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

“No! Stop what you are doing!” A voice echoed from the hall outside the door.

Theissen and the registrars in the land office stared though the open doorway at the breathless figure of one magician running down the hall towards them. Another magician came after him, slipping on the marble tile as he turned the corner to follow him. Trouble.

Narrowing his eyes, Theissen caused the floor in front of the door to lower. He conjured a wind. The door slammed shut. On its own, the lock fell down and latched it closed.

“Let’s finish this.” Theissen smiled back at the registrar.

“Open this door!” The magician shouted.

“Tell them you are having lunch,” Theissen said to the man who had struggled earlier to shut the door on Theissen. “You were planning on it, right?”

The man stared first then shrugged. He called to the doorway, “Uh, we’re closed for lunch.”

“Liar! I’ll have your tongue cut out for this!” The magician shouted back.

Theissen stood up, tapping the forms on the desk. “Just finish these. I’ll deal with them.”

He walked through the room to the door and unlocked it.

The magician opened it up. Stomping into the room only a pace, he stared face to face with Theissen. It was a peculiar sight for those watching. The venerated magician blustered with anger, while the much younger wizard wanly blocked his way.

“You! You get out of here!” the magician bellowed at Theissen. It was the same one as in that morning. “You have no right to be in here!”

“They were closing for lunch,” Theissen snapped back. “You are interrupting.”

“You foul wizard! How dare you speak so insolently to me!”

“And who are you?” Theissen asked with a dry look. “You never did say.”

Puffing himself up, indignation in the way he held his head and shoulders, he soon was joined by the other magician. The other was a squat, middle-aged fellow with beady black eyes and a somewhat puffed looking face. The magician said, “I am Regetta Rulon Rimanos Magician of the highest class! And I command you to depart!”

“You command me?” Theissen mused, blinking dully at him. “By what authority can you possibly command me?”

“By the authority of the registered magic users guild, of which he is the head!” Regetta Magician gestured to the squat one.

Turning his eyes to the squat man, Theissen almost snorted. “And who is he?” In a way, that magician reminded him of the molemen, except this magician seemed to lack their sense of humor.

“I am Filian Mois the wise Magician,” the squat man said.

In distaste, Theissen replied, “Not Filian the brief Magician, I gather?”

“You mock me?” the squat man shouted.

“I mock just about everybody who annoys me,” Theissen replied, glaring down at him. “You are interrupting my business.”

“You have no business here, boy,” retorted a deathly familiar voice from the hallway.

Lifting his eyes, Theissen face went pale.

Standing behind the petty Regetta and the squat Filian was the ever forbidding, now one-handed, Henren Mobis Gulland Magician, formerly of Lumen Village.

“What are you doing here?” Hardly able to get even these words out, Theissen stared at the one man that had cowed him most of his childhood.

“I should say the same thing to you,” the magician of Lumen replied. He took another menacing step another step towards Theissen. The man had not changed at all. So much hate reeked from him.

Narrowing his eyes, Theissen stood his ground. “I intend to live here.”

Henren Magician snorted. He lifted his chin in an attempt to look down on Theissen. However, Theissen discovered that he was actually nose to nose with this man. Their heights were comparably the same, though in reality Theissen was about a half inch taller. He had grown since they had last faced one another.

“We won’t allow it,” Henren Magician said.

“You will leave Jattereen now,” Regetta chimed in, nodding in agreement.

“I will do nothing of the sort,” Theissen retorted.

The tension in all three magicians swelled up. He knew that with the magician of Lumen Village there, these men would not fight fair, so Theissen prepared himself for the worst.

“Hey! I got your message! Took forever to find this window though.” Theobold climbed into the open window with a hop. He folded his wings in to squeeze them past the sides, heaving in with him a sack obviously full of gold. “A hundred in gold am I right? Oh, what’s this?”

Theissen didn’t even look back, keeping his eyes on the magicians who eyed Theobold’s wings. The birdman cocked his head back and peered at them.

“Give eighty of the gold to the men at the desk,” Theissen said. “That should pay for the registration fee.”

Shrugging, Theobold did as Theissen bade.

“No!” Regetta shouted. He attempted to force his way into the room.

Theissen conjured a wind. It blew the magician and the other two out of the doorway.

“No! No! No! You can’t let him!” they shouted.

Spinning around, Theissen said to the registrars, “There is the fee. Now can we finish the paperwork?”

The entire room of workers skittishly came to life, hopping to their feet while skirting around Theobold who was grinning at Theissen.

“I got here in time, I gather.”

Theobold then peered out the door.

The three magicians were already on their feet, muttering up what looked like an enchantment or a curse.

“I suggest we fly out of here to the market,” Theobold said. “We discovered that we don’t have much in the way of food at the tower, though you should see the kitchen. Too bad no one but you knows how to cook.”

“To the market?” Theissen slumped his shoulders, pushing the door closed again. He set a quick protective spell on it—one that he had learned from the Westhaven book. “Alright, though I really didn’t want to go there without that letter. I had hoped I could get a translation.”

“You mean this letter?” Theobold lifted it up from his robe pocket. He grinned.

A loud boom rattled the door. It shook the walls, but the door remained intact.

“I figured you’d want to get a translation as soon as possible,” Theobold said. “I even went and fetched your writing kit in case you wanted it.”

Slapping his friend on his wing, Theissen laughed. “You really do think of everything.”

“I try.” Theobold then hopped to the window.

Turning to the registrar’s desk Theissen glanced over at the documents. “Are they finished? Because I really need to go.”

One of the sheets was done, all set to be filed. They were now making out the certificate of ownership. The other document for the tower still needed to be finished. Theissen turned the completed one over and took out a pen to write on the back without ink. He drew up something similar to the fire ward spell. Each of the letters vanished as he scratched them out.

“What are you doing?” one of the office workers asked.

“Burn proofing it,” Theissen replied with a smirk.

“Burn proofing?”

“Just in case.” Theissen then reached for the other document, drying the ink with a touch.

“Hurry up.” Theobold was already leaning out the window, looking at the air and assessing the wind currents.

“Give me a second.” Theissen wrote out the second spell, muttering it under his breath. Then with a grin, he tapped the paper and turned it over, setting it on the desk. He extended his hand for the land certificates. “Can I have them now?”

Both certificates were stamped, signed, and stuffed into Theissen’s open palm. The registrars stared at the scars on his hand before Theissen’s fingers closed on the papers.

With all seven certificates in hand, Theissen tucked them into his cloak pocket and pinned it shut with a touch. Everything was set.

“Can we go now?” Theobold asked as another boom rattled the door. The roof shook with it, causing dust to rain down.

Theissen nodded. Hopping onto the sill with a grin, he reached out for a hand hold. “Don’t let go, or I’ll turn your wings black.”

“Hmm, black might not be a bad color for me,” Theobold murmured as he secured a firm grip around Theissen’s wrists. “I could fly around at night without being seen.”

“Don’t consider it. I think I’d just get depressed.” Theissen glanced once back to the door, mentally unlocking it. He let it fly open.

Immediately, he hopped off the sill, trusting that his friend was ready.

“All right!” Theobold pushed off the ledge.

Shouts followed them. “No! Stop them!”

The magicians ran straight into the room and through to the window. Their angry voices echoed on the air, but not one could follow.

“I knew it.” The magician from Lumen muttered as he pulled in, his voice carrying on the wind. “That wizard should have been put down the day he was born. He now has demons for friends.”

Quickly, the registrars had already secretly stowed away the land documents, losing them in the stacks with shrugs to the magicians when they asked for them. It was already too late anyway. The land was now owned.

 “Set me down over there! We can walk the rest of the way.” Theissen gestured with his head down to a small road that would lead into the docks. Privately, he hoped that not everyone had seen the birdman or him fly from the Chamber of Commerce window. Already the stir inside and outside the building had become too much. It was rattling his nerves.

Theobold did as he asked, though reluctantly, landing in a narrow street. He shook out his feathers and then folded them under his robe. Glancing left then right, he grinned. “See! Barely anyone in sight.”

Theissen smirked. He had to rub his arms from being so stretched, but he trip was not so bad.

“Yeah. This is good. But,” he reached out and touched Theobold’s white robe, turning it to a plain-looking brown, “We ought to at least look less conspicuous when going in there.”

“Brown?” Theobold almost gagged at it. “What is with your people and drab colors?”

“We’ll change it back when we get home,” Theissen said. And he walked straight down the stairs towards the fish market.

Actually, the docks contained more than just fish. Foreign fruits and vegetables sold in among them with merchandise the Hann and other nations brought in. How many nations they traded with was not so clear. Together, they saw several different costumes and uniforms of other nations and racial features that diverged into so many varieties that they could not count them. However, Theissen was looking specifically for Hann traders.

“Do you really like eating fish?” Theobold asked as he strolled behind Theissen. His bird eyes glanced disgustedly at the barrels of different kinds on sale in the market, scrunching up his nose especially at the odor.

“Hmm?” Theissen wasn’t really thinking about lunch even though his stomach gurgled to remind him. “Oh, yeah. I love fish. We used to buy it from the fishmongers, shipped in trade from the coast. Most of us in the peninsula ate fish regularly. It’s quite healthy.”

Theobold grimaced at a barrel full of lobsters, then the baskets with crabs. Each one seemed about as foreign to him as the idea of eating them. “Healthy, huh? I don’t see how.”

Despite Theobold’s aversion towards them, they picked up three good-sized haddocks for a reasonable price, weaving in and out among the sellers and buyers. Women with baskets bartered