MORPHEUS IN THE UNDERGROUND, Chapter 3
Niobe and Morpheus have reached the hedge maze.
As they wove their way through the intricacies of the maze, the castle on the skyline gave them a fixed point to aim for, without which they would indeed have been lost and going in circles. The grass under their feet gave way to gravel and then to paving stones laid between the thick, clipped hedges of the maze. They heard chattering, high-pitched voices from time to time but saw no one; they seemed alone.
Ahead of them now was a high stone wall blocking all sight of the way ahead. In the Matrix they could have 'bent the rules' and scaled the wall with ease. They had already found that in the Labyrinth this was not possible; it seemed that they were constrained to what was humanly possible in the real world.
"Another door would be useful," muttered Niobe, half to herself. Almost immediately, Morpheus found two wooden doors in the wall, each with a fancy knocker in the form of a comical face which appeared to be staring straight at them, bug-eyed. Niobe did not hesitate, but struck the knocker on the left-hand door, which immediately opened for them.
"Don't go falling down any holes this time," called Morpheus as Niobe advanced cautiously through. They found themselves in wild, untended woodland, a complete contrast to the regimented garden they were leaving behind. They looked behind and there was only the high wall they had come through, no sign of any door. Ahead there were narrow paths meandering around the trees and shrubs; underfoot was thick with leaf mould.
They had to guess the way to go at every turn and fork, and both soon lost their sense of direction. In rare places they could glimpse a high wall ahead through the trees, and they could only hope that this was the next wall and not the one they had already come through. This near-jungle was the most disorientating part of the labyrinth so far. Morpheus pulled out the walkie-talkie and tried to contact Kid, but there was only loud static: now they were really on their own.
Back in the hovership, Link was making progress with the data coming through as he monitored the two captains. He was able, for example, to 'see' the wall they had passed through, and was amused that the door they used had a sentient door knocker. He was then alarmed to find that the new section of the Labyrinth was occupied by several mobile sentient programs with strange properties. Without waiting to try and decode these, he 'phoned through to Kid to pass on a warning to Morpheus.
Kid was glad to have something to do, his part in all this was proving very dull. However, only minutes later he called Link back: "Link, they are not responding! I've hailed them several times. What do we do?"
"Calm down, Kid, I'm following them every inch of the way. We are analysing what is going on where they are; we think something in that area is jamming the walkie-talkie signal."
Meanwhile, Morpheus and Niobe were back to back in a small clearing while creatures that were vaguely ape-like, with bright orange/red fur and big ugly heads, danced around them at a furious pace, singing loudly in a queer falsetto as they went. They seemed very agitated and aggressive, and were making a lot of noise. When they began to strike fire with their feet and then started detaching their heads from their bodies, Niobe feared an attack and pulled out her sidearm; it felt too light in her hand. It was bright yellow with red lightning zigzags down the barrel - she was holding a child's toy. "Morpheus, what am I supposed to do with this?"
Morpheus went for his own gun; he found a 'six-shooter' cap-gun like he'd had as a kid. "Put your gun away – the Labyrinth is placing tricks with us! … There is no point in tangling with these creatures, just fend them off if they get too close. Keep moving, we need to get out of this section."
Eventually, closely followed by the dancing creatures, they reached a stone wall which towered high above them. "A door would be handy right now," shouted Morpheus. "Third time lucky", he whispered to Niobe. He was not surprised, though, that this time there was no door or entrance to be seen.
"We should have checked things as soon as we left the Matrix!" she said, waving her 'gun' in the air.
"My fault. I should have been wary of such tricks being played on us. Remember that everything but our own minds is code. The code for our weapons may have been modified, but the likelihood is that the Labyrinth is just altering our perception of them. They may still work as real guns, so be careful."
She nodded and put the gun away. "Our immediate problem is getting out of here."
They turned left and walked along the foot of the wall, where there was a narrow way clear of vegetation. The fiery creatures continued to tag along, occasionally darting in close to screech at them. They came to steps built onto the side of the wall, or rather a pair of stairs. The right-hand steps led downwards and under the wall, but there was such a nauseating smell there that they turned back, gagging. They climbed up the other steps which led to the top of the wall. This was wide enough to have a walkway down the centre with parapets both sides. "Like the great wall of China," said Niobe.
The creatures did not follow them up the stair, but continued to pester by flinging their heads up to the top of the parapet to harangue them. By this time, and perhaps free of the influence of the wild woodland, they regarded them as a mere annoyance and not a danger. Should they go left or right? Niobe wanted right and Morpheus argued for left. They tossed a coin and got heads for left.
"Ok," said Niobe, "you win and left it is, but I want to try something. Throw again." Morpheus got heads. He threw again and again – always heads.
"This is not right," he conceded. "We'll start again: this time it's tails for left." He threw a tail, and another tail and another.
"Is there an alternative to left or right?" she questioned, "like steps down the other side?" Far below, though, the ground on the other side of the wall was mostly standing water and it stank horribly. Even from far above it was not just nose-holding bad, but vomit-inducing ghastly; it was vile!
"You were right," said Niobe, "left is uphill, that seems our best bet."
A few minutes later the creatures on one side gave up following them and the swamp below on the other had given way to trees, massive oaks with large canopies. And beyond those was the hill, crowned by the grotesque castle - now much nearer, though there was still uncertain territory to cross. In the other direction was the great tract of the Labyrinth they had made their way through; they could see nothing beyond it.
Meanwhile, Link was still following them on his screens, struggling to interpret the data coming through: very like the Matrix, but to his expert eye significantly different. He turned to the novice operator behind him. "That chunk of Labyrinth code I asked you to look at, have you got anywhere?"
"You asked me to look at two. I've solved one of them, it's a supervisor: any program with the authority to use it can see anything in the Labyrinth. It was easy to identify because most of it is the same code the Agents use to monitor the Matrix – Leo put us wise to it."
"Does that mean that Jareth could see Morpheus and Niobe coming?"
"Well … err … if, err … yes, I guess so!"
"I'll tell Kid to pass that on as soon as possible. See if you can make anything of that other code."
Meanwhile, still on top of the wall, the two captains were examining their toy guns. "Weird," said Niobe, scowling. "I had one exactly like this as a kid – a hand-me-down from my big brother."
Morpheus's smiled sardonically as he studied his toy. "A child's cowboy gun; I played cowboys and Indians when I was very small." He carefully aimed it at stonework a few yards away and pulled the trigger; there was a click, nothing else. "I remember it was an old toy even when I got it; but it was my favourite for years."
Niobe tried with her 'ray gun' and got a feeble grinding noise. "It doesn't even work properly as a toy – just like the one I had when I was five."
Morpheus looked at his watch and then brought out the walkie-talkie. "We are late calling in. I hope this works now." The hiss and crackle of static was there, but not loud. "Hello, Kid, do you read me? Over."
Kid's reply came at once, but was faint; Morpheus had difficulty hearing him. After a lot of repetition Morpheus got Link's message about Jareth being able to spy on them. With much repetition, Morpheus explained that they were on top of a wall close to the castle and intended to press on.
The next problem was getting down off the wall; it was too high to jump and climbing down looked possible but risky. "We'll try climbing if we have to," Morpheus said, "but if one of us fell, even a twisted ankle would be one hell of a problem. I should have thought to bring some rope."
"You weren't to know we would loose our abilities here. Let's walk on," suggested Niobe. "It's a long wall and there should be steps down somewhere."
Before they found any steps they came to a wooden ladder. "I'll go first," Niobe volunteered. "It doesn't look very strong and I'm much lighter than you. Wait until I get to the bottom before you try." The ladder held, albeit with much creaking, and Niobe safely reached the bottom. She called back up to Morpheus, "I think it'll hold you, but you might snap a rung or two."
Morpeus was just swinging over to step onto the ladder when his cell phone rang. He scrambled back onto the wall and answered it, wondering who had figured out how to get a signal through to the Labyrinth. "Yes?"
"I wouldn't risk it if I were you - it's a long way to fall."
"Who is that?"
"You've done well to get this far, Morpheus. But it gets a lot harder after this. Turn back while you still can, both of you."
"Who is that?"
"You know. You cannot compete with me, Morpheus. This is my kingdom; the Labyrinth is mine!"
"Jareth? What are you afraid of Jareth? Can't we just talk?"
There was a click as the call ended, and his 'phone was still showing 'no signal'. Morpheus got onto the ladder and began, gingerly, to descend.