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

then his chest to see if such a bug or stink existed. There was a slight smell of something awry, though how this birdman detected it, he didn’t know. However, Theissen wondered how skillful he himself would be in cleansing out this bug if his own flow was looking so ill. He reached towards his skin and pulled.

The white birdman turned and then stared. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get it out,” Theissen said with a shrug. There was an unusual bulge there on the side that started to throb. Clenching his teeth, Theissen parted his own skin. From there out oozed yellowish pus.

Covering his head, the birdman leapt towards the table and grabbed a bottle and then a cloth. He flew to the edge of the feather bed where he practically jumped inside, wiping up the pus immediately with the cloth. He then doused the lesion Theissen had made covering it with the liquid in the bottle.

“OW! That hurts!” Theissen jumped to the other side of the nest. He closed up the lesion before the bird doctor could put on any more of that liquid.

“It’s alcohol. It cleans the wound.”

“I don’t care! It hurts!” Theissen shouted again. However, looking back to his wound he could see that he had not gotten all of the infection out. It was stubborn. So stubborn that Theissen wondered if an herbalist spell might remove it better. He thought he had seen one in that Westhaven book somewhere. Theissen groped his back for his pack.

“Hey!” Theissen felt nothing. He looked up at the white birdman and then at Theobold. “Hey! Where is my pack?”

Theissen then stared at his clothes. He was no longer wearing his shirt, his vest, his coat, his pants, his anything. Hanging loosely over him was a long draping form of one of those shirts the birdmen wore. The back was bare and open, scooping down just before it could expose his derriere, the whole thing hung down over to his knees.

“Where are my clothes?”

The women giggled. Theobold smothered a laugh.

“They are being decontaminated,” the doctor said, smirking and going back to look at the healed lesion on Theissen’s arm. “You had blood all over one side, and they smelled of molemen.”

No point in arguing that.

“Your infection is not only a result of what you ate,” the bird doctor said, fluttering out of the bed back to the table. “It is also the result of being stabbed by a dirty blade, though I looked for your wound could not find it.”

“I healed it then,” Theissen said, giving a nod and sitting back into the bed. “But where is my pack?”

Theobold lifted it up from off the edge of the bed. “Here! But really, it ought to be cleaned too. The whole thing stinks of molemen.”

“My tool belt?”

Theobold lifted that one up with a helpful smile.

Dropping back against the bed, Theissen relaxed into the feathers more.

The white birdman smiled. He walked back to the bed and crouched down, offering something in a cup. “Drink this. It will help drive out the infection. Your body will heal itself after some good bed rest.”

Taking it, Theissen sighed. “I really don’t get sick that often. I feel so stupid.”

Smiling, the white birdman waited on the edge. Taking the cup as soon as Theissen finished downing it, a bitter tasting yet somehow also sweet liquid that slimed out rather than poured like syrup, he stood up and walked back to the table.

“I noticed you have other scars on your body. Would you mind telling me about those?”

Theissen blinked. Other scars? He glanced at his hands and then his wrist. “Oh, those. Yes. I got those when I was a child.”

The birdman turned. “A child? But why?”

“I was punished for stealing,” Theissen said, peering at his own palms with a sigh.

Theobold drew in a breath.

Glancing at him, Theissen nodded. “It is sometimes hard for a wizard child to know his limits. I had to learn the hard way that there are some things a person ought not to do.”

“But what about the scar around your wrist?” the doctor turned, watching Theissen with the same calm yet curious bird like look.

Lifting his arm to look at it also, Theissen sighed. “That, I got for brawling.”

He could see Theobold’s wings flutter. Theobold hopped a bit to a more interested posture on his perch. “Brawling?”

Theissen laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, though it really was more to make things fair.

“You see there was this kid in our village that was harassing my cousin. We were only just barely in our childhood years, but he nearly killed her dog with a rock, and he was doing really naughty things to her. I ran in to stop him, healed the dog, and then he tried to strangle me.”

They gasped. The women fluttered together, drawing Theissen’s eye. Most of them were gathered along the edge of the platform where there was a railing set like a bench back with large tied pillows underneath them for comfort. Several of them gazed at Theissen with looks of sympathy and wonder. The aroma of feminine interest was also there giving off a disturbing demonic tinge to it that was unnerving. He turned and tried to look at Theobold and the doctor instead. 

“Well, I was only eight years old, and not thinking about the consequences, I closed his throat up.” Theissen stared up at the stars. “He would have suffocated had my father not found us and made me open his throat again. I would have been a killer.”

“But you were defending your cousin!” Theobold shouted out, his wings flapped angrily.

The doctor gave him an annoyed look. “That is not the point.”

Theissen nodded to the doctor, though he was grateful that Theobold understood his intentions at the time. “Yes, I’m afraid so. Anyway, I was summoned to court with the boy and we both were punished for brawling.”

“But isn’t your law for you to lose your hand?” the doctor asked, eyeing Theissen’s scar.

Shaking his head, Theissen said, “Nope. It is for our hands to be chopped off. There is no rule against us having them reattached.”

Theobold laughed aloud with a voice that echoed in the trees. The ladies cheered. Even the doctor smiled.

The white birdman walked back and handed Theissen another cup of something to drink. “But it seems you have had your fair share of trials since then. You look nearly starved.”

Cringing, Theissen nodded. “My fault really. I hadn’t time to gather provisions enough for the trip east. I was picked up by a carnival unexpectedly. An escape into the forest proved necessary.”

The women murmured among themselves.

“Well, you’re safe now,” Theobold said with a grin and settled his wings under his robe again.

The doctor nodded.

Theissen wished he could agree, but he said nothing about it. Safe to him meant having his feet firmly planted on the ground with him heading east with a pack full of food. However, as he downed the next vile smelling medicine, Theissen figured this was better than nothing—except for one thing.

He reached out to Theobold. “Please, can I have my pack?”

The doctor shook his head. “No. Young man. You need to rest.”

“Can I at least get a book out of it?” Theissen pleaded.

Chuckling, the white birdman nodded to Theobold. “You find it. We’ll see if he should handle it.”

Frowning, Theissen watched Theobold open the sack while making a face. Apparently the smell of molemen really repulsed them. The birdman emptied every item onto the deck, setting aside the teacup with curiosity, and then carefully he lifted out the somewhat dirty copy of the Westhaven book.

“Oh, they ruined it,” Theissen murmured, reaching out for it.

The doctor picked it from Theobold’s fingers with a white cloth, wiping it off. “Molemen do not respect knowledge. They are fools.”

He still held it just out of Theissen’s reach. Theissen was half inclined to use magic to get it from him, but he decided to wait. The birdman did not look willing to have Theissen touch such a dirty thing.

“Please,” Theissen said, reaching out.

Glancing at him, the birdman doctor narrowed his gaze curiously. “Can you repel dirt if you wanted? Like you pulled on that infection?”

Theissen nodded. “Of course I can.”

“He did it before.” Theobold gave a nod. “Cleaned most of the muck off his clothes. The stink was the only thing that remained, really.”

Still uncomfortable with letting Theissen touch it, the white birdman held back.

Patience gone, Theissen jerked the flow in the book. It lurched off out of the birdman’s hands and into Theissen’s. Catching it, Theissen shook off all the dirt with a flick and then gathered it up in a wisp of a breeze. It floated off the platform and puffed downward through the trees.

The woman clapped, gasping with amazement.

Theobold just grinned at the doctor. “Told you.”

It took a second for the white birdman to regain sense of himself. He coughed then stood up. “Well, I’ll be.”

Theissen opened the book, searching for the page on the poultice he was sure he had read. Back in the spell section, he flipped after the summoning and repelling spells, beyond the wards, written spells, sealing spells, more wards, traps, even more wards, some construction spells, and a barrier and strengthening spell. That was where he found brews. The first item in that section was poultices.

“Here it is,” Theissen murmured aloud, feeling the page under his fingers with relief.

The doctor peered over his shoulder, crouching down. “What is that?”

“A spell book, sort of,” Theissen said. “I bought it in Liptan Town a while back. It’s full of…” He paused and looked up at the birdman. “You don’t adhere to just one kind of magic, do you?”

The white haired birdman shook his head, his long tresses swaying like grasses in the wind as they dangled straight down from sides of his face. “No. We are open minded to all kinds of magic as long as it does not harm us.”

Theissen smiled. “Ok, then. It is a book from Westhaven written by a man who apparently knows a lot about magic. Two magicians I studied under say he is a magister and quite possibly a demon called a cordril. I don’t know exactly what’s true to that account. All I know is that this man has compiled the most instructive and useful list of spells and magic I have ever read.”

Staring with puzzlement, the birdman hesitated before speaking. “But aren’t you a wizard? What do you need with spells?”

Lifting the book, Theissen grinned wider. “Some spells work quicker and more effectively than just wizardry. I have to be feeling well to get rid of that infection. It is hard to grasp onto the flow otherwise.”

They blinked at him, not sure what he meant by that.

Ignoring it, Theissen continued. “But here, he has a potion for a herbal antibiotic poultice. I’d say it might work to pull out the toxins.”

“With a spell?” the doctor asked.

Theissen turned the page and peered at it. He nodded. “Yep. Looks simple too.”

“What’s in this poultice then?” the doctor asked. “We can brew it up to heal you quicker.”

Reading the list aloud, Theissen said, “Um, an iron pot. And iron spoon and ladle. A mortar and pestle. Fire for heat. Oh, here it is. Heather and mint, garlic and an onion, and some ash from a fire. That about sums it up, I think.”

He looked up. The face of the birdman doctor contorted.

“Garlic and an onion? Those are root vegetables.”

Theissen nodded.

“And ash from a fire.” The white birdman murmured, shaking his head. He glanced at Theobold who frowned.

“What? Those are pretty common.” Theissen didn’t like their looks.

Theobold shook his had at Theissen. “Common things for humans, you mean. We haven’t eaten garlic or onions or anything that has grown directly in the ground since we left the ground.”

Staring as his mouth fell open, Theissen then glanced back at the page. “What about this? Here is a simple poultice recipe. It calls for milk or water, ash, sand, or dry leaves and herbs that attract toxins.”

“You know, I think I