"Well done," Gromph said to Prath.
The apprentice beamed.
"In my uppermost right inner pocket is a jade circlet," Gromph said to Prath, nodding at his robe. "Give it to me."
Gromph would need the component to cast the same spell on himself, not from a scroll, but from his memory.
Prath reached into the pocket of the archmage's robes, found the circlet, and handed it to
Gromph.
Gromph placed it on his head, and spoke the words and made the gestures that would allow him to assume any form he wished. When the magic took effect, a tingle ran through his flesh.
His skin grew malleable and at the same time somehow thickened, like wax.
Using the illusionary image of Prath as a model, Gromph caused the magic to morph his body and features into those of Prath. Gromph felt no pain throughout, merely a strange sense of his flesh flowing. When he felt his body solidify, he knew the transformation was complete. The spell's magic would continue for several hours, during which Gromph could call upon the spell to transform him into virtually any shape he desired.
"It is done, Archmage," Nauzhror said, studying him. "The likeness is nearly exact."
Nauzhror dispelled the illusory image of Prath.
Gromph nodded. To Prath, he said, "The remainder of my components, apprentice."
Prath mumbled acquiescence, reached into the magical pockets of Gromph's robe, pulled esoterica out of the extra-dimensional spaces in the pockets of Gromph's robes, and set it all on the desktop. Among the items was the soul-stealing duergar axe. Shadows swirled along its head,
suggesting faces, implying screams.
Gromph took the multitude of components and secreted them in his robes. He took the axe too, and hung it from his belt. It felt heavy at his waist, but he had no extradimensional pocket in
Prath's robes in which to carry its weight.
He reached into another drawer in his desk and withdrew several potions, a scroll, and a milky-colored ocular on a silver chain-looking through the ocular would allow Gromph to see through certain types of illusions. He also removed several wands, all of them of bone, all of them capped with the petrified eye of a keen-eyed slave. Having cast so many of his own spells,
he would need the ocular's and the wands' powers to supplement his repertory.
When he had everything he needed and had organized it to his satisfaction, he looked to Prath and gestured at his high-backed, bone chair.
"Take your seat, ur-Archmage," he said with a smile.
With obvious reluctance, Prath stepped around the desk and sank into Gromph's chair.
"No hesitation, and no reluctance," Gromph admonished him. "Yasraena will see it. Until I
return, you are the Archmage of Menzoberranzan."
Prath looked Gromph in the face, set his jaw, and nodded.
Gromph then had only one thing more to do.
Though Nauzhror and Prath were both Baenre, Gromph knew better than to rely on familial ties to assure obedience. He needed to instill fear. Once he entered House Agrach Dyrr, he would be vulnerable to an easy betrayal. Nauzhror, and perhaps even Prath, would be tempted to do so unless Gromph made the cost of failure higher than the benefit of success. A simple lie would do.
"Other than you two, I have shared this plan via a sending with only Master Mizzrym,"
Gromph said. "In the event that I fail, I have ensured that Pharaun will alert Matron Mother Triel and investigate the causes of the failure very carefully."
Neither Nauzhror nor Prath uttered a word. Gromph's message was clear-betrayal would be punished, and harshly, even if Gromph was dead.
Nauzhror said, "Yasraena will never be aware of the deception."
"Good fortune, Archmage," Prath said.
"Maintain the illusion until I return or you know me to have failed," Gromph ordered.
Both nodded.
Satisfied, Gromph spoke words of power and used them to weaken the more powerful wards that surrounded his office. Yasraena's wizards soon would find their way in.
Swallowing his pride, he bowed to his «superiors» as would any young apprentice.
"Masters," he said and backed out of the office.
The shapechanging spell would continue in effect for only about two hours. He would have to do everything that needed done within that time.
The real work was about to begin.
Chapter Nine
Still in the shape of Prath, Gromph exited his offices and moved through the vaulted halls of
Sorcere. The tapestry-festooned corridors stood mostly empty. Almost all of Sorcere's masters and apprentices were occupied in finishing off the surprisingly stubborn duergar forces in the northern tunnels. Gromph did encounter one master, Havel Duskryn.
As he passed, Gromph bowed and said, "Master Duskryn."
"Prath Baenre," the tall, thin Master replied, rubbing his weak jaw and obviously too involved in whatever troubled him to query «Prath» about his business.
Gromph hurried through hallways lined with paintings, sculpture, and framed magical writings until he reached the apprentices' wing of the complex. There, he encountered two of the new class of apprentices searching for a tome in the apprentices' library. Neither spoke to
Gromph, and he made his way to Prath's austere quarters.
Like all apprentices, Prath lived alone out of a stone-walled room five paces on a side. His sparse furnishings consisted of an uncomfortable looking sleeping pallet and a small zurkhwood desk and chair. Books, papers, ink, a glowball, and three inkrods were neatly organized upon the desktop. Prath was surprisingly fastidious. Gromph's own chambers as an apprentice had always been in disarray.
Gromph walked through Prath's doorway and pulled the door closed behind him. The moment the latch caught, a magic mouth whispered, "Welcome back, Master Prath."
Gromph smiled. An apprentice could be flogged for casting spells frivolously, though the masters usually turned a blind eye to the practice. In truth, using spells for pranks and entertainment made an apprentice's otherwise harsh existence a bit more bearable. It also encouraged creative thinking in the use of spells. When Gromph had been an apprentice, he had kept an invisible wine service in a corner of his quarters, complete with an unseen servant to pour it at his command. Smuggling the wine into Sorcere had been a difficult challenge. Prath's violation looked minor compared to Gromph's.
Gromph slid into the chair behind the desk and leafed through Prath's papers. He saw from the notes and formulae written there that the apprentice was in the process of learning a series of progressively more complicated augmenting transmutations. Gromph spent a moment reading over Prath's observations.
He decided first that Prath had potential; he decided second that it was time to get on with his work. He had several preparatory spells to cast. He pushed the papers aside.
Gromph's own magical robe had extradimensional pockets that organized their contents according to his mental urgings. Prath's robe contained no such enchantment, and Gromph found sorting through his spell components an unfamiliar chore. Still, he took it in good spirit, found the various items he would require, and cast.
He first sprinkled a pinch of diamond dust over his head and whispered the words to a protective spell that would ward his person from detection. The spell was not as powerful a shield against scrying as a stationary screen, but it would serve to defeat most scrying attempts.