-- Eh now would you look at that! She didn't even bother to try and go down the left way. The plot thickens. glares at Sam Alright, alright! I'll stop my musings and get on with the story. Jeez, it's not like this hasn't already happened already. Sheesh. --
Disclaimer: The original characters of the Labyrinth came into this world not of my own fruition but Jim Henson's. All other that you will meet I will have been the first to introduce unless otherwise mentioned.
Chapter the NinthComing out from the corridor Sarah was pleased to find what appeared to be an actual maze. To her amazement the sky was also clear. The mud gray clouds that had dominated the sky just moments before where nowhere to be seen and the sun shown out merrily onto the world.
Wait a minute, Sarah paused on her way to a crossroad, when I came in here, through the gates, I turned to the right. That meant that the outside of the Labyrinth was on my right and the inside on my left. However, when I was done talking to the worm, I went to the wall across from me, the wall which had formally been on my right. The Labyrinth shouldn't have been here, but in the opposite direction.
"Oooh, I'm confused now," she murmured to the stones.
To her left stood the castle reaching up to the sky. What appeared to be birds circled the turrets. Twisting pathways branched out from where Sarah stood. Before her stretched a signpost.
At least what should have been a signpost was before her. Instead of helpful signs pointing out where to go and how long it takes to get there, there were simply hands pointing down the paths.
"Some help that is," Sarah mumbled, thrusting her hands into her pockets.
"Which way to go? No golden thread when you need it."
Her hand touched her lipstick case. She brightened.
"Well! Let's seeā¦the Castle appears to be that way, why not?"
Bending down, she unscrewed her lipstick and drew an arrow in the direction she was headed.
approximately 30 min. later
It was cream coloured and brick, just like always. Impenetrable. A wall behind with the Castle loomed and she could not get around.
"Dead end," she muttered.
Shrugging her shoulders she backtracked to her last arrow which she had drawn a scant five steps before. Although she knew she had gone in on a left turn, Sarah sought it out anyway.
There it lay on the ground: a wonderful smack of sticky crayon red lipstick emblazoned on the dirt stone. It pointed in the opposite direction.
Sarah blinked and scowled. The arrow clearly pointed in the direction she had not taken.
"Hey! my mark's been changed! That's not fair!" she squawked in protest.
"Yer reyeght, it's naught fair," a Scottish drawl sounded from behind.
Startled, Sarah whirled around. Where there had once been a blank wall there were now two guards (dog guards by the look of it) behind large shields that looked like playing cards and holding lances, the one on the left wore red and the one on the right wore blue. To further the playing card illusion there were even heads beneath both of the guards. She blinked in bewilderment.
"But tha's ownly half o' it," the head below the fellow in red finished.
And I thought things were strange already. "Aah," Sarah started, none too brightly, "excuse me, but ... ah ... wasn't this a dead end just a minute ago?"
"No," the head (Or fellow I suppose, he certainly seems to be a real person.) below the fellow in blue replied, "that's the dead end behind you."
Again Sarah whirled around. Sure enough, there was no longer a passage but a brick wall behind her.
"Argh! It keeps changing! Now what am I supposed to do?"
"Wheel, tha ownly whay out o' here is ta take one o' these doors," the upside-down red fellow with the Scottish brogue replied.
"One of them leads to the Castle at the Center of the Labyrinth," the upside-down blue one, with an all too cheery voice continued, "and the other one leads to --"
("Bum bum bu bum," the blue one above him interjected.)
"- certain death!" he finished in a radio announcer voice.
"Oooo," they murmured in unison, in a fairly good imitation of creepy Halloween music, too.
O-kay. Talk about disturbing. "R-i-i-ght. So, which one is it?"
"Eh, whe canna tell ye."
"Why not?"
"Whe donna know!"
"But they do," the cheery one interjected (cheerfully) motioning toward the two right-side-up guards.
"Then I'll ask them then," Sarah said, feeling more and more as though she were in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
"Nope, no, you can't ask us," the right-side-up one in red said, "you can only ask one of us." He sounded as though he could be an absented minded professor.
"It's in the rules," the right-side-up one in blue continued, "and I should warn you tat one of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies." He fairly quickly and sounded like a professor who giggled too much. He lifted his finger as though to make a point, "That's a rule, too," a pause, "he always lies."
"I do not! I tell the truth!"
"Oh, what a lie!"
The two upside-down fellows snickered as though it were all a good joke.
It's like that damn frog from Grimm's fairy tales or something, she thought peevishly.
"Alright, alright. Be quite so I can think, please. I know this riddle ... I just don't know the answer."
The guards looked at her expectantly as she began to pace.
She faced them and approached the one in red. "Okay, answer 'yes' or 'no.' Would he," she pointed at the blue one, "tell me that this door leads to the castle?"
The red one looked at his companion and then muttered with the fellow below him. "Uh ... yes."
That sounded disturbingly a lot like a question. "Right then. The other door must lead to the castle and this one leads to certain death."
"How do you know? He could be telling the truth."
"Then you wouldn't be. So if you tell me that he said 'yes,' I know the answer is actually 'no.'"
"But I could be telling the truth!" he sounded slightly offended.
"But then he would be lying. So if you told me he said 'yes,' the answer would still be 'no!'"
"Wait a minute," the one in red said, "is that right?"
"I don't know, I never understood it!" the other chuckled.
Sarah smiled broadly, "It's right! I figured it out, I just know it. Who knows, I may be getting smarter."
She walked through the right down once the blue guards shuffled out of the way.
She merrily told them over her should, "It's a piece of cake."
After which she promptly fell down the whole that opened up beneath her feet.
