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

“I am not a magician. But I am a wizard.” Theissen sighed, glancing at the others who were watching him from behind the newly mended stalls. “But really, I was only here in the capacity of a carpenter, and I really was only passing through. If you want me to mend the rest of the town, I will. But I still require a bed and some food, because right now I am really tired.”

The cobbler stared up then down at how rooted he was in the ground. Theissen smirked, lowering his head in a nod Almost instantly the ground opened up and pushed him out.

Stumbling to his feet, the cobbler looked half-ready to attack Theissen, half-ready to run. “Wha…what do you want from us?”

Theissen slumped his shoulders as he groaned. “Didn’t I say that already? I’m a journeyman carpenter for pity’s sake. I just want to trade work for bed and food. Why is this hard for people to understand?”

“No money?” that man asked.

Considering it for a second, Theissen just shook his head. “No. Not really. You don’t want to purchase my specialty.”

“Magic spells?” the cobbler said.

Making a face, Theissen said almost with a sulk, “No. Ornate woodcarving. Honestly is all you see in me is a wizard?”

He started to walk from the barn, regarding the missing door a second before going outside. He saw the animals gathered in a makeshift corral. Smiling, he walked over to them. Most of them men followed him, some carrying out picks and hoes for their own protection. Theissen ignored them. He had to at least. His nerves were nearly shot, already on edge from having brought together an enormous barn and keeping his head together after having it banged against a post. What he really wanted was a long nap.

Reaching out his hand, Theissen appealed to the natural flow in the domesticated animals. Almost all of them approached where he stood, though some of the more loyal kinds such as the horses and a few of the milk cows held back with curiosity rather than going directly to him. He opened the gate and gestured for them to return to the barn. They seemed to understand him. Animals really were not that hard to reason with. Once they understood that it was safe to return to their home, most eagerly did so with very little urging.

The townspeople stood aside, watching the domesticated beasts walk back into the barns. Their eyes also rose toward Theissen who looked calmly on with a pleased expression. The cobbler had even staggered out of the barn, stepping back from the cow that walked in lowing as it happily found its own stall door open. All the doors had opened at will, actually. A tiny breeze had blown through, the latches lifting of their own accord.

One by one until the last of the animals were in, including the pigeons that roosted back up in the rafters where their droppings had long crusted the beams, the yard cleared. Theissen strolled after, smiling with a pat to the dog that decidedly ran around him with excitement before joining its mate back in its kennel.

“That ain’t just a wizard,” a woman said, dropping her pruning hook to the ground. “That’s a powerful ‘un.”

Theissen ignored her. Things like that made him nervous.

The cobbler fell to the ground at Theissen’s feet, throwing down his own sharp tool that he had just been holding. “Oh! Please forgive us! Oh, Great Sorcerer!”

“Stop that!” Theissen backed away from him. “I am not a great sorcerer, and get up!”

Still, the cobbler trembled before him, and so for that matter did many others. Most, if not all dropped the tools they had carried for weapons.

“Please forgive us!” they moaned.

Slumping his shoulders, Theissen whined. “I said stop that. I’m just a carpenter.”

The cobbler shook his head vigorously, getting to his feet in a stooped subservient position. “Oh, no. You are not just anything. That magician was nothing to you. You are all powerful—”

“I am NOT all powerful,” Theissen snapped and then turned from the barn.

He stomped back to where he had left his pack and cloak. Both had been inconvenient to wear while helping with the barn. Hefting them up, he noticed that his silver cup and his tool belt were missing, along with his coin purse. Apparently the thieves had followed him into town after all. Growling to himself, he touched the ground to feel where his things were. Both thieves were running out towards the north road. With a frown, he made the ground rise up and trip them. He could feel their full bodies crash to the earth, the contents of their pockets and hands now touching it also. Reaching in, he pulled his tool belt and other valuables back through the earth. When they reached him, one by one he plucked them from the ground and put them back with his bag. He counted to make sure all his tools were accounted for. The crowd watching murmured behind him.

“Blasted thieves,” Theissen muttered. He hooked his belt on. Tilting the teacup, Theissen frowned. There was a dent in it. Touching it, he smoothed it back out and then stuck it back onto his belt loop.

“But what of your fee?” someone asked, approaching him as he watched Theissen heave his pack onto his back. It seemed to most that he was ready to leave.

Theissen blinked and then groaned with a moan accompanied by a look of exasperation. “Haven’t I said it already? Bed and food. Is that so hard to remember?”

They just stared at him.

“That’s all?” one asked.

He could see their looks of incredulity. Glancing around the rather bland town, so flat and brown that it blended in with the dirt and trees around them, he shrugged. Reaching out towards a lady, who tried to back off but couldn’t for the crowd, he touched her dress. It turned from plain brown muslin to vibrant blue.

“How about you all make this place look a little nicer,” he said.

Their repulsed expressions answered him.

But Theissen continued on his way back into the town’s center, trotting with a glance at the bull torn up ground. It raised up and flattened as he walked on it.

“Why not plant flowers, or something,” he said, gesturing towards the windows and walkways.

“Flowers?” a man voiced. “What use are flowers?”

Theissen touched another girl’s dress, turning it a sweet pink. She secretly smiled, skipping over to her mother who stared with shock. “Flowers make the world look and smell nicer.”

“They’re useless,” one man said.

Theissen cast him a dry look and then touched his lapels. “Useless? They make the world a happier place.”

The man’s lapels had turned a sharp hunter’s green. The man blinked at them for a full two minutes, unable to walk further.

It was like a parade as Theissen walked through town. He mended the glass windows with a touch, though he had cut himself on one once and healed it right there as people watched. He fixed the walls of the scarred homes, also turning them a lighter shade of cream. In fact, everywhere he touched, they came up as lighter more cheerful colors. By this time, half the ladies were dressed in pastels and vibrant jewel tones, and the men found their brown suits either deepening to another color of a richer hue or certainly a more brushed up look in brown. Almost no one was left untouched, including those that kicked a fit when they saw their plain colors gone lighter. Those people he left with his childish rainbow handprints for spite. By the time he was done, he found a room in the inn and locked his door to make sure no one would follow him in asking for favors. The banging on the door subsided after suppertime. Most had gone home.

Theissen snuck down into the inn’s larder half past midnight, unlocking doors with a touch. There he bumped into two of the inn’s servants doing the same, all blushing at each other on sight.

“I missed supper,” Theissen said, glancing at the ham on the cutting board and then at the jellied preserves.

The servants shoved both over, also offering some cheese.

“We won’t tell.”

“You’d probably turn us into mice anyway,” the other said.

Theissen gave them both a tired look. “Don’t be stupid. I have never turned anyone into a mouse, and I wouldn’t do it.” He reached for the butter, taking a slice and spreading it onto his bread. “Make a nasty demonic mess anyway.”

They gazed up at him with surprise. “You mean, you have never cursed anyone before?”

Shaking his head, Theissen nearly inhaled the bread. He started into the ham when his first hiccups started. They looked even more amazed that common ailments bothered him.

“Sorry,” Theissen apologized with a ‘hic’. “Ate too fast.”

Both servants looked from one to the other.

One nodded and asked, “Tell us. What really were your intentions for our town then? Most think you are here to punish us for something. I heard Miller say that you’re here to take revenge for the magician, but one man says you’re here to punish us for throwing out your brother what’s-his-name.”

Theissen lifted his head with another ‘hic’. “Kicked out? Hold on. (hic) Is this the town that nearly threw (hic) Kinnerlin on his ear for (hic) telling them they were all ugly gits?”

The two servants flushed. The one nodded.

“That’s what’s-his-name. The mouthy fella. Then the cocky carpenter strutting around and flirting with the girls, what-ever-his-name-was. He’s that other brother, right?”

To that, Theissen smirked. “Oh. (hic) Tolbetan. Yeah, he barely (hic) mentioned that. Of course, I don’t think he would have (hic) liked to live here anyway. Wouldn’t suit (hic) him.”

Nodding, the servants gave Theissen a shrewd look as he started to hold his breath to chase away the hiccups.

The one said, “Yes, well, some of the town leaders say they were going to find a way to pay you off and send you on your way as soon as possible tomorrow.”

“Wizards are terrifying, you know.”

Theissen hiccupped again, making a face at himself. That was one thing magic did not seem to cure, no matter how hard he tried.

“And,” the one jabbed the other to shut up, “they figured even sweetening the deal by offering you a carriage to your next destination.”

“Expeditious like,” the other added.

Making a face, Theissen started into the ham again. His hiccups were gone. “Expeditious like, huh? A carriage?”

They nodded.

Shaking his head, he felt like laughing. Theissen took in another mouthful and chewed before saying, “And what is this about wizards are terrifying. I’ve never met another. Have you?”

They both stared at him, the one jabbed by the other for making that verbal slip.

“Uh, well,” one stuttered a bit. “You see, with doing all powerful magic and all…”

“It isn’t all powerful,” Theissen interjected, lifting a finger as he reached for some cold boiled potatoes he just saw.

“…You are kind of frightening. You should have seen yourself, standing all calm like as everything starts moving alive.” The servant nodded his head vigorously. “That ain’t natural.”

What a notion. Theissen had not seen it that way. Not natural? No. His experience told him that natural and unnatural were different than what he was doing. Unnaturalness was demonic. Naturalness smelled right. Looked right. Felt right. What he had done was unusual, but not unnatural.

He lifted his chin and regarded the two servants there. “What I do is not unnatural. Just—”

“Just what? Wood does not naturally crawl up the walls,” the servant protested. He was shaking slightly as he watched Theissen, yet feeling brave enough to speak out.

“Not if it isn’t asked to,” Theissen retorted, going back to eating his potatoes.

“Asked to? Wood doesn’t talk!” the man said.

To that, Theissen sighed. He rose from his seat, leaving a half eaten potato on his plate, and shook his head. “Just because you cannot hear it does not mean it does not speak. I hear it, I see it and I know that everything around us is saying something.”

The other’s eyes widened. “What are they