Resurrection

"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.

Next, in preparation for the spell traps he would encounter in the fortress of House Agrach

Dyrr, he cast a series of wards that protected his flesh for several hours against negative energy,

fire, lightning, cold, and acid. If the spell traps did more damage than his wards could absorb, his magical ring eventually would regenerate it, provided the damage did not kill him outright. Not even his ring could bring back the dead.

Third, he withdrew from his pocket a tiny vial of glassteel containing a dollop of quicksilver.