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

Wizards were trouble, huh? It sounded like something that magician would say. Theissen frowned feeling the carriage rumble through the town cobble roads towards the northern entrance to the highway. It was clear to him why he had never heard such stories from his own mother and aunts. Besides them knowing firsthand that a wizard was not trouble, they also didn’t want to fill his head with fearful depictions of what others outside Lumen thought about people like him. However, now that he knew an inkling of it, Theissen wanted to know more. What exactly did people know about wizards anyway?

They reached the turnpike at around noon. Theissen got off and waved to the coachman. The coach had no other passengers besides him, but this man was also delivering freight to another village. He also carried post, which reminded Theissen of something he had forgotten to do. In Pepersin Town he had written a letter for his mother once he had rested enough, but he did not dare send it with all those watching eyes. Taking it out of his pocket now, Theissen let it loose, a light breeze taking it up like a leaf and sending it homeward above the trees on the wind. There was a note to Milrina also, warning her to not believe any gossip that might head south about a journeyman carpenter messing around. He then gave her his rendition of his escape from the manor house and why, just in case she did hear something.

Right after, he was off towards Brakirs Town.

The villages and manor lands between Pepersin Town and Brakirs Town were much of the same as between Lumen Village and Pepersin Town: dank, lawless, and without the kind of order he had always imagined Jatte to have from the descriptions Yuld Scribeson gave in his history lessons. It had become quite clear that Yuld was mostly talking about the significant towns anyway, the towns on the map rather than villages that got bypassed.

He did stop in a couple villages though to seek out any odd jobs that required a carpenter in exchange for a meal and a bed. He actually allowed some dust to remain on his clothes to make them feel more comfortable with his presence. His cloak did not seem as fancy when it was dirty, and the villagers took well to that. Also, Theissen performed no magic, though he did find ways to improve things when he went one place to another. Mostly he helped mend fences, table legs and chairs, and he often gave service by working on roofs to prepare homes for the winter. His tool belt was also something he hid from most, making sure whatever he had on would not make those that saw him envious. Or that was what he thought he was doing.

It had been almost two weeks since he left Pepersin, and he knew he was getting close to Brakirs Town because the forest had gotten thicker along the east side of the road. His father had said that was the first sign.

He had heard a great deal about Brakirs Town, actually. Since it was the first town his father had settled in his own journey from the north, the place where he met his mother and where Grandma Potterswife lived until three winters ago when she had moved to her son’s home in a village closer to the coast, it was the setting of many stories his father told at night. It was the main setting for the stories about the squabble between the brothers that he and his cousin both talked about when in Danslor Village. So far, Theissen was not so sure he wanted to stay in Brakirs Town any longer than Pepersin Town. It had a reputation of staunch singularity that required perfection in practice. That was what his father said anyway. His father had told him that Lumen Village was a much more lenient place, which was why his father took his mother there. Of course, after all Theissen had seen of the villages, he was beginning to wonder what varying degrees of tolerance and leniency some places had in regards to civil regulation.

Of course, Thiessen also knew he was getting close to the town because he saw a mile marker along the roadside saying it was five miles ahead.

“Oi! You! Man there! You got money?”

Theissen turned with a look back. There were two men on the road following him. Theissen quickened his pace and lengthened his stride. Five miles the marker said. Too far to run.

“I said oi there!”

He could hear their boots stomping closer. Theissen had a coin pouch. Nothing fancy. But inside it was all the money he had, and that wasn’t even much. He hurried faster.

Unfortunately, for all the long legs and healthy strides the carpenter’s son could do, the men were on top of him, grabbing him with their meaty hands and holding him back with grips too grizzly for a youth to fight. They shoved him to the ground, listening to clinking of his tools on his belt, though mostly seeking out coins.

“Hey! Look at this! This pollywog’s got tools!”

“A journeyman, eh?”

Theissen tried to kick out to keep his belongings, but the men pinned him down like he was nothing but a sheep they intended to sheer. The first thing he lost was his coin purse. Then he felt them groping all his pockets. One of them took his water bladder, tipping it out for a drink. That man tossed it aside when he didn’t find alcohol.

“Stinking sober. What a waste! Aren’t you a man?”

“Let go!” Theissen kicked out again, resisting to use his magic for defense.

One of the men plucked off the silver teacup.

“That’s mine!” Theissen pushed to get free.

“Mine now!” and the man stuck the teacup into a large inner coat pocket. “What is a boy like you doing with silver anyway?”

“It was a present!” Theissen jerked from his hands enough to take a swipe at the man who was now fiddling with the belt to his tools. “Get off!”

One man did, snorting at Theissen before giving a kick. The other gave up on the belt. It was tight on anyway. The clasp suddenly seemed to fuse closed. The man was now aiming for the pack on Theissen’s back.

“What a ya got in here?” the man demanded, jerking on the ties which seemed to tighten just as he was trying to loosen them.

“Nothing! Empty food bags and a change of clothes! Get off!”

The man did, kicking Theissen again in the gut with his own frustration. He then took out a knife. “Give me your pack.”

It took all Theissen could to get on his feet and not make the ground beneath the thieves to swallow them up. Instead, the wind around them stirred something awful. Both thieves looked around them, panic suddenly seizing them as they heard the crows in the trees caw and fly out as if tossed. They hadn’t noticed at all that Theissen was the one stirring them up. Instead both men darted towards the village, pummeling the ground with their boots and screaming out, “Demons! There are demons coming!”

The wind blew after them, scattering the leaves around like swarms of giant flying insects. Theissen watched them go, scrambling away, his eyes focusing on the teacup and the coin purse as he picked up his discarded water bladder, both of which suddenly fell from the thieves’ pockets, dropped with a light and soundless puff to the ground, cushioned by the wind and dust. Theissen followed slowly down the road and, then he picked both items up. He watched the men run off far ahead, giving him ample time to assess his condition. What was torn, he mended. And though he was more bruised than he wanted, Theissen continued on straight into Brakirs Town hoping he would not bump into those men again.

Brakirs Town was very different than Pepersin Town. First of all, it was smaller. Considerably so. In fact, it looked like nothing more than a glorified village. The houses were sprawled out. Not close together. The main roads were paved, but since this town was on flat land rather than in hilly territory like Pepersin Town, most of the roads remained simply graveled like Lumen’s roads. Unlike a simple village, there were few trees set in an organized fashion about the main road, all in stone wells and still young looking. Many of the houses down the main road were stone also. This gave the impression that they wanted to be a town very badly, but somehow they just didn’t have the whole heart for it. The other difference to Pepersin was that Brakirs looked like it had just gone through a natural disaster.

Theissen walked down the main road watching women bustle by with baskets, all giving him the eye. He had forgotten to shake off the road dust again. Taking the hint, he started to walk down the road a little slower, shaking off the dust as discretely as possible, looking this way and that. Several of the wood walkways were smashed like someone had taken a sledgehammer to them. Along one wall he saw a long gouge, running deep so that he could see into the front room of the shop, the residents working hard to patch it up. The glass of several windows above it were broken, shattered, though there were others that looked like a spear was rammed through. He just stared at it, blinking and then turned to look at the other damage. The road itself was pummeled with deep hoof marks.

“You there! What you just standing around there for? Give us a hand, would you?”

Theissen turned toward the source of the voice. A bearded fellow in brown trousers waved over to him.

“You mean me?” Theissen barely glanced around him.

“Of course I do! What other lump is just standing in the middle of the road?”

Lump, huh? Theissen just shrugged and walked over to where the man was. Here he saw several men together trying to brace up a beam to the overhanging roof of that house. He ran the rest of the way.

“Heave!”

Theissen found hold and pushed with them.

“Heave!”

They hefted the newly cut beam up, sliding it over the walkway so it would hold straight. With another group heave, they shoved it into place.

“Thanks, friend,” one man slapped Theissen on the back.

“What brings you Brakirs Town? You look travel worn,” another asked.

Figuring it was a waste of time not to introduce himself, Theissen bowed as per tradition and said, “I am Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson of Lumen Village. I am on training journey to find my place in the world.”

The men of Brakirs Town looked at him incredulously.

“Not another one. How many sons does the Carpenter of Lumen have?”

Theissen flushed. “Five. But Kolbran will inherit the shop so he won’t be traveling.”

One of the men laughed and slapped Theissen on the back again. “Well then, good thing you came now. We are in very much need of a man who can handle wood.”

Handle wood. Theissen knew that remark had less to do with carpentry and more to do with the damage he saw. He looked around and nodded. “Yes. I can see that.”

Someone slapped his back again, another pulling him to another part of the road where someone else needed help with heaving and lifting.

After a full afternoon of work, the men dragged Theissen to an eatery and sat him down, most ordering beers though some were guzzling down water like thirsty sheep. Theissen was among the latter, also taking an order of food to fill his stomach that had been protesting the past few hours. Most of the talk was about what they still had to do.

“Can I ask what happened here?” Theissen had set down his bread and rested his fork for a moment to listen. His plate was nearly empty anyway.

The bearded man who had called him over from the road answered with a frown. “Some stupid