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

Theobold grabbed one of his cloaks for Theissen to wear. The carpenter was shivering from the cold air and lack of feathers that kept most birdmen’s backs warm. Clutching it around him, Theissen hurried to the edge.

“Hold onto me!” Theobold called out, reaching down and grasping Theissen’s arms.

“I’m not walking up?” Theissen called out as they lifted up.

“No time.”

The messenger lifted off as soon as Theobold did. These days Theissen could have taken one of their branch bridges from place to place. But with his low energy the likelihood of that happening safely was slim. In those past months, Theissen rarely performed magic to stabilize himself if he could help it. It seemed to maintain his strength that way.

Flying up and up through the constant drizzle pattering on the branches of the increasingly leafless trees until they reached the highest covered flet, both birdmen and Theissen were soaked upon arrival. The birdmen shook off the wetness from their feathers, but Theissen had to use his old magic method of drawing the water off with his hands and dumping it to the side of the platform. All the birdmen under the canopy watched with waiting stares as Theobold helped Theissen maintain his balance.

“Are you feeling any better today?” one of the elders asked Theissen.

Catching sight of the doctor, Theissen bore his pain and lied. “Much better, thank you. I’m just a little dizzy. Just barely woke up and all.”

They nodded with smiles, beckoning him forward. Seron clamped his hands on Theissen’s looking desperately into his eyes, almost as if he would also fall to his knees.

“The feather merchants aren’t happy at all with us.” Seron’s stare was red-eyed like he had been crying. “They say that if we continue our trade in the villages for supplies, they’ll cut us off from all of Jatte commerce.”

Blinking for a second as he was trying to comprehend the problem, Theissen asked, “Wait. Are you saying that those cheating creeps won’t let you sell your own product in your own neighborhood for your own well being?”

“In a nutshell,” one of the elders said with a nod.

But Seron started weeping again. “What are we going to do?”

“What do you mean? What can they do to you? You get a larger profit from selling your feathers at the prices we set just in the local villages than you would from selling to those wretched sneak thieves,” Theissen said, looking from one face to another. The crowd around him was large, though he knew them all now like would those of his home village.

All the faces told him he was wrong. Worry lines on more than just the elderly etched every one of their brows and under their eyes. Seron looked the worst of all.

“No. We sell to them, and they sell to all of Jatte and abroad. Our local market is slowing besides,” Seron said.

“The local villages are saturated with our feathers. They don’t need or want so many now,” an elder said, waiting with a look of hope for a better solution.

Theissen felt sick again. He clenched his stomach wondering if it was something he ate or just this sickening feeling he got whenever he heard about cheats and bullies that forced others to suffer for their own selfish benefit.

“You are not feeling better,” the doctor said in a tone of annoyance.

Giving him a dirty look, Theissen said, “Not the issue right now. Right now I was thinking that they can’t do this to you.”

“Maybe you can threaten them,” one of the elders said, approaching him.

Both Seron and Theissen made a face.

“You can’t threaten a person to buy from you,” Theissen snapped, still clenching his stomach from pain.

Seron nodded. “It would only backfire.”

“Then sabotage their other source. They keep threatening to use them instead of us,” an elder said, nodding to the first.

Making another face, Theissen replied, “What? Sabotage every chicken in Jatte? No, thanks. First off, we don’t need demon chickens running around. And secondly, they are lying to you. Just cut off your business with them and find someone else you can distribute through.”

Some of the elders started whispering among themselves. The doctor frowned. Seron started weeping again.

“There is no one else!” Seron’s sobs were getting pathetic. “No one else will deal with us except the locals, and now they say the feather merchants are threatening to close up shop in their villages.”

“Of all the…” Theissen felt like cursing. For a moment his stomachaches were getting to him, but he looked up at Theobold and noticed a thoughtful expression. “You have an idea, don’t you?”

Almost all the birdmen in the room turned to look at Theobold. The birdman’s feathers fluffed a bit, him suddenly flustered. He met Theissen’s gaze. “Uh, well, I was just thinking. Our carpenter friend here has experience in the market place, and he knows a thing or two about the cost of things in Jatte. I was just thinking, why not send him out on his way, and he can be our liaison for selling feathers.”

The outcry was almost too much for both Theissen and Theobold to handle, and both backed up as the explosion of anger like fireworks, only just a few inches from their faces, shot straight at them.

“What? Lose our wizard? Are you insane?”

“The feather merchants will just eat him alive! Look at how weak he is!”

“The man is sick! He can hardly stand let alone negotiate prices!”

“Are you birdman or not? How can you say such things?”

Theissen tumbled back against his friend who suddenly bristled at all the shouts and declarations, fluffing his feathers out to make himself larger. Clenching his stomach that urged him to vomit, Theissen held it in just a little longer.

“He cannot go. What were you thinking?” Seron said, waggling a fat finger at Theobold.

“I was thinking it is about time he left!” Theobold shouted back. His fists were clenched, his face red with anger. “I think we are the ones making him sick!”

“Preposterous,” the doctor said.

But then Theissen vomited right there on the flet.

Theobold bent over, patting Theissen on the back, arching his wings protectively over them both of them. “Are you all right?”

Theissen raised a finger to ask for a minute then he promptly vomited again.

“He is definitely too sick to take care of this matter,” Seron said as he fluttered back to a seat as if to sob in misery again.

“Maybe you should take him back to his bed, Mensin,” an elder said with a stony cold voice

Theissen looked up. He saw Mensin bow and flap in acknowledgement to the elders.

“No,” Theissen straightened up, wiping his mouth as he leaned more on Theobold. “That won’t be necessary.”

“You need rest,” the doctor said, casting Theobold a glare and reaching into his bag as if looking for more medicine.

“I have had enough of rest!” Theissen shouted back with a stomp of his foot. The entire flet shook.

The room silenced again. Even Mensin stopped his walk over, staring with surprise. Only Theobold seemed to stand a little taller.

“Look,” Theissen straightened up more. “I really appreciate you all caring for me and letting me stay here, but I really don’t need all this coddling.” And he turned to look at Theobold. “And I’d like to help out if I can.”

“But you are not fit to leave here,” one of the elders said, now sounding like he thought Theissen a fool for thinking of going.

Theissen nodded, still trying to look firm. “I realize that. But obviously I should go and at least find someone who would be willing to do fair and honest business with you. Maybe I could take a group out to some of the cities or towns. Paol Town isn’t too far away.”

“Most of our business goes through the merchant guild in Jattereen City,” Seron said to him from his crouched position in his chair, shaking his head.

“That’s on the East Coast, on the sea of Tior, right?” Theissen asked, looking to Theobold and then others for geographic confirmation.

Seron nodded. “We sometimes fly out that far. The city people are used to foreigners with the sea trade and all, so we can walk in and no one notices that we’re, well, demon. But the merchants of the guild are solid. They won’t allow any others to break in and sell on the streets. I know. We’ve tried. You have to register with the city office besides.”

“But I haven’t tried,” Theissen said with a nod to Theobold.

Theobold smirked. He looked up to Mensin as if triumphant. That other one held a stony face.

The other birdmen peered at Theissen with skeptical looks. Each one of the elders had a frown of disapproval as well as worry. However, Seron had a slight look of hope though he seemed to hide it to avoid the wrath of the others.

“Lorne Doctor, please take Theissen Wizard back to his bed. We need time to discuss this among ourselves,” one of the elders at last said in a deep voice that rumbled with authority.

Theissen made a face with a glance to Theobold. “I’d rather not. Let me stay. I’d like to hear your discussion.”

But every one of the elders looked at him, all joining in a fluffed up shake of their ever-whitening heads.

“No. You are ill.”

“He’s not that ill,” Theobold said for him, ready to interfere in a fight. “Let him stay. He is usually fine after he empties his stomach anyway. He can rest in that chair over there.”

“You,” one of the elders snapped with a harshness Theissen did not often hear from birdmen, though it had a hawkish screech to it, “will be silent.”

“I don’t think that’s called for,” Theissen broke in. “Besides, I don’t want to go with the doctor. Personally, I think he is the one making me sick. All those medicines….”

The white haired birdman had just reached his side, resting his hand on Theissen as he was already trying to urge him back to the landing so they could go. Theissen resisted with a slight wind to blow the doctor off.

“No. Go with the doctor. We need to talk to Theobold besides,” that elder said with his last look at him. “He cannot take you back right now.”

Theobold stiffened, his feathers even going rigid. Already other birdmen, attendants to the elders, came up to Theobold urging him to go with them. He barely resisted, glancing back once at Theissen.

Theissen bristled, remaining where he was. “I told you. I don’t wish to go back to bed.”

“You need to go back and rest,” the doctor said, his smile calm as he watched Theobold go.

Glaring, Theissen shook off the doctor’s attempts to restrain him, his own clothes turning from white to a livid shade of red to get attention. Many heads turned, eyes widening at the wizard.

“You know, I’m not a child. If you have something to say, say it to my face.” Theissen shook of the doctor once more. “I have no intention of leaving this room until I know what is going on.”

One of the elders shook his head at him. “This is an internal matter, wizard. We have to discuss this in private. We said we would get back to you after a rest. Now go.”

Theissen was half inclined to stir up a strong wind to blow the roof off of the shelter. But it had been hard work to build the thing in the first place, and he didn’t want all that work to go wasted. Besides, his body started to shake again, making it difficult to stand. The doctor caught his side this time with the help of another. Both birdmen helped Theissen walk to the open door.

“Come now. He will be all right.”

“He is only in trouble for speaking out of place,” the other birdman said.

Theissen didn’t care. Theobold was in trouble for speaking up for him. That argument the night before had not been a dream. Not at all.

The doctor and his helper flew Theissen back to the doctor’s home rather than Theobold’s. When they landed, Theissen kicked up