Martin looked away from the dwarf's angry gaze behind the curious hexagonal glasses. Though he had never met the elf, he now feared Lodston's guest. The powers which the elven wizard had bestowed upon his unlikely dwarven friend were more than the shopkeeper wanted to face. Hadn't they changed the irascible but harmless old hermit into a fearsome sorcerer with a more dangerous temper? Hadn't the elf somehow healed the dwarf's failing vision with the enchanted spectacles perched upon Lodston's huge nose?
"Well, bring it as soon as you get your cart fixed," growled the dwarf as he turned to leave Martin's shop. "Just remember what I said about the door, if you value your life!"
"I know, I know!" the man mumbled. "You and the elf have placed a curse on it. No thief in his right mind would try to steal anything from you or your new 'friend.' "
Lodston smirked behind his whiskers and stepped through the doorway onto the street. The curious little glasses perched on his thick nose sparkled in the late morning sun. The bully, Joss, interrupted a conspiratorial discussion with a pair of teenaged pickpockets and muttered a hasty warning. The unscrupulous trio darted into the shadows, away from Lodston's path. The hermit scowled in their direction, wishing he had a suitably vindictive spell to cast upon the fleeing threesome.
I've used all the scrolls I understand, he mused on his way home. I guess I'll just have to take a chance on a strange one, if I mean to keep these human clods on their toes.
When he reached the mine, Lodston headed immediately for the chest. He had already used all of the "fun" and "attack" spells and was ready to risk reading one or two incantations in his "unknown" category in order to strengthen his image in Digfel as a dangerous sorcerer. The hermit unrolled the first scroll he found with four black marks and began to read it.
HAPGAMMITON'S MODE OF INTERPLANAR GATING TO SUMMON OTHER INTELLIGENCES RESIDING ON OTHER PLANES OF EXISTENCE, IT IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE CASTER TO PREPARE HIMSELF FOR FIVE CONSECUTIVE NIGHTS PRIOR TO UTTERING THE INCANTATION. FAILURE TO PURIFY HIMSELF BEFOREHAND WILL RENDER THE INCANTATION EITHER POWERLESS OR UNPREDICTABLE.
Bah! I already knew it was unpredictable! Lodston thought. The worst that can come of it is that it'll fail. In that case, I can just pick another one. Undaunted, the amateur wizard skipped the rest of the page and began reading the ancient words at the bottom of the parchment.
His pronunciation and understanding of the forgotten elvish dialect had grown more accurate with each reading of Dalamar's scroll's. This time, his dwarven accents had dwindled to a mere trace, as had much of his original personality before it was dominated by the dark elf's spells and robe. Lodston intoned the ancient words perfectly, letting the scroll's dweomer fuse with the vestiges of Dalamar's power within his mind and body.
MARGASH JORAS NOLLEN GRATH GRISSIT DORSI, GRISSIT BLUDE; ITEL FOMA DRILID SHUDE; MARGASH NEPPS U HALLEM GRATH! OBEY THESE WORDS OF POWER WATCHERS OF THE THRESHOLD, WATCHERS AT THE GATE, UNBAR THE GUARDED DOOR; OBEY THE COMMAND OF THIS SERVANT OF POWER!
Beneath the dwarf's feet, the firm rock floor seemed to quiver as he spoke the final spellwords. Lodston's untrained concentration shattered completely when a thin stream of opaque light seemed to slice through both floor and ceiling of his sturdy artificial cave. The frightened hermit collapsed in a babbling heap on the floor, shielding his face from the intensifying light.
Suddenly the beam began to split, as if a doorway were opening onto a new yet darker dimension. Peering through his trembling fingers, Lodston saw moving forms just inside the opening, monstrous forms with scaly appendages and tentacles writhing and lurching toward the threshold produced by Dalamar's scroll.
The dwarf began to moan and crawled toward the door. Just as he was reaching for the bar, the stout wooden timbers exploded from some terrible force on the outside. The blast drove scores of thick splinters into the dwarf's head and chest and dashed him against the far wall with such force that he crumpled to the floor in a daze. The Glasses of True Seeing fell from his face into his lap, adding natural blindness to the old hermit's stupor. He could still see the gaping doorway because of the sunlight outside the entrance. He could also see a bulky figure clad and cowled in rough wool framed by the shattered sill.
"Idiot! What have you done?"
Dalamar's distinctive accent boomed in the small chamber.
"Dalamar!" the hermit tried to cry. "Help…"
"Quiet, you ignorant fool! I must try to undo what you've done before the gate widens!"
Blood from several gashes in his head blinded the dwarf even more. He was growing weaker and was clutching desperately to consciousness. Through the haze, he could barely see Dalamar marking the floor with a bit of chalk. Tentacled paws and stranger appendages were probing the air above the dark elf's head while he began chanting a singsong phrase over and over again from within the sanctuary of the hastily drawn pentagram.
For a moment it seemed that the horde of unearthly creatures Lodston had freed would swarm into the chamber and engulf the wizard. Yet he faced the monstrous beings with unflinching, intense concentration until the "gate" began to close. Then Dalamar raised both hands and his voice, crying the same phrase as loudly as he could. The final surge of energy was enough to dissipate the rest of the ethereal light. Silence and semidarkness enveloped the hermit's fading thoughts.
Dalamar glanced first at the dwarf and then at the crude table that held the open chest with his spellbooks and the remaining scrolls. The dark elf began removing the magical writings from the chest, examining each one for signs of damage.
"H… H… Help me, D… D… Dalamar," Lodston pleaded weakly. He crawled forward, trailing blood from his many wounds, until he could grasp the elf's ankle in his gnarled hand. "I n… n… need some w… w… water."
Dalamar pulled his leg firmly away from the hermit's clutching fingers.
"You'll need nothing in a moment or two, old dwarf," he told the hermit. "You will have peace, but you will have paid dearly for your disobedience. Already the dweomer of your bumbling incantations has spread northward to Qualinesti, if not farther. This quiet village will be drawn into the Dark Queen's war, thanks to you and your meddling. But you will have peace."
Dalamar watched in grim silence while Lodston's grasping fingers relaxed on the floor at his feet. Then he threw the hermit's crude cloak to one side and stooped to retrieve his black robe from the dwarf's body.
Milo Martin could see that something was very wrong the moment he arrived at the riverside trail leading to Lodston's gold mine. He left the sacks of provisions on the trail and picked his way stealthily among the bushes until he could see the darkened entrance.
Fragments of the heavy door were hanging from its sill by only one hinge. Some terrible force had blasted the thick portal inward, shattering it as if it had been an eggshell. The nervous storekeeper crept closer to examine the ground for tracks. The sandy soil was riddled with hundreds of footprints, tracks of boots with low heels, the kind commonly worn by elves. He also noted pawprints of large dogs, possibly bloodhounds used to track criminals. Satisfied that none of Lodston's visitors were still in the vicinity of the mine, Martin crossed warily to the gaping doorway. Then he called in a low, halting voice, as though he dreaded either an answer or no answer at all.
"Nugold! Nugold Lodston! It's Milo Martin, with your goods!"
Somehow the silence seemed more ominous than a reply might have to the cautious shopkeeper. He entered the murky chamber, stepping over the debris from what had been the door. The chamber had been ransacked, and the stench of rotten flesh nearly sickened him. Packages of food from his own store were broken and scattered everywhere. A fine layer of flour had settled throughout the antechamber, lending an eerie white cast to everything in the room.