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."