ThroatThe moment the ground gave way came without thunder or warning. I felt a soft crack under my boot and, before I could plant the other, the mineral crust crumbled like damp sugar. I dropped straight down, too fast to scream, wrapped in dust that scorched my throat. There was no slam against rock: an oblique shaft swallowed me and spat me into a corridor so smooth and cold my skin skidded as though I'd landed on ice. I lay there gasping while the echo of my name faded overhead. With a rasping sigh the desert sealed itself, leaving only a distant hole that dripped grains of sand. Around it the stone looked hardened, as if it had never yielded. There was no climbing back. I had to move on.
The gallery was just wide enough to force me upright, shoulder-to-shoulder with the wall. The stuff of it—neither rock nor metal—shone with sourceless light, like living glass. Instinctively I reached for my lamp, then remembered the rule I'd set: trust no artificial spark if the place itself gives light enough to walk. I put the lamp away and took a step. At my movement the walls flared and mirrored a figure—my silhouette, but stretched, limbs too thin, head cocked in a gesture that wasn't mine. I stopped, studied it, and saw another further back that showed my body exactly—except the jade hung broken, charred pieces glued to the skin. In yet another grimy panel the stone was fused into the flesh, dark veins pulsing off-beat.
Ahead, pane after pane offered versions of me: a younger Jareth in an apprentice's uniform, another pushed to the edge with no face in the shadow. Each reflection pressed against the glass as if waiting its turn to emerge. In some the pendant glowed a healthy green; in others it was a hole swallowing the light. I felt the real jade's warmth against my chest, its beat calm—almost comforting—and tried to focus on that, not on the words bleeding from the mirrors.
"You're only a lodger in your own name," murmured the elongated form. "Drop the sound, let silence in."
The faceless youth added, "Don't carry that stone—cultivate the wound, not the amulet."
A third voice—source unknown—whispered my second name, the one never spoken aloud, and invited me to surrender both jade and memory in exchange for "rest within Night's current."
Temptations braided together, each reflection reinforcing the next. I lifted a hand to my brow, but the touch of cold sweat pulled me back: my skin wasn't fever-hot. Those mirrors weren't talking to my senses—they were talking to my pride. I didn't shout at them; that would admit the spell. I kept walking, shoulder grazing the wall, avoiding their false eyes.
The passage curled—not a sharp turn but a bend so gentle I noticed only when the air grew colder and the reflections sharpened. They all spoke now in chorus, modulating one phrase: *Give up your name, give up your name.* The jade throbbed harder, syncing with the corridor's cadence, and for a heartbeat I thought the crystal truly warmed. The floor shivered, the walls rippled, and in the next blink I realized I was no longer alone.
Among the distorted copies appeared a figure needing no translation: Naani. Her face wasn't warped—perfect, save for a green mist hugging her outline. She smiled as if she'd waited centuries. Raising her right hand, she showed the pendant whole upon her breast. Without thinking I stretched mine and touched the cold surface.
Glass crackled under my fingertips. The image shattered in silent light. A mute thunder ran the corridor and the walls split, opening a black gash. Through the fissure seeped the sweet smell of mud after rain; something wet, almost warm, splashed my face. I stumbled back, but the entire hall spider-webbed and disgorged dark water. No time to choose— the floor slanted and sluiced me down a viscous slide.
I plunged into a flooded passage. Water rose to my waist—heavier than any liquid I knew, yet offering no resistance. Submerging my hand erased all feeling at once, as if the limb dissolved. I kicked carefully; my boots skimmed smooth plates. I recalled experiments on fluids that erase traces—substances swallowing skin and memory. Panic bloated my throat, but I made myself breathe slow. The jade beat—no longer hurt, only shouted—and each pulse restored the sense of my body. *While it drums, you're whole,* I told myself. Hands held clear of the water, left fist clamped round the cord, I waded on.
Light was almost nil, a faint phosphorescence seeping from the vault—or the water itself. I refused thought: short steps, taut shoulders, pendant forward. Every half-dozen paces a murmur skimmed the waterline—childish voices reciting scraps from forbidden myth books the Pyramid kept locked away: tales of a hungry Moon told to children who forgot them on growing up. The voices chanted a mangled skipping rhyme:
"Two eyes has the night…
one sleeps, one devours…
if the weaving unspools,
the moon finds the thread…"
They giggled listlessly, laughter cracking into coughs. Impossible to place them; they echoed inside my head. For a moment I thought them memories from my own childhood—but I'd never heard that song. Sensing doubt, the voices rose: of a "man who thinks in blood," a "stone that beats like two hearts," a "gate the Moon opens when she blinks." Each verse fit the dread born in the desert vision.
The channel deepened to my chest. Groping for the wall numbed my arm in the liquid. Blind, I followed the flow. The voices faded and, abruptly, stopped. Silence hit so hard I heard the hum inside my bones. The tunnel shallowed; I hauled myself onto dry floor, dripping with a liquid my skin barely felt.
I stood in a dim chamber—not natural: an oval beneath a translucent dome. Light emanated from the ceiling itself, a filtered green like sun through impossible leaves. No exit showed: a womb carved in soft rock. Thick breath, scent of crushed foliage. The jade lay warm against my chest, beating perfectly. I counted its knocks, then my pulse: identical. Once, twice. Soothing—until the thought twisted: what if the pendant was dictating the tempo, not following it?
I recalled my desert vow: when the stone matched my heart, it meant Naani's spirit and mine were aligned. Then the doubt: perhaps the gem mimics any heart that wears it. Hand on the stone, I felt that double pendulum. Two metronomes coupled; if one falters, the other drags it.
The green light thickened. In the dome's curve a shadow formed—the Moon's outline, fuzzy, craterless. It smeared after seconds, like a trick of blinking. The jade trembled, doubled its pace; my chest did not. The mismatch thudded in my temples, hammering to seize control. Kneeling, fingers dug into sand-smooth floor, I sought something real: gritty texture, the rasp of my own ragged breath. I resolved to ignore the stone until either my body adapted or it calmed. Tension climbed like fever; green flares pooled behind my lids, the dome's glow trying to blind me. The lunar shadow sharpened, tilting like a face leaning close.
I recited my first and second names in silence, grounding them. *You are Jareth before any stone. You may be a link, but you're more than a link.* The shadow flickered. The pendant slowed, seeking my rhythm again. *Let it align,* I thought. In the gap between the beats I heard a weary whisper—my voice yet not mine—repeating the child's rhyme. Trap or not, I mouthed it softly, taming the words. With each verse the tremor eased; breath by breath my pulse reclaimed the lead. When the rhyme ended, the jade followed docilely.
I rose. The dome still glowed green, but the shadow was gone. Feeling for a way out, my palm found a spot where rock yielded like warm clay. Thumb pressed— the wall pulsed and parted. Sliding in my arm up to the elbow, I felt flesh-soft warmth. A vast heartbeat drummed with mine: the Night itself, an immense creature whose interior I roamed. I drew out my slick arm and stared at the opening—dry, dark, a narrow hall. The twin rhythms beat in unison: invitation, not threat. I stepped through; the wall sealed behind me.
Only then did I remember to inhale. The corridor swallowed the sound. I advanced by touch, muttering a clipped version of my name every three steps, but words were drunk down by air that devoured syllables. Primitive fear stung at my nape.
At a bend the smell of dead algae returned—memory of the flooded gallery. *No water,* I told myself. *This is the belly; its fluids are different.* I pictured the green dome swallowed by something larger, lending its pulse so the creature knew where to bite. Shudder. The jade, however, beat steady—not urgent, merely certain. Perhaps it wasn't a leash dragging me but a beacon keeping me from losing myself.
I slowed, letting silence settle like a damp cloak. Details seeped back: boot scuff on dust, a stray creak in the wall, a sigh not my own. Ahead a gray-blue glow seeped from a chest-high crack. Touching the edge, stone chilled my fingers, then softened, widening at my print. I peered through: a sunken court bathed in a pale clarity—neither green nor red, a truce of colors. On a platform lay something almost human, made of the same light; its slow impossible breathing raised and lowered its unfaced chest. I did not enter. Existence sufficed.
Turning, I followed the passage to another curve where burnt-resin scent thickened—the laboratories' smell, a door to more rational memories. The jade kept single time with my heart—my anchor.
Stairs descended, each tread as smooth as the corridor floor. My first heel-tap cracked the hush; a distant voice stirred, failed to form words. *Huss.* Just that: huss. I whispered it back and felt the wall rest a light pressure on my shoulders, as if it recognized the throat that shaped the sound. Dialogue, though the tongue was lost to me.
Down I went, air warming. I set aside the moon, the children, my own reflections. Only the twin heartbeat mattered. If ever the stone merged so fully with mine I could not tell them apart, that instant would mark the journey's end—or its true beginning. Clutching the pendant, I stepped into thicker dark, with Naani's voice bright in memory and a resolve to follow the doubled rhythm wherever it led, until one pulse remained or both stopped together.
Night breathed. I breathed with it—madness a taut thread still unbroken. I intended to keep it so.