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.