They only stopped running when they completely ran out of breath. Jareth stumbled and fell to his knees, heaving, and William only made it a few more steps before dropping the spear and putting his hands against the smooth, curved glass, panting desperately. It took a minute of two for either of them to be fully aware of their surroundings.
The character of the landscape had changed. The wall on one side, where William was leaning, looked the same as the glass they'd been passing the whole time. Translucent and cloudy, and that strange, faint green. But on the other side of them, the waves changed to a nearly flat surface. The green went from cloudy and light to deep and clear, and it felt like you could see forever if you looked down.
But there was nothing to see. Just clear, deep glass, down into darkness, like a bottomless sea.
The surface was a bit like a sea as well. Choppy, angular in places, like water churned by the wind and then frozen. The areas between ridges were slick, and the ridges looked sharp. It would be treacherous to cross.
But as Jareth considered it, William let out a yell and stumbled backward onto the waves. He slid and nearly fell, and Jareth responded before he could think, abruptly smoothing out the glass where the older man was about to land. William didn't injure himself on the ridges, but his head audibly collided with the flattened glass.
Jareth spun to look at the wall William had been leaning against. A smile, as wide as his shoulders, shined in the milky glass. The teeth were sharp, but they didn't part. It didn't seem to be a mouth, exactly, just a smile.
William stood, rubbing his head, looking at the smile with confusion and fear. He scooped up the spear, but he was fairly certain whatever it was couldn't be hurt through the glass.
Two eyes opened above the smile. They may have been many things – a sheep, a snake, a pig – but they weren't human. The pupils were blurry through the glass, but the iris was huge, and there were no visible whites.
The mouth didn't move, but the creature spoke nonetheless. "Humans, lost in the magic." The accent was unplaceable but understandable. "There is yet a way home. Follow my sign to the gate, and fight its guardian." Then the face pulled backwards into the glass, vanishing from sight.
Abruptly, a carving appeared where the face had been. A simple symbol of a crescent filled with triangles – a representation of the smile – and a line downwards towards the ground.
YOU ARE READING
Elaine of Antwerd
FantasyIt's been two years since the plague that took out her parents, and now, there's something she must learn... Thirteen-year-old Elaine swore off magic after losing her mother, but as she heals and grows under the guidance of her kind uncles, she deci...
