"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."
Macbeth IV, i

Prologue:

Jareth looked up from his book of Shakespeare to glance at the clock on the high stone wall. Nearly thirteen o'clock. He should have gone to sleep long ago, but something was keeping him awake. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but something made him uneasy.

Standing up out of the overstuffed chair, he walked across the library room to the fireplace. Resting one elegant arm across the mantle he sighed, starting into the now diminishing flames.

He knew what the real problem was, if he would only admit it to himself. He was lonely, pure and simple. He hadn't had a visitor to the labyrinth for so long that he wondered if the book had been burned, or if no one cared anymore.

What if they didn't?

He kicked at a stray piece of wood that a goblin had dropped while tending to the fire. He wasn't alone, of course. There were always the goblins and his other subjects to rule over. It certainly wouldn't kill him if people stopping coming to this world. He could always visit with his brother, as much as Stephan annoyed him most of the time, some of his subjects were entertaining.

But it just wasn't the same.

He hadn't been Summoned for nearly ten years now. And as every year passed, he grew more and more anxious.

Something wasn't right.

Something.

But what?

* * * * *

A slender hand brushed across the fine, red leather cover of the book. Caressing the spine, lightly fingering the golden letters, which glittered in the low firelight.

The book, the book he had been searching for was finally his. After so many centuries, he held it in his grasp. His ticket into the labyrinth, into the kingdom of the goblins.

Into the home of the Goblin King.

Jareth.

A low chuckle filled the room.

"Soon, it will all be mine."

* * * * *

Design and Content © 1998-2001. Caillean Greywolf. All Rights Reserved.

Images Provided by Untitled Studio