The Curse of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  After eating, I spent my quiet isolation trying to ignore my growling stomach and growing concern for my friends and ax. What if they hadn’t made it out of the cemetery alive? Maybe Edwin had captured them as well, but had not spared their lives? Maybe I had it all wrong and this wasn’t as bad as it looked? Maybe this was all a dream and I was still lying in the cemetery unconscious or worse?

  The maybes were enough to nearly drive me mad.

  * * *

  – –

  Edwin eventually came back like he said he would.

  It might have been twenty minutes or two hours after I ate. One thing I was finding out was that being alone in a small cell warped your sense of time.

  Edwin arrived flanked by two armed guards.

  “If I let you out and we go for a walk, can I assume you won’t try anything?” he asked. “Or do I need to get the shackles?”

  His blue eyes were like sparkling gems as they stared at me.

  I was surprised I wasn’t more upset that my friend had just suggested putting me in restraints like some kind of violent criminal. But then again, it was hard to blame him. In his mind I was probably still the rogue Dwarf willing to stop at nothing to help his friends and family, even to the point that it might cause injury (or in the case of his parents: death) to anyone who got in my way.

  If I were him, I’d be wary of not using restraints, too.

  I shook my head to say that I wouldn’t try anything, and I meant it. I still didn’t even know where I was. Plus, I was unarmed and groggy, with a massive headache and having eaten no meat for the past day, at least. I was in no shape or condition to take on four armed Elven guards (at a minimum).

  Edwin must have sensed my sincerity because he nodded and motioned for the cell to be opened. There was an echoing electronic buzz off in the distance and the lock opened with a metallic clang. The cell door slid open, grinding and creaking on old metal hinges.

  “Come on, then,” Edwin said.

  I followed him down a cellblock filled with empty cells that were likely at least a hundred years old. We went up a metal staircase, Edwin still not saying anything. The guards stayed behind us at least ten or fifteen feet, but they were always there, watching me.

  Finally we emerged onto a concrete patio (of sorts), bright with sunlight. I instantly smelled the briny salt water of an ocean or sea as my eyes adjusted to the light. Across a large, sparkling body of water, the skyline of a city loomed on the opposite shore, built along sprawling hills with a modern, shiny downtown at the tip of a peninsula. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it right away. I looked around us at the prison complex, every bit as ancient looking on the outside as it was on the inside. Below us, a rocky shore was being bombarded by frothy waves. To my right loomed a massive reddish-orange bridge with a limitless ocean behind it. I instantly recognized it from photos.

  The Golden Gate Bridge.

  Which meant the city across the bay was San Francisco.

  And that I was on Alcatraz Island.

  I’d never been here before, but it was probably America’s most famous prison. Plus, it had been featured in several action movies I’d seen alone in my living room on the many weekends my dad had been out of town hunting for magic. I didn’t know a whole lot about the prison, except that it was old, at least a hundred years, and also that it hadn’t been used as a prison in a long time—probably since the 1980s at least, and maybe even before that. My understanding was that it was now more like a museum, a tourist attraction. Edwin had once told me about it in sixth grade after his parents took him to some fancy, invite-only art exhibition that was held here.

  “Like my new fortress?” Edwin asked with a smirk.

  “How did you pull this off?” I asked, my mind reeling.

  How could anyone, let alone a kid, gain total control of a huge prison and one of the country’s most famous historical landmarks?

  “As you know, I was the sole inheritor of my parents’ vast fortune,” Edwin said. “And everything has a price. Especially with the world slowly descending into chaos. The seams of organized society are barely holding together anymore, Greg. It’s really quite frightening.”

  I nodded. On that much we still very much agreed.

  But the real question remained: Was Edwin partially responsible for that? Was he really planning something to accelerate the destruction of the modern world? Or was there still hope that we could team up (like we once would have) to try to fix all of this? I desperately wanted to ask him these questions, but figured I might get more out of him if I didn’t immediately initiate an interrogation. After all, I was his prisoner and so he technically had all the power. If he really was that evil, then I was perhaps lucky to be alive at all. Especially if he still was bitter and vengeful about what happened the last time I saw him.

  We both leaned against a railing and looked out across the bay at the sprawling city that was the heart of the modern technological age. A heart that would very soon stop beating entirely—when magic came all the way back. The rolling blackouts happening more frequently around the world had pretty much proven that one of the Dwarves’ theories about the effects of magic was correct: It would end technology as we knew it. All electronics, all machines, anything with moving parts powered by a battery or by fuel would cease to function in the New Magical Age.

  “You seem . . .” I started, but then stopped. Edwin looked at me out of the corner of one eye. “I’m surprised you’re still not angry with me is all.”

  I remembered the look he’d given me back on Navy Pier several months ago. That searing look of hatred. Betrayal. In his mind, I had ruined his whole life. And in a way, I supposed that was true. Every time I thought about what had happened back then, my stomach burned like it was on fire.

  “Time helps,” Edwin said. “When things threaten to tear your world down you can sit back and let them, or get up and rebuild it. We have to move on from tragedy, not wallow in it.”

  “You always did have the heart of a poet,” I joked.

  “Shut up, you Gwint,” Edwin said, but he was smirking. “Or, I guess I’m not allowed to call you that anymore, am I? Not if we’re to keep things civil. Which is very much what I want. After all, I never did know it was as insulting a term as it is.”

  And in that moment, I believed him. Looking at his playful smile, it even almost felt like old times again. Like I wasn’t his prisoner. Like we were still best friends. But then his smile faded and the emptiness in his expression made me wonder if it had ever really been there at all.

  “I’m still plenty angry, though, Greg,” he admitted. “We’re not even yet. But I realize now that you never wanted that to happen. You didn’t want my parents to die. Of course, that still doesn’t change the fact that they did. Even so, I’m not such a vile creature, as many Dwarves believe, that I mean to harm you. In fact, quite the opposite. Elves are misunderstood. Well, most of us, anyway. And I want you to realize this, to see the truth, before I go forward with my plan to save the world. Because from a certain point of view, it will seem like we’re the bad guys. But that’s not the case. And it will be easier for you to recognize that here and now, before the chaos really hits.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, the sunlight pounding into my throbbing head like a hammer. “What plan to save the world?”

  Edwin smiled and shook his head.

  “I’ve said too much already,” he said. “For now. But I just wanted you to know that I don’t intend to harm you. Your . . . imprisonment has more to do with your safety than with wanting to inflict any undue unpleasantness on you. Not that you don’t actually deserve some. But I’m not a vindictive person, Greg. You know that.”

  I sighed and looked down at the green-blue waves crashing into the rocks below me. He was right, he wasn’t. Edwin had never been the sort to hold a grudge. In fact, he’d been ma
ybe the most forgiving person I had met until everything went sideways.

  “Can you tell me what happened back in New Orleans?” I asked. “How did I get here? Are my friends okay? Why were Elves trying to capture the Moonwraith? What were you doing there?”

  I had so many questions.

  Aside from worrying about my friends and wondering why I had seen Elves fighting one another, I was still concerned about my dad. And now that I’d found Edwin, I hoped he might actually know how to help me. But I decided to hold back on that one for now. After all, it might be better to show Edwin that I could play along before I started asking for favors. Besides, I was technically still in captivity, so there wasn’t really much I could even do to help my dad at that moment anyway.

  “All good questions,” Edwin admitted, facing me. “Some are more complicated to answer. And I don’t have great answers to all of them. At least not yet. But I will tell you I’m afraid I don’t know what happened to your friends. I wasn’t actually in New Orleans myself. But my highest-ranking officer was, and he has been fully debriefed. I can only share with you what he saw: Your Dwarven companions were trying to retreat, but stayed behind looking for you. The last he saw them, they were still engaged in battle. But I must be off now—the rest we will discuss another time. I assume you’ll find your way back to the cell?”

  His eyes flicked toward the armed guards flanking the metal staircase. I looked at them and their swords, which were ready for anything.

  “You’re really just going to leave?” I asked, growing frustrated. “You can’t tell me where you’ve been or why I’m your prisoner? You really have better things to do?”

  “Actually, yes, I do,” Edwin said somewhat coldly. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand that right now. But once I can share more, you’ll realize just how dire a situation we’re all in. And you’ll know exactly why I have so much more to do than catch up with my former best friend. Now I’ll ask you again: Can you find your own way back to the cell? I don’t need to have you dragged there kicking and screaming, do I?”

  I shook my head slowly, stuck somewhere between anger and frustration. I couldn’t help it, but a small part of me wished I could just spend more time with him, that we could just hang out like old times. Back before I learned we were destined to be enemies.

  “Good,” Edwin said, then he slapped me on the shoulder. “This is all rather complicated for me, but I’m surprised how good it is to see you again. I look forward to talking more soon.”

  He spun on his heels and clanked down the stairs before I could answer. The guards looked at me, waiting patiently, apparently okay with me taking a few extra minutes outside in the fresh Bay air. This certainly wasn’t what I would have expected being an Elven prisoner to be like.

  As I looked back across the water toward the city, I found myself feeling oddly . . . happy. In spite of everything that was going on. And there really was only one explanation: Edwin was right—it was, though certainly complicated, truly good to see each other again. It felt like a tremendous weight had suddenly been lifted off me. Like I could finally breathe properly again for the first time in months.

  I hated that I felt that way.

  I wanted to be angrier with him. Between what happened back in Chicago and now, the reasons were endless. But none of that changed how nice it was to see him in person again, rather than just in my nightmares, where I repeatedly saw him drowning or dying, feeling betrayed and abandoned and hating his former best friend with all his soul.

  And despite being a Dwarf, despite being practically allergic to optimism, the happiness I reluctantly felt actually gave me real hope.

  CHAPTER 28

  If Only This Was a Generic Superhero Movie

  The next day, Edwin surprised me by showing up at my cell with lunch and a chess set.

  “For old times’ sake?” he asked.

  The guards brought in a small folding table and two chairs. As Edwin set up the game, I ate my lunch: three greasy hamburgers from a local fast food chain called In-N-Out. They were no Chicago burgers (Chicago was quietly the best at hamburgers), but I had to admit they were pretty darn good. Though, to be fair, probably the only way to make a hamburger that didn’t taste good would be to use fake meat.

  “It’s been a while,” I said, looking over the game board, struggling to make my first move, “since I played someone good.”

  I was black, and his first move had caught me off guard. It was an opening he’d never used before, and was not one of the four standard openers that almost all good players used as white.

  “Yeah, me too,” Edwin said. “I haven’t played at all since our last game. There hasn’t exactly been a lot of time for chess. It’s not easy trying to reassemble an entire Elven society.”

  I nodded and quietly made my first move. I wanted to forget about what had happened and pretend that we were still just friends, but it seemed like everything we said connected back to his parents’ deaths in one way or another. It didn’t help when he brought it up directly like he did several moves into the game.

  “They never found their bodies, you know,” he said. “My parents. We never found their bodies in the rubble.”

  My heart skipped a few beats. I think he knew I didn’t want to talk about them and was only doing it to make me uncomfortable. To make me feel some of his pain. But then again, I already did. Seeing him the day before had cemented just how bad I still felt about what had happened. I never actually wanted to do anything to harm Edwin. Even now.

  “How can you be sure they died, then?” I asked.

  “You think they would just disappear voluntarily and leave their whole empire, everything they worked their whole lives for, in utter chaos and ruin?” Edwin asked. “You know them better than that. There was nothing my parents loved more than their Elven and business empires. Maybe not even me, as hard as that is to admit now.”

  I nodded.

  Edwin was right: His parents cared more about their money and power than anyone or anything. Running off and giving it all up wouldn’t make any sense.

  “I called off the search early,” Edwin admitted. “For one thing, there was too much to do to devote that many resources to finding them. Keeping the whole thing covered up from the Human public was difficult enough. But I think, deep down, part of me also didn’t want them to be found. It would have made me have to face the truth.”

  It struck me then that Edwin suddenly seemed a lot older than fourteen. It was almost as if he had aged a decade in the three months since I’d seen him, even though just one birthday had passed. Perhaps losing your parents and having a whole race of people (not just any people, but rich, important, and influential people) suddenly thrust under your reign had a way of making you grow up quickly. After all, even though my friends and I still liked to spend our free time playing games and joking around, once you start getting assigned missions to confront literal monsters, you have to leave at least some of that carefree fun behind you forever.

  There was nothing I could say back to Edwin’s revelation about his parents and so we just played chess in silence for a while. He was definitely playing differently than he ever had before, making bold, seemingly illogical moves that didn’t follow the book lines at all. For one thing, Edwin had moved his king out to the middle of the board by the tenth move, which is usually suicide in chess (not just suicide but basically universally unheard-of—even among total amateurs). But despite this apparent blunder, I was only up by two pawns by the time his king was tucked safely behind a rook and a bishop clear on the other side of the board.

  “What are you up to, Edwin?” I asked.

  “Hey, just because I haven’t played in a while doesn’t mean I’m going to give away my strategy!” he said.

  “No, I mean out here, on Alcatraz,” I said. “Dwarves . . . I mean, all we’re doing is spending every waking minute trying to protect Humans and
the earth from the coming chaos, from the monsters that have already come back. What have you been up to here? You said yesterday you wanted to save the world, but—”

  “I do,” he cut me off. “And I will.”

  “Then help us,” I pleaded, finally feeling comfortable enough to extend my version of an olive branch. “Let’s join forces and work together to pacify the returning creatures of magic. To keep them from causing too much harm.”

  Edwin shook his head dismissively.

  “No, it would never work,” he said confidently. “The natural conflict that would arise while trying to work together would only distract all of us from the end goal. Besides, what you guys are doing, your so-called Monster Pacification Missions, are shortsighted solutions to a much-larger problem. It’s like trying to fix a leaky roof with a bucket. Sure you’ll keep the floor dry for a while, but it won’t fix the actual hole the water is leaking through—a hole that will only get worse in time. When magic finally fully bursts forth, no number of trained Dwarves or Elves in the world will be able to stop the monsters from wreaking havoc. Pacifying monsters now is all well and good in small doses, but it’s ultimately doing nothing to solve the larger problem. I want to actually fix the roof. Replace it altogether—make it even better than it was before.”

  “Oh, so you have some genius plan that will just make everything all better?” I asked.

  “I do, actually,” Edwin said. “And that’s what I’m working on out here. And I’m close. Very close. There’s just a—well, a few complications we need to take care of first.”

  “So what’s this plan?” I asked.

  “Easy: I’m going to strip the world of all magic once again,” Edwin said. “Just like the Fairies did long ago. Things will go back to how they were before your dad found the leaking Yysterious—or Galdervatn, as you guys call it.”

  “But that’s not even possible,” I nearly shouted in disbelief. “It’s coming back, we see more signs of that every day. It’s seeping up through cracks in the earth like natural gas or something. It can’t be stopped.”