Her kiss, like many that he himself had forced upon the youths and maidens apprenticed to him, was a claim of total ownership, a gesture of cruelty and utter contempt that was more painful to the proud man than a dagger's thrust. Even so, he winced when the drow's teeth sank deep into his lower lip.
Xandra abruptly released him and floated away, suspended in the air like a dark wraith and smiling coldly as she wiped a drop of his blood from her mouth.
"Remember," she admonished him, and then she vanished as suddenly as she had come.
Left alone in his cell, Tresk Mulander nodded grimly. He would long remember Xandra Shobalar, and for as long as he lived he would pray to every dark god whose name he knew that her death would be slow and painful and ignominious.
In the meanwhile, he would vent some of his seething hatred upon the other drow wench who presumed to look upon him-him, a Red Wizard and a master of necromancy! — as prey.
"Let the hunt begin," Mulander said, and his bloodied lips curved in a grim smile as he savored the secret he had hoarded from Xandra Shobalar, and that he would soon unleash upon her young student.
Chapter Three: A Grand Adventure
The door of Bythnara Shobalar's bedchamber thudded solidly against the wall, flung open with an exuberance that could herald only one person. Bythnara did not look up from the book she was reading, did not so much as flinch. By now she was too accustomed to the irrepressible Baenre brat to show much of a reaction.
But it was impossible to ignore Liriel for long. The elfmaid spun into their shared bedchamber, her arms out wide and her wild mane of white hair flying as she whirled and leapt in an ecstatic little dance.
The older girl eyed her resignedly. "Who cast a dervish spell on you?" she inquired in a sour tone.
Liriel abruptly halted her dance and flung her arms around her chambermate. "Oh, Bythnara! I am to undergo the Blooding ritual at last! Mistress just said!"
The Shobalar female disentangled herself as inconspicuously as possible as she rose from her chair, and she looked around for some pretense that would excuse her for wriggling out of the younger girl's impulsive embrace. On the far side of the room, a pair of woolen trews lay crumpled on the floor, Liriel tended to treat her clothes with the same blithe disregard that a snake shows its outgrown and abandoned skin. Bythnara was forever picking up after the untidy little wench. Doing so now allowed her to put as much space as possible between herself and the unwanted affection lavished upon her by her young rival.
"And high time it is," the Shobalar wizard-in-training said bluntly as she smoothed and folded the discarded garment. "You will soon be eighteen, and you are already well into your Ascharlexten Decade. I've often wondered why my Mistress Mother has waited so long!"
"As have I," Liriel said frankly. "But Xandra explained it to me. She said that she could not initiate the rite until she had found exactly the right quarry, one that would truly test my skills. Think of it! A grand and gallant hunt-an adventure in the wild tunnels of the Dark Dominion!" she exulted, flinging herself down on her cot with a gusty sigh of satisfaction.
"Mistress Xandra," Bythnara coldly corrected her. She knew, as did everyone in House Shobalar, that Liriel Baenre was to be treated with utmost respect, but even the archmage's daughter was required to observe certain protocols.
"Mistress Xandra," the girl echoed obligingly. She rolled over onto her stomach and propped up her chin in both hands. "I wonder what I shall hunt," she said in a dreamy tone. "There are so many wondrous and fearsome beasts roaming the Lands of Light! I have been reading about them," she confided with a grin. "Maybe a great wild cat with a black-and-gold striped pelt, or a huge brown bear-which is rather like a four-legged quaggoth. Or even a fire-belching dragon!" she concluded, giggling a bit at her own absurdity.
"We can only hope," Bythnara muttered.
If Liriel heard her chambermate's bitter comment, she gave no indication. "Whatever the quarry, I shall meet it with equal force," she vowed. "I will use weapons that correspond to its natural attacks and defenses: dagger against claw, arrow against stooping attack. No fireballs, no venom clouds, no transforming it into an ebony statue!"
"You know that spell?" the Shobalar demanded, her face and voice utterly aghast. It was a casting that required considerable power, an irreversible transformation, and a favorite punitive tool of the Baenre priestesses who ruled in the Academy. The possibility that this impulsive child could wield such a spell was appalling, considering that Bythnara had insulted the Baenre girl twice since she'd entered the room. By the standards of Menzoberranzan, this was more than ample justification for such retribution!
But Liriel merely tossed her chambermate a mischievous grin. The young wizard sniffed and turned away. She had known Liriel for twelve years, but she had never reconciled herself to the girl's good-natured teasing.
Liriel loved to laugh, and she loved to have others laugh with her. Since few drow shared her particular brand of humor, she had recently taken to playing little pranks for the amusement of the other students.
Bythnara had never been the recipient of these, but neither did she find them particularly enjoyable. Life was a grim, serious business, and magic an Art to be mastered, not a child's plaything. The fact that this particular "child" possessed a command of magic greater than her own rankled deeply with the proud female.
Nor was this the only thing that stoked Bythnara's jealously. Mistress Xandra, Bythnara's own mother, had always showed special favor to the Baenre girl- favor that often bordered on affection. This, Bythnara would never forget, and never forgive. Neither was she pleased by the fact that her own male companions had a hard time remembering their place and their purpose whenever the golden-eyed wench was about.
Bythnara was twenty-eight and in ripe early adolescence, Liriel was in many ways still a child. Even so, there was more than enough promise in the girl's face land form to draw masculine eyes. Rumor had it that Liriel was beginning to return these attentions, and that she reveled in such sport with her characteristic, playful abandon. This, too, Bythnara disapproved, although exactly why that was, she could not say.
"Will you come to my coming-of-age ceremony?" Liriel asked with a touch of wistfulness in her voice. "After the ritual, I mean."
"Of course. It is required."
This time Bythnara's curt remark did earn a response-an almost imperceptible wince. But Liriel recovered quickly, so quickly that the older female barely had time to enjoy her victory. A shuttered expression came over the Baenre girl's face, and she lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug.
"So it is," she said evenly. "I faintly remember that I was required to attend yours, several years back. What was your quarry?"
"A goblin," Bythnara said stiffly. This was a sore spot with her, for goblins were as a rule accounted neither intelligent nor particularly dangerous. She had dispatched the creature easily enough with a spell of holding and a sharp knife. Her own Blooding had been mere routine, not the grand adventure of which Liriel dreamed. Grand adventure, indeed! The girl was impossibly naive!
Or was she? With a sudden jolt, it occurred to Bythnara that Liriel's last question had hardly been ingenuous. Few verbal thrusts could have hit the mark more squarely. Her eyes settled on the girl and narrowed dangerously.,
Again Liriel shrugged. "What was it that Matron Hinkutes'nat said in chapel a darkcycle or two past? 'The drow culture is one of constant change, and so we must either adapt or die.' "
Her tone was light, and there was nothing in her face or her words that could give Bythnara reasonable cause for complaint.