He’s No Angel

Just when it seemed as if we were about to find out way out of the labyrinth and get Ludo back to his band, the full extent of Jareth’s treachery was revealed.  He took the tickets Hoggle had obtained from his former employers at Travelocity and left with a retinue of goblins to become the new lead singer of Ludo’s band, while Ludo, Hoggle, Tucker, and I were imprisoned in the dank depths of the Goblin King’s dungeon.  When I became an archeologist, I never thought that I would end up entombed myself …

After languishing in this moldy cell for a week, everyone is going a little crazy, except for Tucker.  He has proven to be much more psychologically resilient than I ever expected.  I will have to ask him to teach me his secret for staying so centered while enduring such hardship — perhaps he is solving complex math equations in his head, or composing a great concerto, or dreaming up line after line of poetry, all to free his mind from the confines of this wretched place.

Then, unexpectedly, we are given the opportunity for a brief furlough.  It appears that even in the realm of the Goblin King, prisoners are entitled to occasional entertainment — in this case, a regularly-scheduled concert by several different groups.  No longer first-rate headliners, these artists are now giving something back to the community by performing for the benefit of inmates such as ourselves.

We are led out into the quarry where Jareth’s prisoners normally perform hard labor extracting rock that the Goblin King uses to erect giant statues of himself.  Today, though, the equipment and machinery has been cleared and a stage set up.  We sit through the usual assortment of warnings and public service announcements, and then the performances begin.  Before long, we receive a tremendous surprise indeed:

Foolishly, the over-confident Goblin King has come to perform for his own prisoners!  But he did not count on Ludo’s presence in the front row. Ludo jumps onto the stage and a brief melee ensues, which ends once the members of Ludo’s old band recognize him — no mean feat, considering that when he was first imprisoned, he was given a severe haircut.  Upon learning of Jareth’s perfidy, the band kicks him out, and Ludo returns to his rightful position at the microphone.

Amazingly, this concert has gained us our freedom — the band’s testimony convinces our jailers to free us, and Jareth, who had been expecting to become a huge rock star in his ill-gotten position as lead singer of Ludo’s old group, instead finds himself getting ready to play drums for the next band to come onstage.  I have never seen a drum set positioned in the middle of a giant bear trap, but I’m sure it’s just a silly prop to amuse the band’s fans.  In any case, Tucker and I will not be staying to see the performance; we are leaving before some officious bureaucrat higher up changes his mind about letting us go or, worse, a fax arrives from the Albuquerque department of corrections requesting my transfer to one of their facilities.  We bid our farewell to Hoggle, who is embarking on a new career as a roadie, leaving his slavelike position with Jareth behind.

Once again, I have succeeded against all odds; because I am Dennis the Vizsla, and I never give up.