Michael in the Castle

Being King of the Goblins wasn't all fun and games, Michael decided. He was lounging in Jareth's--his--throne. Or at least, he was trying to lounge. It wasn't easy when you couldn't quite hook your legs over one arm without practically laying down on the seat. But he was managing. Really, he was just grateful to be sitting down at all.

He'd sent a few of the goblins off to find food, and was very much hoping that they'd come up with something edible. He was famished. But he couldn't afford the time it would take to nap. Mireia was still missing, and if she was the Goblin King's prisoner, it was only fitting that she would be somewhere in the castle. Michael ferverently hoped she was. He didn't know where he'd look if she wasn't there.

The rest of the goblins were scattered around the room, muttering dispiritedly to themselves. After they'd declared both he and Mooreland their kings, the atmosphere in the room had definitely lost the jubilant feel it had had before.

"If I'm a goblin king," said Mooreland conversationally, "Why can't I magic the stink off of myself?"

"Don't look at me," said Michael "I'm as new at this as you are."

"What good is being one, then? I want to go home. But I can't do that until I grant my own wish, except neither of us knows how."

"Maybe we should figure out what happened to Jareth. He's the one with magic."

"That's not a bad idea. I don't think either of us wants to be king permanently. We'll have to find him and give the title back.

"Yes, but first we've got to find Mireia. She must be somewhere here. There are tons of rooms! I already had a look around when I went to find the toilet. There were more doors than I could count! More doors than the building should physically be able to support. I guess that must be more magic. Anyway, she has to be behind one of them." Michael swung his weary feet down from the chair and carefully stood up, wincing as the blood rushed back in. "Do you think you can keep them in line while I go look?" asked Michael, jerking his thumb at the goblins.

"If I can handle minotaurs, I can certainly handle goblins," said Mooreland, with great dignity. "Besides, I could squish three of them with one foot. Go and look for your sister. Maybe she knows where the Goblin King has gone."

"Ok. I'll come back for some food in a little while. I hope those goblins have managed to find something to eat. I could eat Christmas dinner twice over right now."

"I don't know what Christmas dinner is," replied Mooreland, "But I'll be sure to save you some if they bring any."

"Thanks," said Michael, and set off, up a curved stair case, and out into a hall way.

The first door he tried led into a broom closet. He shoved things out of the way and touched the back wall, just in case it was hiding some trick, but it seemed to really be just a broom closet.

The next door he checked led into a giant library. Since he and Mireia both enjoyed books so much, Michael couldn't stop himself from wandering further into the room to get a look at the sort of books that Goblin King kept. Goblin Tales he read on one spine. This Side of Underground, on another. The Goblin Prince, The Love Song of J. Goblin King, and Portrait of a Challenger, were a few more of the titles that caught his eye. 'Mireia', he thought, 'would have to be dragged from the room.'

Michael, however, couldn't spare the time to look around as thoroughly as he might have. After making a lap of the room and making sure that there were no obvious hiding places he'd left unchecked, no obscure door left unopened, he stepped back out into the hall.

It was at that point that he ran into trouble. The hall had rearranged itself in his absence. Back the way he had come, the stairs had disappeared, leaving instead, more doors. Shrugging fatalistically, Michael walked as briskly as he could manage to the next door and poked his head cautiously inside. It was a bedroom. The meager furniture consisted of a large bed covered in aged yellow sheets and a hulking armoire that, when Michael tried it, proved to be locked.

Back into the hall, on to the next door...and so it went for a seeming eternity. There were more bedrooms, some more sumptuous than others. There was a conservatory full of predatory plants (Michael had nearly gotten his arm taken off by a purple bloom before he'd figured that out), there was a long room with cages inside it. This had given Michael a flair of hope, thinking he may have found Jareth's prisoner's quarters. Upon closer examination, however, half of the cages were empty--and the ones that were not held very strange creatures--a snake with wings, a bird with fir and a tail, a small pig with black skin and fangs. These alarmed and fascinated Michael even more than the plants had. But he pressed on, down the seemingly never-ending hall.

One door led to nothing--or rather, it led into thin air, precariously high above the Goblin City. He jerked himself back inside and shut the door, trying to catch his breath.

He opened the next door. The interior of this room was dimly lit. Michael could barely make out the shape of it--and even then all he could tell was that it was big and square. Stepping inside, and regretting not having a flash light, he waited for his eyes to adjust. There were large rectangular things hanging from the walls. Pictures? he thought. Five steps into the room, he heard the door creak shut behind him. Feeling his heart leap into his throat, he barely resisted the urge to run back and claw at the door. Taking a deep breath to get himself under control, he tried to consider his options in a less panicked light. Going back out the door he'd come in didn't seem likely. He tried it anyway--just in case--but it was stuck firmly shut.

He turned to look out at the room again. His eyes were mostly adjusted now, and he could see a little bit. There was some sort of dim light source which came from far across the room. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Michael approached one of the many picture-things hanging on the wall. Only when he stood in front of it did he realize just what it was--a mirror. And as he forced himself to peer at his dark reflection, the mirror started to light from within.

Michael saw himself. But it wasn't the way he was supposed to look. For one thing, he was older--taller with a little bit of facial hair covering his chin. In the midst of all the differences, Michael was still certain it was him. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept in a long time, but he didn't look unhappy. Michael turned away and walked over to stand in front of the next mirror.

In this one, his reflection appeared to have changed very little. That lock of his hair that always fell down in between his glasses and his eyes was there. He hazarded a smile--maybe he'd found the normal mirror. But no--as his reflection smiled nastily back at him, Michael saw that the boy in the mirror was not quite like him after all. There was a pronounced hint of malice in his dark eyes, and the smile was cruel. Michael hoped he never actually looked like that. Backing away from his own cold-blooded smile, Michael ran into the next mirror before he got a chance to look at it.

In this mirror, he could tell something was strange. The boy that stood before him did not look, physically, any different than Michael did himself. Rather, it was something about his stance and the way he held himself that made him so odd. The very way he carried himself made him seem smaller, pale, weaker, skinnier. Everything about him said that the world had treated him badly. The shadowed eyes stared out at him with the look of a puppy that's just been kicked.

"I don't look like that, do I?" Michael asked himself. Even more than the cruel reflection, he hoped that this reflection didn't show how he really looked. He moved on.

The next showed a teenaged boy with acne and limbs that were too long for the rest of his body. The annoying forelock of hair had grown longer and flopped down over his glasses. He looked shy. This one didn't disgust him as much as the last one had, but he made a few mental notes--get hair cut, wash more often, play a sport perhaps--before he moved on, more determined than ever not to look like any of these pathetic specimens.

A strangely ornate mirror had another grown Michael in it. This one was wearing work pants and a white businessman's shirt. His hair was expensively styled and his glasses were small and fashionable. There was a hint of arrogant confidence at his mouth, and the overall air with which he carried himself spoke of power. Michael, however, noticed the frown lines around his older mouth and could find no smile lines at all. There seemed to be a permanent crease between his eyebrows. He turned to the next mirror and the next. Each showed him at varying ages with varying temperaments. Some looked good until Michael came closer and noticed the flaws.

Here he was an unhappy artist in paint spattered clothes, there he was a laughing young man with desperate eyes. None of them looked quite right.

One held an old man, hunched and broken, who peered out at him with rheumy eyes. He retreated from that one rather quickly. It was one thing to see yourself as a grown man--another to see yourself as an old man, near death.

Looking around the room, he realized he'd seen all of them. How was he to get out? Surely there had to be some purpose for this room, other than keeping him pinned inside. He turned in a slow circle, trying not to look too closely at any of the mirrors--seeing those reflections once had been quite enough. As he wandered back towards the door, he saw that he had missed one mirror, off in the corner. It looked older and smaller than the rest, and it's tarnished frame caused it to blend into the dark wall. Michael approached and looked cautiously into it.

At first he saw just a vague, hazy shape. But as he watched, the figure grew more distinct, developing dark hair and glasses and a solemn, thoughtful expression. The reflection's clothing matched Michael's own--jeans and a tee shirt, torn in a few places and dirty all over. For a test, Michael smiled. His reflection smiled tentatively back at him. Michael inspected it further, determined to find any flaw, like all of the other reflections had had. But look as he might, he could not find one. As he stared intently, he began to notice that in the background reflection of the mirror, he could see other people. Upon closer inspection, those people appeared to be different versions of himself, much like the ones he had already seen in the mirrors, except that these, like the current reflection, didn't have any recognizable corruptions.

Then, much to Michael's shock, his own reflection slowly blinked one eyelid at him. Before he could adjust to being winked at by himself, his reflection had moved again. This time it was pointing to a section of wall to Michael's right. When he turned to that wall, he saw a door that had not been there before. It was small and its edges were barely discernible from the surrounding wall. When Michael tried the handle, trying not to hope too hard, it swung open easily, revealing a small, circular platform which looked out over the Labyrinth.

Stepping out of the room with relief, he found that the platform was actually the top of a tower. A scrap of light purple cloth that was snagged on a jagged piece of the stone wall caught Michael's eye. Mireia's shirt had been that exact color purple. What, Michael wondered, had happened to Mireia on the highest tower of the Goblin King's castle? He was afraid to speculate.