Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Wings: A Labyrinth Fic ❯ Chapter 13

Part 13

Jareth slammed his shoulder into the door at the end of the staircase, and it burst open, breaking its hinges and cracking down the middle. A few steps behind him, Sarah panted for breath and shifted the scale in her hands again. The faerie in the lantern would have cursed or yelled, but she'd been thrown back and forth inside the lantern like a ping pong ball, and now she only curled up on her side and wished the spinning would stop.

"Is it still up?" Sarah asked as she looked over Jareth's shoulder.

He nodded and pointed. "For the most part. There are a few more stairs floating around the bottom, but it looks like it's all in one piece. Now, when we start moving through here--"

"Jareth, I can't. You know I can't walk around in this room, not like you can."

"Yes, you can," he said. "You couldn't before because you think too much like a human. You think if the floor ends then you'll fall. You won't. When you come to a ledge, just keep walking without trying to jump. You'll just flip around to the other side, that's all."

"But I'm not like you. I am human."

"You've used my crystals, haven't you? You even broke through one of them before. Just have faith and believe--"

"Jareth! Jareth, where are you?"

They both looked up at the closed door a few staircases above them. Heavy footsteps pounded on the floor as Arin moved around.

"She's in the main hall," Jareth whispered. "She'll be in here any minute. Come on." He motioned for her to follow and started down the first walkway.

"But wait, what are we supposed to do with the scale?"

He stopped and looked at her. "I thought you knew."

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't."

"It's a dragon scale on a griffin's heart. Dragon's eat griffins."

Sarah blinked. "But we don't have the whole damn dragon."

"It'll do."

"So you're telling me we're about to fight someone who can make our eyes boil and all we've got is a piece of dragon, and it's all supposed to work because the whole dragon would eat a whole griffin?"

He stood up straight and tilted his head. "You make it sound like it won't work."

She shook her head and stuck one hip out. "Dammit, Jareth, if we survive this, I'm gonna--"

The doorknob turned and the lock clicked open.

"Time to move." Jareth walked down the ledge until he reached the very end, then walked over the edge and moved upside down underneath Sarah. "Come on, before she sees you."

She headed to the very edge, but when she looked down, the twenty foot drop to the next walkway froze her stiff. Her muscles tightened and stopped breathing. She held the scale so hard she wondered why it didn't break in half.

The faerie looked up at the door and saw it start to open, and she remembered the dark sprite that had nearly killed her and the blackened hedges and the dead things they'd had to pass on the way through the labyrinth. She didn't remember seeing any other faeries, and that scared her the most. She looked at Sarah and wondered why she didn't move out of sight. The door opened further, and the faerie started jumping up and down, chattering and hitting the lantern with her fists. Open the door, move, anything, just get out of the bitch's line of sight.

The noise broke Sarah out of her fear. She swallowed a deep breath, screwed her eyes shut, and stepped over the edge.

Her feet didn't connect with anything, and the wind rushed around her as she fell. She opened her eyes in shock, but at least she couldn't force a scream out as she plummeted. The faerie tensed up and just stared in surprise as they went down.

Think of a happy thought and fly, flashed into Sarah's mind, but she couldn't think of anything. She spotted a staircase coming up in front of her, but it was upside down to her.

"Just pretend your going backward," she said to herself. Like you already jumped off, and now you're rewinding the tape. She turned in midair, leaned forward and planted her feet against the cold stone rushing by her.

And she stopped falling. Sarah squeaked when she felt herself stand straight, and the faerie squeaked as well. Sarah looked around. The room didn't seem any different from this angle, except that now she couldn't see the door. Which was probably a good thing.

"Jareth..." Arin stepped inside and locked the door behind herself. "Jareth, are you in here?"

Sarah crouched down and held her breath. Inside the lantern, the faerie wrapped her blanket around herself to lessen her glow. Neither of them moved.

"Oh, I know you're in here," Arin said. "And who was that I saw with you? I knew you must have some help, but a human? Really, little brother, are you that weak now? Did I hurt you so much?" She walked out on the first ledge and gazed down at the huge chamber. "Is the great Goblin King in so much trouble he needs a little girl who probably hasn't turned two hundred yet?"

Sarah frowned. Did Arin think humans lived that long?

"They miss us in the second kingdom, you know." Arin kept walking, moved upside under her ledge and then heading down the wall. "Our family was once great and powerful there. What good is this insane labyrinth you insist on protecting, when compared to the influence we wield amongst our own kind?"

"What good is influence when I have real power in this labyrinth?" Jareth asked, still out of sight.

Arin stopped and looked around, but she couldn't see him. "This is your real power? You can't even face me. And now you dally with humans? No wonder father hated you."

"As I recall, sister, he wasn't too fond of you, either. You're just jealous mother liked me better."

Arin hissed and stamped her foot. "That isn't true. Why would she love a little fool like you?"

"Who knows what went through that woman's mind. But at least she had one."

Sarah could feel the energy crackling through the air as Arin screeched. Dammit, he's just pissing her off now.

"You arrogant weakling..." A bolt of pink lightning zapped against a wall and cut a deep groove into the stone. Another one cut a staircase in half. "I'll fry your skin to a crisp."

"You keep saying that. You haven't actually done it, though."

Arin screamed and leaped from the wall, arms flailing to keep her balance as she flew through the air. Sarah felt something hit the other side of the staircase she was sitting on and cringed. Arin walked up the stairs and stopped at the very top. Sarah looked up and lost all her breath. She could practically see up Arin's skirt. One look down...

Jareth chanced a quick look from the ledge he was perched under and breathed in quick. He could see his sister facing away from him not ten feet away, but he could also see Sarah huddled at Arin's feet. His skin chilled.

Move, damn it, he thought, and he motioned at Sarah to scurry to the other side of the stairs at least. She couldn't see him, since her eyes were shut, but she started to move on her own, backing away along the stairs. The faerie glowed dimmer than an ember and tried to cover that up as well.

Neither of them made a sound.

Until Sarah's foot scraped the stone, sending a bit of dust crumbling away. She opened her eyes and hoped Arin hadn't heard.

Arin grinned and bent over, staring Sarah square in the eye. "Well there you are. Jareth's little pet human, hmm? And what's that big stone he's got you carrying?"

Jareth jumped from his ledge and landed softly on the top of the staircase. Careful to keep his breath hushed, he took each step one at a time so his boots didn't tap.

"Ooh, you have pretty jewelry. Such a little girl to be playing such grown up games." Arin raised her hand and extended it out. "You should've stayed in your world, human. You aren't welcome in this one."

Time slowed. Sarah looked at Arin's hand, saw all the smooth skin and the light creases of the head and life line. The heart line broke off in several places. Her fingers stood straight, without any calluses or scars. But the positioning told Sarah exactly what would happen next.

She's just like Jareth was, she thought. Just as self-centered. Just as powerful even. The only difference is that he was never going to kill me. It's just like fighting him. It's just like fighting Jareth. It's just like before. Another untold danger...another hardship unnumbered...

"Neither are you." Sarah stood up and forced her legs to straighten. "Your evil doesn't belong here."

"You're rather impertinent for one about to die."

Sarah tightened her hold on the dragon scale. He wouldn't have wanted it if it couldn't do anything. "I've fought my way here to the castle, with its exiled king, to take back the labyrinth you've stolen."

Electricity flickered in Arin's hand.

"For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great..." and unborrowed, she thought.

Arin laughed. "You think I'll hesitate with this little show of backbone? You're as pathetic as my brother." She sent the lightning straight at Sarah's heart.

The faerie shrieked, too scared to close her eyes.

Jareth lunged up the last few steps.

Sarah raised the scale just in time to meet the lightning.

At first none of them moved. Sarah had expected the energy to bounce back and strike Arin, just like in all the cartoons she'd seen growing up in the eighties. Jareth couldn't see what was happening, but he knew it had to be rather spectacular to make Arin gape and furrow her brow like a cavewoman. Even the faerie didn't know what to feel, happy to be alive but confused as hell as to why.

Red and pink energy swirled from Arin's hand and poured into the scale without affecting the stone or Sarah behind it. It merely sunk in like going through a doorway. Only about five seconds later did it reappear on the other side of the scale, still sliding into Sarah's heart but no longer as volatile lightning. White light came out of the scale and moved into the human without any pain.

Arin snapped out of her daze and tried to close her hand, but more energy kept draining out. "What the hell..."

Sarah looked up without a smile or frown. "You have no power over us."

Arin opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Jareth chuckled. "It's okay, Arin."

She turned to face him, still losing magick through one hand.

He reached his hand back and thrust it threw Arin's chest, grabbing the stone beside her real heart, and pulled. There was a sucking sound, like a rock coming out of mud, and then he was holding the griffin's heart with blood running down his arm.

"It hurt when she said that to me, too."

His sister collapsed at his feet.

The magick stopped flowing, and the light flowed for only a few seconds more before fading away. The scale turned ashen gray and crumbled in Sarah's hand, and she sifted the ashes through her fingers, letting them fly down the chamber beneath them.

"It's over," she whispered.

"Not quite."

Sarah looked at Jareth and followed his gaze to his sister's body. She cursed when she saw Arin's torn chest still rising with each slow breath. "She's still alive?"

"I only took out the griffin's heart." He showed off the ruby in his hand. "Her real heart's still alive and well."

Sarah looked down at the woman at her feet. Already the wound was closing. "Will she have any power left?"

"Oh, no. It's all yours. That's what the scale's for. You have all the griffin's power," he flipped the ruby in his hand once. "Without the little nuisance of the griffin's heart. She'll probably be as vindictive as ever, though."

Sarah closed her eyes and put her fingers to the bridge of her nose, fighting the oncoming headache. What a pain, having to deal with this bitch...even...now...

She stood up straight. With her eyes closed, another sense blossomed. She felt something along the outer reaches of her mind, and she extended out a little, feeling around what she now recognized as corridors in the labyrinth, hidden recesses and underground caverns and forest lakes and cobblestone courtyards...and dead bodies littering the every nook.

"I know how to deal with her," Sarah whispered. She bent and picked Arin up, then turned around and faced the empty space. "So she'll never hurt anyone ever again."

She tossed Arin into the air, where she floated, still unconscious but moaning and moving her head side to side, about to wake up. Sarah raised her hand and summoned a crystal sphere in her hand, letting it grow larger and larger until it could hold someone. She pushed it forward, and it moved to encapsulate Arin's body. Once it had her, it shrunk and crushed her down and shrunk and disappeared, taking her with it.

Sarah breathed out, and her shoulders slumped. "Now it's over?"

He nodded. "Tired?"

"Yeah." She stared at him and blinked. "Now what? You're back, she's dead...what do we do now?"

He gave her a half smile and a tired sigh. "Now...we try to rebuild."

To Be Concluded