The Curse of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  Once we were down the hall a ways, Ari grabbed my arm and stopped me.

  “So what’s going on?” she whispered. “What was all that stuff about going away for a while? And why did you take those diamonds? Dwarves don’t care about material wealth. Besides, it’s only a matter of time before that stuff will be worthless outside of its use in crafting weapons.”

  “All good questions,” I said. “I’ll explain soon. Gather the gang and meet me in the Arena in exactly thirty minutes—we don’t have any time to waste.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Of Course the Best Pieces of Turkey Are at the Bottom!

  I’m proud of you, Greg,” my dad said as I sat down across from him at our small dinner table just a few minutes after parting ways with Ari.

  I’d come right home and found a huge feast set out on the table: three pounds of spareribs, braised oxtail with sautéed onions and apple-beef gravy, fried pig ears with a spicy mustard dipping sauce, grilled pork jowls with a reduced duck sauce, and one carrot. And as much as I was in a hurry to meet up with my friends (I’d only really stopped by for a snack and to grab my old backpack), it was hard to turn down sitting for a quick dinner with my dad. Especially since he appeared to be momentarily lucid. Plus, he’d clearly gone to a lot of work preparing all this food and was still an awesome cook. The Elven poison and/or antidote hadn’t changed that at least.

  I figured I could eat hastily and still be just a few minutes late to the Arena.

  “You stood up to the Council, stood up for what you believe in,” he continued. “A sign of a true Stormbelly.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said, afraid to say much more lest it set off another bizarre rambling episode of strange advice.

  He nodded and stuffed a handful of crispy sliced pig ears into his mouth. We ate in silence for a while.

  I desperately wanted to ask him more, ask for his real advice. Was what I was planning right or wrong? It was likely to be dangerous, poorly planned, and would once again put the lives of my friends at risk. Would it all be worth it? In that moment I just wanted my old dad back, someone I could go to for guidance.

  Well, there’s your answer, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said from under my bed. This is the only way you can have that again. Together, we can make the Elves fix it.

  Of course my ax was correct. The answer to whether this was worth going through with was right there in front of me in the form of the very reason I was agonizing over it all: my dad. All I wanted in the whole world was for him to be back to normal. And my plans (however dangerous they might be) could potentially lead to that. That was worth not only the risk of death and personal injury, but also the wrath likely to be caused by my once again directly ignoring the Council’s wishes.

  Part of me, as I was sitting there staring at my dad, afraid to speak to him, felt guilty and ungrateful. Just a few months ago, I thought I would never see him again at all. Having him back, even with a weird condition, was still better than losing a dad forever like Edwin had. And despite what everyone else thought of Locien Aldaron, I knew that Edwin had idolized him. He hadn’t been able to see the bad in him.

  Don’t get distracted, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter chimed in. What happened to your friend doesn’t matter anymore. Let me remind you that Locien is the reason your dad has become this shell of a man. Isn’t having this version of him around almost kind of worse than losing him forever? Edwin’s dad might be gone, but at least Edwin’s memories of him are untarnished. Whereas yours are being corrupted by the reality of what Trevor is now. No, you must go on with this plan. We must get to New Orleans and capture a high-ranking Elf. The Elves must either fix this or pay the price for what they’ve done.

  I still don’t know, I thought. I mean, maybe I should just be happy with what I have? Isn’t always wanting more than you already have Elven thinking?

  Go on, ask your dad what he thinks, then, the ax replied. See what he says.

  I knew this was a trick or test of some sort, but I also so badly wanted to ask my dad for his advice that I played along anyway.

  “I don’t know how far to take it, though,” I said to my dad.

  “Hmm?” he asked through a mouthful of meat.

  “What I believe in,” I said. “I stood my ground today, sure, but the Council still said no. I mean, I feel like there’s more I should do. I believe Stoney. I believe something terrible is happening in New Orleans, among other reasons to go. Can I really just do nothing about it?”

  My dad leaned back. His eyes began to glaze over and I almost groaned in despair knowing what was coming next. But to my surprise, he seemed to fight it off this time.

  “Greg, you know how I feel,” he said, as a rare moment of clarity pierced his eyes. “I’ve always supported doing what you believe is right. No matter what. As long as it’s for the benefit of more than just yourself.”

  See? the Bloodletter said smugly. He agrees with me.

  I nodded, equal parts relieved and terrified. My dad had essentially just given me his blessing. Which meant a lot of danger was potentially ahead of my friends and me—even though it was for the greater good.

  “Then again, there’s always this little Kernel of Truth,” my dad declared suddenly, losing his struggle to hold it off and going into full-gone mode. “Sometimes the best pieces of turkey are the ones at the bottom! Like that catfish! What was his name? Oh, yes, General Sherman. Don’t try to catch General Sherman when everything else you care about is on the line! I mean, forget about those weirdos in the bait shop . . .”

  Another reason to go, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter interjected, twisting a knife in my guts. This can’t keep happening. You need your real dad back. Plus, you’re forgetting about possibly finding Edwin. About foiling a nefarious and devastating Elven plot. It’s basically like your dad said before he lost his marbles again: This is what’s right and it’s for the benefit of everyone, not just for you.

  The Bloodletter was right, of course. He usually was. (At least in the times when he wasn’t suggesting that I cleave someone or something in two just for giggles.)

  “Okay, Dad,” I said as he continued to ramble on about a giant catfish named General Sherman. “Okay.” I stood up from the table. “Look, I have to go meet my friends in the Arena. Thank you for dinner.”

  I gave his shoulder a pat, but he barely noticed. He’d already moved on to advice about how to appropriately summon someone called Mr. Meeseeks.

  But there was no doubt he’d held it off just long enough to give me some real advice: to keep fighting for what I knew was right. No matter how crazy and dangerous that was going to be. And stopping the Elves’ plans, finding Edwin, and, most important of all, finding a cure for my dad was right.

  I just hoped my friends would view it the same way.

  * * *

  – –

  “Of course we’re in!” Ari said.

  “Yeah, what’d you think?” Glam added. “That we’d pass up a chance to tangle with a bunch of scheming Elves?!”

  “Thy wouldst be’est rendered a clotpole lest thy join!” Lake said.

  Froggy nodded at me silently, but I noticed his eyes were elsewhere.

  “I can’t go, of course,” Eagan said, before I could ask Froggy if anything was wrong. “But I will do everything I can to help from here, including making sure they keep treating Stoney well. And I’ll try to help cover your tracks once the Council finds out you’re gone. But . . . I can’t lie to them, you all know that, so they will figure it out eventually. Which means once you’re there, you’ll likely have a limited time to find these Elves and figure out what they’re up to.”

  I nodded.

  I’d just finished telling them all about what Stoney had told me. How the Elves were planning universal annihilation and how the Council had basically dismissed it as dumb Troll ramblings.

  Of course, I’d mostl
y left out the part about my dad. Or the fact that their leader might be Edwin (though I still hoped not, since it would mean his conscience was totally gone). I wasn’t even entirely sure myself why I omitted these factors from what I told my friends, but the Bloodletter had insisted it’d be better that way. That it would be more pure to the cause to focus on what was more important to the world and not on what was important to me.

  Don’t use your own inner turmoil to manipulate them, he’d said. Focus on the larger issues, the things that will help everyone. Like preventing these dastardly Elves from initiating their cruel plans, whatever they may be. You and I alone, once there, will deal with finding a fix for your dad.

  To be honest, I never really doubted that my friends would join. Not after the way they’d all jumped in and risked their lives to help me save my dad a few months ago. Back then we hadn’t even known each other that well, and they’d still come along without hesitation.

  “How will we get there?” Glam asked. “Isn’t New Orleans, like, really far away? I’ve never been on a plane before.”

  “Me neither,” Ari said.

  “None of us have,” Eagan said.

  “We can’t fly,” I said.

  “Wherefore not?” Lake asked, looking disappointed.

  “Because the TSA probably won’t allow a bunch of kids traveling alone to check several hockey bags stuffed with swords and axes and other weapons on a plane,” I said. “So we will take the train. I took the train to Seattle once with my dad when I was eight and they didn’t even glance at our bags or wonder what was in them.”

  “There’s still a money issue, though,” Eagan said. “I assume that five round-trip train tickets from here to New Orleans are going to cost a lot.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said with a grin. “I’ve got it covered.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Grootock Shatterbuckle’s Tuitions of Article Impermanence

  So, on Monday, I sold some poop to get the tickets.

  Of course, to the guy working at the shady pawnshop around the corner from the Cronenberg’s Offal Delicatessen and Rotary Telephone Repair Shop storefront (aka the Underground’s secret front entrance), it wasn’t Troll poop I was selling, but a handful of uncut diamonds. At first he didn’t think they were real. And once he realized they were, he became extremely suspicious, asking all sorts of questions about where I got them.

  But there’s a reason I chose a seedy pawnshop. Well, two reasons, actually:

  It was literally around the corner (less than a block) from the Underground’s entrance.

  I’d watched a lot of movies in my life growing up in the modern world, and in pretty much every crime movie ever made you could say something like this at a seedy pawnshop and they won’t call the cops:

  “Look, guy,” I said. “What do you care where I got them? They’re uncut, which means unregistered. And all I’m asking for is ten grand in cash money. I don’t know a lot about jewelry, but I know these diamonds are worth a lot more than that. So if you want to ask so many questions that I have to walk away and take this deal with me, then by all means keep asking.”

  At that point the shopkeep opened his safe without another word and placed one neatly bundled stack of hundred-dollar bills on the counter. I pulled the cash toward me as he scooped the small pile of diamonds into a black velvet pouch.

  We exchanged a single nod and then I was out the door.

  My friends were anxiously waiting for me in an alley down the street.

  Glam had her arms folded across her chest (she’d been convinced this wouldn’t work—then again, she hadn’t even known what a pawnshop was). Lake looked nervous but excited, his feet shuffling constantly on the rough alley pavement. Froggy was leaning against the wall with his earbuds in, looking down, silently mouthing the words to a song. Ari grinned as soon as she saw me—she could read me that well now.

  “It actually worked?” she asked.

  “Of course it did,” I said, trying to play it like I had always thought it would work.

  I held up the thick stack of cash.

  “Holy Gnarlarg’s Horn, that’s a lot of cringleback!” Glam shouted, drawing the interest of several pedestrians across the street. “What are we going to do with all that kablingy?”

  I quickly put the cash into my backpack and motioned for them to follow me quietly.

  “Well, for one, let’s try not to draw attention to the fact that we’re carrying that much money,” I whispered as we walked.

  “Sorry,” Glam said sheepishly.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “But now we just need to get back to the Underground to get our gear. We have a train to catch!”

  * * *

  – –

  The five of us shared three adjacent sleeper cars on an Amtrak train bound for New Orleans.

  I could tell you all about how we made it happen, but to be honest it’s not that exciting. So I’ll keep it short:

  We packed up our weapons.

  We told our parents we were going to the Arena, then all sleeping over at Eagan’s.

  By the time they realized we were gone it’d be too late to catch us.

  Eagan would anonymously deliver a note to our parents that revealed we were safe, but on a world-saving mission, and would be fully ready to deal with the consequences when we got back.

  I paid for the tickets in cash at Union Station.

  We didn’t get the sleeper cars because we liked to travel in style or anything (they’re apparently like the first class of train travel), but rather because the extra privacy meant we could talk about Dwarf- and magic- and Monster- and Elf-related stuff during the nineteen-hour train ride without turning too many heads.

  Somewhere around the Kentucky-Tennessee border, at close to three in the morning, Lake, Ari, and Froggy were fast asleep in the other two cars, leaving just Glam and myself awake in the third. She was sitting up on the top bunk with a reading light on and an ancient tome spread out across her lap. I lounged on a built-in chair next to the bottom bunk, trying to keep my mind off how insane and dangerous this whole sneaking-off-to-New-Orleans-to-face-off-against-a-mysterious-Elven-army thing was.

  Would it be a whole army, or just a few Elves? Would they have monsters on their side, like what we Dwarves were trying to do with our MPMs? They’d almost certainly have more Yysterious (what the Elves called Galdervatn) than they did the last time we’d faced them—which meant we’d no longer have the magic advantage. Or maybe they wouldn’t even be there at all? Maybe Stoney was wrong, or perhaps they’d already moved on in the weeks since his escape? And even if it was just a small faction, we’d almost certainly be outnumbered, outgunned, and outmatched. But at a certain point, thinking about it any further might have scared me into calling the whole thing off, so I decided to look for a distraction.

  “What are you reading?” I eventually asked Glam, shifting on my bed so I could see her.

  Honestly, Glam never struck me as the type who liked to read in her spare time. I sort of figured she spent her recreational hours smashing apart antique wardrobes. Or crushing small animal bones in her palms.

  She looked up and grinned.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said.

  “Well, yeah, that’s why I asked.”

  Glam kept smiling.

  “It’s a second-edition Separate Earth Dwarven textbook recently found deep inside the Lion Cavern mines in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland,” she said. “It’s called Grootock Shatterbuckle’s Tuitions of Article Impermanence.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Basically, different techniques for efficiently destroying all manner of items.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I said.

  Glam frowned. For a second I was worried I’d actually offended her. But t
hen she shook her head casually.

  “I mean, if you must know, I’m reading this to prepare for our upcoming mission, since we have no idea what obstacles might lie ahead,” she said. “Not reading it for fun. That is what I brought for pleasure reading.” She nodded toward the small storage bin on the wall to her right.

  Stuffed inside the compartment was another old book. The title was etched in gold on the cover and practically shone right through the mesh netting holding it in place.

  Ten Romantic Tales of Fairy Love, Adoringly Lost and Dreamily Found

  By Sugarfancy Snowflake

  “Sugarfancy Snowflake?” I asked.

  That didn’t sound like any Dwarven name I’d ever heard.

  “She was a Fairy,” Glam said. “And we think she was one of the very best romance writers of Separate Earth’s second late Romanticism Era.”

  “You’re into Fairy-romance books?” I asked, my voice cracking with outright astonishment. “Really?!”

  “Yeah, so?” Glam said with a defensive sneer. “Can’t a girl be into both smashing things and sweet, heartbreaking tales of Fairies falling in love?”

  “I—well—I mean—of course!”

  Glam laughed. “You’re especially cute when you get embarrassed.”

  I felt my face flushing.

  “So, um, why do you like smashing things anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “Since we brought it up.”

  “I don’t know, why do you like chess so much?”

  “Because I like games that make me think. Games that don’t involve luck. When playing chess, I can completely control my own destiny, win or lose. I’d rather lose by my own hand than win because I got lucky.”