11. Castle and Kings
The castle rose from the summit of Goblin City. Curved, jagged teeth, like the tusks of some prehistoric monster, rose from the rocky ground and along the castle's lower wall, inverted flying buttresses whose function David could only guess had once been cruel and macabre. There was no clean break that he could see between the ground the castle stood on and the castle itself, as if the entire edifice had pushed itself up from the earth, shaping and warping rock until it had erupted in towers and battlements.
One tower stood apart from the rest. It had likely once been sheathed in pure gold, topped with a gently curved roof that met in a sharp point. The gold was dull and crusted now, bits of it chipped away so that the white, sunbaked rock showed underneath. David could just make out a stone balcony, and cobweb laced darkness beyond.
He patted his coat pockets and pulled out his crumpled pack of cigarettes. He was about to indulge in a disappointed sigh at the sight of the empty packet, when he remembered Hoggle had taken his lighter. He tossed the empty pack behind him, shoved his hands into his pockets, and strode towards the castle's main gates.
A helmeted goblin in armour rusted a deep red clattered out from within a sentry post along the bottom of the castle wall. It pointed a spear at David. "Halt! Identify yourself!"
"I—" No. No good letting this goblin see he was surprised. Play it cool, feet casually apart, hips cocked, voice haughty yet polite. "Master David Jones, from Kent. I request entry."
"On whose authority?"
"On whose—?" David brought his fingers up to his temples, as if the very notion of whose authority he needed were embarrassingly painful. "Oh, please don't tell me they forgot to send the permission slips through. Again," he added, eyes rolling heavenwards. "This is really too much. I applied for the proper forms months ago. Months. Do you know how far I've travelled?"
"Don't know, sir. How far?"
"Very far, and I object to being treated in this manner. This is a gross offense in the Kingdom of Kent."
"Kingdom, sir?"
David drew himself up to his full height. "I am a representative from his Most August Royal Highness, King George the Eighth, Lord of the London Marshes, Prince of the Hamish Vales."
The goblin's eyes, blue and rather large, blinked from behind his visor. "If you will pardon my saying so, sir, you look like—"
"There's a war going on, man! We have been invaded by Punks. I have escaped but with my life. Now would you kindly let me in? One grows impatient." David tapped one foot on the ground, then said, "Do I need to lodge my considerable displeasure with your superior?"
Pŭnsch, for this was the goblin's name, had already gotten in trouble with his superior twice that week. Some goblins just couldn't catch a break. A third offense and it would cost him this job, and Zetta's baby was due in two months. No, no, no, the last thing Pŭnsch wanted was this incredibly dirty creature from Kent stirring up trouble.
"Uh, look," he said, lowering his spear, "I'll just wave you along, right? Permission forms likely got buried in some bureaucratic jumble somewhere. No accounting for government types, right? So you go right on in, sir. Go right on in."
There was an almighty groan of crusted hinges, and one of the gates cracked open, then got stuck half-way. The second gate never even budged, although its top jiggled in an aborted attempt to try and move.
David swept past the goblin guard in a tattered flounce of muddy leather, chin held high. "Most obliged. Kent shall not soon forget your forthwithness."
He strode on in aristocratic grandeur until the one gate gasped and grunted back into place. Then he walked for a bit more, shoulders shaking as he nearly sobbed out a laugh.
"My God," he said to himself, half afraid the guard would hear, "I really don't know where I get the gall to do that. Forthwithness, indeed. Now, let's see this castle of theirs."
The castle was deserted. The down blanket heavy silence of decades of dust and undisturbed rooms hung in the air, pressing down on David with the burden of hundreds of cobwebs like shrouds and layers above layers of dirt. There were no footprints on the stone floor save his own on the entry hall behind him. What little light fought to squeeze past grime crusted glass windows and heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains filtered through as grey and murky as old dishwater. Dust and insect carcasses were so thick underfoot that David's passing made no sound. There was, he noticed, very little furniture. Probably stolen. There really was no accounting for government types, especially with their king gone.
Someone had obviously forgotten to inform the security detail of that particular turn of events.
David made his way up one tower's spiral stairs, was disappointed to find an empty room with no windows. He tried several stairs, making his way in a hushed procession all along empty ballrooms and kitchens and dining halls and what he guessed were bedrooms.
He stood gazing at what could only be a fireplace and he wondered, not for the first time, at the oddly human and bafflingly English feel and lay of the whole land, so to speak. If he had not been standing right where he was, his ankle gently throbbing, fairy bites only tiny red splotches along his skin now, and his stomach knotting and writhing in pangs of pure hunger, he would think this was all a dream. A dotty English chap's dream.
But David knew it was real, and that was the strangest thing about it.
He was trying really hard not to let even himself know what a letdown the castle had been. He dutifully peered into all the rooms and at all the architectural motifs, all contorted, ghastly faces and stylized vine plants and demonic creatures twisted into convoluted and unholy shapes, as if a mad Medieval artist had been allowed to build a cathedral for the damned.
David dropped down on one of the few chairs he found, a grime coated, tanned leather affair with what looked like antlers for armrests. His chin sank into his palm, legs splayed out, devil may care. "It doesn't make any sense," he said, his voice muffled by the silence and the dust. "Why would the entire Labyrinth protect this place? There's nothing here. There hasn't been anything here for years."
"No. There has not."
He did not scream. David could be proud of that. He did jump straight out of the chair, though. And, to his great embarrassment, he discovered that his idea of a defensive stance looked very much like a man about to leap out the nearest window. He nearly bolted from the room as he stared at the creature who had spoken.
It was old—ancient—and it was very blind. Its eyes were covered in a slimy white film, wet and viscous, like something you might cough out of a sick lung. So much dust covered the creature's hair and sunken face that it was as white as fresh snow, its bent and gnarled body buried branches. David could not tell whether it was dressed or merely covered in its own hair and folds of cobweb. It spoke in a distant, deep and faltering voice, as if it were only mouthing words rising from below the ground. The letter S was marked by a whispering sort of whistle, and David was not surprised to see that the creature could barely move its mouth.
It raised a bent, white arm, its fingers curled up like those of an arthritic elder. "You, boy," it whispered. "What… are you doing… here?"
I wanted to spit at your king's throne, maybe flash the good ole middle finger at it, possibly piss against one of its legs.
Probably best to lie. "I got lost."
"Strange place… to get lost in… young man." It bent down in a slow and laborious crackle and pop of bones. David cringed. The creature ran one curved finger over the ground. It waited, then nodded. "Yes. We have no… king. We had ones, once. They… left. Long life to the Kings Jareth."
"What—" David winced as the creature's face turned towards him, one liquid eye wandering to the left. "W-what happened to the king? To the kings?"
The creature bowed its head. It remained like that for a while. When it began to speak, it was in the steady, sing-song voice of a storyteller.
"Once upon a time, the first goblins arrived at this place. They were nomads, chased here by creatures greater than themselves. Ogres, elves, giants, and unicorns. Jareth led the attack against these greater creatures, and it was Jareth who led the goblin armies to victory. His victory was these lands. He won these lands for us. He was a brave and wise goblin. He was our first king. We were taller then, stronger. We fed off the humans' dreams, and the humans believed in us then, as you believe in your own legs and arms.
This was the first King Jareth.
Our second king was Sankrėl, but he took the name Jareth in honour of our first king. He ruled for hundreds of years. And he realized that humans' dreams were changing. Goblins had lost their power in the human imagination, and newborn goblins were smaller and weaker," here the creature frowned in the way the very old do that mourn ancient ways, "and of less intelligence and cunning. Our third king was not Jareth because of respect, but because most goblins no longer realized it was not Jareth II upon the throne. In their minds, there had always been and would be only one King Jareth.
And there were many more, some wise, some foolish. Mostly foolish, as humans became cynical and hardened and turned away from magic and myth."
It paused, then said, "And then the eleventh King Jareth simply left. He is gone. And thus you find his throne room empty, young man."
David's breathing had been deep and slow until then, caught up in the ponderous cadence of the creature's story. Now he started and stared at the dirty chair he had dropped into. "That's his throne?" He felt cheated. Deeply cheated. It was not even worth kicking. "I came all the way here for an old chair?"
"I… am afraid… so. My apologies… young man. If you had… but come… one thousand years… ago." The creature's lips—a small, curved beak, David could see now—cracked open in a wheezing laugh. "But… you humans do not… live that long… do you?"
"Not usually, no," David said.
"Not… ever. It is your curse… and, some say… your strength."
Silence spooled out between them, an invisible thread of things unsaid that David could almost feel tugging at his navel. An unnamed, heavy something settled in his stomach, until the weight of the castle was almost physical. This was not the triumphant comeuppance he had envisioned, and David wanted nothing more than to leave the castle and leave the spirits of the Kings Jareth behind.
He tossed the snow white creature a sideways glance. "Well then," he said, "I'll be off, shall I? It was nice meeting you, um, sir."
The creature never moved or shifted its sightless eyes, but David could feel it watching him nonetheless. He had nearly crossed the room, was just a few feet away from the door. Just a few steps and he would be out in the city once more. He would find Hoggle, never mention this to him, and move in with that friend of his. Yes, that sounded like a good plan. Only a few feet to go.
"You will… forgive me," the creature said in its odd, dead skin whisper, "but I am afraid… that we have never been too fond… of humans."
David's left foot caught on something. He stared down at it, only to discover that it was fastened to the floor. A cream coloured, gelatinous something had risen and flopped over it. Within seconds more of it had crawled and flopped over David's right foot. It began to stretch and spread at such an alarming rate that David barely had time to make a sound before it had surged and clambered all the way up to the bridge of his nose. It was cold and silky and wet and alive; David could feel its veins pulsing all along his skin. A piece draped itself with an oozing snap over David's head, so that all that remained uncovered were his eyes.
As the goop began to hang down over his good, right eye, leaving only the left to stare in hatred and terror at the creature, David noticed something strange. The world had been flatter and muddier for David ever since George had nearly knocked his eye sideways, but now it was clear and bright. At its luminous, white centre stood the creature, its neck twisted in a very unnatural way, almost as if its head were turning upside down. David heard its neck bones pop and crack, and he thought he understood.
All this way, he thought, for nothing.
The cold, gelatinous substance stretched out over his left eye. With a sucking, squelching sound, it dragged David into the throne room floor and down, down, down.