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

“Ah! There he is!”

“You’re late.”

Theissen walked up the rest of the way with a smirk. The two magicians were like his master, resenting every second he was not there.

He bowed politely to them both. “Magician Pandoros. Magician Undi. My apologies. I ran into my brother’s old friends again.”

Undi snorted as he walked over to their one writing desk and picked up a leather bound book, handing it to Pandoros. The only thing distinguishable between the men was that Undi was perhaps ten years younger than Pandoros and he had a mustache. Pandoros had no facial hair at all. He thought beards got in the way of things, especially eating.

“You should be more careful,” Undi said.

Theissen merely shrugged, glancing at the book. “What is that?”

“Something we want you to read when you manage to have the time,” Pandoros said. He opened it up, flipping the aged pages until he found what he was looking for. Then he smiled at Theissen with a nod. “Today, I was thinking we would work on summoning spells. Do you know any?”

Shaking his head, Theissen started to take off his coat. The upstairs had a way of getting hot. He also removed his vest, setting both aside on a chair next to a rather full bookshelf of bound volumes of many thicknesses and sizes.

“Can you summon things, though?” Undi asked.

Nodding, Theissen said, “Of course. I used to help the sheriffs find things.” Then he muttered under his breath, “that the magician used to hide to frame me for theft.”

Both Pandoros and Undi shared a glance. They had already heard an earful of all the things the magician of Lumen had done to Theissen. Half the time they worked hard at eliminating any prejudice Theissen had towards magicians and their kind of magic. They often said that their fellow magician behaved poorly.

“Well,” Undi decided to continue as if he hadn’t heard Theissen’s last remark, “Today we intend to do a comparative study. If you look in the book there, you will see that there is one kind of summoning spell. But in written magic and spoken magic, spells must be altered according to the shape and kind of thing being sent. How does wizard summoning work?”

Pandoros picked up a large white quill and took out his usual inkwell, waiting to write what Theissen described. It was same as in all their lessons. Undi liked to talk more than Pandoros. Pandoros considered himself more of the intellectual anyway. Undi was into action.

Shrugging, Theissen described how he summoned solid objects through the ground. He explained how everything was connected, described the threads of flow that he could feel and see. Then he explained that all he had to do was urge the surrounding area to bring the object to him.

“Can you summon things you are not familiar with?” Pandoros asked.

Giving another shrug, Theissen said, “Well, it is harder to summon something I have never seen before. In fact, I don’t think I have ever tried it.”

The magicians smiled, mutually pleased in a way that often annoyed Theissen. They liked it when their magic could do something Theissen’s gift did not.

“Try summoning some bread the cook baked this morning from the kitchen,” Undi said.

Giving them a frown, Theissen bent down and felt the wood in the floor, feeling out and down through the woodwork to the kitchen where he sensed the items touching the tables and counters. He felt through cloth, through metal pans, and through shelves. Eventually he stood up and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sense any bread down there. I did notice there was pie and a tray of tarts.”

The pair sighed together and then shook their heads.

“We already ate the bread,” Pandoros said.

“You’re good,” Undi added with a defeated nod.

Theissen made a face. “You lied to me?”

Both magicians shrugged.

“We had to test to see if you really could tell what you are taking,” Undi said. Pandoros kept writing down notes, vigorously scratching out the results of their experiment.

“Second test,” Pandoros said, nodding to Undi.

Undi nodded back and turned to Theissen. “Ok, this next test is a race. I want you to summon something from your master’s shop. We’ll summon something from there as well.”

“My master won’t like that,” Theissen said, but he crouched down and thought of what he could summon.

“Pick a small thing,” the magician said. “Name a safe object for me to take so he won’t get so angry.”

Theissen touched the wood and then nodded to himself. “You can take something of mine. My silver teacup my brother-in-law gave me. You can summon that.”

“Your brother-in-law can afford silver?” Undi looked surprised.

Nodding, Theissen said, “Of course. He is a silversmith. I’ll summon my writing kit. I forgot to write my mother this morning.” Theissen set his hand to the ground and then looked up. “Are we starting?”

Undi nodded with a shrewd smile. He liked competition. The day before they had raced to see who could stir up the wind quicker. It took Theissen no time to do that. The same for conjuring rain and for making things move. It took time to write out a spell; magicians’ spells took longer but arrived with more dramatic oomph. The only thing Theissen had not proved faster at was conjuring animals. He had to see one to get one to come to him.

“Begin,” Pandoros said, nodding also.

Both went at their kinds of magic. Theissen felt into the wood towards Lordri Carpenter’s shop. Since it was a distance away, it took time to locate his writing case and then drag it through the top floors to the ground and then through the ground back up to their top floor. The case was not even halfway there when he heard Undi finish with his writing and declared his spell.

Out from the North, tunnel here. Right from the East, tunnel here. Down from the South, tunnel here. In from the West, tunnel here. Come to this second floor shop of Undi and Pandoros, my friend Theissen’s silver teacup.

The magician banged on the ground in the center of his drawn circle and declared: “Here!”

Almost immediately Theissen saw a hole open up in the ground. Under his own touch he could feel a tunnel open up right next to where he was drawing in his writing case, sucking into the room with a whoosh also came his very familiar teacup. The thing popped out of the floorboards with a clink. The magician turned with a smile. Theissen pulled out his writing case five seconds after. Both looked in good condition.

“Is this it?” Undi asked him.

Theissen nodded, picking his teacup from off the ground. “That’s it. I only own one.”

Undi grinned and turned to Pandoros. “So. We did it quicker.”

“Only because we summoned from a rather difficult distance,” Theissen said, somewhat put out. He set the teacup on the writing desk along with his writing case, opening the case up to get out a sheet of paper. “If my case were on the ground floor and we were also, it would have taken me less time.”

Pandoros leaned in, glancing at Theissen’s iron pen. “So, does the affect of space or air in between objects slow your reaction time?”

Shaking his head, Theissen replied, “I can only summon things that touch other things with this method. I can’t feel through air like I can through ground. It swims too much.”

“Can you summon through air?” Pandoros asked.

“It has to be light,” Theissen said, now dipping his pen into the flat inkwell he had just opened. “Like paper or leaves. Something the wind can carry.”

He then started to write a quick letter, ignoring Undi’s impatient stares.

“Our lesson isn’t finished. Why are writing a letter in the middle of it?” Undi said.

Theissen frowned. “Because, I forgot to do it earlier, and if I don’t do it now, I’ll forget.”

Both magicians traded looks. Neither acted to stop him though. Theissen was impulsive that way.

“Besides, you both are thinking about doing sending spells next. Right?”

Undi sighed.

Pandoros chuckled. “Are we that easy to read?”

Theissen glanced up once. He shook his head. “Not at all. But it only makes sense. You have been making me pairs of magic kinds for the past week. Today is summoning. There isn’t much else to what we just did. I can only assume that we will be doing sending next, unless you want me to just sit and read for the next two hours, which I highly doubt since neither one of you get anything out of watching me read your books.”

He went back to writing. Pandoros continued to chuckle in his mild way while Undi cast his companion chiding looks to behave more dignified. The pair of them really did work differently in public. No one outside the second floor would have know how often they bickered and teased each other.

Blotting a few more words, Theissen signed off the letter then added a P.S. for Doreen to behave herself. He smiled to himself and folded the letter. Then he took out another sheet of paper to write a small note to Milrina. He often sent her simple letters of a friendly nature letting her know what he was up to. Nothing mushy. He still didn’t feel that way about her.

“Are you done yet?” Undi was starting to sound annoyed again.

“All done,” Theissen said, folding that one up too and tucking it in. He put the two together then reached out for the sealing wax. There were no lit candles in the room to melt it, but Theissen merely touched it and let a piece fall over the crack. Touching it once, the piece flattened and held the papers closed. “Just let me send it.”

“I’ll call the maid to take it to post,” Pandoros said, rising from his chair.

“No need,” Theissen said, and he walked to a window, opening it. “This is how I send letters home.”

And he let go of the letter allowing a light breeze pick it up. It floated it over the tops of houses then the forest beyond. Theissen gazed out over the town at the rooftops drawing in a breath as he gazed over towards the ocean. He smiled.

“That’s your sending spell?” Undi murmured behind him.

Theissen turned with a nod. “For light objects. Normally, I just send back solid objects the way I take them. It takes about as long.”

Undi nodded and then turned to Pandoros.

“You’d better write that down.” He then turned toward Theissen and said, “So sending and summoning is pretty much the same action for you?”

Theissen had walked back to the writing table, putting his writing things straight into the case, glancing around for something to clean his pen off with. There was nothing but a crumbled rag that didn’t look too clean. Eventually he decided to just draw off the ink from the pen and put it back into the bottle with a small wave. The magicians stared.

“Basically,” he said. “But then for me most of what I do is more of the same. I don’t understand those spells you do at all.”

Pandoros smiled with a glance at Undi. Undi looked thoughtful for a moment, then picked up the worn book he had been using and handed it to Theissen.

“Most spells are memorized. But there is a pattern to all magic spells that should be followed,” Undi said.

“It is like the old myths,” Pandoros added. Closing his book of notes. “Certainly you heard some as a child.”

Theissen shrugged. “I don’t think I heard half the stories most children hear. I think my mother didn’t want to insult me.”

Undi laughed. His was uncharacteristically mirthful. “Indeed.