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

Fact was, it bothered Theissen how both groups of former demons still walked around as if they had demonic abilities. The seemed to forget that they were stripped of those abilities, much like a dethroned prince who forgets he no longer has authority.

It also irritated him how they griped over the human way of doing things, as if it were beneath them. Human things like…cooking. None of them cooked. Theissen was the one that cooked most of their meals, and that was using the limited cooking skills he had learned from the herbalist in Danslor Village. Before the change, the birdmen never did much cooking when they lived in the trees. And the molemen were not used to any food preparation at all. They had eaten dirt. Because of this, all of them took for granted that Theissen would be the one to do all their cooking. And when he did, all of them waited on him eagerly, and often impatiently. Like hungry children. Many tapped their feet. Lots irritably snapped, “Is it ready yet?” And worse, they spited him for it.

“And how do you play up to dumb animals to get them to do stuff for you without magic?” Karo asked it with a degree of distaste, tromping next to Theissen. Karo was always bitter that he had to rely on the wizard.

“For starters,” Theissen replied with a snicker. “You could lose that sullen tone. Animals are not as dumb as you think. Humans aren’t either. Stop thinking like a moleman, and treat people with respect.”

Karo glared at him, his eyes still like gimlets. “What respect have we been given? None. Why should I give respect when we’ve gotten none?”

With a firm look not unlike the chiding expression his father used when he was being naughty in the carpentry shop, Theissen said, “We do not give respect to expect anything in return. We give respect because it is right. Besides, how can you expect to be treated well when all you do is treat others badly? It is a vicious circle. Someone ought to break it by acting well first.”

“That’s idealistic nonsense,” Karo snapped. They continued down the road in a consistent march. “People get used that way and get nothing back.”

“It is the idealists that make this world worth living.” Theissen turned his head away so he didn’t have to look at Karo, and quickening his pace. “Sourpusses like you make it unbearable.”

Karo stared wordlessly at the journeyman carpenter for over a minute. Then another minute. After five whole minutes passed, he discovered that there was nothing he could say. He wondered for a moment if Theissen had worked some magic on him to make his brain lose all sensibility. He didn’t have any semblance of an intelligent retort. Not once in his life had he or his fellows been called sourpusses, let alone been told that they made life unbearable. Even in their squabbles with the birdmen they had never been told such—but then usually their arguments were about promises broken and feeling cheated. This was something altogether different.

Actually, traveling with the wizard had opened the eyes of all the former demons about the world outside their isolated communities. What they understood from Theissen was that the world was a dangerous place. But they also saw that playing by the world’s rules only applied if they wanted to go by quietly without drawing any attention. Which, according to Theissen, was not what life was about. Real living, he said, was not about going by quietly but changing things for the better. His father had told him that.

Theissen quoted his father an awful lot. He had set his father, the carpenter, up as a sage packed full of wisdom that no other human owned. They could see that was how Theissen saw him, at least. And why wouldn’t he? Theissen made it plain that his father was a man who was not intolerant of raising a wizard child as an ordinary human being. And after journeying out into the world himself, Theissen realized exactly how rare a person his father was. On his journey, learning what other people would have done to him as a child, impressed on Theissen’s thoughts so much that his respect for his father had tripled.

That, and he discovered his father was famous.

In each village they entered, each time Theissen introduced himself as a Carpenterson of Lumen Village, the villagers gleefully invited them in and hired him to do any kind of woodcarving they could think of. And they weren’t disappointed with what Theissen delivered. The group discovered that the Carpenter of Lumen Village was more famous the closer to the Sea of Tior they got. Apparently those along the seashore had known the Lord Baron Kirsch very well. In one village, Theissen had to stay longer than two weeks to finish a finely crafted dining set, sending the others ahead after the first week. He intended to meet them on the road once he finished. But he didn’t catch up until they were nearly on the skirts of Jattereen, covered in dust and out of breath as if he had run most of the way. However he grinned when he showed them the money he had earned for the project. It was more than enough in gold to sustain the entire group in a city for at least a month.

Jattereen could be seen from afar off when Theissen had joined the caravan after the last village. The sea lay in the horizon just above it, glistening blue and white in the sun’s reflection. The city itself sprawled out like a gigantic clawed hand over the countryside, digging into the green and yellow grasses as if trying to claim it all.

On the skirts there were the usual manor run villages, but they did not seem attached to the city like in Pepersin Town and Dhilia City. They stood more aloof, with their own walls and gates as if they were individual fortresses against attackers. The actual city wall of Jattereen stood in pieces throughout the city among the buildings with towers, connected by what looked more like an aqueduct than an outside wall. There were smaller walls around it in incomplete semicircles, encompassing parts of the city, much like the rings in a tree showing where the city had grown and then stopped for a while. Squalor huts much like the villages on the west coast filled the outermost parts of the city, mostly home to squatters rather than real citizens of the metropolis. On the whole, the city had a gray patina. The plant life was somewhat shriveled, struggling to grow in cracks of the stone rather than cultivated in boxes as would have been in all the towns Theissen had seen.

“That’s it?” Dobbis exclaimed with a look of dismay when he gazed on the city.

Theobold moaned. Hanging his feathers, he glanced back once at the highway with a yearning to return home.

“Dhilia City looked better than this,” Teppan murmured to Ronen.

Ronen stood with Daanee, comforting her with an arm around her shoulder. She seemed likely to cry.

Drawing a breath and letting it out again, Theissen set his hands on his hips. “It looks dreadful, doesn’t it?”

They all nodded.

“Is this really where your feather merchants’ guild is based?” he asked, turning towards Dobbis.

Dobbis grimaced. Eying the stone buildings then the distant sea, his voice sounded hollow. “If this is really Jattereen, then yes.”

Theissen looked to Karo. “Are you sure this is where—?”

“I’m sure,” Karo said. His eyes were cold.

The former molemen all nodded in agreement.

Taking another breath, Theissen then took a step. “Ok, then. We go in. Stay together.”

“Are we going to look for an inn?” someone asked, following after him.

Theissen shrugged and then nodded. “Sure. Let’s do that.”

“Do you have a plan at all, now that we’re here?” Karo asked him sharply. He watched Theissen’s face as the carpenter’s son looked around at the dilapidated houses they passed. A sinking feeling settled in his gut.

“A plan?” Theissen echoed, his senses overwhelmed by all sights, sounds, and odors in the flow only he could detect. He had thought he did, but obviously he had not thought it through. Stopping where he was, he turned back towards his fellow travelers. “Yes, you are right. We ought to have a plan.”

“You don’t have a plan?” Dobbis shouted. He tossed his head back in exasperation, blown by what he thought was Theissen’s lack of organization. He looked back to his comrades for support.

Clamping his hands to his ears, Theissen also shut his eyes. “Why is it that everyone expects me to do all the thinking? I’m only nineteen! I’m still just a journeyman.”

“You’re a wizard!” Karo snapped at him. He nodded to his fellow former demons to encourage them to agree with him.

“That doesn’t make me the smartest one here!” Theissen shouted back.

He opened his eyes and huffed. Every eye was on him. All of them expected so much. It really was exasperating. And worse, he knew he really was their only hope for survival.

“All right! I’ll think of something.” Theissen rubbed his right temple. “I’m just used to dealing with only myself when coming into a town. Let me just clear my head and think of what we need first.”

“An inn,” that someone who first brought it up suggested.

Theissen turned to him. “Yes. An inn, for now. But later we have to find a place to actually live. I need to set up shop besides.”

“Then finding a home is first priority,” Dobbis said with what he thought was an encouraging nod—though really it was more like a kid waiting for his father to lay out what he was free to do.

Theissen sighed. The burden was on him. And Dobbis was right. Finding a home was a first priority. He nodded.

“Fine. What then?” Karo asked, still standing back with the former molemen with his arms folded across his chest. Though also like a child, he was huffier than his ex-birdman counterpart.

Looking to Karo, Theissen then glanced at Dobbis. This rivalry was another thing he still hand to wrangle. But not at that moment.

“Yes, okay,” Theissen said. “Once we set up a home base for all of us, I ought to get us registered in the city. I was once told that the best way to avoid trouble is to keep everything we do legal. So, I need to register us as merchants for selling the feathers as well as all the molemen’s goods.”

“But what do we do while you are off doing that?” Theobold asked. He had been walking since they neared the city, and he looked footsore. His eyes, though, followed the people on the roadside who watched their caravan. Most onlookers peered particularly at the birdman who still was the cleanest of the bunch.

Again, Theissen wanted to protest that he was only nineteen. So many of them were older than him, including Theobold. They really were going to rely on him for leadership. There was no escaping it. Before, when they were traveling, he had deflected the pressure with the simple thought of just reaching his destination. Now that they were at Jattereen, the reality that he had to be the responsible one was making him nervous. With pain of exhaustion, Theissen almost dropped onto the cobblestone. But the burden of all the expectations of the group forced him to remain on his feet. He was, after all, the only experienced human of the bunch. Who else did they have to turn to? Who else wouldn’t cheat them?

“What can you do? Well, when we set up a home, buy food, and what have you.” Focusing his thoughts, thinking ahead as if he were the one doing it all himself,