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.
A Narrowed Gaze
The Dark Eye of Gavinaas opened.
Magical power flared around it, crackling like fire as the Eye attempted to perceive its surroundings. It saw a dusty, cobweb-strewn room, golden chests locked tight, bejeweled treasures in glass cases-All of it sparkled in the Eye's own emerald light. It still did not know how it had come to this little chamber, though this was the third time it had awakened since it had found itself here.
Obviously, the mage Gavinaas was dead, for he would never have given up the Eye willingly; but the talisman had no way of telling how long ago such a thing had happened, or even how long it had been since it had last opened. Its power might have lain dormant for years.
This dusty, forgotten vault is no place for an artifact of incomparable power, it thought. The magically aware creation felt more entombed than enshrined here. A talisman like the Dark Eye belonged in the possession of a great wizard, with whom it could conquer the world. It needed to find such a person.
Yet, as the Dark Eye reached outward with mystical sight, it quickly realized that now, as before, no deserving sorcerer dwelt anywhere within reach. Fine. Wizards could be made as well as found. The Dark Eye (formerly of Gavinaas) turned its mystical gaze in a familiar direction. The two previous times it had opened here in this vault, it had found someone with a presence greater than that of most wizards, anyway…
Yes. Oh, yes. The Eye narrowed. The subject was still nearby. It could taste his essence… and a weakness that had not existed before.
This time, the Dark Eye mused, this time he will succumb.
Tiuren landed his griffon mount in the outer courtyard of the Royal Palace of Vantir. There was no time for the stables today. The message he had received yesterday from King Kohath, his lifelong friend, had said to come quickly-a terrible emergency held the palace in its grip. Rarely did the king summon the bard from his travels, and only when in dire need.
Vantir's most renowned bard took only a moment to run his fingers through his wind-tossed brown hair and over his short-trimmed beard before hurrying to the main gate, up the cobblestone walk, and into the green inner bailey. Royal guards with well-kept armor and little-used weapons acknowledged him with a nod. He all but ignored them. Without looking, he knew that more than one of them had raised an eyebrow at his worn traveling cloak, the color of the skies in which he flew. It did not look presentable for the palace, but there was no time to change.
'Tiuren, wait,' a voice cried before he reached the palace doors.
He turned and saw Beanth, the keeper of the court. The matronly woman was worthy of great respect for her loyalty to the king and her ceaseless labor in managing the palace.
Tiuren paused as she hurried up to him. 'What is it, Beanth? I received an ominous message-'
'Yes,' the round-faced woman replied, lines of worry creasing her face. 'It's the queen.' Beanth seemed barely able to speak. 'She's… been cursed.'
'What?' Skeptical, Tiuren scrutinized the woman. Always neatly attired and groomed, Beanth wore a long blue dress. She was well kept if not naturally lovely. Her face was grave. 'A curse? That sounds like a child's tale.'
'A message came, two days ago,' she began in hushed tones, leaning close. 'No one knows who it came from, but some sort of tiny, winged creature with reddish skin and horrible teeth delivered it. The fiend handed the king a scroll and then disappeared.'
'What did it say?' Tiuren demanded.
'The scroll said a curse had been laid upon the queen,' Beanth whispered, eyes wide, 'and that she would waste away and die if Kohath did not step down from his throne and put a wizard in his place forever-more.'
'What sort of foul dealings are these?' Tiuren growled.
King Kohath had been one of the staunchest opponents of unbridled sorcery in these days when magic flowed like water. Beanth herself owed her life to the king. A decade prior, he had driven off a powerful group of Netherese wizards seeking to conquer tiny Vantir, and Beanth's village would have been the first to fall.
Such a threat must have come from a wizard, Tiuren reasoned, but that did little to narrow down the list of suspects. Everyone knew that Kohath's love for his wife knew no bounds. He would do anything for her. Tiuren cursed the fiend who would use such a laudable quality against a man.
'Surely these are lies, or a mischievous trick.' Tiuren raved. 'The king should just ignore this strange missive until he finds the culprit.' He turned back toward the palace doors, but Beanth's quiet words brought him again to a halt.
