Pleasant is the fairyland, but, an eerie tale to tell

At the end of every seven years, we pay a tithe to Hell

(And I am so fair and full of flesh I fear it will be myself)

-ballad of Tam Lin

"Sir," the Minion said, voice echoing in the great empty chamber, "we're running out of time."

The Goblin King, looking into the viewing pool, did not turn at his Minion's voice.

"…Sir?" the Minion said after a long moment.

The Goblin King sighed, dragging black gloved fingertips in the water of the pool, sending ripples across the surface, blurring his own reflection.

With the sound of clanking machinery, the Minion moved to stand at his sovereign's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Sir," he said, "but—maybe it won't be so bad?"

The Goblin King gave a short unhappy laugh.

The Minion, in the glass headpiece of his mechanical suit, moved his fins in an agitated motion.

"—have you looked at any of the possibilities I found for you, Sir?" he asked.

"Yes, I've looked," the Goblin King said quietly.

"And have you…made a choice, Sir?"

The Goblin King sighed again, and touched the water once more, setting up the ripples.

"Her," he said, as the ripples settled into the reflection of a face that was not his own.

The Minion looked down at the face in the water: a woman with short brown hair—she was wearing a red coat, and she was looking at something over one shoulder, her eyebrows drawn together pensively in thought. Then she turned forward, lifting a hand to sweep her hair across her brow, mouth twisting a little unhappily. The woman's eyes were blue and there was a small beauty mark beside her discontented mouth.

"…she wasn't one of the possibilities, Sir," the Minion said, "I don't even know who she is!"

The Goblin King reached down to touch the reflected woman's cheek with his fingertips.

For a moment, the woman seemed to lean into the touch, and then the ripples of the water disturbed the surface and she disappeared. The Goblin King reached up and ran his wet fingertips along the points of his high collar. Sharp black shadows settled beneath his cheekbones. He lifted his chin; the soft uncertain light cast by the waters of the viewing pool wavered and danced over his blue skin, over the full, inhuman shape of his head, and made his green eyes seem to shine from the inside with a phosphorescent glow.

"Her name is Roxanne Ritchi," said the Goblin King, "and I will take no other consort but her."

"…oh dear," said the Minion, "well, what's she like?"

"Clever," said the Goblin King, looking more animated, the Minion thought, than he had in weeks, "very clever. And strong willed and curious and brave—" He smiled suddenly, his whole face lighting up. "Oh, she's absolutely perfect, Minion!"

The Minion winced.

"Oh, dear," he said again, heart sinking, "Are you, ah, sure that's wise, Sir? I thought we agreed that someone—dreamy, quiet, easy to manage—"

The Goblin King laughed, a wild, joyful sound that echoed in the empty stone room and made the waters of the viewing pool shiver and ripple and seem to dance.

"Oh, don't worry, Minion," the Goblin King said, eyes dancing like the waters of the viewing pool, "I have a Plan."

The Goblin King swept out of the room, long black cape snapping out behind him like a shadow given a semblance of life.

"Oh, dear," said the Minion for the third time.

Roxanne found the book in a secondhand shop down an alleyway she had never noticed before, shoved between a dusty dictionary and an outdated almanac. The spine of the book was a deep cobalt blue, with a silver gilt lightning bolt that flashed at her out of the corner of her eye and made her turn and look more closely.

She pulled the book from the shelf and examined it. The cover was blue as well, with the words The Labyrinth written in ornate letters and more silver gilt across it.

When she opened the book, there was no author's name on the inside page, only a sharp black M flanked by two more lightning bolts.

Roxanne flipped through the pages as if in a dream—beautiful jewel-tone illustrations; luscious, creamy white paper; crisp black ink—and the smell, not just the comforting scent of old books, but something else, something more—

(the smell of ozone, the sharp tang of lightning before a storm, the scent of rain)

There was some trouble at the counter. The bookstore owner—a man with wild blonde hair and disconcertingly green eyes, insisted that he didn't have any book called The Labyrinth on file, told her that she must have brought the book in herself, and capped it all off by practically tossing her out of the shop.

Roxanne would have had some sharp words for him, had he not immediately locked the door behind her, flipped the sign in the window from open to closed, and then shut the curtains on all the windows.

So she shook her head incredulously and turned away and walked down the street towards her apartment building.

She looked back once, but only once; had she looked again, she might have seen the shop melt away into the air like mist blown on the wind.

But she did not look again.

Her shoes tapped on the sidewalk as she made her way home. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Roxanne bundled the book beneath her coat and held it close as the skies opened up.

It began to rain.

It began to rain and it went on raining through the night. Roxanne ate her dinner alone—a frozen dinner, inexpertly microwaved—and then she opened her computer and worked alone and in silence for an hour or so, fingers tapping on the keys as the rain hammered on her windowpanes.

Lightning flashed across the sky with a loud crack, startling her; Roxanne looked up and—for a moment—thought she saw, standing at the sliding glass door that led out onto her balcony, a man, or something like a man, with an oddly shaped head and green eyes that shone in the dark like a cat's.

She gasped, but then she blinked, and—

Well, of course, it had only been a trick of the lightning, for there was no one there.

Roxanne ran her fingers through her hair and tried to laugh, but her mouth betrayed her, twisting discontentedly instead. Then she shook her head and closed her laptop and as she did so, her gaze fell on the blue book, sitting on her coffee table.

She sighed and picked the book up and opened it to the first page of the story.

Once upon a time

(Roxanne read)

there was a very clever maiden.

Roxanne blinked in surprise. Well, this was promising.

Beautiful maidens are a dime-a-dozen in fairy stories; a clever one was something new.

She read on:

This maiden was clever and curious and strong-willed and brave but she was neither happy nor content. Her life seemed, on the surface, to be fulfilling enough, but she could not shake the sense that there was something, some vital thing, missing from it. Excitement, perhaps, or companionship, or a challenge, or love.

Or perhaps it was something simpler—perhaps it was merely fun that was missing from this maiden's life.

Whatever it was, though, she felt its absence keenly, and so she could not be happy, not really happy, not ever. There was always that empty ache in her heart, in even her most joyful moments, that stole her smiles and made her laughter ring out hollow.

And so the days passed, in a gray procession, for the unhappy, clever maiden.

On the page opposite the text, there was an illustration of the maiden, wearing an ornate red gown and standing at a window, her hand upraised in the act of sweeping her short brown hair across her brow, her eyebrows drawn together and her mouth twisted a little unhappily.

Her eyes were blue, and there was a small beauty mark beside her discontented mouth.

Had Roxanne been the sort of person who cared for illustrations as much as reading, she might have noticed how very much the drawing resembled her. But she was not that sort of person, so she merely glanced absently at the illustration, noticed that it was pretty, and turned the page, making a mental note to come back and look at it more closely later, after she finished the book.

Roxanne read on.

Well, one day, the maiden grew so tired of her dull and dreary life that she said, in idle frustration, "I wish something would happen."

But nothing did.

And then the maiden, more discontent than ever, said loudly, "I wish the wind would blow me away—right now!"

But the wind did not.

And the maiden, very discontent indeed, cried out, "I wish the seas would rise up and wash me away—right now!"

But the seas did not.

And the maiden, more discontent than she had ever been before, stamped her foot and shouted, "I wish the Goblin King would come and take me away—right now!"

And the Goblin King—did.

Lighting cracked across the sky, very near to Roxanne's window. She jumped, dropping the book, which fell to the floor and slammed shut.

Roxanne pressed her hand to her chest and tried, as she had tried earlier, to laugh at herself, but found herself sighing instead. She leaned back on the couch cushions and looked around her empty apartment. Her momentary excitement at the lightning had faded now, and she felt, once more, dull and flat.

She looked down at the book on the floor. It had seemed an interesting story, but no doubt she would become bored with it in a page or two.

Roxanne found that she grew bored with things faster than ever, these days.

(What had the book said—something missing, some vital thing, and so she could not be happy, not really happy, not ever—)

Roxanne rubbed her hand over her face tiredly. She sighed.

"I wish the Goblin King would come and take me away, right now," she said quietly to herself.

And then she curled up on the couch and covered her face with her arm, and after a while, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, she was lying on the ground outside the Labyrinth, and the Goblin King was there.

"Hello," said the Goblin King, perched on a boulder in an oddly birdlike way.

Roxanne knew who he was right away and without asking, the way one recognizes people in dreams. He was odd looking, but not ugly: his skin was as blue as a summer's sky and his eyes were wide and bright and green, and he was smiling at her, a wide, sharp smile, too wide and too sharp to be human.

The Goblin King was dressed all in black, with a high, wicked-looking collar, and metal spikes on his shoulders, and a long black cape pooled around him like a shadow.

He had no hair on his head, though he had rather more than his fair share of head—it was large and round and very blue.

Roxanne found that she wanted to put her hand on it, but refrained from doing so. She might have been kidnapped by a mythical creature and deposited in an unknown location, but that was no reason to lose her self-possession.

"Hello," she said, sitting up.

The Goblin King tilted his head, looking more birdlike than ever.

"You're not screaming," he remarked, "Why aren't you screaming?"

"Why would I be screaming?" she asked, standing up and brushing herself off.

(There were little bits of grass on her clothes)

The Goblin King stood as well and looked down at her from atop the boulder.

"Isn't waking up to find a grinning, inhuman thing staring at you usually cause for screaming?" he asked.

"I'm fairly certain you're a person, not a thing," Roxanne said.

The Goblin King looked rather surprised at this.

"I mean, you are wearing clothes," she pointed out. "It's really only people that do that."

"Scarecrows," the Goblin King said.

"Yeah, okay; people and scarecrows!" Roxanne said, rolling her eyes, "and sometimes small dogs! But you're talking, too, and is just people that talk. Why are you staring at me like that?"

The Goblin King was staring at her with an uncertain expression, his fingers clutching at the edge of his cape.

"I—I thought—I really thought you'd scream…" he said, sounding a bit lost.

"Did you want me to scream?" Roxanne asked, arching her eyebrows incredulously.

The Goblin King's features sharpened into an expression of interest.

"If I said yes, would you do it?" he asked her.

"No," Roxanne said.

The Goblin King laughed.

"Oh, you're fun!" he said, stepping down from the boulder to stand in front of her. "I didn't think you'd be fun!"

Roxanne arched her eyebrows again.

"I think I feel insulted," she said.

The Goblin King's eyes went wide, his eyebrows drawing together. He drew back slightly from her.

"—was that insulting?" he asked. "I—I didn't mean it to be."

Roxanne narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. He gazed back at her, still with that expression of worry—he didn't appear to be mocking her.

(he was the same height as she was, Roxanne noticed. she'd thought he was taller, when he'd been standing on the boulder, but it had been his posture and his tall collar that deceived her)

"You said you didn't think I would be fun," she said, her tone more gentle than she meant it to be, "so the implication there is that you thought I would be boring. Which is insulting."

"Oh!" The Goblin King's eyes went wide again; he shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no, not boring! Never boring! Angry. I thought you'd be angry. And frightened. Mostly angry. Are you angry?"

Against her better judgement, Roxanne laughed.

"No," she said, "I was a little angry when I thought you'd called me boring, but I'm not angry now that I know you didn't."

The Goblin King let out a breath, shoulders falling.

"Oh, that's a relief to hear!" he said.

He smiled at her.

"Are you going to come into the Labyrinth now?" he asked invitingly.

Roxanne looked over her shoulder at the line of hedge that stood ten-foot high, stretching as far as she could see in either direction.

"That—doesn't look likely," she said. "Anyway, I should probably be waking up soon."

"Do you think this is a dream?" the Goblin King asked.

Roxanne laughed.

"Uh, yeah," she said, "I'm pretty sure it's a dream."

"Oh," the Goblin King said quietly.

Roxanne looked sidelong at him.

"What?" she asked.

"That's why you're not screaming," he said.

Roxanne blinked at his tone.

"I thought you wanted me to scream," she said.

"I didn't say that," the Goblin King said. "Anyway, this isn't a dream. And I really think you ought to come into the labyrinth."

Roxanne gave him an unimpressed look.

"And why would I want to go wandering around in the labyrinth?" she asked.

"To find what's at the center," he said.

Roxanne glanced at the line of hedges again, speculatively, this time.

"—what's at the center?" she asked.

The Goblin King bit his lip and smiled.

"It's a secret," he said. "You have to get to the center to find out what it is."

Roxanne growled in irritation. The Goblin King looked at her with an innocent expression that wasn't fooling anybody.

"Don't you want to know the secret, Miss Ritchi?" he asked.

"You could just tell me," she said.

"No," he said, "I couldn't. It's against the rules. Are you coming into the labyrinth yet?"

"You seem awfully certain I'm going to," Roxanne said with poisoned politeness, "but I'm afraid all I want to do is get out of this dream and go home. So sorry to disappoint you."

She'd thought to make him angry, but the Goblin King just shrugged.

"If you want to get out," he said, "then you have to come in."

"But why would I go in if I want to get out?" asked Roxanne, exasperated.

"Do you?" said the Goblin King, tilting his head curiously.

"Do I what?" Roxanne asked.

"Want to get out?"

"Of course I want to get out!" she said.

The Goblin King smiled, all sharp edges and mischief, green eyes sparkling like broken pieces of glass.

"Liar," he said.

"I am not—!"

"Yes, you are," he murmured, circling her, leaning close to whisper in her ear but never touching her, "you, Miss Ritchi, are a terribly nosey person. And you want to discover the secret; I know you do. So come into the labyrinth and find it, why don't you?"

He came to a stop in front of her and smirked at Roxanne while she glared at him.

Finally she threw her hands up in frustration.

"Fine!" she said. "I'll go into your stupid labyrinth, are you happy now?"

"Extremely!" said the Goblin King. "Now all you have to do to get inside is find the secret entrance! I'm afraid it's very well hidden; even someone as clever as you should have some trouble—"

"Found it," Roxanne said.

The Goblin King stopped, mouth open, and gaped at her.

"There's a doormat over there that says 'sekrit entrance'," Roxanne said sweetly, and led the way over to it.

"Minion!" the Goblin King growled darkly, and huffily followed Roxanne to the doormat—which did, indeed, say 'sekrit entrance'—and then through the secret entrance itself and into the labyrinth.

...to be continued.