Page 3 of The Goblin and The Dancer
Grik crushed his own rose so tightly he heard the infinitesimal snap of the stalk.
Rosanna looked down at the soldier’s bouquet. For one very brief moment, she seemed sad. Before Grik could wonder why, he saw Paul looking at Rosanna, no longer prideful, no longer showing off, but with his heart in his eyes.
It was like looking into a mirror—only not. For this face was handsome, and Grik’s was not.
Grik watched them, and envy nearly choked him. He had never felt uglier in his life.
Paul offered Rosanna his arm to escort her, and she took it.
Grik turned and ran through the Metropolitan Dance Hall, pushing past the workmen. He didn’t stop until he shoved against the big door to the side entrance and slipped out into air so cold, it shocked him into breathing again.
The soldier had a pain, not a real one, but enough of one to make Rosanna offer her kindhearted sympathy. He would use his wound to steal her compassion, and then he would steal her heart.
Grik eased down the narrow set of rain-slick steps that led to the alleyway, moving unsteadily—but not just because it was wet.
The lampposts had been lit all up and down La Caen’s main boulevard, casting a bright light up into the dark night but doing little to illuminate the alley. The capital of Auverne was far away from the skirmishes along its border, deep in the heart of a country full of beauty and glamour.
At the end of the alley, Grik could hear the talk and laughter of a crowd of theatergoers, saying their good-nights to people who cared about them and returning to something they called home.
Grik hopped off the last step and onto the curb, kicking at a pile of early autumn leaves and wiping hard at his eyes. Rain had fallen the day before, turning the leaves into moldy, wet piles that had been shoved against the curb, where they would be least noticed, all the bright color trampled out of them.
Grik didn’t like nights like this so much; they reminded him of himself, as if the whole world had turned into a mirror to show his own ugly reflection.
He looked up at the stars, but all he could see was that horrible memory of Paul gazing at Rosanna with that brief look of curiosity and yearning. He too had seen the wound in Rosanna. Her would had recognized his own hurt and that shared moment had been like a kiss.
Grik left the alley and stood on the edge of the main boulevard, watching the people go by in pairs—always in pairs.
The city’s famous onion-domed buildings were illuminated with the glow of the thousand lanterns that were lit every night to dangle fifty feet above the streets in long, bobbing chains. The domes were gilt, a myriad of soft pastels—and their shape and color reminded Grik of the skirts of the dancers he had seen perform tonight. Everything about this city was as light as the goblin town below was heavy, as bright as his world was dark. A city dedicated to art and scholarly pursuits, trusting in the world beneath them—a goblin culture dedicated to the practical things of life—to keep their sewers maintained, their buildings tidy, and their roads in good repair. Goblins and elves got along well enough, but they were always separate.
He turned to look at the Metropolitan Dance Hall one last time. He could just see them: her hair glowed in the streetlights like a fallen star. Rosanna and the soldier were standing at the foot of the steps and they were catching a hansom cab to leave . . . together.
Grik stood on the corner, hot, furious tears slipping down his face and plinking onto the cobblestones at his feet.
He let the rose drop into the gutter and jumped after it, because that was where goblins belonged.
Chapter Two
Grik traveled down into the depths beneath the city, moving mechanically down the abandoned grain elevator that led to the subterranean world of the goblins, his heart sinking inside of him with every inch that he descended.
He preferred the world above, where there were streetlights and sky and stars. Being underground reminded him of who and what he was, and he wanted to forget.
Moving through a miserable haze, he shuffled into the basement of the old granary and down a tunnel until he was standing in the subterranean chamber beneath the city’s carriage service, a building that dispatched cabs all across the city. In a fine display of irony, the goblins had built their own station beneath the carriage station.
It was the main hub for the goblinways, the system of hundreds of pneumatic tunnels that ran beneath the elvish city in an intricate web. Goblins didn’t like horses, and carriages were impractical. And since they always traveled underground, why would they use carriages? Tradition was tradition.
The goblinways were the crowning achievement of goblin society. The tunnels were a loosely kept secret, and had been built in some of the most difficult places to access. For anyone but a goblin.
Goblin children were taught to memorize the system since they were mere babes and up-to-date reports on the state of the tunnels were provided for free every morning at the Stone Town Town Hall—which was under the elves’ Town Hall. These updates let commuting goblins know which tunnels had collapsed and when they were due to be back in service again. They let them know which entrances had been breached by monsters, and what alternate entrances had been discovered.
Navigating their way underground was the goblins’ form of art. Goblins were supposed to like being underground. Grik didn’t dare admit that he didn’t like it very much.He didn’t hate it, but he didn’t love it. Every time he glanced up at the ceiling of rock above his head, he felt as if he would be crushed. The walls that surrounded him on all sides seemed like a too-fitting reminder that his options in life were limited, the path ahead already set by centuries of other goblins.
Conformity and uniformity were the most important things in goblin life. They all did the same things, wore the same things, built their houses the same way. They always had; by all appearances, they always would.
“Normal” goblins didn’t fancy elves—they simply didn’t find them attractive. “Normal” goblins didn’t long to take rides in the new hot air balloons that the elves had devised. A normal goblin kept his feet on solid ground, preferably beneath it. “Normal” goblins didn’t want to wear blue—they should always want to wear brown or grey, good, solid, earthy colors.
He wasn’t even precisely sure what would happen to a goblin that was different—would they be exiled? Laughed at? Treated like a poisonous mushroom that had to be avoided at all costs?
No matter what their reaction, he would be treated as different—and the horror of being different, of being inherently wrong, was stronger than his yearning.
