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

pulled him down from where he managed to raise himself in the air despite his clipped wings and said, “I need you to help Seron out with getting a larger collection of feathers to sell.”

“But I’ve been banished,” Theobold murmured, turning with a look at Seron who merely shrugged. The other birdmen were turning to go, giving up on having their own wizard now that the doctor had been spooked.

Casting the gathering crowd of birdmen behind them a shrewd look Theissen said aloud, “Oh, I don’t intend to work with the birdmen unless you are involved. Seron has to work with you, or no deal.”

Hearing that, Seron scrambled over to the elders with anxious flaps and tearful gasps, begging them to bring Theobold back. They barely agreed with disgruntled waves, flapping off the ground since their cause was truly lost.

“They said yes! They said yes!” Seron practically hopped next to Theobold, clasping his arms around him with joy while Theobold did start to cry from relief, wiping off the tears with the back of his hand.

Squeezing out of Seron’s hold, Theobold flapped over to Theissen. “Then I will see you again, friend?” 

Theissen nodded, grinning at him with intense relief. “You can count on it.”

“Wait!” the mole chief walked up to Theissen, wringing his hands. He gestured to a cart full of gemstones and then another one filled with metal ore, both pulled by molemen with a certain amount of grunting and strain. “We were planning on selling these to the merchants when they arrived after the rains. If you really are selling for us, then please bring these with you to start.”

Theobold jabbed Theissen in the side. “Look at that.”

Theissen nodded. This was larger than the mound in the throne room. All the pieces were rough though.

“Thank you, Father,” Daanee said.

Ronen grinned too, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Yes, thank you, Father.”

The moleman made a face. “Ah, stuff it, birdman. I’m doing it for her. Not you.”

Daanee kissed her father’s cheek, though Ronen rolled his eyes and just nodded to the molemen that glared at him, passing over the carts with a distrusting snarl at the cured birdman.

“Ok, fine.” Theissen gestured to the carts for the other cured people to take hold. All the former molemen ran forward nodding to his former fellow with a sheepish grin. It was clear there had been an obvious disagreement among these demons and most were still getting used to the idea that their fellows were not going to eat dirt with them anymore.

“Anything else?” Theissen said to the chief who had the posture of groveling now. It was amusing that this moldy smelly thing had kept him prisoner four months ago.

Looking up at him, the moleman chief said in a low voice that took on the tone of shame. “Uh…please. We do have one small request.”

Theissen gave him a dry look. “Is there such thing as a small request?”

Daanee reached out to Theissen right away, her eyes staring up at him with pleading once more. “Oh, please! Hear him out.”

Sighing, Theissen leaned back with shifted weight and waited, folding his arms.

Taking that as a sign to speak, the moleman chief said, “We only ask, well, if you could at least make it so dirt tastes nice.”

“Just change the taste of dirt!” Others started to echo. It rumbled actually, going through the huge numbers of molemen and women that gathered all over the forest floor.

Theissen cringed. The smell was really getting to him.

“You know, I can’t change the favor of all dirt,” Theissen said. But then he chuckled and reached out to the moleman’s face. “But think I can change the way you taste it. Stick out your tongue.”

The chief obeyed him almost immediately, casting a small glance at his daughter. His mouth opened wide, Theissen stared at the demon’s dirt crusted trap with a grimace. He had never liked tying up a knot in the flow before, but this seemed to do more good than harm. With a twist and a jerk, Theissen pulled his hand from the demon’s mouth, tapping the tongue once.

“Feel any different?” one of the mole men asked him.

The chief bent over to part the leaves from off the earth below him. He dug up a lump of earth and started to eat. Every beady eye and glass-covered face watched him as he chewed then swallowed.

“Well?” Theissen asked.

With a sigh, the moleman said, “It tastes like nothing.”

Theissen nodded.

“But why didn’t you make it taste good?” the chief asked.

Shrugging, Theissen turned and looked at the crowd behind the chief. “It would take too long to figure out how to do that. Besides, I’d like to get going and you probably want me to make the same change for all those others over there. Am I right?”

None of them called him stupid. Each mole face bit their tongues, just waiting for their turn for a cure from eating horrid tasting food on a daily basis.

“But…”

“That’s enough, Daddy. You can’t expect him to fix everything,” Daanee said, looking at Theissen anxiously. The journeyman seemed likely to quit with helping them if he were annoyed more.

“But I thought wizards were all powerful,” the mole chief murmured.

Theobold flapped up with a smirk, the only birdman now left with them except for Seron.

“I am not all powerful,” Theissen said with a sigh. “No one is.”

The molemen hushed with dismay.

“So, do you want this change or not?” Theissen asked, looking to the enormous crowd under the trees with a tired sigh.

Almost immediately a mole man marched up to him, opening his mouth wide. “Me next!”

Cringing, Theissen nodded to Daanee. “Fine. But from now on, have them wash out their mouths with water before I have to look in them?”

“I’ll get it!” Daanee ran off, happily dragging Ronen with her.

It took all afternoon and into the evening for Theissen to change the taste buds of the mole people’s tongues. During that time, Theobold sent Seron off for some more feathers, and quite possibly replacements for the parts of his own wings that had been clipped off. Seron also returned with a few helpers, passing along food for their journey and several bladders of water. The former birdmen started a fire then set up camp for the newly formed humans that would now travel with Theissen to Jattereen. They had settled down for the night waiting for Theissen to finish with the last moleman when the stars appeared.

“I am beat,” Theissen said as he dropped next to Theobold. He gave the birdman a glance and then blinked again. “What are you still doing here? Don’t you have a girl to go to?”

Theobold shrugged. “Nah. She’s the one who turned me in. I think I’ll fly to Jattereen with you and these new humans.”

It was hard for Theissen not to stare at him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll still come back to the nest every so often,” Theobold said with a smirk.

Theissen still stared.

“It’ll be fun.” Theobold nudged him in the side.

“You’ve never left home before, have you?” Theissen said inspecting his face.

Theobold grinned while shaking his head. “Not more than a few miles.”

“You might not want to come if you knew how hard it it’s going to be,” said Theissen.

But the others also stared at him.

Slapping Theissen on the back, Theobold just laughed more. “Are you kidding? After hearing you tell about all your adventures so far, I’d love to be around to see what trouble a carpenter from Lumen can get into next.”

It was hard to maintain a dry look, watching Theobold’s mirth-filled face. Theissen bust up laughing, patting his friend’s feathers with a sigh. “Alright, fine. But just so you know, we’re walking, not flying.”

Theobold’s grin fell for only a second. “Uh, no. You’re walking. I’m flying.”

To that, Theissen only shrugged. He was a journeyman after all, and he had to keep going.

Part Three

 

 

 

 

Master Craftsman

Chapter Thirty-One: He Doesn’t Want to be Known as a Wizard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It is so cold!”

Theissen just kept on walking, wrapping his forest ground cover colored robe closer to his skin for warmth. Carriages had ridden past their group, traveling towards the crossroads at Dhilia City for the past month. Walking, as Theobold the demon birdman often liked to say, was going slower than slow.

“How can you stand this?” another in his group called up to him as Theissen led on.

He just glanced at a broad weather-worn sign at a crossroads. They still had around thirty miles to go before they reach the city. If they continued at their pace, they might make it in three days time just before noon.

“Theissen,” Theobold flapped his broad white wings to lift him on the wind then glided to reach his friend’s side, landing with as much grace as a bird. “Theissen, we really need to stop and rest. Most birdmen aren’t used to walking for more than a few yards, you know, and we have been walking forever.”

Turning to face his weary friend, Theissen looked him dead in the eye and said, “We just stopped a half hour ago. We can keep going for at least another hour. There should be water and an inn where we can get some food and bed rest, if it isn’t filled up already.”

His birdman friend grimaced, shaking his feathered wings that rested on his shoulders. “But my legs ache.”

“Then fly ahead and scout out the nearest inn,” Theissen replied gesturing with a flick in that direction.

Theobold gave him a look that said you-are-just-trying-to-get-rid-of-me, but he did as Theissen asked, launching into the sky with three good wind-stirring flaps. He preferred flying anyway.

Theissen sighed with relief as he watched him, also glad the demon smell in the air had gone. He liked his friend, but there were times he really wished that Theobold had not been a demon.

The fact was, none of them traveling with Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson knew what it was like to travel Jatte roads. The nineteen-year-old man had been on those roads for the past three years as a journeyman carpenter, and he knew that most of the time the journey was slow and painful. Theissen had tried to explain it before they had set off from the Jadoran Forest where they had just lived. And he explained it again as they traveled the long stretches of bare road. But for some reason none of the men and women who were once birdmen could reconcile themselves with trudging day in and day out. And the men and women who had once been molemen were sore tired from