A suspicion that had taken root in Liriel's mind with the wizard's first attack suddenly blossomed into certainty. He had anticipated her responses, he seemed to know precisely how she would react. Perhaps he had been trained to know. Setting her jaw in grim determination, Liriel set out to learn just how well he'd been prepared.

Her hands flashed through the gestures of a spell that Gromph had taught her-a rare and difficult spell that few drow knew of and fewer still could master. It had taken her the better part of a day to learn it, and now the effort was repaid in full.

Standing in the center of the cavern, ringed and partially shielded by a circle of stone pillars, stood the human. A stunned expression crossed his bearded face as he regarded his own outstretched hands. The reason for this was all too apparent: a piwafwi, which should have granted him magical invisibility, appeared suddenly on him and hung in glittering folds over his red-robed shoulders. He had not only been prepared, but equipped!

The human wizard recovered quickly from his surprise. He drew in a deep breath and spat in Liriel's direction. A dark bolt shot from his mouth, and then another. The drow's eyes widened as she beheld the two live vipers wriggling toward her with preternatural speed.

Liriel pulled two small knives from her belt and flicked them toward the nearest snake. Her blades tumbled end-over-end, crossing the viper's neck from either side and neatly slicing the head from its body.

The beheaded length of snake writhed and looped for several moments, blocking the second viper's path long enough for Liriel to get off a second volley.

This time she threw only one knife. The blade plunged into the viper's open mouth and exploded out the back of its head with a bright burst of gore. Liriel allowed herself a small, grim smile, and she resolved to properly thank the mercenary who'd taught her to throw!

It was a moment's delay, but even that much was too long. Already the human wizard's hands were moving through the gestures of a spell-a familiar spell.

Liriel tore a tiny dart from her weapons belt and spat upon it. In response to her unspoken command, the other needed spell component-a tiny vial of acid- rose from her open spell bag. She seized it and tossed both items into the air. Her fingers flashed through the casting, and at once a luminous streak flew to answer the one flashing toward her. The acid bolts collided midway between the combatants, sending a spray of deadly green droplets sizzling off into the cavern.

The human flung out one hand. Magic darted from each of his fingertips, spinning out into a giant web as it flew. The weird blue light of the cavern glimmered along the strands and turned the sticky droplets that clung to them into gemlike things that rivaled moonstones and pearls. Liriel marveled at the web's deadly beauty, even as it descended upon her.

A word from the drow conjured a score of giant spiders, each as large as a rothe calf. On eldritch threads, the arachnid army rose as one toward the cavern's ceiling, capturing the web and taking it with them.

Liriel planted her feet wide and sent a barrage of fireballs toward the persistent human. As she expected, he cast the spell that would raise a field of resistance around himself. She recognized the gestures and the words of power as drow. This wizard had indeed been trained for this battle, and trained well!

Unfortunately for Liriel, the human had been schooled too well. The drow had hoped that her fireball storm would weaken the stone pillars surrounding the wizard, so that they might crumble and fall upon him after the magic shield's power was spent. But it soon became apparent that he had placed the magical barrier in front of the stone formation, thereby undoing her strategy! His shield did not give way before her magic missiles: rather, it seemed to absorb their energy, and it grew ever brighter with each fireball that struck. This was a drow counterspell, Liriel acknowledged, but it was one that she herself had never been taught!

Finally Liriel lowered her hands, drained by the sheer power of the fireballs she had tossed into Xandra's magical web.

At that moment, the drow girl understood the full extent of the Shobalar wizard's treachery.

This human had been trained in the magic and tactics of Underdark warfare, and moreover, he knew enough about his drow opponent to anticipate and counter her every spell. He had been carefully chosen and prepared – not to test her, but to kill her! Xandra Shobalar did not content herself with wishing for her student's failure: she had planned for it!

Liriel knew that she had been well and thoroughly betrayed. Her only hope of defeating the human – and Xandra Shobalar – lay not in her battle magic, but in her wits.

Liriel's nimble mind flashed through the possibilities. She knew nothing of human magic, but she found it highly suspicious that this wizard cast only drow spells. He had to have had prior training in order to master such powerful magic, surely he possessed spells of his own. Why did he not use them? As she studied the human, the reason for this suddenly became apparent to the drow girl. Her fingers closed around the key that Xandra had given her, and with one sharp tug she tore it from the thin golden chain she'd tied to her belt.

Wrath burned bright in Liriel's golden eyes as she reached for the green vial that her father had given her. Trapping the wizard would not be easy, but she would find a way.

Liriel pulled off the stopper and dropped the key inside. But before she put the cap back into place, she snapped off the mithril needle and tossed it aside.

Kill or be killed, Mistress Xandra had said.

So be it.

Tresk Mulander squinted through his glowing shield toward the shimmering image of his young drow opponent. So far, all had gone as anticipated. The girl was good, just as Mistress Shobalar had claimed. She even had a few unanticipated skills, such as her deadly aim with a tossed knife.

Well enough. Mulander had a few surprises of his own.

It was true that Xandra Shobalar had raped his mind, plundered his vast mental store of necromantic spells. There was one spell, however, that the drow wizard could not touch: it was stored not in his mind, but in his flesh.

Mulander was a Researcher, always seeking new magic where lesser men saw only death. Moldering corpses, even the offal of the slaughterhouse, could be used to create wondrous and fearsome creatures utterly under his control. But his strangest and most secret creation was waiting to be unleased.

In a bit of unliving flesh-a tiny dark mole that clung to his body by the thinnest tendril of skin, he had stored a creature of great power. To bring it into existence, he had only to make that final separation from his living body.

The wizard worked his thumb and forefinger beneath the golden collar.

Ironically, the enspelled mole was hidden beneath the magical fetter!

Mulander twisted off the bit of flesh, reveling in the sharp stab of pain-for such was a miniature death, and death was the ultimate source of his power. He tossed the tiny mole to the cavern floor and watched with sharp anticipation as the contained monster took shape.

Many of the Red Wizards could create darkenbeasts: fearsome flying creatures made by twisting the bodies of living animals into magical atrocities. Mulander had gone one better. The creature that rose up before him had been fashioned from his own flesh and his own nightmares.

Mulander had begun with the most dreadful thing he knew-a replica of his long-dead wizard mother-and added to it enormous size and the deadliest features of every predator that ever had haunted his dreams. The tattered, batlike wings of an abyssal denizen sprouted from the creature's shoulders, and a raptor's talons curved from its human hands. The thing had vampiric fangs, the haunches and hind legs of a dire wolf, and a wyvern's poisoned tail. Plates of dragonlike armor-in Red Wizard crimson, of course-covered its feminine torso. Only the eyes, the same hard green as his own, had been left untouched. Those eyes settled upon the drow girl-the hunter who had suddenly become prey-and they filled with a brand of malice that was only too familiar to Mulander. An involuntary shiver ran through the powerful wizard who had summoned the monster, a response engraved upon his soul by his own wretched, long-gone childhood.