Part One

 

 

Village Boy

 

Chapter One: A Wizard of Jatte is Born

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theissen Darol Mukumar, the Carpenter’s Son, was born midsummer when the flowers of spring had lost their petals and the summer wildflowers covered the shores near the small village of Lumen. His older brothers had been shooed outside to play while his mother labored for several hours to give birth to her fifth child. The eldest daughter stayed to help, mostly fetching the boiled water for the midwife. Their father paced outside the front door, unable to continue working on the new cradle he had fashioned for his child yet just as unable to bear hearing his wife’s screams and moans inside. The patch of dirt in front of their step stone at the door was already wearing a small trough where he walked. But then the cry of the child replaced hers. As if released, the father burst inside and rushed into the room where already the midwife was cleaning up the red and splotchy skin of his little boy.

“Another son.” The carpenter’s face split wide with pride.

The older sister ungraciously huffed as she threw up her eyes, tromping back off for another boiled tub of water. Her mother was too tired to chide her misbehavior. They all knew she had wanted a sister for once.

“I’ve named him for three holies,” the carpenter’s wife said, smiling weakly.

His father raised his eyebrows. “All three?”

She smiled. “Yes. An easy name to remember.”

The carpenter smiled. He turned, reaching out to the midwife for his child. The woman muttered something under her breath about unsanitary conditions, but she did as beckoned—a softhearted woman in the end of it all. Cradling the boy gentler than his hands showed him to be, the carpenter gazed down on his son’s dark hair and shining black eyes. The child cooed and squirmed, reaching up his tiny fingers at his father’s face. Wisps of his hair came undone from the braid tied behind his ears and drew forward towards the child’s fists, immediately grasped and pulled towards his mouth.

“My goodness!” the carpenter exclaimed, taking the hairs and drawing them back from the baby’s tight fingers then tucking them behind his ear. “What a strong grip!”

“He is special,” the mother said. Her smiled beamed up from her pillow. Her daughter was already back, helping wipe off her mother’s sweaty brow. The girl hid her contempt better this time around and merely went to work. The midwife directed the carpenter’s daughter towards the soiled blankets. Already they were gathering them for laundry.

The carpenter’s hair pulled forward again as if a wind was not blowing but sucking it to his newborn’s hands. He brushed it back again, this time feeling some resistance. Looking down at his child’s face, the carpenter gazed deeper into his eyes. Nothing was unusual about the face of his child. No tell tale signs of demonic influence or even the mark of the cursed, yet the boy seemed to smile, an impossibility all the nursemaids claimed unless it was gas. This time the carpenter felt the tugging. But instead of on his hair, it was on his face pulling his nose in. The baby latched on and began to suck on the tip, reaching out to feed.

The carpenter pulled himself back as he shook his head at his child just as the baby began to cry. “No, no. I think you want your mommy for that.”

Then gently he passed his child over to his wife, resting him in her arms. She cradled her baby boy to her chest and with the help of the midwife sat up.

“I think that is enough for today,” the midwife said, ushering the father from the bedside. “Both mother and child have to get their rest.”

With a reluctant sigh, he bowed his head to the midwife first and then to his wife who smiled at him.

“Don’t stay away long,” she said.

He was about to speak, but her daughter replied with a helpful hop, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be here for you.”

But then the midwife shoved her out too.

Both father and daughter stood outside the bedroom door regarding one another somewhat dejectedly.

“I guess I will finish that cradle,” he said, tossing his shoulders back after a shrug.

“And I guess I’ll go feed the chickens.” The daughter kicked the ground with a frown, going over to the wall for the basket of seed.

The carpenter looked at her then drew in a breath. “You know, another brother is not so bad. Think of all the practice you will have in caring for a husband.”

His daughter tossed back her braids with a slight glare, trying not to be disrespectful though he could tell she was upset. “If I have to baby-sit my husband too, I’d rather end up an old maid.”

And she stomped out of the house.

There was nothing to say to that. The carpenter tried a few times to think of something, but then just gave it up. Eventually his wife would have another child, and then another if her health permitted. Who knows? Maybe then his daughter would be pleased to have a sister.

 

In the days after the delivery, family came to visit. His mother-in-law arrived first from Brakirs Town several miles north of the Pepersin Peninsula where Lumen Village was situated, her carriage rumbling into the fenced yard and terrorizing the chickens more as she hopped out to see her daughter. She also terrorized the midwife with demands and threats to see her little girl—not at all talking about the baby whom she full well knew was another son. They set her up in the town inn for the night, unable to accommodate her in their already filled home.

Then came his wife’s brothers. Then the aunts. Then all the female cousins and their husbands and their children. All seemed to flock into town for the naming ceremony that was to take place at the end of the first month. Why they all arrived early demanding to see the rather exhausted woman who wanted to do nothing more than sleep seemed of little concern to the midwife. She barred the those bedroom doors with her body, declaring them too hallowed to pass through, and even the carpenter found himself often locked out.

So he finished the cradle and spent the rest of his time setting up the preparations for the naming ceremony.

He waved to the florist with his parcels, his two older sons trailing after him as they heaved up their armloads of wrapped flowers for the garland they had to make.

“Dad, these are heavy,” his second son complained loudly.

“So is my armload, Kinnerlin. We all must bear our share,” the carpenter said.

Kinnerlin was only five years old. He glanced at his older brother who silently hauled his bundle, and frowned. His older brother gave him a smug look, heaving up his load as if to prove he was the strongest of the boys.

“When we get home,” their father said as soon as they entered the lane that led them straight to their house, “I need you all to set these flowers on the wood horse in my shop. We’ll make the garlands there. Dalance, I want you to fetch water for the flowers so they won’t wilt, and take Tolbetan with you.”

The eldest son frowned now. Tolbetan was nearly three years old but had been whining since his mother had been enclosed for the delivery. His older sister was watching him while they were gone, but Tolbetan put up such a fuss with his yowls and demands that that even the visiting aunts who used to pinch his cheeks and coddle him said that he was noisy. All agreed that it was about time he was no longer treated as the baby of the family.

“Do I have to?” Dalance said, risking his father’s displeasure.

Pausing with another heave to shift the wrapped flowers he was carrying to a less slippery spot in his arms, the carpenter gave him the look he had been dreading. “Of course you do. Your sister has to help prepare the food for the ceremony. Besides, she has already been carrying more than her fair share of the work around the house. You are seven years old now. In half a year we will be making preparations for your childhood ceremony, so you really should not complain.”

Dalance frowned. He only looked over at Kinnerlin who suddenly raised his armload as if he was now the strongest boy in the family.

“Tolbetan will only get in the way,” Dalance said.

“He will be less out of the way with you than in the house with Alania. Now no more complaining, or I will have to think of really hard chore for you to do to keep you busy.” The carpenter often set his children to work believing that working children were children removed from mischief.

Clamping his mouth tightly closed, Dalance did not say another word.

They entered the front gate. As Dalance went indoors to claim his younger brother, Kinnerlin sat in the carpentry shop learning how to make a flower chain. His father unwrapped the paper from the flowers, choosing which ones would be used in the garlands and which ones would be draped over the awning in the yard where the village doctor would perform the rites. When Dalance returned with the first pail, dumping the water in the barrel his father set out, Tolbetan trailed after him with a whine, crying “I want mommy. I don’t want you!”

“Shut up and carry the pail.” Dalance shoved the watering can into Tolbetan’s hands. It was half his brother’s size but Dalance didn’t care. His father smirked at them, saying nothing since the whole purpose was to keep that particular son busy.

“Don’ wanna!” Tolbetan threw it down on the ground.

Crouching over, Dalance shoved it back into Tolbetan’s hands. “You have to. Dad says so.”

Tolbetan glanced over at his father, not quite dropping the pail. His father looked up at him with a fixed stare.

As Dalance marched back to the well Tolbetan tossed it down again, still checking to see what his father would do. The carpenter slowly rose from his seat.

Screeching, the three-year-old snatched up the pail and dragged it over to the well where Dalance was waiting. The carpenter rested himself back on his stool grinning quietly to himself. His elder sons glanced knowingly on their father. No one crossed him, ever.

Only after a few minutes of hauling water did all of the men of the carpenter household gather in the shop to make garlands. Their father and Dalance cut the stems, creating holes for Kinnerlin to slip each one through like a chain. Tolbetan played with the leaves, using them like boats among the sawdust piles that usually covered the floor like desert dust after a long day of work. This part took several hours, resting only for the lunch Alania brought out for them. She remained to eat in the carpenter shop also frowning at the heaps of flowers that had yet to be made into chains.

“Grandmother Potterswife said she is coming back tonight to help with the cooking. Is she really helping, or am I really supposed to make the food all myself?” Alania said. She was only ten, but in their village young girls already knew how to cook several kinds of food by her age. Besides, Alania had always been more than competent in these matters.

With a mild smile, her father continued to trim the stems, gently dropping each one into a bucket. “She should help. All your aunts should, actually.”

Not looking at all reassured, Alania even grimaced. “Do they have to?”

“You have objections?” Her father chuckled.

Looking up at him Alania nodded. “Yes. Aunty Millerswife gets so pushy. This morning when she came by she told me I put too much salt in the oatcakes. Dad, I was doing exactly what Mommy does.”

He nodded with a knowing smile. “I saw nothing wrong with them.”

Lifting her chest with more courage, Alania added, “But Aunty Bakerswife said I cooked them at too high of a heat. She says Mommy cooks her ovens way too hot and she had taught me all wrong.”

To that, her father lifted his eyebrows. The expert baker always had to criticize his wife’s cooking every time she came around. Her petty criticism even annoyed him at times. Normally he kept himself as far out of the kitchen as his wife did from the carpenter’s shop. 

“And you should have heard what Aunty Millerswife said to—”

But a loud screech interrupted her, coming from the house.

The carpenter jumped to his feet dropping all the flowers off of his lap, scrambling out the door, into the courtyard and through the house door into the front room.

The door to his bedroom was wide open. Standing inside next to his wife’s bed was Aunty Bakerswife with the midwife. Both looked alarmed, staring at his wife and newborn, though Aunty Bakerswife stood drenched, the water basin knocked at her feet though her fluffy bun and blouse were nearly saturated. The midwife was holding up a towel as if trying to catch something.

“What happened?” He stopped at the door, glad no one looked seriously hurt.

Turning to look back at him both women stared with wide-open eyes as if they were unable to close them. His wife held an amused expression on her lips, rocking her baby in her arms. His baby reached out, much more alert than any newborn he had ever seen, making sounds that almost sounded like laughter.

“Aunty got wet,” Tolbetan said, clinging first to his father’s pant leg.

All his children had followed him in.

Kinnerlin covered his mouth to stop a laugh. Dalance was doing the same, glancing over at Alania who stared not at either aunt but at her youngest brother.

“Daddy! Look!” She pointed at her mother.

But it wasn’t her mother she was really pointing at. It was the small puff of a cloud that gathered over her lap where the little baby reached out. It got larger and larger, clumping together from the very water that had fallen all over their aunt, until it was about the size of an enormous pillow. Then it began to rain right there on the bed.

The baby cried out first. The cold wetness drenched both he and his mother.

The midwife rescued the baby. The carpenter rescued his wife. Aunty Bakerswife fell back against the wall as the little storm cloud dispersed, floating out the window.

“What was that?” Dalance said.

Alania shrugged but then found her baby brother suddenly shoved into her arms, the midwife tromping out in haste. She stopped only once at the door.

“That is the last I will take of that!” she pointed at the baby. “That child is not normal!”

She was gone.

Their mother broke into laughter. She kept laughing, even with tears forming in her eyes.

“Momma?” Kinnerlin took a step closer to her.

Slapping the wet bed with her hand, the carpenter’s wife continued to giggle. “That was the funniest—”

The carpenter gave her a wry look, but also glanced at the wet bed and then his son. Alania rocked the baby, his cries already gone and his tiny eyes focusing on her face with a curious stare. Her hair pulled from her braids, soon into his fists and pulled to his mouth.

“What did happen?” Dalance asked again.

“It…he…I…” Aunty Bakerswife stepped once towards the door and then back to the bed, waffling indecisively on where she wanted to go. Her eyes fixed on the new baby at last. She pointed one of her fat fingers at him. “He did it!”

“Pardon?” The carpenter looked bewildered.

His wife was still laughing. “He sure did! My precious Theissen Darol Mukumar!”

“Mom!” her two older boys called out, making faces. “You weren’t supposed to tell us his name yet!”

“Not until tonight,” Alania said with a firm nod.

But their mother kept laughing, shaking her head. “Forget the ceremony. Look at him. I knew he was special.”

And they all did look. The baby was now tugging on Alania’s lace collar. The ends of her apron strings seemed to have untied themselves, now clasped in the baby’s tiny fists, shoved into his mouth.

Tugging them out from his hands, Alania rolled her eyes. But right after she tossed them back over her shoulders to be tied they flew back into her youngest brother’s fingers, and he chomped down on them again. She lifted her gaze at both her parents immediately.

“Did you see that?”

They all nodded.

Her mother calmed down her laughter then waved over to her bed. “We will need to clean this up.”

“Yes.” The carpenter immediately nodded to the aunt. “Please, clear off the blankets.”

Auntie Bakerswife stared at him, immovable. “I…you…. Are you just going to ignore what just happened?”

Without even a blink to express misunderstanding, he replied, “My wife needs a dry bed. You said you had come here to help her out as she recovers.”

“But what about what we just saw?” Auntie Bakerswife gestured over to the baby again.

Alania cooed to him, grinning in spite of herself as she held her brother. The others circled around him to get a good look also. Tolbetan stood on his tiptoes.

“That can wait for later. Dry bed first.” He turned towards his children. “Dalance, go and get your mother a dry nightdress. Kinnerlin, find the mop and have Tolbetan carry the bucket.”

“I can do that!” Tolbetan shouted, and he ran from the room faster than the others.

Aunty Bakerswife sighed and did as asked, watching the others scatter to help out. The room was nearly cleared, almost private enough for the carpenter to ask his wife the question all the others had held. “Do you know how our son did that?”

The carpenter’s wife shook her head with a grin. “Not at all, though I am sure the village magician could probably tell us.”

“Magic?” Alania said, her eyes growing wider. She looked from her mother to her baby brother.

Her mother smiled and shrugged, accepting the nightdress Dalance brought, walking straight behind the dressing screen to change out of her wet gown. “I suppose so.”

The carpenter followed her, scratching his forehead between the wrinkles in his brow. “But how can a baby do magic? Doesn’t that kind of thing require an incantation or spell? He can’t even talk.”

His wife shrugged again. “I don’t know. All I know is from the day our son was conceived, I knew he was special.”

Her other sons returned with the mop and bucket, quickly wiping up the spilled water while their aunt carried back in new blankets and sheets. She frowned as she tugged each over the down mattress that had somehow avoided getting too wet, casting wary glances up at the baby in Alania’s arms.

“Magic….” The woman muttered. “He’s probably a demon.”

The entire carpenter household turned. The children pulled from their aunt, horrified. Alania clutched her baby brother closer to herself, protecting him with her arm. Their father’s face grew cold and hard though their mother peered around the changing screen at her sister.

“What did you say?”

Aunty Bakerswife drew back, dropping the end of the blankets. “Uh…. Don’t look at me like that! It is a possibility! You have to see that!”

“My brother is not a demon!” Alania shouted back.

“Yeah!” the brothers chorused, one stomping his foot.

The baby started to cry.

Throwing her nightgown over herself, their mother came around and plucked her newborn from her eldest child’s arms. Lifting her chin she said, “Bakerswife, if you talk like that again, you will not be allowed in my home ever again.”

“She can leave now.” The carpenter immediately opened the door, pointing out.

Aunty Bakerswife pulled back another step then raised her chest, turned and stomped out of the room. The carpenter only stopped her once before she departed the home entirely.

Grabbing her arm, he hissed in her ear. “If you ever suggest that I would sire a demon again, I will have you thrown out.”

From there she ran.

 

But word had spread that the Carpenter’s newborn child was unusual. More than the regular fare showed up along the outer fence at the naming ceremony that evening.

The torches on pegs and candles lit with arching flower chains over the tables and benches gathered for family and close friends. The village doctor stood on the raised platform they brought from the church for such ceremonies waiting for the mother and child to be brought out to the existing family. The father helped her along, their baby covered in a sheer white veil with his mother under it also, him cooing and clawing the cloth, pulling it into his mouth so that it was damp on one corner. Nearly all the family was smiling as they approached, though Aunty Bakerswife was somehow out of sorts, staring at her knees rather than at her sister.

“Sarton Lubanar Scolderan Carpenter, do you present your newest born to be inspected?” the doctor asked as per ceremonial tradition.

“I do,” the carpenter said, glancing at his wife. He removed the veil off her face so she could speak.

“Malana Rosepetal Brisina Tristeen Carpenterwife, do you present your newest born to be inspected?” the doctor said to her with a smile.

Her smile beamed with a great deal of pleasure. “I most certainly do.”

“Then reveal your child to me.”

The carpenter’s wife lifted off the veil, letting it flutter to the ground. The baby cooed when he saw her face, delighted to see he again, but the family’s eyes were not on the child but on the veil that floated for a moment longer than normal on the air before dropping as it should. Dalance nudged Alania, but she shushed him.

The doctor had not seen it at all and continued with the ceremony. The parents unwrapped the blankets around the baby as the doctor performed a simple physical on the child, counting fingers, toes, checking other appendages for infection, and inspecting the navel most specifically to make sure it had healed. Several times the baby shivered and the blankets pulled up to cover him as if by invisible hands. The doctor tugged them down several times before the baby started to cry. That only made the doctor smile more, listening to the newborn’s healthy lungs.

He wrapped up the baby as soon as he had finished the examination. Nodding to the parents, he took the child from his mother’s arms and lifted him up for all to see. “I now introduce—” he paused for the mother to whisper the baby’s name to him. “Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson. Younger brother to Tolbetan Scolderan Dulusiarnet Carpenterson, Kinnerlin Morgetan Lubanar Carpenterson, Dalance Sarton Mikumberick Carpenterson, and the firstborn Alania Tristeen Honeydew Carpenterdotter. All welcome the boy!”

The family rose to their feet, opening their mouths in a cheer.

“Stop!”

The doctor and all others stared over the crowd at the group behind the fence. A man in red silk robes with ancient black writing on them came running into the yard, puffing for breath. It was obvious he had run there. The midwife was panting right behind him.

“Oh, Magician.” The doctor blinked at him with mild surprise.

“You must not name him!” the magician said at last, waving towards the baby.

“And why not?” The carpenter stepped forward, heaving his broad chest to make it clear this man was treading on his land.

Raising his eyes then his head, the magician straightened out his shoulders, looking the carpenter square in the face. “Because. Your child is dangerous.”

Aunty Bakerswife lifted her head, turning to look back with renewed strength, yet she did not speak.

“How do you figure that?” the carpenter replied, waiting with a glance towards his wife.

“Because your child performed several kinds of magic earlier this month without a proper magic spell. In fact, your midwife tells me that he used a very powerful summoning spell just earlier today,” the magician said. “Do you deny it?”

Pausing just a moment, looking into the eyes of all the family watching him and his children and wife, the carpenter said, “I do not.”

They drew in a gasp together. Already the whispers rumbled in the yard. Scandalous. Terrible. Dangerous. But those at the fence merely whispered and waited.

“The child must be killed,” the magician said. He waved over to the doctor, beckoning him to bring the baby over. “It must be killed now before it is too late.”

“No!” the carpenter’s wife jumped at once, reaching out for her baby.

Their four children also sprang from their seats, but they did not move much farther.

The doctor did not need anyone to stop him. He merely blinked then looked back at the carpenter. “Is this true? Your newborn can perform magic?”

The carpenter inspected the doctor’s face for a moment then slowly nodded his head. “I saw it myself.”

“And no spell, since he is only a newborn,” the doctor murmured aloud.

“Give it to me,” the magician said again.

“I don’t think so.” The doctor affectionately cradled the child in his arms, inspecting his face. “No, I don’t think so at all. This child is special.”

The carpenter’s wife burst into tears, leaning with relief against her husband’s shoulder. The children grinned at one another in the yard, looking more pleased to accept their new brother into their family.

But the magician stomped over the dirt yard, reaching out for the child. “You have to kill it. It is a demon.”

The doctor pulled back, blocking the magician with his own body. “No. This child is a wizard.”

Everyone paused.

“A what?” the carpenter asked, pushing his own way between the magician and the doctor, leading his wife close under his arm.

Grinning, the doctor nodded and then gazed over at the people. He lifted up the baby and declared, “Attention people of Lumen Village! A wizard of Jatte has been born!”

Chapter Two Wizard: Children Can Be Dangerous

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The commotion at the naming ceremony was not over when the doctor had made his declaration. The magician still demanded that the carpenter’s child should die, though he stopped claiming it was demon. In the end, while their extended family feasted in celebration of a new and extra special child being born to their clan, the carpenter and his wife had to take their newborn son to the village elders, leaving their other children behind to wait on their family.

The doctor and the magician continued to bicker all the way down the road to the governing hall about the issue, and they bickered even louder inside the hall, but it really was a lost cause. The doctor had better rapport with the village elders than the magician had.

“So he is a wizard?” the oldest of the elders said, reaching out to hold the baby himself.

His mother reluctantly gave him up, knowing she and her husband were waiting on the good graces of these men for her child’s safety.

“That is correct, your eminence,” the doctor said with a nod.

The other elderly men reached out to touch the baby, their wrinkled and splotchy hands caressing the innocent’s soft looking skin, and peering into his wide dark eyes. Many of them smiled.

“But wizard children can be dangerous,” the magician said, practically stamping his foot.

They barely even looked at him, still cooing over the baby, tickling his toes and trying to see if they could make the boy smile. He had a couple times, reaching out for their beards. Wisps of the hair on their faces pulled towards him, and they laughed when they realized that it was magic that was doing it.

“You can’t seriously be considering letting a thing like that live,” the magician persisted.

One of them turned to him with a cold eye. “A thing? It is a baby. For that matter, it is the first wizard I have seen in over twenty years.”

“I saw one in Jattereen City,” one of the elders offered, making faces at the baby by waggling his tongue from his open mouth. “Quite an amiable fellow.”

They did not pay attention to the magician’s growing frown. His lips dug down deeper into his jaw like it would fix there permanently, a garish walking gargoyle not yet quite propped on the roof as he should have been.

“Are you going to do nothing about this?” he at last asked.

The carpenter and his wife both looked at the magician, pulling close together as they realized the degree this man truly disliked their newborn son.

“Besides give him our blessing? No. And neither should you,” the oldest if the elders said. He lifted the baby up with a laugh and added. “A wizard is a boon that will help our community, as long as he is raised properly.”

“And you think that carpenter can accomplish this?” the magician asked, casting the carpenter a disdainful glare.

Without even a look to the carpenter, the elder lowered the boy then swept him up again. His mother reached out, her anxiety growing as she watched her boy’s eyes grow wide as he went higher.

“Of course.” The village elder swept the baby up once more only this time he heard a small burp. He lowered the baby down just in time before it spat up on the sleeve of his robes. Reacting with a disgusted face, he handed the child at last to his mother who cradled him close to her checking to make sure her boy hadn’t gotten sick. “Everyone knows the carpenter is a competent father. All four of his children are well behaved.”

The carpenter humbly bowed his head, taking a small step back. “Thank you, sirs.”

The village elders smiled warmly. Each one bowed his head, patting the baby’s fuzzy top one last time before settling with more decorum into their seats again. The eldest nodded to the carpenter and his wife waving towards the door. “You are free to go.”

“Just don’t forget to register him when he is eight,” one of the elders said. “We all expect to be invited to his childhood ceremony.”

“And to his budding ceremony,” another added, grinning at the baby and wiggling a finger like a doting grandfather.

“And to his adulthood ceremony,” yet another said.

All of them beamed proudly as if it were because of them such a unique child had been born into their world. The magician could not mask his disgust, glancing at the village doctor who at least smiled at his own success and not at a presumed one. The magician looked hard at the parents then drew in a breath before exhaling with resignation.

“Fine,” The magician said. “But beware. Once trouble starts, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He did not stay to explain what he meant. Tossing about his head with a sanctimonious air, he stalked away. All who watched him felt somewhat sick, wondering if it was a spell that he had cast or merely his self-righteous personality that had done it.

“He may be trouble.” The doctor at last broke his silence. 

The carpenter nodded in agreement. One knew not to meddle with a magician. Almost every town had one or at least had one that lived near by. They were useful when dealing with drought or demons or the occasional natural disaster, often handy at finding things that were lost, repairing things that could not be thrown out without paying a large cost, and skilled in book learning that surpassed most common folk. However, they were also famous for prideful tempers and contempt for dabbling common folk. The difference between a magician and a wizard was plain. A magician learned magic as part of his livelihood. It was his career. However, a wizard was just born that way; his career usually chose him.

That was something the carpenter pondered as he and his wife walked back down to their home to join in the festivities where they rightfully deserved to be. Was this son destined not to follow in his footsteps? Would only three of his sons take after him in his trade? He had hoped for more sons, in fact, several Carpentersons to take up his trade to leave a lasting legacy. He was his father’s second and lastborn son, and he often heard his father bemoan his lack of virility in bearing sons. If he were alive that day he would have been proud to see his son’s posterity. Still, the carpenter could hear his father’s voice say in his mind: three is good; four would have been better.

“A wizard,” his wife murmured.

Glancing at her and then his newborn son as she cradled him to her chest, the baby’s eyes already closed, his mouth smacking as if seeking to suck. The carpenter looked again at her face.

“I knew he was special, but a wizard?” she said again.

“Indeed.”

His wife looked up at him. “I don’t want him raised as a wizard.”

A weak smile came onto his lips as he said, “That will not be a problem, since I am no wizard. I can only teach him to be a carpenter.”

To that, she smiled. “Yes, do. I like that.”

They walked near the end of the lane already reaching the fence where their friends and family greeted them. Alania set down her food tray and ran over to join them. Her brothers did the same, dropping what they had been eating though the youngest carried his food with him. They gazed up with growing smiles of awe when they saw that their parents had returned still holding their new brother who remained quite well and alive.

 

By the time the stars had come out and the oil in the lanterns had long since been used up, the carpenter’s family settled for bed, bidding their parents a good night. Husband now with wife in their room again, new baby in the finely crafted cradle at the side with the cooing newborn rocked by a gentle hand, they greeted each child and pecked them on the cheek. However, none of them left the room, still peering at their new family member with some awe. They all seemed to have the same question. Dalance nudged Kinnerlin to ask. Kinnerlin had all the appearance of innocence that the others lacked.

“Daddy? What is a wizard?”

The carpenter chuckled, nodding as he reached out to his children. “That is a question many have asked. I don’t know exactly myself.”

“Is it just that he can do magic?” Alania asked, climbing onto the edge of their parents’ bed.

Shaking his head slightly, the carpenter said, “Some say a wizard is a person who can reach out into the air and make the air do things for them. Others say they can touch the earth and command it to move for them.”

“Really?” Dalance said, also climbing onto the bed. He looked over at his newborn baby brother, peering at his innocent face with wonder.

“How do they do that?” Kinnerlin asked scrambling onto his lap.

Tolbetan let out a screech at once and tried to shove him off, also climbing for his father’s lap. But in the end his mother drew him into hers. He seemed to smile as if he had gotten the better place after all.

The carpenter just shrugged. “That is the mystery. Maybe when Theissen is older he will be able to tell us what it is like.”

Dalance nodded. “That would be great.”

“What if he won’t tell us?” Alania said. She always seemed to think of the worst scenario, whether it was plausible or not. Her parents used to think it was a failing until one of her brothers had fallen into a ditch near where the Jatte army was building the highway, and had broken his ankle. She was prepared for it and got him out, setting his leg in a splint it before even one of the soldiers had come to help them. Since then they said her pessimism was foresight.

Her father drew in a breath and said, “Let us hope that we lead him with good examples so that he will not keep secrets from us. All right?”

All of his children nodded.

“That is good. Now, off to bed.”

They gave their parents another affectionate hug good night and ran off to their rooms. Blowing out their candles and lamps, shutting their curtains, they climbed under their covers and as a family prepared for the night.

 

Luckily Alania’s fears were unfounded. When Theissen was a year old, already starting to talk and walk around the time his sister Doreen Strawberry Holkanna Carpenterdotter was born, his personality showed that he was a happy and remarkably unselfish as babies go. He talked up a storm, often to the insects, the tables and chairs, and to other things that he could reach at his height. What is more, they seemed to move, change shape and color just for him as if he had asked it.

There was one morning after his baby sister’s naming day when his mother was going back her household duties when she noticed her son touching her nice white tablecloth with his hands, turning it many colors as if his hands were covered in paint. After that she found his handprints often all over the house like that. It took a few more years for them to be able to get him to turn the furniture back to their shades of brown and their linens back to white. By then Theissen was four, and he also had a younger brother named Kolbran Bartin Lunidark Carpenterson.

Four-year-old Theissen was precocious, but then perhaps he had always been that way. He usually played near his father out in the carpenter shop while his older brothers trained in the trade. While his older brother Tolbetan (now seven years old) was learning how to plane wood, Theissen played with the shavings, often molding them together with the sawdust in his hands as if it were wet sand on the seashore. His brothers tried not to stare, though at times they could not help themselves, leaning over their projects as Theissen created immaturely shaped dolls that moved when he wanted them to. These dolls, of course, were not alive, but they could see that he could make nearly anything take shape and move with a touch. It was his expertise.

Not that Theissen didn’t have his moments of temper tantrum. There were times he wanted things that were not his, and he took them like any child would. The difficult problem was that no one could successfully remove anything out of his reach as punishment. If they set something on a high shelf, he could get it down by causing a small breeze to blow it off, or for the wood it was sitting on to lurch it off.  His mother found it hard to bring him along to the market place, because when he saw a fruit or a toy he wanted he could make it roll after him until they were far enough away that he could take it without her seeing. She often caught him eating the fruit, trying to hide his obviously sticky hands and face. Of course, being the good mother that she was, when she found out, he had quite a scolding.

“Theissen Darol Mukumar! You cannot take what is not yours!”

The boy ducked his head, trying to look innocent and small. He said nothing except to look guilty while his eyes said, but I wanted it.

“It doesn’t matter if you want it. It is not yours unless you buy it.”

He ducked his head lower, hunching down as if to fight, still thinking I wanted it.

“You will go back to the fruit seller, and you are going pay for that fruit.”

By pay for it, his mother meant to apologize and stand around with a broom to sweep their shop since he was only four years old. He paid most people back by hard work (for a child of four).

Unfortunately, Theissen never truly learned his lesson until after he was eight. By that time he had gotten himself into an awful stink with the magician. Caught red handed, the magician said when he dragged Theissen by his ear up to the town sheriff with his complaint. The sheriff then handed Theissen to his father with an affidavit summoning them before the town court.

“I’m sorry, Carpenter. But stealing is stealing, and he is of age to take legal punishment for his actions.” The sheriff turned from the gates of their home with a sad shake of his head. Theissen didn’t even try to look up. He could feel his father’s disapproval without seeing his face.

The carpenter was silent for some time, not budging, not moving. It was after several minutes before Theissen broke down into tears, covering his face with his fingers, sobbing into his hands with real grief.

“So. Is this remorse because you got caught or because you realize that taking something that does not belong to you is wrong?” His father’s voice was calm, deep. If there was any indication that he was angry, it was in his silence.

Theissen shook his head, saying nothing.

“You do realize that since you are a registered child of the village now you have to accept punishment for what you have done,” his father said.

Theissen nodded morosely.

“Good.”

Neither father nor son moved from where they stood, though Theissen shifted his feet with discomfort, feeling the weight of his father’s stare on the top of his head. Then he felt his father’s hand.

The touch was gentle. Theissen looked up.

His father had crouched down, staring at the tearstained face of his son, shaking his head sadly. He whispered low, looking Theissen in the eyes. “I don’t know what possessed you to steal from the magician, but you must understand that he has been looking for reasons to have the village elders remove you from us. And I thought after this last summer when you worked for the Fruiters in their groves that you understood that when you steal you aren’t just taking a thing, you are thieving a portion of their hard work and time.”

“I know that, Daddy,” Theissen whispered, looking pleadingly up at his face. “I just….”

He choked and ducked his head again. He could feel his father stroking his head with the same warm love he always held. This disappointment in him was too hard to bear.

“I thought you were trying to be an honorable man,” his father said.

Theissen’s sobs grew louder. “I was trying. I just—”

“I hear a council has been called,” the carpenter’s wife suddenly ran up to them both, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders to keep the chill autumn air from her. She looked down at her son, shaking her head. “I thought you weren’t going to take things anymore. You were doing so well.”

But Theissen could not answer her except to cry more.

He could hear his father sigh, his disappointment obvious. “The trial will be this evening.”

“Oh, dear….”

“What should we do? It is the magician that has charged him, and he will demand the law be followed.”

Theissen looked up at them both. “What will they do?”

Both of his parents looked down at their son pityingly. His father said as his mother closed her eyes to stop the tears that started to swell in them, “Thieves are harshly punished by law. Both of their palms are slashed with a knife, the deepness depending on the value of the object stolen. After that is a year in prison.”

“Oh, no!” Their son pulled his hands behind his back as if to hide them. “I don’t want to!”

“I don’t want them to do it either, son, but if I do not turn you in, the law says that I will take the punishment in your stead, double fold,” said the carpenter. “That leaves your mother and your brothers and sisters to take care of the home alone.”

Theissen stared at his father’s hands. They were rough, strong hands. Gentle hands. Hands that had worked hard to keep his family well fed, protected, and well provided for. Working alongside his father, he knew what hard work a carpenter did. He also knew that a good carpenter needed his hands. If they were cut, that would be end of his father’s trade and his family’s happiness.

“I’ll go,” Theissen murmured, looking at the ground.

He did not see his father’s sorry eyes or the expression on his mother’s face that said he was too young to be so grave. Yet, the council was called and they had to account for their son.

 

Lumen Village always held open courts. Besides providing witnesses from the public who wanted to defend the guilty or help the innocent, it also sated the much-loved practice of gossip in the small community. With the child wizard brought to account for his stealing by the village magician, nearly everyone who could fit through the door attended the trial.

His parents made sure Theissen washed and had on a clean shirt before he came. They were not allowed to stand with him once they entered the court hall, made to stand to the side of the room while the accuser brought up his case before the village elders.

The magician looked too pleased with himself, dressed in the foreign robes of the northern magicians of Westhaven, the quintessential masters of magic, pacing before elders with an I-told-you-so look in his eyes. He barely even glanced at the boy.

“Wise and judicious Elders of our village, my case is a simple one. We have turned a blind eye long enough to this child’s thievery. One apple, one cake, one pie…compounded into many. I ask you, when is it time we stopped it and saw this menace for what he is?”

“At present all we see is a little boy who has yet to learn the boundaries of property ownership,” one of the elders said with a fond eye on the carpenter’s son.

But a few elders murmured at that, and one villager broke from the crowd.

“He has stolen my wife’s pies, and I have yet to see compensation for any one of them!”

The carpenter and his wife turned to look at Theissen. He ducked his head lower, but then so did his older brothers and half of the village boys. They all had taken a snitch of the Inn’s pies. The Innkeeper’s wife tossed up her head, looking pleased they had at least one person to blame when such snitching had gone on for years.

“It was only once,” Theissen whispered at the ground.

One of the elders shook his head slowly.

Another villager stepped forward with a curt nod to the carpenter. “He once took three rolls from my bakery—”

“I did not!” Theissen suddenly whipped around. “Bread gets dirty when—”

But he cut short when he saw the elders peering more darkly at him. Shrinking back, he tried to make himself appear a little smaller. He hunched over, drawing his arms into himself.

After some silence, the head of the elders turned to the magician and said, “Do you have witnesses?”

Sweeping back around, his robes and tassels swinging with flair that accompanied his smug face, he nodded slowly and at last met Theissen’s eyes. “Yes. The town crier can testify that he saw my celestial globe fall from the window, slowed by a puff of dust so that it did not break, and then it rolled uphill towards the property owned by the dairyman. Millerswife can testify that she saw my globe covered in dirt, rolling over her front steps and through her chicken yard.”

“He frightened my chickens!” a petite yet shrill woman with a needle like nose with slit thin nostrils said, brusquely nodding so that her tiny head bobbed on her stick thin neck.

The town crier said nothing. He only bowed his head, looking sorry that he had to testify against a little boy.

“And of course there is the boy Yuld Scribeson. He encountered my globe while walking from the records hall down past the dairyman’s home.”

Yuld was a smartly dressed young man of seventeen. He was the town’s law teacher for all the children younger than their budding years. All the young boys and girls looked up at him as he stepped forward, feeling that same sick feeling they got when he started his long drawn out lectures about the history of the succession of kings in Jatte, his favorite topic. He had been Theissen’s teacher only for a short while, and his opinion of the boy was based off of his experience with the other Carpentersons. He thought them simple. His brothers Kinnerlin and Tolbetan knew Yuld too well since they had spent the last two years with the journeyman teacher listening to his lectures. Both rolled their eyes to the rafters in the meeting hall. Dalance sighed also, thinking Yuld a conceited twit with less muscle than a flopping fish.

With a professional, stuffy bow to the elders, Yuld smiled. “Venerated elders, my witness is a sordid tale of disenchantment at witnessing the innocence of youth squandered for mere materialistic satisfaction.”

Someone yawned loudly, on purpose.

Continuing on without notice that he had lost his audience with the word ‘sordid’, Yuld said, “The magic user indeed informs you of the truth. I was returning to my domicile when I encountered a curious occurrence, an occurrence that in all otherwise would be considered impossible. Before me upon the road was a revolving sphere of magnificent workmanship, propelling itself the opposite direction of the gravitational pull of the earth. Too curious to allow such a phenomenon pass such a learned scholar as I am, I was impelled to investigate.

“No sooner had I reached the crest of the hill, I witnessed this peculiarly ordinary looking child reach out and claim this item, peering at it with a rather ill-behaved smile.” Yuld cast a slight glance at Theissen who was watching him with a puzzled expression, mostly attempting to understand all the big words Yuld was saying.

Yuld regarded him disdainfully, finishing with a flick of his wrist. “Then I recognized the incorrigible rogue who hardly pays any attention in my lessons but is often busy stirring things up to cause commotion. Such as the day he sent all my written papers flying right out the window into the rain, disrupting the class order. You know, he seems to take great joy in vexing me.”

“He’s boring,” Theissen muttered.

Several young boys in the crowd burst into laughter. A few young ladies also broke into giggles, Alania nodding with a gaggle of them in agreement. Yuld looked at them with an increased redness to his cheeks and ears, posturing before the one thing his supposed superior intellect could never acquire.

“Silence.” And elder looked disapprovingly on the crowd.

Parents hushed their boys and girls, though the young ladies seemed to silence themselves when they saw the severe looks the village elders directed at them.

“Is that every witness?” the chief elder asked the magician.

With a confident yet somewhat dismayed nod, the magician swept back to the side of the room. “Yes, your eminence.”

Giving him a dismissing nod, the village elders looked down on Theissen.

“Do you have a plea?”

“A what?” Theissen was already shaking, feeling every eye in the room bearing down on him as if they were hammers ramming him into the floor.

One of the elders said more softly, “A plea. Do you claim your innocence? Or do you admit to being guilty?”

Ducking his head again, Theissen looked to the floor. “I did it.”

A murmur rippled through the room, though what they were saying washed in and over the people with a feeling of quiet.

“Then you do not deny you took the magician’s globe?” the elder asked.

Shaking his head with very little motion, Theissen did not remove his eyes from the floor. “No.”

It seemed that the room sighed much in the same way as the carpenter had earlier. It was sad disappointment, almost as if they wished the child had fought, claiming innocence.

“Do you understand the punishment for stealing?” the village elder said.

Theissen nodded, but barely.

“Do you really understand?” the elder asked again.

Theissen looked up. Tears were in his eyes. He lifted his hands up and nodded again. “Yes. You have to cut my hands. Um…I go to prison.”

“No!” Dalance suddenly jumped from the crowd, breaking past the sheriffs. He ran into the space between the elders and his little brother. “It wasn’t his fault! We made him do it!”

A murmur roared through the room now.

Dalance’s face was white. His lips were pale with panic, his own body shaking. He stuck out his own hands. “Punish me! I knew better. All we wanted to do was see the magician’s golden ball. We were only borrowing it. We made Theissen take it.”

“We?” the head elder inquired, arching his neck to look at the several guilty faces on all the young village boys. Several of them hunched their shoulders as if they could suddenly make themselves vanish.

Nodding, Dalance lowered his head. “Some of us…um, well….”

It was clear he had not meant to snitch on the others that had participated in the heist. Of course, it was too late now.

Lifting his chin, Dalance drew in his courage. “It doesn’t matter. I am his older brother. I should have stopped him. I am responsible.”

Kinnerlin drew up his chest as if he was about to do the same, but his mother clamped a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. Tolbetan cringed, not wanting to move forward, still thinking about the cuts the guilty would get on his hands.

And so was Dalance. He raised his palms higher, offering them up. “It was my fault. I will take his punishment.”

The magician’s face changed into disgust, then he violently shook his head. “This is preposterous! Even if other children goaded this beast into it, the child that stole is the one to be punished.”

Dalance clenched his teeth in a glare, stepping nearer his brother to protect him.

“I’m afraid we would have to agree,” one of the village elders said.

Whipping around, Dalance looked at his father for help, but the man’s gaze was firm. His eyes said he also agreed, though he was not happy about it.

Turning once again to the elders, Dalance offered his palms up once more. “If Theissen is to be punished, then punish me too. He cannot be punished alone.”

Little hands clenched the side of his shirt. Dalance looked down at his brother who clutched him with staring eyes swimming with tears and gratitude. He rubbed his hand over Theissen’s head and smiled. He definitely would not let his brother go to prison alone.

“Accepted,” the chief elder said.

Already the bailiff approached them, taking firm steps across the room. The carpenter lowered his head, unable to interfere with the law. His wife clutched him close, sobbing into his shoulder.

“You understand what the punishment for thieving entails?” the chief elder asked before the bailiff drew his knife.

Dalance nodded. Theissen clenched his brother close to him.

With a grieving nod, the chief elder looked to the bailiff to carry out the punishment. “Because you are not adults, your prison term will only be for one night. However, I cannot stop the cuts. This may prevent you from continuing in the profession of carpenter. And for that, we are truly sorry. You had a promising future.”

But Theissen’s suddenly eyes grew wide, looking from elder to his brother. “What? No! You were going to leave on your journey soon!”

With a pained smile, Dalance seemed to give just a passing thought to his emergence into the field of carpentry as a journeyman.

“I don’t want you to be cut!” Theissen shouted, reaching out towards the bailiff.

“It is the law,” Dalance said, glancing back at his father, who had closed his eyes now. “And I want to be a man of honor like our father.”

“But—”

“It is my fault,” Dalance said, holding out both hands to the bailiff, feeling the man take a firm hold of his wrists. “I should have done better.”

It was a firm swipe. The knife wasn’t even bloody. Only the look on Dalance’s face told Theissen that his hands had been sliced. Dalance tried to duck his hands back so that his brother did not have to see them bleed, wincing as the bailiff reached out for Theissen’s wrists. Most expected Theissen to struggle. He half looked ready to, but after his moment’s hesitation, he stuck out his hands, palms up, and closed his eyes.

That swipe was less deep. However, Theissen opened his eyes and stared at his bleeding palms. He inhaled then exhaled with a resigned sigh. Never again. He learned his lesson.

“Now escort them to their cell.” The chief elder looked drained. All of them did.

The carpenter and his wife would not be allowed to see their sons until after their imprisonment was over. They turned with sorrow while the sheriffs ushered the watching crowd out the door. Alania resisted, holding Kolbran’s hand as her brother wailed questions, asking why Dalance and Theissen were not coming home. Doreen followed them, staring back at her brothers with horror. Her other brothers watched with guilt, knowing they like Dalance and the other village boys had wanted to see the celestial globe as much as anyone had. They even whispered that maybe they should all cut their hands as punishment, but none of them actually meant it.

Theissen and Dalance clutched bleeding hand to bleeding hand, led away to their cell.

 

Theissen cried when he saw the bare room they had to sleep in that night, though Dalance squared his jaw and marched them both in. The walls were layered stone. There were no beds. Straw lay on the floor, which was dirty though pleasantly dry. The guards set a plate of food out for them, a small piece of potato each and a handful of stewed beans with a pitcher of water. They didn’t touch it until their stomachs gurgled from hunger, but by then it was quite late and Theissen was already nodding off against his brother’s side as they rested against the wall in the hay.

Dalance awoke the morning after wishing to stretch out his sore muscles then check his wrapped palms to see how much damage was truly done. Secretly he had hoped he could still handle his carpentry tools for ornate woodcarving—his family’s specialty. However, he doubted he could with the way it had hurt when they cut him. He had pretended for Theissen that it hadn’t hurt much, but in truth the cuts were very deep.

The dim light that streamed in from the small barred window so thick and slanted that it proved no one escaped from that prison cell was barely enough to see inside. The lamplights were out, and the guard had obviously gone home to sleep in his bed. The new guard was resting against his desk with his eyes closed. Lifting the bandages, Dalance peered at his bloodstained palms. Then he blinked, raising his palm higher into the stream of light, scanning the skin, stretching out his hands and fingers among the floating dust specks around it to make sure what he was seeing was not a lie. Yet there it was, under the bandages as plain as anything. The sunlight revealed a clean clear palm. No cut. No redness. Only a faint white line as proof that he had been sliced by the bailiff the night before.

He turned with a glance at Theissen. His little fists were clutched tight, his body curled in the hay, leaning only a little on his older brother’s side, his tears now dried yet the redness still around his eyes. Dalance looked at his hands again. Of all the magic he had seen his little brother do, this was the most amazing.

Peering at his perfectly healed palm once more, Dalance wondered mildly if they would have to get their hands cut open again, if what his brother had done would have been considered cheating the law. Tears seemed to cloud his vision. He felt like laughing, celebrating. It was so hard to contain his relief that Dalance nudged his brother awake.

He whispered, “You did this. Right?”

Theissen’s eyes bugged wide, and he looked from left to right before ducking close to his ear. He barley spoke. “I had to. I couldn’t let your hands get cut. You were going to be a journeyman soon. Dad was so happy. He was buying your tool kit.”

Nodding, Dalance found it hard to keep the tears in. His dad had been proud. He only wondered what his father thought of him now. Perhaps he was now focusing on preparing Kinnerlin for his journey. For his brother, it would not be for three more years. Still, his father probably thought his eldest was now destined to rough furniture making instead of the fine art he had been taught; a lackey in a shop rather than a craftsman.

“You stayed with me.” Theissen snuggled close. “I’m glad you are my brother.” 

Dalance rubbed his little brother’s head. “So am I.”

 

Their father claimed them that evening.

The carpenter’s eyes were swimming with tears when he collected both of his boys, reaching out almost immediately once they were heading back down the road to look at his eldest son’s hands, taking care as he unwrapped the bandages. “I will still train you. What you did was a noble thing. A brave thing. These things can be overcome. They—”

He stared at his son’s clean palm.

“How? I saw them. I know they did it.” His father turned to stare at Dalance. “How is this possible?”

Dalance sneaked a glance at those watching them walk down the road from their homes, seeing the pitying expressions yet not really looking at them as if feeling shame for punishing such young brave boys. He said, “Theissen.”

The carpenter looked down at his younger son, immediately pulling up Theissen’s hands. Theissen winced. With the bandages off, the carpenter saw that this son’s palms were still cut. The scabs still bled when the boy moved his hands. The carpenter blinked and stared.

“Why? Why did you not heal yourself too? Can you not do it for yourself?”

Theissen drew back his hand, feeling with his fingertips the cut that was healing. “I can. But…. No. I will keep the scars to remind myself never to steal again.

“Besides,” he looked up at his father. “They aren’t so bad as Dalance’s were. I can still learn to be a carpenter.”

He paused, looking pleadingly at his father’s face.

“Can I?”

Pulling both his sons in close, the carpenter found it hard to stop his tears. “Of course you can. Of course you can.”

Chapter Three: So Magic Flows Like a River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some said the experience of punishment and prison changed Theissen overnight. His old carefree babyish way of looking at things had transformed him into a not only responsible child, but one with a strong sense of justice.

Others said it only made things worse. The magician was one of the latter group of course. So were a few of the village boys who didn’t like Theissen’s looks of you-shouldn’t-have-made-me-do-it.

Another change was in Dalance. Almost no one noticed that he could still carry on the carpenter’s trade despite the corporal punishment that should have marred his hands for life. Instead, people noticed how he devoted himself more seriously to his carpentry, advancing much farther than even his father had anticipated by making ornate carvings that rivaled even his father’s skills. By this time the last stretch of preparations for his journey was in the works, and his adulthood ceremony had been scheduled with the village elders.

Dalance was to go out after the spring thaw had finished, setting off on the dry ground of summer. In the mean time he helped his father in the shop work on tables and cabinets ordered by wealthy landowners and businessmen in distant towns and cities. The horse drawn carts sent to claim the merchandise had arrived, leaving them busy with the packing and obligatory feeding of the animals. Their owners waited in the village inn in the mean time.

Leading the horses to the river to drink, the carpenter’s sons took off their socks and shoes, wading the cool water to pass the time. The shoemaker’s eldest son played with them, mostly to catch one last time he could be with Dalance. Unlike the carpenter’s family tradition, the shoemakers did not leave their village to practice their trade. Instead the eldest son inherited the shop and the younger brothers worked under him. Or at least that was how it was supposed to work. Migdrin Shoemakerson hated the craft and refused to be apprenticed in it. Instead he was hired out to work on the farms telling the rest of the world that one day he would become an important businessman. It was his younger brother Lonse that would inherit, and he only did it grudgingly. Both boys preferred playing rather than work.

Kicking the water with his feet, Migdrin made the rush of the ripples splash over Kinnerlin.

“Stop that!” Kinnerlin stuck his tongue out at him. He had been attempting to fish, though there really wasn’t much to be had in the spring except for the tiny guppies and newly hatched trout. Nearby Theissen stood ankle deep in a small pool along the edge looking for frog eggs, hoping to find tadpoles. The spray Migdrin was making caused him to look up.

“Weakling. It’s just a little cold water,” said Migdrin.

Theissen made a face and continued to look for tadpoles.

“Hey! I saw one!” Dalance shouted, pointing at a large bullfrog. “There under the rock.”

Migdrin turned with a snort, peering over at the pool where both brothers were looking. “Honestly, Dalance, you’d think you were still a kid. It is just a frog.”

But Dalance only smirked. He spent a great deal more time with Theissen since prison and didn’t seem to care what anyone said about it.

“It is big,” Theissen said, ignoring Migdrin. It was hard to, especially when Migdrin suddenly walked through their pool and scared the frog away. Both brothers stood up, giving him a disapproving glare.

“Not funny,” Dalance said, walking back to shore where the horses were starting to raise their heads, satisfied from their drink. Tolbetan had been attending to them but he had gone for more feed a little while ago and had yet to come back.

Migdrin followed him, sloshing more so that he splashed Kinnerlin with a larger wave of water. Kinnerlin protested with a shout. Migdrin’s smile curled, ignoring his protests. Instead he kicked harder, making an even larger wave. “I thought you weren’t going to go on this trip. Things will get so boring when you leave.”

“Cut that out!” Kinnerlin shouted.

Dalance shook his head with a smirk. “Of course I am going to go. I told you I was. I’m sixteen now. That’s when my father left on his journey. It is about time I went on mine.”

Theissen grinned at his older brother. He had found the frog. It was now swimming towards him as if to have a conversation. It hopped into Theissen’s outstretched hand, landing on the scar that had since healed into a clear pink line. Migdrin turned his eyes away as if watching the frog hop out of the water onto Theissen’s shoulder was the most disgusting sight he had ever beheld yet he pretended not to see. Kinnerlin grinned, crossing over to touch the frog also.

“But who am I going to talk to when you’re gone? These twerps?”

Kinnerlin cast him a glare. “Don’t bother. We don’t want to listen to what you have to say anyway.”

“Shut up!” Migdrin snapped, shoving Kinnerlin back.

Kinnerlin only made a face and petted the frog’s head when Theissen held it out, grinning with personal pleasure.

“Come on. You can’t go. All that will be left here of our old pals is Perdif Innkeeperson and Cornik Bakerson, and they’re already busy in their trade. What am I supposed to do? Hang around with Yuld Scribeson?”

Dalance cackled at the thought. “Oh, that would be funny.”

“Sure would,” Kinnerlin murmured, but he ducked out of the way before Migdrin could kick water at him again.

Casting Kinnerlin a glare, Migdrin said to his pal, “You can’t go.”

“I’m leaving next month.” Dalance barely shrugged. “Maybe you ought to rethink about just working as a hired hand. Go back into shoemaking.”

Migdrin stuck out his tongue as if he were vomiting into the river. “No thanks. Stuck smelling tanning fluid, glue, and leather all day? Be serious. I hate that shop. When I can, I’ll move far away from it.”

“Then why should I stay if you are planning to move?” Dalance asked with a smirk. He started to pull on the horses’ halters again, checking their bits and eye shields to make sure they were resting comfortably. He adjusted the buckles so they were not strapped too tight.

With a shrug, Migdrin cast Kinnerlin a devious look and said, “Oh, just to keep it lively.”

He then pushed Kinnerlin to the river.

Coming up, sputtering for breath, Kinnerlin shivered with a glare. He wiped his sopping hair out of his eyes. “You toad! I said stop that! Now Mom is really going to let me have it!”

Migdrin only snorted, wading over to him. “Wimp.”

The frog hopped out of Theissen’s hands, diving straight under the rock that hung over the edge of the small pool.

Jumping to his feet, Kinnerlin held up his clenched fist. “You cow clod! Leave me alone!”

But Migdrin fixed a darker look on him. Then without even stopping, though Dalance called for him to ignore Kinnerlin, he shoved the younger Carpenterson into the water then held him down.

“Cow clod?” he shook Kinnerlin as the boy gasped for air. Then he shoved him under again. “You termite!”

“Hey! Get off him!” Theissen shouted, pushing at Midgrin’s side. He could not budge the sixteen-year-old, too small to make him do nothing more than rock a little in the water.

“Migdrin, stop it!” Dalance hurried back into the river.

But Migdrin did not let Kinnerlin up, growling and shaking him as he held him underwater while the other boy groped upward to claw his way out. “You mouthy little dung worm! I’ll teach you!”

“No!”

Migdrin looked up to where Theissen had been shouting, casting a dirty glare as if to say he was next but what he saw made his eyes grow wide.

The river water rose over him like a giant hand pulling most of the water so that the bottom had only small puddles between limp river plants with wigging tadpoles left. The frog had hopped out from the top of that wave onto the rock then perched to watch the water crash right on top of Migdrin, pressing him down into the river bottom.

Dalance froze.

Kinnerlin heaved up from the river bottom as if pushed out, perhaps dredged out by the same wave, coughing and sputtering mouthfuls of water back into the river as Theissen rushed over. The eight-year-old reached out to pull him onto the riverbank. Only a few seconds later Midgrin clawed his way out, choking and gasping.

“Kinnerlin!” Tolbetan dropped the feedbags he had been carrying and ran down the hill to the river edge to where Theissen managed to get his older brother to shore. “Are you okay?”

Lonse Shoemakerson stood on the hill next to where Tolbetan had been, just staring.

“Are you all right?” Theissen asked, patting Kinnerlin on the back as soon as Tolbetan heaved him up under his arms. Theissen then reached to his brother’s mouth and pulled from it what looked like a stream of water.

Kinnerlin hacked and then breathed in a long breath, watching the water snake back into the river. He looked over at little brother, his heart pounding fast, breathing in deep and slow, and looked around himself, then nodded. “I’m fine.”

The carpenter’s sons helped their brother onto the bank, though Dalance crossed through the river to Migdrin.

Staggering like a drunken man, Migdrin barely got onto his feet as the small river rolled back down over the rounded rocks as if nothing had happened. He whipped around with a glare towards the shore. His friend was right behind him. Dalance shoved him back in the river.

“What did you do that for?” Migdrin shouted, scrambling once more to his feet after landing deep into the river rocks.

Dalance jerked away from him. “You nearly drowned my brother! What do you think?”

The shoemaker’s son narrowed his eyes. “I was only teasing.”

“He could have died!” Dalance turned his back on him, sloshing back to the bank. His other brothers had Kinnerlin resting on a rock just breathing in and out to prove he was fine.

“Get real! I could have died!” Migdrin stomped after him, slapping his wet hand to his chest. He kept a fair distance from Theissen, though, when he made it to shore. That boy was still casting eye daggers at him. “Your kid brother the thief nearly drowned me!”

Dalance whipped around where he was. “What did you say? Did you say something bad about Theissen?”

Migdrin drew back. There was something in Dalance’s eyes that said he would drown his friend himself if Migdrin said another word about his little brother.

Turning once more with a set jaw, Dalance reached down to help his nearly drowned brother onto his feet along with Tolbetan and Theissen. “Let’s go home.”

“You mean I carried those feedbags here all the way for nothing?” Tolbetan whined, slumping his shoulders.

Theissen smirked, reaching out a hand. “I’ll carry one back.”

“I’ll take the other,” Dalance said, also propping Kinnerlin up.

They climbed up the hill, passing Lonse who had not budged from where he stopped. They collected both bags and horses. The boy watched Theissen and only Theissen as they walked by. The carpenter’s son had not noticed, too busy reaching out to Kinnerlin’s clothes, pulling off the water that soaked him through as if they were nothing but cornhusks. In seconds, Kinnerlin’s clothes were perfectly dry though his hair was still wet.

“Now Mom won’t be mad,” Lonse heard Theissen say.

Kinnerlin gave his brother an appreciative grin, wrapping his arm around his shoulder. “You sure are handy to have around.”

Both boys laughed, though Theissen blushed.

 

Dalance did not spend much time with Migdrin after that, but then he had been busy with the last preparations for his adulthood ceremony so no one could tell they had a falling out. Usually he worked in the carpentry shop alongside his father from sunrise to sunset. They had several small orders that still needed to be filled. And though Kinnerlin was skilled enough to do most of the work with them, their father relied mostly on his eldest to put them ahead of schedule so that when he was gone they would not feel the loss of good hands as much.

In the few off-hours Dalance had, he often spent them with Theissen helping him out with his woodwork. Theissen was learning how to piece simple furniture together. He had only just barely made his first stool.

“It’s not bad,” Dalance said, turning it around in his hands before setting it on the ground.

Theissen peered at it with some discouragement. “It is hard to make the legs even. And I couldn’t bore the holes right. It’s not good at all.”

Snorting, Dalance shook his head, squatting down so that he could sit on the stool. “It is fine. Look. It holds my weight. It is balanced. Besides, you’re only eight. I didn’t make a stool like this until I was nine.”

“Liar.” But Theissen was smiling, giving his brother a shove as if to knock him off. However, it really was sturdy. “I heard Dad brag to the shoemaker that you were making stools at seven.”

“Lopsided ones,” Dalance retorted. He got up. “Yours are just as good as mine when I was your age. You’ll do fine when you get to be as old as me.”

That only encouraged a sigh. Theissen pulled his stool over and sat on it. “You really are going away soon, aren’t you?”

Dalance nodded. He rested himself on the sawhorse.

“I’ll miss you.”

Dalance rubbed his brother’s hair so that it stuck up in all directions. “I’ll miss you too, but I’ve got to do it.”

Theissen was silent for a moment then sighed again. “I know.”

They said nothing for a while. Instead they listened to the doves that roosted in the rafters, cooing with contentment though later their father was sure to chase them off. Their droppings speckled their roosts, the remains of their old nests still crammed in the corners of the beams. The spring wind rustled the shop’s shingles, the glass windows also rattling somewhat. Something moved among the sawdust, the rustling of the wood chips and shavings stirring only slightly. Perhaps it was mice, though their cats seemed to keep those in check. There was something nice about just sitting in there, smelling the various odors of wood pitch and saps. Distantly they could detect the faint stink of wood stain from the barely dry furniture they had just been treating earlier that day. It was a smell they were well familiar with. It was the smell of home. All the sounds were of home too. And though Dalance knew he would hear and smell those kinds of things in other places, even in the shop he would some day set up, somehow he felt that any other shop would feel foreign to him. Of course, a great deal of that had to do with the various hand impressions left in the wooden walls that Theissen had made when he was barely walking, or the small collection of sawdust and wood curl molded dolls his father had saved on a high shelf. Indeed, nowhere else would he ever see that.

Glancing at his brother, Dalance tilted his head. Closing one eye, he said after peeking once beyond the open door, “I know Dad told me not to ask you this until you were much older, but since I might not be able to see you again for a long time, I have to know. Theissen, how do you do it?”

His little brother looked up with a blink. “Do what?”

“Magic,” Dalance said.

Theissen tilted his head like his brother, resting his hand on his cheek. “Magic? You mean the same stuff that Magician does? Move things?”

Dalance nodded.

Theissen just shrugged. “I ask it to.”

Dalance nearly choked, dropping his head as if suddenly too tired to move. “No. No. I mean, I can ask a chair to move, and it won’t go anywhere, but you—you made that river rise up. You can make anything move, even up hill. How do you do that? They don’t obey anyone else?”

“They obey the Magician,” Theissen said.

“Yes, but he knows special words to say. Spells.” Dalance crouched down next to him again on the sawdust. “You don’t say anything to make them move. I’ve watched you.”

Drawing his arms in to himself as if very uncomfortable with the conversation, Theissen frowned. “Well, it isn’t like water and things understand Jatten. It’s not like that.”

“And that frog?” Dalance moved in closer.

“Frogs don’t talk like people do,” Theissen started to sound annoyed. “I just, well, I sort of tugged and he came, like he was curious.”

“Tugged? Tugged on what?”

Theissen lowered his eyes. “I don’t think you can see it. Only I can.”

“See what?” Dalance asked “The magic?”

His little brother nodded then shrugged. “I guess.”

Feeling his heart beat with excitement, Dalance started to whisper. “What does it look like?”

Theissen looked up at him, his eyes flickering anxiously. “You don’t think I am strange, then?”

Shaking his head eagerly, Dalance scooted closer. “No. It sounds great. I wish I could see it. What is it like?”

Lifting his chin, Theissen suddenly smiled. “It is like that river. It is everywhere, flowing, going places, moving always.”

“What color is it?” Dalance asked.

Laughing, Theissen said, “It doesn’t really have a color. It is kind of like Mom’s sheer curtains. You can see through it, but you can also see it. And some of it can be very distracting, especially when the magician uses his words to change the flow.”

The magician. They didn’t often talk about him except to warn Theissen to stay out of his way. The man never looked kindly on the boy and the magician had become rather contentious toward the carpenter’s family since Theissen had been born. Despite this, Theissen was well aware and observant of the man. It was almost as if the very act of the magician using a spell drew the boy to him, and then to trouble.

“So magic flows like a river?” Dalance said, changing the topic somewhat.

Theissen nodded again. “Yes, though sometimes it stagnates and gets very smelly. When it knots up like that I really don’t like it.”

“Stagnates? Smelly? And what do you mean ‘knots up’?” Dalance leaned back against the sawhorse again. All the smells he could breathe in that room were pleasant.

There was a rested smile on Theissen’s face. He looked relieved that he could talk about these things, almost as if he had been worried that he was doing something wrong by using magic.

“Well, the flow is also like strings of yarn. If you leave it alone it stays in order, but if meddled with, it knots up, kind of like tangles of a rat’s nest. And it smells like, I don’t know, old stinky rotten something.” He picked up a scrap of wood off the floor. “If you change a thing different from what it really is, it gets like that. You know, like making a piece of wood a diamond or a gold coin.”

“You can do that?” Dalance’s face had frozen with increased surprise.

“I did it once. What I got was awful, and I changed them back,” Theissen said.

“But why?” Dalance was already imagining all the gold and jewels they could make from just common wood scraps. “We’d be rich!”

Theissen only shrugged. “No. They weren’t real. Something was wrong with them. The flow stopped and the stuff I made smelled funny. And when I touched them, they made me feel funny. I had to change them back. I was afraid they might hurt somebody.”

What he was describing connected in Dalance’s mind. He had heard of these things from his uncles who lived near the forest Brakirs Town where there were demons. Some magic, he knew, was dangerous. The reasons for why had always been unclear to him, but what he did know was that only skilled professionals were permitted to sell their magic skills to others, mostly to prevent the creation of demons. Amateurs often made hasty magic judgements, and demons tended to be the result. Of course, history also told him that some professional magicians also created demons, purposefully or inadvertent. Either way, he figured that was what Theissen was describing. Demonic stones had a way of cursing the owner with an evil touch.

“Anyway,” Theissen drew in a sigh and got up, “I think playing with color is more fun. Changing the shape of things takes a bit out of you.”

“It does?” Dalance began to wonder how much energy it really took to use magic.

Theissen set his stool aside with the other furniture he was practicing on. “Well, yeah. You really have to concentrate on several things to make it take shape the way you want it. Color changing is more like shifting to the side. It is all about light anyway.”

Sometimes Dalance wished Theissen wasn’t so casual about the magic he could perform. They never did get all the color touched handprints off of all the linens, though whenever they found one these days their mother made Theissen put it back to right. “What about moving things? How do you do that?”

Trying to cover a laugh, Theissen hesitated to say. “Well, uh, making things move is actually me making the wind move it or the ground to push it along.”

“But what about those dolls?” Dalance pointed up to the sawdust doll collection.

With a shrug, his brother said, “Those? Oh, I guess I was just shifting around the parts. That kind of moving is very exhausting. I get tired just thinking about it.”

How Theissen had that kind of energy when he was younger, Dalance decided he didn’t know. Theissen had already walked over to the corner to get the broom so they could sweep the floor, ending their conversation as if they had talked about nothing important. It was clear that he had to stop asking his brother questions, even if he wanted to know more. Besides, their free time was short. Part of the ceremony would take place in the shop. It had to be clean when the village elders arrived. The shop usually had a semblance of clean when they worked. It had only been so overrun since their last furniture order. A tradesman from Pepersin Town had sold his stock and was begging them for more.

“Hey, you haven’t cleaned up yet?” Kinnerlin had walked in just as Dalance had gotten to his feet. He looked straight at Dalance. “Dad wants you to pick up the glass sheeting with me from the glassmaker’s shop right now.”

Another order they were just finishing that week. They had been waiting on two long panes of glass for a particular cabinet that would be sent to Liptan Town along the northern shore. They usually had orders for some of the tiny hamlets not far from the coast. The fishing villages required even less furniture, usually requesting stools and folding tables rather than high back chairs and china cabinets. Most of their business was along the West Coast in the Pepersin Peninsula, though some went as far north as Tucken Town. Once they got an order from a town inland beyond the Dondit and Tuscon Mountains. They had to take the south forest road to South Town to deliver it. Their father had been gone over a month that time. It was then that the carpenter’s sons realized that the world was a very big place.

Nodding to Theissen, Dalance set his broom aside and marched out with Kinnerlin. Theissen watched them go.

 

Yes. The world was a very large place. Theissen had become aware of himself in it as he watched his oldest brother head out towards the edge of their property with his carpenter’s pack on his back and his tools well stowed in the belt around his waist.

The villagers waved to Dalance, wishing him well. He looked smart in the new vest his mother had sewn for him, embroidered in the markings of Lumen Village so that he would not forget where he had come from. The sash from Alania was tied around his waist with the same markings. He had his coat rolled up and strapped to the underside of his pack with his bedroll, his water bladder dangling from the lower strap. Every simple necessity was packed inside the bag, the weight pulling down on his strong shoulders that he held high to show the world he was ready. The weight of it was nothing to the elation Dalance was feeling as he set off to make his way in the world. But Dalance was leaving him behind.

 A lump had somehow lodged in Theissen’s throat, though he put on a smile for his eldest brother as he waved goodbye. He only hoped Dalance would do as he had promised their mother, to write at least weekly if not more often. Of course, it was dependent on how faithfully the mail was delivered. Sometimes their village did not get a mail pouch for weeks.

“Goodbye!” Tolbetan called out, jumping up to make sure his brother could see him. Theissen was half tempted to make the ground mound up under his feet so that he could be seen. However, he had learned from experience that doing some magic made people nervous.

Perhaps that was why he was hesitant to answer Dalance’s questions. He didn’t want his brother to hate him. Theissen watched as Dalance continued up the road, sad he didn’t say more. Whenever anyone else knew how much magic he really could see and manipulate, the more they seemed to hate him. He could practically taste the hate the magician had for him, and that man appeared to be the only one who really knew how far he could go with his magic touch. Yuld hated him only a degree less, but that was because the scholar could not comprehend how he was doing what he did during class and Yuld wanted to know everything more than everyone else.

But Dalance was gone, passed out of sight and already on the north road. It would be the last Theissen would see of him for perhaps the rest of his life if neither of them ever returned to Lumen Village.

There would be feasting that evening for the rest of the family, though the carpenter’s sons gathered along the fence dreaming of when they would become men. Kinnerlin was now the oldest apprentice, already imagining his send off. Kolbran leaned on the fence next to Tolbetan, mimicking his brother’s posture, not entirely aware of what was happening since he was only four. Theissen wondered if Kolbran would remember Dalance at all.

Giving one last look, Theissen turned and walked with his brothers over to the tables to pick up what was left of their meals. Dessert would be served after.

Most of the chatter around the tables was gossip. Family gatherings were collections of that sort of thing, really. Who was getting married? Who was having a child? Why wasn’t Alania married yet? Those kind of things. His relatives sometimes talked about him, though in lower whispers asking things such as: has he conjured anything dangerous yet, or has he figured out how to make them rich with his ‘powers’. Between these questions and questions about Alania’s suitability for a match with a man in hamlet down south, Theissen found himself wishing he could not hear as well as he could.

He snuck off towards the carpenter shop when his aunts brought out the plum pies. Besides disliking the taste of plums, Theissen just wanted to be alone. He had lost his favorite brother, and suddenly the world seemed lonely.

“So, you’re hiding, Thief?”

Theissen halted at the edge of the corner where the wood for heating was stacked. Migdrin leaned against the wall there.

“I’m not a thief,” Theissen said, not moving further though the only way to the shop was around his oldest brother’s friend.

Getting off the wall, Migdrin sauntered over, his eyes cast down on Theissen’s face with a narrow glare. “Sure, you’re not. Thief. And I’m not a Shoemakerson.”

Theissen sidestepped to go around him. “Leave me alone.”

Migdrin didn’t. He stepped out his leg to block him. Then he reached out his hand, grabbing Theissen’s head as if to shove him into the ground. “You can’t talk to me like that now that your big brother is gone.”

With the pressure on his head, Theissen could barely see beyond the underside of Migdrin’s arm and shirt ties. Staring at the unbleached linen, he could only hear the grinding threats Dalance’s friend hissed at him.

“And if you ever interfere with me again, I will make you regret it, you tiny nothing of a kid. Got that?” Migdrin shoved Theissen’s head hard into his shoulders.

Jerking away from him, Theissen stared up defiantly. “No! I don’t have to, you bully!”

Migdrin reached out, swiping at him. “What did you call me? I’ll—”

But he could not go another step further. His feet stuck in the ground. He could not lift them.

Theissen squeezed himself against the far fence, sticking his tongue out at Migdrin as he passed. “Get yourself out of that, ugly. I’m not going to.”

The shoemaker’s son stared down at his feet. Both of them were sunken ankle-deep into the earth as if he were stuck in mud, the dirt around it was hardened though. Barely able to move his feet in his shoes, Migdrin yanked on the laces. “I’ll get you!”

The carpenter’s fourth son was already gone around the corner, laughing at him. “Stupid! Come and catch me!”

Theissen had already gone back to the party, dashing straight into the crowd where his aunts were dishing out the pie. Kinnerlin scooted over to make a place for him, glancing back once at where he had come from. He barely saw Migdrin and frowned.

“What’s he doing here now? Dalance is gone.”

Theissen just shrugged and reached out for the other dessert that he had not seen before. Someone had made a pear crumble. Alania was serving their table, though she seemed to also follow Kinnerlin’s gaze when Theissen arrived. She frowned.

“Stay away from him, Theissen,” she said, dishing out a plate for one of their cousins. “I heard he nearly drowned Kinnerlin a few weeks ago.”

Looking up, Theissen blinked. It was clear no one had told her about what he had done to Migdrin. Tolbetan nudged Theissen in the side, scraping off the strawberries he had off his plate onto Theissen’s. He grinned, gesturing for him to look at Kinnerlin. Theissen did. Kinnerlin met his gaze and nodded.

“Don’t worry. We won’t let him get to you.”

Alania snorted, serving up a portion of her pie for Kolbran. “Be serious. Theissen can handle him on his own. He’s a wizard.”

Wizard.

Theissen had heard that word a number of times before though had not quite understood what it really meant until then. It had always been said in hushed voices with glances cast at him during gossip at family gatherings. No one said it in the between times, though he had heard adults use it in their gossip along the road. Until then, he had though it one of those dirty words their mother didn’t like them saying—one of those words that would get his mouth washed out with soap if he repeated them. Even now, Alania snuck a glance at her mother just to make sure she did not hear her.

“But Migdrin is so mean,” Kinnerlin said, slumping over the table. “And stupid. I don’t think he gets that Theissen could—”

“Could what?” Their cousin Milrina who was Theissen’s age skipped over, grinning at the brothers before scooting in between them to get some pie.

Tolbetan and Kinnerlin rolled their eyes, claming up.

“Go away.” Tolbetan shoved her arm.

Theissen got up, scooting out from his spot. “You can sit here.”

Smiling, Milrina did so. His brothers frowned. That ended that, and Theissen was frankly glad.

Milrina was actually their second cousin, a weaver’s daughter and second child. They moved into Lumen Village that last year at the request of the town elders since the weaver was superfluous labor in his home town of Pepersin. Lumen had lost their best weavers the winter before last to a sickness. All they had were rudimentary weavers for utility purposes like nets, burlap, ropes, and flour sacks. Milrina’s family brought back cloth-making and fine embroidered patterns. Milrina was in training to be a weaver and seamstress, however when she had free time she spent most of it with her cousins. So far, only Theissen didn’t seemed to mind having her around. Doreen was jealous of her, and Alania thought she was just plain silly.

“So, could what? Is your tongue stuck?” Milrina said things like that. Her parents were quirky folk, apt to tease and banter when with others. The carpenter often said they were too well learned for their own good.

“None of your business,” Kinnerlin said, going back to eating his pie.

Milrina merely tilted her head and looked at Theissen. “So, are you done with making all that wood stuff? Are you coming back to class tomorrow?”

Slouching a bit, Theissen nodded. “Yes. Dad says we are all caught up. Tolbetan and I are going to class again. Kinnerlin will be staying in the shop from now on.”

“Lucky!” Milrina said, giving Kinnerlin a jealous stare. “You don’t have to listen to boring man anymore.”

Kinnerlin smothered a laugh, as he secretly agreed. Instead he merely shrugged then lifted his chin with a bit of pride. “I’m the head apprentice now. Dad needs me in the shop.”

“He is so lucky,” Milrina repeated. She did that a lot, repeated herself. “Lucky, lucky, lucky.”

“So not fair.” Her brother Tebbit suddenly came up, reaching in for another piece of pie. He gave Kinnerlin an appreciative nod and pulled himself out again. “I want to stay home and just practice the trade. Dad says we can’t until we are at least fourteen. He doesn’t think the budding ceremony is a good marker for maturity. So unfair.”

That made Kinnerlin smirk. His cousin’s voice had started changing just that winter. His budding ceremony had been scheduled almost immediately afterward. Since then, he prepared to take the final examination to he would earn his Jatte school certificate. He had his last lesson with Yuld a week right after the winter thaw started. From then on, all he had to focus on was his trade. Everyone had looked on their cousin jealously when that happened, Theissen more than most. The break they got from studies before Dalance’s adulthood ceremony had been so nice. It was painful to think about them starting again.

But as Theissen looked back, noticing Migdrin’s shadow lean against their house, he could feel that his studies were nothing to the stagnant swirling of hate Migdrin held festering in his chest. Though it was not knotted magic, it had a stink to it that leaned toward the demonic. Without Dalance to keep Migdrin in check, as the boy reminded Theissen out by the shop, who knew what he would do?

Chapter Four: Everyone Says He’s Special

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So, they haven’t found him?” Millerswife asked Millinerswife

“No. His parents say he left for good.”

“But why? That boy could have had the shop if he took his apprenticeship seriously.”

The milliner’s wife frowned slightly, leaning in to whisper her tasty bit of gossip with a reproving shake of her head. “The eldest Shoemakerson was always trouble, if you ask me. It is good he left. But, I heard he was seen at the magician’s home the day before he just up and left.”

“I heard that too. I wonder what he was buying?”

“Do you think he paid for it with the silver spoons he stole from his mother’s cupboard?”

“No, he stole those after. She said they were there the night before she found him missing.”

“So he left at night, then?”

“It appears so.”

Theissen heard it all throughout the village. It had been barely a week after his brother Dalance had left as a journeyman carpenter, and Theissen had been expecting Migdrin to jump him from around a corner again to fulfill his threat. Somehow this was unexpected, though not an improbable concept. The boy had said he was planning on leaving the village. Theissen only wondered why it came sooner rather than later.

Still keeping an eye out for the eldest Shoemakerson, Theissen continued to walk with Tolbetan to where Yuld held classes.

The village school congregated in the building attached to the village library. It was an open hall with benches and pull down desks of wrought iron and wood. Each day they had to bring their own slate, paper, chalk, pencils and books because the classroom was also used for public trials and meetings. It could not accommodate their supplies during those hours. Fortunately not every child attended Yuld’s classes. Only those whose parents could afford to pay the teacher’s fees. Of course, some parents attempted to teach their children on their own, feeling that Yuld put unnecessary emphasis on history rather than drilling their children in law like he ought to. That was what they told themselves anyway, saying it was his fault that Theissen had stolen the magician’s celestial ball even after taking his classes; he hadn’t been taught the law properly, they said.

But Yuld Scribeson was not a neglectful teacher. He drilled every child in the law each morning before he turned their studies to things like writing and penmanship. Then he bored them with Jatte history. It wasn’t the history so much that was boring. It was the way Yuld told it. He never lost that pompous air; that air that Theissen loved to ruffle because it really was so presumptuous to assume everyone in Lumen Village cared about how intelligent the schoolteacher looked. Most of them were simple children of tradesmen or farmers with little care except to succeed their fathers and mothers in their future professions.

The two Carpentersons arrived at the public building where most of the children were playing games outside. Since the golden ball incident most of the boys gave Theissen a wide berth, though the girls always had—always except for his cousin who skipped right up to him, breathless and laughing. Milrina never did anything without laughing first.

“Ha! Theissen, come and play with us!” She reached out her hand.

Theissen smiled and took her hand, joining her group of girls who stared at him with expressions of surprise and some horror they tried hard to mask.

“Sissy boy!” Tolbetan said with his own laugh, joining his friends.

Despite the initial discomfort, something Theissen had to live with regardless of if it had been a boy or girl. The boys were running around, playing a game of tag. The girls had gathered in groups, some playing with their dolls, though Milrina’s group was gathered around a set of smooth sticks piled on top of each other in a mess, attempting to pick one up without making any of the others move. The games continued even to the ringing of the bell.

Yuld stood importantly on the top step, waiting with his hands clasped behind his back. Though every child looked inclined to stay outside despite it being school hour, they all stopped their games and headed to the doors, walking past the teacher one by one. He eyed each one, focusing his terse glares on the dirtier boys and the whispering girls. There was to be silence when the teacher stood at the head. So far they had failed to behave. When all had gone in, the teacher followed.

As usual, they took their places in their seats and began to recite the basic laws of the land, including what punishment was attached to each law broken. Almost every law in Jatte had a punishment affixed. Thieves had their hands slashed and spent time in prison. Adulterers were castrated then cast out of communities. Vandals were stripped and then tattooed all over their skin in abusive writing, made to stand in a public place for all to see for a week. Murderers were executed, usually beheaded though if there was not an axe around, a hanging usually did the trick. There were other laws with less harsh punishments, but the fear the Jatte government wanted to put on criminals was emphasized when children were young so that they were less inclined to pursue dishonest and cruel life choices.

“And today’s law we will study is the law against dishonesty. Who can tell me what happens to a liar?” Yuld waited next to his large chalkboard, his chalk raised and his head tilted to listen.

Hands went up. He pointed to one.

One of the fishmonger’s daughters rose from her seat and recited: “Anyone who tells a falsehood to their neighbor with the purpose to deceive him is punished according to the extremity of the lie.”

“And what punishment is that?” Yuld asked.

Another set of hands shot up. If someone didn’t volunteer, Yuld most always chose a student who wasn’t paying attention. It was the worst kind of humiliation. Theissen had raised his hand, but for him that was a guarantee that he would never get picked. Yuld only paid him any attention when he looked distracted.

“Groverson.” Yuld pointed to a tall boy of ten years.

Standing, the son to the man who owned the apple groves said, “Perpetual liars are to have their tongues cut out.”

“And a first time liar?” Yuld prompted.

The grover’s son frowned. “I don’t know. His tongue gets washed out with soap?”

Several of the kids broke into snickers. Theissen could hear Milrina’s identifiable laughter a few rows behind her. The girls sat together and often giggled over there.

Their teacher gave the grover’s son a sharp look. “No. That is for children. What happens to an adult caught in a lie for the first time?”

“His tongue is pierced,” another boy said, out of turn.

Yuld slapped his chalk down. “Did I call on you?”

There was silence.

“No, I did not.” Yuld paused. “Yes, a liar’s tongue is pierced, and a ring is set into it. It will remain there for five years. After that it can be removed.”

He continued his lesson, making the children copy down the exact words to the law as he wrote them on the chalkboard.

Theissen felt something poke him in the back. At first he just thought someone had moved his slate too fast, but it happened again. He didn’t want to glance over his shoulder since Yuld had a strict face-forward classroom policy, however, he was poked a third time and it felt like it was a pen tip going from one side of his back to the other.

He heard a snicker behind him.

“Shh!” Yuld hissed, raising a finger. “Write it ten times.”

Obeying, Theissen took out one of his papers and started writing, dipping the pen into his inkwell and dabbing off the extra. With his small hand, it was still hard to form each letter of Jatten well. His penmanship matched his age level, but he always found it unsatisfactory. There were times he was tempted to just touch the paper and make the ink words form more smoothly on the page. However, his father had once said there was value in being able to do something from practice. Practice was key, his father often said, especially when talking about carpentry. Though Theissen knew there was an easy way out of hard work for him, he took the time to practice and practice doing things the traditional way, no magic involved.

Someone poked him in the back again. This time it was meant to get his attention, with one sharp jab in the middle of his back.

“Thief. You smell like toe jam.”

Not bothering to look back, Theissen whispered, knowing who was poking him from his voice. “Do not. Lonse, you smell like rat droppings.”

Lonse poked him in the back again, harder this time. “You wet the bed.”

“You’re smelling yourself,” Theissen said back, writing on his paper a little harder.

He felt a sharp poke on the back of his neck.

“OW!” Theissen jumped up. Then he whipped around.

Several of the boys leaned back from him, gasping.

“What are you doing?” Yuld snapped.

Normally Theissen was not one to bring an adult into a private spat. However, he pointed straight at Lonse who was sitting right behind him. “He poked me!”

“He did more than that,” Milrina murmured.

“What?” Theissen twisted around as if trying to see the back of his neck.

“Look, look, look! Your shirt.” She pointed now.

Tugging at the back of his shirt to see what was wrong with it, Theissen could hear the girls start to giggle again. Some of the boys laughed but most retreated further from him. Lonse was grinning, his chin lifted.

Unable to see what was wrong, Theissen reached out and stretched the shirt fabric out of shape so that the front suddenly was in back, and he was wearing the back on his front. Staring down, he saw what his cousin had seen.

Writing.

He could read them even upside down.

Thief.

“Seems fitting,” Yuld said. “Sit back down and continue with your lesson.”

Theissen didn’t. Instead he reached over to the ink words soaked in his muslin top. Pulling on them like he had the water from his brother’s clothes, Theissen felt it puddle in his palm. Turning with a look at Lonse, he tossed the ink back at him. Lonse jumped backward with a shriek, trying to cover his face. However, when he felt nothing, no pain or anything anyway, he lowered his hands. Theissen reversed his shirt back to normal as his classmates broke into louder laughter, pointing straight at Lonse’s face.

“I said sit,” Yuld ordered, thinking the laughter still had to do with the words on Theissen’s shirt. However, when the carpenter’s son sat down Yuld saw the cause of the commotion. Jumping up, he shouted, “Carpenterson! What have you done to him?”

Theissen gave a shrug, putting on an innocent face. “I was returning his ink.”

It wasn’t a lie so Yuld could not punish him for that. However, the teacher rose once more and pointed to the far wall. “You! Go there now!”

Rising with a sigh, Theissen cast Lonse a small glance before doing as ordered.

“And you! Go wash your face!” Yuld pointed at Lonse.

Lonse rose, his eyes now wide, realizing that Theissen had not missed him at all. He dashed out of his seat to find the washroom.

“And walk!”

Assuming the position of a rule breaker, a position Theissen knew well in Yuld’s class, he knelt with his head against the wall and his arms folded above him. He remained there for the rest of the lesson.

 

“That was some stunt you pulled!” Lonse pushed Theissen down as soon as he had stepped out of the public building.

Milrina chased after her cousin, helping him up and dusting off his knees. Both she and Theissen glared up at the shoemaker’s son. However, Milrina burst into a laugh, throwing out her chin.

“Ha! It’s still there, ugly.”

Lonse’s face turned dark red. He clenched his fists, raising one. However, Yuld walked out of the doorway soon after the rest of the children, the clicking of his shoes heralding his coming so Lonse lowered his fist. Instead he got in close to Theissen and hissed through his teeth, “I’ll get you, thief. And you too, girly.”

“Ugly.” Milrina said again. “Ugly, ugly.”

The shoemaker’s son nearly jumped at her. Theissen reached out and held her back, blocking Lonse’s way.

“Ugly,” a older boy said to Lonse, walking by. He cackled as he went down the road with the others. They chanted the word that was still written somewhat on Lonse’s forehead, though now just red from the impact against his skin. The ink writing had been in clear neat penmanship, the kind Theissen wished he had.

“Ugly.”

“Shut up! It won’t come all off!” Lonse spun around and shouted at them.

Tolbetan parted from another classmate with a snort, waving Theissen over to join him homeward.

Dusting the dirt off his backside, Theissen reached out to his cousin to join them. Milrina took it gleefully, practically skipping to his side. They held hands as they walked home.

“Come here,” Yuld said, beckoning the shoemaker’s son over.

Lonse turned with a glare, his tears budding from the corners of his eyes. He did obey, though he looked less happy at joining his teacher than he did at being called ugly.

“I have something that will take it off,” Yuld said, reaching out to his forehead.

With a nod, Lonse followed him inside.

 

“Your son humiliated my son! And during school, no less!” The shoemaker’s wife’s face was near purple as she shouted at the carpenter’s wife.

Theissen’s mother looked somewhat ruffled, knowing her son was in the carpentry shop working on another stool. She didn’t want to disturb him when he was learning his trade, especially when he was doing so well. He was getting rather skilled at making stools, though his confidence in his work reflected his ambition for perfection in the art. His father said he would make a great carpenter one day if that really was what he was meant to do. With all the magic Theissen performed at whim, they started to wonder if he should not be trained in wizardry. Unfortunately the only person qualified to teach him in magic was the magician. Carpentry seemed the preferred substitute to learning a trade under someone who wanted Theissen dead. Unfortunately this still meant they had to field complaints about their son’s uncontrolled magical actions.

“He came home crying that your boy wrote nasty words on his face with his magic,” Shoemakerswife said.

“I will talk to him.”

“Don’t bother, Mom,” Alania came in from outside carrying a produce basket, passing the shoemaker’s wife with a disapproving look on her face. “Tolbetan told me that Lonse wrote  ‘Thief’ on Theissen’s shirt during class. Theissen was only giving the ink back.”

The carpenter’s wife stared at her eldest child.

“It’s a lie!” Shoemakerswife snapped.

Alania glared at her. “It isn’t. Milrina Weaversdaughter also told me about it when I stopped by.”

That silenced the woman for a minute. Then she said, “Well, your boy deserved it. He is a thief.”

The carpenter’s wife gently pushed Alania into the house, suddenly standing in the doorway like a tower of anger. “Get out! I will not have you in my house calling my son such names! Now out!”

Stumbling back, their neighbor practically tripped over herself to get away. She looked like she was about to utter a curse at the carpenter’s wife, but she muttered them instead as she crossed the yard. Only when she was out beyond the fence did she dare say anything, and it was in a screech of a shout. “If that’s the way you Carpenters behave, then we are no longer friends!”

She stomped off down the lane, the dust stirring around her skirts as she went.

Carpenterswife turned toward Alania and frowned as she closed the lower half of the door. “Did you come home to stir up trouble?”

Her eldest child made a face then turned in towards the kitchen with her things, setting down the basket she had been carrying. “No, but I’m glad I did. I don’t like the Shoemakers. Migdrin was always mean to Kinnerlin and the rest, and Lonse is a little monster. Milrina says he throws rocks into Auntie Weaverswife’s chicken yard to scare them. They won’t lay eggs now. He’s been teasing her too whenever Theissen is not around.”

“Whenever Theissen is not around,” her mother murmured aloud, her thoughts turning over in her head. “Yes. I’ve noticed Milrina comes over to be with him a lot. Do you think it is because he can protect her, or does Milrina like him?”

Alania rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Oh, Mom…. Not that again. Theissen is only eight. It isn’t like things won’t change when he is older. Give it a rest.”

Her mother frowned at her. “Alania, I am a mother. I cannot let this one thing rest. And since you have failed to find a suitor, I have to send you off to find one, and that gets costly. I am also looking out for Milrina. It would be better that she had a match arranged. Theissen would be perfect for her.”

The carpenter’s wife tromped irritably back to the bread dough she had set to rise before the shoemaker’s wife had come over, then started to punch it down, perhaps taking her frustrations out on it. Her eldest kept her mouth shut. It was better to avoid the topic altogether if she wanted any peace. However, even she could see the two plotting mothers plan out their children’s lives, feeling sorry for her special little brother. Though her bond with Theissen was not like Dalance’s was with him, she felt she had to watch out for him in her own way. Befriending Milrina helped.

Milrina was Theissen’s one good friend, the one friend that did not look at his scarred palms and call him a thief behind his back. Despite their odd quirks, their cousins had become their best allies in the village since the golden ball incident. The public betrayal of all the village boys stung Theissen more each day, though he pretended that their distance did not hurt him. In a way, she knew Theissen had always been lonely, set apart by his magic.

She finished up her kitchen tasks, silently watching her mother take up the bread dough and knead it into shape. Dinner would be served in a few hours and there were still a million things to do around the house. Half of them consisted of keeping her little sister Doreen busy with her lessons. The other half was busy with packing for her long trip to Pepersin Town. Her aunt from there had found a family with a suitable bachelor seeking a wife. It would begin a series of embarrassing matches if she didn’t find a suitable husband soon. Already eighteen, almost nineteen, her mother was starting to believe that her daughter would never get married. Alania just didn’t see the point to marrying simply because she had reached a certain age. Thinking of this, the idea of her mother setting up her brother for marriage drew up several issues. She knew it was a sign that they were worried about his future as much as they were worried about hers.

Alania brought out the feed for the chickens, watching the hens hurry out into the yard. The roosters strutted over, making their way as kings among the cluster of fat hens. She noticed Doreen sitting on the bench outside the house weaving daisies together. Doreen often skipped out on housework when she could, though there were times Alania saw her peeking into the carpentry shop as if jealous of the boys learning their trade. It bothered Alania some, but she also had her moments when she wished she didn’t have to marry to have money to pay for things like cloth and pearls. But her mother often said jealously was ugly, and a lazy woman was even uglier. Then she usually added, ‘And for goodness sake get back to cleaning. Someone has got to do it.’

She had only wished that someone didn’t have to be her.

“He’s in there,” Doreen said, motioning to the carpenter shop.

“Who?” Alania asked, setting down her basket of feed.

“Theissen,” Doreen said. She weaved another flower into her garland.

Alania turned, picking up her basket to finish her work. “So. He is always in there at this time.”

“I asked him.”

Alania turned again.

“I asked him how he makes it.” Doreen did not look up.

“Makes what?” Alania said. “A stool?”

Doreen raised her eyes. She always held a serious expression as if smiling was too hard for her. She slowly shook her head. “No. The magic.”

Alania froze. “Dad said—”

“Dalance asked him.”

She set her basket down again. “And what did Theissen say?”

Setting her garland aside, Doreen frowned deeper. “He says he can see it. He says no one else can.”

Alania waited, wondering if he said anything else. Dalance had not told her he had asked Theissen about the magic he could do. She had believed that they were to keep their promise to their father. She certainly tried to. Now she wanted to ask him.

“It’s not fair,” Doreen said. She stared at the ground, tears forming in her eyes.

“I know, we can’t learn carpentry,” Alania said, getting up.

Doreen shook her head. “No. Not that. Who cares about that? I want to do magic.”

Tilting her head, Alania recalled feeling the same way at times. However, for Theissen lately it had only caused him trouble.

“Dad says he’s special. Mom says he’s special. Milrina says he’s special. Everybody says he’s special!” Doreen kicked the ground. “I want to be special!”

“You are special.” Alania crouched down again, inching close to her side.

Shaking her head violently, Doreen sobbed harder. “Am not. I’m only the second girl. They already have you. Nobody wants me.”

Leaning back first, Alania suddenly reached her arm around her little sister, pulling her close. “Well, I’ve always wanted you. I was mad when Theissen was born. I wanted a sister.”

“Really?” Doreen looked up at her with moist eyes. “Then how come you are mean to me sometimes?”

“Sometimes you act lazy,” Alania said.

Doreen made a face.

“Come on. Momma will want us to help with dinner.”

Still making that face, Doreen didn’t move. “That isn’t special. Who cares about dinner? Why don’t the boys make dinner?”

Alania tugged on her to stand. “The boys don’t make dinner because they don’t know how. They’d probably put wood shavings in it and then we’d all be sick.”

To that Doreen gave a small smile. That was the closest Alania had ever seen her happy. Of course, after she left to Pepersin her mother would rely on Doreen for help around the house. Then her importance in the home would be pounded into her. After all, everyone needed to eat. Everyone needed clean clothes and an abundant supply of soap and towels. They were the ones to keep the home livable. Her mother used to chasten her when Alania felt her job was menial and insignificant by saying the world would destroy itself if it weren’t for the cooking, cleaning and nurturing of dutiful mothers and wives. Then she’d add with a sense of pride that they were the guardians of the haven they called home.

Both girls went indoors, finishing up the afternoon tasks.

Theissen peeked his head out the door. He sighed then turned to go back inside. Doreen’s voice had carried, but her feelings had never been secret to him. She had asked him to show her how to make magic on a number of occasions, but he was just not able to do it. And that always made her mad at him. Tolbetan and Kinnerlin were also jealous at times. He could never tell if Dalance had been, but then being the eldest son gave him perks that none of them had so such jealousy didn’t suit him.

His brothers had paused in their work, but when they saw him come back inside they returned to it as if nothing had happened. Their father wasn’t home. He was out delivering a cabinet to the Potters. Potterswife was preparing for her daughter’s wedding and they needed a gift suitable for the occasion. He was also delivering some chairs to the Tinsmiths.

Going back to his workstation, Theissen picked up the sandpaper and his piece of wood then started sanding it again. All he could hear were the scrapings of the planer Kinnerlin was using and the grinding noise of the hand drill Tolbetan was struggling with. They rarely spoke when they worked on their projects.

 

 

Kicking the dust down the lane with the basket swinging in his hands, Theissen trotted past the stone wall of the high road leading to the skirts of the village where the Weavers lived. His mother had sent him after a jar of jam their aunt kept in her pantry. They had brought some from their old village where they had owned plum and apricot trees. His mother wanted both the plum and apricot jam, but he was thinking about forgetting her request for plum.

The wood fences rose around him, edging the Taylor’s yard and the Milliner’s yard, and the yard of the Cheesemakers. Their fences joined that of the Milkman’s where he kept five strong milk cows that lowed when they saw him. Theissen smiled at the fat animals, wishing that he knew what they thought. Though he could influence them to come to him out of curiosity, other living things’ thoughts were still a mystery to him. Some things were never influenced by magic.

Once Theissen crested the hill, he started to hear distant shouts. It sounded like playing at first, echoing in and out of the birch trees that lined these roads and extended into the grove at the edge of town, but as he got closer he could tell they were screams.

He walked faster then ran.

“Get away from me! Leave me alone!”

Theissen heard the Weaver’s dog barking. That echoed farther than the tiny shrieks of a girl whom he guessed was his cousin. Hurrying faster, Theissen rounded into the Weaver’s yard. But she was not there. The sound of her shouts was coming from the grove.

Dropping his basket at the gate, Theissen dashed towards the trees, rushing though the tall grass that grew around them. He listened then smelled, hoping the flow of magic he saw could show him where they were. There was a small stagnant smell of hate coming from deeper in the trees. Hoping he would find Milrina, he hurried further in.

Her screams grew louder, accentuated by the flow of magic in some way, her distress too strong for flow to go peacefully. The dog’s barking ceased with a yelp then a whimper.

“Hunter! No!”

Then he heard him. “Now who’s ugly! Stupid! Doggy’s gone. You’re all alone. Now stop moving or I’ll really hurt you.”

“Don’t touch me!” Milrina screamed. Theissen could hear her crying.

Breaking from the tall grass into a small covert of trees, Theissen stared at what he saw for just a second then rushed forward to stop Lonse. Milrina was on the ground. Her dress was ripped, half of it in Lonse’s hand. Their dog Hunter lay on the dirt, his chest still heaving as it breathed, though his head was crushed under a large rock. Lonse had a bite on his arm, bleeding somewhat. He was holding his cousin to the ground.

“Get off of her!” Theissen ran over, shoving Lonse hard though he had a gust of air follow through that blew the boy right over.

Lonse scrambled to his feet almost the instant he had fallen on his back, tumbling over with clenched fists. He grabbed a rock. “Thief! That’s my wench!”

“Your what?” Theissen spun around, glaring at him.

Lonse threw the rock at him.

Theissen raised his hand. The rock fell straight down, losing all momentum as if hitting a wall of hard air. Lonse grabbed another one. A larger one. “Stay away from me!”

Giving him a dirty glare, Theissen didn’t look likely to obey him. However, he heard Milrina shriek out again, and he turned. He saw her clutching the bleeding dog, shouting out his name. “Hunter! Hunter! Hunter!”

Crouching down at her side, Theissen reached out to Hunter. He was dying, yet not dead. It looked at him with imploring eyes, eyes that said he was in too much pain. The flow was still there, but Theissen recognized the scent of death coming. Shaking his head, Theissen stroked the dog’s head, feeling inside for the parts that were no longer working right.

“Oh!” Milrina leaned back.

Her dog had twitched under Theissen’s hand. His head did not look so crushed now. A second after, the dog hopped up, shook himself off then jumped on Theissen, licking him all over his face with happy barks. The only evidence that he had been hurt at all was the puddle of blood on the ground, the stained rock, and the caked blood in Hunter’s fur.

“No! You thief! You interfering little dung rat! That dog was as good as dead!” Lonse threw the other rock, aiming for the dog.

Hunter jumped away, hunching down and raising his hackles with a growl. He would have pounced on Lonse, but Theissen reached out and held him back by his collar.

“You almost killed him,” Theissen said, glaring with that same anger he had felt toward Migdrin.

Lonse threw back his head and puffed up his chest. “I wanted to. Just like it, you don’t deserve to live.”

Theissen said nothing, clenching his fists.

“He hurt me,” Milrina hissed in his ear. “He’s a bad boy.”

Theissen nodded.

Lonse picked up another rock. “Say that again, and I’ll really get you, girl.”

“Bad boy!” Milrina shouted. “Bad boy!”

Theissen moved in her way, giving Lonse a warning look. But apparently Lonse didn’t care if he was there or not. He charged them with his rock raised, ready to use it like a hammer against Theissen’s skull if had to.

Theissen reached up and touched it.

The rock crumbled as sand in Lonse’s fingers.

Lonse cursed.

Latching his fingers around Theissen’s throat instead, Lonse started to choke him, shoving the carpenter’s son to the ground with as much force as he could.

Struggling against the older boy’s weight and arms, Theissen reached up to Lonse’s throat also, shoving back. Almost instantaneously Lonse fell back. Staring up at the tree cover, he groped his throat, opening and closing his mouth like a fish gaping out of water not uttering a sound.

“Theissen! What is taking you so long?” Doreen’s voice called out from beyond the thicket. Another voice murmured with hers though they could not her it well.

“We’re in here!” Milrina shouted back.

Doreen staggered into the thicket followed by her father who was carrying the basket Theissen had dropped at the Weaver’s yard. The jars of jam were in it.

His father gestured at Lonse. “What’s wrong with him?”

Theissen returned the look with a hardened glare. “I shut him up. He won’t talk ever again.”

Chapter Five: Is His Magic a Weapon?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You what?” His father ran over to Lonse, crouching down to check his throat. Lonse’s lips were starting to turn blue. “He can’t breathe!”

“He was hurting Milrina, and he tried to kill Hunter,” Theissen said, holding back with his cousin.

“Theissen! He can’t breathe! What did you do to him?” His father shouted.

Theissen stared up at him, his gaze withered as if he had been unexpectedly beaten down. “I just closed his throat. The boy wouldn’t stop calling us names. He was trying to choke me.”

“You are choking him!” The carpenter turned from Theissen to stare at Lonse with panic then grabbed his son by the arms with a shake. “You have to stop it!”

“No.” Theissen shook his head hard. “He was trying to hurt Milrina.”

“You are going to kill him!” his father said.

Theissen blinked. Then he turned with a jerk, staring at Lonse who was splayed on the ground clutching his own neck; the boy’s back growing rigid as it arched with horror. The boy’s face was blue now.

“Open his throat now!” his father shouted. The carpenter shoved his son over towards Lonse.

Theissen’s whole body shook as he walked the rest of the way to Lonse. Lonse tried to pull away from him, but he could barely move, staring up with terror on his face. Crouching down onto his knees, Theissen reached over with a trembling hand, touched Lonse’s neck then he withdrew it as if he had just stuck his hand into a fire. He clutched it, staring at it with his own look of shock. Almost instantly Lonse drew breath, long and dragging.

Right away the carpenter relaxed.

“I’ll get you,” Lonse hissed out through wheezing breaths as he glared at Theissen who had not retreated much farther than arms-reach.

“What’s going on over there? Someone reported hearing screams.” A sheriff climbed through the underbrush stopping as soon as he saw them.

Lonse scrambled on all fours over the grass and sticks to the sheriff. Theissen hadn’t moved though. He was still shaking, staring at his hands and nothing else.

The carpenter rose, straightening his back and lifting his chin. “Screams? Was someone screaming?”

“I was,” Milrina said, raising her hand, hiding behind the carpenter as if Lonse would attack her again. Theissen still hadn’t moved.

“He tried to kill me!” Lonse said as he grabbed the sheriff’s leg, gasping and pulling himself up to his feet. He raised his finger to point right at Theissen.

Theissen lifted his gaze from his hands. His face was ash white, looking likely to faint even.

“Is this true?” the sheriff asked, taking at step towards the carpenter with a stern look.

Tolbetan took a step back from the sheriff. Retreating towards Hunter who was sniffing Theissen with a strangely worried look in his dog eyes, Tolbetan peered at his little brother also. Hunter made a small whine, leaning his dog head on Theissen’s knee. Theissen still had not moved.

The carpenter lowered his head. “The boys had a disagreement. However, no harm has been done.”

“He tried to kill me! He made it so I couldn’t breathe!” Lonse shouted again and still tugging on the sheriff’s pant leg.

“You nearly killed Hunter!” Milrina shouted back.

Tolbetan waved a hand in front of Theissen’s face, leaning over to see a reaction. His brother blinked then turned his head.

“I almost killed him,” Theissen said.

The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “He admits it?”

The carpenter turned to block him. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

Theissen shook his head, still staring ahead with that horrified expression in his eyes. “He hurt Milrina. Said bad things. I wanted to stop him for good. I almost killed him.”

He felt a firm hand on his shoulder. Theissen looked up. It was not his father. The sheriff stared down on him with a frown. “I’m afraid you will have to come in with me.”

“But he was protecting me!” Milrina shouted back, stomping her foot then chased after them. “Lonse was hurting me!”

Lonse cast a glare at her, his mouth curling up with a justified look on his lips, but that stopped when he felt a similar hold on his neck.

“You are coming too.”

The shoemaker’s son stared up at the sheriff, his eyes suddenly widening. “No! It’s his fault! He is the thief! He—”

“Someone heard a girl screaming. A witness has been made against you. You are coming with me,” said the sheriff.

Lonse fought to get out of his hold, but the sheriff’s grip clamped down harder. The sheriff dragged both Lonse and Theissen out of the thicket, back through the trees and onto the road. Tolbetan, Milrina and the carpenter followed them, the dog whimpering as he trotted right behind the heels of the sheriff as if to beg him to free Theissen.

“Where are you taking my son at this moment?” The carpenter chased the sheriff with long strides down the hill road. Tolbetan and Milrina followed as quickly as possible to keep up, though more heads turned when they hurried through the village.

Soberly nodding to him, the sheriff, took one glance at Theissen. The boy had come willingly, his head down and his hands in front of him as if still contemplating what he had just done, though it was more likely he was just looking at the scars on his palms.

“I will be placing them in the sheriff house until the trial can be called. I suggest you gather your witnesses for your side to make your plea. Attempted murder is a serious crime.”

“And self defense?” the carpenter asked.

Theissen looked up, blinking at the man he most admired and hoped would save him.

The sheriff answered the carpenter with a grim reply. “I’m afraid that is not considered a legitimate plea when one child has used a weapon.”

“Is his magic a weapon?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“And what of defending a loved one? Surely there is a plea for that?” The carpenter sounded desperate looking to his son with a great deal more than pity.

Lonse growled, jerking to get loose, but he was also crying. Perhaps the sheriff was pinching a bit harder than required. Theissen had made no noise though the dog seemed to do enough of that for them both.

“There may be a case for that. However, since it is the word of one against the other, you cannot guarantee that the council will judge your boy so kindly. After all, he is a repeat offender.”

“Not in stealing,” the carpenter snapped.

“A crime is a crime,” the sheriff said, and he continued on his way towards the center of the village.

 

Word spread quicker than wildfire through Lumen. Even people from neighboring villages came in that evening for the trial against the young wizard and the inconsequential shoemaker’s son. All that really mattered was the word murder, which echoed around the place like the word demon often had when rumors of them in the forests came around.

Theissen stood within the accused circle before the judges like before, only this time he wasn’t alone. Lonse stood next to him, but more than arm’s distance away eyeing the doors and the people like a frightened animal. Families on both sides brought witnesses this time, the carpenters well prepared to defend their son, and shoemakers just as determined to free their boy.

“All silence for the village elders!” the bailiff called loud. The gossip was at an extreme pitch. It only hushed when he spoke.

The oldest of the elders stood somewhat to keep their attention and spoke in a rasping whisper so that silence became adamant to hear a word he said. “Two boys stand accused. Lonse Jergald Nomei Shoemakerson and Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpenterson. Let the sheriff make his report.”

The law officer that had found them in the thicket stepped forward then bowed to the elders before turning to bailiff.

“I had received word that some screaming could be heard from the woods just near the Weaver’s home so I went to investigate. As I traveled up the road, others told me the same, pointing up the hill, telling me they saw the young Carpenterson go to investigate the screams also, apparently on errand as they had seen a basket in his hands. However, when I crested the hill, I saw neither boy nor basket, and I heard no screams. However, I did hear some shouts from an older man calling out. Saying, and I quote: “You are going to kill him.” After that, I rushed into the trees and discovered an unusual scene. I saw blood upon the ground and a dog with half its face covered in it, though it looked perfectly fine all otherwise. I saw a girl crying, covered in dirt and her dress torn. I also saw the shoemaker’s son lying on the ground, gasping with a rather blue face, clutching his throat as that Carpenterson pulled back his hand. The Carpenter was a little ways off with his other son and daughter looking distressed. This is what I witnessed upon arrival. From there, the accusations began, therefore I decided to bring them here.”

“And what are the accusations?” the village elders asked.

Bowing his head, the sheriff replied, “The shoemaker’s son accused the carpenter’s son of attempted murder. And the weaver’s daughter accused the shoemaker’s son of assault and attempted murder of their dog. Her witness was added to by the carpenter’s son, who said the shoemaker’s son also used abusive language towards the girl.”

“Did they make any pleas of defense?”

With a nod, the sheriff said, “The carpenter claimed it was a small altercation between the boys, already resolved without harm. The shoemaker’s son made no pleas in his defense, but no admittance of guilt either. The carpenter’s son, however, did admit to nearly killing the shoemaker’s son.”

A gasp spread throughout the hall. The bailiff silenced it with a gesture or tried to.

“The carpenter also made a plea that his son acted to protect his cousin, who was the one who claimed to be screaming.”

More murmurs.

The sheriff stepped back. “This is my report, though I would also like to make an observation.”

“Proceed.”

He looked over at the two boys. Theissen hung his head. Lonse did also, but his eyes were shifty and his hunched posture was more like an animal cornered.

“I would like to attest that one boy fought when I apprehended them. I believe that the guilt is on both sides. However, I also believe that only one of the boys is penitent for what has been done and therefore judgement should be given lightly upon him, even if he is a repeat offender,” he said.

The carpenter sighed with some relief.

Some of the village elders smiled. “Noted.”

“First witness?” the bailiff asked.

Milrina practically stomped to the front. She had never been a timid child.

Pointing at Lonse, she practically shouted, “He is a bad boy! He hurt me and tried to touch me in a bad place! Then he hurt Hunter, our dog. Hunter would have died if Theissen had not come and saved us.”

She gave her foot another stomp.

“Is that all?” the village elder asked, gazing down on her somewhat severely.

She cowered only slightly. “It is.”

“Then you may step back. Counter argument?” The elder looked towards Lonse and then his parents since Lonse just stared at the ground.

The shoemaker stepped forward with a firm yet grim nod. “Yes. I would like to attest that these children may have been merely playing together, and this girl who is prone to exaggeration and dramatic demonstration may have simply let her imagination get away from her. As the sheriff said, the dog did not die. In fact, he is walking quite well. Look at him.”

“Yes,” said the sheriff. “But he was bloody.”

“Then look,” the shoemaker pointed to Lonse’s arm. “My son has a bite, surely the cause of the blood. Their dog is savage. It bit my son. I believe the girl screamed because of what she saw and then made up a lie to cover it up.”

“That is a lie!” Theissen and Milrina both shouted.

The village elders stared. One gestured to the bailiff who reached out his staff and shoved Milrina back into the group standing for the defense. He then pushed Theissen’s back to keep him on his side of the accused circle. The boy peered up at him, remembering very well that this man was the same one who had sliced open his hands.

“Is that all you have to say regarding this matter?” the oldest village elder asked the shoemaker.

The shoemaker bowed his head. “In this subject, yes. I believe that my son was merely playing, and the carpenter’s boy and the weaver’s daughter forged this lie to get revenge for an altercation outside their school this afternoon.”

“Yes, we heard about that,” one of the elders said, glancing at Yuld. “There is no need to mention that incident. A punishment has already been chosen for both boys involved.”

“Both?” the shoemaker looked startled. “But it was the carpenter’s son that put humiliating words on my son’s face!”

The carpenter glanced at Theissen, raising his eyebrows. He seized a hold of Tolbetan who ducked down with a cringe. No one had said a word about it at their home to him. With a glance at his wife, though, he could see that she had been informed yet had already taken sides in the matter. She was glaring at the shoemaker’s wife, and the shoemaker’s wife was glaring daggers back.

“As I understand it, the boy was returning the insult.”

“Come, come.  This has nothing to do with this particular trial. That issue will be settled afterward. Right now I want to hear from the Weavers if the Shoemakers are done with their tale,” another elder interrupted, leaning over the high table with a look at Lonse that was heavy with disapproval.

“Tale?” the shoemaker murmured, about to protest, but the bailiff already guided him back to his station with his staff.

“Weavers, what is your take on the subject?” the elder asked.

Weaverswife stepped forward and shrugged. “We were unaware of the incident, your grace. I was out on errands, so I neither heard screaming nor saw the fight. However we do have our dog to show you, if you please.”

The elder nodded and gestured her to come forward.

She held onto Hunter’s collar, turning his head for the elderly men to see. “Look here. All the blood is concentrated on this one side, as if it had been broken here. Now the wound is gone, but our daughter claims that Theissen Carpenterson healed Hunter when he saved her from that boy.”

The shoemaker huffed, and his wife gave a snippety little snort. They silenced when the bailiff cracked his staff onto the railing, also glaring at him.

“Yes, silence. Or your witness will be discounted,” an elder said.

The couple pulled back and clutched each other, their complexions gone white.

“Continue,” the elder said to Weaverswife.

The woman let Hunter’s collar go. The dog almost immediately ran to Theissen, panting at his side with a begging look. The boy glanced down then petted him gently though with a sorry weak look to his eyes as if he would be ready to cry.

“As you can see, the dog likes him. The thing is, Hunter never took to anyone outside of the family before today, as any visitor can attest to,” Weaverswife said. “Including this boy.”

Many in the village nodded to that. The dog barked, though had yet to bite anyone until that day. The Carpenters had also stayed away from the animal, allowing their cousins to manage it for them.

“I believe that is proof that Theissen Carpenterson had healed him, saving his life.”

The weaver’s wife stepped back.

“Your rebuttal?” the elders turned to the shoemakers.

The mother looked speechless. So did the father.

Lonse spoke up. “I once saw Theissen call a frog to his hands. He can control animals with his magic.”

“I cannot!” Theissen cast a glare at him. The bailiff took a step forward to silence him.

“You did to.” Lonse shouted back. “I saw you do it at the river before you nearly drowned Migdrin!”

Another gasp passed through the hall.

Theissen narrowed his eyes at Lonse. “I didn’t drown him! I just knocked him of Kinnerlin. Your brother was trying to drown him!”

Kinnerlin nodded, raising a hand. “That’s the truth.”

“Silence!” The bailiff cracked his staff on the ground with a shattering echo in the hall.

Everyone obeyed.

The bailiff looked to the village elders. “It seems this present altercation is part of a larger falling out between the families. Perhaps a harsher judgement on the families is in order?”

“No!” Theissen stepped forward. “No. I’ll take all the blame. Don’t involve them. We never told our father about it.”

The carpenter had a sad expression, frowning more piteously on his young son. Indeed, Theissen already looked older than his eight years, bearing burdens a child ought not to have. Unfortunately, he could not interfere with the law on his son’s behalf no matter how much he wanted to.

“You do not deserve all the blame. State your case, and be clear, concise and honest.” That village elder stared down at Theissen, not frowning, but there was no smile in his eyes. He usually smiled when he saw Theissen in the village. This coldness was frightening.

Closing his eyes, Theissen drew in a breath then started his testimony. “I was going to my aunt’s to pick up some jam. When I got closer to the house I heard screaming. It sounded like Milrina. I also heard the dog barking, but then he sounded hurt. I hurried into the woods, hearing shouting. I knew it was Lonse. I know what he sounds like.”

Lonse was about to say something, but the bailiff covered his mouth then slapped the boy’s forehead as a reminder to be quiet.

“When I got into the trees I saw my cousin on the ground with Lonse holding her down. The dog was lying on the ground in blood, not moving, though I could hear him whimpering. I went in to stop them. Lonse said some bad things, and we got into a fight. He tried to choke me so I choked him back. That was when I closed his throat so he could not breathe.”

The elders were silent.

“I was so mad. I wanted to shut him up.” Then he looked up at their faces. “But honestly, I didn’t want to kill him. My dad came. He told me I was killing him so I stopped it. I opened his throat, and he is fine now. Isn’t that enough?”

“Brawling,” Yuld murmured off at the side.

The elders turned a grim eye on him. Of course he knew the law. It wasn’t attempted murder. Both boys were guilty of brawling, though Lonse seemed to be guilty of much worse.

“Your defense?” one of the elders turned to Lonse.

Lonse cast a glare at Theissen. He took a step forward. “I was just playing with Milrina when her dog bit me. Then that kid came in and tried to kill me. I didn’t do anything.”

Theissen made a disgusted face and petted Hunter more, leaning away from Lonse as if promising to protect the dog.

“You have no proof I did anything to that dog,” Lonse said, sticking his tongue out at Theissen.

“Children….” muttered one village elder.

The bailiff cracked his staff against the ground again as he shook his head darkly at both boys.

“Are there any other pleas?” one of the elders asked.

Another elder nudged that one and shook his head. “No. There is one question that must be answered. Did or did not the dog get wounded? This is an arguing point for the case.”

The shoemakers nodded, leaning in as if to make their case once again.

“May I speak?” the carpenter said with a respectful bow.

One of the village elders smiled kindly with a nod.

The carpenter took a step forward. “The true question is whether my son can or cannot heal a dying dog. I believe he can.”

The crowd murmured louder. The bailiff banged his stick, but no one shushed for several seconds, and it took the bailiff to shout for silence again to get any.

Waiting to speak, the carpenter reached out towards his son. “Theissen, show them your hands.”

Theissen did, extending his palms so that they could see his scars. They were hardly damaged, but he had not used magic to heal them.

His father said, “My son Dalance was also cut, as we all know, and yet is he not on his journey as a carpenter? Bailiff, did you or did you not cut my eldest son’s hands very deep?”

An unusual smile spread across the bailiff’s face. He nodded. “That I did, as according to law.”

“And can you not say that my eldest should have not been able to continue his trade after such a cut?” the carpenter continued.

A wider smile and a franker nod came from the man. “He definitely should not have been able to continue the trade.”

“And when did you notice that he had full use of his hands, regardless of the cut you gave him?” the carpenter asked.

There was a slight blush on the bailiff’s cheeks. “The very second I took him from his cell the day after. The boy was trying to hide that they were healed. However, he was smiling too much for a boy who should have been contemplating the loss of his future.”

“They broke the law!” someone shouted.

“Technically, no,” Yuld replied with a shake of his head. He had turned to the magician who was looking put out. “The law only stated that their hands had to be cut. It says nothing against healing them.”

The bailiff banged his staff again, more irked that he was being interrupted than by anything else. “Silence you two! There is no law against healing one self. Be that as it may, it is proof that some punishments must be modified according to whom is punished.”

The carpenter frowned.

However, the bailiff turned and smiled at him. “I can attest that your eldest son must have had his hands healed either through a miracle or through magic.”

“Thank you,” an elder said. He then gestured to Theissen. “Come here boy. I want you to do something for me to prove you can heal wounds.”

Theissen found it hard to walk up the steps to the elders, but he obeyed, crossing the hall on his shaking feet. Face to face with the wizened old man, he stared at his dark probing eyes. The man extended his hand. There was a small cut, barely healed.

“Heal this for me so that it is gone.”

Nodding, Theissen reached out, cradling the old man’s hand in his. No one saw anything dynamic happen. No light. No amazing gust of wind. Only that the cut sealed itself up, the redness gone. Theissen removed his hand then stepped back.

“It is healed.”

The elder lifted up his hand and smiled at it.

“What about me?” An elder extended his arm, which had always been crooked from a poorly set break when he was a child. “Can you fix an old wound?”

Theissen snuck one look at his father who nodded to him to go on, and then he touched the arm. It looked like he pulled on it at first, and the elderly man groaned. However, when Theissen let go, the man’s arm was perfectly straight and functioning like normal.

“He just might put me out of the job,” the doctor murmured aloud from somewhere in the crowd.

The magician continued to glare, nodding to himself.

A sudden clearing of a deep throat brought them back to task. Everyone looked at the bailiff, ducking their heads sheepishly, including the elders that had forgotten they were judging a serious trial.

“Your graces? Have you come to a decision?”

The village elders frowned then waved for Theissen to go back to take his place in the box for the accused. The boy did so, his feet dropping down each step as if they were heavy as solid rock. He reached the floor, practically scuffing his feet back to his place. He didn’t want to turn around. He already knew the punishment for the crime of attempted murder. It was death.

“Having heard and seen all the evidence, we, the elders will voice our opinions on the matter,” the eldest of them said, taking a slow breath as he looked down at the two boys. “It is clear this is not a case of attempted murder. However, as the bailiff pointed out, brawling seems to be their true offense.”

Theissen looked up. Brawling was not as terrible as murder. At least people who were caught brawling got to live. Unfortunately, the law dictated that those that brawled had their hands chopped off.

“However,” said one of the elders, shaking his head at the eldest, “These are young boys, just barely above their childhood ceremony. The full punishment cannot apply to them.”

“One hand is required by law,” one elder said.

Both the Carpenters and the Shoemakers gasped at such a sentence. Both trades required the use of their hands.

“But one boy initiated the matter and the other acted in the defense of himself and his friends. It would be unfair to cast such a harsh judgement on one whose intent was earnestly good.”

“But the other boy must learn not to take matters of punishment into his own hands. He has a dangerous skill. Just as he can heal, he can kill.”

“Yes, but his intent was not to kill.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions, my friend.”

Theissen listened to the elders argue, something he had heard of but had not witnessed at his last trial. Perhaps it was because he had not offered a defense before. This debate seemed to question how severely both he and Lonse should be punished. That they were to be punished was not in question at all. It was clear punishment was inevitable.

“I suggest they both lose one hand, but the wizard puts them back on. That way they will be punished and yet due to the childishness of their arguments they can have some future restored to them.”

“What a thought!”

“Can he do that?”

They all peered over their high table down at him. Theissen suddenly felt like an animal in a cage. His desire to run almost took over as he practically shrank to the floor.

“Can you heal a severed hand? Can you reconnect the two pieces?” one of the more spry elders asked.

Theissen glanced at Lonse. The boy had already had pulled away from him in terror groping his own hands as if he never wanted to lose one and have the carpenter’s son reattach it for him. It seemed the horror of Theissen holding onto his cut off hand was worse than the idea of losing it.

He nodded to the elders. “I can.”

The crowd murmured again. The bailiff banged his stick over and over again, but it really seemed to be of no use. The floor under him was starting to form severe dents in the wood. The wax on it was chipping in white pieces. However, no one would be silenced.

The elders looked over to the bailiff. “Then it will be done. Both boys must lose their hands.

“And boy wizard, you are to reattach his hand, leaving a scar to remind him never to brawl again. Is that understood?”

Theissen nodded. He looked at Lonse again.

Lonse practically bolted for the door. The sheriffs were faster though, and they dragged him back to the center of the room kicking and screaming. The bailiff met them there carrying over a large box. The bailiff opened the box first and revealed an axe looking sharp and well oiled. That he set aside. Gesturing to the younger bailiff standing at the far door, that one carried in a wood stump with straps. Theissen could see bloodstains and several deep gashes where the axe had obviously sunk into the wood after an execution. Setting the stump in the center of the room where the accused usually stood, the young bailiff then ran back for a roll of cloth, wrapping it almost immediately around the wood stump as a floor cover.

“Hold him,” the bailiff said to the sheriffs.

The shoemakers shouted out. Theissen did not look up. From their scuffing noises he could tell they were struggling to save their son. Many sheriffs were in the room. There was no way even his strong father could save him from losing a hand.

“You, stand here to catch his hand.” The bailiff pulled on Theissen’s shoulder, drawing him nearly face to face with Lonse. The sheriffs were already extending Lonse’s arm and strapping it down to the stump.

Theissen closed his eyes.

“Keep them open. You have to put the hand back on as soon as you see it fall,” said the bailiff near his ear.

It didn’t matter anyway. Theissen could barely see Lonse’s face through the tears that came out now. He could hear his classmate’s cries. He knew his terror.

“It will soon be over,” Theissen said, looking up at him.

Lonse screamed. “It is your fault! You stinking dung thief! Your fault!”

But Theissen did not turn away. He saw the upraised axe. He watched it come down. He heard the nasty break of flesh and then bone, and he saw the hand fall into his own.

Screams. So loud. 

Theissen could hardly bear them as he shoved the hand back onto the bleeding stump he saw in front of him. With a caressing touch, he made the wrist grab back hold of where it belonged. Then the bone and muscle clung tight. Soon all pieces held together, and the pain Theissen drew away from Lonse until all that was left was the memory.

But Lonse remembered, still crying, still screaming. When the sheriffs unstrapped his hand, the boy cradled it his arm, rubbing the wrist. A ring of flesh remained as a scar as Theissen promised the village elders. It would never go away.

“I hate you!” Lonse shouted, retreating back to his parents.

Theissen turned, taking his own place where Lonse had been, extending his arm as if he could not hear the other epithets Lonse shouted at him.

It seemed that no one moved. For a moment the sheriffs just stared at Theissen as he waited for them to strap his arm down also. The bailiff also appeared stunned.

“Hurry on with it,” a village elder said.

“But who will put his hand back on?” a sheriff asked.

“I will.” Theissen’s father marched straight to the chopping block. He cradled his son’s hand in his, waiting for the others to do their duty.

All seemed to go with reluctance. The straps they buckled on him were tight, but they also served to constrict blood flow so there would be less mess. Theissen closed his eyes, remembering the pain of the knife. This one was sure to be worse.

“Can he heal himself?” someone murmured. “Didn’t he still have his other scars on his hands?”

The carpenter patted his son’s head and leaned in. “I believe in you. Just keep your eye on me and do what I tell you.”

Theissen nodded.

The bailiff raised his axe.

He raised his axe.

His axe was raised.

The axe was up.

Yes, up.

“I can’t do it.” The man gently lowered it again, looking over to the elders. “What if he can’t heal himself? I don’t really think he deserves the same punishment as that other boy anyway.”

“Are you the judge?” an elder said, raising one eyebrow.

Cringing, the bailiff, raised his axe once more. “I’m sorry.”

Unusual. It was pain, but it was different. Theissen could see how the flow of energy shifted abruptly. The smell of it was sharp, uncomfortable. But when he saw his father press his hand back to his wrist, he could feel the pulling of magic from within, begging to reattach his skin and flesh together. He hardly bled, but then perhaps he had held that in with his gift also. And as joint, muscle, bone and sinew merged into a whole once more, the pain shot up his arm. He could feel again.

Then it was gone.

No pain, though Theissen found it hard to maintain a scar when his body wanted so much to be whole. However, he managed a line that he could see well enough.

“Not fair! He has no scar!” Lonse was shouting again.

“I can see it,” the bailiff said with some satisfaction.

“So can I,” said a farsighted elder grinning from his wrinkly face.

The sheriff’s undid the straps. Theissen lifted up his arm to inspect it more closely. Yes, there was a scar. Thinner on one side than the other, but it was there. A second reminder to never act rashly again.

“So, are they punished? Can we take them home?” the shoemaker asked. His face was still red, and the look in his eyes said he was ready to plot revenge on the carpenter’s family.

“Not yet,” one of the village elders said. He beckoned Yuld to come forward. “Tell us, what is the legal punishment for consistent ill behavior, such as feuding in a classroom?”

Yuld rocked on his heels. “My students can recite this. Those that participate in persistent abusive behavior towards their fellow men, especially consistent name-calling, are to learn cooperation and good citizenship through hard work in silence.”

“Therefore, both boys were active in such ill behavior at school today and must be taught to control their tongues,” an elder said.

Theissen cringed; hoping hard work in silence did not mean they would have their tongues cut out. Lonse had clamped his lips shut, thinking the same thing.

“Therefore, added to the present punishment, both boys will work hard labor for the next week in perfect silence. The sheriffs will provide the proper task and location. Dismissed.”

The crowd behind the fence in the hall dispersed, urged away by the other young court bailiffs and sheriffs attending to the room. The Millers, the Bootmakers, the Bakers, the Farmers, the Potters, the Hatters, the Tailors and all the other influential families left with yearning glances to remain. However, only the families of the accused were allowed to stay to receive further instruction about the boys’ punishment.

Theissen felt the warm comforting touch of his father’s hands rest on his shoulders. Looking up at his father, he saw relieved yet sad expression in his father’s eyes. Though the court was clearing out, his brothers and sisters circling them with the Weavers who smiled at him, even now Theissen felt anxiety for what he had done. He could see it was still not over yet. His father had still to pronounce his judgement.

“Son,” he at last heard him speak just above a whisper. “I want you to go directly to bed. No supper.”

This, Theissen expected.

“And as you are in your room, I want you to imagine that prison cell you were in with Dalance. Then think, is that the life you really want?”

“No, father,” Theissen said, tears coming back to his eyes.

“So, do you understand that there are some things that you must never do?” the carpenter asked.

Theissen nodded.

“And what are

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.02.2018
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7869-0

Alle Rechte vorbehalten