Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Wings: A Labyrinth Fic ❯ Chapter 11

Part 11

Arin ignored the goblins scattering out of her way and walked out of her room, heading down a long hallway strewn with dust and cobwebs. Windows lined the hall, their sills covered with dried blood and reeking of the decaying corpses beneath them. At the far end of the hall she came to a staircase and started up, placing her hands on the steps as the steep incline forced her to all fours. The steps spiraled for hundreds of feet in total darkness until, at the very top, a dim ray of sunlight lit the last few steps.

"I'd knock the damn thing down if I didn't need it," she said as she stood upright at the top of the castle's largest turret.

The labyrinth lay before her in all directions, a wasteland of broken walls, shattered tiles and burned out hedges. Some spots of growth remained, especially where Jareth's annoying crystal spheres kept replicating. The briar woods and swamp were intact, as were bits and pieces of the maze.

"I have yet to conquer the underground," she said. She stepped up on top of the raised ledge circling the tower and scanned the wreckage for any sign of movement. "And where are you, little brother? Still playing at returning savior?" She frowned as she turned and turned again. "Mm. Where are you?"

She glanced down at the deserted goblin city, then at the front gates, then at the windows on the castle's first floor. She stared at the fountain she knew led to the underground, but the top was secure, the body of the man with a bird on his head still slung over the edge. A few of her dark sprites fluttered around his face, eating and replenishing the blood that continuously dripped from their bodies.

"They can't make it back to the outer wall, not with that scale." She snapped her fingers. "Of course, those damn paper dogs." Arin kicked off a fist-sized chunk of the ledge and jumped, placing her foot on the lump of masonry and then commanding the stone to support her weight. She kept her balance on the rock as it sailed through the air, carrying her over the broken cobblestones and scorched earth and coming to rest in the flurry of confetti before the two archways.

She picked out a bit of paper floating around her head and held it between her fingers, tearing it in half again. The sprites did good work. "Now, little brother, which way did you go?"

Both doors had rotted and fallen apart, but she knew one of them had been caused by the wear of the wind around it. The other had been touched by human hands. "Even now your little maze tries to hide you," she said, folding her arms. "Dead things trying to hide dead things."

She stepped through one and glanced down the long corridor, its two walls tumbled down and vanishing to a point. A break in the wall let her cross to the other corridor, also vanishing at the far end but with a well camouflaged hole in the center of the floor. She leaned over and stared down. Not a flicker of motion, not a breeze or sound.

Arin smiled. She tore a bit of her already tattered dress and bit her finger, wiping the blood off with the torn rag. She dangled the cloth over the hole and let it go, turning on her heel while she walked away.

When she reached the rotted doors again, she turned and whispered one word.

"Ignite."

Jets of flame and light shot up out of the hole, flashing so hot the surrounding walls turned black, and bits of burned flesh floated down to the ground.

*

Sarah wished she could open the lantern and let the faerie out, or at least hug Jareth closer. Before the light had been a blessing, showing her the way through caves and forests. Now the dark walls around her sucked up the light and muffled any sound, and felt like they might try to eat their more substantial guests.

"Where are we?" she whispered.

"The catacombs." He leaned his head on he shoulder and stifled a yawn. "They run under most of the labyrinth."

She shivered in the cold air and adjusted her hold on him. "Catacombs? Isn't that where people get buried?"

"Shelved, more accurately," he said. "This isn't a place for bodies, though. That's the necropolis."

"Then what's been laid to rest here?"

"Memories." He lay his hand on the wall and ran his fingers along the rough edges of the brickwork. "What the labyrinth used to be, how it began, the lineage of its kings...it is all here, written in relief and painted as gigantic murals. In some corners sculpted statues show each king, each type of inhabitant."

"But how can you tell?" She held up the faerie, who shrieked as the lantern went out into the darkness, but her light disappeared into the wall, giving only a glimpse of a shade of blue and gray. "You can't see anything."

"You can feel it, if you're not afraid to touch these things. The paint has its own texture." A breeze whipped up through the still air, and he froze. "Listen."

Sarah held her breath. Even the faerie stopped chattering.

Vapors rushed past her face and pulled at her clothes as they passed by, breathing in hollow voices.

In the third cycle of being, three days after the black unicorn died, the goblin king shed his skin.

The voices passed. The air died again.

Sarah exhaled. "What was that?"

"Another memory. It happens from time to time," he said.

"You've been down here a lot, haven't you?"

Jareth smiled. "Yes. It tells me a lot about the labyrinth that everyone else has forgotten."

She reached her hand out and touched the wall as they walked and skimmed her fingers over the raised letters she couldn't see. "What did they mean when they said the goblin king shed his skin?"

He closed his eyes and forced his legs to keep moving even though his boots dragged after each other. "I think...I think it means that the earliest of the goblin kings were once goblins themselves. After awhile the labyrinth changed them, made them more like...like I am."

Sarah felt his pace slow down and she hefted him just a little higher over her shoulders. "But if the labyrinth can do so much by itself, why did it need to make a king?"

"In case something like Arin comes around." He gave a weak laugh. "And to bring visitors, I suppose."

"Visitors?"

"Well, what's the point of having a maze if no one's going to walk through it." This time he couldn't hide his yawn, and his arms relaxed even further.

Sarah shifted his light weight again. "That's it, we need to stop and rest before you fall asleep."

"What happened to throwing me over your shoulder?"

"I practically have." She looked down the hallway and only saw more darkness. "Is there a safe place to stop around here?"

"Yes, in the necropolis. It shouldn't be much further now."

"Necropolis? I thought that's where we were now."

He shook his head. "No, a necropolis is a city for the dead. We are merely in the labyrinth's catacomb now." He opened his eyes for a moment, blinking a few times. "Look, you can just make out the glow."

"Glow..." Where before she'd only seen a pitch black, she could now make out the flickering glow of torches. "Hey, that wasn't there before. We didn't move that fast."

"No, but the catacombs did." With the end in sight, he put a little more effort into his step. "The same way it shortened the distance we had to travel from the door to here." He frowned and looked back over her shoulder. "Odd, though."

"What is?"

"That it moved us so fast. Usually the walk would take hours."

They came to an archway flanked by torches and stepped through, coming into a large domed room. Torches lined the room, spaced evenly both along the sides and up in rows to the ceiling, illuminating the ruddy brown walls and the carved decorative patterns around...she nearly dropped Jareth...around the skeleton filled niches. She looked around the room, and the shelves took up so much structural area that she wondered how they didn't collapse.

"Do you have places like this in your world?" Jareth asked.

She nodded and helped him sit down against the wall. "Yes, but we don't use them anymore. The ones that do exist are very old," she said as he sat down beside him. The scale floating behind them came around and lowered to the ground, tipping one way so that the bubbles could escape before the other end hit the floor. Of no more use, the bubbles scattered out of the necropolis and into the catacombs.

"So is this place," he said. "I think this is actually where the labyrinth started, slowly working its way out, branching in different directions, creating new paths, reshaping itself."

"Then this is the heart of the labyrinth?"

"The labyrinth has many hearts. But yes, this is one of them."

The cold temperature in the air worked its way into Sarah's clothing and chilled her skin. She set the lantern between herself and Jareth and then leaned against his good arm. Neither said anything for awhile, listening to the crackle of lit torches and watching the shadows move on the wall.

"Do you think your sister is looking for us?"

Jareth would have shrugged, but one arm ached and the other lay pinned under Sarah. "Most likely. She's evil but she isn't stupid. That could be why the labyrinth moved us so quickly."

"Could she make it through the catacombs?"

He shook his head. "No. She knows it's down here, but if she tried to walk through, she'd be lost forever. The catacombs would twist and turn and she'd never know it." He laughed. "It'd be damn convenient if she tried."

"So of course she won't."

He sighed and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep, Sarah."

She nodded and lay her head on his shoulder. "Jareth?"

"What?"

"How will we know when it's morning?"

"Who says it's night?"

"Oh. Right."

"Go to sleep. Tomorrow we finish this." One way or the other.