Page 41 of The Goblin and The Dancer
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Grik was too lostin his reverie to know precisely how much time passed after that. Perhaps five minutes, maybe fifteen. He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t care.
It was only partially broken when Paul’s head appeared in the crevice sometime later.
Paul saw them holding hands. For a moment, Grik held his breath. He was no longer afraid of the soldier’s temper or his mockery. For the first time, he was afraid for Paul; afraid for the pain that they might unwittingly inflict on him or the depression Rosanna’s choice might cause.
But the soldier didn’t look sad at all. He looked strangely calm. He even smiled a little.
“It’s clear ahead,” he said. “Come on, you two.”
Grik liked how that sounded: “you two”—it was a confirmation that they truly were a couple now—and he liked the way Paul said it. There was the faintest trace of indulgence in his voice, the kind someone might have if they had come upon two lovers.
The very thought thrilled through Grik like a bolt of lightning, making him tingle.
It was the worst day of his life, but it was also the best, because Rosanna took his hand a second before she was boosted through the fissure.
Grik didn’t need anyone to boost him up—he positively floated.
They walked on down the new, larger passageway they found beyond the crevice, weaving their way through the dark and occasionally stumbling over stones. As time went on, the ground beneath them became sandier.
Grik’s nose began to tickle, and he blinked and tilted his head, not sure if he had quite smelled right, but then he knew, with a burst of joy, that he had.
He could smell the sea.
Chapter Ten
They were standing in an immense cavern.
Grik could not see its roof, but there must have been great holes in it somewhere, because long, silken beams of grey daylight filtered down from above their heads and touched the cave with a silvery illumination. That light was one of the best things Grik had ever seen in his life.
Tiny air currents were drifting down from the ceiling, little puffs of sweet, life-giving air that Grik gulped at gratefully in great gasps of sheer relief before he looked more closely at the cave around them.
Before them was a vast pool of water. There were little spires of rock and knobby mounds of boulders rising up out of the pool at irregular intervals, half-formed columns for a half-finished cathedral of a sea cave. Although the water was too dark to see through, Grik’s goblin senses detected a great depth beneath them. There was a sinkhole somewhere in this cavern, with tunnels and twisted crevices feeding into it. Grik shuddered a little and looked away, up towards the light. There was nothing to be afraid of now. They were so close.
“What do you smell?” Paul was smiling—outright grinning.
“Salt!” Rosanna shouted, with all the glee of a child squealing over a holiday.
Grik put his hands over his mouth, too overjoyed to make any noise at all.
Paul pointed. “Look, it’s the cave entrance!”
Grik blinked and squinted, half-afraid he was imagining it. Far across the expanse, at the end of the cavern, the water changed color. It was lighter and full of bubbling froth.
“That’s where the tide comes in,” Paul guessed. “It’s our way out.” He laughed. “We’re getting out of here!”
The three of them threw their arms around one another and laughed and danced in a circle until they fetched up against the rock wall, which was better than ending up in the lake, but they wouldn’t have cared even if they had.
They had made it.
“What are we waiting for?” Grik declared. “Let’s go! Don’t worry about the swim, I’ll help you.” He would use every bit of his strength to pull the elves through the water to the world outside, if it was the last thing he did.
He wished he hadn’t thought of that.
“No, we’ll have to wait,” said Paul, pointing to the water. “The tide’s coming in. “We can’t swim against that, not in the state we’re in.”
Grik stifled a sigh of frustration. He had never liked water much—and now even less after the event with the storm drain—but it took all of his control not to fling himself into the pool and swim for the sea, tide or no tide.
