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My ex-client downed the remainder of his sickly green cocktail in one gulp, grabbed the now-receipted invoice, scowled at me and scurried off across the barroom floor. The last I saw of him was close to the exit, nearly colliding with a swaying drunk tacking his way across the floor trying to find the restrooms. He had left me with the bar bill, of course. I grinning wryly, shaking my head. Still, I had got his money in front of me. I'd have bought him a drink anyway. Maybe. I sat and sipped my scotch - it was good enough to be worth savouring - and half-heartedly watching the goings-on in the bar behind me in the mirror. It was very quiet. I studied my own reflection for a few moments: a large and bulky Goblin - not fat, just heavily-built - with tired-looking green eyes, and the long and pointed ears of one perpetually alert, one who did not like anybody sneaking up on them from behind. I was dressed in a two-piece suit and long overcoat - both of which had seen better days - with a well-laundered shirt and a tie which had come off the bottom shelf at the haberdashers where, I suspect, it had resided for a great many years before I acquired it. It remains inexplicable to me how little those on the surface know about the occupants of the Lower Realms. Oh, sure, there are a few old myths in various human cultures, all of which are now universally regarded as fairy stories suitable only for children. Admittedly, the Goblins retreated to the security of the underground warrens and interconnected caverns several millennia ago, to avoid a direct conflict with the teeming hordes of humanity which, even in those days, threatened to overrun the less numerous but longer-lived Goblin race. I guess the humans have such short memories: after a mere three or four thousand years, they seemed to have forgotten all about us. Conversely, the Goblin communities know all about the surface world, although I do sometimes wonder whether very many of them really believe what they are taught in school. So very few Goblins ever visit the surface, or even imagine the possibility of doing so. Those who do are very much a minority, widely considered to be weirdoes or perhaps just terminally insane, in which number I should probably count myself. After all, humans are not so very different from Goblins as natural variation in shape and size blurs the distinctions between the two races. Like Goblins, humans have two arms, two legs, two sexes, and just the one head - although in many humans it is partially obscured by a strange covering called "hair". Humans are on average much taller than Goblins, although an unusually large Goblin - such as myself - are taller than some human females and a few of the males. Even so, on the surface, Goblins are more often than not mistaken - at least at first glance, in the dark - for one of their children. A second closer glance, in a better light, would make the truth uncomfortably clear: long arms, long fingers and long nails - they are not claws - and short powerful legs. Goblins also have large eyes and see much better in low lighting than humans, which is why such legends that persist in the surface world suggest that Goblins - or trolls, or gnomes, whatever term you prefer - spend their time sneaking around in the dark.
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Part 1