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

forthcoming. I don’t want any information slip into the wrong hands, if you get my meaning. But now that we have set up a good communication method, until I think of a better one that is, I figure we can be more plain.

By the way, thanks a ton for your information on the two tribes of non-hostile demons in your county. Obviously you can tell that my feelings towards non-human beings that are intelligent are somewhat mixed. Sky Children aren’t that bad, actually. They just started out all wrong. I got the entire story on that, by the way, so I can update the story for you in the book. I’ll find a way to send a copy to you as soon as I can figure out a heavier than air transportation spell that won’t take a hundred years. I’m still researching magic spells after all. You cannot possibly believe how much magic has been lost over the years.

Can you tell me more about the birdmen? How do they live off just fruit? I mean if I eat too much fruit my body reacts to the sugar in them and the lack of solidity and protein in them. I suppose this doesn’t make much sense to you, does it? I would also like to know how molemen can subsist off of dirt. None of it really makes sense, but then neither do the habits of parasite demons. Basically, please send as much information as you can.

Many thanks,

Jonis Macoy

 

Emrit handed back the letters. The look on his face had become serene as if he had been breathing the freshest air in a long time. He nodded to Theissen. “Thank you.”

Theissen smiled and folded the letters back up. “No. Thank you.”

“Are you going to thank me?” the Jatte dockworker asked him with a smirk.

Chuckling, Theissen patted him on the shoulder. “Yes. Thank you, plenty. And Theobold, Thank you for transcribing it for me.”

Theobold grinned.

“My pleasure. Especially now that that is done.” He hopped off the barrel, handing his quill to Theissen. “Now write an answer, and we can be off. I know you want to.”

Taking the quill pen, Theissen also took a sheet of paper out from the writing kit. Then he paused. Handing the quill to Emrit with the paper, he said, “Can you take dictation?”

Emrit looked hesitant, glancing at the dockworker.

“Go on, try it,” the dockworker said with a smile. “It will be good for you to practice translation.”

Shrugging, Emrit set the writing kit down and put the paper on it. He dipped in the quill, scribbling out words in his native language. The script was almost as orderly as Jonis’s.

“Good.” Theissen settled on the barrel and dictated slowly. “Write, Dear Friend. I have a million things to tell you, but I am afraid that I have only a moment, so I will be brief. First, my apologies for not writing you sooner. I had my hands full, and I was traveling the entire time.”

He paused, watching Emrit write out pieces. The dockworker prompted him a bit. When Emrit looked up, Theissen began again.

“I left the birdmen, and I was somehow wangled into doing them a favor along with a favor for the molemen. Now I’m their official liaison for selling their merchandise in Jattereen City. That’s a city on the east coast on the Sea of Tior.” He paused to make sure they could translate some of the words he had just used. Then he continued. “But all is well. My new residence where you can reach me is at the Ki Tai tower, which we commandeered. There is only one in Jattereen so that should be an easy address.”

“You are living in the Ki Tai tower?” One of the dockworkers drew in a surprised breath, though others stared in horror.

Theissen nodded, still dictating. “We had to clean out a spider infestation with a bit of seeking fire—a spell I got from your book, so many thanks for that.”

Milrina gasped. “You made that fire?”

He nodded.

“Your magic has expanded then.” She murmured.

“I just learned the way others do it is all,” he said with a smile.

He then turned to Emrit. “Recently,” he nodded for them to write it down, “I met a friend of yours. I’m sure he’d dying to write you himself, so I give the rest of the letter to him to finish. Write me when you can. That’s all. You can just leave me a place to sign it. Write out Theissen as name to address me by.”

With a small smile, Emrit did exactly that. He then scratched out a vigorous letter while Theissen stretched, looking up at the sky again. They had been in the docks a long time. It was about time they headed home.

“I done,” Emrit announced after signing his name with flourish. He waved the paper so the ink would dry.

Plucking the paper from Emrit’s hand, Theissen dried the ink with a touch. He then folded the sheets together and shoved them into the envelope. Glancing at Theobold and then Milrina, Theissen smirked and said, “Watch this.”

He closed the envelope.

Immediately the envelope snapped rigid, and then whipped out of his hands, flying off as if jerked by a string at the end of a fishing pole.

“That about does it.” Theissen immediately bowed and thanked both Emrit and the dockworker again. “I’ll probably come back from time to time for a translation. Thank you once more.”

Theobold closed up the writing kit and bowed also. With a hop in his step, he strutted back with Theissen. But Milrina turned and looked at Emrit. She then ran up to her cousin and tugged on Theissen’s arm.

“Wait.”

Theissen stopped, glancing back. “What is it?”

She bit her lip with a backward glance at Emrit again. “Don’t you want to know about that fuss that happened before? The one with that Angledon?”

With a peek to Emrit, Theissen shook his head. “It is none of our business. Undoubtedly it something of an internal nature with Angledoli—making it desperately not our business.”

Milrina stomped her foot. “Theissen! That’s not what I meant! He did you a favor, can’t you help him out?”

But the giant Westhavener, Emrit, did not look like he needed helping out. The man was laughing with his fellow dockworkers, a hulk of meat among them, and armed with a weapon that drove away a military captain with an armed troop. Theissen just shook his head. “I won’t interfere. A man like that is the type that can take care of himself.”

“Stupid!” She punched him in the arm. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! You men are all alike!”

He rubbed his arm, but snuck a glance at Emit. The man had been listening. He nodded to Theissen as thanks for not butting in on a fight that was not his. Theissen wouldn’t dare anyway. He was still not established in Jattereen. Only when he set himself up as force to be reckoned with could he start to act out in that way. Then, as the wizard of the city he might be able to act boldly.

Chapter Forty: Not Today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was mid-afternoon when Theissen, Theobold, and Milrina arrived at her inn to collect her belongings from her room. The innkeeper shouted at Milrina the moment she stepped into the kitchen. He barked at her for not only being late, but for bringing non-staff in through the staff entrance, casting Theissen and Theobold scathing looks. He shouted more when Milrina informed him that she was quitting work.

“You can’t quit me? You need me! No one will hire you for better pay!”

“I am.” Theissen lifted a hand with a brisk, bright nod to the innkeeper.

The man rounded on him. “You’re stealing my cooks from me?”

“Just my cousin.” Theissen peered up the shabby stairwell where Milrina had gone. The inn itself wasn’t the best establishment anyway.

“Cousin?” the innkeeper said. “Is that so?”

Theissen gave a nod.

Grumbling under his breath, the innkeeper did not say another word to Theissen but growled to the other cooks and scullery maids his displeasure that such a traitorous wench had come to work for him. He met Theissen’s increasing dark looks with snappish comebacks of, “What are you staring at, Carpenter?”

Theissen said nothing. Men like that were not worth the breath.

Mirlina was down with her travel bags grinning breathlessly as she handed them off to him.

“Is this everything?” he asked her.

Milrina nodded. “I didn’t bring much to begin with.”

Theissen handed one bag to Theobold as soon as they stepped out the servants’ door. “Then we’re off.”

“Good riddance to you!” the innkeeper shouted after him.

As they walked back out onto the main road, Theissen mused over how heavy her bags really were despite only being full of clothes. Heaving them just a few blocks made his hands hurt and his arms ache. This was nothing like carrying his pack on his back.

At the side of the road he spotted some goat carts. They were pulling small loads for a fruit seller. Nodding to himself, he approached the woman selling fruit and asked, “How much did that goat cart cost you?”

Hearing his voice, she looked up at him with a startled lurch. She took a couple steps back. “Oh, uh. The cart alone is ten in silver.”

That was half the price of registering for a trade in the city. Theissen frowned.

“And the goat?”

She patted the head of the one she was leading. “Oh. They’re worth five in gold.”

“If I give you ten in gold, can I have both your cart and goat?” he asked.

Thinking out what he was offering, the woman stared into the space in front of her. But then she immediately unloaded her cart of fruit into the other carts. She heaped one dangerously too tall, but whistled happily as she did. After all, she had made a profit. She then passed the lead to her goat to Theissen. “Ten in gold it is!”

Glancing to Theobold who still had his money pouch, Theissen urged him to pay the woman.

The birdman chuckled, digging into the pouch. They had more than just ten in gold left, but Theobold made sure to count it out for the woman to see they were not cheating her. She pocketed it almost immediately, snatching looks around to make sure no one saw her with the money. As soon as they could, Theissen, Milrina, and Theobold loaded the bags onto the cart and started down the road again towards their inn.

It was a long trek.

Well into the afternoon when they arrived in front of the building, all three wearily hoped to put their feet up as soon as they could rest. But as they neared the area, they noticed the gang of thugs from before back on the street, standing there in wait—this time led by one of the huge men. The bearded one and the gang boss were not on site.

“What is this?” Theissen tromped directly over. He looked up at the inn. To his dismay, the glass windows were broken and the men inside were struggling to put out a fire. “I told you people to go away! Don’t you ever listen?”

All at once he drew up the water in all the nearby wells, troughs, and gutters, forming a huge mist. It condensed into one dark cloud overhead. Raining on