“Surely your Majesty can’t mean me!”
“Of course I mean you,” Rodrick confirmed. “The fact is, Lord Magician, I had this in mind when I hired you to your current position.”
“You did?”
I could feel the jaws of the trap closing. If this was indeed why the King had hired me, I would be ill-advised to refuse the assignment. Rodrick might decide my services were no longer needed, and the last thing 1 needed with Aahz gone was to get cut off from my source of income. I wasn’t sure what the job market was like for excourt magicians, but I was sure I didn’t want to find out first hand.
“As you said earlier, the powers of the Court Magician are at my disposal, and one of the powers you demonstrated when we first met was the ability to change your own shape, or the shape of others, at will.”
The disguise spell! It was one of the first spells Aahz had taught me and one of the ones most frequently used over our last several adventures. After all the times it’s bailed me out of tight spots, who would have guessed it would be the spell to get me into trouble? Well, there was the time it had gotten me hung….
“But, your Majesty, I couldn’t possibly substitute for you. I don’t know how to be a King!”
“Nothing to it,” Rodrick smiled. “The nice thing about being a King is that even when you’re wrong, no one dares to point it out.”
“But….”
“And besides, it will only be for one day. What could possibly go wrong in one day?”
Chapter Three:
“Once a knight, always a knight, But once a King is once too often!”