R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

The young woman’s hair was smooth and thick, a startling white contrast to her coal-black skin. It curled teasingly between her perfect breasts, which were barely covered by the plunging cut of her soft purple dress, a simple silk affair that clung to her body’s every curve.

It took Quenthel a long while to realize that she too was staring hopelessly at the beautiful young woman.

“Who is this?” Matron Mother Zeerith practically demanded.

“The child of Gromph,” Quenthel replied, and she hoped that putting the now-deposed archmage’s name on Yvonnel would somehow lessen Zeerith’s trance.

Even still, a long while passed before Zeerith was able to turn back to Quenthel. Even then it seemed as if Yvonnel herself had released Zeerith from the trance, as evidenced by a little giggle Yvonnel offered as Zeerith turned away.

“I did not know Gromph had-”

“And Minolin Fey, of House Fey-Branche,” Yvonnel interrupted, an incredible breach of etiquette.

Zeerith’s face screwed up with confusion as she swung back to view the young woman, who was surely near twenty years of age, if not older. Zeerith had known about Minolin’s pregnancy. The visitation of the avatar of Lolth upon House Fey-Branche in the Festival of the Founding was common gossip that had followed House Xorlarrin across the Underdark. Zeerith knew that Minolin Fey was now in House Baenre-she had seen the high priestess while being escorted through the royal chambers to come to this very audience.

“The child of Gromph and Minolin Fey?” Zeerith asked Quenthel.

“Yes,” Yvonnel answered, again out of turn, and this time interrupting the matron mother as Quenthel began to answer.

“She is an impetuous sort,” Quenthel said dryly, and cast a glance at the young woman.

“And a distracting one,” Quenthel added when she saw that Zeerith’s eyes were once again held by the young woman.

“Yes,” Zeerith said absently.

“May I go, Matron Mother?” Yvonnel asked.

“Please do,” Quenthel replied, trying to sound sweet.

Yvonnel rose and Zeerith’s eyes rose with her. Much of her leg slipped free from the high slit in her simple but elegant gown, and Zeerith gave a little gasp as she spun away and moved to the room’s door.

She was barefoot, Quenthel and Zeerith both noted then, and somehow that seemed even more fitting for this one, like a promise of something unbridled and so very pleasing.

The door closed, but it took Zeerith a while to compose herself and look back at her host.

“She is quite … lovely,” Matron Mother Zeerith said, and Quenthel understood well that her counterpart had to pause there to search for the right word, because “lovely” certainly didn’t seem sufficient.

“Do you plan to tell them I perished in the fight?” Zeerith asked, and she shook her head and seemed removed from the enchantment of Yvonnel then, and apparently had forgotten all around the surprising revelation of that one’s parentage.

Was Yvonnel’s appearance that distracting, Quenthel wondered, or had the young witch cast a spell to remove thought from Zeerith’s mind?

“I do not believe that to be our best course, if I may offer advice, Matron Mother,” Zeerith rambled on.

Was Yvonnel powerful enough to do that so casually? To an accomplished matron mother of a powerful House?

Yes, she was, Quenthel realized with a sigh.

“If you have other designs …” Zeerith offered, somewhat sheepishly.

“No, no, my mind was other-where. So much has happened and so much is yet to come. You are correct, my friend, of course. Matron Mother Zeerith is not to be rubbed from the ranks of Menzoberranzan-hardly that! You will circle and reside outside the city and together we will find opportunity.”

“While my children ascend,” Zeerith added with her eyes sparkling.

“High Priestess Kiriy is in House Do’Urden?”

Zeerith nodded, then asked, “First Priestess?”

“Saribel is First Priestess,” Quenthel corrected her, somewhat sternly. “And that is something Kiriy must understand and accept.”

“Yes, Matron Mother,” Zeerith said and respectfully lowered her eyes. It was no surprise. Though Kiriy was far more accomplished than Saribel, and much older, indeed the eldest daughter of the House, Saribel had something that Kiriy did not: a Baenre husband.

“When time for ascent comes, who will it be?” Zeerith asked.

“That is a discussion for another day,” Quenthel replied. “I know that you favor Kiriy.”

“Saribel is a bit of a dullard, I must admit,” said Zeerith. “It pains me to say that, but would that Lolth had accepted her as my sacrifice instead of Parabrak, my third-born son.”

“Pray to Lolth to forgive your words,” Quenthel said half-jokingly-but only half.

“I wish I could join you at the Ruling Council,” Zeerith said. “If only to see the face of the witch Mez’Barris when she is formally told that Tsabrak Xorlarrin will assume the mantle of Archmage of Menzoberranzan.”

“You will witness the ceremony,” Quenthel promised and Matron Mother Zeerith swelled with pride.

“They are such petty creatures,” Yvonnel remarked to Minolin Fey in the anteroom, where the young upstart had enchanted a scrying pool so that she could look in on the conversation in the Baenre audience chamber. “They puff and preen over the most unremarkable and fleeting things.”

Yvonnel gave a sigh and turned to her mother, who stood staring.

“How did you do that?” Minolin Fey asked. “How do you do that?”

“What?”

“All the time,” the woman went on. “In there, with Matron Mother Zeerith. With all you see-or all who see you. Man and woman alike, taken aback, thrown from their guard, with a simple glimpse upon you.”

“Why Mother, do you not think me beautiful?” Yvonnel coyly asked.

Minolin Fey could only shake her head and reply, her voice barely a whisper, “Many drow are beautiful.” She kept shaking her head. She knew there had to be more to it than that.

“Your mother, Matron Mother Byrtyn,” Yvonnel began, “she is a painter, yes? I have heard that some of her portraits hang in this very house.”

“She is quite talented, yes.”

“Get her, then. I wish to pose for her.”

“I do not know that she-”

“She will,” Yvonnel said. “Tell her the matron mother insists upon it, and that she will be well rewarded.”

Minolin Fey seemed off-balance then. Matron Mother Byrtyn had not even seen this child yet, her granddaughter, who should be no more than a toddler.

“Matron Mother Byrtyn was told of me by the avatar of Lolth in the parlor of her own House,” Yvonnel reminded Minolin Fey. “Tell her that she will come to House Baenre the day after tomorrow, after Tsabrak is named as Archmage of Menzoberranzan, and she will begin her work. And she will return every day thereafter until it is completed.”

Minolin Fey stared blankly.

“I am not asking you,” Yvonnel warned. She turned back to the scrying pool, then sighed with disgust and cleared the image from the water with a wave of her hand.

“So boring and petty,” she said as she pushed past Minolin Fey and skipped to the door at the far end of the room.

“You speak of the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” Minolin Fey reminded her.

“Yes,” Yvonnel answered. “And why?”

She shrugged, winked, and exited, leaving Minolin Fey to stand there dumbfounded with that simple yet devastating question hanging over her. She glanced back at the unremarkable water in the bowl. Minolin Fey couldn’t begin to cast a clairvoyance dweomer powerful enough to get past Quenthel Baenre’s wards, as Yvonnel had so easily done. She considered the conversation in the other room. The incessant plotting and conniving, the desperate pursuit of a goal that would often be nothing more than the platform from which to pursue another goal.