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

had an army so large that it was only the Vast Northern Desert and the land of Maldos that stopped them from conquering the known world. Other seamen, however, said that Westhaven was the source of the pirates that sailed the seas. They also said that Westhaven was the source of Sky Child slaves, the most obedient and exotic property available for a rather substantial fee. The only thing people agreed upon for sure about Westhaven was that it had the largest accumulation of demons and magicians in the world.

Theissen opened to the first page, pulling his arms close in to himself as he glanced at the words. The writing was in a scripted hand, neatly written yet not flourished at all. Yuld would have liked it. The first words he saw on the page said: Jonis Scrolls.

Shrugging, he read on. What a jonis scroll was, he didn’t know. It sounded like a painful cramp, like a charley horse.

Scroll One: The nature of magic.

Theissen continued to read, wondering what an intellect from Westhaven would say about the nature of magic.

What is magic? In our world; which I call the world of Gull though no such name has ever been given to it by any of our official scientists, historians or scribes except in reference to the north and south continent divides as Greater Gull and Minor Gull; Magic is a fact.

The man seemed to ramble. Theissen grinned, reading on.

Outsiders; as there are many outside of Gull that our populations are unaware of; do not truly comprehend the nature of magic. To them, magic is a mysterious thing that cannot be explained in any certain terms. Among ourselves, non-magic users are essentially just as puzzled over the workings of magic, but for us, magic is more tangible.

Theissen froze. Magic is more tangible. The magicians never said it like that. Tangible. Something you could touch. The writer of this book was wordy like a scholar. Yuld probably would have loved to chat with him. Yet there was something else about what he was reading that started to give him chills. This person really seemed to know what he was talking about.

He read on. More wordy phrases and all that, but he grasped hold of what the writer was saying.

“Magic is nothing more than the ability to manipulate the flow of energy that moves naturally through our world,” he read aloud.

The flow. This man knew about it. Theissen flipped through the pages to see if there was an acknowledgement of whom this writer was and what magic craft he adhered to, but there was nothing so much as a name until he got to the last page. On it he saw a foreign written script with a translated request.

“If you have any other information that can or should be added to these scrolls, please send word via post, or whatever means you have to—” and then there was the foreign writing.

Theissen frowned. Nothing. The only choice he had was to find someone who could translate the words of Westhaven.

He turned the book back over to the front page and read on with a sigh.

The Magic Laws: Firstly, the magic of our world is contained in our world. It is the flow of our world. A magic user cannot manipulate the orbit of the moon because it is out of the reach of our world’s flow, but he can manipulate the rotation of our world making it look like the moon is standing still.

Theissen snickered. “Who in the world would care to do that? Move the moon…”

It sounded like something a magician with an ego would do.

Secondly, the magic of our world cannot create something from nothing. Magic is merely the shifting the flow of energy or matter in our world. Thus, if one were to conjure rain, the water comes from somewhere else in our world. It is basically theft.

Nodding, Theissen agreed. This writer did know what he was talking about. He used fancy words: energy, matter. It was definitely the kind of intellectualism the magicians would have liked. This man did not speak in metaphors. Too analytical.

Thirdly, pure magic cannot change the nature of a thing and remain natural. Any altering of the natural flow, such as trying to turn lead into gold or make a dead thing automatically alive, stifles the flow of magic and makes demons. Demons are unnatural formations of stifled energy, and are often malignant. Or more simply, they are a magic cancer.

What was cancer? Why didn’t the writer talk about the knots? Theissen almost closed the book, now sure this man was not a wizard. If he were, he certainly would have mentioned the flow more like threads and knots.

Fourth, the nature of an object is unchanging, whether demon, human, animal, herb, mineral, chemical, what have you, unless acted upon by a curse within our world….

He heard the wind slam the shop door closed. Giggles erupted with it. Listening, hoping to hear Lilissa speak, Theissen leaned closer to the wall.

“…Kidding? No. I don’t think he’s attractive at all.”

“But he looks almost like his brother, that flirty one. And he’ll have a good trade. Think about it Lilissa. He likes you.” It was a motherly voice speaking there. Theissen frowned. Motherly voices were usually a bad sign when trying to convince young ones.

“His brother was a cad. He flirted with every girl that walked.” That was Lilissa. Theissen’s heart sank into his shoes.

“But the wizard carpenter is an honorable man.” The mother continued to try persuading.

He saw them pass by. Luckily they had not noticed him. Their voices almost vanished in the wind of the storm, but Theissen strained to hear them with a little more help than just his ears, remaining in hiding in the alley.

“Wizard carpenter, ooh. That whole name makes me nervous. Wizard. It is about as bad as making me marry a witch. They’re all creepy.”

“I think he’s nice,” one of her girlish companions said. “You know he changed the color of my flowers to pink for me when I asked him. He thought nothing of it.”

Lilissa’s voice answered with some bite. “That’s because he is not stalking you. Ooh, if I could find some way to get him to stop walking by our shop, I’d do it!”

“Calm down. Honestly. You make it sound like we’re trying to set you up with a common farmer.”

“He’s as dirty as a farmer. A village boy.”

“I think village boys are sweet,” the girlish companion said again.

“You would. You’re a simpleton.”

Theissen stepped back to where he had set the rose bush. Inside all his warmth had gone. Lilissa had seemed so sweet. Even when she was criticizing him, her voice had that lovely tone that would have melted his heart if it were not for her stinging words. Now he felt like they were thorny pricks. A rose. She was a rose full of thorns.

Trudging back into the street, he tucked his book under his arm. The rosebush he carried with him under the other arm. No one seemed to notice how he parted the wind so that he could walk freely through without being jostled about. He was sick of being jostled about, physically and emotionally.

Lordri Carpenter hardly noticed when he walked into the shop. The snow had not blown in with him. Theissen marched past then up to his room, setting the rosebush to the side and the book on the desk near his bed. The wind howled outside his window, but it felt colder that day than it had in ages. Looking up once at his writing case a thought passed through his mind. Thinking more on it, he pulled out his stool, opened the writing case, and started on a letter.

 

Dear Milrina,

I hope you are doing better than I am. It is cold up here in Liptan, much like last year. The pond on the north side of town freezes into solid ice and the children go sliding on it. Some have fashioned shoes for the game, something I think we ought to try someday down in Lumen. I liked all the sledding we did when it snowed. Times like these I just miss home.

I’m sorry. I’m just moping. I miss a friendly face that won’t stare at me and think, ‘You’re a freak for being a wizard.’ You never did stare at me like that.

I keep reading things the magicians give me, and almost all the legends say that wizards are nothing but trouble. Do you think that? Have I been trouble for you? I start to wonder.

Well, I just hope where you are, is happy. Say hello to everyone.

Your friend always,

Theissen

 

There was little else he could write. He couldn’t tell her about Lilissa. She knew that as long as he did not call for her, both of them were free to see whomever they wanted. Only now it seemed to him that only Milrina was free to see whomever she wanted. Perhaps his mother had been right. Perhaps a wizard had to have an arranged marriage since most other girls were so scared that he had so much power in the reach of his fingers. Milrina really was an unusual girl.

Theissen folded up the letter and then sealed it, adding a gentle soaking of wax to the paper to make it waterproof for when it flew through the snow. Going to the window, he opened it, the flurries blowing inside with force. Lifting the letter out, Theissen let it go, letting it fly into the storm, perhaps blowing harder towards home than he normally could have managed. Closing the window, he turned back to the desk then picked up the book. He dropped to the stool and turned back to the next page.

Who can use Magic? Anyone with a brain and the ability to form words can use magic. Magic is the world, not a power a person has. There are about five categories of magic users in the world: Wizards, Magicians, Magisters, Herbalists and Demons.

Theissen read the list again. Wizards…Magicians…Magisters? What was a magister?

He skipped down to that part and read it aloud.

These are more modern style magic users. They emerged not long after the Sky Children entered Greater Gull and took over the eastern half of the continent. Magisters combine the magic skills of Herbalists and Magicians with the newly acquired scientific knowledge the Sky Children had brought with them.

Sky Children? Weren’t those just slaves the people of Westhaven sold? And what was this scientific knowledge this man was writing about?

He read on:

It can be safely said that Magisters are the most powerful of magic users simply because they accept all forms of magic as valid and therefore useful to them. Their skill rivals that of Wizards, and their only handicap in comparison to them is that they must rely on spells to perform magic.

More powerful than wizards? Theissen blinked then wondered. How powerful did people think wizards were?

Theissen looked back to the description of wizards.

These are natural born magic users. They are very rare. Basically a wizard is a human that can see or sense the magic flow in the world, and to varying degrees can tap into it and manipulate it without the need of a spell.

That was true.

Reading on: Some say that the flow of energy is so strong with them that they are more part of our world than the rest of us. Others say they are merely in tune with nature, as the rest of us are in chaos with it. Not all wizards are born equal. Some can merely sense magic nearby, whereas others can see, smell and even taste it. Those wizards that can see it are more able to manipulate the flow of the world with ease. However, the ability to see magic does not guarantee the ability to manipulate it. Some wizards describe the magic flow as just out of reach even though they can see where it goes. They need a point