Precinct the Sixth: The Goblin City
In which is described:
That Very Goblin City, of primary fame for preceding the Castle which lies Beyond it
historical origins of that city
how it is that the Goblin City's foundation postdates that of the Castle
brief and disturbing notes on the domestic life of the Goblin Citizen
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In the time after the Collapse of Good Governance, Goblins came to the Labyrinth.
Goblins eat children. This is a known fact. They eat children and they eat other, less savory fare, too. The word Goblin is, after all, the same root word, in the English, as the verb to gobble.
They are loathsome creatures and, like bedbugs, exploit habitable space where there is opportunity to feed.
The Labyrinth, at that time, collected lost people. It collected discarded people. In certain times and circumstances, it collected babies. These are cruel things to relate. When parents, for whatever reason, saw fit to commit infanticide by exposure--if the baby was deformed, or strange, or born out of season, or unwanted--well then, the Goblins would have a feast.
This causes some confusion due to censorship in the Victorian era. Children taken by Goblins become Goblins by dint of being EATEN by Goblins--and these children did not survive the transformation. Being dinner is usually fatal.
Sometimes the goblins wouldn't wait. Sometimes they would steal infants from cradles and make a feast. To double up on this cruel trick, they would substitute one of their own for the missing baby. Goblins nursed at human breasts would bite and pinch, and grow tall and unnaturally strong. A mother who nursed such a changeling would find all her milk dried up ever after, a famine for future children.
And so, when rumor spread that this particular Labyrinth (There are others. There are many others) was becoming occupied by Goblins, the Uncrowned King was informed. He was, naturally, upset. As though some beautiful garden, ungoverned and wild and lovely and secluded, had been stripped bare and transformed into something open and vulgar. Of course, no one can demand a King, even an uncrowned one, do anything.
"Something must be done."
Nothing needs be done.
"They must be stopped!"
Then it falls to you to stop them.
He hung his head and wept.
At that time, the Goblin City was built around the perimeter of the Castle. In this City, the ragged remnants of their great armies. The Sullentoe Cavalry, the Mangle Hoplites, the Brass Myrmydons, Humungous, and the retreated remnants of the Horde from the Battle of the Five Armies. These Goblins were vicious and martial and set about building their city as if they were making war on mortar-and-daub.
There were others. There were Goblins hordes less military in nature but just as virulent. Finger-creepers, Red-caps, Slinkers, Wool-gatherers, and more. Every corner of the castle seemed full of noisome activity. The Goblins quickly inhabited the outer courts of the castle, fearing the inner heart of the Labyrinth, but drilling holes and tunnels and passages and shortcuts and balustrades and balconies and catwalks and murder-holes all throughout the outer keep.
And the Uncrowned King came to the Labyrinth. He was pinched and poked and badly used. But he came to the heart of the castle and the heart of the Labyrinth and sealed all the doors behind him. Naked as the first time he'd fallen into his future realm, they laid his head on the stone and pulled the hair from the crown of his head. And one-and-two and snicker-snack, they hacked off his hair all uneven. Those were terrible days, the days of the crowning of the Goblin King. But it was his labyrinth by then, and he was Jareth, an unwanted name for an unwanted kingdom.
A hard thing to be so shackled. But all monarchs in those sorts of realms have unlimited passage at least twice a year--at midwinter, and at midsummer. In the meantime, subduing and domesticating the goblins, and realizing that there was indeed no potential end to his kingdom--labyrinth, my labyrinth--these things sufficed for freedom.
Author's Note: Herein are six of the thirteen Precincts promised. Look for the continuing transcription of the Triskedekephelion with the remaining seven precincts, in part II.
