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

with Theissen. He also had a steadier hand than Boid.

“Practice is what makes a master,” Theissen said pointedly. He gestured to his own project for Lord Baron Grianne, which was nearly half-finished: a writing hutch with a matching chair and a folding cover. “If you really love carpentry, you’ll learn to take your time with it.”

Boid slumped against the sawhorse in a sulk. “I was only doing it because my dad made me anyway.”

Theissen stopped and looked at him. “Your dad made you? What does he do for a living?”

Looking up, Boid’s frown deepened. “He’s a feather merchant. But he says that it doesn’t pay. Not unless you can get demon feathers real cheap, then it still barely pays.”

Theissen rested on the sawhorse also. “Is there any other trade you wanted to do?”

For a moment, Theissen smelled a lessening of the boy’s animosity, but it really was only a flicker. Boid said, “Not really. But Dad says carpentry is respectable. He says people will always need a carpenter.”

Nodding in agreement, Theissen sighed. It was true. It was good trade to choose.

“Alright. Let’s make a deal,” he said.

Boid looked up with suspicion. Noticing it, Theissen smirked.

“You work hard and slowly, like I’m telling you, I’ll find someway for you to see how fun carpentry really is.”

“How can you do that?” Boid asked with a snort. “You’re a wizard. But even you can’t make me like this—or like you.”

Shrugging, Theissen gave a nod. “You’re right. That is entirely your choice.”

But then he stirred up some sawdust with a small breeze, floating it into his hand. Once in his palm, he molded it like clay, creating a figurine in the form of a bird. He set it on to the wood horse with a satisfied smile.

“However, I can make things like this without magic.” Theissen’s eyes sparkled with a real grin, watching both boys stare at the rather perfect creation. Even the feathers looked real. “Something your master can’t teach you. If you complete your lessons correctly and well, I’ll show you how to do wood carving, which by the way, is more interesting than just planing and piecing wood.”

With a smirk, Theissen blew at the bird. It puffed back into sawdust, piling on the sawhorse.

“I don’t believe you,” Boid said, still staring where the bird once was.

“What? You don’t believe I can do it, or that I will do it?” Theissen rose from the horse.

Boid glared at his own work. “Both.”

To that, Theissen gave a laugh. “Well, you would be wrong. I am a man of my word. I’ll see you after my magic lessons, and we’ll start with our first woodcarving lesson. Just make sure the shop is clean before we start, or the deal is off.”

“What? You’re going to teach carving while we eat dinner?” Boid said sarcastically.

Tomis snickered, nodding.

“Sure.” And Theissen walked straight up the steps, unhooking his belt to hang it on the wall. It was better for him to go to the magicians’ home without it anyway.

He did not hear the boys’ responses once he was gone. He really didn’t care to. They had sour moods. And though they had gotten over their initial fear of him, they were still sullen that he could boss them around and control when they ate.

The master was working on other projects in the front room. It was fitting for customers to see him hard at work. That was how all the carpentry shops worked in town actually. Theissen had gotten a peek once into Munden’s shop when that carpenter saw him walking by on the road during errands. The man beckoned him over and begged him to leave Lordri, actually. Looking into Munden’s back room, Theissen saw that it was full of apprentices making the basic furniture forms while the master perfected them in the front of the shop. Munden had one journeyman, but that one was too busy managing the apprentices to even think about leaving the shop to seek his fortune. Besides, the journeyman had guaranteed work with Munden.

Passing his master with a wave, letting him know where he was going, Theissen opened the front of the shop door.

“Oh! Theissen, when you return, will you pick up a bottle of red wine? I need it to entertain some guests that will be visiting from Shoredge Town tomorrow.” Lordri Carpenter gave a grin to look good natured and cheerful. Theissen knew half of it was an act. Though Lordri Carpenter was a good natured man, Theissen also knew he was not happy about losing three hours of his journeyman’s time to the magicians.

With a smirk, Theissen nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll pick it up.”

“And you’ll drink with us, won’t you?” the carpenter asked him smiling with real relief now.

Cringing, Theissen shook his head. “Sorry. I never cared for the stuff.”

“But you’ll try to—”

“I really need to go,” Theissen said, turning towards the road again. “We’ll have to talk about this later.”

“But—”

Theissen hurried out to the road, pulling on his coat. The problem with his master always stalling was that it was his time and not the magicians’ he was taking. It was still hard to convince Lordri of it, but Theissen vowed to try harder with that.

Going out onto the road, Theissen traveled up towards the main city center. The carpenter lived on the lower east side, dipping down towards the market district rather than the classy living areas. Theissen had to walk up hill to the city center and down again towards the west side. That also meant walking by Munden’s shop, which meant Theissen had to take a round about route to avoid three certain persons.

So far he failed in that area. They always seemed to find him.

“Hey! Where you going so fast?” A hand clenched the back of Theissen’s neck in a pinch. Despite his being a wizard, they could still sneak up on him. Their animosity didn’t smell strong enough to be detected early. Hate tended to swell and cloud around a person rather than reek in the air like demonic odors and sickness.

Theissen had to stop, unable to move forward. “Let go.”

They snickered, gripping tighter.

Of course Munden Carpenter was disappointed that Theissen was unwilling to leave his master’s business to join him. Extremely disappointed. Theissen suspected he encouraged the obnoxious threesome to stalk and ambush him around town to put him out of commission. Fortunately, Theissen no longer had to hide his magic so he used it frequently in self-defense.

He threw up a gust of wind, distracting enough for them to let go. Then, with a hasty step from their grasp he made their feet sink into the stone road. That was all he needed really to continue on. From there all he had to do was run.

Theissen skidded around a corner, dived over a small fence with a push from the ground then he continued up another narrow stepped path towards the magician’s shop. The threesome still had to dislodge their feet to chase after him, but one of them figured all they had to do was abandon their shoes.

In a way, Theissen had wished he had let people remain afraid of him on that first day. But as soon as the constables had dispatched the demon, that group of seven men had arrived at the shop with foreboding glares fixed on who had been earlier assessed as a seemingly innocent outsider. Lordri Carpenter had once more stopped his dance of joy and slumped with dismay again waiting as he wrung his hands with worry. The two apprentices had looked on with a strange expression of hope though, a hope that Theissen would be expelled from the town. Neither worries nor hopes were fulfilled. All Theissen had to do was show the constables his scars and relate his history with the law. In that brief moment the lawmen relaxed. Even as a wizard, he accepted punishment. That was enough for them.

Unfortunately, rumor spread throughout the town that Theissen was that kind of man. The terror at having a wizard in their midst melted into delight and even a growing curiosity of the law-abiding softie that could do magic. But that same rumor also told the pesky threesome that Theissen was a kitten when it came to fighting. A man punished for brawling does not easily forget the sensation of getting his hand chopped off, never mind that he could reattach it once it was over. There were times when they even grabbed his wrist and twisted along the scar to remind him that it would not be wise to fight back if he knew what was good for him. But Theissen knew what was good for him better than anyone, and running was always the best option anyway. It was they who did not know that picking on a wizard was a foolish thing.

Still, Theissen hurried on towards the magicians’ home, unable to be deterred from his task. He went out into the main road and then wound around a few more streets until he faced the house. Already he could smell and hear the noises of magic spells being cast inside. Grinning he crossed the street and walked up to the step to open the door.

The magicians lived in a two-story home in the upper west side of the town. Everyone in the town knew where they lived because it was a well-cared-for house off a main road with a sign hanging from wrought iron. There was something unusually perfect about their home, too neat and clean, as if they had cast spells on the paint to never fade or peel off. The residents in the houses around it had to work doubly hard to manage the same upkeep. So far they eliminated the work by keeping paint off of their brick so they only had to paint the wood.

The inside was not as immaculate. True, their front room was livable and attractive for guests, and their kitchen was perfectly kept, but they had a hired cook and maid to do all that. The downstairs was the hired help’s responsibility. Theissen smiled at the maid as he stepped in, gesturing towards the upstairs. She ducked her head and nodded bashfully, gazing at him with same residual smell of fear everyone in town had. The magicians called it awe. He didn’t. Awe was more like admiration, and no one had yet looked at him that way.

Going up the stairs, Theissen saw the house in the way more like he knew. The upstairs was the magicians’ work area. That meant it was off limits to everyone but them, and now of course Theissen. It was dusty in parts. It was also cluttered. Jars of powdered incense with old dusty oil containers rested on shelves and windowsills. They were to be unused except for extreme situations, the magicians said. Theissen suspected it was because those things were used in herbalist magic and not ‘pure magic’, as they so often said with a slight nasal tone of disdain. Shrugging it off, Theissen generally ignored their tones of superiority. That was intrinsic with being a magician, he decided.

Further up at the end of the stairs in the large open hall where he saw the two men standing in plain pants and tunics, not the formal magician attire and usually what they wore around the house because their robes really got in the way, the room was full of odd instruments of silver and gold. They even had one of those celestial globes his village magician had. Theirs spun on a stand, rotating in relation the stars in the sky and the movement of planets. There was a place inside it where he could set in a candle so that the shadows and light would shine on the walls and ceiling. When he had first come to their home, they had let him examine all of their magic tools, watching him like doting uncles as he ran around (Theissen was embarrassed to admit) with childish glee. They still amazed