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

Theissen rose to his feet, reaching out. With one tug, he undid the knot of the demon’s stomach and mouth. Both collapsed down to human proportions. Only its odd eyes and strangely shaped ears were left. The demon peered at him maliciously, groping its own body as if trying to keep its own skin on. The clothes were certainly hanging down like that anyway. That was when Theissen noticed several dangling toes and fingers from a strange necklace around the demon’s neck. He did vomit then.

“You horrible creature.” The thing shouted at Theissen with a definitely changed voice. All the grating was gone at least, though its sweetness was also no longer there. “What kind of demon are you?”

Wiping his mouth, Theissen glared at it.

“Demon?” Theissen shook his head. “And you call me sick?”

He tromped off. Let those freaky demonic birds eat it for all he cared. The thing was still ugly leathery skinned, and its hideous face still exposed what a bloodthirsty malicious creature it was. Besides, the thing still reeked of demon. There were still a few demonic knots in it with an odor that was too much to stomach. Theissen didn’t want to stay longer than he had to. Looking towards the northern flow, Theissen regained his bearings and marched that way, not looking back.

It was following him. The thing was slow and probably did not have proper shoes on so it could not catch up, but it was following him. Theissen could smell it.

The birds were also still overhead, watching him though even warier than before. They did not dive down on the demon man thing though, perhaps innately knowledgeable of its still dangerous nature. However, Theissen didn’t care. He still had a while to walk, and he didn’t want to spend it all in these woods with all these demons about. Besides, Theissen had a feeling that those bandits were even more dangerous than the demons in the forest, and going back to the highway did not seem like much of an option.

So, he set up camp, wrapped his cloak around himself, and he slept with one eye open even to dawn.

That was how he traveled for the next few weeks. It was exhausting. The good thing was, the freaky demon was getting further and further behind him, until Theissen stopped detecting the demon altogether. By that time all he could feel was the menace of a few strange demonic knots in the trees, all birds.

Eventually he found himself staring out of the edge of the forest towards the highway much earlier than he had expected, breathing the fresh air with an intense amount of relief. With one happy step, Theissen was back on the road towards Liptan Town, keeping a watchful nose out for that hateful smell of those bandits. Next time they would not get the jump on him.

Two day’s walk and Theissen passed two estate villages and then saw the rising form of a rather large town much like Pepersin. The outskirts of the town had more thatched homes with farms and crops growing from them, children running around barefoot and geese and ducks driven by young girls. Some of them waved to him as he marched up the road. It was friendly-like, almost with a feel of home. The further he got up the road, the more people stopped and stared to see what was coming. One man called to him.

“You there! Where are you from and what are you seeking?”

Theissen bowed politely, checking to see if he had shaken off all the roadside dust he could. “I am journeyman carpenter from Lumen Village, and I am seeking temporary if not permanent work in the town.”

The man smiled with a gentle shake of his head. “I’m afraid you are more likely to find temporary work here. There are three carpenter masters in town. They take apprentices and sometimes employ journeymen to help out, but they don’t invite competition.”

But that didn’t sound too bad. Theissen lifted his head with a look towards the town. “Three masters, did you say? It is still the same as five years ago?”

The local man stepped forward, looking surprised. “We’ve always had three masters, though one has risen up better than the others because of a journeyman that came this way five years ago. His business tripled. Five years, huh? How do you know that number is significant?”

Theissen blushed and ducked his head a little. “Well, I have three older brothers and one stayed in Liptan Town. The other two crossed through the mountains from here.”

Giving a nod of satisfaction, the local man smirked, assessing Theissen more. “Well then, journeyman, I suggest you either continue on to town and look for one of the competitors of your brother’s former master or you continue on your way. The competition between carpenters here is fierce. Their only other competition is a master who lives far south from here and delivers all along the coast. But believe me, if they could sabotage his work they would. But rumor has it that he has a wizard in his employ.”

Flushing even redder, Theissen decided not confirm anything the man said. He bowed low. “Thank you, sir. I will take your advice in mind.”

He continued on his way up the road a step but then froze. The man had nearly gone back to his home, watching Theissen with an amused smile. Theissen turned around and asked, feeling somewhat brain dead for not thinking of it earlier, “Hey, um what are the carpenter masters’ names so I can inquire after them?”

Laughing jovially, so much like a local of Lumen Village, the man replied, “Of course. They are Masters Lordri Carpenter, Gurilisar Carpenter, and Munden Carpenter.

Nodding, Theissen muttered the last one’s name. Munden. He had heard that one. It was the one Kinnerlin had worked for. Any of the other two would do. Still, he had to ask, “Which man would you recommend working for?”

Giving a polite nod, the man said, “I like Lordri. He has two apprentices and his craft is good. He is merely shorthanded, especially since Munden now has an army of apprentices working for him.”

“No journeymen?” Theissen asked, puzzled. It didn’t sit right with him for a man to have a number of apprentices called an army.

Shaking his head as if it were a shame, the man replied, “No, sir. When that one southern journeyman came, he built up many apprentices for his master, but they seemed to lack the ambition this man held for the craft.”

That sounded like Kinnerlin. He loved carpentry. He had been in competition with Dalance who was a natural master at it, so Kinnerlin had to put forth a lot more effort than most just to equal him. There really wasn’t anyone comparable in ambition to Kinnerlin. Tolbetan had been cowed by it, not all that interested in the craft as the others. Even Theissen found that brother’s ambition a bit extreme, though his love for carpentry equaled Dalance’s and his father’s. It would be very interesting to enter a town in his wake.

“Thank you again,” Theissen said, and this time he did march straight towards the town center.

“Don’t mention it.” The man turned back towards his yard.

Theissen strolled past the cottages into the more structured wooden and brick houses. The tiled roofs were like those if Pepersin. The cobblestone streets up hills and in narrow alleys with steps were also the same. There were walking paths of laid stone at the sides and carts with horses and donkeys traveled by with important passengers and vital freight. Townspeople bustled around on errands with baskets and loads, milkmaids heaving jugs on their shoulders with the help of yokes balancing like a set of scales, all smiling with greetings to one another. They eyed him as an outsider, though several blushed with flirtatious looks. Many of them were pretty.

Theissen blushed, listening to them giggle.

“Well, look here. You came back!”

A hard shove pushed Theissen into a fruit vendor’s stand. The animosity smelled annoyingly sour.

Theissen turned, ready to face those thieves again. Three young men Theissen had never seen before stared at him, their expressions turning from smug mockery to looks of surprise that equaled his own. It wasn’t the thieves. It wasn’t anyone he knew.

“Well, I’ll be,” one of the men said. “Another one.”

Theissen was about to ask what they were talking about, but one of them shoved him back into the stall again with a rude push.

“We don’t want your kind here.” Another of men said, puffing up his chest to look forbidding. However, there was barely anything of that frightening power in this man as Theissen had seen in those thieves. This man was simply dressed, but not poorly so. All three looked like rudimentary craftsmen with basic handed-down tools straps across their waists. They also wore matching badges identifying them with a guild. Theissen didn’t have time to inspect them any further since they gave him another shove, jarring him and the stand behind him.

“Hey! Knock that off!” Theissen backed towards the road.

“Quit it you boys!” The fruitier came out, glaring at them. “You’re bad for business!”

The threesome nodded to the fruitier apologetically, looking to shove Theissen into the road instead. However, Theissen had taken that one second to urge a pear and then the whole stand full of fruit to tip out onto the sidewalk just as they moved past. The fruitier shouted after them, giving Theissen ample time to get away.

He rushed up another street, ducking into one of the stepped alleyways. They shouted after him, but he sidestepped into a recessed doorway just in time to be missed. Listening, he could tell they had hurried on toward the next road, searching for him.

Theissen peeked out once, and then exhaled. Looking up, he decided to take the higher road.

The town led in towards a center like most of the villages. Markets branched off of it, though he saw theaters and buildings that had political importance rather than economic importance. There was the court, an imposing stone building with a marvelously carved relief on the front and well-made pillars with crafted forms of Jatte style geometric designs. All around the square were standing lamps that would be lit only in the night time and snuffed once dawn came, a necessary expense towns loved to indulge in to make their living areas safer. Sheriffs called constables walked the streets in stiff suits eyeing him as he gazed around with a look of the lost. One approached.

“You missing something?” the constable asked in a superior tone.

Shaking his head, Theissen answered, “No. But I am more or less lost. I am looking for Lordri Carpenter. I am a journeyman from Lumen Village seeking work.”

The constable raised his eyebrows in a frank expression of pleasant surprise. “A journeyman carpenter from Lumen Village seeking to work for Lordri Carpenter? That you don’t hear everyday.”

Theissen tilted his head about to agree that it probably was not something people said on a daily basis, but just watching the constable made him bite his tongue. The man was smiling and then nodded to him.

“You know, I am in such a good mood today,” the constable said, “I’ll show you right to him.”

“Thank you!” Theissen practically jumped to his side, glad for the help.

“Don’t mention it,” the constable said, strolling back down the hill toward one of the main roads.

Down hill, the town was pretty much the same, though walking with the constable was like walking with armor on. More people stared at him, but less were likely to lay a finger on him. Theissen even saw the trio of men that had assaulted him earlier just down the street staring at both him and the constable, fuming like he had beaten them at their own game. It made him smile a little with a wish to wave. He suppressed the urge, and