Page 30 of The Goblin and The Dancer
It took some time to empty the chests. Paul urged Grik to do so quietly, and that made the process twice as long. Though Grik rather enjoyed sorting through all the baubles, he shared Paul’s disappointment when the crown failed to turn up.
Paul raised the lanterns a little, letting the light spill across the lake and revealing another narrow path of stone leading across the water to the other side of the cave, and a hollow space that was lost in shadow.
“It could be there,” said Paul.
Grik cleared his throat. “I’ll go; I’m lighter.” He refrained from adding that his balance was also better than the elf’s, though the unspoken insinuation seemed to hang between them. But Paul didn’t look angry, only resigned.
“Go on then,” he said. “I’ll keep a lookout.”
Grik stood on the shore and tested the bridge with a toe. Up close, it looked like a stone string across an ocean. He eased carefully onto it and began the long walk across, staring down at the oily, black water and wincing each time it lapped at his toes.
“Careful,” Paul whispered. “I don’t want to have to fish you out.”
Grik had to walk sideways like a crab, the ledge was so narrow. He felt as if he were standing in the lake and he wanted to get out of it as quickly as possible.He paused only once, swallowing hard as he stared at the darker shadow before him.
“What’s wrong?” Paul asked.
“There’s a little gap in the bridge coming up,” Grik whispered.
“Well, careful when you jump over it. I don’t want to fish you out of the water.”
Grik gritted his teeth. He had no idea that the duties of a lookout also involved giving so much advice.
He scrabbled over the crumbly bit and over the deep shaft of water with his heart in his mouth, breathing a sigh of relief when he regained his balance on the other side. He shuffled on and finally reached the far shore.
Paul’s whispered order drifted across the lake. “Be as fast as you can.”
“I know,” Grik muttered to himself. He didn’t want to be over here by himself any longer than he had to.He didn’t have the lanterns, and their light didn’t reach this far, but he could still see well enough in the dim glow of the cavern walls.
There was a great deal of refuse here, lumpy bundles of knapsacks that looked half-rotted. Grik’s attention snagged on a plaster statue sitting at the far end of the hollow. It seemed to be a statue of Ratiga, though it appeared someone had taken liberties on it with a hatchet and a bottle of black ink.
Grik peered at the top of the statue, wondering if the crown could be there, but the statue appeared to be missing pieces. Perhaps the crown had rolled into a corner.He crawled behind the statue, paused to gag on a spider web that had caught him in the mouth, and squinted into the shadows.
And found himself nose-to-nose with a skeleton.
Grik clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his yell and, in the process, slapped a handful of spider webs into his mouth.
“What happened?” Paul whisper-yelled.
Grik swallowed convulsively, still staring at the hideous sight in front of him—and the crown atop its head. This was doubtless the rebel that Ratiga had been talking about, some poor fool that had tried to make himself the new king of the underworld and had donned the stolen crown in this cavern to bask in his momentary success.
Only to be killed and, by all appearances, not by other elves. The skeleton didn’t quite seem to be all there. Important parts seemed to have been bitten off.
Grik snatched the crown off the skull with trembling hands and backed out of the narrow space like a cork popping free of a bottle.
He was across the bridge faster than he could have thought possible, terror lending him speed over that dark water that seemed even more horrible than before.He nearly jumped into Paul’s arms when he reached the other side.
“What’s wrong?” Paul hissed.
“Let’s go!” Grik babbled, looking over his shoulder at the lake.“Let’s go, now! I have the crown.”His urging broke off in a gasp.
A tentacle had risen from the water. It was as big around as Paul, twitching and undulating as if it had eyes and a soul of its own. It was pale green in color and slick with water and slime. Suction cups lined either side of the writhing coil, like ghastly mouths waiting to catch them. Even more ghastly, at the tip of each tentacle was an eye, bulbous and yellow, that swung in all directions, seeking out its prey. Grik had seen pictures of tentacles like this—but he had never before seen the creature it belonged to face-to-face.
It was a kraken.
And one of the tentacles was suddenly flying straight towards Grik.
Grik screeched and clapped a hand over his eyes.
