Nauzhror attempting to scry House Agrach Dyrr, as though in preparation for an attack yet to come. The actual attack, however, will already have begun.'
Nauzhror smiled.
'Very clever, Archmage,' he said. 'Might it not be easier, however, for me to take your form?'
Gromph had expected as much from Nauzhror. He eyed the master coolly and said, 'I think not. And be careful, Nauzhror, lest I find your eagerness to sit in my chair unseemly.'
Nauzhror's eyes found the floor. 'I meant no presumption, Archmage,' he explained. 'I
merely thought that I might be better able to mimic you than would an apprentice.'
Gromph decided to let the matter rest. He had made his point to Nauzhror. 'Prath will serve.
Besides, having you, a Master of Sorcere, assisting me will further the deception.'
Nauzhror accepted that with a submissive nod.
The archmage rose from his chair and said, 'Time is short. Let us begin.'
With that, Gromph removed his magical robes and the most well-known of his magical trinkets, including the ring worn only by the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. Nauzhror watched the ring slip from Gromph's finger with poorly disguised hunger.
Prath too rose and stripped himself of clothes and gear.
Presently, Gromph stood in the overlarge piwafwi, robes, and other accoutrements of an apprentice wizard, and Prath was in those of the Archmage of Menzoberranzan.
'They may fit you someday,' he said to Prath.
The apprentice blanched. 'Mine do not fit you,' he said, embarrassed.
Gromph almost laughed, thinking of how he must look. He had not been so humbly attired in centuries.
He looked to Nauzhror, indicated Prath, and said, 'Master Nauzhror.'
Nauzhror nodded and spoke the words to a minor glamor. When he finished the incantation,
an illusionary image of Prath took shape beside the actual apprentice, a magical portrait to serve as a frame of reference.
'An excellent likeness,' Prath observed.
Gromph agreed. He opened a lower drawer of his desk and withdrew a scroll scribed with one of his most powerful spells. To Prath, he said, 'Apprentice, should you err in the casting of this spell, it could have most unfortunate results.'
The archmage would have cast the spell on Prath himself, but the magic could affect only the caster. Prath would have to do it himself.
Gromph continued, 'After completing the incantation, look upon me and will yourself to take my form. The spell will do the rest.'
Prath took the scroll in a hand that, to his credit, did not shake. He unfurled the parchment,
studied the words, looked once more at Gromph and Nauzhror, and at their nods, began to cast.
Gromph listened with care to the apprentice's pronunciation of the words. To Gromph's satisfaction, Prath read with confidence. When Prath pronounced the last word, the scroll crumbled in his grasp and his body started to change.
'The sensation is not painful,' Prath said, his voice already changing.
Prath's body thinned, his eyes sank deeper into their orbits, his hair grew longer, and his eyes changed from his own crimson to Gromph's blood red. Prath studied Gromph's features as the magic wrought its change, mentally shaping the transmutation. The magic of the spell filled in the necessary details and after only ten heartbeats, Gromph was looking upon his double.
'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
