First Movement:  Crystal Moon Descending

Part 1

    "What an impressive waste of space," Cassandra muttered as she surveyed the dimly-lit foyer.  "But," she sighed into the darkness as Baliel curled about her ankles and purred, "at least Mother didn't build the place. She only inherited it."
    She set up her padded lawn furniture in the living room:  chaise lounge, chair, and tv-tray table.  It would have to do until the renovations were complete, and that wouldnt be for several months yet. She sat in the silence, scratching Baliel behind the ears for a moment, then decided to explore.
    The wind beat tree limbs against the windows, and she paused--yes, there was a draft coming in, cold and strong, around the edges.  What could you expect from a house so old?  That was what she was renovating for--that, and that completely useless wall between the kitchen and the front room.  And all those horrible arches!  The house would be practically gutted by the time she was done with it--
    She heard a bang from upstairs, more than just a tree limb against a window. She raced up the stairs, Baliel getting underfoot as usual, and saw that the small bedroom's window had blown open.  The latch had pulled completely free of the rotting wood and hung useless.  Cassandra pushed the window closed, and looked around.  "Damn."  There was nothing to prop the window shut with, especially against this wind.  Maybe she had some duct tape down in the car.
    The lights flickered, and died.
    "Damnit!"
    She closed the bedroom door and cautiously inched her way along the hallway. Lightning showed her a flash-image of the hallway around her, and she thought she heard something, faintly, like a whisper.  ...a-ara...  With a bang, she heard a another window crash open, this time the picture window in the master bedroom.  The wind rushed through the hallway, plucking at her loose shirt.  She heard the sound again, more clearly:  Saaarah. . .
    She walked into the master bedroom, toward the window, the wind blowing even harder, making it hard for her to see in the faint light. The door slammed shut behind her, and she gasped and whirled.  "Baliel?" she called, and she could see his green eyes peering from the darkness.
    The lightning flashed again, blinding her, and when it faded, she could still see the outlines of the open window, and a faint light.  She walked toward it, groping, but couldn't find the window frames to close them.  Squinting against the rain and wind, she suddenly realized that the hardwood floors of the bedroom had given way to something softer, almost like. . .ground.
    But this was a second-story--
    The wind died down, and a light spread around her.  She was standing at the top of a sloping knoll.  Behind her, the windows and the house were nowhere to be seen, and below her lay a sprawling Labyrinth, reaching as far as she could see.
    What the hell is this? she said, looking around for Baliel.
    The cat sat on his haunches a moment, and gave her one of his looks.  Then he leaped up and trotted down the hill toward the maze.
    Cassandra shook her head.  "Great."  She gathered her nerve for a moment, then called,"Hey, cat!  Wait up!"
 

Part 2

    The outer wall of the maze appeared to be in ruins.  As Cassandra drew closer, she could see the crumbled piles of stone at the foot of the wall, and the jagged gaps along the top edge.  There were several square pits in the ground--ponds or wading pools once, she thought, but now dry and cracked and filled with dust and dead leaves.
    Two huge doors stood open in the center of the wall, one broken and lying slantwise through the gap in the wall.  She paused, listening, but there was no sound, no movement at all.  There was a faint smell on the stale air--was it decay?  It was a dry, dusty smell.
    Baliel had already trotted through the gap between the doors and disappeared, so Cassandra had no choice but to follow.  "Baliel!  Where are you going?"
    She stepped through the doors and looked to the right.  There was a corridor stretching straight and true as far she could see.  She looked left; same thing. Strange, she thought.  It looked so...labyrinthian from the top of the hill outside.
    Just then, Baliel's grey head appeared from--well, it appeared to be protruding from the wall, but...as Cassandra drew closer, she could see that the solidity of the wall was just an illusion, a brilliant trick of matching brick sizes and colors to disguise the edges.  She had to smile in admiration as she stepped through the opening.  Perhaps it was something she could work into the new designs for the house.
    The house.  That was where all of this had started.  She frowned as she thought about the house, and how she had come by it.   Not to mention Baliel himself, appearing on the doorstep of the house, bedraggled and starving, the first time she had come to look at it, when she had decided she would keep the house--and the cat, too.  Now she was beginning to have her doubts about both.
    Baliel trotted several paces in front of her, leading her through the stonework maze with sure steps, pausing every now and then to look, to sniff, to twitch his tail pensively, then to choose a direction and hurry on. Cassandra looked up at the sky; it was dark, but not from nighttime. More like a coming storm, even though the wind was limp and stale and didn't smell like a storm. The clouds didn't even move.  They only hung in the sky as if pinned there, as dead as the rest of this place.
    After what seemed like hours of jogging through twists and turns to keep up with Baliel, she finally came to a set of two doors.  Each door had what appeared to be an ornate shield standing in front of it, and as Cassandra approached, she saw that there was something behind the shields--colorful heads with pointed spikes on top, nestled down behind the shields, and snoring. She stared for a moment, wondering if she should try to wake them, when she noticed that both doors were slightly ajar, and Baliel was nowhere to be seen.
    "Baliel!"  she shouted.  "Hey, cat!  Where are you?"  She peered from one door to the other, waiting for his dark, striped head to appear, but he was gone. "Damnable cat."
    "Hey!" she shouted, knocking on the left-hand shield.  "Excuse me! Can you tell me--"  But the snoring only got louder.  She reached a hand gingerly down behind the shield and tapped on the top of the creatures helmet. "Hellooo!"
    The head twitched and snorted, then mumbled, "...never understood it..." and went on with its snoring.
    Cassandra sighed, and after a moment, took a deep breath, and pushed open the left-hand door.
    She found herself in an oddly-shaped room, with the walls and ceiling angling up and over in a very regular, faceted pattern.  It was as if, she thought, the room were the inside of one of those many-sided dice she had seen in antique hobby shops.  And on each facet was a door, exactly like the one she had just come through.
    In the center of the room, on the bottom-most facet, stood a tall candelabra and a thin, bent man in rusty armor.  He turned to face her, just as the door closed firmly behind her.  She noticed the man's hand shook as he raised the pointed visor of his helm, and that long, white hairs were spilling out over the brim of the opening before he even began to lift it.  His face, what she could see of it in the dark, was as wizened as a dried apple, as creased as a peach pit.
    He nodded slightly to her, and she did the same.  Then he took a deep, rattling breath and said, "You chose...the wrong door, I think."
    Cassandra pursed her lips.  "Not surprising.  Who are you?"
    He turned to face her, his armor shrieking in protest.  "I, young lady, am Certain Death.  At least, I believe I am.  I seem to remember it that way."  He frowned, the long white mustache turning downward at the edges.  "Perhaps I am. And perhaps not."
    "To be Certain Death, youre not very."
    "Not very which one?"
    "Either."
    "Mmm."  He nodded, creaking, and gestured vaguely about.  "Unless Im mistaken, you must choose one of these doors.  I think, perhaps, that you must choose wisely, or you may be forced to choose again."
    "Again?"
    "Infinitely."
    "A fate worse than Certain Death, to be sure," Cassandra muttered as she looked around at the doors.  "Do you know which door is the right one?"
    The old man's eyes rolled about for a moment while he "Hmmm"ed and "Ummm"ed, and finally he replied, "I am not..sure."
    Cassandra gave a sardonic laugh.  "Is there anything you *are* sure of?"
    "Oh, yes," he said, leaning on his rusty sword.  "I am certain that I am, at last, dying."
    She felt a pang of pity for a moment--odd, she thought, considering that none of this was real.  "How do you know?"
    "All of it.  All of it is."  He waved his hand vaguely around, the shrieking of his armor nearly painful to the ears.  "My brother says it is even so in his part of the Labyrinth."
    Cassandra frowned.  "Your brother?"
    He gave a nod.  "Certain Destruction."
    Cassandra sighed.  "Okay, I have to pick one of these doors."  She considered for a moment; the room was perfectly symmetrical from top to bottom.  A phrase wafted through her mind, echoing softly:  ...turn the world upside-down... She mentally flipped the room over, and immediately saw the door that was analogous to the one shed come through.  She found that she could walk up the walls right to the door--a fact that didn't surprise her nearly as much as, she thought, it should have. At the door, she turned and looked down at the bent and rusty figure.  "Good-bye. I hope you..." But she only trailed off, not knowing what to say.
    He raised a quivering hand in salute, and Cassandra stepped through the door.
 

Part 3

    Cassandra found herself stepping through a tangle of branches and leaves, so thick she could barely push her way through.  She finally tumbled out onto a walkway, and saw that she had come directly through a hedge.  A hedge-maze, she thought.  She had been through many of them before.  Should be a piece of cake, she thought.
    She wandered for several hours before finally giving up and flopping down on the ground with a frustrated, "Damn it!"
    Then she looked up and noticed two doors that hadnt been there before.  "Oh, great.  More doors."  As she approached them, she saw that each had a large, bizarre-looking knocker, one with the ring in its mouth and one with the ring in its ears.  She grinned.  I'd love to have these on the front doors of my house, she thought.  But they were so corroded that she could barely make out the features.  She tried pushing on the doors, but they wouldnt budge.  Then she tried to knock with the right-hand knocker, but the ring was rusted inside the knocker and she couldnt move it.  The left-hand one did managed to move a little, and she managed a tiny tap.  The door swung open with so many creaks and pops she expected it to fall off the hinges.
    On the other side of the door was a wide, greenish lake--or perhaps a sea, since she couldn't see the shore in any direction.  A small boat was tied to the door and bobbed right in front of the threshold, so she had no choice but to step in and untie the boat.
    There were no oars or sails, so she had to trust that the current would take her where she needed to go.  Sure enough, as soon as she had untied it and tossed the rope into the bottom, the boat slowly turned its prow away from the door and sailed into the mist.
    The stillness of the water, and the utter silence around her unnerved Cassandra.  She wasn't a very good swimmer, and she couldnt shake the feeling that some great creature might leap out of the water and scoop her from the boat with one bite.  But she could see no movement in the water, although she did she dark patches here and there that could have been fish or plants or...other, more unspeakable creatures.  But they never moved, and she realized that this sea was just as dead as the rest of the Labyrinth, just as hollow and lonely.
    Just then, the stark outline of dead trees emerged from the mist, and she saw a shoreline below them.  The boat obligingly bumped against the shore and stood still long enough for her to step out.  There seemed to be nothing close by to tie it with, so she dropped the rope, and, as she had expected, the boat turned and began its trip back the way it had come.  She resisted the impulse to thank it.
    She found herself in a forest, and again was struck by the absolute silence of it--no birds, no strange animal calls, no rustling of leaves.  In fact, all the trees looked completely dead.  There weren't even any leaves on the ground to crunch through as she walked.  There seemed to be no real paths marked, so she had no choice but to choose a direction and walk on as if she knew where she were going.
    She did, in fact, have a suspicion about where she would end up if she navigated the place successfully, but that was something she didn't want to think about just then--
    Suddenly, she heard a sound, a faint sound of some animal, off to her left. The hair on her arms stood up, but since it was the only life she'd encountered since Certain Death, she had to check it out.
    She could see from some distance that there was a small campfire burning, and at least one large shape moving beyond it.  She hurried toward the fire as cautiously as she could, wondering if they might have any food.
    She peeked out from behind a tree and saw a massive, hairy creature kneeling on the far side of the fire.  There was a small bundle of something beside the creature, but she couldn't make it out.  With a quickness she wouldn't have suspected, the big monster whirled to face her, roaring fearsomely.  Its long, reddish fur was peppered with patches of white, and its wide, menacing mouth suddenly paused in mid-roar.  Its eyebrows raised over tiny, pale eyes, and it seemed to smile.
    "Sawah?"
    Cassandra stepped out from behind the tree.  "No."
    Its huge face fell, and immediately all menace was gone from the goofy, downtrodden face.
    "My name is Cassandra."
    The monster looked at her hopefully.  "Cassandwa fwiend?"
    "Well, okay, sure.  Why not."
    "Ludo," the beast said, and she realized that was its name.  "Ludo fwiend."
    "How nice," she replied doubtfully, seeing that now that its defensive posture was gone, the creature seemed tired and bent.  She looked down at its feet and saw a small, foxy-looking creature with one patched eye, wrapped in a blanket, tossing feverishly on a makeshift pillow of moss.
    The big monster gestured.  "Bwother.  Bwother sick."
    "This is your brother?" Cassandra said.  "Wow.  I'd love to see your parents."
    The little creature did seem very sick, indeed, even delirious. It thrashed constantly, muttered and groaned, and at one point sat up, eyes wide and glazed, and shouted, "I shall fight you all to the death!" And the monster immediately kneeled and gently pushed the little fellow back onto the moss, stroking his fur and lifting a tiny cup to its brother's lips with a delicacy and care that seemed absurd, but touching, in such ungainly hands.
    Cassandra's vision began to blur, and she silently cursed herself for getting so misty over nothing more than a couple of delusions.  But she couldn't help feeling that somehow she'd like to help these people, though she had little idea how.
    "I'm sorry about your brother.  But could you tell me..."  She paused.  "Which way is the castle?"
    The large creature raised a furry arm and pointed.  "Thank you," Cassandra said, and then added, "I'll do what I can."
    Ludo nodded once, and watched as she turned and disappeared into the dark, dead forest.
 

Part 4

    As Cassandra walked along the path to the castle that the beast Ludo had pointed out to her, she saw a familiar face by the path ahead.
    "Baliel!" she exclaimed.  "Where in the hell have you been, you lousy cat?  I could've used some help, you know!"
    Baliel laid his ears back and glared, and said, "Well, it ain't my fault if you can't keep up."
    Cassandra stopped in spite of herself.
    "Oh, don't look so surprised," the brown, stripey cat said, complacently licking a paw.  "You always knew I wasn't no ordinary cat."
    Cassandra raised an eyebrow.  "I never met a cat that was. However..."
    "You ain't never met a cat from the Labyrinth before."
    "Well, no."
    "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to take things for granted?"
    She pursed her lips.  "Occasionally.  Maybe."
    "Well, now maybe you'll listen." And with that, he stood up and, swishing his tail impudently, ambled on along the path.
    Cassandra rolled her eyes.  "I liked you better silent."
    He had no reply to that.
    At the edge of the forest, between them and the castle, lay a vast tract of garbage.  It appeared to surround the city wall, so there was no help but to go straight through it.  The heaps of junk lay piled like barricades, making it hard for Cassandra to orient herself by the castle. But Baliel seemed to know where he was going, so she followed, trying to keep up with him this time, until someone saw him.
    A pile of junk that Cassandra was passing suddenly shifted, and a small, black, armored thing--a goblin, she realized--leaped out, exclaiming, "A cat!  A cat!"
    Within seconds, the call was echoed throughout the forest of garbage, and goblins came racing.  "Where's a cat?  I haven't eaten in years!" Baliel whirled, back arched and twitching, tail fluffed to huge proportions, and with a "Rowr!" took off running, trailing an army of hungry goblins behind him.
    Cassandra tried to give chase, but it was no use.  She sighed and sat down hopelessly on a heap of garbage, hoping against hope it didn't move.
    After a moment of considering her circumstances, and trying to locate the pinnacles of the castle in the dim light and between the walls of rubbish, she became a aware that a small, sharp-faced animal was sitting next to her and staring.
    She leaped up and looked at it; it was vaguely possumish, but furrier, with little horns over its eyes, and with tiny sharp teeth in its pointed snout.
    "What are you doing here?" it hissed.
    "Nothing," Cassandra snapped, angry at having been startled by yet another bizarre denizen of this place.
    "That's one," it said with satisfaction.  It stared for a moment, then said, "Where do you come from?"
    "Why do you ask?" she replied.
    It drew back, putting its paws together.  "No reason."
    "You have to have a reason."
    It shuffled its toes.  "I was just curious, that's all.  You going to answer?"
    Cassandra pondered.  "I come from far away."
    It nodded excitedly, counting on its paws.  "That's two!"  Then it looked at her more sternly, and said, "What do you want?"
    "What I want," she replied, "is none of your business."
    "You must tell me!" the little beast shrieked.
    "No!"
    "Answer!" the creature screamed, dancing madly.  "Answer!"
    "No!" Cassandra shrieked, cuffing it with a fist and sending it rolling. "Leave me alone!"
    The animal uncurled itself and hissed, then its fur slowly flattened, and it drooped as if deflated.  "Cor," it said, and shuffled off through a dark hole in the side of the garbage mound, muttering about never being able find a decent meal any more.  Cassandra stared after it, feeling only a tiny bit guilty at the little creature's disappointment, when a voice behind her made her whirl.
    "'Tsa good thing ye didna answer it, gurl.  It woulda eaten ye," said a haggish goblin woman who sat surrounded by a pile of junk.  She wore a round helmet from under which sprang a frightening mass of wiry hair, and her face had a gnomish quality.  But the smell of her, and the tiny horns at the edge of the helmet said that she could only be a goblin.
    "That tiny little thing?" Cassandra said, incredulous.
    "I's seen it eat biggeran ye," grunted the goblin, with a voice like rusted nails.  She was holding something dark and corroded, rubbing it determinedly with a rag.
    "And who are you?" Cassandra asked.
    "I's Gurdy.  Who's ye, gurl?"
    "Cassandra."
    "Now, thet aint likely, now, iss't?"
    Cassandra frowned.
    Gurdy reached into the folds of her clothing and brought out a shiny metal pot. "Ye's like to buy a shiny new promise?"
    "No."
    "Din' think so.  Nobody's come through here to buy anymore."
    Cassandra looked around.  Gurdy appeared to be leaning up against the wall surrounding the city.  "Which way are the city gates?"
    "Why's ye want t'go there, gurl?"
    Cassandra crossed her arms.  "I just do."
    "Iss that way," Gurdy said, gesturing impatiently.  "Ye fool gurl."
    Cassandra muttered a thanks and continued on, leaving Gurdy to mutter inanely to herself and polish her promises.
    The gates to the city surrounding the castle lay in ruins, with no guards to stop her.  The city seemed to be deserted--probably off chasing Baliel, she thought.  She had no trouble reaching the castle, where again, the gates were in ruin, crumbled to pieces.  She clambered over them, and ran through the first archway that seemed to go somewhere.
    She found herself in a large, round room.  It was dark, all the windows closed, and no candles lit.  In the center of the room was a round, shallow pit, and beyond it, dimly silhouetted against the dark, a slumped figure sitting in an elaborately curved throne.  She walked forward to the edge of the pit, close enough to see the colorless rags that hung from him, the whiteness of his hair, the shrunkenness of his hands and the hollows of his face.
    "You're him, aren't you?" she said.  "You're the Goblin King."
    He raised his head to look at her through eyes as empty as time. "Sarah.  So you've returned to me."  It was nearly a whisper.
    Cassandra shook her head.  "No.  I'm Cassandra.  Sarah was my great-grandmother."
 

Part 5

    The figure on the throne raised his head a bit and frowned.  "But you look exactly like my Sarah."
    Cassandra took a deep breath.  "Yes.  I've seen the pictures. That's why I cut my hair so short.  One has to escape from one's ancestors somehow."
    The king's breathing, she noted, was as ragged as his voice.  His gaze dropped away from Cassandra as his head sank again.  "Then...Sarah is dead, I suppose?"
    Cassandra looked at the floor.  "Yes."
    His sceptre slipped from his trembling hand and clattered to the floor.
    There was a long moment of silence, and then Cassandra said quietly, "What are you dying of?"
    Jareth raised a hand to his eyes.  "Disbelief."
    Cassandra frowned.  "You mean like the fairies?  If I clap my hands, you'll live?"
    Jareth made a sound that could have been a laugh.  "That doesn't work on fairies."
    "Don't read much, do you?" she retorted.
    His gloved hand dropped to his lap, and for a moment he was so still, Cassandra's heart leaped--perhaps he was dead, she thought.
    But then he raised his head slowly, and gazed at Cassandra with a piercing eye, and for just a moment--the barest moment--her heart stopped beating.
    "It's you."
    She drew her head down, but was unable to look away from Jareth's eye.  "What?"
    "You're the one that's killing my Labyrinth."
    Anger swelled up in her chest then, and she answered, "Me?  How? I've never had anything to do with this place!"
    "Exactly," he said, enunciating each syllable with a touch of the drama he must once have oozed from every pore.  "You knew about the Labyrinth, did you not?"
    She shifted her weight and looked away.  "I knew the stories that the women in my family always told.  The delusions they all had.  It was a genetic flaw of some sort."
    "Delusions," Jareth muttered.  "No, not delusions.  And you were given all the proper artifacts?"
    Cassandra snorted.  "You must mean the ridiculous toys and baubles of my great-grandmother's.  I had them--they were 'my legacy,' my mother said. She was always so dramatic.  I had no use for any of them.  I  sold them."
    Jareth sat up then, a motion quicker than she would have thought him capable of.  "Sold them?  To whom?"
    "An antique dealer.  Why?  It was all just a bunch of junk."
    Jareth slumped again, trembling, still staring at Cassandra with eyes as sharp as broken glass.  "That...junk gave my goblins the means to watch you, a means to enter your world."  He paused for a long moment, his breathing harsh. "You never read the book, did you?"
    "What book?"  She was honestly at a loss.
    Jareth shook his head.  "It doesn't matter.  It's obvious that you have cared nothing for my Labyrinth.  That you've rejected it.  It is you, and all those like you, that I'm dying of, Cassandra, don't you see?  Even now, as you stand here in the rubble of my kingdom, you still do not believe, do you?"
    She paused, then answered, "I apparently inherited the gene that made my ancestors--"
    A sudden commotion from outside cut her off, and she turned, hearing the shouting of goblins outside momentarily, and saw a streak of fur and lightning whip through the archway, past her, and to Jareth's throne.
    Baliel stood, still fluffed from his flight, and arched his back at the Goblin King.  "Alright, Jareth, I've done my part.  Now change me back, like you promised."
    Jareth gave him a glare that somehow managed to be insolent despite his frail condition.  "Oh, Hogwart, surely you know I haven't the power to change you back.  I'm dying."
    There was a frozen moment when all three stood in silence, Cassandra staring at the cat, the cat staring at Jareth, and Jareth with his eyes closed. Then, with a groan of timbers and age beyond imagining, a beam cracked and fell with a boom to the floor of the throne room.
    "And my kingdom is dying with me."
 

Part 6

    The cat leaped up onto the arm of the throne and hissed at the dying Jareth.
    "What do you mean, can't change me back!  I did what you asked!  I brought the little lady here, I let you turn me into a cat!  You've gots to change me back!"
    Jareth gave a weak shove, but was unable to knock the cat off his throne.  "I told you, Honkle, I can't."  He gasped and for a moment, his labored breathing stopped, and then continued, raspy and harsh.
    Cassandra resisted the urge to reach out to him, to ask if he was in pain.  She thought again suddenly of the little fellow back in the forest, the one the monster had called his brother.  And of the old man, Certain Death.  He was dying, too.  She had promised to help them if she could.  "Do you have the power to help anyone at all?" she asked, then instantly regretted it.
    "Do you mean that you believe I have power?  That I'm not just a delusion, like those suffered by your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother Sarah?" Jareth was looking into her eyes again, and she felt naked in his gaze. What was it that he knew about her?  What was his secret?
    She changed the subject.  "Surely my disbelief alone isn't enough to kill you."
    Jareth didn't answer.  He only stared at her, pleading silently for something she could not name, and she looked away.
    The cat was sitting on the arm of the throne.  "It ain't just you, miss.  It's gettin' harder and harder to find people to come here, you know, people who believe in possibilities of Labyrinths and goblins and...Hoggles."  The cat tilted its head to one side, like it was shrugging.  "Hardly anybody's come in a long time."
    "Yes," Jareth whispered.  "Yes.  People who believe in...possibilities.  You, Cassandra, you don't believe in possibilities, do you?  You never have. You've been so careful to protect yourself from accidentally believing something that might hurt you."
    She stared at him, defiance and anger and suppressed pain boiling up inside her.
    "Yes.  I can see that.  You've built a wall around yourself.  A Labyrinth of your own, just as impenetrable as mine."  Pieces of the ceiling suddenly crumbled to the ground near where the beam had fallen. "At least mine had a purpose."
    "What purpose?" she demanded.  "To snatch away innocent children? To snare young innocents in the web of their dreams?"
    "No!" Jareth shouted in a voice suddenly stronger.  "I taught them.  I brought them here, and they either learned the lessons and went home, or they stayed and paid the price for their foolishness.  It was," he said, with an air of pride, "an impeccable system.  Those who were worthy survived.  Those who were not should have realized their limitations."  The long tirade had left him breathless and shaking.
    "So that's it," Cassandra said.  "You've been the Minotaur at the heart of the Labyrinth, receiving your virgin sacrifices every full moon."
    "And are you my Theseus, my Ariadne, come to slay me?" Jareth said, with a twist of the lips that was almost a smile.
    Cassandra raised her eyebrows.  "So you do read."  She paused for a moment. "But the Minotaur was a prisoner.  Who has imprisoned you here?"
    Just then, a large beam fell from the ceiling with a deafening crash, shaking the floor under Cassandra's feet.  Her heart began to race. "I have to get out of here," she said, in a voice that sounded, to her shame, frightened.
    But Jareth only lowered his head again.  "I can't send you home. You came of your own free will."
    She looked at the cat.  "I'm sorry, missy, but I can't leave again.  I'd never be able to get back.  When the Labyrinth dies, so do I."
    She looked at Jareth, and stepped around the pit to stand directly in front of his throne.  There was an air about him, an aura, even as he was dying, that she could feel as she drew near, like electricity.  She bent and sought his eyes.
    "Are you?  Are you a prisoner here?"
    But he didn't stir.
    "If you are, then you didn't build this Labyrinth."  She looked at the cat. "Did he?"
    The cat looked away, rolling its green eyes.  "Well, er, um, I can't exactly recall, now..."
    "Never mind."  She looked back at Jareth.  "Then why are you destroying this Labyrinth?  If you're dying, why don't you just die and leave it?"
    He looked up sharply.  "It's mine.  This is my Labyrinth!"
    Cassandra knelt in front of him.  "Jareth, you don't have to destroy it as well.  Let it go."
    Jareth looked at her, and she almost lost her train of thought in his eyes. "Let it go, Jareth."
    "But why do you care?"
    Her hands balled into fists.  "Because they're all dying!" she said through clenched teeth.  "Haven't you been out there?  Haven't you seen them?  You can't just let them die!"
    His eyes narrowed.  "Then you do care.  You do believe."
    She drew back, confused.  "I just..."
    "Cassandra," he said, "I haven't the strength to save the Labyrinth now."  He drew a long, raspy breath.  "I haven't the strength for anything."
    There was a sharp crack like a shot above them, and the cat leaped up with a yowl and disappeared into the shadows as another beam broke free and dropped to the floor, only a couple of feet from the throne itself. Dust and pieces of the ceiling rained down over them, and a beam of light from outside shone straight down onto their heads.  Cassandra stood up, heart racing.  "We have to get out of here!"
    Jareth reached out a quavering, gloved hand toward her.  "No, please, Cassandra.  Don't go!"
    "Come on!" she urged.  "The ceiling--"
    "Where would I go?" he rasped.  "It's all dying."
    She stared at him as he sank lower and lower into the throne.  His hand was still out to her.
    "You won't be hurt," he said.  "You aren't of the Labyrinth."
    She looked at the trembling, gloved hand.  She had not held anyone's hand since she was a little girl.  She had made herself so alone for so long.
    Jareth's voice rose like a ghost.  "Don't let me die alone."
    She took his hand and knelt beside him.  "Oh, I won't, I won't," she assured him.  She reached down and picked up his fallen sceptre and put it into his other hand.  Then, entranced again by his eyes, she reached up and touched his face gently.  "I'll be here until the end."
    Jareth closed his eyes and smiled.  "That's all I needed to know."
    And with that, he abruptly stood up, holding both of Cassandra's hands tightly in his own.
    "And finally, I have you.  You are mine now, Cassandra.  Mine forever."
    And suddenly the room was full of goblins, laughing and howling and gibbering.
    Cassandra tried to pull away.  "No!"
    "It's no use, you know," Jareth said with a smile.  "You're no match for me, Cassandra."
    And for the first time in her life, Cassandra screamed.

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