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

what? You look like you’re comfortably situated. There is nothing left for a carpenter to do.”

Jabbing him harder, the chief then grabbed Theissen’s shirt and yanked him down so that they could see eye to eye. “Stop talking like a carpenter, boy. We are talking about magic.”

Looking in the beady black eyes of this thing, smelling his murky moldy stench and knots, Theissen had a hard time keeping his insides from revolting. He averted his eyes.

The demon shook him, forcing him to face him. “Admit you are a wizard. Just say it.”

Swallowing the rising acid from his stomach, Theissen fought the urge to vomit.

Shaking him once more, the demon chief growled. “With every second—”

Theissen slapped his hand over his mouth then started to make gagging sounds. The demon jumped back. The guards did also. Unable to keep it inside any longer, Theissen bent over and vomited right on a pile of unrefined stones.

“I’m sorry,” Theissen muttered after wiping his mouth. “But the smell really is getting to me.”

“That is sick!” one demon shouted.

“That’s how wizards think of us!” another barked.

Another demon jabbed Theissen again.

“Oh, would you knock that off!” Theissen whipped around, swiping at the spear. The metal bent under his touch like the iron bars had done with the carnival. All the spears that pointed at him drooped likewise as if he had been emanating a particularly strong heat.

Looking up at the chief, Theissen shook his head with actual apologetic face.

“I’m sorry about the mess, but you got the wrong guy. I’m not the one that cursed you, so please, let me go.”

But the chief broke into a laugh. “Got the wrong guy? That old wizard died ages ago! Of course you aren’t him.”

Staring at him with a growing puzzled look, Theissen saw there were more demons surrounding him, all glaring with hate that oozed around. He was about to vomit again from the smell when the chief gestured to another side. Theissen was suddenly doused with a bucket of cold water. It dripped all over him, but also washed off the vomit that had covered the ground where he was standing.

“Take him to a holding room,” the chief said with another gesture.

Theissen popped up, straightway banging his head on the low ceiling in anger as he shouted. “What do you want from me? I was just minding my own business up there when your—”

“Do not address me so rudely!” the chief suddenly bellowed. “You were treading in our forest without our permission! And worse, you are a wizard!”

Groaning, Theissen felt like collapsing there from exasperation. “Why are you picking on me? I never did anything to you.”

“Trespassing. You were trespassing,” one of the demons said.

Theissen cast him a look. “Why didn’t you put up a sign to say it was your land?”

“Idiot,” another snapped. “Everyone knows this land belongs to us.”

“Everyone?” Theissen bickered back, feeling the demons trade their bent spears for new sharp ones. “That’s nonsense. I never even heard of your kind in the south. And the magicians in Liptan never even mentioned you.”

“All tradesmen along this route know,” a demon retorted.

“Well, that’s not everyone, now isn’t it?” Theissen snapped, turning to face him.

“Silence!” the chief shouted. He was glaring particularly hateful at Theissen. “Or you will be silenced.”

Theissen stared at him for a moment before giving a terse nod. “What do you want from me? A cure? Fine. Let everyone line up and I’ll make you all human again. It will be the second time I’ve tried it, but it worked on a gole.  I don’t see why I can’t untie the knots in you.”

The demon chief actually staggered back as if he had just been threatened. “A cure? We are not a disease! And we do not wish for a cure! Now take the insolent fool away.”

“Then why did you drag me down here?” Theissen shouted.

But the demons shoved him back down the right tunnel into the pitch darkness once more.

 

Darkness. Darkness and tunnels. And the stink of mildewy demon knots. That was all Theissen could make out as he tried to keep his feet as they forced him into a march deeper into the mountain. He also heard the chatter of children, many asking questions about him and why the adults were taking him down that particular path. It felt like hours of walking. Hours in darkness. The only good in that journey was that they were no longer attempting to trip him up. Eventually they came to the end of the tunnel, where Theissen felt a change in the air and the presence of a hanging door.

Several rough padded hands shoved him in. Tumbling ahead and then striking a wall, Theissen fell over. The creaking bang and clang of metal echoed over his now throbbing head. He wiped off what he thought was blood from his forehead. It felt slimy actually. Under his head had the same sick wetness. The smell was no better there than in the other tunnels, but then a whiff of wind touched him and he looked up, hoping to see some kind of light.

It was pitch black, as usual.

He lay there for what felt like an hour. They had taken his pack and his tool belt while they had been walking towards his new cage. Groping the ground, Theissen searched out to where the demons had taken them. His pack, he discovered was set out on the ground and the demons were going through it. His teacup was snickered at then set aside, perhaps to end up in the chief’s treasure chamber. The magic book was dumped unceremoniously in a pile with his writing case, his handkerchiefs and the food they were unable to eat. Mostly the demons took out his clothes as if they were treasures, trying them on with cackles of laugher. The miniature rose bush was carefully set aside with the teacup, all of them murmuring over who would get that. He found his tools in a far tunnel, the demons picking over them and his leather belt as if choosing a fork to eat with. However, eventually they just set that aside on a hook with a great number of other tools, all undoubtedly for crafting and mining jewels.

Feeling more deeply, Theissen could tell that the mountainside was not just riddled with tunnels, but even under the trees in the forest were numerous passages and living areas where practically a city’s worth of demons resided. It was nothing like what Jonis had mentioned. The largest demon infestation Jonis wrote about was with those bird parasites. That kind of infestation seemed more likely anyway.

Of course, Jonis did mention that group of demons that had taken over the northern hemisphere. And he also had mentioned one kind that occupied an entire island. Then, of course were the Cordrils, of whom Jonis did say had a community somewhere up in Ki Tai. It just had not felt real until then. Things like demons had such a mythic quality to them.

But then so did wizards.

Theissen sighed aloud. Perhaps all that mythic nonsense wasn’t nonsense after all.

“What are you up to in there?” a demon called.

Theissen could feel it coming closer from where they had sorted out his things. Not even, sitting up, Theissen just stared at the black ceiling, smelling the demon approach.

“Nothing at all.”

The demon chuckled. “I can see that. You’re going to get coated in slime if you stay like that too.”

Getting up, now feeling his hair stick to the ground and then the back of his head, Theissen cringed. Directing his voice towards where he heard the demon talking, Theissen tried to sit up better. However, he only banged his head on the low roof he had struck when he had been shoved into cell. He could hear the demons cackling down the passage.

Rubbing his face now, he asked, “What is with you guys? Why bother locking me up here?”

The one standing at the metal cage door said with a smug sounding grunt, “The chief has plans for you.”

“Plans?” That did not sound too promising. “I already offered what I can do? What else does your chief want?”

With another deep chuckle, the demon walked back to his group. “I don’t think I’m allowed to say yet. But if you cooperate, you may get to see the sun again.”

May get to see the sun again? And then what? These mole-like demons did not seem trustworthy. It was more likely they would keep him in his dank prison until he grew old and sick or before he starved to death, whichever came first. They enjoyed laughing at his pains a bit too much. That was always a bad sign.

Sitting up while placing his hand on the wall to make sure he would not hit his head again, Theissen found that there was only a foot of space in which he could sit completely upright. The metal bars between him and the rest of the tunnel were just as slimy, smelling also of rust and grease. The stink in the tunnel was less like demonic mildew and more like that of pond scum. In the distance he could hear a trickling sound with drips accompanying it with a lonely echo.

Finding a space in the side wall, just a little less slimy than the floor where he could sit up and rest his head near the bars, Theissen exhaled with thoughts of home, wondering also if Milrina made it safely to South Town. Her caravan would be traveling through the Tuscon and Dondit Mountains under the canopy of trees filled with those suspicious peering demon birds. Hearing them speak and stare at him up close in that carnival gave him chills. It was strange to think how they had left him alone, perhaps all too aware as these demons were that he was a wizard.

“Eh? You in there! You hungry?”

Some of the demons broke into laughs.

Staring at the blackness of nothing, Theissen mustered up a, “Do you have anything besides dirt to eat?”

One of them grumbled something nasty about smart-mouthed wizards and stomped over to rattle the cage.

“We have the food from your pack, dumb brain!”

Theissen blinked. “Dumb brain?”

He felt something drop onto his lap. It was the last chunk of bread he had left in his pack.

“Doesn’t look like you have much,” another demon said with a snort. “Were you expecting food to fall from the sky later?”

Theissen broke off a small piece and munched on it. The bread had long gone stale, but it was all he had. He sighed again.

“Don’t you have anything left to eat?” A new voice broke from the other ones. It sounded higher pitched, and gentler. Feminine.

Lifting his head, Theissen blinked, wishing he could see the source. There was no hate in this demonic odor. “No. I was just conserving what I had.”

“I thought you looked hungry,” she said.

Theissen then heard water dipping. He felt a cold stone-like cup shoved into his hands. He almost dropped the bread.

“Drink that.”

It could have been poison. However, not smelling any hate from this one, Theissen took in a long drink.

It was not water. It was not poison. It was a broth, thin and warm, though the flavor he could not make out. Emptying the cup almost immediately, she refilled it with a ladle from the pot she was carrying. He emptied that one just as quickly.

“Two bowls will do enough for now,” she said then started to walk away.

“Wait!” Theissen reached from the cage.

“More will only make you sick.” He could feel her feet stop though.

“No, I…” Theissen stared into the darkness, now really wishing there had been some light in the cave in which to see. “Sorry, but what is your name?”

Every one of the demons in the room drew breath. The woman demon took one step back.

“It…my name is Daanee.”

Theissen smiled. “That sounds a bit like my sister’s name, Doreen.”

She did not move. “You have a family?”

He nodded. “Don’t you?”

To that, she chuckled. “Of course, I do. But you. You are a