7. The Fairies

"Here we are," Hoggle said.

Here was somewhat of a disappointment. The hedge maze ended in trailing roots and leafy debris and then went right on being a maze. Only this maze was made of sunbaked, stucco coated walls. They marched away into an unmeasurable distance in orderly, Greco-Roman rows. Overgrown topiary stood atop ionic columns or within pots meant to resemble amphorae. The ground was an arabesque mixture of mud bricks and faded, chipped mosaics in red and yellow and blue. All very Classical, very pleasing, bathed in golden, afternoon sunlight.

"It's another maze," David said in measured tones. "You were meant to lead me to another maze?"

Hoggle shrugged. "Orders." He looked up at David, his face closed and distant. "Good luck to you, David." With that he turned to go, although he paused a moment to say, "By the way, the fairies bite. Hard. The blue winged ones cause an awful swelling. Don't be fooled by them. Just swat them if you see them. Goodbye."

"No, wait!" Hoggle hovered by a hedge, his back to David. "This can't be right. I'm not out of the maze. This is just…" He shot an uncertain look at the rows upon rows of stucco walls. "Just more maze. This can't be right. You said—"

"What I said was that I had to lead you somewhere. And I did. I lead you here. The rest you figure out by yourself. Now goodbye, David Jones."

With that, he banished into the hedges. David had no doubt that banished was the right word. He could no longer see or hear Hoggle, or anything else. He thought of calling out to Mungwhop or Pim, but knew the thought was a useless one. There was nothing but him and the rest of the maze now. The Labyrinth, and, somewhere within it, Goblin City. And David with no idea what the first half of that thought really meant, or what direction the second part of it lay in.

"Hoggle!" he shouted. "This isn't fair!"

His voice did not even echo. David frowned at the hedge Hoggle had disappeared into, then turned and headed into the new maze. This one, at least, had walls he could walk on with ease. He just had to climb on them and figure out where the walls became… what? Another maze? It was enough to make David want to strangle something. It was hotter in this part of The Labyrinth, as well. As if things were not annoying enough. David peeled off his coat and draped it over one shoulder, pinching the front of his T-shirt in order to fan some air against his skin, already hot and sticky from the humidity.

Then he began to walk.

Then he began to run.

He sagged against a wall, thoroughly winded, sweat dotting his forehead. He pressed his back against the hot stucco and allowed his legs to fold, so that he dropped to the ground. Hot breath bounced off the knees of his jeans to beat against his face. "Not good," he murmured. "Not fair."

It was then that something light and cool fluttered against the back of his neck. A second later it fluttered away to the left, near his elbow. David raised his head, slowly, slowly, so as not to startle whatever was hovering around him. He found himself gazing into a tiny, perfectly formed, ethereally beautiful female face. Hair like cobwebs spun from sunlight drifted, as if on a breeze, around that face, around a lithe body that shimmered as it hovered around him. Her wings beat so quickly that they were merely suggestions, making surprisingly little noise for something moving so fast.

David stared at her. She tilted her head in a very pretty way, and he could see that her eyes were golden and bright and fiercely intelligent and brimming with a tense, coiled energy. He held out one hand towards her, palm upturned. She smiled and settled down on his palm, one tiny hand resting against his thumb. Her touch was like crisp, cool spring waters.

"You're a fairy," he said.

He swung his hand behind him and against the wall. One quick, decisive swipe. He heard something crunch, felt something sticky and cool and silky spread out over his palm. He waited for his stomach to turn, or for some kind of shock to slam into him. A beautiful fairy was nothing more than some rather pleasant smelling goo in his hands at the moment, after all. He waited for guilt to come knocking. When nothing happened, he wiped his hand against the mud bricks and heaved himself to his feet.

Her wings, he could clearly see now, had been blue.

"Hope that made you happy, Hoggle," he said.

No sooner had he started on his way again, however, than a second fairy buzzed right up to him. He barely had time to register the murderous look in her lilac eyes before she had sunk her teeth into his ear. It hurt. My God it hurt. The bloody thing seemed to have nothing but canines in her mouth. David yanked her off, screaming against the pain. He hurled her away from him, only to feel two more land against his legs. They grinned up at him, all rows of piranha teeth and gossamer hair, before they bit down. Teeth gritted against the pain, he flung himself against a wall, making sure to press the leg with the fairies hard against it. One crunched, the other held on, biting harder for good measure. David reached down, yanked her off, and slammed her against the wall.

He ran. Corners and topiary and mud bricks blurred and bounced and shot past him, his arms waving like an erratic windmill as he tried—and failed—to swat the fairies away. He nearly knocked over a pot and cursed at himself. Couldn't leave it alone, could you, David? Probably wouldn't have bit you if you'd just left her alone. Like bees, probably. But no, you had to kill the bloody thing and now—

"For pride's sake, get off!" he hollered. "Get away from me!"

They bit into his fingers and his arms and his calves and his thighs and one of them held onto his hair and bit down right between his shoulder blades. The force of the pain nearly brought him to his knees, but he pushed on. He tore each new fairy off, or swatted her away or even managed to squash one or two against a wall. The effort skinned his palms. His breath was now ragged and—he realized—well and truly terrified.

He nearly stumbled as he took a bend, and as his arm shot out to keep him steady he realized it was covered in bright red spots, many of which were already beginning to swell. A hard and nauseating something travelled up his throat.

"HELP ME! SOMEBODY!"

A fairy landed on his shoulder. She pushed off and hovered in front of his face as he ran. She pulled back her lips to reveal rows of needle teeth, nestled within a very charming, pretty smile. David wanted to weep.

He raised his arm to swat her away, a cry building up in his throat. The cry turned into a strangled scream as something heavy and clawed closed over his upper arm. It pulled him to the right, and he could almost make out a voice, rising up out of the deafening cacophony of his blood rushing into his ears and his heart straining to burst right out of his chest. "In 'ere!" But he couldn't be certain of anything anymore. His body felt unreal, as if the claw wrapped around his arm had pulled his soul right out of his body.

Maybe it had. Maybe that accounted for everything dropping away without warning, shattering into sparks-filled blackness, as if someone had cracked his skull against the ground.


Sound returned first, a slow, steady shuffling. On its heels came touch and smell, so that David caught a whiff of pipe smoke at the same time that his joints complained about lying in what felt like a bed made of stones. His skin then began to hiss against the burns and bites running all over his body. Taste came along and rumbled that his tongue could no longer remember when he had eaten last. After a while, and not without some struggle, sight finally decided to join his other senses and David opened his eyes.

It took a while for everything to fall into place, but it soon became obvious that David was underground. Roots crisscrossed above his head, and the smell of pungent, moist earth filled his lungs, so that he could almost taste the iron in the dirt. He groaned as he pushed himself up.

"Hey, Gritta," a rumbling voice said from somewhere behind David, "he's awake."

The slow, steady shuffling made its way into the room, and what closely resembled a living pile of rags stood looking at David. Clawed hands protruded from within two dirty folds and pushed back the rags' upper layer. A wizened, patient face turned this way and that, taking in David, seeming to measure him. David was certain that, underneath all the rags, the face was attached to a long and bobbing neck. The creature in front of him closely resembled Pim, with the same large, hairy ears and beak and watery, yellow eyes.

"Well now," Gritta said. "Yer still a bit swollen, ye are, but yer comin' along pretty good." Her voice had the same crackling quality as Pim's, only there was something ancient about it, like something that has lain, undisturbed, under the forest floor for centuries. She bobbed her head in a wise manner. "Stupid human. Wot were ye tinkin', takin' on a swarm o'the Fay folk?"

"Hoggle said—"

The voice behind David scoffed. "Hoggle? No bloomin' wonder. Never liked the Fay, Hoggle. Would love to see the lot of them banished from this place, I reckon. Not that it's gonna happen. They serve their purpose."

David dropped back onto the bed, wincing as his aching muscles hit what still felt like stones. Gritta tutted and shuffled away to fetch him a pillow. It made a considerable difference. "Thank you," David said, before Gritta grunted and headed off to fetch him a hot drink. It smelled like nothing but steam, but tasted like strong, bark tea. It was surprisingly good.

"Shouldnae pulled ye in 'ere," Gritta said. "But ye were carrying on, an' ye woke Pum."

"Pum…?"

"Me," the rumbling voice said. A round, heavily feathered face with a very curved, very black and very powerful looking beak appeared within David's vision, seemingly upside down as Pum hunched forward to look at David from his place behind the bed.

"Ah," David said. He sipped his tea. "You're related to Pim, aren't you?"

This made Pum erupt into laughter so deep and subterranean that the whole underground room shook. Bits of dirt sprinkled down on David, who placed a hasty hand over his tea cup.

"Pim!" Pum said. "That no good brother of mine. Never far from trouble, that one." Pum chuckled, then wrapped one rather massive clawed hand around the front of David's shirt. Large yellow eyes, considerably less watery than Pim's or Gritta's, bore down into David's. "What have you done to Pim, human? Answer, or I'll—"

"Put 'im down, Pum. He hasn't done nothink to Pim. I'd 'ave felt it. An' so would ye." She tapped her beak irritably. "I said put 'im down. Now." She watched, patient and old, as Pum dropped David back onto the bed. "Ye've killed Fay, boy. I'm none too pleased about that. But ye did not hurt me Pim, and fer that a mother is glad."

David looked down in forlorn disappointment at his spilled tea. "Hoggle told me to swat at the fairies. He led me out of the maze. He seemed trustworthy. I will terribly likely not be swatting at any more fairies in the future. In fact, I'd dearly love to never see another one for as long as I live."

Gritta clacked her beak. "Ye'll be seein' plenty o'them if ye stay in these part of The Labyrinth, boy." She shuffled toward the bed, pulled back his blanket, and squinted down at him. "Hmm. Aye, it's lookin' much better already. Shouldnae helped ye, but there ye are." She tossed the blanket back over him.

"Pum," she said. "Keep an eye on 'im, but let 'im sleep."