Anger flashed in Xandra's eyes like crimson fire.
"Do not be a fool," she snarled. "Youmust prevail! Would I have gone to such trouble and expense otherwise?"
"A spell battle …" he muttered, beginningto understand. "You have been preparing me for a spell battle. And thespells you have taught me?"
"They represent all the offensive spells youryoung opponent knows, as well as the appropriate counter-spells." Xandraleaned forward, and her face was deadly serious. "You will not see meagain. You will have a new tutor for perhaps thirty cycles of Narbondel. Abattle wizard. He will work with you daily and instruct you in the tactics ofdrow warfare. Learn all he has to teach during the course of thissession."
"For he will not live to give anotherlesson," Mulander reasoned.
Xandra smiled and said, "How astute. For a human,you possess a most promising streak of duplicity! But you are among drow, andyou have much to learn about subtlety and treachery."
The wizard bristled.
"We in Thay are no strangers to treachery,"he said. "No wizard could survive to my age, much less reach my position,without such skills."
"Really?" the drow asked, her voiceddripping with sarcasm. "If that is the case, how did you come to behere?"
Mulander responded only with a sullen glare, but themistress of magic did not seem to require an answer.
"You possess a great deal of very interestingmagic," she observed. "More than I would have guessed a human capableof wielding, and judging from your pride, more than most of your peers haveachieved. How, then, could you have been overcome and sold into slavery, but bytreachery?"
Not waiting for a response, Xandra rose from herchair.
"These are the terms I offer you," she said,her manner suddenly all business. "At the proper time, you will be takeninto the wild tunnels surrounding this city-as part of your preparations, youwill be given a map of the area to commit to memory. There you will confront afledgling wizard, a drow female with golden eyes. She will carry the key thatwill release you from that collar. You must defeat her in spell battle-dowhatever you must to ensure that she does not survive.
"You may then take the key from her body, and gowheresoever you will. The girl will be alone, and you will not be pursued. Itmay be that you can find your way to the World Above-if indeed there is still aplace for you there. If not, with the spells I have taught you, as well as thereturn of your own death magic, you should be able to live and thrive in theUnderdark."
* * * * *
Mulander listened stoically, carefully masking thesudden bright surge of hope the drove's words awoke in his heart. For all heknew, it could all be an elaborate trap, and he refused to display his elationfor the wretched female's amusement.
Or did she perhaps expect him to show fear?
If that was the case, she would also be disappointed.He knew none. The Red Wizard did not for one moment doubt the outcome of thecontest, for he knew the full measure of his powers, even if Xandra Shobalardid not.
He was more than capable of defeating an elf girl inspell battle-he would kill the little wench and set himself up in some hiddencavern of the underground world, a place surrounded by warding magic andmisdirection spells that would keep even the powerful dark elves from his door.
This he would do, for the Shobalar wizard was rightabout one thing-there was no welcome awaiting Mulander in Thay, and no welcomefor Red Wizards in any land other than Thay. Another of Xandra's thrusts hadfound its mark, as welclass="underline" he had indeed been undone through treachery. Mulanderhad been betrayed by his young apprentice, as he himself had betrayed his ownmaster. It occurred to him, suddenly, to wonder what treachery Xandra's youngprodigy might have in store for her mistress.
"You are smiling," the drow observed."My terms are to your liking?"
"Very much so," Mulander said, thinking itprudent to keep his fantasies to himself.
"Then let me add to your enjoyment," Xandrasaid softly.
She advanced upon the man and reached up to place oneslim black hand against his jaw. His instinctive flinch, and his effort todisguise the response, seemed to amuse her. She swayed closer, her slim bodyjust barely brushing against his robes. Her crimson eyes burned up into his,and Mulander felt a tendril of compelling magic creep into his mind.
"Tell me truly, Mulander," she said-and herwords were mocking, for they both knew that the spell she cast upon him wouldallow him to speak nothing but truth, "do you hate me so very much?"
Mulander held her gaze.
"With all my soul," he vowed, with morepassion than he had ever before displayed-more than he knew he possessed.
"Good," Xandra breathed. She raised botharms high and clasped her hands behind his neck; then she floated upward untilher eyes were on a level with the much taller man. "Then remember my faceas you hunt the girl, and remember this."
The drow pressed her lips to Mulander's in a macabreparody of a kiss. Her passion was like his: it was all hatred and pride.
Her kiss, like many that he himself had forced uponthe youths and maidens apprenticed to him, was a claim of total ownership, agesture of cruelty and utter contempt that was more painful to the proud manthan a dagger's thrust. He winced when the drow's teeth sank deep into hislower lip.
Xandra abruptly released him and floated away, suspendedin the air like a dark wraith and smiling coldly as she wiped a drop of hisblood from her mouth.
"Remember," she admonished him, and shevanished 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 wouldpray to every dark god whose name he knew that her death would be slow andpainful and ignominious.
In the meanwhile, he would vent some of his seethinghatred upon the other drow wench who presumed to look upon him-him, a RedWizard and a master of necromancy! — as prey.
"Let the hunt begin," Mulander said, and hisbloodied lips curved in a grim smile as he savored the secret he had hoardedfrom Xandra Shobalar-a secret he would soon unleash upon her young student.
CHAPTER 3
The door of Bythnara Shobalar's bedchamber thuddedsolidly against the wall, flung open with an exuberance that could herald onlyone person. Bythnara did not look up from the book she was reading, did not somuch as flinch. She was too accustomed to the irrepressible Baenre brat to showmuch of a reaction.
But it was impossible to ignore Liriel for long. Thedark elf maid spun into their shared bedchamber, her arms out wide and her wildmane of white hair flying as she whirled and leaped in an ecstatic littledance.
The older girl eyed her with resignation.
"Who cast a dervish spell on you?" sheinquired in a sour tone.
Liriel abruptly halted her dance and flung her armsaround her chambermate.
"Oh, Bythnara!" Liriel said. "I am toundergo the Blooding ritual at last! Mistress just said."
The Shobalar female disentangled herself as inconspicuouslyas possible as she rose from her chair, and she looked around for some pretensethat would excuse her for wriggling out of the younger girl's impulsiveembrace. On the far side of the room, a pair of woolen trews lay crumpled onthe floor. Liriel tended to treat her clothes with the same blithe disregardthat a snake shows its outgrown and abandoned skin. Bythnara was foreverpicking up after the untidy little wench. Doing so then allowed her to put asmuch space as possible between herself and the unwanted affection lavished uponher by her young rival.
"And high time it is," the Shobalarwizard-in-training said bluntly as she smoothed and folded the discardedgarment. "You will soon be eighteen, and you are already well into yourAscharlexten Decade. I've often wondered why my Mistress Mother has waited solong."