R.A. Salvatore: Maestro

“Haste,” Yvonnel said suddenly, and more emphatically, breaking Minolin Fey out of her near stupor.

“You … You know the arcane arts?” Minolin Fey stammered.

The young woman laughed at her. “I am one with the Spider Queen, who sought to make the Weave her own. Or have you forgotten?”

“N-no,” Minolin Fey stuttered, rather inanely, and trying to decipher the statement. Yvonnel claimed to be one with the Spider Queen? How high were her ambitions after all?

“You are often overwhelmed,” Yvonnel said with a nasty little laugh. “No matter, your most important duties are behind you now.”

She felt her expression turn curious.

“I am born, and clearly weaned,” Yvonnel explained. “I have no need to suckle at your breast, nor any such desire. Not for nourishment, at least.”

The way she finished that thought had the high priestess’s knees trembling. Despite the awfulness of the thought she knew that she could not begin to deny Yvonnel of anything she wanted. It took all of Minolin Fey’s willpower not to throw herself prostrate on the floor at that moment, begging Yvonnel to take her, or kill her, or do whatever she so desired.

In that moment of terror, not just of Yvonnel but of her own weakness in the face of this mighty being, Minolin Fey truly appreciated the girl’s claim that she was one with the Spider Queen.

She was-that was clear now. This was not a child standing in front of her, not even one infused with the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal. No, this was something much more.

With a deceptively childlike laugh, Yvonnel went through a series of movements and chanted softly. A slight glow came over her, and her hair, already thick and halfway down her back, grew a bit longer and curled at the bottom.

“I am two full decades of age now,” she said. “Do you think any young warriors would find me attractive?”

Minolin Fey wanted to answer that any living creature would fall before her, that any drow in Menzoberranzan-in all the world-would not resist her for more than a heartbeat.

“Twenty-five, I think,” Yvonnel remarked, and Minolin Fey looked at her with puzzlement.

“Twenty-five years,” the girl clarified. “I seek an age that will afford me the respect I need, but also an age of perfect beauty and sensuality.”

“Is there any age where you would not be such, either way?” Minolin Fey heard herself saying.

Yvonnel’s grin let the high priestess know in no uncertain terms that she was caught within the web of this one’s charms.

“You will do well when I am matron mother,” Yvonnel said.

“I am …” Minolin Fey felt as if she had just been granted a great reprieve. “I am your mother,” she stammered, nodding eagerly. “My pride …”

The girl waved her hand, and though she was across the room, the magical slap hit Minolin Fey so hard it sent her stumbling to the side.

“No more,” Yvonnel said. “That duty is behind you and forgotten. You will survive and thrive, or you will fail, on your loyalty and service moving forward. I would think nothing of destroying you.”

Minolin Fey cast her gaze down, staring at the floor as she tried to find some way out of this.

And then she felt a soft touch on her chin-and such a touch! A thousand fires of pleasure erupting within her as Yvonnel so easily lifted up her face to stare her in the eye. Minolin Fey feared that she would go blind, being so near such beauty.

“But you have an advantage, Priestess,” the girl said. “I know that I can trust you. Show me that I can respect your service, too, and you will find a wonderful life in House Baenre. One of pleasure and luxury.”

Minolin Fey braced herself, expecting another slap, another brutal reminder of how quickly that could be taken away.

It didn’t come. Instead, Yvonnel gently brushed the tips of her fingers down the side of Minolin Fey’s face, and that touch, so impossibly soft, so wondrously calling out to every nerve to bring them forth and lighting them with sensations of pure pleasure, left in its wake a line of pure ecstasy.

“Come,” Yvonnel said. “I believe it is time for Quenthel to learn the truth of her niece.”

“You wish an audience with the matron mother?”

“You will get me that meeting immediately,” the girl answered. “I give you this one task. Do not fail me.”

Minolin Fey held her breath then, feeling very trapped. The way Yvonnel had said that made it quite clear to her that it was one task for now, but there would be an endless stream of subsequent tasks later. And her personalization of the last remark, bidding Minolin Fey not to fail her instead of simply not to fail, showed the high priestess that this dangerous child would simply not accept failure.

This strange little daughter to whom she had given birth was the promise of great reward and the promise of perfect pain, tantalizing and terrifying all at once.

It was bad enough for Minolin Fey that in Gromph’s absence she survived only at the sufferance of Matron Mother Quenthel. But even worse was the thought that her only chance at flourishing might well be this dangerous child, whether reincarnation of Yvonnel the Eternal or avatar of Lady Lolth herself-or some weird mixture of the two.

Dangerous. So very dangerous.

“Who is this that you bring to my private quarters?” Quenthel asked when Minolin Fey entered her chambers in House Baenre unannounced.

“Look closely,” the young drow woman said, holding her hand up to silence the high priestess, and surely that, even more than her sheer beauty, tipped Quenthel off to the truth, as was revealed deliciously to Yvonnel by the expression on the matron mother’s face.

“How … How is this possible?” Quenthel stammered.

“You were killed in battle by a rogue drow who still lives, and yet you, too, still live,” the young woman answered. “And you would ask me how a few compressed years of aging is possible? Do you think it impossible, Aunt?”

Quenthel’s eyes flared with anger at that impertinence, being referred to as someone’s aunt. She was the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan!

“Are you so meager in your understanding of magic, both divine and arcane, that such a minor feat seems impossible to you?” Yvonnel prodded, and she couldn’t suppress her sly grin as Minolin Fey gasped at the insult.

“Leave us,” Yvonnel told the high priestess.

“Stay!” Matron Mother Quenthel roared, for no better reason than to counter the demands of the upstart young woman.

Yvonnel looked over to see Minolin Fey trembling with uncertainty and palpable fear.

“Go,” she said softly. “I will win in here, and I assure you, if you remain, I will remember your hesitation.”

“You will remain here,” Quenthel said firmly, “or you will feel the scourge of the matron mother!”

Minolin Fey wept and shook at the conflicting demands, appearing as if she would just crumble on the spot.

“Ah yes, the five-headed scourge of Quenthel Baenre,” Yvonnel said. “A fine weapon for a high priestess, but a meager baton for a matron mother. I am sure I will do better.”

Quenthel’s eyes and nostrils flared as she reached for the scourge and brought it forth; the five snake heads of the whip, each imbued with the life essence of an imp, swayed eagerly and hungrily.

Yvonnel laughed at her and told Minolin Fey to go.

Still some dozen strides away, Quenthel grabbed her other weapon from her belt-a magical hammer-and with a growl, she brought it swinging about.

An image of that hammer appeared in the air behind Minolin Fey as she turned; it cracked her on the shoulder, sending her sprawling. From her hands and knees, she couldn’t help looking back at Quenthel, as did Yvonnel.