Chapter One - Meet Their Children

“Nogwart!”

“Yes, your Highness?”

“Where’s the princess?”

“Well, uh... you see...” As he struggled to answer the Goblin King’s question, Nogwart felt like this might be his last sentence. “...I don’t know.” The goblin cringed.

“You... don’t know?” Jareth mocked, as his usually apathetic face transformed to an angry one. The Goblin King started up the stairs to his rooms, a huge relief to the goblin servant, who was secretly jumping for joy.

“Nogwart, when I’m done, remind me to throw you into the Bog of Eternal Stench.”

“Of course, your Majesty.”
∞

“Hoggle, have you ever been in the castle?”

“Will you leave me alone, Zyris?! You have no idea of how difficult it is to exterminate fairies while you are asking me questions!” Hoggle exploded at the goblin. “You’re more of a hassle to watch than a human!”

“Human? Oh, about humans-”

“ I think I hear Jareth calling you.” Hoggle informed Zyris.

“You just want me to leave.” The goblin pouted.

“I have good hearing.”

“How can you hear that far? The castle is in the middle of the labyrinth!”

“Please, just leave!” Hoggle hadn’t been feeling good all day. He was thinking of having one of the goblins that had recently found their way to the entrance to do his job for a few days, as fairies could reproduce faster than one could exterminate them.

“You didn’t help me at all.” Zyris said quietly.

“Go away!” Hoggle sniffled as he found another fairy.
∞

“Where is she? I told her to stay inside the castle, but of course she has to run off to who-knows-where and make things difficult.” Jareth was calmly searching the labyrinth through one of his trusty crystals, seeking his usually obedient heir. He could see some soldiers doing their daily runs, the worm having a cup of warm tea,  the Fieries in the woods, and many goblins rushing in and out of houses in Goblin City, but not his heir.

After looking through his kingdom thoroughly twice, Jareth went back to the den-like area of the castle to find Zyris sitting lazily on his throne, watching the other goblins quarrel and argue with each other. How fortunate that she wasn’t from a normal line of goblin offspring, as most were. The majority of the goblins that resided in the castle were lacking intelligence and were there simply to entertain -or try to- the ruler, and although Jareth could be very cruel at times, the goblins still would bug the living daylights out of him, rarely remembering that he could easily have anyone he didn’t fancy fall through a trapdoor.

“Zyris, where have you been? I rarely ask you to stay in the castle.” Jareth questioned.

“I’m sorry, but I wanted to find out what human was, so I went to Hoggle and-” Jareth looked strangely at the future ruler of the Underground.

“Human? Why would you ever want to learn about humans?” The Goblin King inquired as he thought of a certain human from many years ago.

“Well, I was in the library yesterday, and I found this book about... a human who cried ‘Wolf!’ all the time, but it didn’t show or tell what human looks like, so I just thought-”

“That Hoggle would tell you?” Interjected a fat goblin.

“Yes.” Zyris said, looking embarrassedly at her feet. She could tell from the pudgy goblin’s remark it seemed to be a foolish idea.

The goblins started to laugh at Zyris’ naiveness concerning humans. After all, the humans were a great source of entertainment for goblins, although there hadn’t been any since Zyris was around two years old.

“Quiet!” Jareth snapped at his lesser goblin companions. “Zyris, come with me.” He went up to his room with the younger goblin behind him. As the two went up the stairs, some goblins were still snickering at Zyris’ question.

“What’s a human?” The heir demanded. She flopped onto Jareth’s bed and looked up at him eagerly, anticipating her long-looked-for answer. Jareth glanced toward Zyris for a moment and turned to his collection of crystals, one of which was missing. He noted to himself to check if one of the goblins ate it... again.

“A human is a creature,” The Goblin King started, “they look like you and I, but they are stupid, ungrateful, indecisive, and quite annoying to take care of when they are young. I hope you won’t have to encounter one until you take control of my kingdom.”

“Where do they live? They don’t live in the labyrinth, do they?” The young blonde felt a bit better. Her father never mocked her when it came to learning new things.

“They live in the Aboveground, and, as their ‘wondrous’ technology is increasing, their common sense is buried in the ground, and they become more and more brainwashed each day. So many have forgotten us and our world, and so few still remember.”

“Can I go see a human right now?” Zyris inquired, wondering what it would be like to play with one. She only had the goblins and other creatures of the labyrinth to play with, and they weren’t exactly stimulating opponents for competition.

“So enthusiastic after a few answers, hmm? What a pity you can’t.” Jareth teased. He affectionately kissed his daughter’s forehead, amused at her eagerness.

“Why can’t I? They don’t sound any more dangerous than the goblins,” Zyris whined. “In fact, they sound more entertaining then the goblins ever are.”

“You have to wait until you rule the Underground. Only the ruler may have the key to visiting the Aboveground.” As Jareth told Zyris this, he took his strange, sickle-like necklace out from beneath his shirt, “This is one of the few things that make a difference between me, the Goblin King, and you, the heir.”

Zyris looked at the necklace in awe. Jareth had only let it be seen by others when he was taking a child to his castle, and he only took it off when he slept or when he took a bath. Either way, it never occurred to her that it was important, even in the least way possible.

“What’s so great about it?”

“When a human wishes a child away, this lovely little toy takes me right to the child, and then allows me to come back.” Jareth tucked the necklace back in his shirt as he noticed Zyris was trying to touch it. “Too bad you aren’t of age yet. If you were a few years older, I could actually teach you how to use this. What a pity.”

Content with some useful answers, the young heir decided this was enough questioning for a day, and left to her own room to think more fully of what her wise parent had just told her.

“Nogwart!” Zyris exclaimed as she closed her bedroom door. Nogwart, the goblin who had the duty of watching Zyris, was shivering and looked like he had been in the bath way too long.

“Father told me about humans. They sound like fun, don’t they? Eww, you’re stinky, Nogwart. Did Father throw you in the Bog again?”

“Yes, no thanks to you.” Nogwart groaned. The heir looked deep in thought as he answered, a very bad sign.

“I’m so tired of having nothing to do around here... Guess what? I’m going to meet a human, very soon!” Nogwart was scared stiff at Zyris’ remark as she bounced out of the room.
∞

“Mom, I’m home.” A teenage boy yelled as he entered a two-story house.

“Oh, good! I was starting to get worried. Brendan, how did your presentation go?” Asked a dark haired woman as she greeted her son.

“It was awful. Everyone thought I was joking. Mr. Smith gave me an A, but even he was laughing at me. And swimming practice today was worse than usual.” Brendan slid into a seat in the kitchen and moaned.

“Brendan,” Sarah said, gently touching his shoulder, “People always laughed at me when I did presentations, especially when I did them on ‘fantastic creatures.”

“But it’s not fair! In medieval times, everyone knew that goblins and fairies and dwarves existed. Why don’t many people believe in them now?”

“Scientists think that anything real has to be seen by them. They convince most of us that because there isn’t any evidence of the life of a fantastic creature, it can’t possibly exist. I know life isn’t easy, and it isn’t very fair, but you’re an intelligent, Brendan. I’m sure you can deal with it better than most people your age.” Sarah kissed her son on the cheek as she put some JELL-O in the fridge.

Brendan’s father came down the stairs with a baby in his arms. He disliked the baby girl, Laura, almost as much as his classmates in English. She would constantly scream and cry, and she got almost everything she wanted. But mostly, Laura would cry for absolutely no reason, and it drove Brendan crazy.

“Hello Brendan!” John warmly greeted his son. “Can you watch Laura tonight? Your mom and I are going to a show with some very good friends of ours, and we won’t be back until midnight. I already fed and changed her, so she should sleep for most of the night.”

“Sure, why not?” Brendan said, with a slight tone of sarcasm. His father gave him Laura, who was being quiet, as she usually was when their mother and father were home. John went out the door holding his wife’s hand.

Brendan practically ran up the stairs to the nursery, to try to get the bratty infant to sleep before she could start her normal schedule of wailing when Sarah and John weren’t home. The brunet placed his screaming sister in her crib, and tried to keep from getting mad at her.

“Laura, stop it!” Brendan shrieked. “I had a horrible day!” His six month old sister became silent for a second, and then started up again.

This has been the worst day of my life! My English class laughed at my presentation, which took forever to make, the stupid substitute for swimming made us run the track nearly fifty times, and now I have to deal with Laura’s crying for seven hours!
Brendan deeply wished he could send Laura away somewhere so that he could have a quiet Friday to himself for once. But how? He certainly didn’t want Laura to be killed or kidnapped, since Sarah and John would most likely blame him, panic, and have the local new stations, neighbors, and friends constantly intruding on the family on a daily basis, just another problem he didn’t need.

“Isn’t there a way to escape from this torture?” Brendan asked the air, surpassing his sister's wails. Like an answer to his question, a small red book fell off of the nursery’s vanity onto the floor. It wasn’t a child’s book, as it was too thick. And it looked well-used, too. Brendan picked the book up and looked at the cover. The Labyrinth. There was nothing else but the title on the cover, no author, no pictures, not even a publisher.

Brendan instantly recognized this book as the one Sarah and him read together all the time when he was little. He still read it quite often. Brendan walked over to Laura, who was now very red in the face from crying for so long.
Any of Brendan’s few friends and many teachers could easily say that Brendan had quite a lucky streak for problems. Especially when it came to school and his sister. Brendan wasn’t considered a nerd, or a smart-aleck, but he wasn’t liked by most people in any of his classes. Wasn’t popular either, but he didn’t have a desire to be popular, or anything else in school. The only thing Brendan wanted from school was to make friends he could go to college with, and thus needed to get good grades to go to college.
As for his seven month old sister Laura, she was like a slave driver toward him. Whenever both of their parents were gone, the little baby would scream until she fell to sleep, and there wasn’t a thing Brendan hadn’t tried to silence her. At least nothing that would harm her. Of course, Laura would always act like a perfect little angel when John or Sarah were present, but heaven help anyone else. In fact, Laura’s stupid crying fits were what got Brendan the forsaken job of baby-sitting her every time Mom and Dad were gone.

“Laura! Be quiet!” Brendan suddenly thought of a wonderful idea. His mother had told him of a story before when she had actually went into the labyrinth, the result of wishing her brother away to the Underground. Brendan had absolutely no intention of wanting Laura back. Of course, he wouldn’t want to be here after the words were said, so he would just have the goblins take him, too.

“It’s a good thing you don’t know a lot, because after this, you’ll be a goblin.” Brendan exclaimed to his sister menacingly as he picked her up. As Brendan said this, goblins awoke from their sleep, waiting for some excitement. Fourteen years was a long time to wait for another child to be wished away.

“Goblin King, Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me, for I can bear her no longer.” Brendan appropriately recited out of the book.

“Nuts,” A goblin commented. He was hungry, although that was a nice word to describe the failure.

“Go get some if you’re hungry, Stupid!” Another goblin hissed. “Just be quiet!”

After an awkward silence, Brendan put Laura in bed and looked at her in remorse. “What were the words? Those certainly weren’t it...” Brendan grabbed the precious book and looked through the early pages in search of the words that would change his life for the better. He silently prayed that the words actually did work. Nothing could stop his sister’s wailing, at least nothing in the human world.

“Ah... 'I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now.' What a nice, open way of saying it. Funny that I’ve always thought it was more poetic. How silly of me. I guess I need to read the book more often.” A loud clash of thunder and lightening sounded, and rain started to pour outside. Nervously, Brendan turned out the lights and left the nursery. Halfway to his room on the other side of the hall, the teenage boy turned around, scared at the absence of his sister’s frequent cries.

“Laura? Why aren’t you crying?” Brendan hit the light switch, but to no avail. He jiggled it up and down a few times, and gave up. Cautiously, he went over to Laura’s crib to check on her. As he came closer, he could have sworn that he saw a strange form squirming around under the blanket, a bit bigger than Laura. He lifted the pink blanket quickly, to find the crib empty, and let out a yelp of shock. The words really do work... but now my sister’s gone! What am I to do?!

Around him, in each crack, hole and opening you could possibly find in the room, mad laughter was heard. Along with this insane laughter, there were other voices, making buzzing noises. As Brendan twirled around to see who was making the racket, he saw small, dark figures with glowing eyes for maybe a split-second. A dove had appeared flapping its wings against the window like it wanted in more than anything.
Brendan felt like he was in a living nightmare, or even an asylum. He began to feel dizzy, with all the needless noise in a single room. His sweat was cold and his breathing became heavier as he became more scared. The crazed laughter was becoming increasingly louder. Brendan was in the middle of the dark nursery, the only light source being the moon through the shadowy clouds.
With all the madness inside the room, the boy wanted out badly. Brendan looked for escape options. He had closed the nursery door behind him, and was too scared to open it, that he might find a monster with all the craziness he was currently experiencing. The other choice was the window, but the dove didn’t look very friendly with its frantic movements. Just as Brendan got enough courage and started toward the door, the window opened, and with a whirlwind, the dove entered. Bum bum bum!