Again, in identical tones: "I'm having a bad dream."

[...goes over to touch the figure]

Mau?

He feels insubstantial, hollow, weightless, and only murmurs the same thing over again.

[...glancing into the cauldron.]

There are pictures flickering in it, indistinct:

You see Mau, running through the dark.

A tiny sandbar, crowded with people -- people from Aather, Mau's family, who you'll recognize from the memory of his childhood, people who came to the Nation later, dancing and laughing.

You see the island rise, cupped in hands made of darkness, and great grey wings -- they must be as big as the sky -- closing over everything.

[...reaches down to touch it.]

The liquid is thick and sticky and warm -- it clings to your fingers. Suddenly you're as out of breath as if you've been sprinting beyond the edge of your endurance. You're freezing cold. Every inch of your skin stings with it. Panicked fury washes over you like a wave.

[PULLING MY HAND BACK RIGHT NOW]

The sensation fades slowly when you withdraw your hand... the room remains unchanged.

[...lets leave this room, shall we?]

You'll have to feel your way back to the door you came through, or feel your way around the walls for another exit.

[...actually I changed my mind.]

[Can I pick Mau-figure up?]

Easily. He's very light, and only murmurs, "I'm having a bad dream," again when you touch him... but his hands won't come away from the sides of the cauldron, so you can only lift him so far.

Also, your foot knocks against that something again when you move towards Mau, and it falls over with a clatter.

[...sets Mau back down and tries to find that clattering object.]

It's a lantern, which hasn't rolled too far away.

[Is there a way to light it?]

Well, there are the coals under the cauldron.

[...digging those out and stuff them into the lantern.]

[I burnt my hand enough times for real that a dream should be only a little terrible.]

The room lights up, enough to see by. The lantern light flickers. The room is totally circular; it has a diameter of about twenty feet. There are two doors -- the one you came in from, and an identical one directly across from you. The firepit is in the exact center of the room -- there's tinder and firewood beside it, on the opposite side of the cauldron.

The firepit itself is a solid ring of smooth, white stone -- the same material as the floor. The cauldron over the fire is deep and round bottomed, made of cast iron, and it's full of some dark liquid... sea water? Blood? Tar? It's hard to tell. The walls and ceiling are a shiny silver blue nacre, like the inside of a shell. They are lined with narrow wooden shelves all the way around, covered with a miscellany of objects.

[...Is there anything different in the cauldron now?]

Images still flicker across the surface:

You see yourself, your face turned up willingly toward the face of death.

His great grey wings, closing.

People screaming, crushed, drowning in darkness.

Mau flinging himself at Locaha, tiny and insignificant, battering himself against those closed wings, ineffectual, but fighting, always fighting.

[...looking back to the kneeling figure]

Mau?

His voice is still only a murmur, but it sounds more focused. "Yes?"

Is this the bad dream you're having?

"Yes."