"Tzvin!" Jaheira barked, using Abdel's drow alias.
Abdel worked at being appropriately chastised and looked away.
"Perhaps," Jaheira said to Solausein, "what you need is a change. There are other houses to serve, aren't there?"
Hopefully, Abdel thought, Solausein won't realize that was not a rhetorical question.
Solausein looked at Jaheira—really looked at her for the first time.
"Others have ambitions," she said, staring directly into the drow's eyes with a look that made Abdel instantly and intensely jealous.
"Ja—" he started to say, but stopped himself before he used her real name. He tried but suddenly couldn't remember her peculiar alias, so he said nothing.
Jaheira faked a chastising glare, and Abdel looked away.
Solausein didn't fail to notice the exchange. He looked at Abdel and said, "It is what men are here for, my friend. It is the natural order of things."
"Yes it is," Jaheira said.
Solausein took another long sip of his beverage, and so did Abdel.
"Speak," Jaheira prodded.
"The eggs," Solausein said. "You want the eggs."
Phaere's bedchambers were rather different than anything Imoen would have expected. Of course she'd heard the tales and legends of the drow since she was just a little girl. Always it was about spiders and monsters and cruel tortures. They were always described as a hideous, even malformed race who kept slaves and reveled in hour after hour of continuous bloodshed and thrill killing.
Her actual experience of the drow was rather different.
First of all, they were far from hideous and not the slightest bit malformed. In fact, Imoen found Phaere quite compelling. The drow's skin didn't glow—it did just the opposite. The blackness of it seemed to draw light into it, never to escape. Phaere's face was long and regal with a pronounced chin and cheekbones. Her nose was small and turned gently upward. Her eyes were big, almond-shaped, and a sparkling violet color Imoen couldn't stop staring at. Her white hair smelled as clean as it looked—even from a distance—and it cascaded down her long neck, over her tight shoulders, and down her slim back nearly to her waist.
Her body was hard from long hours of daily training. Phaere was at least two inches shorter than Imoen, but Imoen knew the drow woman could kill her with her bare hands. Imoen was attracted to her ears as well. They were perfectly shaped, symmetrical, and pointed, the tips peeking out from under her hair. Phaere's hands were lithe and smooth. There was no hint of blemish or imperfection on her at all, and the low-cut, backless robe showed enough of her to make that all the more impressive.
Imoen looked at her own hand and marveled at the deep black color.
"I've had a bath run for you," Phaere said, her voice low and intimate now.
Behind her, a thin-framed drow boy scurried about with a huge amphora of warm, scented water.
"Thank you, mistress," Imoen said, keeping her own voice low as well.
Phaere smiled and nodded toward the curtained room just as the last of the amphora-toting boys passed out of it and scurried off into the corridor beyond.
"Please …" Phaere said politely. "Bathe, and we can talk."
Imoen nodded and stepped lightly across the marble tiles to the simple beaded curtain. She passed through into a room easily as large as most of the houses she'd ever been in. The center of the room was dominated by an enormous round marble-tiled tub. Steam rose in gentle tendrils from the water into the cool subterranean air. The bath looked so good to Imoen after countless days of travelling and sleeping on gravel, and the thought of washing away the sweat, the blood, and the fluids of this creature and that monster sounded very appealing.
She'd been enjoying the ruse and would never have trouble admitting that she found the drow attractive—she even found herself more attractive as a drow—but she'd still been rather nervous around Phaere. Now, though, all she could think about was the bath. She shed her torn clothes quickly enough, not even thinking to try to explain them and their state to Phaere. They weren't drow clothes.
Phaere sat down on a low marble bench lined with rich cushions. As she sat, she pulled from a concealed pocket in her robe a long, thin wand that seemed to be made from crushed gemstones.
Imoen slid into the tub and let the water wrap around her. She closed her eyes and let out a long, relieved breath.
"It's been a long time?" Phaere asked. Imoen opened her eyes and saw Phaere twirling the wand between two fingers.
"What is that?" Imoen asked.
"Do you mean am I going to kill you with it?" Phaere asked, not looking at her.
Imoen wasn't sure how to answer, so she didn't. The warm, perfect water was like satin on her skin, and it was quickly making her sleepy.
"It's a wand," Phaere said, almost bored. "Lightning bursts from it on my command."
"Impressive," Imoen said, her voice even lower still.
Phaere looked at her and Imoen closed her eyes.
"Tomorrow is an auspicious day," the drow said.
"Is it?" Imoen asked, not even sure why she needed to keep the conversation going.
Phaere stood slowly and stepped toward the bath. "I truly begin my ascent tomorrow," She said. "I mean to replace my mother."
Imoen said nothing, not even sure what Phaere meant.
"That information would be worth a lot to her," Phaere said. "I'd have to kill you if you sold it to her, though, so please don't."
Imoen opened her eyes and regarded Phaere calmly. "I know who my friends are," she said.
"Good," Phaere answered and let her robe slip to the ground. Imoen pulled in a short breath and opened her mouth too speak, but no sound came out.
Phaere, eyes still on Imoen's, stepped into the tub and lowered herself into the water as slowly as Imoen had. The bath was huge enough that a good half dozen yards of warm water separated the two women.
"Do you know what a mythal is?" Phaere asked.
Imoen shook her head, her body suddenly tense.
"In a few days' time I'll have one at my disposal, and all I have to do is march a few hundred of my mother's all-too-expendable soldiers through a gate into some surface-elf forest. How long have they been expecting that? The arrogant fools actually think we're down here with nothing more interesting to occupy our minds than plans for their meaningless downfall."
Imoen closed her eyes again, willing herself to relax, and said, "So why give them their wish?"
"I must have been six the first time my mother told me never to make a deal with a vampire," answered Phaere cryptically.
The word «vampire» gave Imoen a chill, and her hand came up enough to disturb the water around her.
"Yes," Phaere said, misinterpreting the gesture. "It's not an easy thing to stomach, I assure you, but I'm getting the better end of the bargain. They have some secret weapon—some unsuspecting humans who carry some kind of curse that's supposed to help them. It's typically ham-handed human conniving—transparent and unmotivated amateurs that they are. The vampire even sent some chubby little human to help lure these others in or send them on their way through the gate for some reason. How this little man doesn't realize his mistress plans to kill him immediately afterward, I certainly don't understand. Not that the vampire's any smarter. I'm sure that bloodsucking bitch doesn't even know what a mythal is—has no idea what she's giving up in favor of a diversion."
"Diversion?"
Phaere slipped closer to Imoen in the bath, sending warm waves lapping against the soft underside of Imoen's chin.
"They have some grudge against one of the surface elves," Phaere said, obviously growing bored with the conversation. "I make this elf think the great drow invasion has finally come, and in all the chaos that follows, Bodhi and Irenicus do whatever it is they've set out to do. In exchange, I get power enough to ascend to the highest position in Ust Natha."