How long had she been here? She detected no change in herself.
Jareth was waiting for her with his arms folded. She advanced upon him. “Give me the child,” she said.
He paused before answering. “Sarah — beware. I have been generous until now, but I can be cruel.”
“Generous!” She advanced another step. “What have you done that was generous?”
“Everything. I have done everything you wanted.” He took a pace back, into the shadow of the archway. “You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me. I was frightening.”
Taking another step away from her, he gestured in the air. “I have reordered time,” he told her. The thirteen-hour clock had appeared, floating above his head. Its hands were whirling around. “I have turned the world upside down.”
Sarah continued to advance upon him, her arms outreached. He retreated deeper into the shadows.
“And I have done it all for you,” he said with a shake of his head. “I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn’t that generous? Stay back!” He raised his hands as though to fend her off and took another pace away from her. In a louder voice, he repeated, “Stay back!”
Sarah’s lips were parted. “Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City —”
“Listen!” said a goblin, one of a nest in a dark corner of the castle.
Jareth was retreating step by step up a staircase behind the archway.
Sarah continued to advance, into the archway.
“— to take back the child you have stolen,” she repeated. “For my will is as strong as yours —”
“Stop!” Jareth raised the palm of his hand to her. “Wait! Sarah, look — look what I can offer you.” He raised his left arm and made a large gesture with his hand. A glowing crystal ball appeared in it. He spun it around in his fingers, smiled wanly, and said, “It will show you your dreams. You remember.”
Sarah took another step.
“— and my kingdom as great —”
“She’s going to say it,” a goblin hissed.
“She’s going to say the words,” gabbled another, agitatedly.
The stairs behind Jareth were descending now, and he backed slowly down them as Sarah stood above him. “I ask so little,” he said, spinning the crystal. “Just believe in me, and you can have everything you want … everything you have ever dreamed of … your dreams, Sarah …”
She was frowning, and had halted her advance. “… and my kingdom as great …,” she said. “Damn!”
A goblin shook his head decisively. “That’s not it. Never.”
“Sshh!” said another.
Sarah’s fists were clenched white. She was thinking frantically. What were her right words?
Jareth took a step toward her. He needed her belief in him. “Just fear me and love me,” he told her in a gentle voice, “and do as I say, and I … I will be your slave.” He stretched his hand out toward her, and took another step back up the stairs.
“Nah.” A goblin shook his hideous head. “Doesn’t look like it now, does it?”
Jareth’s fingers were close to Sarah’s face.
She stood where she was, and swallowed. “Kingdom as great …,” she muttered, ” … kingdom as great …” She saw the crystal spinning in his fingers, and felt on her lips the warmth of his outstretched hand. She gasped, and, from some inspired recess of her mind, the words came out, blurted out.
“You have no power over me.”
“No!” Jareth screamed.
“No!” the goblins exclaimed, astounded.
A clock began to strike.
Jareth tossed the crystal ball up into the air, where it hovered, a bubble. Sarah looked at it, and saw Jareth’s face, distorted, on the shifting, iridescent surface. Gently, it drifted down toward her. She reached out fascinated fingers for it and, as she touched the bubble with her fingertips, it burst. A mist of water atoms floated down the air toward Jareth.
But she saw that Jareth had disappeared. She heard his voice, for a last time, moaning, “Sarah … Sarah …”
His empty cloak was settling onto the ground. A beam of light picked out a little cloud of dust motes rising from it.
The clock continued to strike.
With a last, slow flutter, the cloak lay still. From beneath it, as the clock struck for the twelfth time, a white owl flew out and circled over Sarah.
Tears were trickling down her cheeks.
Chapter Nineteen - Good Night
Sarah closed her eyes to stem the tears and brushed her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “I must stop this habit of crying,” she said aloud, as a distraction from her sadness. “I must also stop gasping, gulping, trembling, shouting, and generally going over the top when …” Then she remembered that she had not found Toby again, and she opened her eyes in alarm.
The white owl was still flapping above her, but in other respects the scene had changed. She was standing on the staircase of her home, and it was dark outside.
She raised her eyes to look at the owl. It circled her for a last time, found an open window, and flew out into the night. Then she was running up the stairs two at a time, shouting, “Toby! Toby!”
He was in his crib, fast asleep. She could not help but pick him up and cuddle him. He opened his eyes dozily, thought about crying, but decided that he was in good enough shape without it, so he smiled instead. Sarah picked up Launcelot from the floor and put the teddy bear in his arms, saying, “Here you are, Toby. He’s yours.” Then she tucked him into his crib again. He went straight to sleep.
She stayed there with him for a long time, watching him breathe peacefully, with Launcelot in his arms.
Back in her own room, the full moon was shining outside her window. She left the curtains open, to see it. If she went to bed quickly, it would still be shining in when she turned the light out. The alarm clock by her bed showed that the time was after midnight. Her parents would be back from the show any minute now.
She sat at her dressing table and picked up a hairbrush, but her attention wandered to the photographs she had around the mirror, her mother and Jeremy, smiling at each other like young lovers, the signed posters, the gossip stories about romantic attachment. Deliberately, she began to remove one picture after another from the mirror. She glanced at each one before putting it away in a drawer.
On the dressing table one picture remained, of her father and mother and herself, aged ten. Sarah straightened the picture. Then she went to get the music box and put it in the drawer along with the pictures and clippings, shoved far back.
Downstairs, she heard the front door open and close. Her stepmother called, “Sarah?”
She didn’t answer at once. She was holding her copy of The Labyrinth.
“Sarah?”
“Wait,” Sarah whispered. “I am closing a chapter of my life. Just wait.” She paused, and added, still in a whisper, “Please.” She put the book in the drawer with all the rest, and stood with her hand on it there.
“Sarah!”
Sarah left it a moment, then called back, “Yes. Yes, I’m here.” She looked at the drawer, and sighed. “Welcome back,” she called.
“What?” Her stepmother, taking her coat off downstairs, paused, puzzled. “What did you say?” she called up.
Sarah opened her mouth, and closed it again. Once was enough, she thought. Once was all right. Any more would be overweening. I nearly overwent there, she smiled to herself, and pushed the drawer shut.
She straightened up, and on the dark window saw her reflection against the moonlight. Behind her reflection was Ludo.
“Ludo — goodbye — Sarah,” he said.
She spun around with a cry of joy. The room was empty.
She checked the window again. Sir Didymus was there.
“And remember, sweetest damsel, shouldst thou ever have need …”
“I’ll call,” she told him. She glanced aro
und the room again. Empty, of course.
Sir Didymus was hurrying back into the window pane. “I forgot to say, also, that if ever thou shouldst think on marriage …”
“I understand,” Sarah told him. “Goodbye, brave Sir Didymus.”
He faded. Sarah kept her eyes on the window. She did not have long to wait. Hoggle popped up from behind the bed. “Yes, if you ever need us … for any reason at all …” He stared at her from under his bushy eyebrows, and started to fade.
“Hoggle,” Sarah said, “I need you. I need you all.”
“Sometimes,” the Wise Man observed, “to need is … to let go.”
“Oh, wow!” said his hat. “And that’s just for starters.”
Outside the dark window, the white owl had been perched with his claws hooked on a branch, an effigy of watching and waiting. Now he swooped away over the park, on silent velvet wings, up toward the full moon. Nobody saw him, white in the moonlight, black against the stars.
THE END
"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle..."
"I wish the goblins would come and take you away."
"It will show you your dreams, Sarah."
"Turn back, Sarah, before it is too late."
"You have thirteen hours to unriddle the Labyrinth."
"I'm Hoggle. Who are you?"
"You're a boggling goblin," Jareth laughed.
"The Labyrinth is a piece of cake, is it?"
"Ludo...friend."
The Fireys are wild. Are they ever.
"Sir Didymus is my name."
She was the loveliest woman at the ball.
"I think I'll call him Jareth. He's got my eyes."
Sarah led her friends through the chaotic Goblin City.
An Owl Book
What happens when you wish for something terrible...and your wish comes true? Young Sarah is about to find out. Left at home to mind her baby brother, Toby, she finds herself trying to comfort a screaming infant as a wild storm rages about the house. In a fit of temper, she wishes that the goblins would come and take the child away. Unfortunately, they do.
Sarah then plunges into a whirlwind adventure. If she cannot reach the center of the mysterious Labyrinth within thirteen hours, Jareth—King of the Goblins—will keep Toby forever. In the twists and turns of her dangerous journey to Jareth's castle, she meets an extraordinary variety of strange characters, some more friendly than others. But none of them will be able to help her unless she musters the courage to challenge Jareth—no matter what the odds.
Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and director of Labyrinth, has joined with executive producer George Lucas to take us once again on a fascinating journey into a fantastic world. Labyrinth has been produced by Eric Rattray; the executive supervising producer is David Lazer. Illustrator Brian Froud is the conceptual designer, and the screenplay by Terry Jones is based on a story by Jim Henson and Dennis Lee. A Henson Associates Inc./Lucasfilm Ltd. production, the movie is distributed by Tri-Star Pictures.
A.C.H. Smith, who is also the author of The Dark Crystal and Lady Jane, has captured all the excitement and poetry of a brilliant film in this riveting novel.
ISBN 0-03-007322-7
Fiction
Ret:0686:000395:00
Cover design
by Andrew M. Newman
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