Page 11 of The Goblin and The Dancer
They dropped rapidly, tumbling downwards in a rush of water far steeper than the rapids behind them, swept down a pipe, and then flung into stinking murk as they struck the water at the bottom of the shaft with a force that made Grik’s body throb with shock.
Grik was turned end over end, and Rosanna and Paul were finally yanked free of his ferocious grasp. Panic flashed through him, and he fought for the surface, only to realize that the current had abruptly died away, the vicious pulling replaced by a steady flow. He was in darkness, but he was no longer drowning.
Rosanna and Paul had surfaced and begun kicking towards the right side of the tunnel, gasping for breath as they grasped for handholds.
Grik kicked over towards them, first swimming behind Rosanna to place a hand on her back to support her until she had a handhold and then moving on to Paul and guiding his hands towards a convenient crack.
“Get off me!” Paul shouted, his voice raw.
“Paul!” Rosanna cried. “He’s trying to help you!”
Grik slipped to a place between them, clutching at the wall and leaning his forehead against it, shivering and saying nothing.
He was more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
He had done something horrible—and he was ashamed to even meet their eyes. They would judge him, and they would be right to do so. He wanted to curl up and simply sink beneath the water like slime to hide with the rest of the filth.
He really was a monster.
He noticed dully that the walls of the sewer were covered here and there with the bioluminescent moss and mushrooms that grew in these junctions where the steam of heated pipes hit cold water and created foggy vapors. The patches of growth gave off just enough illumination to keep them from being in total darkness, but the others’ faces were still lost in shadow, and even with his sharper goblin eyes, Grik could only see them in outline. But he could feel the anxiety radiating from the others as clearly as if he had seen it in their eyes.
Paul, though, was finally getting himself under control, with an audible effort. “Don’t worry, Rosanna. I’ll get us out of here.” There was the sound of sloshing water as the elf looked around. “We’ll go back the way we came.”
Grik lifted his forehead from the side of the tunnel, unable to believe that Paul had suggested something so stupid. “That won’t work,” he said slowly.
“Why not?” Paul challenged him.
Grik all but shouted it. “Because you can’t crawl up a running drainage pipe!”
“How dare you raise your voice to me?” Paul thundered.
“Paul,” Rosanna began hesitantly. “Maybe we should listen—”
Paul interrupted her, his tone masterful. “My dear, I have fought in dozens of campaigns and been in hundreds of tight spots. I was even lost a few times behind enemy lines and had to find my unit again. I can get us out of here. Let me handle this. You’re just a—”
Paul pulled up short, barely stopping himself from actually saying it out loud, but the words “you’re just a dancer” floated between them, unsaid but as keenly felt as a slap would have been.
Grik waited to see if Rosanna would defend herself, assert her right to an opinion, and tell the arrogant fool to take it back.
But she didn’t speak, merely lowered her head, as if humiliated.
Grik wanted to fly at Paul and rip his perfect ears off his perfect head. Grik had changed his mind. He was not sorry at all that he had thrown that rock at Paul. He deserved that. What he didn’t deserve was a girl like Rosanna, who jumped into a river to save his miserable skin.
“You . . .” Grik swallowed convulsively. He had never ever in his life dared to speak back to someone, never dreamed of calling a perfect elf a name to his face. Goblins simply didn’t do such a thing; they didn’t get into fights or risk being attacked or fired. Years of inbred caution and decades of holding his tongue made a powerful habit that was hard to overcome. He wanted to break the habit badly, and break it as nastily and foully as he possibly could.
Disappointingly, the only thing that he was able to squeak out was, “Don’t be . . . silly.”
Paul growled in a voice that made Grik flinch. “What did you say to me?”
With a colossal effort, Grik gathered himself for another attempt at rudeness.
“I said it is stupid to go back.” That was a bit better but not much.
Paul glowered at him. “You keep a civil tongue in that ugly head of yours and leave the decisions to your betters.”
“Paul, stop it!” Rosanna cried. “How could you say such a thing?”
Paul snorted. “Because it’s true.”
