Realms of the Arcane a-5

by Brian M. Thomsen

  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 labyrint
h. 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 sto
p, 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.