The Goblin City certainly lived up to every ill rumor about its inhabitants. It was crowded, dirty, and smelly. Jareth tried not to wrinkle his nose, but the eye-wateringly acrid odor made it impossible not to. "What is that?" he murmured.
"I've no idea. Smells a bit like a tannery," Iswyniel replied. Neither of them could quite isolate the source of the odor, and the goblins around them seemed unaffected. Jareth looked about him as they walked.
Ramshackle buildings were thrown haphazardly together from bits of broken masonry and uncut stone, not a plumb line or square corner in sight. The streets staggered and wound in unpredictable patterns, sometimes narrowing perilously as the upper stories of buildings leaned together. Chickens and cats roamed freely, lines of washing hung from windows, and the scent of cooking fires mingled with the odor of tanning pits. Everywhere the chatter of goblin-speech in both the common tongue, and a guttural language all their own. The citizens scurried back and forth, paying no attention to Jareth or Iswyniel.
Jareth's first instinct would have been to raze the whole thing, and build anew. Straighter, broader streets, sturdier buildings, more efficient organization of resources. But he recognized that such improvements, in his eyes, might be thoroughly unwelcome by the inhabitants. The goblins were evidently accustomed to ordering their lives, and their city, without regard for or interference from any higher authority.
Besides, as he walked through the city in search of some central space from which to gather an audience, Jareth noticed that the goblins sounded much happier than the villagers, and none of them looked hungry. There was no need for him to fix what wasn't broken just because it didn't suit his own aesthetic.
Jareth continued to look about him, without seeming to gawk, and saw a great deal of energetic industry. A crowd of goblins were working on some kind of mechanical device, arguing with one another in chattering voices, and while he watched one thumped another atop the head. The goblin immediately launched at and bit his attacker, the pair of them scuffling in the dirt, while the rest of the goblins paid no attention to the brawl.
Three small goblins ran past, weaving through the crowd, carrying baskets on their heads. A glance showed Jareth that the baskets were full of dead rats, and he shuddered. The next building they passed had a shop on the ground floor, where a goblin cobbler was making a pair of boots, singing discordantly to himself all the while. Further on, Jareth heard the clacking of a loom, and as he walked by a window at his head height saw a pair of goblins weaving, the shuttle flashing back and forth with blinding speed. The resulting cloth was not as fine as Jareth's traveling clothes, but they could make a great deal of it quickly.
A chicken fled past them, clucking madly and pursued by laughing goblin children. Jareth smiled to see that … until the fastest child pounced and got a handful of feathers. The chicken escaped with a startled squawk, and the children began playing with their prize in the middle of the street. None of the adults appeared to notice anything unusual, but all of them detoured carefully around the playing children, no matter how much of a hurry they seemed to be in.
They came, still unremarked, to a square with a dry fountain, a straggling grassy lawn, and a well pump at which two goblins were struggling to draw water. Jareth strolled over to them, and they both looked up at his approach. The pump was a design he'd seen often, both Above and Underground, and it was far older than most would suspect. Working the handle raised a piston, which drew water up a narrow pipe to spill out into a trough or bucket. The problem, in this case, was that the pump had been designed for creatures taller and longer-limbed than most goblins. "Allow me," Jareth said, handing his focus over to Iswyniel for the moment, and the goblins stepped back.
He touched the pump handle gingerly, hearing them snicker, but it was made of bronze, not iron. So Jareth began working the handle with vigor, glad to feel resistance – that meant it was drawing suction. He expected to pull water within five or six strokes, but heard only air. Iswyniel, beside him, narrowed her eyes at the device, and only Jareth heard her whisper in the old tongue.
Umardelin's magic rumbled under his feet, and Jareth pretended not to notice. Each successive pull was a little harder than the one before, and he wondered how far down the water was. The land did seem rather arid, and it would not surprise him if this pump hadn't worked in weeks. Still, everything needed water, and if the goblins were going down to the stream to fetch it, that was a lot of time and effort to waste.
The pipe gurgled, Jareth put his back into the next pull, and suddenly water spat and gushed from the pump. The two goblins cheered, and filled their bucket … but suddenly goblins were coming from all around with buckets and jars. Jareth kept working the pump grimly, unaccustomed to such exercise. He decided not to say anything to his subjects until their immediate need for water was met.
He felt a presence at his side, and turned to see one of the taller goblins – one with some dwarf blood, he suspected. "I'll take a turn," it said in a gruff voice, and Jareth let go of the pump handle for now. As the big goblin set to pumping, Jareth stood back, putting both hands to the small of his back and stretching.
Around them all, the goblins broke into chattering laughter, and he heard some snatches of song – "brand new kings, water brings!" – which won a smile from him. Iswyniel patted his shoulder, and they moved off to the fountain, Jareth sitting down on its edge to examine it.
A goblin hopped up beside him, fearless and bold as a sparrow. Roughly the same size, too. "What's you wants inna Goblin City, Kingy?" it chirped.
"I want to know what you need," Jareth said carefully. "If I am to be king here, I must serve my subjects well."
Sniggering laughter all around, and he was uncomfortably aware that they were thoroughly surrounded by the same goblins who had met his arrival with their teeth. "Kingy serves us?" one crowed, and another called back, "No, nos, we serves a kingy … with turnips an' sauce!"
The goblins closest to him and Iswyniel were regarding them thoughtfully, though, without malice in their gaze. Jareth met their eyes, not bothering to stand on ceremony, and forced himself to look past everything he'd ever been told about them.
There was a certain smell, as of neglected root cellars. And they were not at all attractive by the standards of high fae. But intelligence gleamed in every dark eye, and he saw the way they stood close, protecting each other. "Well?" Jareth asked, raising his brows. "Tell me, my people. What is it that you need?"
"Nothin'," one said flatly, another of the larger sort of goblins. It thrust its jaw out, meeting Jareth's eyes fearlessly. "Goblins takes care of goblins. We don't need nuffin."
"Then why live in a kingdom at all?" Iswyniel asked lightly. "You could roam the wilds, build your own city there, and pay no mind at all to the fripperies of high fae."
They stirred uneasily. "This's our home," one of the small goblins said in a piping voice.
Jareth stroked his chin, thinking. Every moment since he'd arrived had been a hardship and a trial, but beneath the miserable circumstances he could see what this place had once been … and could be again, under better management. Like a fine hunting horse just coming in from a season at pasture, covered in a thick winter coat, besmirched by mud, mane and tail thick with burrs, Umardelin looked rough and tawdry at the moment. But a good horseman knew to look past all of that, and see the strength of haunches, the straightness of legs, and the bold, clear eye of a mount that could carry him even through the Wild Hunt's long and dangerous chase. Jareth had to be at least as good a king, and see beneath the surface.
He replied carefully, "And a fine home it is. Umardelin is a mighty realm, rich in magic, old and wise and strong. She is my home now, too, and I am beginning to see why her people love her so."
More restless shifting, and a big goblin with long mustaches said, "Umardelin needs us. We's her eyes and ears and thoughts. An' we needs her, too."
Iswyniel perked up a little, and spoke to him. "Your majesty knows, of course, that your home kingdom of Etaron is bound to the bloodline of its rulers. One cannot exist without the other, they share power and knowledge, breathing it back and forth between them. The land tells the king who he is, and the king tells the land what it is. I think the goblins serve the same purpose here, keeping Umardelin anchored. She has been without a ruler for long years, and yet this place has not dissolved into the wilds."
"The Labyrinth will never fall," Jareth said, thinking of kingdoms he'd heard of it that broke and faltered, returning to wilderness again. The Labyrinth itself was far older, perhaps even older than the idea of kingdoms, and its role as proving ground had changed only slightly with time.
"No, the Labyrinth is as old as the fae ourselves, if not older," Iswyniel replied. "But it could just as readily lie in the center of trackless forest. The goblins made it their home, and raised their city beside it, in a past so distant none of our races had names. They woke the land and made it aware of itself."
Jareth had to sit back a little at that, as all the goblins nodded. Iswyniel had carved a kingdom from the wild lands, staking out boundaries, and with her claim Astolwyr had become more than simply woods and meadows and heaths. Her kingdom knew itself through her, as Etaron knew itself through Deruthiel and Cadelinyth. But Umardelin knew itself through the goblins, not its king. No wonder it was called the Unmastered. "Then what need have they of a king?" he asked his grandmother.
The goblins around them bared their teeth in unfriendly smiles, but Iswyniel pretended not to notice. She was still holding Jareth's hunting crop, by now thoroughly imbued with magic, and she raised it so the crystal at the top caught the light. "What need have you of this, your majesty? You are a powerful sorcerer, and this land is thick with magic. Surely you can seize it to do your bidding."
He saw what she meant for him to answer, despite the fact that he couldn't yet take command of Umardelin's magic, and he took the crop from her to illustrate the point. "Of course. It is a focus for my power, as I am a focus for the kingdom. I can work my will without it, but such magics are blunt in their power, and wasteful. Look you, goblins, light falls upon us all, as magic breathes from every atom in this land. But to make use of that light, we need to narrow it down to a single beam…"
Even as he spoke, he was holding the crop high, angling it so the crystal caught the sunlight. Spangled colors shone forth, getting soft murmurs of surprise, but Jareth gave the crystal a touch of magic so that the light was focused instead of refracting. A thin lance of brightness struck the dusty soil, and smoke curled up as a blade of dry grass withered.
"Power this great requires a single will, a king to speak for it with one voice," Jareth said. "As you, my people, must have someone to speak for you in the halls of power, where the high fae decide taxes and borders and make laws to lie over all of us. Someone must listen to the land and the goblins, and see to it that you are given the respect you deserve."
"An' ifs they don't?" a goblin challenged. "Nobodies sees us, nobodies cares whats goblins does. Nobodies cares if they puts their heavy boots down and we's under 'em."
Jareth smiled, for he knew the answer to that. "Then we bite them, of course. I assure you, goblin teeth are not quickly forgotten."
All of them laughed, but for the first time he felt as if they laughed with him, not at him. Iswyniel smiled at him, pride in her blue eyes, and Jareth felt absurdly grateful for it. Then again, she wasn't the one he had to impress.
Now he had their attention, and their regard. Jareth leaned forward a little, and asked the question that might provide some clues as to what his next move should be. "Tell me, friends. What is it that the Gardeners' Guild requires of you?"
They all laughed again. "You wants to see?" a goblin asked slyly.
Jareth had the feeling he wouldn't like whatever it was, but he nodded anyway. "Yes. Do show us, please."
"Comes this way!" another goblin chortled, and quite a few of them began heading off down one street.
Jareth and Iswyniel followed, and that weird sharp-sour odor grew stronger as they went.