The Road Through the Maze

Of the realm of Jareth the Goblin King (a border kingdom and thus half dependent upon the hopes, fears and fantasies of mortals Above,) some will look at its construction and say, "But it is ill-named! It is not a labyrinth at all, but a maze! A labyrinth is supposed to have a straight line to the center!"

As with so many other statements about this bizarre kingdom, that is only half true.

There is a road.


Rightly the worm will tell you not to take it. Believe the worm, despite appearances. The road runs, straight and true, from the carven double gates to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City and to the stone hall with its horned throne. Always, ahead, one may see the castle, but it does not always look like a castle. Sometimes, too, it looks nearer than it is, and sometimes, further than anything in the worlds.

Time does not run in a linear fashion, upon this road. Nor does distance, nor the turnings of one's mind and soul. It may well be the hardest road in all the worlds. Only one has ever traveled it, from the gates (though there were no gates, then) to the center. He occupies the horned throne in the great hall in the Castle Beyond the Goblin City.

To traverse that road away from the castle, out of the maze (good luck getting the maze out of you, though; it is one of those places that change people) is, conversely, terribly easy. Going away from the center, the road welcomes you, velvety with glittering golden dust and dappled sunlight, fragrant with its flanking hedges and the spicy duff of fallen leaves just out of sight, singing the sweet mad songs of hidden brooks. It is unfortunate, then, that only one who has traveled it the other way may then walk its length from the castle to the gates.

Sometimes, the Goblin King lets himself think of taking the road out. Outside, there are Soho and San Francisco, the bright bustle of New York and the sun-steeped adobe walls of Albuquerque's Old Town; there are Paris and Sidney; and life and laughter and maybe, somewhere, someone who could find a reason to like him.

He only allows himself this indulgence, however, when he is feeling particularly cruel. He knows that for him there is only defeat at the end of the road. He put his all into the creation of a kingdom, thriving in its own odd way, from red desert wasteland and wild magic. At the end of the road his death waits, and he would welcome it but that what waits beside it is the destruction of all he has worked so hard to build.