Realms of the Arcane

The Grotto of Dreams

It all started the day that I died.

I know. That doesn't seem like a terribly good way to begin a story. But it's the truth. The fact is, dying was the first really interesting thing that ever happened to me.

Not that it was an enjoyable experience. On the contrary, I can't think of anything more unpleasant. There's nothing more degrading than watching one's own body… well, degrade. Let's just say it's not an activity I would recommend to someone looking for a good time. There was only one consolation in dying-knowing I would never have to do it again.

At least, that's what I always thought. But that was before I met Aliree, before we went looking for the Grotto of Dreams, and before I learned there's only one thing harder than gaining your greatest desire, and that's giving it up.

That day began like any other day in Undermountain: a cockatrice tried to sit on me.

That's one of the problems with being just a skull, even an enchanted one. Sometimes you get mistaken for an egg. And believe me, you can be hatched by better things than a cockatrice. Part bird, part bat, part lizard, and all repulsive. Imagine a turkey from the Abyss. And did I mention dumb? But I suppose that's what I get for making my home in a mad wizard's dungeon, and there's no wizard madder than Halaster Blackcloak.

Wait a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I go any further, I need to explain how I got here in the first place, how I ended up down here in the underground labyrinth that is Undermountain.

It was all Gillar's fault.

Then again, everything that was bad in the world was Gillar's fault. Or at least it was the fault of people like Gillar, and since he lived just down the street from my hovel, in the Dock Ward of Waterdeep, he was a convenient target. I focused my proselytizing energies on him.

I was a priest at the time, a disciple of Lathandar, god of the dawn. Gillar was a wizard, and as evil as they come. Oil and water would have been a more natural mixture.

I would often wait for him outside his tower.

"Good morning, Gillar," I would say as he stepped out of the tower's door, black-robed, pale-faced, and scowling. Mind you, I wasn't a skull then, but a living man, young and rather good-looking, if I do say so myself. "Did you know that the evil magics you work are going to doom your spirit to eternal torment after you die?"

I would start to expound on this topic, but he would wiggle his fingers, and at that point toads would rain down from the sky. It's surprisingly hard to concentrate when toads are falling on you. Once I had shaken the creatures from my robes, and wiped away the worst part of the slime, I would jog down the street and catch up with the wizard.

"It's not too late to recant your dark ways, Gillar," I would say in earnest. "But don't wait too long. Remember, death could be waiting around any corner."

"I can only hope so in your case," he would snap.

Here he usually muttered a few queer words, and after that I would be distracted for a while as I hopped in circles and beat at the patches of flame that danced on my robes. By the time I put the fires out, Gillar was always gone. There was nothing to do but wander back to my humble hovel, mend my garb, and wait until the next morning.

Then one day, in a vision I'm certain was sent by my god, it came to me.

The next morning I shook away the toads and, as usual, followed after Gillar. This time when the flames appeared on my robe, they flickered for a moment, then vanished in tiny puffs of steam. I had soaked my robe in a bucket of water before donning it that day, and it was still sopping wet. Pleased with my own cleverness, I closed in on my quarry.

"If you make amends now, you needn't fear dying, Gillar," I told him in righteous glee.

His eyes narrowed. "And you are not afraid to die?"

I shook my head fervently. "Not at all. I know that in death I will find peace in the company of Lathandar."

'Truly?" he sneered. "Is that what you believe?"

"Yes," I said with perfect confidence.

All at once he laughed. It was a chilling sound. "We shall see," he said. "We shall see." Then he wiggled his fingers and muttered queer words. I braced my shoulders, expecting something unpleasant to fall on me, but nothing did. All I felt was an odd tingling, then nothing at all.

"Enjoy your afterlife, Muragh Brilstagg," he said, and that didn't make sense. I don't mean the second part, since Muragh Brilstagg was indeed my name, but the first. Why would he wish me a happy afterlife? Then it hit me. Maybe I was getting to him, maybe he was starting to believe in the goodness of Lathandar as I did. I decided this was more than enough progress for one day, and I smiled as I watched Gillar walk away.

My confidence bolstered by what I had interpreted as my victory over Gillar, that evening I decided to take my mission to a local tavern and spread the word of Lathandar there. The Sign of the Bent Nail was a rough and unsavory place. But if I could get my message through to an evil wizard like Gillar, certainly I could convert a few ne'er-do-wells and drunkards.

I approached a likely looking fellow at the bar, a very large man with very small eyes.

"Good evening," I said in my most cheerful voice.

"Did you know that carousing and drinking will consign your spirit to everlasting torture in the Abyss?"

He bared his filed-down teeth in a grin. "No," he said. "Did you know that my dagger is sticking in your heart?"

"No," I said. "Thanks for letting me know."

That was when I died.

It was a strange sensation. I had always thought death would be black and silent at first, and then there would be a great light, and I would find myself in a spring garden at dawn, the abode of my god, Lathandar. Instead I found myself being hauled out the back door of the tavern, into a stinking alley, and thrown atop a garbage heap.

There had been a moment of bright pain when I looked down and saw the dagger protruding from my chest, but that had passed quickly enough. Now I felt only a numbness that was somehow more disturbing than any pain. I was aware of the heavy weight of my body, but I could not feel it, could not move it. It seemed that my eyes no longer worked as they had, and yet somehow I could still sense my surroundings. Unable to do anything else, I lay there while my corpse cooled and stiffened. It was not long before I heard the first scrabbling sounds in the rubbish. Then the rats found me.

It was at that moment I finally realized the truth of Gillar's odd words, and the implication of the spell he had cast upon me. No, not spell, but curse. Even though I was dead, my spirit had not been allowed to fly from my body. I would never see dawn in the garden of my god. Instead I was doomed to dwell, conscious, in the lifeless husk of my mortal body. Forever. I would have cried then, but dead men can't shed tears.

I won't tire you with all the tedious details of my decomposition. For nearly a week I lay on the garbage heap. It did not hurt when the rats gnawed at me. Yet all the same it filled me with a sensation so vile that, had I been alive, I certainly would have never stopped puking.

As it turned out, the rats actually did me a service. For I found that, once my bones were free of the decomposing flesh, I was able to move my jaw and even speak aloud, though my voice, once warm with life, was now thin and reedy. Had Gillar planned this? Somehow I didn't think so. His magic must have had effects even he did not guess. New hope filled me then.

"Help!" I called out. "Please! Somebody help me!"

Little did I know it, but that was the beginning of my journey into Undermountain.

Before long, a drunken soldier heard my call for aid. Unfortunately, soldiers are a notoriously superstitious lot, and he mistook me for the ghost of someone he had killed in war, come back to torment him. He hacked my head from my body and tossed it into Waterdeep Harbor.

Just a skull at that point, I drifted in the brine for a while and soon lost the last bits of my flesh to the local eels. Then the merpeople who live in the harbor found me and kindly took me to a duty-wizard of the Water-deep Watch, one Thandalon Holmeir.

Thandalon was a nice enough fellow, and he set me to keeping watch over his spell library. Only, soon after, thieves broke in, and instead of stealing Thandalon's spellbooks, they stole me, then fled into the deepest sewers beneath Waterdeep. I never saw the thing that got them. It was big, and dark, and didn't rise fully from the foul water, but it sucked each of them under and crunched them to bits.

In turn, the current swept me away. I tumbled down a drain, and fell deeper and deeper until finally I found myself here, in these endless tunnels far beneath Mount Waterdeep. Undermountain. Maze of the Mad Wizard, Halaster Blackcloak. And here I've been ever since.

The cockatrice gave a gurgling hiss. I think it was supposed to be an affectionate sound, but if I'd still had skin, it no doubt would have crawled. The creature spread its leathery bat wings and started to lower its scaly backside onto my cranium. Maybe I didn't have flesh anymore, but I still had teeth. I bit its rump. Hard.

The thing let out a squawk that would have made a banshee wince, then sprang away. I started to laugh in satisfaction, but one of the fleeing creature's wings struck me and batted me backward. Before I knew it, I was rolling.

That's another problem with being just a skull. Once you're rolling, it's extremely difficult to stop.

"Wait!" I shouted to the cockatrice. "Come back!"

The thing only glared with its beady eyes. Apparently it had decided I was not a very nice egg.

I rolled out the door of the chamber in which I had been minding my own business until the cockatrice came along, then tumbled down the steep incline of a rough passage. A moment later I hit the staircase.

Yes, skulls do bounce. However, we do not enjoy it.

Each time I struck one of the hard stone steps, it was like an explosion. Then the staircase ended, and I was rolling again. A second later I saw it, yawning like a toothy mouth: a crack ran across the corridor from side to side. It wasn't very large. A living man could have easily stepped over it. But it was just wide enough to accommodate a runaway skull.

Down, I have learned over the years, is the one direction in Undermountain you don't want to go. The deeper you go in this maze, the nastier things get. And going back up is always a hundred times harder. I clattered down the narrow crevice and clenched my jaw. What would I strike at the bottom? A bubbling black pudding, ready to dissolve me? A blazing circle of fire newts? The crushing mandibles of a carrion crawler?

All at once the crevice ended. For a moment I fell through dark air, then I landed on something…

… cushiony and warm?

"Oh!" a soft voice gasped.

I couldn't see anything, just darkness. All at once two hands lifted me up. Something had captured me, had me in its clutches! But what? Some slavering beast, ready to grind me to bone meal? Then the hands turned me-gently-around. I clacked my teeth in surprise.

She was a half-elf, that much I saw right away. The fine cheekbones, the tilted brown eyes, the ever-so-slightly pointed ears were all giveaways. Clad in a patched tunic, she sat on the stone floor of a shadowy chamber, her back to the wall. I had fallen into her lap, and it occurred to me then that I couldn't have imagined a better place to crash land.

Her smooth forehead crinkled in a frown as she studied me. "Now where did this come from?" she asked aloud.

"From up there!" I said cheerily. "Thanks for breaking my fall!"

Often when I first speak to people, they react strangely. It's as if they've never met a talking skull before. All right, I'll grant you, most of them likely never have. Still, it would be nice if they would at least feign a polite hello before they flung me down and ran away screaming. However, she did neither of these things, though her tilted eyes went wide in surprise.

"You can talk!"

"Yes," I said. "A lot, in fact."

She blinked in astonishment. "I thought I was the only one alive down here."

"And you still are."

I rattled my jaw for emphasis and expected a grimace of disgust to cross her pretty face. Instead she laughed, a sound as bright as chimes.

"Well," she said, "I'm not feeling very picky at the moment. I'll take any friend I can get in this place."

Her words filled me with a warm glow I hadn't known I was still capable of.

"I'm Aliree," she went on.

"My name is Muragh," I said. "Muragh Brilstagg."

She rested me on her knee and gazed into my empty orbits. "How did you get here, Muragh?"

"It's a long story," I said. I opened my mouth to begin recounting everything that had led me to this place, from Gillar onward. However, she gently but firmly held my jaw shut.

"I'm sorry, Muragh," she said. "I'm sure it's a fascinating tale. And I wish I could hear it, really. But I'm afraid I don't have time enough." Her fingers slipped from my jawbone.

I was disappointed, of course, but pleased nonetheless at her kind apology. 'That's all right," I said. "But do you mind if I ask what you're doing here? It's surprising, I know, but there aren't a great number of beautiful half-elven maidens down here in Undermountain."

Aliree laughed again, and this time the sound was a little sad somehow. "I'm not beautiful, Muragh." She waved my protests away with a hand. "No, it doesn't matter. Only one thing does now. I've come looking for something. Maybe you've heard of it. It's a place, a place called the-"

All at once she went stiff, and I slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. She clutched the wall with rigid fingers, her eyes pressed shut. It was hard to tell in the dark, but I think she was shaking.

I whistled the word softly through my teeth. "Aliree?"

After a moment her eyes fluttered open. Her body went limp, and she slumped against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Muragh," she said, her voice weary now. "You'd think by now I would be ready for it. But it comes so suddenly, and I never am."

She spoke a quiet word, and a soft light appeared in her cupped hand. In the glow, I could see her better, and I knew that her elven blood alone was not enough to explain her pale, slender appearance. Her fine bones traced sharp lines under her skin, and shadows hovered beneath her eyes.

It's hard for skulls to sigh, but I did. "How long have you been sick, Aliree?"

She glanced at me in startlement. "How did you know?"

"Dead people can see these things."

After a moment she nodded. "It's been a year now. There's something wrong with my blood. Sometimes it turns to fire in my veins."

"Haven't you been to any healers?"

Aliree shook her head. "A healer can't help what's wrong with me. You see, I wasn't always like this. I don't mean sick. I mean like this, a half-elf."

"I don't understand, Aliree. What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath. "I was born a full-blooded human, Muragh."

I could only stare at her. She gazed into the blue sphere of light in her hands and spoke in a quiet voice.

"All my life, I didn't belong. I always felt so ungainly, so dull, so mundane. Then one day I saw the riding party of an elf prince on the road to Waterdeep-all of them were so graceful, so bright, so joyous. I thought if only I could be more like them, then surely I would be happy. So after that I spent all my days studying magic. I pored over musty books and moldering scrolls until finally, one day, in a forgotten codex in the library of Waterdeep, I found the right spell and cast it on myself."

I hated to speak the words, but I had to. "Something went wrong, didn't it?"

Aliree sighed. "Not at first. The spell did make me partially elven, enough to pass for a half-elf, just as I had hoped. But the spell was a complicated one. Even a master wizard would have had difficulty casting it, and I was little more than a dabbler." She pressed her eyes shut. "After a month or so, the pain began. It's been getting worse ever since. That's why I came here."

"But why?" I asked. "Why would you want to come to a place like Undermountain?"

Four small words: "The Grotto of Dreams."

I let out a whistle between my front teeth. The Grotto of Dreams. I had heard those words before. Anyone who knocked around Undermountain long enough had. Stories told of a cave deep in the ground where once the goddess Lliira, Our Lady of Joy, slept for a time, and dreamt. It was said that the stones of the grotto still recalled the power of Lliira's dreams, and that anyone who found the cave and entered would know the joy of his or her greatest dream.

For a while I had even searched for the grotto myself. My dream? That inside I might live once more. True, even if the power of the cave would work, I would never be able to leave, for it is said that once one leaves, the dream of joy ends, and one can never again reenter the grotto. But I wouldn't have minded being stuck in a cave all my life. Not if I was alive again-truly and warmly alive.

None of that mattered. I had long ago given up on finding the grotto. Just like everyone did.

"The Grotto of Dreams is a myth, Aliree," I said.

She nodded. "Yes, Muragh, it is. But it's a true one."

I didn't want to hurt her feelings by openly disagreeing. "All right," I said. "Maybe it is. But even if the grotto did exist, you wouldn't be able to get there unless you had-"

From the satchel slung over her shoulder she pulled out a brittle parchment and unrolled it. If I had had eyes, they would have bulged.

"— a map!" I finished with a shout. I bounced up and down on the floor. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "You have a map to the Grotto of Dreams, Aliree? But how?"

She brushed a frail hand over the map. "My grandfather was a priest of Lliira years ago, in the city of Elturel. In a waking dream, sent by the goddess, he drew this map of tunnels that led to the grotto. Only he had no idea where in Faerun the tunnels were located, and he died without ever finding out. Ever since I was a child, I carried this map with me. It was just an heirloom, a reminder of my grandfather. Then, just a few days ago, I overheard some men in a tavern, a place called the Yawning Portal. The men were talking about a cave beneath the city." She locked her clear eyes on my empty sockets. "A cave where dreams came true."

"Well, what are you sitting around here for?" I asked in amazement. "Why haven't you gone to the grotto?"

"This is why."

She held up the map, then slowly spun it around. At last I understood the reason.

"There are no directions on the map!" I exclaimed.

"You don't know which way is north!"

She nodded. "I thought I might be able to find my way once I got here, but I was wrong. And now that I'm down here in Undermountain… I'm lost."

"Wait a minute." I worked my jaw and scraped closer to the map. "I recognize some of these rooms. Yes, that's the Hall of Many Pillars. And that's got to be the Hall of Mirrors." I spun in an excited circle. "Aliree! I know where we are on the map! I can get us to the Grotto of Dreams!" I paused then. "If you'll have me," I added in a small voice.

To my delight, for an answer, she scooped me up in her arms.

I enjoyed her embrace for just a moment. "What will your dream be, Aliree?" I asked then. 'To be healed?"

Aliree shut her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. "Do you know how long it's been since I've slept, Muragh? Truly, deeply slept?" She sighed. "I would give anything for the pain to be gone, just for a minute, just so I could sleep."

It's hard to say where it came from then, since I don't have a heart anymore, but a strange sensation welled up in me all the same, one of exhilaration and devotion. I let out a sharp whistle, and Aliree opened her eyes. I hopped from her arms and rolled along the floor.

"Come on, Aliree," I piped cheerfully. "Let's go find our dreams!"

She grinned, and though the expression was wan, it was beautiful as well. With careful, brittle movements she rose to her feet, set the magical light on her shoulder, and started after me.

The problem with Undermountain was that nothing was ever where it was supposed to be. Tunnels that were there one day had a nasty habit of vanishing the next. In the meantime, entirely new passageways had appeared out of solid rock. I had never managed to glimpse the mechanism by which the corridors were rearranged. Perhaps they did it of their own accord. Not much in Undermountain surprises me anymore, though almost all of it disturbs me. Regardless, this was a place where things could change overnight, and it had been centuries since Aliree's ancestor had drawn the map to the grotto.

"All right, Aliree," I said. I was tucked in the crook of her arm and studied the folded map that poked out of her satchel. "Get ready to make a left."

Aliree frowned into the gloom. "But there is no left. Only a right."

I sighed. We had been on the move for no more than a quarter hour, and already this was the third discrepancy between the map and the tunnels.

"All right," I said. "Keep going straight. We can pass through the Hall of a Hundred Candles up ahead and circle back around."

Aliree continued on with stiff, careful steps. A moment later, a hiss escaped my teeth.

"Aliree!" I whispered. "Get back! Quick!"

There was one and only one constant in mad Halaster's labyrinth. No matter what the tunnels and corridors did, you could always count on monsters. Aliree had been lucky so far. I had found her in an oft-explored and relatively safe part of the dungeon, and she had come there directly from the well-traveled Well of Entry beneath the Yawning Portal.

Her luck was about to change. For the worse.

Aliree ducked into an alcove, and we hid behind veils of cobweb as a hulking form shambled by. The thing was accompanied by a pungent reek. At last it lumbered out of view. We waited a dozen more fluttery beats of Aliree's heart, and then she stepped back into the corridor.

"What was that?" the half-elf asked.

I looked at the steaming droppings on the tunnel floor. "Owlbear. Good thing it didn't find us in the alcove."

"Why?"

"Owlbears like elves."

Aliree ran a hand through her thick auburn hair. "Well, if owlbears like elves, they maybe it wouldn't have-"

"No, Aliree," I said. "They like elves. As in, for dinner. Or lunch. Or between-meal snacks. Elf-stew, elf-pie, elf-jerky. You name it, they like it all."

She swallowed hard. "Oh."

After that we continued on, through rough-hewn passageways, down slimy staircases, and across drafty halls. Not long after encountering the owlbear, we scrambled down a side passage to avoid a lone troll. Luckily, judging by the dark fluid dribbling from its chin, it had just fed, and so was not intent on searching for prey. A short while later, we started into a cavern and dashed out just as quickly, barely avoiding the needly proboscises of a pair of flying stirges, which would have happily sucked Aliree's veins dry. Finally, in a junk-filled chamber, we hid beneath a pile of rotten rags when a band of kobolds ventured in. One of the filthy, bug-eyed creatures actually plucked at the rags for a moment, its pug nose snuffling, as if it smelled something interesting. Aliree was forced to hold my jaw shut to keep it from chattering. Then one of the thing's companions called to it in a guttural voice, and it hurried after the others.

Despite these unwelcome interruptions-and the countless times we were forced to backtrack and search out a new route because a wall was where it shouldn't be, or a staircase went up instead of down- we made steady progress. Judging by the map, we were over halfway to the grotto.

We turned down a damp corridor, and all at once Aliree stumbled. She gripped the wall, her face like a moon in the darkness. Her breath came in short gasps. I clenched my jaw at my own stupidity. I had been leading Aliree blithely on as if we were on a picnic stroll, when in truth every step for her must have been agony. And all this time she had made no complaint.

"I don't know about you," I said, "but I sure could use a rest. Do you mind if we stop for a minute?"

Aliree smiled gratefully. "If you want, Muragh." She sank onto the top of a broad mushroom and set me on a toadstool next to her. A brief shudder passed through her. The fire again. She let out a deep breath and, with a pretty, too-thin hand, brushed her hair away from damp cheeks.

"You're very brave, Aliree," I said quietly. "A lot of humans I once knew would have given up long ago."

"I can't give up, Muragh." She shook her head, a rueful smile on her lips. "It's funny. Things like this don't happen to real elves. They don't get… diseases, even magical ones. But now I'm part elf, and it's that part of me that won't let me give up. Life is sacred to elves. I have to keep going. Until I get to the grotto."

I let out a wistful whistle. The Grotto of Dreams. Did it even really exist? But I couldn't doubt, not now. Aliree was going to be healed, and I… A shiver danced along the bones of my cranium. No, I couldn't even think about that. The thought was almost too wonderful to bear.

"We'll get there, Aliree," I said. "We'll find our dreams, and then we'll be so happy."

To my surprise, she shook her head at my words. "But that's not it, Muragh. Nothing can make you happy if you're not happy with what you already have. That's the one thing all this has taught me. I thought being a half-elf would fix everything that was wrong with me. But after a few days I realized that, even though I looked different on the outside, inside I was the same person I always was. It wasn't being human that made me unhappy. It was being me. And no spell had the power to change that. Only I did." She fixed me with a solemn look. "Do you understand, Muragh?"

No, I didn't, but before I could ask her what she really meant, Aliree stood slowly, deliberately.

"Come on," she said. "Let's go."

The task at hand distracted me. I studied the map a moment, then we were on our way again.

An hour later, the corridor widened, and we found ourselves at one end of a long, high-ceilinged chamber. A purple glow hung in the air, and on either side of the chamber was a row of thrones hewn of black stone. Atop each of the thrones slumped the dry husk of a corpse, each shrouded in moldering robes.

"Uh-oh," I said. "The tunnels must have rearranged themselves. I didn't think this passage led here."

"Where's here?"

“The Hall of Sleeping Kings."

Aliree peered at the mummified denizens of the thrones. "Maybe we should hurry."

I didn't disagree. The half-elf hastened through the chamber, past the two staring lines of long-dead kings. We were in the middle of the room when a booming voice spoke out of nowhere.

"Doom! Doom takes us all!"

There was a hideous creaking sound of ancient sinews popping as the mummified kings rose from their thrones.

Aliree's eyes went wide. "I though you said this was the hall of sleeping kings, Muragh!"

I gulped as best I could without a gullet. "It looks like they just woke up."

"Well, maybe they don't mean us any harm," Aliree said in a quavering voice. "After all, you're not alive, either, Muragh."

Evil crimson light flared to life in two dozen pairs of empty eye sockets.

"I'm afraid," I said, "that not all dead things are as congenial as I am."

Two dozen skeletal hands gripped rusted swords. Two dozen skeletal feet scraped along the stone floor.

"Living one!" thundered a disembodied voice. "Know your doom for disturbing the repose of the sleeping!"

Aliree spun around, but the kings closed in from all sides. "It's me they want, Muragh! I'm the living one. You've got to get out of here!" She cocked her arm, ready to toss me toward the doorway.

Her words sparked an idea in the empty space where my brain used to be. "Wait, Aliree!" I said. "I have a plan! Put me on top of your head, cover yourself with your cloak, and grab that rusty crown by your foot."

She hesitated. The kings shambled closer.

"Please, just do it!"

Aliree snatched up the crown, stuck it atop my cranium, then set me on her head. She gathered her cloak around herself, hiding her face and body as the kings raised their swords.

At that moment I spoke in my deepest voice, which wasn't very deep at all, but I could only hope it would do. "Halt, brothers! There is no need to stir! Can you not see I am one of your own?"

The undead kings hesitated. The flames in their empty orbits flickered in uncertainty. Below me, Aliree shivered, and the crown tilted precariously on my head. The skeletons advanced a step. I tried again.

"It is I! King… uh… King Hardnoggin from… er… from Castle Skulltop! There are none of those pesky living ones here. So why don't we all just head back to our comfy little thrones and catch some more shut-eye?"

For a moment the kings stared in undead befuddlement. Then, all at once, they turned and shuffled back to their thrones.

"It's working, Muragh!" Aliree whispered.

"I think nine centuries of death left their minds a little on the dull side," I whispered back. "Now come on. Let's blow this creepy little slumber party."

Nothing makes a body-or a skull, for that matter- hurry like a good scare. While I navigated from the crook of her arm, Aliree moved with frail but urgent speed through countless twists and turns. Soon her breath rattled in her thin chest, and sweat misted her face. Her steps were uneven. I wanted to tell her to stop, to rest, to let the fire in her blood cool for a moment. But I bit the memory of my tongue. I think she knew what I had just learned from the map.

"We're almost there," I said. "Just make this next left."

Aliree gave a jerky nod and stumbled around the corner. She limped down the corridor, and then, after a dozen paces, we came upon-

— a dead end.

I let out a groan of annoyance. "The wall must have shifted, Aliree. We're going to have to backtrack and come at it from another direction."

"All right," she gasped.

With valiant effort, she turned around, moved back down the corridor… and struck a dead end.

"But that's impossible!" I said. "We just came this way a moment ago!"

The rough stone wall smugly hulked there in front of us, blocking the way.

Aliree leaned against the wall and struggled to regain her breath. "The wall must have… shifted right after we… passed by here."

Aliree was right. This had to be a place where Under-mountain was actively reforming itself. Despair filled my hollow insides. I had tried to lead her to the Grotto of Dreams, but instead I had gotten her trapped here, in this hole far underground. A fine grave I had dug for her, had dug for us both.

She sank to the floor and sat, cradling me in her lap.

"I'm sorry, Aliree," I said in a wavering voice. "I'm so sorry I let you down."

I don't know how she smiled then, but she did. It was a good thing I didn't have a heart, because at that moment it would have broken.

Her voice was soft now. "You didn't let me down, Muragh. You gave me a chance when I would have had none. For that, I'm so grateful." She lifted me up and, upon my bony forehead, bestowed a gentle kiss.

A strange tingling passed through me. I opened my jaw to say something, anything, I didn't know what. I never made it that far. There was an odd sucking sound. Then the square of floor beneath us vanished.

I realized the truth as we fell. Undermountain had reshaped itself right out from under us. After that, I couldn't think about it anymore. I was too busy screaming.

Floof!

I wobbled in confusion. That was not the sound I had expected to make when we landed. Thunk, more likely. Or splat, or maybe even blort. But notfloof.

I tried to get a look around, but everything was white. Then something tickled the pit where my nose used to be, and all at once I sneezed. Yes, skulls can sneeze, and this sneeze nearly blew my cranium apart. A thousand bits of white went flying in every direction, then settled gently back down to the floor.

Feathers.

Then I saw Aliree, a mischievous smile on her lips. I gaped in surprise.

"Aliree… you did this?"

She gave a modest shrug. "Maybe I was just a dabbler in magic, but I did learn a thing or two."

I was not about to complain. However she had managed to cast the spell, it had saved us from a nasty end here in…

… here in where?

Aliree brushed away the feathers, picked me up, and stood. We were in a cavern so large her magical light did not reach the ceiling. But we didn't need her light to see the thing both of us stared at. In one wall of the cavern was a round opening: the mouth of a cave. Green-gold light swirled inside the cave, beautiful and beckoning.

I didn't even bother to look at the map. "The Grotto of Dreams," I whispered.

I thought Aliree would have dashed to the grotto now that we were finally here. Instead she gripped me tightly. "I'm afraid, Muragh."

"Don't be, Aliree. It's your dream waiting in there."

She smiled then. Strange, but there was a sorrow to it. "No, you're right, I'm not afraid. Not with you here, Muragh. I'm happy. Happier than I've ever been in my life. Thank you."

Then, holding me in her arms, she walked to the mouth of the grotto and stepped into the green-gold light beyond.

Somehow, here far beneath the ground, it was a garden. Warm sunlight filtered down through a canopy of fluttering green. From somewhere not far away came the bright sound of water. Birdsong and thistledown drifted on the air. For a time, I was motionless, entranced by the beauty of the place. Then all at once, memory rushed back to me. I turned around.

"Aliree?"

But all I saw were vine-covered stone walls and flowers nodding lazy heads. The half-elf was nowhere to be seen. I walked forward and breathed the sweet, scented air.

Walked forward? Breathed sweet air?

I didn't dare look; it couldn't be. But I had to know. Slowly, I glanced down. I saw him then, reflected in a clear pool of water: a man clad in green, his face boyish, kindly if not so very handsome, and framed by unruly brown hair. I blinked in shock, and so did he, and at that moment I knew we were one and the same. I lifted my hands-real hands, covered with warm flesh-and brought them to my face. Not hard bones, but soft, smooth skin.

"I'm alive," I whispered. Then all at once laughter took me, welling up like the clear water in the spring. "I'm alive!"

I did a dance, a foolish caper, but I didn't care. It felt so good to move legs, to swing arms, to feel a heart thump in my chest. Alive! I knelt by the pool and splashed water on my face, gulped some down. It was sweet, and so icy it hurt, but I relished both taste and sensation. Alive! I plucked a flower, held it to my nose, breathed its heady fragrance. The sunlight was so warm on my skin. Alive! Truly this place was the Grotto of Dreams. Lliira's joyous magic did dwell here. Aliree had been right.

Aliree…

The flower slipped from my fingers. Certainly she was here, somewhere in the grotto. Certainly she had discovered her dream as had 1.1 had to find her, to show her my new self, to hug her tight in jubilation with living arms.

I ran through the garden, searching. Then I pushed through a tangle of wisteria and came to a halt.

"Aliree!" I started to call out, but all at once the word caught in my throat.

She lay on a bed of fern, beneath the trailing branches of a willow. Silvery leaves drifted down around her, falling like tears, tangling in her hair. Her eyes were shut, her hands folded over the bodice of her golden gown. Lilies bloomed around her, as pale as her skin.

I knew at once she was dead. It was the stillness. No living thing can ever be so perfectly, so beautifully still. I sank to my knees beside her. Tears slid down my cheeks. I thought the pain in my chest would strike me down. Oh, yes, I was indeed alive.

"Why, Aliree?" I whispered. "I thought your dream was to be cured. Why this?"

But even as I said the words, I knew the answer. She had told me herself. I would give anything for the pain to be gone, just for a minute, just so I could sleep. And now, at last, she had found what she wanted. Not a place where she might be rescued by some fleeting fantasy, but a place where she could be what she was, a place where the elven part of her could rest as well as the human. Sometimes, when you love something so much, all you can do is give it up.

"Sleep in peace, Aliree," I murmured. I bent forward and pressed my lips to hers, but they were already cool.

I'm not certain how long I knelt beside her. The angle of the sunlight never changed. I think time did not pass in that place. It would always be afternoon there, and early summer.

At last I stood and wiped the tears from my cheeks. "Good-bye, Aliree," I said. I turned away from her bier, and I did not look back.

I don't know how I found it. I simply thought of it, and it was there. A round circle, and shadows beyond. The entrance to the grotto, and the exit. The words echoed in my mind. I don't know if they were mine or someone else's.

Once you leave the Grotto of Dreams, you can never return.

I looked down at my hands, flexed the smooth, warm fingers. It felt so good to be alive. But it was only a dream, wasn't it? Nothing can make you happy if you're not happy with what you already have, Muragh. That's what Aliree had paid so much to learn. And if what I had was being an enchanted skull in Undermountain, then somehow I had to find happiness in that, just like Aliree had found in herself, in her lot, right before we entered the grotto. For one last moment, I gazed at my living hands. Then I sighed.

"Thank you, Aliree," I said.

Then I stepped into the circle of shadow and beyond.

The next morning, as usual, the cockatrice tried to sit on me. At first I couldn't muster the energy to so much as nibble it. Then I thought of Aliree, and what she had taught me. I owed it to her memory to at least try. I gathered my strength, then bit the cockatrice square on its scaly rump. It let out a squawk, flapped away, and glared at me with beady eyes.

Then, impossibly, in the midst of my sadness, I felt it: a small spark of glee. Somehow I knew Aliree would have approved. The spark grew to a flame.

"Watch out, Undermountain!" I said in my reedy voice. "The skull is back!"

With a laugh and a prayer, I rolled away into the gloom.