Wizard of Jatte - Rowan Erlking (year 2 reading books txt) 📗

something faintly familiar.

Theissen nodded, meeting his gaze. “Yes. Have you heard of it?”

The man just stared at him. “And you’re a Carpenter?”

Nodding again, Theissen replied, then bowed, “Journeyman carpenter. My name is Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson of Lumen Village.”

Several of the men drew in breaths, though that one man walked off, slipping back into the crowd then down the street into the darkness. The women merely blinked at them and then Theissen with wonder.

“He’s a Lumen Carpenter! Do you know what that means?” one of the men said with half a laugh.

“That the carpenters there use magic?” one woman replied, chuckling.

Theissen raised his hands right away to ward off that idea. “No, no, no, no. We do not use magic in our woodwork. I’ll have you know I do everything by hand. We all do.”

The men just grinned at him. “Oh, well that’s good to hear, but really, from Lumen Village. That means you are the brother to the Serjiev Carpenter.”

With a shrug, Theissen nodded again. “Ok. That’s my oldest brother, Dalance.”

Grinning broadly, the men just laughed. Some slapped one another on the back and cackled for a good while before Theissen started to get really annoyed.

“What is so funny about that?”

They turned to him, smiling like children with a secret too wonderful to share. “Not funny. Great news! The stuffed suits in the carpentry guild need a stir up. You take on apprentices, don’t you?”

Theissen nodded once more, his expression clearing. This town was not too different from Liptan, it seemed. The guilds were the one with power. “I do. I have two right now. They’re traveling with me.”

The men grinned more. “Are you going to set up shop here?”

“I was thinking more up in the center of the city,” Theissen said, gesturing back towards the tower, which he could still make out pretty well despite the setting of the sun.

To that, they frowned. “Not here?”

He shook his head. “I hadn’t planned on taking such a decentralized location. My friends really need to be close to the mercantile district.”

More disappointed faces stared back at him.

“What friends are you traveling with?”

Theissen was getting tired. With the sun gone down and all the animals surrounding him in the increasing cold of winter, he really just wanted to find a place to rest with supper.

Ignoring the last question, Theissen turned to the woman who seemed the most informed. “Do you know where I can stay for the night near here? The inn we chose is on the other side of the city, and I told them not to wait up anyway.”

Kindly, the woman nodded then gestured to the house across the street. “Come on, lad. You can stay in my home as long as you don’t mind being surrounded by children’s noise.”

Smirking, Theissen let out a sigh. “Are you kidding? I grew up in a home of seven children. It will be a relief.”

The crowd followed him as they crossed the street, including the cats and the dog. The snake had completely wrapped itself around Theissen’s leg, peering up at him like an expectant pet. The eagle flew off to another housetop, but did not go farther. Theissen had to bend down and untangle the snake from his leg, urging it to curl on his arm so he could walk freely. The dog trotted alongside him, panting with a broad grin.

“Do you know anyone who would want a cat?” Theissen asked with another sigh, glancing back at the pack of them that walked in and about his feet, nearly tripping him up.

The woman merely laughed, shaking her head.

*

Theissen awoke to the aroma of warm cinnamon. The running of feet echoed on the floorboards outside his door, punctuating his dreams with the tender memories of home. The recognizable sound of a dog panting expectantly at his right greeted him. He turned his head. The dog had rested its paws next to Theissen’s face, shoving its snout up above the mattress with a small whimper. When it saw Theissen’s eyes open, it hopped up and licked whatever nighttime sweat was left off Theissen’s forehead, also slathering his cheeks.

“Alright! Alright! I’m up!” He sat up, shoving the dog back. He rubbed the drool off of himself with his nightshirt sleeve. Winking open one eye, he realized that half the cats from the lot were resting on the bed and in the room with him.

“Goodness, you really must have liked that guy, huh?” Theissen shook his head. “You should know I’m not him.”

The cats didn’t seem likely to care. Apparently they like him more.

The dog shoved his face under Theissen’s arms, making a yearning noise with baleful eyes. Giving a snort. Theissen scratched its ears and rubbed under its neck.

“All right, fine. So you’re now my dog. I get it. Now get off the bed before the mistress of the house sees you and decides to have you for supper.” He jerked off the covers to show he meant it.

The dog hopped to the ground looking expectantly at Theissen.

Theissen went about the room gathering the clothes he had slung on the back of the vanity chair the night before, then washed up his face with the water in the basin the lady had set out on the vanity at the side of the bed. She had given him one of her girls’ rooms, making the eldest child bunk in with her baby sisters up in the nursery. The house was a lot like his own home. He briefly met the eldest child he met the night before when he took over the room. She reminded him a lot of Alania, somewhat irritated that she had so many younger brothers, stern when she spoke to them but gentle when she cared for them. She also looked up at him with flirtatious eyes.

The girl was fourteen.

That was the other thing. Her mother already was peering at Theissen and then her daughter as if they would make a highly suitable match. After all, he was nineteen. The five-year age gap was considered a good one by most people. Unfortunately those looks made him nervous.

“Ah! Awake at last!” The mother smiled when she saw him trot down the stairs. He was adjusting his cloak over his backless birdman shirt to give him cover. He had yet to buy another shirt, especially since the birdmen had borrowed his last shirt after the molemen had stolen his packed clothes. But figuring now that winter was here and he had to look like a respectable carpenter, Theissen made it his goal to buy one as soon as possible, along with a coat and a vest. The cloak was way too breezy to really keep him warm. And he felt like he was hiding in the cloak all the time anyway.

“I figured you were tired from your long journey,” she said, setting down another plate then placing a bowl of porridge on it. Her china was nicer than his mother’s. She even had silver spoons. “So I tried to get the children to keep it down. I hope they didn’t disturb you too much.”

“Not at all,” Theissen answered with a smile. He nodded also to her eldest daughter. The girl blushed, putting out the butter yet unable to make more than two words from her lips even now.

“Are you going to the city center today to register for the land?” the woman asked.

Shaking his head, Theissen accepted the spoon the eldest daughter quickly handed to him. “No. What I’d really like to do is find out about that strange tower I saw yesterday. That one on the hilltop not far from the bay district.”

The woman dropped her serving spoon.

Bending over immediately to fetch it, she shook her head and muttered something Theissen could not hear. She hastily dropped the spoon into a basin of wash water then went in search for a clean one.

“Is something wrong?” He rose from his chair. “Is that where the magicians live? Is that it?”

A gentle voice to his right replied, “No. But that tower is cursed. No one ever goes in. And those that do are heard screaming, but they are never seen again.”

Theissen turned. The earnest face of the eldest daughter stared back at him. She wrung her hands with a desperate look that begged him not to go there.

“It is the southernmost Ki Tai tower,” the mother said.

“Ki Tai tower? You don’t mean a tower from that ancient warrior country to the far north? I thought it was overrun by demons that made it into Westhaven?” he asked, leaning over his plate.

“The very one,” the mother replied. A definite frown replaced her smiles. “It is said that Ki Tai warriors had come as far south as Jatte. But we fought them off good and well. However, they had one stronghold in Jattereen. And legend has it that the spirits if the Ki Tai warriors go about and kill anyone who dares enter their tower.”

“So that land is unclaimed also?” Theissen asked, a brilliant idea forming together out of his scattered thoughts.

“You mustn’t go there!” the eldest daughter said, nearly grabbing onto his cloak.

He lowered his eyes at her worried expression then smirked. “And why not? If it is cursed, I can end it. I can see curses, you know.”

However the mother rushed over to him also, shaking her head earnestly. “But our own wizard never even dared go inside to end the curse. He said there was nothing he could do to end it. What makes you think you can claim that tower for your own?”

Shrugging, Theissen just said, “Probably because I have yet to face a curse that I can’t untangle.”

“But what if this is the one?” the mother asked. She glanced at her daughter as if it meant her future also.

The daughter stared at him with doe-like eyes. It was in such a pitiful and earnest way that he felt guilty for making them fret so much on his behalf.

Exhaling, Theissen replied, “In that case, if I am wrong, I promise not to enter the tower until I know for certain that I can’t do anything to end the curse. Is that ok?”

The woman pulled back with a relieved smile again. “It is enough.”

The daughter did also, peeking to her mother.

Sighing once more, Theissen sat down again and started to eat his porridge.

The father of that home, as it turned out, was a merchant. The man had a shop further up within the city, a notion Theissen found odd since in every town he had been in the shops were usually attached to the homes the people lived in. However here in this city he learned that many people commuted to work on a daily basis. The merchant’s wife also took in work during the day, mostly doing large loads of laundry for the locals who had no time to do their own wash. That was why she had been home when most of the others of the neighborhood were out when the wizard’s home had collapsed. The eldest daughter mostly helped her mother while the sons went out on errands for their father, usually doing deliveries throughout the city like Theissen had done for his father in their village. Of course, Theissen had not gotten one look of the merchant the night before or that morning. That man usually returned late each day and left early each morning.

“So, what are your plans for today, Wizard?” the merchant’s wife asked.

“Please, call me Theissen. I’m uncomfortable with all that ‘wizard’ stuff,” he said when stepping down from her doorstep. He looked over at the open rubble still sprawled out in the old wizard’s lot.

“Then you must call me Megge,” she said.

Blinking, a blush swelled over his cheeks. Theissen shook his head. “Oh, no! I couldn’t do that. You’d have to be Madame Merchantwife to me. Nothing else would be proper.”

Megge the merchant’s wife laughed. “And it would not be proper for a young man asking me to address him by his given name.”

He flushed