Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

such a stir we ought to be ready for backlash. After all, who wouldn’t want such a prime spot for real estate?”

“This is a prime spot?” Ronen’s eyes raked over at the piles of black ash.

Theobold shifted his wings.

“Of course it is.” Theissen turned and started towards the door. “It is the highest peak of the city. It looks to me that the people of Ki Tai chose it especially. And now that it is free, there would be a chase to claim it, don’t you think?”

“A chase?” Daanee’s voice quivered. “Then don’t leave! We’ll be unprotected with you gone!”

Hanging his shoulders, Theissen groaned. “For pity’s sake, I can’t be everywhere. Protect yourselves by hiding.”

“Can’t you leave a spell?” Theobold asked with a shrug.

Glancing over at him, Theissen lifted his eyebrows. “A protective spell?”

Theobold nodded. “Sure. You know one, right? That one you used this morning. That one will work, right?”

Thinking slowly, Theissen nodded. “Yeah, now that I think about it.”

He marched outside then stared at the place where the demon ward had been. Going straight to the northern point, Theissen crouched down and touched the ground. As soon as he had, in his mind he commanded an indentation to ring around the tower in a perfect circle. He also scratched out words in Jatten at the cardinal points as if he had written them in the stone with a chisel. Once all of it was formed, Theissen muttered out loud, “Northern Lights bring in. Eastern Seas roll in. Southern Heat draws in. Western Wild grows in. Ward encircle and protect from hate.”

He walked across the line to the center of the tower, the others marching in after him, wondering what he was doing.

“Shield.”

Theobold flapped his wings nervously, looking around the room to see if there was any visible change. “How long will it last?”

Theissen walked back through the door to the outside. The dog that had been hiding since the fire plumed out ran up to him, panting happily. Theissen scratched behind his ears with a smile. “It should be more permanent than the one I made this morning. I figure that it should last as long as anyone who hates any of us here lives. Friends can cross in.

 “Now, I’m going back to the inn. Teppan, you are coming with Theobold and I. No bickering, or I’ll just have Theobold fly me back and I’ll leave you here. Ronen, you and Daanee watch the tower like I told you. Now let’s go.”

He marched down the hill road the way they had come, patting the dog once more. He gestured at the iron pot for Daanee to take, leaving with it the no-longer-flaming spoon.

She crept out the doorway, watching him go. The birdman collected up his robe off the ground as they left, shaking it out before putting it back on over his wings while Teppan clamped his mouth shut in a glare at him. Daanee gingerly lifted the spoon of the ground. Ronen picked up the pot. Before he left entirely, They saw Theissen command the dog to stay with them. It whimpered, longing to go with Theissen, but did as commanded.

 

Those people who saw the threesome walk back down the winding roads towards the main western road to Serjiev City paused longer than usual, blinking at their blackened clothes and frizzed hair. Theobold looked more ruffled than normal. But he strode with a hop to his step, glad they were going mostly down hill and that Teppan was forbidden to speak. Theissen had whispered to Teppan instructions and warnings that he was losing favor with him when he picked fights with Theobold. The manner in which Theissen lectured the former birdman made Theissen look like a teacher chewing out a rascal student for not doing his homework. To onlookers, Teppan certainly appeared sulky. By the time they returned to the inn, he was downright cranky. However, that expression cleared up when they halted on the road not far from the unfinished building.

Besides the front of the structure being only half finished, the second cart of planking wood had been dumped onto the street. Much of the old wood had been throw about as if a small tornado had torn through. But no tornado had done the damage. A rough-looking group of men were there, with clenched fists and heavy looking clubs in their hands, attacking them. The former molemen fought back hard. Karo had a blackened eye and a split lip. He leaned against a wall, teeth bared, preparing to jump back into the street brawl, though he had a slab of meat stuck to his face as if he had been pulled off to the side. Many of the others had heaved up rocks with curses on their lips, looking more like molemen as they threw that at the intruders with their darkened glares.

“What’s this?” Theissen ran over to Karo.

Karo turned with a dizzied unfocused look. “You’re back….”

“Yeah, I—” Theissen smelled the hate before he saw the fist swing out at him. It wasn’t Karo’s fist though. A large burly man with a trimmed beard walloped the carpenter’s son hard in his right cheek, knocking him over.

“Hey!” Theobold flapped up, pouncing on the burly man with all his body. He wrenched the man away. “You can’t do that to him!”

Like a rock dropped into a pond, every one of the large men around the birdman leapt back from Theobold. The blackened ash shook off his wings as he flapped like a carrion bird picking at its prey. The birdman tossed Theissen’s attacker into the tipped wood cart. He thrust up his chest and straightened his back, looking around from the center of the fray to fight off whoever attacked next. Even the former molemen bowed out, giving him way.

“What is going on here?” Theobold shouted, using the fear these thugs had of him with what force he could.

One of the former birdmen ran over to him, his own face bruised. He grabbed the edge of Theobold’s ashy robe and pointed up to the merchant’s home. A lean man with a shrewd glare stood on the stoop, holding Merchantwife’s arm as if twisting it. “He did it! He brought his gang over. He said we can’t build here.”

Teppan was already helping Theissen onto his feet. The wizard was only slightly stunned, trying to shake the pain off. Theissen had to rub the bruises away one by one, the most of the pain where the stranger’s fist had struck his face.

Theobold extended his wings out, the singes on his feathers giving him only a harried look rather than a ferocious one. “What right do you have to interfere with our work?”

“What right do you have to enter this city, demon?” the shrewd man shouted back. His voice had an authoritative sound to it, a shade much more powerful than Theobold’s somewhat foppish tenor.

“Hold on.” Theissen still rubbed the last spot where he had been struck, healing up the bruise while he crossed to where Theobold stood. He tramped over rubble and damaged wood. Teppan followed him. Almost immediately the cats ran out to the wizard from their hiding places, welcoming him home with purrs, meows, and rubbing his legs with pleasure. The snake even slithered out from the hole in the ground he had been hiding in since the fighting started. It curled around his ankle as if to say hello. The eagle on the rooftop merely turned its head and regarded Theissen with one eye.

“Who are you and what business do you have here?” Theissen asked the man on the merchant’s step.

Gazing at Theissen a mild smirk, the leader of the band of brutes glanced once at the bearded man who had struck Theissen down. “I’m Korgin Lubanar Romas Mercantileson, the boss around here, and you are trespassing in my territory.”

“Your territory?” Theissen repeated to make sure he had heard right. “You’re a Mercantileson. Not a landowner. And I was told the wizard’s land was free of ownership.”

Korgin continued to smirk, looking to some of his other men. “The wizard’s land? Free? No. It isn’t. No one can do anything in this neighborhood without my permission. And you didn’t ask for it.”

Blinking at him, Theissen knew somehow that wasn’t altogether untrue. It was clear the man did not own the land. The looks of the locals confirmed that. In fact, they watched Theissen with hope, a hope that screamed for help from him.

Of course, Theissen nodded to himself. That was why they wanted him to move in to the wizard’s home so badly. They wanted him to stay to deal with this man. He was sure of it.

Theissen took another step towards Korgin then bowed with a smile. “Well then, I am here to inform you that I, Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson, am a wizard. And I have come to claim the wizard’s land as my own.”

“You are declaring yourself a wizard?” The bearded man who had hit him shouted out with disbelief. He kept a good distance from Theissen, rubbing the bruise that Theobold had given him.

Theissen narrowed his gaze at the bearded man. Something strangely familiar came from him. It was an odor and a tone he knew somehow. Even Korgin turned to look at the bearded man with a quizzical glance. It vanished though when Theissen answered him.

“Declaring, registering, and pretty much making it clear that I am a wizard,” Theissen said to him. “What of it?”

“You mouthy brat!” The bearded man pushed his sleeve up over his elbow as if to land another punch.

 Theobold moved in between.

Korgin snorted smugly. “A wizard has a demon for a bodyguard?”

Theissen passed Theobold a look, shaking his head to tell him to keep out of it. “I don’t need a bodyguard. He’s my friend. They all are.”

“You have friends?” The bearded man emitted out a cruel laugh, a laugh that ran through Theissen like a stab. Something was horribly familiar about the stink of this man’s hate. He didn’t look like the magician from his hometown, though. And he certainly didn’t seem like anyone he met on his journey north. Still, the bite in this man’s jeers stung painfully familiar, making him feel small. It made him feel like he was defending Milrina from Lonse all over again, giving him that deep animalistic urge to strangle the man. All the detestable feelings Theissen held inside and had abandoned years ago flooded over him with stink and poisonous laughter from somewhere in the past.

“Yes, he has friends.” Dobbis hobbled to the front near Theobold. His face was already black and blue. Apparently everyone had gotten clobbered—the former birdmen first.

Teppan joined them. “Many friends.”

The merchant’s daughter ran out from the inn and stood in front of Theissen with every inclination to protect him as Theobold had. There was also a bruise on her face as if she had been knocked out of the way. “He has lots of friends!”

Theissen blinked at her. The awful feeling the bearded man gave him seeped away. He smiled, resting his hand on her shoulder.

She grinned up at him, nodding fiercely. Her eyes blazed defiantly.

But Korgin burst out into laughter. Clutching his belly, he giggled snidely. “Ha, ha, ha! This is touching! Look at that. A wizard in need of friends? You’re a coward, aren’t you?”

“Nothing of the sort.” Theissen stepped from them, lifting up his chest as he smiled in thanks to the others. “I’m not threatened by you.”

Korgin’s laughs did not stifle though. They rang against the walls of the street in a mocking echo, singing in Theissen’s ears. It filled Theissen with indignation. However, Theissen kept his temper. He merely glanced at his friends with a nod, watching the merchant’s wife sneak back into her house now that the boss had let go of her. In his mind’s eye, reaching into the earth for the flow in it, Theissen winked at the gang boss. The stone underneath Korgin toss him off the stairs like a whipping towel. The man flew face-first