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

by a friend of his. He shoved it back into the ground immediately and sent it home, sure to turn up on the floor of his friend’s yard.

With a jerk, he stood up. Looking around, Theissen peered at the flow again, watching it ripple and go along the road as if falling down a steep incline. Someone else was manipulating the flow. Was he being watched?

A shudder went through him.

There was only one other person in town who could do anything like that. Only one other person in town could have conjured a demon, and only one other person who had the ability to manipulate the flow that he saw. And that one person hated him more than anyone else in the world.

Clenching his teeth, Theissen narrowed his eyes. He felt upward then sent a ripple through the magic flow down that already rippling river. Then he turned to go into the house.

 

Somewhere in town, the magician suddenly fell over, crashing into his cabinet, the celestial globe dropping off the top and onto his head. 

 

Chapter Eleven: The Boy Seems Destined for More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was getting closer to his sixteenth year. Theissen kept to his work, though many people noticed that he was preoccupied as he went about with his duties. He started to rarely leave the shop except for a small game with his buddies, though there were times he walked with Milrina along the river at the request of their mothers. The funny thing was, he didn’t look any more serious about his relationship with her than he ever was, so they could not blame his preoccupation with romantic distraction. Some people saw him with the doctor in the evening on occasion, but then he had been in the service of the doctor off and on since he was thirteen, making up some debt that apparently only he and the doctor knew about. But even then, that did not seem to be the reason for his preoccupation. He had quit disassembling his stone statues and even had gone back to playing with colors on random roadside stones when he wasn’t thinking. But with Theissen, the only thing that really seemed to change was that he was often seen talking to the sheriff about events around the village. By that time, the carpenter himself decided to approach his son.

“Theissen?” His father laid down his awl, resting his arm on the sawhorse where one of his carving pieces rested.

His son looked up from the rocking chair back he was carving. He had barely made out the shape of a rose and was starting into the leaves. “Hmm? What is it?”

“I was wondering.” The carpenter paused and lowered his head. “Actually, everyone has been wondering. You have been acting funny lately. Is there something going on that you need to discuss with me?”

Theissen closed his eyes as he let out a low sigh.

“Everyone is the village has asked me what is going on with you.” The carpenter regarded him with a straight stare. “I can’t answer in the slightest. I’ve even asked the doctor if it may have something do with your little expeditions, but the man just laughed. What are you doing with the doctor anyway? I didn’t ask before because you didn’t seem to be troubled by it, but now—?”

“It’s not what the doctor is making me do, though I think I’ve had enough of that also.” Theissen set his tool down and met his father’s eyes, sitting back in his seat. “But if you want to know, the doctor has been taking me out of town to exhume bodies from the old graveyard so he could study them.”

“He what?” His father practically jumped from his seat.

Reaching out, Theissen tried to calm him. “It isn’t as bad as all that, though it was much worse when we started. The long dead don’t smell half as bad as the dying.”

“But stealing dead bodies—”

“Not stealing,” Theissen said, still trying to calm him. “Taking them out for a peek and them putting them back in. The doctor is writing a book on physiology of the muscles, but unfortunately he is only able to see a body just before it is being embalmed, and it is extra disturbing when you know who it is.”

“The entire idea is disturbing!” the carpenter shouted.

Theissen cringed and nodded. “I know. I know. But there is no law against taking a body up and putting it back again. The doctor checked because otherwise I would not have agreed to it.”

Still the carpenter looked furious. He shook his head at his son and then drew in a breath. “If this is not what is bothering you, I’d hate to think of what is. Son, I forbid you to work with the doctor any more on this.”

“I wish I could. But the doctor threatened to send a message to that lord baron telling him of what really happened to his mistress.” Theissen frowned with a shrug and started his carving again.

“That’s—that’s blackmail!”

Theissen gave a nod. “But really, I don’t mind. I will be done with that little project next month when I leave town.”

“That is not the point! He can’t do that to you!” His father fumed at the walls and then at the ceiling as if he could envision the doctor there and all the things he wanted to do to him for threatening his son.

Setting down his carving tool again, Theissen watched his father’s indignation swell and fume. He smiled slightly.

“Alright. I’ll tell you what is really bothering me. But you have to promise to keep quiet about it until I come up with a solution.”

The carpenter looked down at his son. For the first time he could see that his little boy was no longer a child but was indeed a man, a man ready to set off into the world. His precious little mischief-maker, his child wizard had indeed been thinking about his problems on his own and was solving them without a parent’s help. It was like a triumph and a complete loss. It was clear he was not really needed anymore.

Sitting down, the carpenter gave a nod to indicate that he was listening. “I’m ready.”

Theissen scooted his chair a little closer and then gave the room a sweeping glance. The carpenter could tell he was keeping an eye out for something. What, he was not sure. His son leaned in to whisper. “About a half a year ago I noticed something funny going on around the village, almost since the day that magician threatened us.”

“Like what?”

With a nod, Theissen took another look. “Things. Things only I could see. The point is, around the same time, things started going missing around the village and, well, they ended up in places I frequented: the shop, the field, in my room, around the yard under the woodpiles. Places like that. Near the beginning, the magician suggested that I was stealing again to the sheriff, and luckily I discovered the missing object in time before the crime could be blamed on me. The thing is, these things keep going missing, and I keep discovering them around here and I keep putting them back, only I think the actual stealing is being done by a demon.”

“A demon?” The carpenter leaned back.

Theissen waved him closer, hissing in even a lower whisper. “Yes. A demon. A small one. It has taken me a while to get a good look at it, you know because it is so fast. And at last I can tell you what it looks like, though I can also pretty much guess where it came from.”

His father waited for the description, having never heard of a demon in Lumen Village the entire time he had lived there. Theissen nodded to him, looking once more over his shoulder.

“It is a cross between a cat and a squirrel. Very fast. Yellow-orange in color. Long bushy tail. It—”

“A kirrel?” the carpenter gasped out. He stared at the walls now also, looking to see if such a creature were around.

Theissen now stared. “You heard of such a demon?”

Nodding, his father stood up and looked around the shop more closely. “Of course. Legend has it that witches use kirrels to steal things for them. They are also nasty little vermin that are known to inhabit the country of Lafea. It was said they had a whole crop of witches there.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about witches, Dad.” Theissen rose from his chair to remain in a whisper. “All I know is that the magician is using this cat-squirrel thing to steal things around the village and plant them around our shop. These days I come home and send random things back before anyone can accuse me of stealing them.”

Looking back to his son, the carpenter sighed. So that was it. “Son, I’m afraid that your situation is worse than you realize. No one is going to believe a magician keeps a kirrel. They are specifically pets to witches, and magicians hate all things to do with witchcraft.”

Theissen looked struck by that. He staggered to his seat shaking his head. “I knew it. I knew things had already gone to the bad. I don’t know if my plan will work at all now.”

“Plan?” his father asked.

Nodding, Theissen gazed up at him sadly. “Yes. I had planned to trap the cat thing and show it to the sheriff. Only, who would believe me over the magician? I am the one known for fooling around with things in town. Not him. That blasted magician comes across as upright and honorable even though he has been stinking like a demon lately. No one will notice that either except me. That’s the problem with our legal system, you know.” Theissen stood up again. “Proof. It always comes down to visible tangible proof. And magic is not something others can see or hear like I can.”

He stomped his foot.

“Blast! Sometimes I wish others could see what I see around town! That magician leaves a messy wake wherever he goes. And the noise his magic makes! It booms sometimes! Other times it shrieks.” Theissen turned towards his father as if to grab him and beg. “Do you know how often he wakes me with his spells in the middle of the night? Recently, and I think he does this on purpose, he starts his really loud magic spells in the middle of the night. I can hardly sleep sometimes.”

That was why he looked so harried. Theissen had not looked well rested in a long time. Apparently the magician had figured out how Theissen could hear his magic and decided to use it as revenge. After all, if he could not make the boy look like a thief, he could at least make him look like he was losing his mind or at least drive him to it.

“I have got to stop him, and stop him now. But how?” Theissen clenched his hair as if he could pull thoughts from his roots.

Reaching out with one arm, his father rested it along his son’s shoulders then patted him along the back. “I am not sure what you should do. But I do see that you have to do something, and perhaps, only you can do it.”

“I threaten him,