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

“Huh?”

Leaning into Theissen’s face, the man let go of the bucket, the load dropping right back down again with a loud splash below. He held up his fist. For a second Theissen thought the man was going to punch him, but focusing on the fist in front of his face he saw the gleam of a brass key.

“See this? I keep the key! Got that?”

“All right.” Theissen took a step back. “I see that. Now, can I have some water?”

The man stuffed the key back into his breast pocket, not yet reaching for the rope. “What are you here for, anyways?”

Theissen frowned, looking around again. This village looked too poor to do anything more than offer him water and maybe a small bite to eat. “Just stopping through.”

With a huff, the man went back to drawing water. “You ain’t some kind of journeyman offering your services, are ya?”

Giving the bare village square another look, Theissen noticed hardly even a market for food to buy. He wondered if here was even an inn.

“Uh, well. I am a journeyman, but I don’t think that—”

The well man dropped the bucket down again. The splash echoed inside, mocking his thirst. “You think you are better than us?”

Practically flattening himself against the well’s side, Theissen vigorously shook his head. “Course not. Only, my trade caters to barons and all that.”

The man stared at him. “Barons?”

“Lord barons, rich merchants, people like that,” Theissen said, suddenly feeling like he had said something else wrong, growing more uncomfortable with his inability to fix it.

Cursing, the well man drew up the water bucket. For a moment Theissen was not sure the man was going to draw him any water, but as the bucket got higher, he could see it was full.

“You want it?” the well man suddenly said with a sneer.

Ducking his head a little, Theissen nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Ha!” The man dropped the bucket down again, letting the water crash back inside. He then slammed the lid over the well with a quick lock. He stuffed his key into his pocket again, slapping it with a vengeful grin. “Then get it yourself!”

He stomped away, banging his door closed.

Theissen closed his eyes, exhaling. Blown it. Stupid.

But without moping, Theissen turned and inspected the lock. With a shrug, he touched the brass mechanism. Without another second to waste, he lifted the lid. He would have grabbed hold of the rope, but already he could hear the man fling open his door with a bang (apparently he had been watching from the small discolored window on the side) and stomp across the yard with a shout.

“Thief! That’s my job!”

Theissen gave him a regarding look as he pulled the stopper from his empty water bladder then reached out over the open well. The man stomped over to slap the well lid shut, but even before he could place his fingers on the wood cover his eyes fixed on the stream of water rising out of the well. Theissen waved it into the mouth of his water bladder where it sucked in like a snake going into a hole. Popping the top to the bladder back on, the rest of the well water dropped back down into the well. With a simple wave toward it, the well lid blew shut. Theissen touched the lock to seal it up again.

Tossing the well man a coin, Theissen trotted back towards the highway without even looking back. There was no point to it anyway. Though he probably would have seen the gratifyingly surprised look on the well man’s face, or even the poking heads that popped out of homes around him all like little gophers, he could feel it was necessary for him to continue with an air of confidence and mystery. Something inside told him these people would lynch him the first chance he got, the smell of their growing animosity oozing out like a gray fog and crawling around his ankles as if to trip him. When he got to the highway, he was sure of it.

“Kid.”

An enormous man dressed in burlap-like clothes blocked his path holding up a root digger in his hands. There were three other men with him, all three armed with rudimentary farming tools.

“Pardon?” Theissen kept his head steady. His father had warned him of highwaymen and of the occasional inhospitable village. His father had said the occasions for them had risen in the past few years. Even Dalance told him of a time he was mugged, barely getting out of that with his carpenter’s tools.

One man slapped the flat of his blade to show he was strong enough to use it. He nodded to Theissen. “Your kind ain’t wanted here.”

“Well, then, it is a good thing that I am leaving.” With a step back, Theissen gave an apologetic smile, wondering what the man meant by his kind.

The men took two steps closer. “Not without paying a toll, you ain’t.”

Theissen blinked. “Toll?”

“For walking on our road,” the man said.

Another blink, Theissen glanced at the rutted highway. “Oh? You maintain this, I gather?”

They took two more steps closer.

“No one passes this way without paying a toll.”

Glancing about once more, Theissen then looked back at the village. Not one horse he had seen the entire time. No carriages. These indeed were very poor people. Looking at the ruts in the road, he could tell plenty of people rumbled by without paying a toll, though there was sign of sabotage where the road was broken up to create murky spots. Deep wheel ruts and hoof marks were in them, crusted and hard though he was sure in the rainy season they were deep sticky pots that his relatives had to avoid every time they came through.

It didn’t feel wise to feel for his coin purse. Instead, Theissen drew in a breath and looked at the dry road path. It was not the way he wanted to start off into the world, but he had no other choice. He had wanted to be known as the traveling carpenter. So far, he had yet to use those skills. Wizardry had to come first.

“I’m afraid I can’t pay the toll,” he said. Theissen then gave a nod, peeking to the side where the trees were already beginning to rustle, tossing off loose leaves.

The men marched towards him to cover the remaining distance between them to inflict their damage. Theissen backed up.

Blowing, spinning around, a hazy leaf and dirt filled gust suddenly drew down from the sky like a funnel. It spun round and round, plowing straight across the road, then veered straight towards the men that were stalking Theissen. The four of them stared like animals in terror at first. Then all of them reversed course, feet pounding the ground back towards the village with what strength they had in their legs. One dived into the ravine near by, ducking below the whirling dust devil as it whipped across after them.

Theissen walked after the windstorm, passing through the road towards the bend. There he reached down once and touched both mud traps, bringing up the ground so that each lay flat. Then with a smirk, he hardened the ground to a more solid exterior, even to rock. Tapping it once, he smiled then continued down the road with a slight skip in his step. His mini-tornado was still following after his attackers. For a second he thought about leaving it to dissipate on its own. However, with a wave, he untangled those spinning winds and let them disperse as if they had not been there at all.

From there he continued on with a slight skip to his step.

The one man looked up from the ravine at him. “What kind of demon was that?”

Theissen walked for days before he found a friendly village where he could sleep in a real bed. It was surprising how many impoverished villages there were between Pepersin Town and Lumen Village. It was as if all the skilled laborers gathered together in pockets and the leftovers who had no skill lived in squalor. It was a hard thing for him to believe existed, but after witnessing it first hand, Theissen began to wonder how much of Jatte was like that. Before, he had only traveled within the Pepersin Peninsula and usually along the coastal villages in the south where the shabbier communities were at least given the constant supply of fish and business thereby to keep them thriving. Going north was enlightening, if not somewhat depressing.

He had always thought Lumen to be a rustic sort of place, not sophisticated or high up in living. Dalance had written the family occasionally telling about his journey before settling in the capitol city. He said little of the other villages except to say that he was glad he had been born in Lumen. He wrote more about the towns he had lived in. Those were full of commerce and so sophisticated that he had felt like an ignorant nobody. Then his descriptions of the city were so wondrous that he was quite convinced that their home really was a small nothing kind of place. Theissen’s other two older brothers certainly talked about their home village in those terms in their letters. That certainly was also the impression the Lord Baron Kirsch had given him anyway. Be that as it may, it was over a week from his home before Theissen found a friendly farmer who would lend him a bed to sleep in. Inns were nonexistent.

Opening his eyes, Theissen straightened up and then stretched. The bed was not as nice as the one in his home, but then a straw bed never did compare to down ticks. Still, it was heaps better than sleeping on the cold ground daily.

“Are you awake?” the farmer’s wife stuck in her head.

Theissen sat up, pulling his covers up to his neck. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

She chuckled. “Good. Come on in for breakfast. You must be hungry.”

She left, closing the door behind her.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Theissen tossed back his covers. The farmer was young, and so was his wife. Theissen was a little afraid she was coming on to him. The night before she just kept grinning like she had found a gem she never wanted to lose. Her husband had not noticed at all, mostly negotiating bed and breakfast for a little carpentry work he would love done around his home. So Theissen dressed with haste, tucking away any of his valuables, also putting on his carpentry belt with the first assurance that he could at last practice his trade after all that walking. If anything, he didn’t want her popping her head in again while he was changing clothes.

The farmer’s wife smiled with a nod to a plate of eggs and a bowl of porridge on the table when he entered the front room. “I suppose you are used to finer fare, but that’s all humble farmers can spare. Eat up.”

Theissen looked in it and happily took a seat, though still nervous. “Wh…well, thank you. It’s…it is actually what I mother makes every morning.”

She smiled, setting milk down. “Oh, that’s good.”

Theissen started into his meal without reservation, nearly engulfing an entire egg and half his porridge before slowing down.

“I see you have a healthy appetite.” She poured a pitcher of water she obviously got from the village well. It had a brown haze to it, the particles spinning around though slowly settling to the bottom. “With the way to took to that bed, it looks as if you haven’t slept in bed a while either.”

Nodding, he looked up. Taking a breath between bites, Theissen said, “No. I’ve been camping out since I left home. You’re the first to offer me a bed.”

Her smile grew more kind. “Yes, well, we have a bed to offer. Most could only offer a loft of hay, if that.”

Theissen paused again, resting his spoon. “About that, why is that?”

The farmer’s wife’s smile fell