Chapter 2 - A Whole Lifetime Ago…
The blank canvas appeared as if by magic in the sleeping chamber of the young prince Jareth, and he marvelled at its purity. He envisaged the time he would dedicate to perfecting his artistic talent to such an extent he would be able to do justice to this blank page. He ran reverent, slender fingers in a caress across the feather-white canvas, almost fearful to touch it lest he should mark it. He couldn't presently visualise an image grand enough to populate such a pure canvas, so he found a clean sheet, covered it over, and hauled it into a wardrobe, for safe keeping, until the day he was ready to create something worthy of it's quality.
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Barely more than a child himself, even by Fae standards, Jareth was startled when his father, the Goblin King, entrusted a human child to his care.
This unexpected development occurred on one of his earliest visits to the Labyrinth, a part of their vast world he'd longed to experience himself ever since he'd been old enough to make sense of the whispered speculation about this place, and it's grandeur and magnificence. It offered such a contrast to childhood days spent concealed behind the high, guarded walls of the main royal residence. His youthful imagination painted the Labyrinth as some large scale playground, a place dedicated to wonder and amusement - every child's dream made real. In all his fantasies, never did he envisage becoming temporary custodian of a child, particularly a human child.
"But what am I to do with it, father?" he asked, bemused, holding the small creature at arm's length.
"Stay here, Jareth. Wait."
His father motioned to an elaborate clock upon the wall, and bid his son to remain watchful of the time, and be ready, as the hands marched closer to the conclusion of the full thirteen hours allotted.
With that the Goblin King departed, leaving his son literally holding the baby.
It was a creature about which Jareth was curious - he'd never seen one close up before, although he'd heard their cries resounding in the castle beyond the Goblin City. He'd never questioned their presence; it was just something that happened on occasion, and up to yet, he had never been directly involved.
At a loss, he placed the child upon a cushion, where it gurgled and beamed a huge smile at him.
The day passed uneventfully enough. Jareth learned to amuse the child, to make it smile with softly-spoken rhymes, or a floating crystal, like a bubble in the air, which held the child's attention.
Jareth glanced at the clock and noticed the hands approaching the hour his father had warned him about.
He ran to the window, then to the door, expecting someone to come and collect the child, to take it back wherever it came from.
No one came.
The clock struck thirteen.
A small guard of goblins advanced upon the room; he could hear their ramshackle bits of armour rubbing together, causing a disturbing echo. The more unrestrained peaked their big heads around the door, watching with greedy eyes.
Jareth saw the child's smile vanished and it became incredibly still. Then, faster than even his sharp eyes could follow, a great plume of billowing black smoke engulfed the cushion on which the child sat, and it vanished. Jareth edged to the window, to the fresh air, shielding his eyes.
The smoke cleared as quickly as it arrived, and in the place where the child had sat, stood a tiny, squat goblin, upon whom the small platoon advanced immediately until it was lost in their ranks.
Disgusted and horrified, thinking he had fallen victim to strange magic, Jareth cast around hopelessly, thinking how mad his father would be when he returned and learned his son had lost the baby.
For the first time, he felt fear. Upon hearing the king's approaching footsteps, he looked quickly for a hiding place, but found none, and so he stood his ground.
His father entered the room, looked at the goblin, then at his son (trying very hard not to cower) and he laughed uproariously, immensely pleased and satisfied.
Jareth looked alarmed and confused.
"Another one for us, my son, what a success!"
He clapped Jareth hard on the back, knocking him out through the door, which slammed behind him to the echoes of roaring laughter.
Jareth, confused and slightly dazed, sought the sanctuary of his own quarters, barring the door to keep everyone away.
The wardrobe in which he'd secreted the blank canvas, spurred on by the idea he may find inspiration in the Labyrinth, stood open like a gaping mouth.
He approached cautiously - the cover he'd lovingly placed over the canvas was thrown aside carelessly.
Jareth turned the canvas carefully, and looked with dismay upon the ruination, for what had been pure white was now stained irrevocably, a dark blackish purple hue which spread like hate and deception, obscuring the whiteness. The only hint of the pristine clarity lay at the centre, where a portion of the canvas remained unscathed.
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And so it followed…
Time trod it's relentless track, and more human children appeared within the confines of the castle. Jareth, his curiosity more than adequately satisfied regarding the presence of the children, distanced himself where possible, but it became impossible to ignore the increasing numbers of goblins, and the sight made him sick, despite his father's reassurances that what happened here was the natural order of things.
Was this what it meant to be king?
Was this what he would be king of?
The reality of the Labyrinth was a stark contrast to the tales spun by various nursemaids who had passed through his childhood and brightened his days with their talk. Even his own mother had added to the deception, spinning a fine tale of a king valiantly ruling his great kingdom with honour.
They all neglected to mention that his kingdom would come at the price of human trial and suffering. Resistance was useless; his father was formidable, and upon realising his son's unnatural distaste for this particular custom, he forced him to become more deeply involved. He remained oblivious or uncaring of the price being extracted from his son and heir - with each final strike of that enchanted clock, Jareth experienced physical pain, so intense at times he excused himself quietly and fled in blind fear to his bedchamber, where he rifled secretively through the deep wardrobe where that once-white canvas was hidden, like some shameful secret.
He watched with growing unease as, upon the failure of each runner, and the claiming of each child, a part of his very soul was rent from him against his will and etched in oily perfection upon the dark-stained canvas.
As something was stolen from the failed runners within the Labyrinth, something was also stolen from him, some essential part of himself that he feared would be lost forever. Perfectly formed and exquisitely detailed, his canvas-based mirror image built up gradually, half in shadow, half in light, it's final aspect indefinable as it remained a work in progress. He wondered bleakly at the cruel twist of fate which placed that canvas in his room all that time ago - once he tried to dispose of it, only for it to reappear in the wardrobe later the very same day.
Outwardly, Jareth learned to hide his discomfort, for his father was easily provoked, and had little patience for thinking beyond the traditional way; it was utterly alien to him that his son wouldn't assume mastery of this kingdom when the time was right, and do it with the expected sense of unquestioning duty.
As time progressed, and more runners failed, more of his naïvely innocent nature became worked into the painting. All this made it easier for Jareth to accept his fate as future ruler, and that of all those who became entwined within the Labyrinth. To rally against it, or take it to heart, was more anguish than was warranted - this was the way things were, the way things had always been, and the way they would remain.
That's just how it is, he thought grimly, marking it as a lesson he would take forward and thrust onto others, whether they liked it or not, for all this had been forced onto him.
He paused from his reveries - the proud Goblin King, master of the realm, wearing only a long, loose white nightshirt, hunched over before the portrait in a dank, cold, disused chamber within his vast castle. He looked closely at the prince's expression, and recalled the dream - the girl, her uniqueness, and the opportunity it represented, and knew he must see this through to the end; he must make peace with the past to gain a different future.
He had reached the painful part now, the moment he lost the essence of all he had once been forever, the moment that care and concern left the potentially noble Jareth once and for all, and he assumed the mantle of Goblin King, and all that that implied. He had chosen a path of routine boredom and repetition that would span years without number, and led to this point, where day followed day without event or variation, for now even the runners were scarce. All had moved on, leaving him and his world behind.
Except now, there was a glimmer of hope for a new direction.
But first, he must remember the rest of the story…