"There's one who would, all right, and he lives in my cave!" Lodston retorted defiantly. The hermit pulled a small keg of pickled fish closer to the fireplace and sat on it. He clutched the magical staff in front of him as if he were guarding it from the merchant's covetous gaze. Then he reached into a pocket and handed Martin a crumpled piece of parchment.
"He wrote down what we need. You fetch all those things while I rest my legs, and I'll tell you the strangest tale you'll ever hear in this ugly town of simpletons."
Milo Martin's frown deepened as he grabbed the list from the hermit's filthy fingers. He expected to see a barely literate scrawl, and was astonished when he recognized the fine penmanship of a scholar on the crude parchment. Each character was fashioned with elegant swirls, while the spelling and phrases were archaic.
"'Balls of twyne, a sette of three;
"Grinded millett, so fyne as to pass through a tea sieve;
"Twin hyves of honey, with compleat combs for the waxxe…'"
It was obvious that the old dwarf hadn't written the list. Martin doubted if the hermit was literate at all, and he was positive that those gnarled hands and failing vision would be incapable of such careful strokes of a nib.
"This is quite a list, Nugold," he admitted. "I might not have it all. Tell me about this 'elven wizard' who lives in your cave while I gather whatever I can to suit you and your guest."
"His name's Dalamar," the dwarf began. "I found him on the riverbank last month, half-starved and out of his head. I knew he was strange, because of his white skin and long hair as jet black as his sorcerer's robe. 'This ain't no human,' I says to myself. Then I drug him into my cave and made him a bed by the fire. When he woke up, I thought he'd be afraid, but he was just as calm as he could be. He acted like he knew where he was, and like he knew me, too. Even called me by name, he did!"
Milo Martin paused with some candles in his hand. "Black hair, you say? Not just dark?"
"Nay!" Lodston replied irritably. "I said black, and I meant it! It be black as soot, and his skin like white linen, so white that it shines like a full moon in a night sky."
The merchant stroked his chubby chin, considering the dwarf's words. "Well, if he's an elf as you say, I'd guess that he was from Sylvanesti. I've heard that the eastern elves look like that, but I've never seen one of them."
The dwarf nodded excitedly. "That's it!" he exclaimed. "Sylvanesti is where he said he was from! You beat all I've ever seen with those wild guesses, Milo!"
The shopkeeper shrugged. It was no guess, but he decided to let the hermit believe that he possessed such an unpredictable skill. People were more reluctant to cheat someone who could "outguess" them.
"Go on with your story. Tell me about the staff," urged Martin as he turned toward his shelves to collect more items on the list.
"Well, he asks me right off if I found his box. When I tell him not to fret about some box after I save him from drowning, he doesn't say anything. He just stares at the fire for a long time. Then he gets up and heads for the door. 'Wait!' I calls. 'You ain't fit enough to walk!'
'Come to the river with me,' he says in this strange voice. It was like his words were stronger than I was! Before I knew what I was doing, I was up to my ankles in mud, helping the elf find this staff and that danged box."
"What kind of box?" Milo Martin had stopped gathering items from the list and was leaning against his counter. His curiosity had grown too great to bother hiding.
"A little wooden chest bound with brass strips," Lodston replied. "I carried it back to the cave after we found the staff. When we both was dry and warm again, he told me his name and said he used to be a wizard for some king named 'Lorac.' "
The name meant nothing to Martin. The enthralled shopkeeper motioned for Lodston to continue.
"Dalamar said he got into some kind of trouble back at this Sylvanesti place for changing his robes from white to black or something like that. Said he had to leave before the king killed him. When I told him I didn't think a king'd worry that much about the color of a man's clothes, he just smiled and laid his head back against the hearth."
Martin knew very little about magic and wizards, but he did know more than old Lodston. The shopkeeper's pudgy face flushed as he flaunted his superior knowledge of matters arcane.
"Idiot! Don't you even know the difference between white-robed and black-robed sorcerers? You ever heard of an evil elf, much less an evil elven wizard?"
"Evil?" demanded the hermit. "You mean like Joss out there and his scum-brained kids?"
"No!" Martin growled. "I don't mean simple pickpockets and drunks. If you'd ever got out of that cave of yours, you'd know that some dark force is sweeping over Krynn, and it sounds to me like your new buddy is part of it!"
The shopkeeper's crisp eyes clouded. The normally jolly and mercurial man seemed suddenly overwhelmed with melancholia. "I thought Digfel was too little to get involved in this thing," he muttered sadly. "I thought everybody would leave us alone as long as we supplied them with steel for their swords and spears."
"What in Reorx's name are you mumbling about?" Lodston demanded.
"I'm talking about that guest of yours!" Martin replied angrily. "He and his evil friends will bring the war to Digfel!"
"War? What war? I don't understand what…"
"Go on with your story," the shopkeeper urged, interrupting the dwarf's flurry of questions in a calmer voice. The hermit's naive ignorance of the outside world was incorrigible. Martin could barely explain the sinister events of recent years to himself, much less to the reclusive dwarf.
"Harrumph!" snorted Lodston. He was too old and battle-weary to listen to human war stories. Vivid memories of THE war still lingered in his aged brain, the war which had forced the mountain dwarves from their traditional homes.
"Well, as I was saying," he continued, "Dalamar's been wandering around in the west ever since they threw him out of this Sylvanesti place. He said he had to take some kind of 'test' at Wayreth to be a wizard, and it made him sick. I asked him if his stomach hurt, but he just said I wouldn't understand if he told me. He was up at Solace when a Seeker priest tried to kill him. So he made this raft and sneaked away on the river just before they came to bum him as a witch."
"Are they after him now?" Martin demanded quick ly. Digfel had been free of the Seeker insanity, and he hoped that Lodston's refugee would not attract the zealous witchhunters to this rough but quiet comer of Krynn.
"You got me there," Lodston replied. "I think they lost his trail during the storm that wrecked his raft. Nobody'd ever believe that he could have drifted this far downstream, all the way through the Qualinesti woods. I told him I'd hide him from them maniacs till he was well enough to take care of himself. He didn't thank me or anything, just rolled over and went to sleep."
"Did you search his belongings while he was sleeping?" Milo Martin asked eagerly. The opportunistic shopkeeper was imagining what he would have done under the same circumstances.
"What am I, a kender?" cried the insulted dwarf. "Anyway, I didn't need to snoop. He showed me what was in his box."
The hermit paused to retrieve a blackened clay pipe from beneath his fur cloak and gestured toward the tobacco jar on the counter.
"How's about some of that weed, the kind you sprinkle with honey wine? And maybe a little ale and biscuits to go with it," he added as Martin fetched the tobacco. The hermit might have been nearly blind, but he knew when he had hooked a listener on a story. The shopkeeper thrust a foaming mug of freshly brewed stout at the dwarf, who waited until his pipe was well-fired before accepting it. He was enjoying tempting Milo Martin's curiosity.
"Ahhh!" exclaimed the hermit, wiping ale from his mouth with a sleeve.