Magic Mirror

Doom of Exiles
Now we, returning from the vaulted domes
Of our colossal sleep, come home to find
A tall metropolis of catacombs
Erected down the gangways of our mind.
Green alleys where we reveled have become
The infernal haunt of demon dangers;
Both seraph song and violins are dumb;
Each clock tick consecrates the death of strangers
Backward we traveled to reclaim the day
Before we fell, like Icarus, undone;
All we find are altars in decay
And profane words scrawled black across the sun.
Still, stubbornly we try to crack the nut
In which the riddle of our race is shut.

---

In an ageless flurry of changing winds Sarah held tightly to her captor. The world around them seemed to dissolve and shift – or perhaps it stayed the same as they were altered? She kept her eyes shut, body rigid as the strange absence of time and place touched her. Unlike the pleasant floating sensation of her victory, returning home, she felt as if she was the eye of a violent storm.

Minutes, hours? She opened her eyes and could see only grey night. The common, understanding storm clouds of her world forgotten, these suffocated the night sky, allowing only a scant, eerie light to pass between them in sickly, dull illumination. She could tell she was laying on her back, as various debris protruded from an already rigid surface, poking into the thin cloth of her inside-out T-shirt.

A groan escaped her; slowly muscles began to warm and she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her arms cried with the effort. Eyes adjusted to the pale darkness and she could see his blurry silhouette, not unlike a shadow against the dull sky.

“All hail the Queen…” his voice was derisive and almost silent. Sarah slowly surveyed the countless ruins and piled heaps of stone.

“Where am I?” Her voice was hollow, disbelieving, as she stood. His laughter pervaded the darkness.

“It’s further than you think…”

The Labyrinth.

The landscape suddenly changed. The sky above her swirled, orange light breaking through tears of the virulent clouds, revealing the impossible wreckage. The passage of hundreds of years would not have sufficed to reach the magnitude of the devastation before her: beaten rubble, broken fortresses and decrepit thresholds of the since fallen corridors was all that remained of the maze.

His hand gripped her shoulder. Sarah felt the sick feeling of deja-vu, as she half-turned her head to look at him. The Goblin King’s cool gaze was more unsettling than any level of wrath.

“…and time is short.”

It’s a ghost…just another memory…

The memory shattered; his hand firmly gripped her chin.

“See what I have become…” His words were tinged with venom, and she fruitlessly writhed in his grasp.

“You have no power—”

His laughter interrupted her with vulgar triumph – and he viciously released her. Sarah fought to regain her balance, scrambling away from his stolid countenance. She stumbled away from him, trying to run away – to anywhere but where she was. The Goblin King did not move – his figure a shadow in the distance, as she reached far enough.

“Hoggle?” Sarah surveyed the unchanging remains, eyes wide with fear. She began to run, almost skimming above the cracked rocks

“Hoggle!” Sarah’s voice cracked as she shouted. “Ludo? Sir Didymus?”

She gasped as Jareth appeared across from her. His impassive expression slid into a sneer then a smile. “It’s no use Sarah.” In his hand he played a crystal back and forth, images flickering from within.

“I need you Hoggle!”

Sarah searched in the dead grass and rubble – there was nothing but the endless wreckage of stone. She felt fear creeping through her as she could find no fairies, no goblins even. Water that once came from fountains sat stagnant, covered in algae.

“There’s no one left!” Jareth’s voice carried in the dead air with force enough to stir a breeze. Sarah, terror-stricken, hugged against a lone partition, clinging to the moss covered stone. She listened as long-dried twigs snapped under his feet like delicate bones.

“Where are they? What happened?”

His black laughter spilled across her feet, crawling up her spine. Its acidity was palpable. Sarah shuddered, watching the gray sky swirl once more, in accordance to the Goblin King. He played the crystal across his fingers, transferring it effortlessly between them, and balanced it precariously on the back of his hand before releasing it, then letting it rest in his palm.

“It’s just a crystal, nothing more…”

It flew through the air, smashing instantly against the broken rocks. Glass littered the air, in pieces so small they sparkled like snow as they fell to the ground. Sarah tried to protect her face, hiding in the bend of her arms, shrinking away from the debris. Glass embedded itself into her arms, hair and clothing.

“..but if you turn it this way, it will show your you dreams.”

His voice amplified, Sarah felt his grasp and cried out as he pulled her hair, forcing her to meet face to face. He practically spat the words. Her arms began to bleed from the shards, his grip forcing them deeper into her skin.

“This is not a gift for an ordinary girl...”

Sarah writhed away from him, voice cracking as the particles dug into her arms. Blood began to seep through his gloves. “Stop it! Let go!”

His grip tightened, she let out a cry of pain. “…who takes care of a screaming baby.” He puller her face to his, so their eyes were mere inches apart. Sarah’s chest rose and fell, her breath audible.

“Do you want it?”

She shoved him away, and fell backward, her voice practically screaming.

“No!”

His face darkened, his eyes glinting with vehemence. “Liar.”

“No!”

“Liar…” he hissed, advancing on her.

She tried backing away from him, almost in a crab-walk. He knelt between her legs, hand on the back of her neck.

“You want me.” He crooned, softly touching her cheek with his thumb. Sarah trembled involuntarily.

“No…no...” her words came out drawn, her voice strained. Her arms unwittingly wrapped around him. “Please don’t do this…”

He laughed, low in his throat as he descended upon her, and she closed her eyes. “Oh, but I don’t have to dear Sarah.”