The Rise of Greg

by Chris Rylander

I couldn’t tell how sarcastic she was being and so I merely nodded, my head still spinning from having literally just been tumbled about inside a tornado for the better part of what felt like an hour.

  “What now?” Ari asked, treading water. “How will we find the Bloodletter?”

  “I suppose I could just ask him where he’s at,” I said, “if we’re close enough . . .”

  You don’t even need to be close to me right now to speak to me. The Bloodletter’s voice suddenly filled my head.

  Huh? I thought back. Is it really you this time?

  I’d basically concluded that the last few times I’d heard his voice back in the Sea of Okhotsk, I had been hallucinating.

  Of course it’s really me! he snapped. And it was the last time, too. You mean to tell me you still haven’t figured it out?

  Um, I guess not?

  The Bloodletter sighed loudly inside my head.

  What do the last few times we spoke have in common? he asked.

  I thought about it for a second, still so disoriented from traveling via tornado that I couldn’t possibly imagine what he might be getting at. At least, that is, until I accidentally swallowed a gulp of salty water and realized the answer was obvious.

  I was in water, I finally replied.

  That’s right! the Bloodletter said. Water is a natural conduit for magical telepathy. So even halfway around the world, we can still be linked. Which means I really did witness your blundering attempts to save yourself off the coast of Russia.

  “What’s wrong, Greg?” Ari interjected.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re just sort of staring off into space.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, treading water, my clothes feeling heavy. “I’m talking to the ax now . . . well, telepathically talking, anyway.”

  Ari nodded.

  “Okay, but please hurry,” she said. “I’ve got a bad feeling there are more than just fish, dolphins, and small, harmless sharks in these waters now that magic is back.”

  I nodded and returned to my thoughtversation with the Bloodletter.

  Where are you, Carl?

  Oh, so now you’ve come crawling back, eh? he sneered. And I suppose you just expect me to forgive you for what you did?

  No, I don’t expect anything, but I’m hoping you will forgive me anyway, I thought. I was wrong; I admit that now. Your power scared me, but I realize now that you were right. That I still needed you. That we weren’t finished yet, fulfilling our destiny and all.

  Of course, I still wasn’t sure I believed in destiny, but I was trying to get my ax back, and so I was saying what I thought he needed to hear. As much as I could without outright lying, that is.*

  Good, he said. Not what you just said, but that you’re not expecting forgiveness. Because you won’t get it!

  That’s fair, I admitted. But can you at least tell me where you are? So we can talk, uh, face-to-face?

  I’m still at the bottom of the sea, right where you threw me away! he shouted angrily in my brain. I’m an ax with no fins, arms, or legs. How could I be anywhere else, you dolt?

  He was right, but I still didn’t think name-calling was necessary.

  “He says he’s still right where we left him,” I said to Ari. “Do you remember where we were?”

  Don’t you mean “DUMPED”? the Bloodletter interjected. I did my best to ignore him. You abandoned me, threw me away like garbage, tossed me overboard like a dead body, discarded me like rubbish, deserted, forsook, ditched, rejected, disowned . . .

  “Ummm . . .” Ari said as she swam around in a circle, looking at the noticeable landmarks: the Golden Gate Bridge (lined with hundreds of dead, abandoned vehicles), Alcatraz (topped with scorched piles of rubble from the Elven battle), and the eerily dark San Francisco skyline (dotted with small fires burning inside several office buildings and houses). “I think it was over that way.”

  She pointed to a spot closer to the shore along the city—a spot somewhere between Alcatraz and the place where our boat had eventually made landfall shortly after we’d ditched my ax.

  I nodded, and we began swimming in that direction.

  Using magic to aid us, we swam at Olympic-record-shattering speed. But even still, finding an ax at the bottom of a bay, hundreds of feet deep in some places, in the relative darkness of the coming dusk, was going to be nearly impossible without the Bloodletter’s assistance.

  Please help me find you, Carl, I thought as we swam.

  No. And I hope you drown looking for me.

  Come on, you don’t mean that.

  I do, Greggdroule. I really do.

  “I think we’re roughly there, Greg,” Ari said, stopping to tread water. “But unless we know exactly where to dive down, we’ll never find it.”

  “I know. I’m trying,” I said.

  “I’m going to start looking,” she said, pulling free her dagger.

  The blade began glowing* and Ari dove under the surface, using the illuminated knife as a sort of flashlight. Watching her descend slowly into the darkness, I knew that even with magic to help us swim, to help equalize the pressure of the deep, and to help us breathe, it might take hours, even days, to find the ax.

  I had to think of another angle.

  What did the Bloodletter want more anything?

  What could I use to get him excited?

  The answer was easy. It was the very same thing that had made me want to get rid of him in the first place: power.

  My ax craved power—he was a tool created purely for destruction, after all.

  I have the Corurak Rune, I thought. YOUR Rune. If you tell me where you are, I can finally reunite the two of you.

  At first I took his long silence for confusion, or perhaps more anger. But when he finally “spoke” again, I realized what the silence had really been: reluctantly excited awe.

  It can’t be, he said. You’re lying.

  Dwarves don’t lie, remember?

  Greggdroule, don’t be silly. Everyone lies, even Dwarves.

  Okay, fine, I gave in. But I’m not lying now. I have the Corurak in my pocket. The same stone you were custom designed for. You know, I’d always just thought that small indentation near the junction of your shoulder and your langet was purely decorative. But now I know better. Now I know what really belongs there. Surely you can feel its presence.

  There was another pause and then: Where did you find it? It has been missing for so long, I assumed it had been destroyed.

  It doesn’t matter, I said. What matters is you can be together again, after all these years, if you simply help me find you.

  There was another long silence while the ax debated what to do. But I think we both knew that an ax that craved power above all else wouldn’t be able to resist a reunion with a magical, enchanted stone that supposedly amplified its power exponentially.

  Okay, fine, the Bloodletter finally said. But this doesn’t mean I have forgiven you.

  Fair enough, I thought back, just as Ari finally resurfaced.

  “It’s no use, Greg,” she said. “You can barely see anything down there, even with magical light. We’ll never find it.”

  “It’s okay, he’s going to help now.”

  I will guide you toward me, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said. Start swimming toward the bridge and go deep.

  “Stay with me,” I said to Ari. “I’ll need your dagger’s light to see.”

  She nodded and followed as I dove down, swimming toward the bridge and the bottom of the bay.

  As we swam, I finally saw what Ari had meant. Though her dagger shone quite brightly with magical luminescence, the water itself was murky, cloudy, dark, and full of algae. No matter how bright the light, visibility was only ten or twelve feet at most.

  But the Bloodletter continued guiding me, telling me when to turn slightly r
ight or left as we swam deeper and deeper into the depths of the bay with the aid of magic. Finally, at about seventy feet deep, I saw the bottom below us, gently sloping deeper as it ran toward the bridge.

  Keep going, the Bloodletter hissed, sounding somewhat panicked. They’re coming for you now.

  Who is?

  Just hurry!

  I quickly motioned for Ari to keep an eye out, pointing two fingers at my eyes and then all around us. She nodded that she understood, and we continued swimming, descending farther toward the bottom at a rate that would have been impossible without Dwarven spells helping us along.

  Hurry, Greggdroule! the ax hissed again, sounding terrified. They’re almost to you now.

  Who is? I thought back. I don’t see anything!

  But then I did see something.

  Not a monster. Not a sea creature.

  I saw the Bloodletter.

  He was lying mostly buried in sand and silt just ahead of me in the darkness, perhaps another fifty or sixty feet away. Visibility had cleared somewhat this deep, closer to the bridge. But I still wouldn’t have been able to see the ax if it wasn’t glowing blue, illuminating the seaweed around it like neon tentacles.

  I see you! I said. I’m almost there!

  It’s too late, Greggdroule, he replied somberly. Defeated. They’ve found you.

  Who?! I screamed back in my mind.

  But there was no need to wait for a reply.

  The shapes of several Drenchers appeared in front of me, cutting off my view of the Bloodletter and the path to my weapon, which was now just ten agonizingly close feet away.

  All I saw now were gaunt, ghoulish faces, red glowing eyes, and thin pointy teeth.

  CHAPTER 40

  It All Checks Out: I’m About to Get Eaten Alive by Slimy Sea People

  Drenchers were pretty easy to recognize.

  We’d learned in Monsterology class that there were only four known humanoid creatures that dwelled in large bodies of water: Mermaids/Mermen, Sirens, Amphibanoids, and Drenchers.

  Real Mermaids and Mermen supposedly looked less like what you might have seen as a kid in the old cartoon The Little Mermaid, and more like an actual fish/Human hybrid should look—scalier and slimier. But they were still generally gentle and cautious, and avoided investigating intruders in the sea, let alone attacking them.

  Sirens technically lived in bodies of water, but though they were excellent swimmers, they spent most of their time flying above the surface of lakes or seas. Their attacks usually began from the air, where their horrifying screeches would incapacitate helpless victims nearby.

  Amphibanoids looked similar to the creatures closing in on me now, in that they were truly humanoid in shape—with two legs, two arms, and a head—and were covered in scales and had fins propped up by bony spikes. But they, like Mermaids and Mermen, were known to be shy and unaggressive. They did not have sharp teeth (instead they swallowed smaller prey whole, like a largemouth bass), nor did they have glowing red eyes or a desire to rip apart and eat a small Dwarf.

  Drenchers, however, had several distinct features, all of which I was seeing on my attackers: Red, bottomless eyes that never blinked and that dazed you into a motionless stupor if you looked directly into them?

  Check.

  Big, bony, scaly, grabby hands that clutched at your limbs and tried to drown you and tear you apart at the same time?

  Check.

  Feet that looked more like spiky flippers than anything resembling feet, which, when combined with their pliable, flexible leg bones, allowed them ridiculously nimble, quick, and precise swimming movements that could not be escaped?

  Check.

  Thin, pointy teeth that were brittle enough to break off, but long and sharp enough to pierce a heart, or pass all the way through your head before they snapped away from their gaping, fishy mouths?

  Check.

  Yep, definitely Drenchers.

  I knew from class that they always traveled in packs of twenty-four. Why twenty-four exactly? Well, nobody really knew, since as of the latest edition of our Monsterology textbook, the Drenchers’ language (a series of wails and clicks similar to those of both dolphins and whales, but more shrieky) had yet to be decoded or translated. Drenchers also usually conglomerated on one victim at a time, ensuring that they’d all have at least a small snack, rather than risk losing it all by each going after a separate feast and possibly losing a one-on-one battle with their prey.

  And given that I was being grabbed and pulled and ripped at by what felt like dozens of hands, it seemed I was their chosen prey, and not Ari.

  She must have recognized this. Instead of going for the ax, or fleeing in terror, Ari began chopping and hacking and slashing at the Drenchers with her dagger, trying to get them to come after her instead of me.

  I attempted to use magic to break free, but there were only a very limited number of offensive spells I could even try underwater, and the Drenchers seemed unaffected by all of them. Which wasn’t surprising, given that they lived in the sea. What could I do to manipulate the water around us that would bother them but not harm Ari in the process?

  Nothing.

  Blackout fell from my grasp almost as soon as the attack started, after a bony, sharp hand grabbed my arm. Then my biceps felt like it was on fire, as one of them dug its needle teeth into my flesh.

  Greggdroule, turn to stone! the Bloodletter screamed in my head.

  I instantly turned myself to granite, just seconds before the Drenchers’ sinewy muscles and greedy mouths would have literally torn me to shreds.

  Suddenly I was sinking. Like, well, like a rock, since, you know, that’s technically what I was at that moment.

  The Drenchers could no longer hold me up, and so they simply let me go.

  As I sank toward the seafloor, I saw the Drenchers’ confused faces above me, forty-eight red eyes framed by shadowy, spiky fins in the darkness. They had surely never seen a Dwarf turn to stone, and it completely bewildered them. That was another thing I remembered about Drenchers from class: they were barely smarter than most fish. Yes, they had a language, and yes, they were debatably self-aware, but that was about the extent of it, as far as the ancient Dwarven zoologists who first studied them could tell.

  Drenchers operated mostly on the predatory instinct of survival.

  Which, in this instance, caused all twenty-four heads to turn around in unison, and fix their hungry stares on Ari.

  Turn to stone, Ari! I thought.

  But unlike the Bloodletter and I, Ari and I did not share a telepathic link. And so she did not hear me as she turned and began swimming furiously away. But she wouldn’t need to hear me to know what to do. Ari was objectively a lot smarter than me. So why was she trying to outswim these things instead of merely turning to stone like I had? She had to know that, even with magic, she stood no chance of getting away from such agile and fast swimmers.

  Ari took one last desperate look back at me as she swam out of visibility with a whole pack of Drenchers right behind her.

  And I knew then, as the glowing light from her dagger suddenly blinked out in the distance and left me in total darkness, why she had fled instead of turning to stone. She was leading them away from me, creating a diversion, so I could get the Bloodletter and make my escape.

  Ari was trying to sacrifice herself for the mission.

  You’re purbogging right she is! the Bloodletter confirmed. Now turn back into a Dwarf and get over here and get me off the seafloor so her death is not in vain!

  CHAPTER 41

  A Massive Larenuf Is Held to Celebrate the Resurrection of the Bloodletter

  The moment my hand closed around the Bloodletter’s handle, it felt like a part of me that had died was suddenly resurrected.

  Not just resurrected, but welcomed back to life with a massive festival, complete with a buffet o
f meats and cheeses and cakes, fruity drinks, live music, dancing, fair rides, and thousands of happy partiers in attendance. It was like the opposite of a funeral. An un-funeral. A Larenuf. Either way, it felt like a celebration was going on inside me even as the ax’s bloodthirsty ways, the very reasons I wanted to get rid of him to begin with, also flooded back.

  I was suddenly filled with anger, bitterness, and resentment over the amulet mission being a near total waste. Regret for having just handed over a weapon—whose power rivaled the Bloodletter’s—to Edwin, with no assurances he wouldn’t use it against me eventually. In fact, part of me was now longing for a final epic showdown between us, each with his race’s most powerful, legendary weapon.

  It was almost too perfect not to happen.

  A battle to end all battles.

  But I knew those weren’t my real thoughts. Whether the scenario was poetic or not, I truly didn’t have any desire to fight my former best friend. And I certainly didn’t want to fight him using a pair of weapons rumored to be so powerful that a clash between them would surely destroy everything and anything in between us, and all around us as well. I didn’t want to fight him, because I didn’t want to win. And with the Bloodletter in my hand again, I felt like I couldn’t lose.

  I pushed those unnatural thoughts to the side.

  Right then my only job was to save Ari.

  The ax coursed with energy, still glowing faintly blue as I heaved it up from the sand and silt on the sea floor. Brown clouds billowed around me, shrouding me in darkness as I kicked up and started swimming, needing magic to get off the bottom with a heavy ax now in my grasp.

  There’s no time to save her, he said. We need to get back to Chicago and help with the battle.

  There’s always time for my friends, I shot back.

  Is her life really worth more than all of those in a whole city?

  Argh! I actually said in my mind. I’m not leaving without Ari.

  I willed the ax to glow even brighter as I swam in what I thought was the general direction Ari had been heading when she created a diversion for me. I used magic to help propel me forward as quickly as possible, the osmosis breathing spell still keeping my blood oxygenated. At this depth, with the sun fully gone above us now, my glowing ax provided only ten feet of visibility. But I searched the murky depths around us anyway.