Wizard of Jatte, Rowan Erlking [latest novels to read .TXT] 📗

just as the ringmaster slapped Theissen in the face. “How did you get out?”

“I fell out,” Theissen snapped back with a glare that said all his feelings of irritation.

“Well, get back in there!” The man kicked at him.

Theissen did not budge, even as the strong man shoved him against his inclination to not bow over for anyone. He had dug his feet into the ground, literally. “I am not going anywhere with you!”

“Want me to humble him?” the muscle bound man said, his voice bordering on a threat.

The ringmaster considered it, but he saw the defiant look in Theissen’s eyes, almost knowing what that meant. Already a wind was stirring up.

“No. Just put him to sleep.”

The wind stirred more, gusting hard with a blow threatening to topple over the carts.

Unfortunately, Theissen could not stop the sudden boom that blacked out the rest of his senses. He only wondered what the wind would do while he was unconscious.

 

“You awake?”

Theissen moaned, feeling that throbbing brain sensation on the back of his skull again. This time his eyes focused on firelight outside his cage. It was night and the air was calm. He could see the carts were gathered in a circle around a bonfire. Most of the carnival hands were there, sitting on folding stools. The unusually short woman was standing next to his cage. That was when Theissen realized that he was tied up again, this time with ropes all around his body like wrappings for a burial.

He groaned.

“Are you hungry?”

He was, but he didn’t want to say so. His mouth was dry. Mostly he was thirsty.

The woman rubbed his head, glancing back toward the firelight to make sure no one was watching her. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Soben won’t hurt you.”

Rolling over to get closer to the bars, Theissen stared at her. “He already did.”

She made a sad sound. “I’m sorry. We wanted you to come willingly.”

“I chose not to,” he said.

She made another sad sound. “I know.” 

Then she lifted a cup of water to his lips. He drank in a sip and then guzzled more, more thirsty than he had thought.

“I’ll protect you,” she said.

He about laughed but a bellowing voice cut off all conversation. “What are you doing over there? He’s dangerous!”

“I was just giving him water,” the woman said.

“Get away from him!”

“But he hasn’t had water or food for an entire day!”

“Maybe it will humble him!” The ringleader shoved the short woman aside, backed by the muscle bound man and the magician. “So what are you?”

Theissen blinked, only making out their silhouettes outlined by the firelight. There was no odor of hate, though he could smell fear.

“I’m a carpenter,” Theissen said with bite. “Why would you kidnap a carpenter? If you wanted woodwork done, all you had to do was hire me.”

The magician chuckled, turning to the ringmaster. “He’s a comedian. Listen to him.”

“I don’t like his humor,” the strong man said.

“We know you aren’t a carpenter,” the ringmaster said.

Theissen bristled. “I am a carpenter! I’ve been working in Liptan Town as a carpenter for the past three years. My father’s a carpenter and all my brothers are carpenters. You can’t tell me I’m not a carpenter!”

The ringmaster struck the cage, making it rattle. “You’re not a carpenter! You’re something else!”

Making a face, Theissen rolled over. The ropes made lying there very uncomfortable and he wished to sit up. However, he didn’t think it was wise to attempt an escape just yet.

“Answer him or I’ll break your body into little—”

The magician interrupted the muscle man. “You can’t threaten him. Look at the way he lies there, like he is waiting for us to go away.”

“So he can sneak off again?” the ringmaster asked.

Nodding, the magician said, “You in there. I know you are unique. I can see it in you.”

Theissen rolled back over and stared at the man. This was the one where the flow did not move around him like normal. It swelled and spun in little eddies.

“You can see it too, can’t you?” the magician asked.

The ringmaster smiled. He slapped the magician on the back. “Yes, he can. Then you have noticed that we have wizard among us. He sees and helps us collect interesting things.”

“You mean like demons?” Theissen murmured, glancing in the direction of the caged birds and kirrels.

The magician smiled. “I can see all magic. And in you, is the strangest formation of magic I have ever seen.”

Theissen stared, scooting a bit closer in his ropes. “What does it look like?”

The magician, no wizard, gave him a smug grin. “In you? The flow I see goes straight through you, in and out of ever limb, almost as if you can grab onto it. Pure flow. Unimaginable.”

He could see. Theissen sat up with some effort. His ropes had to loosen to do it, but he managed it subtly. “Funny, I could never see that in a mirror.”

“Does the flow reflect?” the wizard said to him, raising an eyebrow.

Theissen shook his head.

The ringmaster grinned. The strong man frowned.

“So. Are you ready to join our caravan?” the wizard asked.

Making another face, Theissen shook his head. “No. Why should I?”

“Because, you’re a freak,” the ringmaster said. “Where else do you belong but with us?”

Giving him a particularly dirty look, Theissen said with bite, “Your motivation tactics really stink. I’m a respected carpenter, first and foremost. I’ve made furniture for lord barons and crafted famous pieces of work with my own two hands, without magic. What makes you think that knocking me on the head and tying me up, and then insulting me by calling me a freak is going motivate me to join an unstable, ill-repute band of traveling performers? Especially those that don’t listen to a simple no.”

“You’ll regret this,” the ringmaster said, turning from him.

“No, you’ll regret this,” Theissen said and then stood up, shaking of the ropes as if they were merely thin strings loosely draped on him. “I’m sick of being tied up and knocked on the head.”

All three men took a step back from the cage. Theissen gently pushed apart the metal bars with the ease of drapes dangling at window. The strong man staggered backward. As soon as Theissen hopped out from the cage a large wind stirred up, whirling around him like a storm. It whipped up his hair and the edges of his clothes, making him look dramatic in the firelight. Then for effect, Theissen drew up some of the fire and let it spin around in the vortex also. The entire caravan leapt to their feet and scattered, screaming.

“I am a much more powerful wizard than your little sneak thief!” Theissen said in the most commanding voice he could muster.

The magician/wizard yelped, staggering back.

“I can move mountains.” And he stepped hard, making the ground shake, thrusting the strong man off his feet with a small jut of earth that shot up underneath him.

“I can make valleys.” The ground underneath the ringmaster sunk, taking him down three feet while he screamed for help.

“And I can smell your fear.” Theissen grabbed a hold of the magician and turned the color of his purple and gold robes into ugly stripes of orange and green with spots. He tossed the magician aside and glanced at the small woman. She had not run off, but trembled, staring up at him. To her, he smiled and gave a nod. The winds died down.

“I am thirsty, and hungry. Thank you.”

She extended the piece of bread and the bowl of boiled vegetables to him. Theissen accepted it and then continued on his way with both towards the woods.

“Wait!” the ringmaster shouted. “You can’t just walk off!”

“Can.” And Theissen did, keeping and eye on his back this time to make sure no one konked him on the head.

“Those woods are full of demons!”

“Who cares,” Theissen answered, continuing on his way.

He walked until he was sure they could only see the darkness. From there he ran, just to make sure they could not follow.

Theissen walked a long way in the dark before he felt safe enough to rest. In these trees were no such staring birds with demonic knots in them unlike the impression everyone seemed to give him of those parts. Finding a large tree with vast roots, he rested himself into a fork between two roots, keeping one eye open as he pulled his coat around him. It was impossible to walk much more in that dark anyway.

*

Waking to the sun shining through the tree leaves, Theissen stretched as he looked around himself. The forest was pleasant enough, certainly more pleasant than the woods between Brakirs Town and Liptan Town at least, but he was finding himself incredibly hungry. There was an empty spot inside his stomach that was growing more hollow by the second, gnawing against itself with pangs. Groping his back for his pack, Theissen immediately realized that his bag was nowhere.

He had no food.

He had no pack.

Feeling his hips next, the absence of his tool belt struck him the hardest. His tools. They were gone.

Jumping to his feet, Theissen started to pace with worry. Where had his tools and pack gone? Did those nasty performers steal them? What use would they have with a carpentry belt?

Just then, in his mind’s eye, Theissen remembered that he had set aside both belt of tools and pack inside that room he had been lodging in under a fishing net. Most likely both were still in Shoredge. With that comforting, yet also disconcerting thought, Theissen bent over and touched the ground, feeling out towards Shoredge for his things.

The distance was far. It took a while before he could get an assurance to the positive, but as he felt and reached, eventually he sensed his possessions, untouched and unspoiled. Theissen sighed with relief, calling them straight to him. Had he known what a stir he was causing in Shoredge Town when he called for them, he probably would have laughed. In that seaside town the people saw a bag crawl across the wood planks of the bay pier, knocking over chicken cages and other things, then cramming itself into the side of the rock wall, suddenly merging with the rock until it vanished entirely. All Theissen knew was the bag was coming and he had to wait where he was until it arrived.

In the mean time, he also called for his coin pouch, which was tied on the belt of a crafty little pick pocket that traveled with the caravan along with the other bandits he had thought he had seen raiding it earlier. As it turned out, the bandits he had thought he had driving away from robbing the caravan was in fact part of it. His little rescue was actually what had first given him way. Walking by the magician’s cart was the second thing. Of course, calling for the coin pouch and all his hard-earned money startled the child, so much that she screamed and pointed at it as the pouch sunk into the earth far from her reach. The unusually short woman smirked when she saw and then laughed.

“Looks like he claimed his bag again,” the performing woman in the skimpy dress said with a shrug.

Several of the performers skirted away from that spot of ground, hurrying on and hoping to forget they had ever met him.

Theissen picked up his money pouch faster than he got his other things back. It was well past noon when those arrived, and by then he just opened up his bag and took out the smoked ham for lunch.

On foot once more, Theissen found the eastward flow and followed it. His walk day after day went on mostly uninterrupted. He wasn’t on the road, so there was less likelihood of him getting jumped by bandits. And as for demons, he had seen neither ugly beady eye nor black feathery wing. So, in that time, Theissen walked with confidence that he would make it to the other side non-harassed and free.

But really, most of the journeying