"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.

Yet Liriel was clearly, subtly, giving notice that she had long been aware of Bythnara's verbal thrusts, and that henceforth she would not take them in silence, but parry and riposte.

It was well done, even the seething Bythnara had to admit that. If adaptability was indeed the key to survival, then this seemingly idealistic little wench would probably live to be as ancient as her wretched grandame, old Matron Baenre herself!

As for Bythnara, she found herself at a complete and disconcerting lack for words.

A tentative knock on the open door relieved Bythnara of the need to respond.

She turned to face one of her mother's servants, a highly decorative young drow male discarded by some lesser house. In perfunctory fashion, he offered the required bow to the Shobalar female, and then turned his attention upon the younger girl.

"You are wanted, Princess," the male said, addressing Liriel by the proper formal title for a young female of the First House.

Later, the girl would no doubt be accorded more prestigious titles: archmage, if Xandra had her way, or wizard, or priestess, or even-Lloth forbid-matron. Princess was a title of birth, not accomplishment. Even so, Bythnara begrudged it. She hustled the royal brat and the handsome messenger out of her room with scant ceremony and closed the door firmly behind them.

Liriel's shoulders rose and fell in a long sigh. The servant, who was about her own age and who knew Bythnara far better than he cared to, cast her a look that bordered on sympathy.

"What does Xandra want now?" she asked resignedly as they made their way toward the apartment that housed the Mistress of Magic.

The servant cast furtive glances up and down the corridors before answering. "The archmage sent for you. His servant awaits you in Mistress Xandra's chambers even now."

Liriel stopped in midstride. "My father?"

"Gromph Baenre, archmage of Menzoberranzan," the male affirmed.

Once again Liriel reached for "the mask"-her private term for the expression she had practiced and perfected in front of her looking glass: the insouciant little smile, eyes that expressed nothing but a bit of cynical amusement. Yet behind her flippant facade, the girl's mind whirled with a thousand questions.

Drow life was full of complexities and contradictions, but in Liriel's experience, nothing was more complicated than her feelings for her drow sire. She revered and resented and adored and feared and hated and longed for her father-all at once, and all from a distance. And as far as Liriel could tell, every one of these emotions was entirely unrequited. The great archmage of Menzoberranzan was an utter mystery to her.

Gromph Baenre was without question her true sire, but drow lineage was traced through the females. The archmage had gone against custom and adopted his daughter into the Baenre clan-at great personal cost to Liriel-and then promptly abandoned her to the Shobalars' care.

What could Gromph Baenre want of her now? It had been years since she had heard from him, although his servants regularly saw that the Shobalars were recompensed for her keep and training and ensured that she had pocket money to spend at her infrequent outings to the Bazaar. In Liriel's opinion, this personal summons could only mean trouble. Yet what had she done? Or, more to the point, which of her escapades had been discovered and reported?

Then a new possibility occurred to her, one so full of hope and promise that "the mask" dissipated like spent faerie fire. A bubble of joyous laughter burst from the elfmaid, and she threw her arms around the astonished-and highly gratified-young male.

After the Blooding, she would be accounted a true drow! Perhaps now Gromph would deem her worthy of his attention, perhaps even take over her training himself!

Surely he had heard of her progress, and knew that there was little more for her to learn in House Shobalar.