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

“You are not to hurt this poor—”

But the poor birdman he was just talking about punched Mensin in the back then pushed him out of the way, stomping right up to Theissen. “I want to be human!”

“No!” the doctor shouted.

However, Theissen reached in and undid that knot, knowing now which parts of the flow to pull on. The birdman’s wings scattered to the wind. All that was left was a man.

“This is your fault!” Mensin spun around. Behind Mensin, Theissen saw two other birdmen toss Theobold to the earth with a disgusted huff.

Theobold made a face at Mensin, nodding once to Theissen from off the leaves. “Sorry about this. As soon as the fog lifted, everyone figured out you had gone. Though I really don’t see why they should blame me.”

Theissen sighed, nodding to him. He reached down to lift him up. The birdman took his arm gratefully, rustling his wings with a wince as he stood up. Somewhere in those white and gray feathers Theissen saw red along with the flicker of pain in the flow.

“You clipped them!” Theissen shouted, rounding on the birdmen with clenched fists. Theobold stood back, rubbing his arms with the same soreness from being carried.

The birdmen lifted their heads, holding firm as they stared down on Theissen and his friend.

“He won’t ever fly again unless you come back with us, wizard,” the village elder with them said.

“You said you can reattach limbs, right?” the doctor added with a shrewd look, smug as ever. So smug that Theissen had about half a notion to yank out the doctor’s knot too, just for spite.

Theobold moved in between them, perhaps knowing the direction Theissen’s thoughts were going. “I’m all right.”

Stepping back, Theissen just shook his head, reaching out to where his feathers were stunted from a painful chop. The flow showed that some repairs might be made, but for anything healthy and non-demonic, he had to give it time to completely heal. He needed those broken pieces to really fix his friend.

Casting a glare over Theobold’s shoulder, Theissen then gently shoved him out of the way. “You were poisoning me, and you expect me to come back?”

The doctor’s feathers ruffled, his long hair almost standing on end. The others also fluffed up as if ready to fly.

“I don’t think so.” Theissen gave him one last glare and turned towards the east. He nodded then started his march again to get out of the forest.

Seron suddenly flew down. He flapped over, shoving between several of the elders to the front of the crowd, nearly pushing the doctor into a tree. “Please! Wizard! Can you then go to Jattereen City for us?”

That made him stop. “What?”

Nearly groveling, Seron crammed into Theissen’s hands a bag of demon feathers, the best picks. At first every one just stared at him as Theissen blinked at Seron’s frankness and then at the long elegant demon feathers, each worth forty in gold in a Jatte marketplace. Then the entire birdmen group reached out. They grabbed Seron and the bag, yanking him back into their flock. However, Seron fought back, nearly clawing his way out of them with the bag still in hand, squawking for them to keep out of business.

He clung back onto Theissen’s camouflage colored cloak, pleading as a man desperate. “We need a representative in Jattereen City. Please, please, I’m begging you. Please represent us!”

“You fool we want him to return to the village!” an elder slapped the back of his head while others yanked on Seron’s wings.

Theobold smirked, still cringing from pain in his feathers then patted Theissen’s shoulder with a chuckle. “Come on. It really is the only way to get them to leave you alone. The birdmen do need a feather merchant we…I mean, they can trust.”

“Is this me being left alone?” Theissen gave Theobold a wry look, as he also glanced at he large crowd around him. He had not gotten far at all, despite all his efforts.

However, Theissen saw the pain his friend was in. He immediately he reached out to mend his wing, actually encouraging new growth. It would hold for now at least, stopping the pain somewhat.

The other birdmen took a step back from the journeyman, except maybe Seron who stared up hopefully, still clinging to Theissen’s robes.

“You’ll do business for them, but not for us?” someone said.

Theissen cringed. It was another unhappy and unwelcome voice. Theissen only knew the voice attached to a strange fuzzy image in a phosphorescent hue, but here was that bejeweled mole chief now standing with a group of guards with spears still bent though looking more banged into shape.

“Why don’t you people leave me alone?” Theissen shouted back with a groan, yanking his robes free from Seron’s grip with a little magic. The birdman yipped, ducking behind Theissen, grabbing on another part of his robe despite how claustrophobic all that clingyness was making the wizard.

Theobold nodded, gesturing to the chief moleman with an inclination to hide also. “That one is particularly bad. I was flying one night, and he actually tried to shoot me with an arrow.”

“You always keep flying in my domain you fowl!” the demon chief bellowed, raising up a particularly unfriendly looking mace in his fist.

“Foul? Foul what?” Theissen murmured aloud, glancing at Theobold.

“Idiot,” a moleman from the mob murmured.

“He means bird,” Theobold said in Theissen’s ear before flapping off with a slight limp to be with the other humans as if he had become one of them. “Molemen are inclined to bad puns.”

Theissen cast him a grateful smirk and then looked at the mole chief with his own glare of dislike. “You had me locked in a dungeon covered in slime, and then your guard stabbed me. Why are you bothering me? Why should I help you?”

The chief growled, looking rather funny with that shaded hat and glass over his eyes. He only wore a few of his jewels this day, dangling from his neck in a rainbow of stones from a chain, perhaps hoarding the rest underground so no human got a hand on it.

“I told you my story, and you ask me that?” the chief sounded truly put out. He folded his stumpy arms, cradling his mace across his chest like a scepter.

“What does a sob story about you becoming demons have to do with me helping you?” Theissen snapped back. He shook Seron off also, giving him a sharp look to not cling to him. “You stole my belongings and had me locked up, I think me not making all your caves crash in after I left was generous enough.”

But Daanee placed her hand on his arm. Theissen glanced to see her pleading eyes looking up at him. His insides started to melt already. It was hard to maintain a strong facade when people looked at him like that.

She said, “Please. He’s not used to negotiating with wizards. Daddy has never really understood how to ask for help.”

“Daddy?” Theissen looked from the cured mole woman to the chief then backed up with disbelief. “That thing is your father?”

Of course now she didn’t look a thing like him, but Theissen did recall that she was the one that had come in to his prison to feed him that strange broth. Very few would have freedom to move in and out of places like that unless they had some influence.

The molemen chief laughed aloud with a triumphing gurgle to his gravelly voice. “Yes! And you turned my daughter into a human, so you owe me!”

First Theissen just stared at him. Then he threw up his hands. Hiking his pack onto his shoulder with a spin on the ball of his foot once more to leave, he said, “I’m done. You are all on your own.”

All the birdmen, all of the mole men, all of the cured demons stared.

Theobold fluttered with a limp after him. “Including me?” 

Theissen stopped with a glance at him with a smirk. “You want to come along? I thought you had a girlfriend.”

Theobold cringed, peeking a glance back at the other birdmen. “I’ve been banished.”

“Banished?” Theissen spun around to look at the birdmen with another furious glare. “When?”

“Just now. You just saw it. My wings have been clipped. I won’t be able to fly again for years.” But he could see Theobold was just trying to be flippant about it. Tears uncommon to that face were in his eyes. He was trying to bat them away with a smile.

Theissen stomped back to shout into the faces of the birdmen elders. “You can’t banish him!”

“He broke our laws,” one elder calmly said, hanging back in a way so that he would not look like he was retreating from the wizard. “But he will be allowed back in if you return to us. That is our offer.”

“No!” Seron shouted out. He spun around. “The wizard needs to sell our feathers in Jattereen!”

“We want him to sell our metal and stones!” the mole chief shouted. But his minions gathered closer more like children begging for candy rather than an army come to take a man by force.

Clamping his hands over his ears, closing his eyes to shut out the ridiculous scene before him, Theissen shouted as he lifted his head then stared up at the tree cover.  “Quiet!”

A flash of light, forming a square around him, scored the ground like fire leaving burned markings. Inside the square, Theissen had his quiet. It was as quiet as a tomb in fact. He lowered his head, looked around. Outside the square he could see that several of the demons had screamed, but none of noise reached his ears. The only sound Theissen could make out was his own breathing and the increasing thunder of his heart beating in his chest. He was so startled by it that he reached out for sound, any sound. A wind blew off the ash of the square around him and all the noise returned with a boom almost knocking him over.

“What was that?” several of both kinds of demons murmured, all their eyes fixed on him with newfound horror.

Looking around at the earth where the square had been, Theissen uttered aloud though mostly to for his own benefit, “I’d like to know that myself.”

Every eye fixed on him grew wide. Then all took a step back.

“His magic is still untapped,” the doctor murmured, the color in his face draining. “That makes him doubly dangerous. Let us leave.”

He turned at once, urging the birdmen elders to go. They remained, though, staring at Theissen more, shaking in their own feathers with mixed feelings of horror and desire.

“Please help us sell the feathers?” Seron said one last time, though not daring to touch the wizard now.

Theissen still glanced around himself. That one flash also helped purge a great deal of the shakes from him. He could see the strength of the flow going through his body more naturally now. His arms weren’t feeling so bad and his legs seemed to get renewed strength.

With a sigh, Theissen turned toward Seron. “How’s this? I help these folks go to Jattereen City to sell your feathers. All right?”

Mentioning ‘these folks’ he pointed to the cured birdmen and women that were standing towards the east side of the forest anyway. Most of them lifted their heads, looking from one another with suddenly overjoyed expressions of delight.

“But what about us?” the moleman chief said, looking humble for once with his bent figure growing more pitiful by the second, though with that eye shield on he still seemed ridiculous.

Giving him a dirty look, Theissen then glanced at Daanee. “If your daughter and her friends wish to act as your liaisons, then fine. I’ll help them out in Jattereen too. But not for you.” He poked the mole chief in the chest with his finger. “You have to learn to be nicer.”

Rubbing his chest with his pudgy paddle shaped hand, the mole chief backed up, nodding in acquiescence.

“So,” Theobold flapped closer. “What do we do now?”

Theissen