Once upon a time far away there was a land that held the Labyrinth. It was a barren land, full of twisted trees and dark soil and dusty sand. One could stand at the beginning of the Labyrinth (although none knew where it began) and could look for miles and miles at the stone maze stretching before him. He could turn around and there, too, would be the labyrinth, until he would wonder if you were at the beginning or simply in the middle once again. This was how the Labyrinth was kept alive and, for a while, it was good.
The land that held the Labyrinth held nothing else. One could say the Labyrinth was a planet of it's own, or a country of it's own, or, perhaps, a universe. It wasn't and it was and all it was was the Labyrinth. It lived and shifted when it was told, or when it pleased and it enjoyed itself immensely. It's memory was commendable by all, excepting those who were in it, and in all history of time and space, there was only one who knew the Labyrinth better than it knew itself. But even he has grown with the turning winds, and now he sits in his tower of cold stone and watches the walls shift and move with a certain boredom. He is tired and lonely, and wonders if it could have been different, should have been different. And so, day after day, hour after hour, the King of the Goblins grows weary of the chattering voices and turns instead to the past. He takes a crystal from a special stone and wraps his gloved fingers around it, as a child might hold a beautiful stone. Leaning against the cold stone wall with a sigh, he looks once again into the crystal to the past, to see what was, what is, what might have been.
He had always been a strange child. The tall, thin pale features and dark eyes worried the other children, scared them. They loved, and feared the tall boy, Jareth. He would walk to school, everyday, reading something different than the day before, the dark smudges under his eyes tell tale signs of late nights. When he walked the air would swirl behind him, as if disturbed in a strange way, and some of the young girls swore the birds were quiet behind him. He was kind enough to the other children, who all seemed small and unimportant next to him. It wasn't that he tried to be different, he resented it actually, it was his presence. There was something about him that made the children want to stop and stare, reaching out their fingers to brush at the pale skin, but when his dark eyes looked towards them, they shied away in fear. Jareth would stare for hours into the mirror in his mother's room, looking at his eyes, wondering how they affected people so, and always he would see nothing but dark pools, shadowed by too- long hair. Then he would shake his head, and wander off towards his room, to read or paint. He seldom spoke, but when it did, it meant something. He hadn't spoken until he was five, and then it was in a complete sentence in answer to his mother's question about the origins of the stars. He had told her that they were crystals that were sown up in the sky to help the planets see their way. Upon which, after the initial shock of hearing her son speak for the first time, she gathered him into her arms and smiled, and told him that he would be a great man someday. He had loved his mother very much, and missed her more everyday. He would swear to his father that he could see her face in the mirror sometimes, smiling sadly, but his father would only nod and look away.
And so, he read. He would read a book everyday, over and over sometimes, learning. Jareth had never thought that school was enough, or even that it was useful, and so each day, he would discover on his own what he considered to be important. He studied mythology and legends, and sciences…nothing escaped his comprehension. There was a feeling deep inside him, that he was searching for something, a key…to a world that was not his own, that could be reached by him. Somewhere to go and stay, and wait…for whatever it was the he was waiting for. And then, one day he found what he was searching for.
One morning, before Jareth had to leave for school, he was finishing up the last of his new book on Greek mythology. He was reading about Daeldius, the fantastic inventor, who had created a prison so great and perilous that it took on a mind of it's own. He built it to house a minitor, a creature of the underworld, and designed it as a trap to challenge adventurers. Jareth was fascinated. He re-read the part of the book over on the way to school, and when he entered the class, he asked his teacher about it. She told him to speak to her about it after class, when she had more time, and never did a day pass more slowly.
At the end of the day, she wiped her hands on her skirt, sat down at her desk and looked up at him.
"Well, young Jareth, what is it?"
When Jareth spoke, the world seemed to grow quiet and listen. He had a voice that was very soft, and yet so full of strength and commitment it could inspire the most courageous of heroes.
" If one were to build something, hypothetically, and it was such a masterpiece and miraculous work, could it become alive?"
His teacher regarded this strange boy, the book in his hands, the searching eyes. Some children were different, she knew this as a teacher, and some could be told things, while others could not.
"Jareth, what you have there is a book about something that happened a long time ago. It was a different world then. There were different magic, different places, different people even. You could not create a living thing no more than I, with the exemption of having a family. But Jareth, you must understand. It isn't because it isn't possible, it is because we cannot do it."
"But if it is possible, why can't I find a way?"
"I never said you couldn't, boy. You can find a way to tap into the old times, you can even find ways to become part of something that was long ago, and still is. You have to have the heart, and the mind, and the soul for it. Without even one of those, you will fail."
The old woman looked at the boy, Jareth. She knew where he had come from, she knew that his mother was gone, taken away from her son by the very thing that she was warning him about now. She knew that his father would never say a word to his young son about his mother, or himself and what they had attempted. It was remarkable that he had come this far on his own, but he was, after all , his mother's son. She saw that he understood, but more than understanding, it was knowing. He knew that she spoke the truth, and the truth was hard to come by for him.
"Thank you."
She nodded, and reached down under her desk, dismissing him. She looked up a second later, recalling something, but the boy was gone, leaving a stirring wind that stirred one of her books open, leaving the words of the pages hanging in the air in a way which she had not seen since she was a child.
The King of the Goblins dropped the ball, shattering it in to millions of tiny pieces of crystal. It filled the stone room with chimes and light, but only for a moment. He did not see it. The king had turned his head against the cold stone and rested his cheek against it, staring out the high window once more. Smoke drifted lazily from beneath walls, and cackling laughter reached his ears. The air smelled of smoke and dust and sorrow, and the sky seemed to be mocking him with its swirls of faded gray. He whispered a word, and the scene changed, the walls became higher, wreathed with vines, and the murmurs became softer and easier to ignore. He drew himself up from the wall, and walked over to the mirror across the circular room. Dark eyes greeted him there once more, and this time there was a pale hand on his shoulder as a woman as transparent as a ghost smiled at him from the glass.
"Mother…"
Jareth whispered her name and she was gone, leaving him to stare at the mirror alone. Jareth had always loved this mirror, the faces etched in the wood frame never frightened him, just interested him. The goblin mirror, he had always called it, which had disturbed his reclusive father greatly. This was the only mirror he could see his mother in, and he came to it often, looking for her. Now, in the mirror he saw himself, holding a tattered orange book he had stolen from his father's bookcase. It was always locked, this case, but Jareth had found the key. Inside was only a book, poorly bound, no more than scrawls on worn paper. He removed it, locked the case and replaced it carefully, and then he looked at the book again. His father's name was on the front, as well as the title. It was the title, which made him sleep with the book for two nights under his pillow, not reading it until the third day. It frightened him, and he didn't know why.
The Labyrinth
When Jareth first opened the book, he knew that it was going to be different from his mythology book. There was a map on the first page, of a castle, and the caption told him it was the castle at the heart of the Labyrinth. Jareth looked at the tiny picture only briefly before turning to the first page that held his father's messy script. It was difficult to read, but Jareth knew his father's writing well, so it was not too difficult. He was hidden away in his room, the only light came from his large window, and it made the dust dance in the rays of light that let themselves in. His father was gone, away as he often was, on business of the most important kind, and so Jareth was left to read the book in peace. His fingers brushed the brown pages as he read, and he could feel the world the story created come to life around him. He could see the stone walls and smoke as if he were there, hear the shrieks of the creatures, and smell the distrust on the wind.
" Once upon a time there was a land that held the Labyrinth…."
And he was lost to the story of a woman who lost her child to the sneaky King of Goblins, and was on a desperate adventure to get him back. There were drawings in the book too, of maps and strange creatures (goblins they were called) and even one that looked strangely like the boy's mirror, with the caption reading only Door or Window, whichever you believe. Jareth read on through the night, fascinated and delighted with each new discovery made by the characters. It did not take him long to finish the book, not at all, but he read it 3 times that night, and did not go to school the next day, for he fell asleep on the chair in the morning.
It was only when the book fell from his hands in sleep, that a pale piece of stationary slipped from the last few pages and fell to the ground. Jareth slept long, and dreamed wonderful dreams, and it was not until sundown when he heard the door open and his father return.
