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

His feet nearly stomped across the wood floor when he left.

“Tactless,” the sheriff said to an elder. “You forget the tradesmen take pride in their craft. Even the boy. If you said to him what you said to his father, he might have turned your face purple.”

One of the elders laughed, though some of the others took the remark quite seriously and suddenly turned grave.

“Yes, but surely that boy’s skills were meant for more than changing the colors of things. I think it is a terrible waste.”

The group of elders nodded in agreement.

The bailiffs dragged the magician out from his prison cell that afternoon as the man writhed and fumed under his gag, unable to utter curses of make a means of escape.

“You will be punished for brawling,” the head bailiff said to him, leading him back to the court hall. “You will be handless and will remain so unless you agree to allow the Carpenterson to reattach them as he has offered.”

“Mfff mff?” The magician stared up at him with a reddening face and widening eyes of disbelief.

Knowing this was not a prospect the magician enjoyed to hear watching him fume at the idea alone, the bailiff added, “I consider this a certain kind of justice, you becoming indebted to the wizard. Without him you would not be able to practice your craft anymore.”

Kicking up as soon as he heard that, the magician tried to dig his feet into the floor. Unlike Theissen he could not stop their forward procession at all. And under their mercy, he was dragged into the law hall where many of the village folk watched him, all their eyes fixed on his face as he was taken straight to the chopping block all set out, the straps already in the hands of the younger bailiffs. Theissen stood to the side not looking at him at all, his face contorted with an expression of intensity as if he was thinking about something very painful. The magician kicked out, shoving, pushing, yowling under his gag all the hate he felt towards that boy. Theissen only closed his eyes.

Four bailiffs hauled the magician to the block strapping his first arm down. The drop cloth and all the other preparations were already set. The head bailiff picked up the axe.

“Carpenterson, we’re ready,” he said.

Opening his eyes, Theissen lifted his head and walked to the basket where the magician’s hand would drop. The hand itself clawed out as if to grab Theissen’s face and tear it off if it could. The magician’s shouts though his gag were nothing to the reek of hate that swelled all around him. Trying not to breathe in the stench, Theissen lifted his eyes to face the magician eye to eye. In that moment between both men a look passed that sent a shiver down the magician’s spine. Theissen’s message was clear. You can’t hurt me anymore.

The axe raised. 

Then down it went in a smooth chop.

Howling, very few heard his cries through his gag. And though Theissen picked up the hand and reattached it with ease the man continued to carry on, pushing, shoving at the chopping block even as the bailiff’s pulled out his other arm and strapped it down for the second cut.

The axe up again, it came swiftly down. The magician’s hand dropped into the basket where Theissen picked it up, turning it to reattach it to the bleeding stump. And yet when he approached the open wound the magician suddenly pulled back his remaining limb, glaring more severely than anyone thought possible, clutching the bleeding end in his robes to stop the flow. He yanked his gag off with his other hand. “Keep it, you bloody man! I will not be indebted to you.”

The man recoiled over to the bailiff’s, lifting his chin high in one last thrust of defiance.

Feeling the hand within his own hands, Theissen sorrowfully set the severed appendage into the basket and stood up. “As you wish.”

“You will get yours some day! I promise you! You will get yours!” the magician’s curses and shrieks carried throughout the room, but there was no pity in the crowd’s eyes. Only revulsion. Even Theissen’s look of sorrow turned to that of disgust. He averted his eyes from the bloody object in the basket and also the man loathing him from across the executioner’s block, his stomach turning from the rank that exuded around the magician in a murky cloud of solid hate. He stepped back, wiping the magician’s blood off his hands like he had the ink during the trial, letting it flake to the ground as dust.

“Fine.” Theissen turned, then nodded to the head bailiff as he left.

The magician looked towards the village elders, hate still in his eyes. “I was unjustly punished!”

“Indeed,” an elder said as Theissen passed through the door to go outside into the village square where his family waited for him. “That should have been your head.”

A look of horror passed across the magician’s face. His eyes turned on the new scar around his reattached wrist. Then his eyes rolled back into his head as the man who had held the village in awe up until that morning collapsed to the ground.

One of the bailiffs looked up to the chief of them, setting his hands on his hips as if annoyed. “So, what do we do with him now?”

Waving an arm, one of the elders said, “Take him back to jail. I want him to think on what just happened. Maybe next time he will awake with a bit of gratitude.”

“Should we save the hand?” the head bailiff asked, bending over to the basket.

“No,” the chief elder said with a firm voice. “He passed the opportunity by. Let him live with out it.”

Everyone cheered, watching Theissen accept the journeyman carpenter tool belt from his father and buckle it around his waist. It looked good, felt comfortably heavy, and made him feel like a true man at last. His aunts, uncles, cousins, and older sister with family were there to celebrate. Just like when Dalance and Kinnerlin and Tolbetan were sent off, everyone was gathered to say their last good byes until the time he had established himself somewhere in Jatte and could eventually come back to visit. It was the last of the ceremonies. It marked adulthood.

“Here! Take this for luck!” his cousin from Pepersin Town said.

Theissen accepted the gift and turned it over in his hands. It was a carved piece of reed, a whistle local boys made during the fall. He smiled as he tied the end string on to his belt.

“Thank you.”

Other gifts made it into his hands, most of them food for his journey though a few in his family gave him things like writing paper and money for the trip.

“Write us often,” Carpenterswife said, patting her son’s head, already having kissed him too many times for him to feel like a grown up, and despite protests. Theissen was already very red in the face from his aunts handling every piece of his face as if to pinch off what tiny remains of youthful chubbiness he had left on his cheeks.

“I will.” Theissen pulled from her arms as he tried to reach the end of the line of guests towards the gate. He wanted to leave before sundown. So far he was not succeeding.

His uncle the weaver slapped him on the back as he passed over a rolled up wad of cloth he had been cradling in his arms. “Take this. It will supplement your coat when it gets cold.”

Taking it, Theissen held it up. The fabric unrolled to reveal a wool cloak. It had three buttons in the front to keep it closed and an ample hood.

“You can also use it as shelter if you find yourself camping, which I hear is common for men in your line of work,” his uncle said.

“In my line of work?” Theissen gave his uncle a doubtful look.

The weaver nodded. “Of course. Some towns don’t accept some journeymen from certain trades. Your father tells me he slept outside a good many times on his journey. I never did.”

Looking to his father, Theissen frowned. “I didn’t want to hear that.”

His father only smiled. “Sorry. I told you to expect rejection.”

“I didn’t know it accounted for camping out often.” But Theissen opened the button clasps then wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, feeling the weight of it with pleasure. The fabric was itchy, but soft. The good point of the cloak was that it covered his pack also, great for preventing rain getting in his foodstuff.

Another aunt took him aside, handing him several handkerchiefs. His uncle the Baker passed over a cooking set of tin with a simple carrying strap for all pieces. He gave Theissen a particularly happy back slap, pushing him over to his aunt so he could get his cheeks pinched again. Both thanked him for something, though Theissen didn’t figure out what it was until afterward when his sister Alania passed over her gift.

“This is also for recovering that platter.” Alania handed him a silver teacup. The work was beautiful, one of her husband’s best pieces.

Theissen looked up at the silversmith and met his gaze of approval.

“We had bought that gift for Auntie Bakerswife after the birth of our son,” she said. “You know, she was able to come and take care of my family when I was too weak. Mother couldn’t. You remember. She was in bed with a fever that you could not cure.”

“Because it had to run its course,” Theissen said with a nod, wondering if she was chiding him for that.

But Alania only smiled. “I know that. So, this is our thanks to you.”

“Remember, silver drinking ware is great for indicating poison in your cup,” the silversmith said.

Theissen blinked. Then he turned the cup over in his hands. “It does? How?”

“It changes color.” The silversmith smiled at him. Theissen had intimidated him when he had first discovered the boy was a wizard, and it had taken a while for the silversmith to feel at ease near that particular brother-in-law. However, now with Theissen’s unassuming manner he could no longer fear this young man. “Can’t you smell the difference between poison and other chemicals?”

Making a face at him, Theissen tipped the silver cup over once more to inspect the perfectly formed legs that it stood on. “No. Most poisons, regardless of being deadly, are natural. I only smell the sick or unnatural things—except, of course, normal smells.”

The silversmith laughed and nodded.

Theissen passed on to the next relative.

One after the other, at last he stood again to face his father. Theissen grinned up at him with a smile, reaching out for one last hug before he had to leave home forever.

“I will write,” he said again. “Write me?”

His father sighed, glancing at his wife. “You know, with you on the road and unestablished, that might be difficult.”

“Write me anyway,” Theissen said, his eyes actually looking desperate. He turned to his mother. “Set it on the windowsill. I will call for it.”

Tears forming in her eyes, his mother nodded. “Of course, I will. Of course.”

Doreen let out a loud exhale.

He