“Wake up, Safat!”

A reddish, slender goblin barely old enough to grow warts sniffed and began crawling upright. His body ached from being crammed in between earthenware goods in a pony-drawn wagon. At least I don’t have to walk. The tall goblin finally managed to pry his eyelids open.

The sky was missing. Or at least most of it was. There were massive stone fingers blocking the Safat from the sky and its soft clouds. Though he was one of the tallest Unnamed goblins in Creta, Safat felt tiny and completely insignificant under the stones. The shadow stretched in all directions, farther than the eye could see. Where does this rock end? What kind of rock is it? How is it purple? Safat scampered out of the wagon with curious eyes. He had to hop slightly as he hit the ground to keep from falling. The wagon train was still moving. A dozen more wagons and ponies marched towards him and he trotted to his father.

“Where are we, Father?”

“We’re almost to Stone Bend. This is the mountain pass that leads to the dwarven city.” Safat’s father’s knobby skin looked much redder and darker inside the shadow.

“This is a mountain?”

“This is a mountain. A lot bigger than you thought it was going to be, isn’t it?”

“It’s bigger than our home! It’s even bigger than the trees!”

“That’s why we come here. They have so much to work with. Look at the purple rock walls. Notice anything unusual?”

Safat skipped to the wall. He saw what his father was talking about almost instantly.

“It’s not purple!” It had beautiful red and black bands running through it. Safat ran his claws over the wall as his father chuckled deeply. He shifted his fingers so that he could feel the bands more precisely. They were smooth, but ridged. But they didn’t form ridges only between the bands; it was as if the entire wall had been alive with motion and then was suddenly frozen.

“Keep it moving, little Safat,” grumbled Earthson. The tan goblin swaggered forwards and shoed Safat. Safat waved at Earthson, but if his childhood friend was paying attention, it didn’t show. It’s not my fault that I was born a year later than you. It’s not fair that you’ve already got your adult Name! Safat pouted and hurried to his father’s wagon. A squat, wide-nosed goblin was talking with his father. He nodded to Safat and grinned a nearly toothless smile.

“Wagonmaster, your son’s almost as tall as you are. Will he be Named this year?”

“He will if he can pick a trade.” Wagonmaster playfully skipped his hand over his son’s head twice. Safat shook his head and rubbed his red scalp vigorously, then self-consciously stood up a little straighter. The burly goblin seized Safat’s hand and pumped it cheerfully.

“Too many choices, Safat? I had that problem. I could have been Named to nearly any job. I could have even been a philosopher.” With his low, growling, Safat found it hard to imagine him arguing at the Square, but liked the idea of it.

“Why did you decide to work with the wagons, Wright?”

“Circles are beautiful shapes, Safat. All shapes are amazing, really. But, wheels. Wheels are incredible pieces of art. With their spokes, they toe the line of disgrace. They’re so close to having three sides that from a distance, they look almost obscene. But when you look more closely, you see that they really have an infinite number of sides. Not that you should listen to the idea that triangles are something to be ashamed of, though. Triangles are powerful, not cowardly. Knives, hatchets and swords are all triangles if you look at them from the top.”

“Stop your blasphemous talk. It’s time to deal with the dwarves. Stay ready to back me up. The elders made a plan to bring home more iron,” growled Earthson and nodded towards a massive hole in the mountain. Safat had never seen such a cave. It was perfectly square. It was made of the same stone as the rest of the mountain, but polished and smooth. Wright glowered at Earthson, sighed, and then marshaled the wagons near the cave’s entrance for easy unloading and loading.

A pair of dwarves greeted the goblins at the mouth of the cave. They were taller than Safat had imagined them: almost as tall as his father. But even more amazing was that they looked as though they were nearly as wide as they were tall. And they were hairy! Tufts of hair grew from their chins and cheeks and there was even some hair on their arms. One had hair the color of gold, while the other had silver colored hair.

They smiled and motioned the goblins inside. A few paces later, Safat and the rest of the goblins were completely swallowed by the cave. A few more and the passageway opened up to a square room the size of Safat’s entire house. The left side had a neatly arranged pile of iron tools. The collection of goods sat on a long white slab and was recessed into the floor. There was a matching white slab on the right side, reaching two feet out of the floor. It had tiny black marks running along its side. Scales! This entire room is a giant set of scales! What else can the dwarves make from stone?

Safat pondered the scale room over the course of the next hour as the goblins hauled pottery from the wagons onto the right slab. When the wagons were empty, the dwarves noted that the right slab was still not even with the floor and moved to the left slab to pull off metal.

“Leave the metal. All of that is ours now,” Earthson said matter-of-factly.

“A pound of iron goods for a pound of clay goods.”

“I said IT’S OURS!” Earthson tore his sword out of its scabbard and rushed at the dwarves. The rest of the adult goblins stared and then pulled out their blades. The two dwarf traders screamed and stumbled backwards onto the pile of iron.

“ROOM ONE! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!” the dwarf with the golden beard roared.

A massive shockwave deafened Safat and suddenly he was on his back. He looked to his feet and saw smooth banded rock inches from them. It was jerking upwards with a ratcheting motion. He backpedaled away from the fallen ceiling and shakily rose to his feet. Once the dwarf-made cavern was fully open again, tears fell freely from Safat’s eyes.

Safat dreamed he shambled through a room that was slick with goblin blood. In his dream, he collected red-soaked rags that reminded him of his father. He dreamed of dwarves. They piled iron tools onto pony-drawn wagons, murmuring that Safat had paid a great price for the goods. Safat led the ponies home under a red sun.
The slender goblin’s dream turned into a nightmare as wagons and ponies vanished whenever he took his eyes off of them. When there was only one left, he gripped the pony’s reins so tightly that his claws cut his palms open. He appeared at the market of Creta. Old goblins yelled at him. Young goblins cried. Young goblins yelled at him. Old goblins cried.

Safat woke up in prison.

He clasped his claws together tightly, trying to squeeze out the fear. Hand-packed clay walls bound him on two sides, with the final side formed by a door of tightly woven reeds. He was inside a triangle. The shape of cowards. Dried salt on the floor of the cell that smelled of tears and shame showed Safat that he was not the first goblin to be jailed by the elders.

He glanced at the cell’s door again. He could claw through the door. It would be simpler still to burst through the leather thong that held the door shut. Safat dropped his gaze back to his feet. These ideas are shameful. Cowardly. I can’t abandon my tribe. I’m not even Named yet. What sort of goblin would run out into the wild without a name?

A rough foot scraped against earth. He held his breath.

“Safat?” a soft goblin voice squeaked.

“Azzil?” Mypromised should not be here. Girls shouldn’t be in the jail building at all.

“I was Named Earthshaper yesterday.”

“Oh. Congratulations.”

Safat looked up. His eyes could see only tough grass, but his mind could see Azzil- Earthshaper on the other side. She held her head up, her long nose sweeping proudly. Dried mud caked her arms up to her elbows, the sign of a strong, professional woman. Her dark hair chased itself, in a wonderfully smooth but tangled form. His mind even saw the silver chain he had given her for her last birthday swimming through the whirlpool of her hair.

“You should leave. The elders mean to see you dead tomorrow.”

“So I should spit upon my father’s grave and exile myself? That’s cowardly!”

“Better a coward than a fool.”

“Better a coward than a fool?!”

“Think, Safat! The only reason we even know what happened, the only reason we even have any of the metal tools we need to survive is because you brought the caravan home! And the elders seek to punish you for that?”

“If I had fought beside my father and Earthson, we would have-”

“Died. Earthson might be- have been the best blade in Creta, but his plan was flawed.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. What would a girl know of battle?”

“I’m a woman now, boy.”

Safat cringed. Not from fear, but because she was right. He turned and sat on the ground, facing the point of the triangle. The shape of cowards. Rockshaper spoke again.

“Were the dwarves taken by surprise?”

“What?”

“Did the dwarves seem like they were surprised when Earthson pulled his sword and tried to extort more metal from them?”

“Yes.” And then Safat understood what she meant. “They were surprised they still killed every goblin, save me, without losing a single drop of blood. The elders were wrong. It may have been dwarven stone that crushed my father and the rest of the caravan, but it was goblin greed and stupidity that killed them.”

“So you understand that the elders were wrong and stupid? If you run away, you can escape their wrath. They’ll beat you to death for sure!”

“No, dear Rockshaper. I’m staying. Leaving saves no one, but dooms the village to the elders’ idiocy. It’s foolish and you were right. It’s better to be a coward than a fool.”

Safat drove his claws into the reed door. He widened his feet and tensed his muscles. His shoulders shifted across his back, then wrenched his body downwards. His claws tore the door in two. The pieces swung away from the cell and hung limply by leather straps. Safat rose to his feet and stood regally.

“What are you doing, Safat?”

“I’m going to stand trial and tell the whole village what idiots the Elders are.”

“But you can’t stand trial without a Name!”

“The Elders gave me a Name! They put me in this triangle! In the morning, they will not have a boy to discipline. They will have to face The Coward.”