and feel, but I can never touch him.” She swept her misty form through Sarah’s body once more. The absence of chills did not go unnoticed. “I’ve wasted not only my life, but my death as well, without taking my son into my arms and holding him close. What have I done?” she wailed. “What have I done?”
Moving to comfort her, Sarah’s arm slide right through the smoky apparition at her side. “It’s not too late, you can still tell him how you feel. Of anyone Jareth knows how powerful words can be. It would bring a lot of peace to both of you.”
“If more mortals were like you...”
“My world would be a very boring place. No two people are alike; otherwise, finding love would be as easy as finding a penny in the street.”
Smiling at her, the Sidhe tilted back her head and called out her son’s name. By the third request, the king had clearly heard her cry. “My presence is being requested,” Jareth said to Didymus.
“Your majesty,” the fox offered, “should you need me...”
“I’ll call,” he shouted over his shoulder as he darted into the tomb.
“Indeed. For I shall fight anyone, anywhere, any time...”
The guard continued his litany as the king reentered the tomb. “Mother?” he called tentatively. “Did I hear you asking for me?”
“Come in son, come and join us?”
Immediately, even in the dim light he saw Sarah’s tears, “What have you done to her?”
“Your mother has been perfectly gracious, Jareth. We were discussing our unity.”
“I will join with her mother, for I can no more live without her than you were able to live without my father.”
“I know Jareth.”
“I understand that you have never wanted me to love, but I cannot help what my heart tells me.” His running mouth stopped quick. “What did you say?”
“It was never my intention, seeing you without love. There is so much I didn’t understand until you brought this girl to me. So much written about my kind in books I couldn’t be bothered to read while I fed my fascination for the mortal world. If I am to give my child away again, I want it to be to this woman.” Lovingly she smiled at Sarah. “Bring me the scroll.”
“But,” Sarah moved to interrupt, but Leanan Sidhe quieted her. A simple gesture of her hand and a blazing thin line scripted over the scroll leaving behind her signature. Both witnesses gasped.
Falling to his knees in gratitude, Jareth reached for his mother. Not surprisingly, she moved away. “Thank you,” he said regardless. “This is truly a gift.”
“I think your mother has one more gift for you,” Sarah prompted.
His eyes captured the Sidhe’s impatiently. “Is that true?”
“It was my love that killed your father. Burst his heart with emotion he couldn’t bear.” Her attempt to gather courage was visible. “When I sent you with Arulan it wasn’t because I didn’t want the child we’d created, not because I didn’t want to love you, but because I believed if I did I would cost you your life as I had cost your father his. I loved you more than my own life from the minute I saw you with your father’s golden hair and one each of our eyes and a devilish grin all your own. When I saw you, in that one second, I felt something more powerful than any magic, more powerful than this realm, enough to make my own heart burst. I have denied those feelings for far too long. I see now how wrong I was. Consider this my gift to you, to give you the love of a woman, to make up for the love I failed to give you.”
Jareth reached for his mother’s ghost and only fell through her vaporous form. “She can’t touch you Jareth,” Sarah explained.
“Never having held you is among my biggest regrets, unfortunately one I cannot remedy, but your bride has taught me something very wise.” He looked at her, his eyes pleading her to expand. “I love you son. I have loved you from the moment I knew you grew inside my womb. I have watched you grow into a fine man, a man I’m proud of. Watched you become a respected king in the grand tradition of your uncle and your great grandfather. I only pushed you away because I believed I would hurt you and instead I hurt myself. I caused myself so much pain I couldn’t bare to go on in a life where I could not show my love for you. If only I’d realized what Sarah has shown me sooner.”
A strange hum filled the tomb, the Sidhe’s spirit lifted and lit from within as she levitated several feet above the couple. “What’s going on?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know. Mother, what’s the meaning of this? What’s wrong with you?”
There was peace in her voice as she spoke slowly to them. “I have finally freed my soul of its burden from all these many years. I’ve set right the wrongs I made in life and now my spirit can rest. The Supreme One is claiming me.”
“Mother! No!” Jareth called all the feelings of loss and emptiness replenished inside him.
“It’s alright my child. I feel nothing but warmth and love.” A beautiful hum filled the wind which swirled the iridescent lights about her. Softly her voice began, a haunting song filling the room as it came from all around them.,
“In my head a legacy of memories.
I can hear you say my name.
I can almost see your smile,
feel the warm of your embrace,
but there is nothing but silence now
around the one I loved.
Is this our farewell?”
The Sidhe’s voice grew more powerful as she seemed to sing from a voice three times her size, her soul bared,
“Sweet darling you worry too much.
My child I see sadness in your eyes.
You are not alone in life,
although you might think that you are.
Never thought this day would come so soon.
We had no time to say goodbye.
How can the world just carry on?
I feel so lost when you’re not at my side,
but there is nothing but silence now
around the one I loved.
Is this our farewell?”
At her feet Jareth sat, enthralled by every note echoed in her throat, aching to memorize the first and final words his mother would ever speak to him.
“Sweet darling you worry too much.
My child I see sadness in your eyes.
You are not alone in life,
although you might think that you are.
So sorry you’re world came tumbling down.
I’ve watched you through these nights.
Rest your head and go to sleep ‘cause my child,
this is not our farewell.”
Further up her spirit began to leave them. “Mother!” Jareth called. “Mother, I love you.”
Sweetness filed the voice which had only brought him fear until now, “I love you son and I love the daughter you intend to give me, as I shall forever.” Her final word echoed from the stones as the Leanan Sidhe disappeared. The king remained on his knees, tears pouring from his eyes, Sarah’s protective arms about him, picking up where a mother’s love left off.
***** ***** *****