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

marching and pushing their load of jewels in their two carts, though they were at least used to strenuous work. All of those that traveled with him were once demons, demons he had cured.

They had gone at it at a remarkable quick pace at Theissen’s insistence. He was hoping to reach Jattereen City in less than six months. It was already winter, but the further north they went, the warmer the climate got, making the roads more rainy than snowy, and therefore muddy and difficult to tread. It was an exhausting march. Mostly, Theissen felt that trekking across their country’s eastern plain on the main highway with a load of valuable feathers from the birdmen demons and two carts full of jewels, silver and gold from the molemen demons, was asking for trouble. He didn’t want to linger.

The former birdmen stood out against the brown muck. Dressed in their warm frosty white woven robes, baggy gathered pants in soft hues of blues and greens, and backless satin shirts without sleeves, their shoes were already wearing holes, not really made for foot travel. The former mole men looked even more out of place on a Jatte road. Absurd even. In their moleman attire of thick, brown, baggy matted clothes, touched with blue woven in dusty threads, that hung off of their now taller and thinner bodies, their midriffs were exposed and their arms were bare from the elbow down. They also struggled to keep their pants up with twiggy rope. They shivered from the cold, ill prepared for the wind and the rain. Theissen had tried to get most of the tunnel dirt off of their clothes to make them look more respectable, but they seemed to attract dirt as if they were not wholly comfortable without some layer of muck caked on them.

Their jewel and ore carts, of course, were covered with food bags and lots of random empty sacks and cloth they had expended in the first month of their journey. Apparently none of the birdmen who had filled their supply bags knew just how long the trip actually took on foot. They had once in the past flown to Jattereen and that was all they knew. The former mole men often looked at the ground, wishing they could just eat dirt again. All of them were hungry.

“Look there!” Daanee, the ex-mole woman said, pointing up into the sky,

Theissen glanced up. Up above was the only real remaining birdman with them flying back from his small scouting mission. Theobold landed on the mud-crusted highway with a grin on his face, skidding a foot in the slick muck as he tried to keep his white wings from getting flecked with mud. “I found one. An inn with a large barn. I think I scared the innkeeper, but I figure it will be ok.”

“How far off is it?” Theissen asked, peering over in that direction with his dark experienced eyes. He knew the distance by air always seemed nearer than on foot.

“Oh, about two flaps and a glide—”

“In walking terms, please.” Theissen’s voice had taken on a tone of impatience lately. Not only was he also tired of walking all the time, he was greatly annoyed at how barren that highway had been of villages from the forest between the Jadoran Mountains and the Dondit Mountains. It was as if they really did need to ride with a caravan on the eastern half of Jatte to really get anywhere.

Theobold smirked, folding his wings under his robe as he strolled over. “Don’t lose your sense of humor, Theissen. It is just a hop from here.” He then pointed to a cluster of trees off on the horizon. “See those? They’re not very tall. That means we should get there in less than an hour.”

Everyone cheered up, lifting their heads with hope.

“Quicker, if we hurried,” Theobold suggested, flapping back to join the ex-molemen in pushing the rear cart full of ore.

Theissen nodded, breaking into a laugh. He scratched his head and tossed back his long ponytail with his hand. That was good news. A real inn. That also meant there was a village near by where he would be able to find work. Real work.

Though everyone there in his group called him Wizard, Theissen still just regarded himself as a journeyman carpenter. Work was always the first thing on his mind when he saw a village. It was his task to find a home and establish his trade. As a journeyman, it was all he cared about. Unfortunately, lately he had not been able to work as a journeyman. He felt more like a babysitter. Dealing with demons had done that to him. He had made a promise to help these former demons to find a livelihood in Jattereen City that would benefit both birdmen and molemen—and he was a man of his word. Still, looking at this village awoke the carpenter in him. He sighed with relief.

“Look! See that?” Theobold shouted out from the back of the group.

Theissen squinted at the blur of mud and yellowish green ahead. And sure enough, there was not just an inn but also a village jutting off the road with a cluster of life. It was smaller than Theissen’s home village of Lumen, but it was just as nice—nothing like the squalor of villages between Pepersin Town and Lumen Village along the west coast.

“Come on! Hurry up!” Theobold called ahead, pushing harder.

“I wish he’d just fly off,” one of the ex-molemen muttered.

“The quicker we get there, the quicker we can get food!” Theobold said, not hearing him.

That gave them the right push. Even Theissen drew in a breath and nodded, glancing at the ground with a self-depreciating snort before giving up doing things the inconspicuous way. With just a little urge toward the natural flow in the ground, the mucky road under their feet hardened and smoothed it out so the carts rolled with more ease. As soon as they rattled onto the smooth surface, the group cheered aloud, though some muttered with a push of exasperation, wondering why Theissen had not done it earlier.

“He doesn’t want to be known as a wizard,” the molemen chief’s daughter Daanee said to her fiancé, Ronen. “That’s why.”

Ronen hefted up the bag of feathers he had been carrying and glanced back at the other former birdmen. They had already seen much of Theissen’s magic. They thought nothing of a display or even a few displays of it. Several of them snorted, remarking under their breaths to one another that Theissen was never going to lose his reputation as a wizard, no matter how hard he tried.

The wheels of both carts stuck straight back into the muck as soon as they rolled off the highway towards the inn. There was a large yard in front of the establishment made for receiving carriages full of guests and freight covered in gravel, but mostly grainy road. The inn itself was a two story building with gables and three jutting wings, perhaps built to accommodate several caravans that came by during the rainy season. A large barn stood just to the right of it. Beyond the yard they saw greenery of a yellowish sort, as if the fall had brushed by but had not grabbed hold. Vines clung to the far wall near the barn, going yellow and falling off into the muck along the edge of beaten down grass that marked the edge of a grazing field. The smell of animals and wet emanated from there. Goats mostly stood out there, though they saw two cows swishing their tails and chewing their cud with unconcern as the group pushed and pulled their two heavy cartloads inside the yard. The inn itself reeked of spices and warm hearth.

The innkeeper trotted out of the inn entrance, staring at the strangely dressed group while the stable hands and several household workers skirted about the former demons to fulfill their duties.

“What is this?” The innkeeper’s eyes scanned the crowd with a greedy look Theissen knew too well. The man clapped his hands together with a brown-toothed smile.

Extending his hand, Theissen stepped to the head of the group to speak for all of them, crossing into the soft gravely courtyard near the main doors to meet the man. “I’m a journeyman carpenter traveling with this caravan—”

“On foot?”

Theissen scratched the back of his neck with discomfort that bordered on embarrassment as he glanced at his own muddy traveling boots. “Uh, yes, actually. We were hoping to find lodging in your stables.” 

“Not inside the inn?” The innkeeper eyed the group’s clothes. His eyes mostly fell on the two carts and the other loads on the former birdmen’s backs wrapped in white cloth that was now flecked and stained with mud from their journey. His gaze stopped on Theobold. His eyes widened as the birdman grinned brilliantly back at him, though Theobold’s wings were well tucked under his robe for respectability. 

Shaking his head, Theissen said with a glance that way also, “I’m afraid not. We need to keep our eye on our cargo.”

“What’s in there?” the innkeeper asked. He circled around the group as they pulled on closer in hopes that they really could stop, peering towards the carts yet keeping his distance from the obvious demon that looked too comfortable among the other strangely dressed travelers.

Theissen followed right at the innkeeper’s side, keeping the flaps of the cloths on the carts down with a tug of magic no one noticed but the birdmen, even as the innkeeper tried to peek. “That’s our business. Now please attend to yours. We’d like to rent a few stalls and perhaps some loft space.”

“Are you planning on eating hay?” the innkeeper asked, glancing at Theissen skeptically. He gazed particularly at the clothes of both the former molemen and birdmen with an even greater look of shrewd curiosity. His eyes even examined Theissen’s birdman-style camouflage-colored robe with interest.

“No,” Theissen said with growing annoyance. He gave the edge of one of the covers to the carts a mental jerk to conceal the insides more. “We’ll pay for our meals for as long as we eat inside.”

“And with what cash?” the innkeeper said, now eyeing Theissen more sharply since it was obvious he was in charge of the caravan.

Lifting one side of his robe, Theissen pulled out his old coin pouch. He untied the drawstring and dug up five copper coins. The innkeeper’s eyes flickered to them. He lifted his eyes once more and gazed with greater deference to Theissen.

“So, you got coins. I half expected you to barter in grain.” The innkeeper turned towards the barn. Gesturing for the others of Theissen’s group to follow, he said, “I’ll give you one stall for two coppers per night. Food—you’re on your own. The barkeep tends to that with the cook. I mostly deal in rooms and manage the taxes.”

Theissen bowed low. “Thank you, Innkeeper, for your hospitality.”

 

“Hospitality my eye!” Theobold said as he flew up to the higher loft, ignoring the stable-hands that scattered when he launched off the ground. He landed on a sturdy flat spot covered in straw, turned and bent over the beam to look down. “If he were really hospitable, he’d let us room for free.”

“But that’s his business, Theobold,” Theissen said, helping the former molemen ease the two carts into the stall with a bit of earth force to help. He secured the top cloths with more magic, making sure no one could untie those knots even with a knife to help out. It fused into the metal rim of the carts. “There was an inn in my village, and two coppers a night for a room is really quite reasonable.”

Theobold looked at him sourly then flopped back up into the straw there. To join him in the hay, some of the former birdmen took ladders and climbed up. The former molemen sat down in the stall with the carts where Theissen had also set his traveling pack, opening up the