The silence that followed his desperate cry for help offered no solace. Lodston fumbled in the darkness for the staff and the glasses. When he had found both magical items, he crawled to the door. The only thing he could do, it seemed, was leave this business to Dalamar and the mage from Qualinesti, whoever he was. He remembered stories from his childhood about the Kinslayer Wars between different elven clans and wondered fleetingly if that was the "war" that Milo Martin had mentioned.
"It's none of my business, any way you look at it!" he muttered at the door. Then he slid the wooden bar aside and stepped into the darkness outside his dwarf-made cave. By the silver light of the white moon, he could see the curious inscription on his front door which he hadn't been able to read before. The runes flowed together under the power of the Glasses of True Seeing, startling the hermit with their stark warning.
DEATH TO TRAITORS AND TO THOSE WHO HIDE THEM! it read.
Lodston felt his skin prickle with fear as he read his own death sentence. He whirled around and probed the darkness with the aid of his new glasses, hoping to spot one of Dalamar's enemies in the thick shadows of the cliff side bushes.
"And death to you!" he shouted into the darkness with a shake of the quarterstaff. "This is my home! Leave me alone! I want nothing to do with elven squabbles!"
The old dwarf tensed himself, prepared to fight anyone who responded to his challenge, but the stillness remained unbroken save for the steady gurgle of the Meltstone River below him.
"Well, if magic's your game, then that's what you'll get from Nugold Lodston!" the hermit shouted into the night. With that burst of bravado, he darted back inside the mine chamber and bolted the door behind him. Then he opened the chest and looked at the mute wooden scroll cases. Finally he shut his eyes behind the wizard's spectacles and reached inside for another parchment.
He was more cautious this time. The gnarled fingers shook as he unfurled an inch or two of the scroll's top edge and examined its surface carefully with the aid of his enchanted spectacles. A single line of glyphs began to twist themselves into a meaningful phrase in his mind.
TISNOLLO'S WONDROUS INCANTATION OF SUGGESTION read the parchment's title.
Encouraged by the fact that nothing dangerous had happened, Lodston unrolled another few inches of the scroll and continued to read.
"To win powerful control over the thoughts and body of one's subject, the adept must focus his occult energies upon the…"
Aha! Wait until I spring this one on Milo! he thought gleefully. Lodston's childish excitement stifled his immediate curiosity. He re-rolled the parchment tightly and returned it to its case. Then he made a small mark on the polished wood with a charred stick from the fireplace. He couldn't write, but he might at least mark the scrolls to distinguish those which seemed safe from those which were more dangerous. Then he reached for another of the powerful parchments.
By sunrise, the would-be wizard had catalogued each of the scrolls into one of four categories: "tricks," which meant (he thought) harmless spells he wanted to use on people he knew, such as Milo Martin; "guard spells," which seemed to protect their caster from harm; "attack spells," whose titles suggested more aggressive results; and "unknown spells," whose results the untrained hermit could not predict even by reading and understanding the first few lines.
A sorcerer needs a sorcerer's robe, Lodston thought, delighted with the promise of new and unusual powers. He lifted Dalamar's black robe from the table and let it fall loosely over his head. A blend of cloying fragrances stormed his nostrils from the hundreds of hidden pockets which had contained the wizard's spell components and ingredients for herbal potions. The pockets were empty now, but residue of their exotic contents remained to perfume the silken fabric.
The hermit had planned to gather the voluminous garment at the waist to adjust its length, but the robe seemed to sense his shorter height. At the moment the light but strong fabric settled on his shoulders, Lodston felt Dalamar's power surging in the robe and spreading into his own body. The flawless stitches seemed to shrink closer together, drawing the garment's hem from the floor until it barely covered the dwarfs boots.
Suddenly, the dark elf's lingering dweomer flooded Lodston's mind with alien thoughts and impulses, confusing the dwarf with flashing images of fire, pain, and dark presences. Just as the psychic turmoil was becoming unbearable, it stopped. The powerful memories melted and receded into Lodston's aged brain, merging with his own dim recollections of the past. A wave of energy swept into his arthritic limbs, dulling their pain and moving him toward the door. The black-robed figure that descended the cliff and strode confidently toward Digfel bore little resemblance to the reclusive dwarf who made golden toys for children.
Four days later, the Pig Iron Alehouse was buzzing with gossip about Lodston and his guest from Sylvanesti.
"He must be an evil sorcerer, part of that trouble in the north," someone whispered.
"Nobody's ever seen him, but look at old Lodston!"
"I saw him reading a spell from a scroll!" claimed one witness. "He called up a lightning bolt and set the blacksmith's shop on fire, just because the smith spat on the ground when he walked past! Old Lodston always was an ornery cuss, but never that mean. I think that elf has cast an evil spell on him."
"Dwarves don't know anything about magic," scoffed a less superstitious townsman. "I heard that was some kind of family feud — something to do with the old gold mine. The hermit probably kept the blacksmith busy while the elf set the fire."
"I know what I saw!" protested the witness. "He had on some funny glasses and was reading from a piece of parchment when the lightning came right out of his hands just before the scroll blew up!"
"I heard Lodston tell Tidbore Ummer that his sheep were going to die, and they did — every one of them! Tidbore said the old fool told him he read the future from a magic scroll."
"That old gold-hound can't read!"
"Read? By Paladine, he can't even see!"
"Well, he can now! I heard that this elf is a healer, not a wizard, and that he made some glasses to heal the dwarf's eyesight," someone whispered.
There was a nervous titter as a flurry of gossip about healing spectacles spread among the tables.
"If that were true, the Seekers from Solace would be crawling all over us. A healer in Krynn? Don't be a fool!"
"To me, the biggest puzzle is why a dwarf would take up with an elf. They're supposed to hate each other, you know."
"That wouldn't be a special problem for Nugold Lodston. He hates everybody and everything, except gold, that is!"
"That's not any harder to believe than an elf in black robes, I tell you. If you ask me, it's got something to do with all that mess in the north."
"Maybe he and this Dalamar like something else about each other, if you know what I mean!"
The drunken insinuation cut through the underlying tension of the conversation, causing peals of laughter to fill the tavern. During the raucous outbreak of crude jokes about Lodston and Dalamar, a man clad in a rough wool cloak flipped the hood closer around his face. Then he tossed an iron coin on the table and left the tavern.
While the patrons of the Pig Iron Alehouse were debating over the nature of his relationship with Dalamar, Nugold Lodston was on the other side of Digfel, shaking his stick in Milo Martin's flushed face. Even his voice had changed in the last several days, developing an impatient edge and a curious clipped accent.
"You heard what we want! We'll expect delivery, as usual, before nightfall!"
"I can't do that, Nugold," Martin insisted. "My cart was in the blacksmith's shop when you… uh, when it caught fire. It'll be a week before I'm able to bring all this stuff out to you. Tell Dalamar it's not my fault!"