Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (librera reader txt) 📕

The watching crowd passed by. They had work to do, as the day was moving. Travelers rumbled past on in carriages with liveries indicating important houses from the areas of Serjiev and Himmerzon Town. Many looked out their windows at the construction scene as they continued into the city. The woodwork went up in the regular way. Each beam was set equidistant over the stone pit in the ground, resting on the outer edges. Then Theissen moved the rock with magic, shifting the flow so that the stone shaped itself like clay over the beams then fixed into place. Then from there they went back to manual labor.

As they built the flooring over the beams, Theissen emptied the basement of the junk again, summoning it all to the sidewalk through the ground. From there he moved it into the baskets that the merchant’s wife had set out for the job. The Merchant’s daughter helped out.

She picked up the stray pieces and dropped them into the different baskets as cats curled around her ankles, purring and rubbing against the woven basket reeds as Theissen and the girl filled them. Though some of the cats climbed into the baskets, pawing and batting the objects as if they were toys. As soon as she and Theissen had collected all the pieces, Theissen helped her take them indoors to the merchant’s home for safekeeping. It took a bit to find the space, as the house was full, but they set them in the girl’s room behind her bedroom door. Together they went back out into the street. Most of the planking wood was gone by then, and the Millman was motioning for some of his crew to send the cart back for more.

“We finished the basement stairs,” the Millman announced when he saw Theissen, walking over to them.

“Thank you.” Theissen glanced to the fourteen-year-old girl who stood at his side, now watching the construction with that silent manner of hers. It kind of cute, her following him. He smiled with a nod to her. “And thank you. You were most helpful.”

The girl blushed. Ducking her head with an embarrassed smile, she turned her chocolate eyes towards him.

His heart took a little jump. His face grew hot. Suddenly antsy to get moving again, with a slight hop Theissen walked over to join Theobold, who for some reason, was still bickering with Teppan on the curb near the construction site.

“Well, if you really think that, then fine! But I was the only one who listened to him when he said he didn’t want to stay! What did you do?”

Theissen cleared his throat to announce his presence, trying not to look back at the merchant’s daughter. “Hey, Theobold. I’m going up town. Will you keep watch over everything? Make sure no one fools around while I’m gone?”

The birdman turned and shook his head vehemently. “No. I’m sick of being left behind.”

“Agreed,” Teppan said, giving a sharp nod. “I’m your apprentice. Don’t you think you ought to take some of us with you when you go gallivanting off?”

“Especially with that magician now out to get you,” Theobold added, casting Teppan a side glare as if telling him to keep out of it.

The merchant’s daughter gasped.

Theissen turned, blinking. She was standing just to the side. She had followed him. But her hands covered her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling back. “But if the magicians—”

“I’m not worried about the magicians,” Theissen said with a calm smile.

“But if they—”

He put a hand on her head—her hair was soft—and tried to reassure her that nothing would happen. But she looked near tears. So much that Theissen was amazed that she cared at all about a stranger that had only stayed in her home for one night, even ousting her from her own room.

“I’ll be fine. I’m a wizard. Our town had a magician, and I handled him all right.”

“But there are three of them!” she retorted, her warm dark eyes begging him to reconsider.

His chest felt warm, his heart beating faster with an ache. But he was resolved.

Hunching down, Theissen tried to meet her eyes though looking in them caused him to feel warm. “It’s fine. I studied magician’s magic too. I’m not unarmed.”

“Come on, Theissen,” Theobold said, gesturing to the merchant’s daughter. “She’s right. You ought to be worried, if even only a little. Take at least one of us with you. Preferably me.”

Theissen shot him a wry look then straightened up. “Gads, you’re persistent. Fine. You can come. I can have Karo watch out for the group.”

“But who will guard the carts?” Teppan glared at Theobold. He stood on the street with clenched fists, refusing to be left behind.

Ignoring the inclination to take Teppan over one knew and tan his hide for acting like a child, Theissen huffed and tromped over to the carts. With dramatic motion for all to see, he felt into the earth through his shoes. And the card sunk into the ground like quicksand. With a mental shove, they rolled through rock and soil into the basement of the home they were building. Then he turned sharply towards Teppan. “Is that satisfactory?”

Teppan almost replied.

“Are you going to get them out again?” Karo stomped over the road with a scowl at the wizard.

Pale, the merchant’s daughter hopped out of his way, bumping right into Theissen. Theissen put an arm around her to keep her from falling, but pulled her next to him to assure that she was safe.

“Of course,” Theissen retorted peevishly. “And you will be in charge of making sure the work the gets done and these builders get paid a fair wage.”

“But what about the stone work?” Karo gesturing to the rest of the rubble like he wished he still had those sharp claws on his old moleman hands.

Unfortunately, the ex-moleman had a point. First things had to come first.

“Hold on a minute. I need to set the walls.” Gently letting the merchant’s daughter go, nudging her to step aside, Theissen crossed the cobblestone to the edge of the lot.

He crouched down. It was a lot of rock, and he had not yet figured out how the wanted the building to look. Since they did not want him to leave until he had set the stone, Theissen had to decide that very moment.

The stones moved as if they were alive, crawling across the ground then climbing and merging with the stone they were ascending. Each piece fitted around the wood beams, building up higher, yet leaving spaced for windows in front and in back. He merged the sides, somewhat, with the neighboring houses, also leaving an open space for a second floor.

 “I can only go so far before we have to set up the next set of beams,” Theissen said to Karo. “Do you want to move them now so I can put up the rest?”

The ex-moleman hopped forward, obeying as if he were a general. They shouted out at the other men to drop what they were doing to come help move the rest of the beams. Within minutes they hauled them up and over the curb, then hoisted them up through the rock with a little magic maneuvering from Theissen. So, with the second floor beams laid out, Theissen raised the last of the stonework. He left space for the roof beams and the overhang that would certainly need woodwork rather than stone. He already put in a chimney. Theissen grinned at the finished result.

“There. That is the first house I nearly built with magic. You can do the wood,” he said. “Now let’s hope it doesn’t fall apart when my back is turned.”

Immediately Theissen walked off, heading towards the city center. Everyone followed him with their eyes, wondering if he was serious.

Theissen gestured to Theobold and Teppan. “Are you coming or not?” Then he gestured to Ronen. “Come on! If apprentices ought to come with me, you ought to be going with us too.”

All that time, Ronen had been sitting near the old woodpile with Daanee perched in his lap. Both were engaged in what Theissen though was too public a display of affection.

Daanee scowled at Theissen, clearly considering him a saboteur.

“You can come too, you know,” he said to her.

Immediately, Daanee’s expression lightened. She hopped off Ronen’s lap. Both jogged over to where Theobold and Teppan were still bickering under whispers.

“So you really are going to the tower?”

Halting, Theissen looked back to the merchant’s daughter. She had also followed him.

And though he thought was it kind of cute how she was following him, much like the cats and the dog had, she was only fourteen. So young. It amazed him now how in his own village they thought that was a marriageable age for a girl. And though this one girl was sweet, she was hardly experienced enough to take on the kind of world he lived in. If anything, he wanted to protect her from it.

“Yes, I’m going to the tower.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile, tried to keep it brotherly, but he could already see tears well up in her eyes. He just couldn’t bear tears. “Oh, come on. I’ll be all right. I don’t have to be afraid of a—”

But she ran straight to her mother’s house.

“—curse.”

Theissen frowned.

He felt the weight of Theobold’s arm on his shoulder. “It looks like you got an admirer.”

“Oh, stop it.” Theissen turned, shoving the birdman’s arm off. “She’s a kid.”

“She’s a kid? Theissen how old are you?” Theobold followed him up the road.

The other two apprentices and Daanee followed close behind.

“Don’t start. I was sixteen when I left home,” Theissen said. “She’s still living with her mother.”

Theobold snickered. “Alright. Fine. What do I know about human courting procedures?”

They continued on up the road for a while, wordlessly passing those that stood in doorways and in the windows of shops. The people watched most especially the birdman but also kept their eyes on the wizard.

“But she is available, isn’t she?” Theobold finally added.

“Shut it,” Theissen snapped, quickening his pace.

Those with him snickered. 

The tower was harder to reach than Theissen had anticipated. Though the roads were straighter the further into the old city they went, the tower rested on the crest of a hill that overlooked the bay more like it was built to watch the sea rather than the city. To get to it they had to go up an even older set of winding streets. Fact was, they could find no straight road that accessed it. Mostly they walked up narrow steps between homes until they reached a rounded cul-de-sac. The tower stood in the center, surrounded by several dilapidated houses. All the houses around it were empty.

The entrance to the tower hung open, leading into a pitch-black chamber. Most of the large doors had long rotted off. The hinges were crusted with age, in addition to blue green mold. The red paint on the outer brick and stone flaked off in patches as if the entire tower were leprous. And the place had a stink that Theissen found oddly familiar.

“You want to live here?” Teppan said with a disgusted look upwards, assessing the height of the tower.

Theissen merely shrugged. Gazing at the building, he could see no signs of a curse, though magic weaved in and out of the building itself as part of its construction. It had strengthening spells on it, it as if it were a basket that tightened the more pressure was put on it.

Peering up at its tall height, Theissen took a few steps closer to the doorway to see better.

“They say anyone who enters gets eaten alive by a demon.” Ronen kept his distance, looking more likely to run back to the inn.

“I don’t smell a demon in there,” Theissen murmured. However he did see movement, tons of natural movement.

The dog from the wizard’s place had followed him to the tower. It was whimpering at his side, not daring to go closer to the building either. Theissen wondered what it could