6. Hoggle

Now that a guide had appeared, trudging in front, muttering and grunting to itself, David felt a great deal more cheerful about the prospect of living in this strange, golden-tinged world. And, as is often the case when one is cheerful, the maze looked a great deal more romantic and impressive as they made their meandering way through it. Everywhere David looked he could see flowers, from silky, perfumed roses to miniscule, yellow wildflowers. Everything was charming: the unkempt hedges, the knotted roots that kept tripping him, the cracked cobblestones, the moss with its teeny-tiny fuchsia flowers, everything.

"This is marvellous, Hobble," David said.

"Hoggle. And this is a disgrace. Kretch used to be in charge here, but he took off. Some of us stayed, regardless. Some of us even manage to get some work done." He stopped and pointed at a neat and trimmed patch of hedges. "See that?" He jabbed a thumb at his chest. "Some of us stayed."

He was silent for the rest of the way, and David did not mind. He was content to walk behind him, taking in the view. He allowed himself a daydream in which this Hottle fellow led him to a rustic cottage, something straight out of the Scottish Highlands, but with no Britons to spoil the thing, just him and whatever lived here. Goblins, he supposed. Goblins that would view him as an oddity and leave him alone. Perhaps even fear him. Yes, and he could keep chickens. Hire someone to cook and clean. He was not certain whether goblins hired themselves out for that sort of thing, but he felt confident that he could convince at least one of them. Maybe they had elves at this end of the world; beautiful, tall, golden things like the ones he had read about to Baby Joe.

Baby Joe. That slowed David's sauntering steps. He did not know what time it was back in Kent, or what George and Sandra were up to. He pulled back the sleeve of his coat and peered down at his watch. Something queer had happened to it. The hour and minute hands were spinning about wildly, swinging first clockwise then anti-clockwise, not even following each other. The effect was like two insect wings, humming within the watch's interior.

"Huddle?"

The dwarf stopped and turned. His glare was so profound that his eyes were all but buried beneath his eyebrows. "It's Hoggle," he snapped. "How hard is that, Mr David Jones?"

"Hoggle, yes," David said absently. He held out his wrist. "What's wrong with my watch?"

Hoggle tossed the watch a thoroughly disinterested look. It had a plain leather strap, and the silver face was too chipped and worn to be of any value. "There's a great deal wrong with your watch. And it's useless here. Where do you think you are, anyway?"

"Well…" Now that he had to put a precise term to it, David found that he had no inkling where he was. Kent had been easy enough to situate. It was in England, and England was part of Great Britain and Great Britain was part of Europe and Europe was on the right side of a wall map most of the time, bobbing there between France and Iceland, a lumpy looking island on the Atlantic Ocean. It was just a speck on a map, but he knew where it was, and what it was called. This place, however… "Well I don't really know," he said lamely. "Where are we?"

"Figures," Hoggle grunted. "You don't have any clue where you got yourself wished off to, do you?" He waved his hands in disgust, as if the very idea of David were repulsive. "Silly human." He grew very serious then, gazing at David evenly with very old eyes. "This is The Labyrinth."

"I can see that. But whose labyrinth?"

"No, no, no. Not whose labyrinth. The Labyrinth." He spread his arms out. "All of this is part of The Labyrinth. And at the heart of it all is Goblin City." He dropped his arms and shrugged. "But nobody goes to Goblin City anymore."

"I'd like to go to Goblin City."

"No. You wouldn't. There's nothing there but goblins." He started walking again, pushing aside a branch sticking out of a hedge. "Lazy, dirty, rootless, useless goblins. They're a race without a purpose, a race without a king. Now me, I didn't have a king. I had a boss. And the boss set me up out here and told me to take care of this end of The Western Only Maybe Eastern Maze. He was their king, but he was my boss." At this, Hoggle's steps slowed. An expression almost like fondness crept through his features. "Good ole boss." He shook his head, and the expression was replaced by a scowl. "And you ain't got no clue what you've wished yourself into David Jones."

David followed Hoggle and did not dare say anything else. The dwarf's words disturbed him and he did not want to be disturbed. If he thought too seriously about what Hoggle had said he would be forced to admit that, up until then, he had thought of the whole experience as an interesting detour. Something in him—something that had kept quiet all the way through the maze—thought that he could simply go back to Kent whenever he felt like it.

The thought of what he had actually done frightened him.

The maze went on for a good long while. Night came more than once, with Hoggle resting his back against a hedge and David curling up as best he could with his coat as a blanket. He woke sore and tired and very, very hungry.

"Isn't there anything to eat around here? I'm gonna pass out if I don't eat soon."

An apple hit him square in the forehead.

"Ow! For pride's sake, Howel, you didn't have to bludgeon me with it!"

"Was not Howel," said a squeaky voice above David's head. He craned back his neck just in time to see something covered in long orange fur, with what appeared to be four green eyes, before another apple was lobbed at his face. "Is still hungry? Is not eating first apple, is he? Have another!" A third apple bounced off David's shoulder, who by this point had dropped to the ground, arms over his head, shouting for Hoggle.

Hoggle sounded peeved. "Stop wasting good apples on him."

"Was what he wanted, wasn't it? Is you wanting apple?" At Hoggle's grunt, the orange creature dove into the hedge it had popped out of. It poked out from the top a few seconds later, holding a peach in one furry hand. "Is wanting peach, eh?"

"Buzz off."

"Is not pixie. Can't buzz off."

David rubbed one of the apples clean against his coat. He bit into it and thought he would die right then and there from relief. He was starving. The first and second apples disappeared within minutes, juice dribbling down David's chin. "My God," he said. "These are delicious. I want another apple," he called out to the creature in the hedge. "Hit me!"

It hit him, aiming one good kick at his right shoulder. It also pelted him with five more apples, and one peach. David crouched down against the onslaught, laughing.

"Thank you, whatever you are," he said, his mouth full of peach and apple.

"Mungwhop," the creature said. "Is Mungwhop." It bowed, blinking its green eyes. "Is good? Is eating apples and peach, yes. Is good."

"Is very good, Mungwhop."

Hoggle was staring at him, his head cocked to the side in a thoughtful way, almost as if he didn't trust what he was seeing.

"Why are you being so nice to it?"

"It fed us, didn't it?" He looked up at the hedge and waved at the creature. It burrowed into the hedge and beat a noisy, crackling path away from them, still jabbering about apples and peaches to itself. "Perhaps it'll feed us again, if I complain loudly enough. Seemed like a rather obliging little fellow, I thought."

Hoggle seemed unconvinced. He narrowed his eyes at David. "Why did you come here? You didn't even know where you were."

"I wanted to be somewhere else." He shrugged. "Don't you ever want to be somewhere else?"

"No. I stayed, see. Others left, but I stayed. Even when they said he was never coming back. I stayed, and I aim to stay."

"Suit yourself."

The sun set a few more times as they journeyed on. Mungwhop—or the same kind of creatures as Mungwhop; it was hard to tell—appeared once or twice to fling apples and peaches and pears and even a cantaloupe at David. He was always very cheerful about it, waving at Mungwhop, asking about its family and about the maze. Mungwhop never answered any of David's questions, but this did not seem to bother him, to Hoggle's great confusion. Whatever it was he had expected from David, laughing and eating apples had never been part of it.

To be perfectly honest, it was all starting to make Hoggle feel rather cheated, and even foolish. He grumbled and grunted and snapped at David's perfectly reasonable questions, like, "Who made this maze?" Hoggle would toss back a dour, "Nobody made it, it's always been here!" It seemed he could not help himself, even though this David Jones fellow had done nothing beyond willingly wish himself into The Labyrinth, thank Mungwhop politely for whacking him with food, and—and this one made Hoggle cringe—put his trust on a complete stranger to guide him out of the maze.

"David?" he said one evening, as they settled down for one more night.

"Yes?"

"Are you planning to stay, then?"

"I suppose. I'm not quite sure how I could leave, after all. Didn't think this through, as you said to me a few days back." He smiled. "Well, implied. A very wise implication."

"Huh." Hoggle tapped his thumb against his knee. "You know, if you should need a place to stay…"

"Why, Hoggle, are you offering me hospitality?"

The sound of his name, his actual name, made Hoggle stare at David. He smiled and winked, and Hoggle found the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. He coughed down the urge and tried his best to frown. "Yeah, well, I ain't promising nothing fancy. Friend of a friend might have a room to let. In Goblin City."

"Is that where you were meant to have guided me? You said, when we met—"

"I know what I said. And I know where I have to lead you."

He said no more then. He tapped a twig absently against a cobblestone and frowned at the ground. David was not comforted by the sight. He drew his coat closer about him.

"Do you have to lead me there?"

Hoggle tossed away the twig. "Yes, I do. Orders. You wouldn't understand. It gets bad if…" He scowled at the clouds and the stars above them. "Well, it ain't good to disobey orders around here. Even now-a-days, with him gone."

"You keep saying 'him,' as if it's important."

"Never mind. Go to sleep. We're nearly there."

An uneasy feeling stayed with David all that night. He gazed up at the moon, unable to close his eyes. Silver tinged clouds crawled across the skies, like giant ships of war, like ominous creatures with cruel, dark wings. They devoured the moon.