Labyrinth the Novelization

by A. C. H. Smith

  She said, “Uh. . .,” and cleared her throat. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know?” The man’s voice was calm, almost kindly.

  Lightning traced the veins of the sky and lit up his face. He was not smiling, as one might smile on greeting a stranger, nor was his expression fierce. His eyes were fixed upon Sarah’s with an intensity she found compelling. When he took a step toward her, into the light shining from the doorway, she did not retreat. If his eyes had not hypnotized her, the golden chain around his neck might have. A sickle-shaped ornament hung from it, upon his chest. His shirt was cream-colored, open at the front, loose-sleeved, with silken cuffs at the wrist. Over it he wore a tight, black waistcoat. He was shod in black boots, over gray tights, and on his hands were black gloves. In one of them he held the jeweled knob of a curious cane with a fishtail shape at the end.

  “I. . .,” Sarah answered. “I. . .”

  The humming that she had thought she heard in the air was now quite distinct, and musical. The stranger smiled at her hesitancy. He was certainly handsome. She had not expected that. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper.

  “You’re. . . him, aren’t you? You’re the King of the Goblins.”

  He bowed. “Jareth.”

  She resisted the ridiculous impulse to return a curtsy.

  “I have saved you,” he said. “I have liberated you from those bonds that distressed you and frightened you. You’re free now, Sarah.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want to be free,” she answered. “I mean, I do, but—I want my little brother back. Please.” She gave him a tiny smile. “If it’s all the same to you.”

  Jareth folded his hands on the top of his cane. “What’s said is said.”

  “But I didn’t mean it,” Sarah replied quickly.

  “Didn’t you, now?”

  “Oh, please. Where is he?”

  Jareth chuckled. “You know very well where he is.”

  “Please bring him back, please.” She heard herself speaking in a small voice. “Please!”

  “Sarah. . .” Jareth frowned, and shook his head. His expression was all concern for her. “Go back to your room. Read your books. Put on your costumes. That is your real life. Forget about the baby.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  For a moment, they regarded each other, adversaries trying to size each other up at the outset of a long contest. Thunder rumbled.

  Then Jareth raised his left arm, and made a large gesture with his hand. Sarah looked around, thinking that he was summoning assistance. When she faced him again, a glowing crystal had appeared in his hand.

  “I’ve brought you a gift, Sarah,” he said, holding it out to her.

  She paused. She could not trust him. “What is it?”

  “A crystal, nothing more. Except that if you look into it. . . it will show you your dreams.”

  Sarah’s lips parted involuntarily. With a teasing smile, Jareth watched her face, while he spun the shining crystal around in his fingers. Her hand started to reach out for it. He smiled a little more, and withdrew the crystal from her.

  Raising the cane with his other hand, he told her, “But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl, one who takes care of a screaming baby.” His voice was quieter now, and huskier. “Do you want it, Sarah?” He held it out toward her again.

  This time her hands remained by her sides, and she made no answer. Her eyes were fixed on the dancing, flashing glints of the crystal. To see her own dreams—what wouldn’t she give for that?

  “Then forget the child,” Jareth said firmly.

  While Sarah hesitated, another bolt of thunder and lightning illuminated the sky behind the Goblin King.

  She was torn. The gift was not only seductive, it was also the choice of someone who understood her, someone who cared about the secret places of her imagination and knew how infinitely much more they meant to her than anything else. In return, she would have to trade her responsibility for an offensively spoiled child, who made endless demands upon her and never showed the least sign of gratitude; who was, after all, only her half brother. The crystal was spinning, glowing.

  She willed her eyes to close. From behind shut eyelids, she heard a voice answering. It was her own voice, but it seemed to be a memory. “I—I can’t. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. . . but I want my baby brother back. He must be so scared. . .” She opened her eyes again.

  Jareth snorted, and tossed his mane of blond hair. He had lost patience with the girl. With a wave of his hand, he extinguished the crystal. With another wave, he plucked a live snake from the air. He held it with a straight arm in front of him, so that it writhed and hissed near Sarah’s face. Then he threw it at her. “Don’t defy me,” he warned her.

  It was wrapped around her neck. She clutched desperately at the thing, and found that it was now a silk scarf. She pulled it off, looked at it, and the snake came leaping out of the scarf. She yelled, dropped it and jumped away. When it hit the floor it shattered into a number of horribly ugly little goblins, who scuttled, snickering, to the corners of the room. Other goblins crept from the shadows, or popped out from their hiding places, and stood, all around the room, brazen now, watching to see what their king would do to her next.

  “You are no match for me, Sarah.” Jareth sounded impatient. “Let the child alone. Take my gift. I will not offer it to you again.”

  Before he could produce the crystal, Sarah told him, “No.” She paused. “Thank you all the same, but I can’t do what you want. Can’t you see that? I must have my brother back.”

  “You will never find him.”

  “Ah,” Sarah said, and took a deep breath. “Then. . . there is a place to look.”

  Just for a moment, Jareth’s face flinched. Sarah saw it, the merest trace of fear fleeting across his eyes. Was it possible? His nostrils tightened, he gripped his cane, and appeared to hesitate slightly before answering her. She could not quite believe it, but the suspicion that the Goblin King could be afraid of her, even if only momentarily, was encouraging.

  “Yes,” he said. “There is a place.”

  And now, with a really hammy gesture straight out of vaudeville, he twirled his hand and pointed through the window.

  “There!”

  Lightning and thunder, right on cue, she thought. She moved past him and stared into the night. On a distant hill, brilliant in the flashes, she saw a castle. She leaned on the windowsill, trying to see more clearly. There were towers with turrets, massive walls, spires and domes, a portcullis and drawbridge. The whole edifice was built on top of a sharply rising mound. Around it the lightning flickered and forked like snakes’ tongues. Beyond was blackness.

  From just behind her shoulder, Jareth murmured, “Do you still want to look for him?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “Is that. . .” She remembered the words. “. . . the castle beyond the Goblin City?”

  Jareth did not answer at once, and she turned around. He was still there, watching her intensely, but they were no longer in the house. They stood facing each other on a windswept hilltop. Between them and the hill on which the castle stood was a broad valley. In the darkness she could not tell what was down there.

  She turned again. The wind blew her hair over her face. Brushing it back, she took one timid step forward.

  Jareth’s voice came from behind her. “Turn back, Sarah. Turn back, before it is too late.”

  “I can’t. Oh, I can’t. Don’t you understand that?” She shook her head slowly, gazing at the distant castle, and to herself, quietly, repeated, “I can’t.”

  “What a pity.” Jareth’s voice was low, and gentle, as though he really meant it.

  She was looking at the castle. It seemed to be a long way off, but not impossibly far to travel. It depended on what she would encounter in the valley, how easily it could be crossed. Was the darkness down there perpetual? “It doesn’t look that far,” she said, and heard in her voice the effort she was making to sou
nd brave.

  Jareth was at her elbow now. He looked at her, with a smile that was icy. “It’s farther than you think.” Pointing at a tree, he added, “And the time is shorter.”

  Sarah saw that an antique wooden clock had appeared in the tree, as though growing from a branch. On it were marked the hours to thirteen, as on the nursery clock in the lightning.

  “You have thirteen hours to unriddle the Labyrinth,” Jareth told her, “before your baby brother becomes one of us.”

  “Us?”

  Jareth nodded. “Forever.”

  Magic still hummed in the air. Sarah was standing still, hair tossing in the wind, looking out across the valley toward the castle. After a while, she said, “Tell me where I start.”

  She waited for an answer, and finally she heard him say, “A pity.”

  “What?” She turned her head to look up at him, but he was not there. She spun all around. He had vanished. She was alone in the night, on a windswept hilltop.

  She looked across again at the castle. The storm was passing away. Blades of clouds sliced across the moon. She thought she glimpsed the figure of an owl, high above, wings spread wide on the air, as he flew steadily away from her.

  She took another step forward, down the hillside. But there was no ground beneath her feet. She began to fall.

  CHAPTER III

  PIPSQUEAK

  Sarah felt herself toppling forward, into the darkness. Only by swinging her arms wildly did she manage to keep her balance. The hillside was very steep.

  Her mouth had gone dry with fright. Carefully, she sat down. That felt safer, but she could not afford to sit there long, with only thirteen hours to get through the Labyrinth and find Toby in the castle.

  She tried slithering down the hillside on her bottom, but that was no good either. Rocks and little shrubs impeded her, and she dared not stand up to get past them. It was so black, she might have been trying to find her way through a sea of ink. She felt tears rising, but blinked them away. She would do it. There were no limits to what she could do, given the determination (which she certainly had), and the ingenuity (which she had never lacked yet, admittedly in more humdrum predicaments), and maybe a little luck (which she deserved, didn’t she?). She would do it, she vowed, as she sat on the black hillside with no idea how to move another foot.

  High above her, where the owl had flown, she heard a lark sing. She peered up at it, and by taking her eyes off the blackness below she became aware that a hint of light was staining the rim of the dark sky. She watched the light grow brighter, changing from red to pink, and then pale blue, and when she saw the edge of the sun inch up over the horizon she shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt the sun warming her skin. She would do it.

  When she opened her eyes again, Jareth’s castle was shining before her, its spires and turrets rimmed with the reflected sunlight. Anxiously she scrutinized the valley, which, like a developing photograph, took longer to reveal itself.

  The first thing she could gauge was its width. The extent of land between herself and the castle was not so very great. I can run that far in a couple of hours, she reckoned. It’s only a few miles. Jareth was trying to hoax me. He thought I would be so scared in the darkness that I would give up and forget about Toby. How could I? Anyway, in thirteen hours I can be there and back with time to spare.

  She wondered if thirteen hours in Jareth’s land would take the same time to pass as at home. If so, what would her father and stepmother think when they returned? They would probably call the police. Well, there was nothing she could do about that. She did not expect to find a telephone in Jareth’s castle. She smiled wanly.

  The sun was above the horizon, and color and shape were seeping into the valley. There was an awful lot of stuff down there; she could tell that much. She went on watching, and gradually she took in the full nature of the valley.

  At first she could not believe it. As the sun rose higher and disclosed more to her, her shoulders drooped and her face lost its smile. She shook her head slowly, dumbfounded.

  From the foot of the hillside where she sat, to the castle and beyond it, and from horizon to horizon on each side, there stretched a vast, intricate maze of walls and hedges.

  “The Labyrinth,” she whispered. “So that is the Labyrinth.”

  She studied it, trying to decipher some pattern to it, some principle of design that might guide her through it. She could see none. Corridors doubled, and wound and coiled. Gateways led to gateways leading into gateways. It reminded her of thousands of fingerprints laid side by side, overlapping each other. Did someone work all that out, she wondered, or had it just happened?

  The impossibility of ever finding her way through the Labyrinth started to overwhelm her. She stood up, clenched her fists, set her jaw, and cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, “here we go. Come on, feet.”

  In the dawning light, she could see below her a path that zigzagged down the hillside. She picked her way to it through the rocks and shrubs. At the foot of the path, she came to a great wall, strengthened with buttresses. It stretched as far as she could see to the left and right.

  Doubtfully, she approached the wall, with no idea what she might do when she reached it. As she got closer, a movement just at the base of it caught her eye. There was a little man. He was cackling as he ground something underfoot.

  “Excuse me,” Sarah said.

  The little man nearly jumped out of his skin. “Just going,” he said, before he had even looked around to see who it was.

  When he did turn, he had his face down so that he regarded her from under his thick, bushy eyebrows. “Well!” he exclaimed, looking cross and astonished at the same time. “Well!” It seemed that he had never before set eyes on a person like Sarah. Or perhaps it was that no person like Sarah had ever caught him unawares. “Well!” he said again.

  We’ll never get anywhere like this, Sarah thought.

  He was an odd little person. His sprouting eyebrows clearly wanted to be fierce, but his wrinkled face couldn’t live up to that ferocity. His expression was wary now, not particularly friendly, but not hostile either. He seemed to be avoiding her eyes, and she noticed that whenever she moved her hands his gaze would follow them. On top of his head he wore a skullcap. From the belt that held his breeches up, he had a chain of ornaments dangling, costume jewelry as far as she could tell. She saw his mouth moving to say “Well!” again and interrupted quickly.

  “Excuse me, but I have to go through the Labyrinth. Can you show me the way in?”

  His mouth frozen in the formation of a W, he blinked at her once or twice. Then his eyes darted to one side. He rushed a few steps toward a bluebell, at the same time pulling a spray can from under his jacket. As he aimed the spray, Sarah saw that a diaphanous little fairy was emerging from the bluebell.

  He sprayed it, with a couple of quick bursts. The fairy at once wilted, like a shriveling petal.

  “Fifty-seven,” he said with some satisfaction.

  Sarah was shocked. “Oh, how could you?”

  He answered with a grunt.

  She ran to where the fairy was lying on the ground, wings quivering and shriveling. “Poor thing!” she exclaimed. She picked it up gently in her fingertips and turned accusingly to the fairy-slayer. “You monster.”

  She felt a sharp pain, as from broken glass. The fairy had bitten her finger.

  “Oh!” Sarah dropped the fairy and stuck her finger in her mouth. “It bit me,” she muttered around her finger.

  “ ’Course she did,” the little man chuckled. “What do you expect fairies to do?”

  “I. . .” Sarah was frowning, perplexed. “I thought they did—well, nice things. Like granting wishes.”

  “Ha!” His eyebrows went up, and he chortled. “Shows what you know then, don’t it?” He raised his spray can and casually hit another bluebell with it. A second shimmering fairy fell down, turning brown like a leaf in autumn. “Fifty-eight,” he said, and shook his head. “They bree
d as fast as I spray.”

  Sarah was still wincing as she sucked her finger. “Ooh,” she complained. “It hurts.” She took her finger from her mouth and shook it.

  He walked to a plant nearly as tall as he was, tore off one of its broad, grayish leaves, and handed it to her. “Here,” he told her. “Rub that on it.”

  She gratefully did what he told her. No sooner had she started rubbing than she dropped the leaf, clasped her finger with the other hand and hopped around in pain. “Ow!” she shouted. “That makes it worse. Much worse. OWWW!”

  He was holding his sides with his pudgy little hands and roaring with laughter. “ ’Course it do. Fancy rubbing one of them on a fairy bite. You don’t know nothing, do you?”

  Her face screwed up with pain, Sarah answered indignantly, “I thought you were giving it to me to make it better. Oh! Ooh!”

  “You thought that too, did you? You’ve got a lot of opinions.” He chuckled. “All of them wrong. And you’ve got grass all over the seat of your trousers!”

  In spite of the pain in her finger, she had to glance over her shoulder, and she saw that he was right. It was from sliding down that hillside. Brushing off what she could, she realized that he was paying her back for having caught him unawares. “You’re horrible,” she told him.

  “No, I’m not.” He sounded surprised. “I’m Hoggle. Who are you?”

  “Sarah.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought.” Spotting another fairy, he squirted her. To make sure, he stepped on this one and ground his foot around. The fairy squealed. “Fifty-nine,” Hoggle said.

  Sarah was thinking, still sucking her finger. He seemed to know about her. So he must have something to do with Jareth, mustn’t he? Some kind of spy, maybe? Well, maybe. Yet he was not her idea of a spy. Spies weren’t grumpy. They didn’t play mean tricks on you. Did they? If all her opinions were wrong, as he’d said, then this one might be wrong, too. But in that case, she thought, supposing he is a spy, then it might be his job to persuade me that all my opinions are wrong when really they are all correct. And if they are all correct, he is not a spy. But that would mean he had no motive for persuading me that I’m wrong about everything, and so probably I am wrong about this, too, and so. . . supposing he is a spy. . . “Oh!” she exclaimed, in exasperation. It was like one of those drawings she had seen in a book at home, where the water seems to be flowing uphill, and yet you can never put your finger on just where the drawing is telling you a lie.