THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH to all those who have continued to read and follow/favorite this story! I apologize for not updating last weekend, I was extremely busy with schoolwork and extracurricular activities, but I made sure that I updated this weekend! I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please let me know if I can improve upon the Labyrinth experience :)
REVIEW ANSWERS:
NotMyLullaby: No problem! I'm glad you're enjoying this! :)
UPDATE: September 23 at 4:06 PM: Minor grammatical errors, and I changed Gwen's choice from 'red shield' to 'blue shield'... you'll see why if you read on :)
Weedsnout led through a winding hallway within the castle to a pair of tall, menacing wooden doors. As we approached, a pair of goblins in rackety, tarnished knight-like armor pulled open the doors with long ropes, and the Underground daylight filtered in with dazzling, blinding light; I raised a hand to shade my eyes until they adjusted. Weedsnout had already waddled outside so I jogged to catch up with him.
The sky was an odd yellowish-orange tinge without a single cloud and surrounding me looked like some sort of stone village. I remembered from my childhood that this was what the book had called the Goblin City. Weedsnout continued waddling confidently forward past a fountain that had carved stone goblins all around it, some of them peeing filthy water into the fountain. I grimaced at the fountain as we passed it; it seemed like something a fantasy writer on crack would think up.
Eyes peeped out from windows in the houses as we passed through the streets, and some heads poked out from ajar doors. Some whispered anxiously to each other and some with enthusiastic excitement; I picked up a few phrases, like, "That's her!" and "She's mad, going into the Labyrinth like that! Positively mad!" and, confusingly, "She looks like the last girl that was here. What was her name again...?"
So clearly I'm not the Goblin King's first love interest, I realized. Jeez, what a player.
The further we walked, the less stone houses there were until we came to a large, stone gate (Damn, everything here is made of stone... talk about lack of creativity) and the gate pulled apart at our approach. Before me lay a vast distance of...
"Is that a landfill?" I asked aloud incredulously.
"Yes, Ms. Jackson," Weedsnout squeaked. "Full of all of the trash that all little boys and girls have but do not need. Perhaps you will find some treasures there." He had a mischievous glint in his eyes and I knew immediately not to trust it.
"I'm good, thanks," I said, beginning to wander forwards. "I don't have much, anyways. So, do I just go this way, or...?"
A loud thud answered me. I whipped around to see the gate had closed on me.
I was alone.
I glanced around me, to my right, in the distance, was the landfill. To my left was a stone path that led into what looked like a stone maze entrance from here.
"There's no place like home," I murmured, clicked my heeled boots twice for good luck, then strode onward.
I came to the maze entrance, two large stone walls with about fifteen feet in between them. I glanced behind me at the Goblin City and the landfill adjacent, and then continued forward into the Labyrinth.
The dirt pathway immediately changed to stone tile and the walls on either side rose to the heavens; I craned my neck to see their top and a sharp pain went down my spine. I continued along, my feet steady in my black boots. The humid, warm weather was making me sweat in my dark clothing as I continued on. Every once and a while I would come to a fork in which I'd pull a quarter out of my pocket and flip it; heads was right turn and tails was left turn. I could only hope that using random probability that I would find my way out of here.
According to the book that I read as a child, this Labyrinth was supposed to be the longest maze in all existence and the only person that had conquered it was the book's heroine, Sarah Williams.
So like Sarah and Theseus of Athens navigating King Minos' labyrinth to find the minotaur, I ventured onward through various forks in the road and right and left turns. I had no way of knowing if I was running in circles because everything looked the same, and I had nothing to leave behind me as a bread-crumb trail.
Paranoia laced itself in the clamminess of my hands and the sweat beads sliding down my face. I began to wonder if maybe I was wandering around aimlessly in circles. What felt like an another hour passed and I came to yet another fork in the road that looked exactly like the last.
I stopped walking, bent over, and placed my hands on my knees and tried to get a grip. Like a hamster on a wheel, I thought. I think I'm actually going somewhere but in reality I'm just running in one big circle.
Don't give up hope! my mind contradicted. This is just another comedy show. The audience is waiting for the big laugh - the finale! You just gotta navigate through their type of humor and find the tickle spot that really gets 'em laughing. C'mon, do it for Mark!
I straightened up, smoothed back my hair, and strode onward to the left without flipping the quarter. The left just felt right, for some reason.
As I walked down the long maze hall, I came to a dead end. At the end of it stood two doors and in front of them were two creatures that could pass as weirder than the goblins, if you can believe that. As I walked closer (they appeared to be arguing with each other over some trivial thing), I saw that they somewhat resembled a dog and a ferret mixed into one hybrid animal-thing, with long hairy whiskers like an old man and yellowish eyes that didn't blink. They held large medieval shields over their torsos, and beneath that another head sprouted that hung upside down but functioned just as the one above it did and almost independent from the head facing upright.
"Um, hello?" I called out nervously.
The two dog-ferret-oldman creatures' heads whipped to meet my gaze and they shrieked in unison.
"Another girl!" the top head with the blue shield shrieked. "Here for another riddle!"
"Aye, it is another young girl!" the bottom head agreed loudly.
"Yeah, hey there," I said, giving a short wave and then clasping my hands together. "So, can either of you lead me in the right direction here? I'm kind of trying to win a bet with a royal asshole, so if you could help me out, that'd be great."
The top head with the red shield piped up, "Oh, but woe to you, for one of us always tells the truth and the other always lies!" The four heads all nodded in unison, gazing at me intensely.
Irritation sparked in my temples, but I tried to keep my voice level.
"Seriously? You both can't just be decent... whatever you are, and just tell the truth?"
The four heads all turned and looked at the one immediately next to them in bewilderment. They looked back at me and all proclaimed, "Why, no, of course! That's not how it works."
"Well, I say screw the system!" I exclaimed, annoyance heating my cheeks. "Do what you want! You're independent creature-things, do what the hell you wanna do! I'm from America, okay, and in America you can say whatever the hell you want and people can't do shit - unless you do something illegal like commit murder, then that's not cool. But you get the point, right?"
Four sets of eyes blinked at me in confusion.
"The Goblin King rules us all," the bottom head of the red shield declared. "And we obey him! And he says that are to do as we are commanded, and we here are commanded to have one tell the truth and the other to always lie!"
"That's stupid," I countered. "What does that achieve? I swear, this is Alice in Wonderland all over again. Nothing freakin' makes sense! It you'd just think for yourselves, this would all be a lot easier." Again, the creature things just blinked at me, baffled.
"One of us always lies and the other always tells the truth!" the top head with the blue shield proclaimed once more; I rolled my eyes with exhaustion. "But let me tell you, this is the right door to enter!"
"No, this one is!" the top head with the red shield hollered shrilly. "Trust me, miss, this door will get you straight to the Goblin City-!"
"Aw hell no, I just left that place!" I protested, taking a step towards the blue shield.
"Wait, wait, wait!" both heads with the red shield shrieked desperately. I stopped in my steps, waiting. "You do not wish to enter the Goblin City?"
"Why in the hell would I want to go there?"
All four heads glanced at each other in utter shock and perplexion.
"So, you are not searching for a stolen child?" the bottom head with the red shield asked slowly.
"Nah. See, in my case, I'm the stolen one. I said... stupid stuff, and Jareth got the wrong idea, long story short."
All four heads went, "Ohhhh," and gazed at me again with almost smug looks that made me shift my boots uneasily.
"So, you must be Gwen Jackson," the top head with the red shield said conversationally.
Now it was my turn to be baffled.
"How do you know my name?" I asked lamely, my skin prickling with worry.
"Oh, Jareth talked about you all the time," the bottom head with the blue shield cooed. "Whenever we went to visit the Goblin City for a feast or other, it was 'Gwen' this and 'Gwen' that. He loves your shows, he sures does. You're a musician or other, right?"
"Comedian," I corrected, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Um, how long has Jareth been seeing my shows?"
The heads paused, considering, then looked down behind the shields to converse with their halves as the heads with the red shields watched. The blue-shield heads whispered incoherently, then resurfaced above the shields.
"About a year in Aboveground time, I'd say," the bottom head said. "Or more, perhaps. It's so hard to tell sometimes."
"The blue shield," I said immediately, feeling a spark of genius. "I pick the blue shield. He told the truth - I've only been performing for two years, and people only starting to get to know me until a little over eight months. That's when Jareth must've heard about me."
Both heads on top glanced at each other, shrugged, and the door behind the blue shield creaked open, tearing numerous spiderwebs apart.
Grinning triumphantly, I strode forward.
"Take that, you sons-a-bi-AAAHHHH!" I shrieked as the floor beneath me vanished and I tumbled down into darkness.
"HAVE A NICE FALL!" a head shouted as I fell... something gripped my arms, legs, torso, hair, and feet. It felt like many leathery... hands?!
Panic swept through me and I began to writhe around, screaming.
"Calm down, we're here to help," a high-pitch voice cooed from somewhere.
My blood froze in my veins and fear took over me like being drenched in a freezing shower. There's definitely someone- something- in here with me. And it can talk.
"Yeah, we're here to help!" a deep voice agreed, appearing to emanate from multiple different directions. "We're helping hands!"
My breathing quickened rapidly and I couldn't think straight. The hole was dark and dank and every breath I took was full of something dead rotting and mold.
I picked the wrong door, how could I have picked the wrong door, how could I have been so stupid, how could I have picked the wrong door, the silent one is always the truthful one, why didn't I see it-!
"Please, just let me go!" I shrieked in agonizing panic. It wasn't until I'd said it that I realized what would happen next.
"Going dooowwwnnn!" the voices exclaimed with enthusiasm and excitement; the leathery hands loosened their grip and let go, and I plummeted into the darkness below.