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

He shrugged, glancing at the simple parlor. His home was much nicer, but then his father was a carpenter and they did have family around with other skills to help them out when things got tough. “I can’t say exactly how, but yes. Lumen Village never had a shortage of beds. Of course, we also have an inn.”

She huffed.

Looking up, he could see her fold her arms with some contempt.

“Your village is rich.”

Shrugging again, Theissen scooped up more porridge. “I guess so, though I never knew it.”

To that, she bitterly laughed. “Of course not. But have you ever been anywhere else?”

“South. But the fishing villages had inns and more shops.” He then noticed her frown. He set down his spoon. “I think, well, what I don’t understand is why the villages along this highway are so poorly off.”

Her expression lightened. “Bypassed.”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

Drawing in a sigh, the farmer’s wife pulled up a stool and sat down. “We are bypassed. This land. The villagers. Merchants don’t want to sell in our villages. None want to buy from us either.”

Theissen tilted his head. “Is that really the reason?”

She shrugged this time. “Oh, I don’t know for certain. Maybe some of it has to do with crop failure, tainted well water, demons, old grievances—you name it really. Everyone has their own idea as to the cause.”

“Are you ready?” The farmer stuck his head into the doorway, grinning and sweating already from the work he had been doing before dawn.

Theissen practically jumped where his head could have hit the hanging oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling, but he stuck on a grin and nodded. “I am.”

He turned to the farmer’s wife, picking up the bowl. “Would it be rude of me to eat it all? My mother says in polite company I ought to leave some food on the plate, but it really was good and I’d like to finish it.”

The farmer’s wife broke into a laugh, looking from her husband to Theissen. “I tell you. He’s just like you!”

What she said was obviously an extension from a conversation that had gone on once he had crashed into his blankets. The farmer was also laughing, beckoning Theissen outside. “Eat it fast and come on. We aren’t that kind of company.”

Obeying with gleeful promptness, Theissen finished off his meal, abandoned his spoon in the bowl, and then hurried outside, nodding to the lady of the house as he rushed out the door.

Both the farmer and Theissen crossed into the yard towards the trees standing on the edge of his land. The farmer gestured to the trees before them and at an axe and then a saw. “If you help me clear this field and make a good corral, you can stay here as long as you want. You did say you worked with wood.”

Theissen’s face already showed his dismay. However he nodded. He did say he worked with wood.

“It is a tough job for one man, you know,” the farmer said, though his eyes sparkled as if he had been making a joke.

Glancing over at the other small homes, Theissen frowned. “I can see that. But what about your neighbors? Don’t you help each other out?”

He could hear the farmer chuckle. “Ah, my neighbors. Well, you see, we sort of keep to ourselves.”

“Keep to yourselves?” Theissen shook his head. “My, I wonder what that is like.”

He noticed the farmer’s smirk as the man looked on him with knowing eyes.

“What?” Theissen turned toward the wood and picked up the axe, feeling the head to see how sharp it was with his thumb. “Your village people don’t get into each others business as mine does?”

“My father moved here to get away from such nosy villages,” the farmer said. He then walked with Theissen to the nearest tree, also lifting up the saw.

Theissen halted where he was. “Your father was once a journeyman?”

Nodding, the farmer beckoned him over. “That’s right. And in carpentry, like you.”

That got his attention. Theissen followed him. “But you’re a farmer.”

With another nod, the farmer’s smile broadened. “Yes, and the most successful at it in my village. I am a milkman mostly, though I do plan to own a horse someday. This field is for grazing, mostly.”

Theissen felt tightness in his chest. It was very easy to feel the wealth gap between them there. His family owned a horse and a cart. Most of his relatives had a horse if not a carriage. His sister had a covered carriage almost as good as a lord’s, but then she was a silversmith’s wife.

“But why aren’t you a carpenter?” Theissen asked him.

To that he got a sigh with a simple shake of the head. “I didn’t like the job.”

The farmer tapped one tree, gesturing for Theissen to drop the axe and just take the other end of the saw.

“I just think it is a shame,” Theissen said as he took the other saw handle in his hands.

The farmer merely smiled as if it were old news. “I’m not talented in carpentry, and my father was no master. Now let’s saw.”

And they did, going back and forth, back and forth until they got through deep and good. Sweat dribbled down both their necks, though Theissen did not feel any more inclined to quit than this man did. There seemed to be equality in their strength, though it was clear the farmer was testing how long Theissen would work without complaint. Yet with all the long hard hours at the carpentry shop and plenty of hours chopping their own firewood, this work was only slightly more strenuous than his usual fare.

“Put in a wedge and we’ll chop it down the rest of the way,” said the farmer, gesturing to the long slice in the wood they had made already.

Theissen did, swinging the blunt end of the axe to make the wedge go in deeper. The tree creaked. The farmer took his turn, hammering it in more. Theissen got in one more good whack before both of them pushed the tree over, watching it topple into the open field where they would eventually chop it up for firewood.

Wiping sweat off of his forehead, Theissen glanced at the pleased expression on the man’s face. He smiled also. It was well done.

“Now we get up the roots,” the farmer said.

Theissen made a face, staring at the deep and tangled looking roots that stuck out under the stump. “I knew there was a catch.”

To that, the farmer heartily laughed.

While the farmer went to get the rope he needed for pulling out the stump from off his existing railing, Theissen crouched down at the stump of the tree and felt deep inside it. There was a smell of death, of course, which gave him a strange sting of guilt. And yet, he reached down and animated the roots and the soil so everything would be loose. He rose when the farmer returned.

“We hack at the roots first and then pull the main stump out.”

Theissen nodded. “Ok. Though I was just feeling the soil, and we might just be able to pull most of it out.”

“Are you joking? This soil is like rock. That’s why most farmers aren’t successful around here. Most are too lazy to plow it, but I know it takes that worthwhile effort to gain success. Now do as I ask.” The man hefted up the axe.

With a shrug, Theissen decided not to argue and received the axe with his already callused hands.

They each took turns just chopping. However, even the farmer started to notice the soil was softer than before. He poked it with his foot after he had cut off a few more roots, frowning

“Funny…”

“What is?” Theissen now reached for the axe for his turn. His hands were forming blisters, but that only pleased him more. It felt great to use his arms again.

“This ground. I think you may be right.” The farmer nudged it with his heel. “It wasn’t like this, this morning. I wonder if this is a sign I ought to abandon this field.”

Theissen looked up. “What? No. This field seems fine.”

Shaking his head, the farmer frowned, peering more closely at the stump. “Be serious. The ground is strangely soft. This is magic, not normal.”

Clearing his throat, Theissen started to feel his palms sweat, looking around to make sure no one else was around to hear. “Why…why would you say that?”

Looking at him straight, the farmer poked the ground hard. “I’ve seen things most people never see.”

Theissen blinked. Could he see the change in the flow too? Was he also a wizard? His wife did say they were alike.

Jabbing the ground once more, the farmer walked away from the stump, waving to it. “I heard of demon trees in Angledoli. Some say they can move through the ground. Who is to say that isn’t a demon tree?”

Closing one eye, Theissen decided the man was not a wizard, glancing at the stump himself. “It’s not.”

“Oh, and you know all about demons too?” The farmer gave a snort. He folded his arms.

Tapping the ground so that it solidified, Theissen looked up at him. “Not all.”

The farmer gave no response. He just stared at Theissen and then started to point. “Hold on. What did you just say?”

There was no way around it. Theissen shrugged and said, “I can identify a demon on sight.”

And he saw what he expected. The farmer pulled back, staring. “You what?”

“It’s a gift I have,” Theissen said, now sitting down on the stump. “I can see, and for that matter even smell demons. One could not sneak up on me if it wanted to.”

The farmer just stared in silence for several minutes. Around them through the constant hum of the summer insects only the lowing of the farmer’s two cows and the cawing of a few birds could be heard, though a distant sound of chickens in the neighboring yard clucked perhaps while picking up those insects from off the ground.

“Why, then, are you a carpenter?” The farmer’s eyes flickered with that unfortunate look of fear Theissen had seen in so many people already.

Theissen chuckled and patted the stump before getting up. “I like carpentry. I like making things with my bare hands, seeing them take shape after all that hard work.”

Charging towards him as if to shake him, the farmer, nearly shouted, “But what you are describing…. Blast it, man! You are a wizard!”

Flinching, Theissen nodded, still expecting a blow.

None came. The farmer drew back and then stomped around that spot as if in a tirade, practically pacing. He could have been Kinnerlin in one of his temper fits with how silly he looked. In fact, this man reminded Theissen so much of home he started to wonder what they were up to, his mind wandering back toward Lumen Village with longing.

“Can you do more than just see and smell magic then?” the farmer asked him. He then pointed to a stone. “Can you make that into gold?”

Theissen frowned, but he picked up the stone. With a touch, he molded the rock into the shape of a bird and set it on the stump. The farmer looked at it, half expecting it to fly away.

“It is just a rock,” Theissen said.

The farmer turned back with a confused look. “But I asked—”

Shaking his head, Theissen picked up the rock bird and held it in his palm. “I can’t make something that is not gold, gold. But I can,” he then touched the tree stump again and pulled gently, “move things to make life a tad easier.”

The roots unearthed themselves like writhing snakes. The ground itself shoved the rest of the tree stump upward, nearly shaking from the plant, like dust.

Wide eyed, the farmer gaped worse than before. He slowly shook his head. “I had heard of a wizard down south, but a Carpenterson from Lumen Village? This takes away all precedence.”

Nothing was said for a full ten minutes. Theissen kept waiting to be chased out