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

“Is this place painted black or—”

“Don’t be daft,” Teppan murmured to Ronen. He eyed Daanee with disgust as she clung to his fellow apprentice as if she were still terrified. “All this black stuff was once spiders.”

“Disgusting.” Daanee clutched Ronen’s side tighter, shaking.

“How high up is this tower?” Teppan asked, nudging Theissen in the back as they continued up and up each step.  

“Don’t know,” Theissen replied, going higher as if it didn’t matter how high it went.

They passed several doors, a number of landings and a few slit windows that opened out to the city, going higher and higher around the center like a corkscrew. Obviously the living space went along the outside walls since the stairwell was narrow and steep.

“There are at least seven windows upwards,” the shopkeeper said. “Perhaps eight or nine floors.”

They counted up to about ten or so. By the time they reached the last landing they were all winded, gripping their chests and knees for support. Looking around, this floor had several different sets of stairs all leading like spires of a star up to where Theobold was waiting. Choosing one stairway, Theissen threw up the roof hatch. He stuck his head. Fresh blowing wind whipped through the open tower top, tossing his long, sooty ponytail around to his face. 

“Gads, you’re slow.” Theobold snickered, sitting cross-legged on an ornately carved railing.

“Don’t laugh, birdboy.” Theissen panted hard as he approached where his friend roosted. He leaned first on his friend’s arm, then on the stone rail. He looked down.

The view was astonishing. He could see the entire city from this point. All the roads sprawled out from the tower like a spider web, clinging to the corner of his country. “Wow.”

“Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it,” said Theobold.

“No kidding.”

“Look at that,” Teppan murmured on the other side of the tower. “You can see the ocean.”

“The Sea of Tior, actually,” the shopkeeper said, emerging from the trap door. He pointed over to the north. “That peninsula over there. That belongs to the Hann.”

Theissen left Theobold and stepped over the trapdoors to the other side. He had to weave through the circle of pillars that held up the roof to get there. Between the pillars, he noticed metal racks housing rotted bows and steal tipped arrows. Gazing out the other side, he saw the bay and an endless field of blue. “So, that is the Eastern Sea?”

The shopkeeper nodded. His wife grinned. She closed her eyes as the wind breezed past her face, enjoying the air. They could smell the salt and even the distinct odor of fish.

Theissen nodded to himself. Looking down at the masts of ships that rested on the edge of the sea, he felt a sense of home. 

“I need to visit the docks soon. I have to find a Hann tradesman.”

“Why?” Teppan asked. In the light he could see Theissen’s face. It was even more smudged with ash than theirs, all from touching the railing which had been entirely covered in burnt spiders.

“He needs to get a letter translated,” Theobold replied for him. He flapped over and landed on that side next to Theissen. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Ronen echoed with confustion. “But we already have the inn to finish building, clean up this place if I am not mistaken, register our property and professions with the city government as the wizard said we have to do, and set up some sort of food. I’m starved.”

“You? This isn’t about you,” Theobold turned on him. He hopped to the inside of the tower.

“But he is right,” Theissen murmured with an aching sigh. So much responsibility weighed him down. He was getting his priorities mixed up again. “The letter can wait, though I ought to at least write my mother and let her know I’m ok.”

“Write your mother?” the shopkeeper murmured with some incredulity while checking his own ash-covered hands. “Now I’ve heard and seen just about everything. A wizard that thinks about writing his mother.”

“She’s probably worried.” Theissen puzzled at the shopkeeper. It had been months since he last sent her a letter, not since he left the birdmen at least. Knowing her, she was probably watching the windowsill every day for any news of his whereabouts.

The shopkeeper still looked amused though, so much that Theissen resolved to hurry back to the inn and get his writing things out. But first, he really did have to set his priorities. The first was to register with the city. Or maybe it was to clean up? Of course, there was the issue of food. The real question was perhaps which to choose first.

“Are you all right?” Daanee asked, peering into his face.

He had been staring down at the docks still.

Looking up, Theissen realized that all of the people that had come with him were watching him with concern.

“I think doing that magic took something out of him,” the shopkeeper said.

Shaking his head while attempting to put his usual amused smile back on, Theissen replied, “No. I was just thinking about what to do next.”

“What are we to do next?” Teppan asked.

Theobold ruffled his feathers. He moved to Theissen’s side. “Hold on. He did enough today. How about we give him some space?”

“Give him some space?” Teppan’s voice rose. “Give him some space? We are standing in a tower everyone had thought had been cursed, and he cleaned it out of a plethora of spiders, practically setting the entire city on fire with that stunt—and you say give him some space?”

“Practically set the entire city on fire?” Theissen turned with a curious blinking look. “Did I really?”

Theobold nodded. A smile leaked out. “I saw it from the rooftop. The entire city was hit with that fire. But it’s gone now, so who cares?”

“Who cares?” Teppan shouted back. He pointed straight down to the road. “Look, birdbrain! Can’t you see how it has stirred up the city? Someone is going to come here to find out what happened! And when they do, they are going to find us here! Then what, do you think?”

“Birdbrain? Since when did you think you were better than me Teppan? When you became human? Am I all of a sudden trash to you now?” Theobold flexed his feathers. His bare back shivered with goose bumps from exposure to the cold winter wind. But he looked ready to claw Teppan’s eyes out.

“Hold it!” Theissen stuck himself in between the two. He lifted his arms to block them both. “Teppan, that was uncalled for. And Theobold, calm down. He is right. We have to act. Now, you, Teppan, go back on ahead to the inn and inform the others of what we just did. I need you to organize a team of people to come and clean up this place. Get all the old bird people over here, in fact. They haven’t been much help at the inn anyway.”

“What does that mean?” Ronen retorted, starting to look as affronted as Theobold was.

Daanee kept her mouth closed, averting her eyes from Theissen, knowing exactly what he meant.

Theissen sighed loud. “You and Daanee can stay here. I’ll need someone to meet them when they arrive. I’ll pull off the initial ash so that their work will be easier. So, Teppan, tell them to bring cleaning supplies. I’m sure the merchant’s wife will be happy to lend a hand when she hears we have been successful.”

“We’ll help out,” the shopkeeper’s wife quickly said.

“Really?” Theissen stared at her, amazed.

She nodded, grinning as she stuck her hands into her apron pockets. “Of course. In fact, you made it so I can claim my old home again.” She looked to her husband. “We can set up a home here as well as down there.”

So much relief washed over Theissen. He was overcome, really. In no other town since home had people been so willing to help a stranger.

“Now, Dear…” the shopkeeper said, drawing his wife aside with a whisper to her.

She shook her head at him and pulled back. “Come on, Larints. For the protection of a wizard in our city, I think we can spare a few buckets and scrub brushes. Besides, imagine the business that will come up here now.”

The shopkeeper’s expression lit up. A smile engraved itself into his face with a glazed expression in his eyes. He nodded slowly. Turning, he bowed low to Theissen, “We are at your service.”

It was impossible for Theissen not to smile. He looked to Theobold who was still glaring at Teppan.

“Oh, come on Theobold. Let’s start making this place a home.”

Theobold shot Teppan one last glare before returning Theissen’s generous smile. He bowed low. “I’ll do it for you only.”

Placing an arm around his friend, Theissen led him back down the stairs, personally inclined to force Theobold through all the ash they had to walk through. “Alright. First order of business, I need you to come with me to the city center to register us. I figure you and I can get this done first. Then we’ll start up business.”

Theobold flapped with delight. “Good. That means we have to go back to the inn we’re building first.”

Theissen looked puzzled. “Why the inn?”

The birdman dusted ash from his wings with a snort. “We’re filthy, especially you.”

Glancing at his clothes and then his hands, Theissen finally realized that he was entirely coated in ash. He laughed. Examining his smeared and blackened cloak and hands, there was no way he could go into the city like this.

“All right. To the inn.”

But before Theissen departed to the inn, he walked down every floor of the tower, slowly dragging his hand down the wall. He drewawing all the burnt leavings of spider off the stone. Every tiny piece blew down the stairs in front of them in heaps, dumping black ash to the bottom floor in piles so high for a moment the others did not think they could get by to the front entrance. Most of it blocked the end of the stairs. However, Theissen merely gestured to the right and left, and a wind pushed it all aside to the walls.

“Well now, maybe we ought to bag that up and sell it as fertilizer,” Theissen murmured, looking at the heaps of coal black ash.

“Bags?” the shopkeeper said. He nodded. “I can get those at a good price. How many do you want?”

Peering around at the heaps, Theissen shrugged. “I don’t know. Enough to get rid of all this stuff, don’t you think?”

The shopkeeper nodded. He led wife through the clean path to the door. “I’ll go and get the bags and some shovels.”

“And brooms,” his wife added, glancing around at the drifts of dead spiders.

“I’d appreciate it.” Theissen bowed to them.

Parting with haste, the shopkeeper and his wife hurried out into the street.

Theissen turned towards Ronen and Daanee as soon as the couple had gone, lowering his voice so that only they could hear. “You two are in charge of the tower while I am gone. And since you two are, I want you both to keep one eye out for the others when they come, and keep out of sight of anyone else. Pick a spot on the second floor to watch. I saw windows you can watch from.”

“Should we start cleaning as soon as they arrive?” Daanee asked, already looking nervous and clinging to Ronen again.

“I’d start cleaning before they arrive,” Teppan said with a snort, crossing towards the door.

Theissen cast him a look to tell him to keep quiet. “No. Or rather, if you want, just start cleaning on the second floor and up. Nothing on the bottom floor. I’d rather have most of the locals still think this place is cursed. It can buy us some time.”

“Why do we need to buy time?” Ronen asked tilting his head in the old birdman manner.

Glancing toward the outside, Theissen handed the lit candle to Daanee. “I just figure that if we really did make