The riddle of the Labyrinth 13 - Saphira

Two livery clad servants bowed deeply before they slid to the sides with the flowing grace of dancers and placed white-glowed hands on shiny brass doorknobs, opening up one large, paneled oak door each, admitting Sarah and her mother into a large and sumptuous ballroom of a kind that could put Buckingham Palace to shame. It was about five normal stories up to the cross-vaulted ceiling which was painted like a starry sky in blues and gold. The vaults were carried by slender pillars made by some kind of glittering transparent material, lit from inside by a shifting spectra of rainbow colours which spilled out and reflected against the polished marble floor in a dazzling carnival of hues. In divergence the walls were calmingly white and hung with large works of art, some classic, others of the modern kind still others impossible to classify. Through high and pointy windows on their right hand, the last dying embers of daylight spilled in, failing to compete with the profusion of glittering light inside. Soft music from piano and strings could be heard through the muted buzz of voices filling the hall.

Though the hall itself held nothing against the captivation of those inside. They were about two hundred revelers gathered, perhaps three. Standing in small groups with high-steamed glasses in their hands and with the sparkling lights from the crystalline pillars and chandeliers bouncing off their jewelry and sequined dresses they all looked like Hollywood stars, attendants of an Oscar Gala or a Nobel Price celebration. The brilliance of such a gathering almost struck Sarah dumb, she almost expected celebrities like Prince Charles or Orlando Bloom to be among them. But no, this was a very different kind of gathering, she realized. Virtually as if cut out of a fairytale. More Disney than Woody Allen.

"To Julianne, welcome back!" a gaudy male tenor suddenly reverberated across the large hall.
"Julianne?" someone else, a woman this time. Precipitously it felt as if every single eye in the bedecked ballroom turned to regard Sarah and her mother stepping over the threshold. These weren't the eyes of the everyday suburban people she knew, the neighbors, the kids and the teachers in the school or the parents of her friends. These were eyes that had seen the world, seen ugliness and beauty, horrors and wonders, joy and sadness. Now appearing as if they were ascertaining someone like her for the very first time.

Sarah became rooted to the spot as a hush fell upon the nearest guests, torsos turned and necks stretched, people posing themselves to see better. She wasn't sure if she was ready for this, she felt so inadequate in her cheap red dress and amateurish make-up, like a cat among the ermines. The music which had sounded until now quieted, one single end note ringing out into nothing.

"To Saphira!" another cheering went up. It echoed from every corner, and shining glasses were raised to her. With knees going week she laughed nervously. This diverse nobility evidently had her confused with someone else.
"Um ... hi," she quietly responded, surprised to hear her own voice reverberate at the back of the hall. "I'm Sarah, not Saphira. Sarah Williams from Chelsea, London, England. That's in, uh, the United Kingdom," she went on, under the impression that very few in this gathering had any idea what she was talking about. Every single attendant looked utterly bewildered and Sarah felt guilty for letting them down.

"The child doesn't know her own name!" Sarah heard someone whisper. Now it was her turn to be confused. Looking around for her mother, she realized that Julianne was standing stock still, mouth pursed in a thin line. Something was truly wrong, it felt like an ambush. Before she could ask questions a hand clasped on her shoulder, a hand that was definitely not from someone she knew.

As if drawn by a magnet, Sarah's gaze followed the large hand on her right shoulder and found herself facing a tall and smart-looking man who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties posed just behind her. He was dressed in black leather pants and a likewise black, gem-studded leather jacket over a white lace-covered shirt with wide lace cuffs poking out from under the arms of the sharply cut jacket. Yet his most notable feature was the hair, whitish blond, long and spiky, standing upright as if electrified. He looked like some kind of visual kei artist or as if he was role-playing something faux medieval.

When she looked into his eyes she found them being mismatched – one of them a yellowish hazel, the other a grayish blue. The effect was frightening, those were eyes possessing a sinister quality, yet softened by lines of kindness and perhaps merriment radiating from the corners. Eyes that turned her cold yet lured her in. His pointy brows didn't help much either. It made him look like an older brother of Cloud from Final Fantasy. Behind him were a few more people also looking completely out of place. Sarah felt a peculiar chill shoot through her bones and glanced back to the crowd. They seemed to have lost interest in her and her mother now, and resumed their previous conversations.

"Glad to see the festivities are under way," came the elegant man's smooth voice and thus Sarah recognized him as the one who had greeted Julianne earlier. "Good to see you at last, Saphira." Picking his hand of Sarah's shoulder the blond stranger moved along into the crowd. She felt a mixture of relief to be free from the pull of those burning eyes and an odd sense of disappointment from a potential opportunity lost. A path opened up as other guests moved aside for him. Greetings were uttered as his entourage passed, and last in the group walked a petite girl who looked a bit like Kim Kardashian – but with a pair of black, curved horns adorning her temples, one of them pierced with a silvery ring. She gave Sara an odd, long and knowing look. Sarah became astounded and it appeared as though her mother felt the same way.

Once the eccentric group had dispersed into the crowd, another man appeared before them. He was even taller than the flamboyant tenor, broad over his shoulders and with long flaxen hair falling in waves over his torso. He wore a two-piece outfit resembling a dress uniform, navy-blue with a double row of spherical brass buttons, decorated with medals and pins, epaulettes covering the shoulders and with tassels hanging from the left side. The glow of the entire place might as well have emanated from him since his jovial and generous smile could have lit kindling.
"Welcome, Lady Julianne and the lovely Sarah! I am exceedingly delighted to see that the two of you could attend this party," he beamed as he closed in. First Sarah expected Julianne to hold out her hand for him to kiss, the way she had seen other women greet the male attendants around. Instead Julianne quickly stood in between her daughter and the impressive man.

"I wouldn't think so," she almost hissed and Sarah blinked at the unexpected chill of her mother's voice, moreover she wouldn't know what to call the redness gathering in her mother's face.
"Oh come now, milady, let her enjoy her first Hallow Ewe. Remember what I said in the letter. We wouldn't any trouble, would we?"

Even from her angle could Sarah tell that her mother had gone pale and livid. Was this regal man threatening them? Or what was the cause for the toxic grains hidden in this stranger's honeyed voice? This well concealed wiliness which even deterred her normally so collected mother - what was going on?

"Noble King Angarian. Make no mistake that either of us would want any trouble," Julianne was almost whispering. "We came here upon your invitation, because protocol bade me so. Your majesty, even after all those years I haven't forgotten my manners. Or the melancholic nostalgia for what was once my home. Something I wished for Sarah to also see, before it became too late for her to appreciate it. But I have not disremembered the way you treated me back then. Your refusal to see who was guilty and who was innocent, victimized in this disaster which befell upon us by the unfortunate circumstance that I married the wrong man."

High King Angarian's smugness slipped off his face minutely and Sarah quickly added two and two. So this was the man who had once forced her mother in exile, after the failed attempt of a coup instigated by her husband and father – Sarah's grandfather. The ruinous events this strange woman Umbrianna had hinted at upon her visit to London.

Yet before any more inimical words could be exchanged, the man with the miss-matched eyes returned, bringing a high-stemmed glass with something sparkling in, which he presented to Sarah.
"Since the Eraldians are intent on throwing a wet blanket over this..." he mused as he turned and looked at Julianne and King Angarian's fuming faces for a moment, "...happy occasion, I feel obligated to make up for it. Have some Champagne! You too, Julianne." He had in fact brought two glasses and with a flashing smile he all but shoved the second one into Julianne's hand. With the same gracious movement he threw an arm around Sarah's shoulders and swept her away into the crowd. "Resume your merriment," he said simply to the crowd.

As if everyone in their vicinity had been holding their breath underwater, the conversations rose up again like a gasp for air.
"So ... who are you?" Sarah asked the tall man who led her deeper into the crowd. She held on to the glass of Champagne, waiting for a spot to put it down, as her mother never let her taste wine.
"I'm Jareth. Has Julianne ever mentioned me?"
"No," Sarah humbly admitted. "She never told me about this place before, I had no idea it even existed. And I don't know any of these people."

"Such a shame," Jareth contemplatively replied, sounding like he was sincerely meaning it.
"Why did they mistake me for this Saphira by the way? Who is she anyway?" Sarah felt very unlike herself as she gazed at his slim, sinewy form, remarkable hairdo and the way the lights played across the unusual angles of his face. There was something there which was not... really human.  
"You'll find out eventually," his reply was secretive and slightly laden with pity. "For now, though, the feast is about to begin. I am sure King Angarian is persuading Julianne to join in for real as we speak."

"My mother never even told me she and I originated from beyond the stars," Sarah recommenced, "that she had a husband who was imprisoned for trying to dethrone a king. She never told me we were... aliens." As the last word fell of her lips Sarah she felt silent with comprehension and an indistinct nausea churned in her belly.
"You're not really aliens," Jareth tried to sooth her. "Not more than another hundred million or so living on Earth, intermingled with the majority of the human race. You think the Chinese are foreign, wait 'till you meet the Thuleans or the Ebraans. Or other people coming from – well, elsewhere. Like us."
"Lealia?" she asked, after having struggled for a few seconds with remembering the name of the planet they were on.
"Lealia yes. There are other worlds too. I come from a place called Labyrinth."

"Labyrinth – that's a strange name. No offence."
"None taken. Labyrinth is a strange place in the eyes of most in here. Conversely we find their places strange, so I guess that makes us even."
"You must tell me about your world!" Sarah kept her gaze on Jareth's face, trying to figure him out. "Might you know why my mother was so resolute against telling me about this place?"

"I understand – to a certain extent - why she wouldn't want to tell you. Who wants to grow up learning you're part of a minority most people do not even know exist? I imagine she intended to let you know when time was due. Besides, most people here simply don't have their heads on right," Jareth suddenly sounded almost scornful, lashing out with a long-fingered hand at the gathering, several rings flashing. "Your mother had enough sense to stay away for a while, but our kind can be persistent. She's been hurt." The smooth arrogance slid from his voice with those last words. Jareth turned to Sarah as he concluded. "It's not my place to tell you more than so right now. Wait for Julianne, eventually she let you know what you need to know."

Sarah felt dismayed, there were secrets hidden here which she couldn't wait to unearth, it was more to this than just a merrymaking on an alien world, she could feel it in the undercurrents like cold drafts around her ankles and she wanted to plead with Jareth to let her in on those secrets everyone but her seemed to know. At the same time Jareth's words made some strange kind of sense, regardless of what little else really made sense in this world. He was under no liberty to tell, it would have to be her mother apprising Sarah of what she needed to know.

Sarah may have disclosed her longing for adventures, something else beyond the dull world of Chelsea, but now right in the middle of this ostentatious technicolor festivity, she had to admit it wasn't really that astounding. Don't wish too hard as the saying went.

While they were talking, Sarah hadn't been aware of where they were heading, but when they approached a large table at the end of the vast hall she refocused on her surroundings and stared in awe at the unstinting feast that was being set. Gold rimmed plates made from the finest of china on snow-white tablecloths and so many forks, knifes, spoons and glasses that she didn't know how half of them could be needed. The decorative cutlery appeared to be made out of gold and silver as well, as were the rings around the linen table napkins. Large pottery of brightly coloured exotic flowers were sat at intervals in the middle of the table, intermingled with ornate golden candlesticks with burning candles, but there were spaces enough between those decoration to enable people to see each other across the table. Above hung crystal chandeliers with a plethora of bulbs lighting up the high, cross-vaulted ceiling above in a warm orange.  

The guests of the King posed themselves at varied intervals around, waiting for Angarian to take his place and Sarah wondered how they found their way to their chairs, since there were no name-tags or any other apparent seating system. Jareth ushered Sarah to a chair some eight yards away from the head of the table before taking his place two spots away from her on the other side. Since she didn't know any of the people gathering around her, Sarah felt a little less comfortable now that her guide had left her, even though he was just sitting diagonally from her. Silently she regarded those people in their elegant fineries, perfect hairdos and stylish make-ups, who were cheek-kissing and chattering merrily among each other. They all seemed sophisticated and courtly and she had no idea what to say to any of them.