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JARETH’S WEARINESS left him when they rode into Kolada’s gateway mid-afternoon two days later. They entered the city in full military force, the king surrounded by his standard bearers leading the way, Commander Neal ahead of his troops, and Jareth, Lorica, and Lady Anna in the midst of them. Villagers lined the streets to watch the parade, some shouted profanities, but most of them hailed King Barin with respect. It was at the town square where they stopped, and the king turned his horse around and rode to the commander.
“Position your men in the city and stand guard. We’re not here as a hostile force, but neither should we be lax. I’m riding to the baron’s manor with our guests and a few of our soldiers.”
As King Barin pulled his horse to a stop and looked around the village, his tone seemed personal, almost friendly. “Where’s your wizard friend?” he asked.
Jareth had never spoken casually to King Barin. He’d been a prisoner facing a death sentence and had been considered a threat to the throne while in Prasa Potama. The king did not come to Jareth’s prison cell when he was released, nor had the monarch acknowledged Jareth when the company prepared to leave. Even when King Barin approached him at the campfire asking about Chase, their conversation ended on a sour note it seemed. The two had not spoken to each other since that night.
“He disappeared this morning,” Jareth answered. “I have no idea where he went.”
“That’s too bad. He might have been able to help us. I would have liked to have spoken to him in confidence.”
The two linked eyes. Barin smiled. “I’m happy to escort you personally to Lord Sylvester’s manor and to reunite you with your children.” He glanced at Lady Anna seated on her mount, watching him. With a sigh, he leaned closer and whispered in Jareth’s ear.
“As soon as you have the young ones, I encourage you to take them under your wing and go home. Take the horses with you. I’ll pay Sylvester for the one your wife is riding.”
Jareth’s jaw dropped in disbelief. It was no small thing to be given a king’s steed. “Thank you, Vasil.”
“Travel as quickly as you can. I will send two soldiers to follow until you clear Ogress.”
King Barin did not wait for a reply, and Jareth, speechless, wouldn’t know how to thank him if he had.
But for the king to give him a horse!
They followed the monarch and his escort of twenty troops, leaving the commander and the remaining soldiers in Kolada. When they passed the last house in the village, they turned down a woodsy trail that was girded with white barked trees. Fallen leaves crunched under their horse's hooves.
They had not arrived as far as the gate when a volley of arrows met them. Jareth’s horse reared, the women screamed, and King Barin spun his horse around while his soldiers dismounted, took cover, and fired back.
“Lorica, go back,” Jareth jumped off his horse, his crossbow in hand and handed her his reins.
“Give me a weapon, Jareth, and I’ll fight,” she responded, dismounting. Someone tossed her a crossbow, though Jareth disapproved, it was no time to argue.
Anna whipped her horse into a gallop and flew past them. King Barin had already joined the fighting men veiled in the trees along the fence. Their bolts were effective. Lord Sylvester’s militia dropped quickly. They had been unprepared and more surprised at the invasion than the king’s troops.
“There aren’t many, Vasil,” a scout came back breathless. “We can take them in an hour.”
The king’s advantage was the forest that surrounded the castle, and the skill of the king’s army. The militia had little chance and before the hour was up, the manor’s defense had collapsed. Anna arrived with additional troops just as the battle ceased. The king sent several of his men through the gate.
“Search the interior,” he commanded.
When they came back with three prisoners, King Barin waved to his men to gather their horses.
“Was Sylvester there?”
“No sir, no one except these three men,” a scout answered.
“Take them to Neal and have him interrogate them,” the king commanded.
“It seems Sylvester was forewarned,” the king grumbled to Jareth as he waited for his troops to remount.
“Who would have known to warn him?”
“Your wizard friend perhaps?” the king asked.
“It’s possible,” Jareth whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Barin said. “Whether the wizard rode with us or not, he knew our destination. This only solidifies my suspicions that Lord Sylvester is up to something wicked. Let the ladies stay saddled while I take soldiers inside.”
“I’ll go with you. My children are supposed to be there,” Jareth said. “Perhaps they’re hiding.” A hopeful thought even though the scouts reported the place empty.
The king didn’t argue with him and so Jareth followed, leaving Lorica behind with Anna and the soldiers.
As they approached the manor Jareth’s horse tossed his head, his ears attentive to the wind as leaves flitted across the grassy lawn, his step light and anxious. All the horses balked, trotted in a circle, or laid their ears back as they drew near. It wasn’t the dead bodies spewed across the lawn, and in the rotunda that bothered them. These were war horses. They had seen death. No, it was a scent in the air, an eerie presence Jareth could not identify, yet he swore he sensed it too.
The king dismounted with the two guards, all three drew their swords. Jareth slid out of his saddle and stepped onto the porch-way with his crossbow in hand, bolts nocked. The king nodded to one of his men and the door swung open easily.
There were no servants in the house. The manor had all the signs of being abandoned aside from a few soldiers who had been killed near the windows. No coals in the fireplace. No maids in the halls or in the kitchen. Even the stale fragrance lingering in the home gave the air of vacancy. Jareth’s heart raced as he, the king, and the soldiers searched the rooms.
“Crispin!” Jareth called, his chest stiffening with each step he took. “Kandace! Where are you? It’s your father!” he said.
No answer.
He searched the doors leading to the common room, the kitchen, the servants quarters. Nothing. He passed the king and flew up the stairs, bursting open doors before the soldiers could get to them. Not one room showed any sign of his children having been there. After rifling the halls upstairs, and the dozens of rooms and all their closets, Jareth turned to the king at the top of the stairwell.
“They aren’t here!”
“It’s abandoned,” the king added.
The words followed Jareth down the stairs and out the door like glass in a sandstorm—biting, tearing, cutting to his heart.
“Lorica!” he called to the company near the gate, his eyes foggy. “Lorica, come here!”
Lorica broke away from the others, Anna rode behind her. Jareth raced to her, his heart in his throat, the wind chilling his tears. He helped her dismount, grabbing her so tightly she moaned and pushed him away.
“This is where you left the children, isn’t it?”
“Yes, why?” she asked but after stepping away and seeing his panic she gasped. “No, Jareth. Don’t tell me,” she said. “No!”
“Were they going somewhere? Did they have plans that you know of?”
She shook her head, broke from his grasp, and ran to the manor. Jareth caught up to her. “Where did you leave them? Where were they?”
“In their rooms, but that was days ago.” The king stepped aside when they burst back into the house. Lorica stormed past him, and Jareth followed her up the stairs.
She stopped when she reached Kandace's chamber and gasped with her hand over her lips. “Jareth!” She fanned herself, tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t understand. Where are they? Where are my children?”
The bed was neatly made, the room tidy with no sign of any child having been in it. No clothes in the closet, no puppets on the pillow.
“We’ll find them, I promise,” King Barin whispered gently, having stepped into the room.
“I know where they might be,” a man at the entry said.
Jareth turned sharply to face the wizard. “Chase!”
“Follow me," the wizard said.
Anna stood at the foot of the stairs and Jareth, trailing behind Chase, heard her as clearly as if her voice were a trumpet playing a death song. “Don’t, Chase,” she said. “They’ll hang you for this.”
Chase brushed past her, leading Jareth, Lorica, and King Barin through an entryway into a dark and dismal den. An odd smell crawled up Jareth's nostrils as he stepped over the threshold, and a hollowness resounded under his feet as he walked across the floor.
“Help me move this table,” Chase requested.
It all happened so quickly and yet time seemed to stop. Jareth picked up one end of the heavy ironwood table and slid it off the carpet, Chase rolled back the rug, and there it was—a trap door with blue vapor seeping into the room. The wizard raised a brow when he stood, his face radiating the eerie light from the abyss, just like it had that day in the old widow’s shed. He held out his hands, cast a spell, and slowly the hatch lifted, quivering and barely ajar.
Jareth’s heart stilled like stone as he gazed through the crack.
His children were somewhere in that void, captives in the Neverworld!