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Shattered	By : TarnishedArmour Category: G through L > Labyrinth Views: 7713 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Based upon the work of Jim Henson; specifically Labyrinth, copyright 1986 by Jim Henson & associated parties. I do not own or have legal rights to Labyrinth, etc., or make any profit from them. *Individual disclaimers for other works in

Chapter List
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Sarah laughed with the group of gana as she ate. She had just returned to the tavern when she had been hailed by Gita and Teaka. After joining the two gana, the others in their little group had returned from the Grippoldar to the same tavern, some with their grasch, some alone. Lunardi was with her grasch, bite marks still showing on both of them. Guilu, however, was alone. Teasing and commentary flew from one gana to the next.
"Taking a collar on your first Grippoldar!" the crone shook her head as she refilled their drinks. "Bad news, gana! Bad news!"
"Take a closer look at the etchings on the collar," Lunardi said, grinning and showing almost all of her teeth. The crone did and cackled. She literally danced around the table, shrieking and cackling, singing dirty limericks in goblinish.
"What etchings?" Sarah asked, tugging on the leather and bronze. "Where's a mirror?"
Gita snorted. "Use your magic and look in your drink. Why you need a mirror?"
Sarah started to reply, then grinned sheepishly. "I keep forgetting about magic," she admitted.
"I would too, if I had your grasch," Lunardi snickered. Garok bit her shoulder lightly, his large mouth wrapping around most of the ball and socket joint. "I bite back," she warned her grasch. After the crone had checked her over, Lunardi had accepted Garok's collar. She would have a nibog sometime in the late summer season.
"I know," came the response. He nuzzled her neck lazily, simply enjoying the company of the gana he'd caught. Werewolves were prized gana, and that this one had accepted his collar would only make him more desirable next time he ran the Grippoldar. He didn't mind the year's bonding. Hopefully, the wolf-gana wouldn't get irritated with him and leave.
Sarah laughed. "Who here doesn't bite?" she asked.
"What, little dull human teeth bit grasch and you're still here?" Gyla asked, eyebrows going high. Her grasch laughed at the idea.
"You didn't see her grasch?" Lunardi asked, eyes lighting up in glee. "Really?" When heads shook around the table, Lunardi howled-literally-with mirth. All around the tavern goblins froze and turned to see exactly what the werewolf among them was doing. When they saw she was laughing, they ignored the eerie sound.
"So tell!" Goria snapped, popping the wolf on the nose lightly. "Not nice to just howl."
"You tell 'em, Sarah," Lunardi managed.
"My grasch?" Sarah didn't stop to consider the Grippoldar's effect on memories before the ritual. Pretty much everything prior to the Grippoldar was fuzzy, especially the last day.
"Who is it?" Several voices snarled at her, impatience growing rapidly into irritation. Irritated goblins are not fun companions.
"Jareth," Sarah said. "Who else would it be?"
Jaws dropped around the table. Most people, confronted by that many sharp teeth and gaping mouths, would have cause for concern. Sarah just picked up another bite of her food and popped it in her mouth.
"King? Here?" Goria managed.
"Obviously," Sarah said, not quite understanding the significance. "What's the big deal? He goes to lots of places in the realm."
"King not here-" Guilu, the arrogant young gana, lost her language and went on in goblin. Lunardi translated.
"The king doesn't come to Grippoldars but every few decades. No one in this one has been in a Grippoldar with the king present. The hobs talk about how much more intense everything gets when he does show up-they're right, by the way-but nobody really believed them. Oh, there's some hobs in the city now that will have absolute fits over missing this!" When Sarah still looked confused, Lunardi went on. "Look, I've been living as gana for five years. This Grippoldar was the wildest, wickedest-"
"Most painful," Garok added, grinning. He did not look displeased by that addition to the description.
"-and most painful I've been in. After a normal Grippoldar, goblins can usually function just fine, if a bit sore and with a few healing spells. This time, there was a healer's pavilion waiting. And we all needed it."
Sarah grimaced. "Yeah. I remember." Oh, the spell had worn off and she had been in serious pain. So had Jareth.
"See, even though a human might need a healer after Grippoldar, he wouldn't need one near as bad as you did. That's the difference."
"It was longer, too," Gyla added. "A full three weeks and four days. Last Grippoldar didn't last three weeks."
"So the king's presence makes a huge difference," Sarah mused. "Does it make the…complete lack of thought worse, too?"
Garok nodded. "Much worse. Most goblins we talked to in the lines and tent hit frenzy in the first two days and stayed there for a while. Some, close to a week." The grasch smiled. "Lots of nilbogs this time," he added obviously pleased with himself. He hooked a finger in Lunardi's collar and stole a kiss from her.
"Not at table," Gita rolled her eyes. "We eating here!"
Sarah snickered as Lunardi replied with something obviously rude in goblinish. Not all phrases needed to be translated. The move had focused Sarah's attention on the collar Lunardi wore, though. It was beautiful. Leather and silver, there were inset gemstones perfectly set throughout a delicately etched pattern.
"Pretty collar, though," Sarah added. "Isn't silver-"
Lunardi groaned. "No. Not even remotely. It is, however, absolutely gorgeous on a wolf with my colours." She saw the next question forming in Sarah's eyes and added, "What gana would wear an ugly collar? If he can't afford or make a suitable collar, why keep him? He'd just be trouble." At Garok's soft chuckle, she continued, "Well, even more trouble."
Now very curious, Sarah charmed her drink and took a good look at the collar around her own neck. Leather formed a smooth barrier between the metal band and her tender skin. The bronze was very bright, but there were no gemstones. The etching was simple, too, but looked incredibly expensive for its simplicity. Around the little loop where the leash had been attached-Jareth had kept that, along with the ganastil-curled a perfect imitation of Jareth's amulet. It looked like the miniature was embracing the lead-loop. Nowhere was there an indication of where it began or ended. Expensive, delicate magics created that kind of binding. As beautiful as Lunardi's collar was, it had an obvious buckle holding it on.
"Wow," Sarah breathed. "This is bronze and leather-but it looks…"
"Looks like the finest red-gold," Goria smiled. "And the etchings are perfect. Lots of gana are jealous of your collar, Sarah. Hell," she snorted. "I am, and the king isn't exactly the best-looking grasch."
Sarah choked on a bite of her dinner. Cherryline and Teaka exchanged glances, then shrugged.
"Looks okay to us," Teaka said. "A little pale and light-weight, but good form."
"He may not be the best-looking to a goblin, maybe," Lundardi answered for the recovering Sarah. "For the rest of us…he's definitely worth a lick or two."
"A lick?" Sarah managed.
"Werewolf thing." That was Guilu's comment, accompanied by something in goblinish. When Lunardi simply gave the gana a toothy smile, the rest of the table smiled. No one translated, but then, no one had to.
Sarah just shook her head and grinned. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and recovering more energy. By the time Sarah went up to bed, she had been given a small book of phrases for the major languages of the realm.
"I can't accept this-"
"Sure. Ganastil payment too much. Heard you with the goblins. Need this, if you going to keep going into different cities. This city pretty good with trade language. Others, not so much." The crone patted her hand. "Magic book. Say language and what you need, it come up on pages. Can keep there until you out of city, or can just erase and go on. Take, take! King pay well for ganastil." The toothy smile gave Sarah an indication of how very well Jareth had paid for those wicked little chainmail scraps.
Sarah flipped the book open and said something in the fourth language of magic, then got the goblinish translation on the page.
"Graztich, agra-ke," she said to the crone.
The crone laughed and laughed, watching Sarah go up the stairs to her room. King had paid for that, too. King made a good grasch for little human gana. Too bad old goblins didn't play the game. Then again, this particular old goblin had met King before.
Very good grasch. Scrawny, though.
In the morning she was dressed again, ready to leave the goblin city-she never did catch the name. She was gana now, and pixet. Elfinflower and magician. Four things, five if one counted knight. Six, if she added human. Seven, though, if she included beloved of the king.
Beloved. A smile grew wide across her face as she thought of the Grippoldar. Collared, in the way of goblins. Jareth had marked her as his own, but the tattoo over her heart wasn't a mark of possession. It was a mark of loyalty, of direct and unencumbered fealty. This collar, though, was a different story. He did not want to share her, and she wasn't inclined to share him, either.
The collar was beautiful, and she wore it with pride. After seeing some of the elaborate and carefully wrought collars around the tavern and town, Sarah realized how incredibly unique her simple collar was. Some grasch still held the leash for their gana, but no one doubted the truth of the collar-bonding. Grasch may strut, but gana ruled.
As Sarah walked down the stairs with her pack, she tried to remember the Grippoldar, but nothing quite seemed right in her thoughts. The memories of the Grippoldar were strange. Her body remembered one thing, her mind almost nothing, and her magic…her magic remembered more than she thought possible. From her magic, she understood how deeply the primitive Grippoldar magics seized those who were present and able. From her magic, she discovered how deeply she had wounded Jareth, and how much pain she had truly experienced. If the magic hadn't prevented fatal wounds, they would both be very badly injured-if not dead. From her magic, she felt how neatly she fit with Jareth-water to his fire, both rich with earth and wild with air. She had not thought of her magic, had not really felt it, while she caught her grasch, but it had known all.
The magic had its own memories of pleasure, memories that could cause her knees to buckle and her heart to race. Some part of her still thought it wrong that her magic could have a separate and deeply-felt reaction to something. Her mind and body may strain in different ways sometimes, but the feel of the magic adding in its reactions was still strange to her. Sarah wondered if this was the same kind of reaction every magicworker had to their own abilities.
The contents of the note from Jareth came back to her. So, Jareth kept the "chick in chainmail" outfit? That was fine. She had no doubt that he'd also kept the leash, and she determined to have a very long talk with him when she saw him again. She didn't mind their games, but when she was fully thinking as a human, she would not wear it. Alternatives uses for the braided cord, especially when applied to Jareth, slipped into her thoughts and brought a dreamy look to her eyes.
Enjoyable as those thoughts were, she had to say goodbye to her new-found friends and continue on. She promised to write in the next city, making a mental note to include letters to others she'd met in other sections of the labyrinth. It was a little before noon when Sarah finally was back on the road. It felt good to keep moving, to keep getting closer to the last few walls.
Six days later, Sarah stood at the gates to another city. At least, she thought it was supposed to be gates. She'd never seen anything like it. There was a wall, a huge wall, and the most delicate filigree work crossed the road in front of her. It looked as insubstantial as a spider's web, but her magic told her she did not want to try to force the issue.
"Pardon me," Sarah said pleasantly to the guard who was reading a very thick book. "How do I get into the city?"
"Well, you must answer a question," the guard replied.
"Oh. What's the question?"
"What is the word for 'igneous' in the fifth language of magic?" he demanded.
Sarah thought about it. In the first language of magic, the word would be ignifere. Then here was the word in the second language, igneo, and in the third it was feurig. In the fourth language, it was ignius. In the fifth, it would be… purigenæs. Woah. When did she learn part of the fifth language of magic?
"Purigenæs," she replied, confidently. She even managed the correct translation.
"Welcome to Ogram," the guard said, opening the gates. Sarah thanked him and walked through, wondering why she had to answer a question about the fifth language of magic.
As soon as she stepped through the gate, the answer hit her, almost tangibly. The magic of the place was so thick it was like walking in slush. She shuddered and took a deep, slow breath. The reason the fifth language was required was obvious now. It was a safety measure. No one here would speak less than that, except children.
Shaking herself and dragging her magic back to her, corralling it and keeping it from running wild, Sarah continued down the road. The constant pull and surge and press of magic was punctuated every so often with little explosions of magic-not strong, but definitely there. It took all of her concentration, but she managed to catch conversations as she walked down the street by the gate, a commercial avenue with little tables and a few pocket-parks between buildings.
"No, no, no. That can't be right. If you take the third equation of translocation and introduce the fifth principle of retention, you violate the law of Erax the Stupid. The sheer v of the mx will rip you apart-which is why it's the law of Erax the Stupid." The man was standing up and yelling at the man beside him.
"Oh, you don't believe that!" The other man pulled out a long scroll and balanced it on a stack of thick books. "Here, the mx is completely transcendent when countered with-"
"You can't make mass transcendent!" The voice needed no visuals. Sheer disbelief at someone else's hairbrained idea was, apparently, universal.
"You can with the application of the sixth level of…" The earnest voice of the second man faded as two much lighter, smaller voices took over.
"Well, I don't think we should try it here. Your mom's still mad about the last time." It was obviously a girl's voice
"But I fixed it!" the second child said. "Besides, everything's grown back…" That sounded an awful lot like Toby.
"We could go to the teaching square," another child added. "Your mom woulldn't mind that, since there are the safeguards in place…"
"Tutor said we had to have a slip from him before we got to experiment." The girl's voice again, trying-and obviously failing-to be the voice of reason.
Sarah smiled. Ogram, the capital city of the Ogres. What was it Erpa had said? Best magicians in the land, didn't have the sense to pour piss from a boot when the instructions were upside-down on the heel? Tolliver had mentioned something about theory run riot and execution lacking in the practical application of reality. She wasn't entirely sure she agreed with that statement. Everything seemed quite ordinary, even the food at the tavern where she stopped. Well, ordinary for the labyrinth.
Granted, ogres were tall and, for the most part, beautiful in a really big way. Still the old saying about brains and brawn didn't quite apply. As tall and obviously strong as the ogres were, she heard more arguments over magical theory and saw more stacks of magic books than she had ever expected to see in her life. And that was while she was eating lunch in the tavern! For a moment, she thought of how wonderful the local library had to be, and how many different vendors of books she was sure to find.
The thought occurred to her that she really did need to get a book and pens for her own magical work. She had to put that set of spells down for the distraction of a werewolf, and charting progress with the various charms was a way of life. Erpa had given her a slim book, but she'd used the last pages well before she was knighted. She paid for her lunch, then asked for the nearest bookshop.
Two hours later, Sarah sighed wistfully as she left the little shop. She had one new book for her own records, a gorgeous set of pens, three inks, and two textbooks that the proprietor had sworn were requirements for every magician under the rank of sorcerer, which Sarah was in skill, if not power. The books were supposed to help her hone her skills; however, Sarah thought that she would definitely surprise everyone, including Jareth, when she finally reached her potential. Still, the reading would help her understand the nature of magic here, even if it didn't actually help her-
"LOOK OUT!" came the shouts from just down the road. Sarah's head snapped to the direction of the sound. She saw trouble and started jogging to see if she could help. Then the heavy punch of serious, multiple-sourced magic hit her and she nearly doubled over in shock.
Everything in that one spot turned various shades of red, green, and purple.
Then the world blew up.
***
There were some events and celebrations no king could avoid hosting, and Jareth was trapped in just that situation. He had a feast with many of the lords and ladies of the realm, along with several diplomats and no few of the citizens. Feast would be a polite word for it. Revel would be more accurate-especially after he finished eating. This was the anniversary of his 1,300th year as King of the Labyrinthine Realm, Blood-lord of Mysteries, etc. He managed to celebrate most anniversaries in various places throughout the realm. Pretty much every city had some sort of party scheduled, some less formal than others. Some, like the one he was required to host, were painfully formal and, damn, but his back hurt. Stone was not a comfortable seat.
At least the presentation of gifts was done, as was the pardoning. For a while, Toby had sat with him on the throne, "helping" him accept the gifts. Several other children in the castle also "helped", running the little things to and from the king. Now the children were all out in the gardens, having a wonderful time and playing with their nurses and tutors. More than once, Jareth wished he could just go out and join them. There was a light at the end of this particular oubliette, though. After the feast came the performances, which would include Karen's dance this year. He could tolerate the children's choirs, endure the jugglers and fools, survive the presentation of this year's great artwork, but this new art he'd brought to his realm had him curious. What did the woman have planned?
The tedium of the feast was abruptly altered when a guest stood and ran up to his throne, obviously distressed. This…might actually be good timing.
"Sire!" the Lord of Magic ran up the throne disrupting Jareth's meal. Whatever this was, Jareth realized, it wouldn't be an amusing diversion. "The city of Ogram-major explosion!"
"Oh, damn," he sighed. There went Karen's dance. "What did they do this time?"
The Lord of Magic consulted the message he'd just gotten. "Well, it appears the ogres were attempting a multi-level structure, but they were simply piling one house on top of another. Actually, they were putting three two-story structures one-on-the-other, and the enchantments used to build the structures and support them, well…"
"Say no more." Jareth stood and nodded to his guests. His words resonated power. "Carry on, ladies and gentles all. I have a little matter in Ogram to take care of."
"I'd say happy Ascension Day, but under the circumstances…" Queen Mab called to him, her voice dry. She was seated nearby, but the distance was still more than a simple comment could cross. Karen, Couric, Oakheart, the seneschal, Lord Ukodus, and Lady Phillya sat at the same table as Mab. Karen was at the table for their close association with the king. Couric had the newly invented title of King's Lover, which had not surprised anyone-it was Jareth, after all. The fact that he was obviously Grean had been a juicy little tidbit.
Around the court, sighs and muttered comments about stubborn magicians with the sense of giggleberries were constant.
"What's the big deal?" Karen asked Couric.
"Ogres are really great with magic. They are not, however, known for their theories becoming viable realities. Basically, they put a bunch of magic together that didn't fit, and the end result destroyed a fairly large chunk of the surrounding landscape." Couric shrugged. "Happened twice while I was in Gainstock."
Oakheart added, " Jareth has to go see how bad the damage is, mostly because he's the king and a gaping hole in the middle of the kingdom is a…nuisance. And you know how that one is with a nuisance."
Karen nodded. Pleasant and smug as Jareth had been for the past several days, she did not want all of that to disappear into the morass of irritation and snappishness that had plagued the castle for over a year.
"But what about the people?" she asked, shocked at the seeming disregard for potential casualties. In fact, no one here seemed surprised, worried, or inclined to actually do anything.
"Hm? Oh, not a problem. Ogres have a kind of warning system. Once the shout goes up, all of the ogres in the area snap shields up and get down." Queen Mab, frowned. "Might have a few injuries, though not many serious ones."
"There is a disaster response team assigned to Ogram. Usually, there needs be only two teams in the entire realm, for we're generally stable. A third was created during King Kolrecth's reign-that's Jareth's father-specifically for Ogram, since the ogres keep trying to destroy their capital city."
Karen almost asked another question, but instead just shook her head and continued with the feast.
Jareth reached his office and summoned the communications crystal.
"Well, how bad is it this time?" he asked the Chieftain.
"Eh, lost three buildings, wares inside. Seven injured, one human, the rest ogres. Just a little magical blast-back."
"Bumps and bruises, eh?" Jareth asked. He concentrated on the map of Ogram and focused his sense of the land on the town. He winced. As usual, the Chieftain was downplaying the situation, at least from the point of the land itself. "I'll be there to sort out the mess of the land momentarily."
"We'll clear the area for you, Majesty."
The crystal went dark and Jareth felt a low pounding begin behind his brown eye. "Damned ogres and their timing," he muttered. He really wanted to see Karen dance before an audience. She was amazing in her practice room, in what she called workout clothes. What must she be like before an audience, in her costumes? Irritated enough that he refused to change from his finery, something that would tell the ogres exactly how irritated he was without having to actually say it, Jareth translocated himself to the disaster site. The response team had just gotten things in hand. Nothing was different from last time.
Rubble littered the streets, some large chunks were embedded in structures several blocks away. Ogres were shaking their heads and rubbing their ears, the noise of the falling stones and wood causing most of the ringing ears and shaky balance.
"And whose brilliant idea was this?" he asked, his voice soft. Everyone heard. Some sounds will always carry, and the king's voice in Ogram was one of those things.
"Um, mine, Majesty," a relatively young ogre said, gulping. "We need to expand, but we can't move the walls anymore-"
"And do you remember why you can't move the walls?" Jareth asked, patiently.
"Because you forbid it after the Great Boom of the 625th year of your reign, Post-Compact 31,537," the ogre replied, visibly shrinking.
"That's right. And what do we do before trying some grand experiment?" Jareth continued.
"We contact the Lord of Magic and have his Ogram representatives look it over," the man rushed ahead, "but we were told it would be another six months before we got an answer back and-"
"And." Jareth's closed his eyes and reminded himself that killing subjects for a complete lack of sense was not part of his job description, however lovely it might sound at the moment. His head was throbbing, and being on the edge of a huge wound in his land was not helping.
"Turn around," he ordered. The young ogre turned around. "Now, look at what you've done to my lovely kingdom. Do you see that deep hole? The big, shiny, magic-blasted rock under all the dirt and clay and smaller rocks? That's called 'bedrock'. When magic explodes and it scours earth down to the bedrock, do you know what happens?" The ogre shook his head. "Your king gets very, very angry." The soft, almost gentle tone made the ogre cringe.
"I'm sorry, Majesty," he whimpered. He was almost grovelling. Nobody was willing to approach the king or his errant subject.
"Go gather the rest of the group you conned into doing this," Jareth sighed. There was no way this one had managed this kind of destruction alone. "You broke it, so you're going to help me fix it." Jareth looked over the edge of the gaping crater and pursed his lips. "Ranulf." The young man turned, now shaking. He hadn't told his name to the king. "Bring the healers, too. You're going to need them."
Ranulf sprinted to do as Jareth bid. Bystanders winced. The last time Jareth had forced those who "broke his kingdom" to fix it, the ogres and ogresses had been unconscious for over a week, recovering their magic. On the other side of the equation, the king had simply gone back to the palace and left cleaning-up to the response team. Even though that had been some 300 years ago, no one had forgotten the ruthlessness of Jareth's demands.
They pitied the young ogres who had managed to elicit that same response from their king. Even if the boy in charge was a blithering idiot.
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