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

Managing a calm smile, Theissen bowed to that man. “If you wish. I will come.”

The constable then nodded to the other policemen. They all lowered their swords, yet most watched Theissen as if he still was their prime suspect.

“Go inside.” Theissen gestured to the trade building. “You’ll find a little bit of a mess in the masters’ office and one man with a pair of broken legs, but somewhere in there is also a heart of a child. The cause of the curse.”

“Curse?” the constable echoed in surprise. Yet he nodded to his men to do as Theissen instructed. “What kind of curse?”

Theissen pointed to the bloody statue. “One that turns men into stones.”

The constable shuddered. He nodded again to his men. “Go in. Arrest the masters and find that heart.” He then nodded to Theissen. “You may have solved a murder we have been on for years. You’re the wizard, aren’t you?”

Theissen lowered his eyes with an honest blush. “I’m afraid so.”

Tippany punched his arm. “Don’t say that. Be happy you’re a wizard. You would have been dead in there if you weren’t.”

He chuckled. Reaching an arm for her, he pulled her close to his side and whispered into her ear, “No. I would have been dead if you hadn’t come. You saved me.”

Then he leaned in and kissed her.

“Uh hmm,” Emrit cleared his throat, eyes averted.

Milrina was blushing, but also smiled.

Theissen looked up. His cheeks went pink when he remembered that he wasn’t alone. He patted his cousin on the head. “Thanks for coming too.”

Milrina shook her head, batting his hand away. “You really should thank Tippany more. She wouldn’t give up.”

Pulling Tippany close, Theissen just laughed. “Oh, I intend to.”

Tippany rested her head against his chest, her face quickly going bright pink.

“Uh hmm,” Emrit cleared his throat again.

They looked at him.

“What? You want thanks too?” Theissen laughed. He reached out to the Westhaven man.

Emrit shook his head. “No. You look here now. Kiss girl later.”

Blushing, Theissen turned to look where Emrit was pointing. Down the steps into the square, he saw Karo. The ex-moleman was running across the cobblestone with several of the old jewelers. His face looked like death. He practically fell on his knees at Theissen’s feet when he got up all the steps.

“I’m so sorry! So sorry! This was all our fault! It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t nagged you to speak for us! We’re so sorry!”

“Calm down.” Theissen raised his hands and chuckling. “It was better that it happened to me than any of you.”

“But you are bleeding!” Karo was practically weeping.

Trying not to laugh at the man’s grief, Theissen rested his hand on the ex-moleman’s head. “I can handle it. Though, I think I’ll want a rest after this.”

“What is going on?” Theobold flapped out of the sky like an angel sent from the four gods themselves. He landed on the stairs looking completely flustered. He immediately began to pluck arrows out of his feathers with an irate huff.

The constables rushed over to apprehend the demon. But Theissen quickly stirred up a small wind to blow them back.

The birdman tromped up the steps.

“Look at you! Did you seek after trouble the minute I left, or did you wait a whole hour?”

Breaking into a true laugh, Theissen reached out to his friend. “I hope you didn’t abandon the feather caravan to get here.”

“They’re resting at the Wizard’s Inn. I flew off as soon as I heard what happened. So what happened?” Theobold flapped hard in agitation. He eyed Emrit also for an explanation.

Shrugging, Theissen glanced back at the constables who were now hauling Ruban out of the main doors. The stern man still howled, though he took the time to shout a curse at Theissen when he laid eyes on him.

“I had a little difficulty trying to sort out the molemen’s trade problem,” Theissen said.

Theobold knocked Karo on the head.

“Hey!” Theissen jumped forward, grabbing his hand. “Don’t pick on him. It’s not his fault.”

Huffing, Theobold made a face. He then looked to Tippany. When he saw she was stained with Theissen’s blood, his eyes widened. He grabbed at the hole in Theissen’s jumper top. “You got stabbed!”

“Run through, actually,” Theissen said, shoving his hands off with a chuckle.

Tippany pinched his arm.

“OW!” Stepping back from her, Theissen rubbed his arm, but did not quit smiling.

“Don’t talk about it! I don’t want to remember it!” she said.

Resting his hand on her head, Theissen smiled. Just smelling her, hearing her, seeing her with him…all was ok.

Theobold took a flap back from them both and smiled. “So, when’s the wedding?”

Theissen shot him a dirty look. “Shut it, you.”

“Wizard.” The head constable strode over to him. The other constables were now coming out of the building, dragging Leoner and Forntbas with them. Both men shouted curses at Theissen’s group as they walked by. However, both Jewelers clammed up when they saw the birdman standing on the steps with his hawkish glare fixed on them.  

“Yes?” Theissen turned to the constable, ignoring the master jewelers.

“We are going now. You will come with us.”

Nodding, Theissen looked to Milrina. “Can you go back to the tower and get me a change of clothes?”

“I have some here.” Tippany heaved up her bag.

He kissed her on the forehead, hugged her close and laughed. “You think of everything! What? Are you hiding a magic ability that I can’t see?”

Tippany just blushed.

“I’d call it love,” Theobold murmured, peering sideways at them.

Emrit laughed in consensus.

“Then we all go up to the city center?” Milrina asked.

Theissen sighed and nodded. “Yes. We all go.”

They took several carriages. Karo, and the men that came with them, rode in the carriage they arrived in. The carriage Emrit and company had used had also waited. The driver was anxious to see how Theissen was after all the talk he had heard going on behind him. He nodded happily to see the wizard walking on his own feet, but stared at the blood on the suit he word. Milrina and Emrit took his carriage though, as Theissen had to ride with the constables. But they all made Theobold rest on the back of Milrina’s carriage, as they trundled up and down the hills. They thought better than flying around and spooking the locals. Tippany went with Theissen, refusing to leave his side.

Riding in the constable’s carriage, Theissen knew he was still considered a suspect. But it did not bother him. The bleeding statue was racked on the back of their carriage. In a way, Theissen felt more like another bleeding statue than a suspect anyway. The head constable was polite to both him and Tippany. And the other constables’ carriages hauled the other prisoners in irons. The line of carriages traveled together like a lord baron’s entourage, going all the way up to the law building.

When they all arrived, Milrina hopped out of her carriage, whispering something urgent to Emrit and Theobold. Then she ran into the building before everyone else. But where she went, only Emrit and Theobold knew. The others disembarked as they pulled up to the curb. The constables escorted their captives into the law building while a collection of them gathered up the bloody evidence. All of them were taken straight into the court hall.

This court hall was not unlike the one in Lumen, Theissen noticed. Except for the size, the organization was the same. Though larger, more ornate, and more spread apart, the gallery for any of the locals who wanted to watch still edged the court hall. Down in the open square below were places for the accused, the accuser, and for family and friends of both parties on either side. The constables first escorted Theissen to the side of the accuser, but the bailiff wrapped a long sash over his shoulders marking him as one of the accused. The jewelry guild masters had different colored sashes draped over their shoulders.

“Wait here,” the head constable said to Theissen right before he left the hall, as the bailiffs said the same thing to the other three men. Ruban lay on a table the bailiffs brought out. Already a doctor had come and was examining his leg to set his bones in that very moment.

“You know,” Theissen called out to the Jewelers with a lifted voice as the others in his group were ushered to the family and friends box, “I can heal that for you with a touch.”

“I’d rather die,” Ruban shouted back at him.

Theissen just shrugged and leaned on the railing. “Suit yourself.”

The doctor cast Theissen a thinking look then just shook his head.

It was several minutes before the courtroom began to fill. The judges trickled in, some of them bent and stooped, while others were upright young men who looked too young to be called ‘elders’. Each one peered over at the accused with determined eyes, assessing their character while making themselves familiar with the accused’s faces. Most of them stared hard at Theissen’s bloodied chest—especially at the hole in his top and clean, unmarred flesh through it. Then they looked up at his tall western Jatte stature, as well as his confident posture. The larger portion of the judges already formed an opinion of him when they settled comfortably into their seats.

The courtroom galley filled faster. Locals gathered in as word went out that the Wizard of Jatte was on trial.

“This court is now in session!” The head bailiff banged his stick. The sound of it echoed in the hall. “All silence for Constable Waylar to present the case.”

The head constable that had met Theissen outside the Jewelry Guild’s doors stepped forward and bowed to the judges. “Honorable elders of Jattereen City. I bring before you an old case of murder and intrigue. This concerns the Jewelry Guild and currently the new Wizard of Jattereen City.”

The judges nodded. The chief one said, “Proceed.”

Turning, the constable nodded to the bailiff. “I wish for the judges to know the accused. Of the Jewelry guild we have the two masters and their journeyman: Leoner Yuld Scoran Jeweler, Forntbas Ludrik Lonse Jeweler, and Ruban Mukumar Koin Jewelerson. I am not acquainted with the other accused, though I have heard he is the Wizard of Jatte.”

“Wizard, state your name for the court,” the chief elder ordered with a gravelly voice.

Theissen bowed low, hoping this was the last time he would have to name himself in a Jatte courtroom. “I am Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson of Lumen Village, current resident of the Ki Tai tower and owner of the Wizard Inn on the Serjiev highway, liaison for the Molemen and Birdmen of the Dondit and Jadoran Mountains and the forest in between, registered wizard and registered carpenter.”

The crowd in the galley whispered out gasps that echoed in the enormous hall. The bailiff banged his stick for silence while the judges took down notes.

The constable smiled and bowed.  “Now knowing the accused, I must state what we, the constables of the central mercantile district of Jattereen, have observed in accordance to this case.”

He then went into a long description of his police group’s efforts around the disappearance of the notable jeweler and founder of the Jeweler’s guild, Kontis.