A Man Named Tellis

The sun was hiding behind the distant horizon and a dull greyness swept the landscape. It was creeping along the streets of Woodchip, adding a new rue of colour to the city. It cast a darkened shade of grey on two figures in the distance up ahead. Jee proceeded cautiously.
They turned to face Jee, and then the taller of the two whistled loudly. Jee doubted he was entering a conversation with nearby birds and on reflection he realised it was more likely he was calling a nearby henchman to his aide. Jee stopped; he hesitated slightly before holding his shallow breath and turning slowly. A third monster of a man was approaching from behind, he was grinning stupidly.
“Blast it” He muttered. He raised his old wooden staff and gave it a few trial taps against the palm of his old wrinkled hands. A few sparks erupted from the tip followed by a spurt of rather unpleasant smelling smoke.
“Damn blasted thing!” He muttered to himself angrily. His vision of a happy future drained away. ‘Why did everything go wrong at the most vital time?’ he thought to himself miserably. There was of course a vast majority of other, perfectly good times for cartwheels to fall off or brakes to fail. But there you were, riding on the edge of oblivion, and then bang! Your dead! Fate had a curios sense of humour to say the least.
Jee angrily tossed his staff aside, which bounced slightly on the stone cobbles and clattered away. He put his back against the wall to protect his flank and with some considerable effort he stood up straight and rolled up his long unnecessary sleeves.
The three men surrounded Jee Soup. He shot out his arms and the men flinched ever so slightly.
“Stand back! I am the Great Wizard Jee Soup!” Jee shouted madly putting a slightly exaggerated emphasis on Great. Jee wasn’t much on theatricals but never the less he waved his arms around randomly, narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The performance was finished with a somewhat badly arranged, face of scorn.
When Jee’s audience realised the apocalypse wasn’t upon them, they let out an over due breath.
“What sorta name is Jee Soup?” Whispered the smallest man to largest next to him. The largest man shrugged his shoulders.
There was an extended pause allowing Jee nerves to kick in.
“Boss?” The largest grunted.
Boss snapped out of his daze. He smiled politely at Jee and mentally switched to the tricky language of the old and deaf. Speaking very slowly and making sure you catch every syllable was the only way to mug old people in any sort of cost efficient way, after all, time was money.
“Calm Down Sir, We Mean No Harm. Just Pass Over Your Coin And You Can Be On Your Way” Boss spoke slowly and precisely. That ought to get the point across. He hoped at least.
“Are you deaf? I am a great Wizard; nothing of you shall remain but pairs of smoking boots!” He screamed, sprayed and finished with a touch of dribble. He added another dose of manic arm waving for good measures. The concept of smoking boots was an odyssey to all spectators, and it begged the question: How on earth can the foot be obliterated, and not the shoe?
“Come On Sir, Your Not Fooling Anyone” Boss said tiresomely. This was exactly the kind of thing he was afraid of, old people with an ability to avoid the inevitable.
“I’m warning you!” Jee shouted desperately. Jee looked up thoughtfully. He began searching his vacant mind, locating a few aged brain cells. He prodded them urgently, like a child waking their parents on Christmas day. They awake grunting.
Jee raised his arms in a final attempt and shouted, “Shoko…erm…Inferno…erm…erm…Blast it!” His third brain cell, which was about to complete the ‘smoking boots’ spell, had fallen back asleep. The other two cells shrugged sheepishly and suggested running before joining the third in its slumber.
Boss gave in, he had tried to be as polite as he could but the old fool was well… an old fool.
This had gone on long enough.
“Cliff, Weasel” Boss said nodding to both of his henchman, “Lets see what he has.”
The one called Cliff grabbed two handfuls of Jee’s red velvet coat and pinned him carefully against the wall of the ally. Boss nodded at Weasel and he proceeded to search Jee’s pockets. Weasel reminded Jee of a grubby child, he didn’t smell all that great either. He finally found Jee’s small leather coin pouch and pulled it away from his inner pocket.
“Ten pence… no sixteen pence and erm, three buttons.” said Weasel
“Sixteen pence split three ways” Boss murmured to himself, “Bugger it!” He turned back to Jee. “Do you have anymore?”
“No!” Jee said angrily.
“Hmm, what about the buttons eh? They gotta be worth somat?” Weasel asked the other two.
“I don’t know, buttons aren’t worth much now, not with all these fancy zipper things” replied Boss.
“I could give em to my granny, but I don’t think she’d pay for em” Weasel said shaking his head sadly.
“We could split it four ways?” Jee ventured hopefully, it was worth a try he thought.
“Eh? Yeah Boss, we could Boss, it’d would work then Boss” replied Weasel, “Five pence each… no … four pence each Boss, not that bad Boss.”
“Can’t do that. Couldn’t really call it a mugging if we gave back what we took” Boss explained.
“Would only be five pence,” Cliff offered.
“Four pence” Weasel corrected.
“Still, bad for business. What would the other guys say?” Boss said, now they really were in a pickle.
“I’d like to see them split sixteen pence three ways,” said Weasel “and anyways, they don’t have to know, do they?”
“It’s really not the point,” said Boss, he thought carefully for a moment and turned back to Jee, who smiled at him hopefully. “How About We Leave You Tonight, And You Come Back Tomorrow With Eighteen Pence?”
Jee sighed with relief, he could head down to the pub and drink away his coin purse before tomorrow. “Ok” Jee said and tried a smile. The big thug slowly put him back on the floor and brushed off some invisible dust from his coat.
“There you go,” Said Cliff with an overbearing, voice. Jee tried a quick get away but Boss grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled his hat of his head.
“Hey, give my damm hat back!” Jee exclaimed, but he saw the look on Boss’s face, and added meekly “…Erm…please?”
“Don’t Think Were That Stupid Do You?” said Boss with menace.
“Na, we aint all tha stupid you see” said Weasel grinning stupidly. Boss rolled his eyes. He didn’t mind his henchmen. Of course they were slow, stupid and generally became an inconvenience, although slow and stupid henchmen wouldn’t be organising a mutiny any time soon, it was something a man like himself couldn’t do without. And anyway, what’s the point of being Boss if no one is around to call you it?
“But, but…I need my hat!” Jee pleaded, he wasn’t much a wizard without it; he wasn’t much of a wizard either way but he wasn’t about to admit it.
“And We Need Eighteen Pence But I Am Afraid Life’s A Bugger” Boss explained sarcastically. He was getting bored now, and felt like he was wasting time. Somewhere a not to distant ally, some bastard was walking around mug-free. It sickened Boss to think such things. “Go On Bugger Off!”
Jee didn’t need to be told twice, he really didn’t need to be told once but the Boss had a very firm grip.
He walked away wobbling with an attempted touch of elegance. It was rather like an extremely drunk Queen retreating to her bedchambers attempting to act sober, and indeed, failing miserably due to the three laps naked around the castle. Soon as Jee was round the alleyway corner he ran, fast.


Tellis slowly straightened up, running his hands down his sides. He looked up and stared at the man in the mirror. He waved politely. The man in the mirror waved back gracefully and pointed helpfully to a small white pot on Tellis’s desk.
Tellis turned his head and walked across his small room and picked up the pot. Holding it close to his ear he rattled it, then, with a certain degree of precision, opened the lid and carefully selected one of the black pills. He placed it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
It tasted like earwax, although, they generally always did. He wondered if they were made out of earwax He pondered upon the question briefly before heading towards the door and picking up his cloak from a single brass coat peg. He swung it around his neck and let it fall softly around him, and then he tied it securely around his neck. Tellis did a final check to make sure he had everything; he patted his side to check his small-concealed knife was present. He pulled out a small piece of parchment and unrolled it. On it, in perfect calligraphy, were several names, most of which were crossed out, the one remaining read, Jee Soup. “Interesting name” he thought as he rolled the parchment back up and placed it back inside his belt.
He turned to his door and fiddled with the lock until it clicked open. He stepped out cautiously into the brisk night.
“Keep everything safe Mr Door” Tellis whispered patting the door thankfully and proceeded to lock the complex locks on the outside. The wind was blowing gently causing ripples, like waves across a sea, on Tellis’s cloak. He watched them curiously before merging with a nearby shadow and disappearing into the night.


Jee didn’t get far. Old age was an inevitable blight, which brought about unstylish white hair, obesity and an undesirable inability to move quickly for any extended period of time. He was attracting a lot more attention running wildly anyway, especially in contrast to the usual steady hobble down the streets of Woodchip.
He stopped momentarily to gain his breath and then looked around himself to gain some bearings. Spotting the tavern at the bottom of the street, he slowly made his way in its direction.
“Come back tomorrow with eighteen pence my arse” he muttered under his breath. Eighteen pence worth of ale would get any man sufficiently drunk, but wizards were different. The problem was the alcohol went straight to their heads. People sometimes said it was because their heads were so empty, but wizards refuted this, right up until they passed out in that violent involuntary way.
A cold shiver hit Jee. He felt like he was being watched and so carried on suspiciously down the road. At one point he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. The sort of shadow that moved very unnaturally, the sort of shadow which, high speed, sharp projectiles came out of; that very bad type of shadow.

The Hang Over was pretty much exactly what you would expect from a shady pub on the edge of town. If of course, what you expected was a swift, unsuspecting blow to the head with a miscellaneous chair, which was currently orbiting the room and then waking up in a hayfield two miles out of town* with a slightly lighter or non existent coin purse, and then you would not be disappointed. And anyway, people come to expect it; it was part of the whole drinking experience.
         
Jee pushed open the door of the pub and entered. Inside, the light loomed selectively in the centre of the room, almost avoiding the unsociable characters lurking in the dark corners. Probably for the best as anyone occupying a dark corner was probably doing so for a reason and in most cases, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, in theory at least. In reality what you do know can hurt you, but alas, ignorance is the bumpy path to happiness. Behind the bar was the bartender who was thoughtfully attempting to remove dust from a glass with spit and an old hanky. The Bartender was an amazing invention for the simple man. He acted as a cheap, reliable and effective psychotherapist for every paying customer and like the real thing made money off the misery of others. Although admittedly, most of the advice given could be summed up with “Here is one on the house” and “Don’t go killing yourself before you pay this tab!” But he was a man you could confide in and always agreed with you, even when faced with such problematic dilemmas, as “I had to kill her…Hic…I just had to…Hic. Hic…” He would always provide that comfort you so often needed and say something like, “Of course you did Charley, and after all she did over cook the chicken what did she expect? Here is one on the house.”


As he entered there was that stereotypical silence, which would cause considerable discomfort to any newcomer. Jee was not in anyway, a newcomer. He looked for a vacant chair by the bar and proceeded gloomily towards it.
“Pint of Crunch” Jee grumbled.
“Do you want some ice in that?” Joe replied happily. He raised the glass he had been working on and inspected his masterpiece of cleaning. It was lucky that Joe was half blind otherwise the ring of spit swirling at the bottom of the glass and clumps of dust, would have upset his delicate pride. Even more luckily was that Crunch was made by brewing apples, barley and cyanide, and was also used to clean alleyways.
“No” Jee said, narrowly.
“How about an umbrella then? Or a little cherry?” Joe tried, smiling broadly.
“Why on earth would I want those?” Jee questioned irritably.
“Just thought you might want some thing a bit more…fancy?” Joe said as if he was letting Jee in on a huge secret.
“I just want a mind killing beer!” Jee replied a little more aggressively than he could back up.
“Ok, relax Mister, no need to get personal about the beer, its good stuff Crunch is. It’ll put hairs on your chest!” Joe said proudly.
“And singe the ones off your head” Jee added.


*It wasn’t long before people realised they could use this as an effective and cheap way of travelling. The obvious flaw of course was it was very difficult to predict were you would end up, and in some cases, if you would end up, anywhere, ever again.

“Yeah” said Joe thoughtfully looking up. “It does tend to do that.” Joe finished pouring the Crunch and set it down in front of Jee. It fizzled quietly.
“That’ll be two pence,” said Joe, “and erm…there’s no tab tonight seeing as Crunch erm… sometimes leaves people in a bit of a… peculiar state.”
“Dead you mean?” Jee suggested putting two pence on the counter.
“Funny you should say that Mister, because I thought it was a little weird how everyone that drinks too much Crunch dies of a heart attacks not long after” Joe replied, “Bit of a mystery if you ask me.”
“Indeed, forever to be unsolved I am sure” Jee said. He took a short cautious swig of Crunch. The drinking experience began, sharply.

Five minutes later Jee was drunk. It was the type of drunk, where people kept their distance and were vigilant of projectile vomit.
“You know what’s wrong with society today?” Jee said spilling his Crunch as he slammed his glass down.
“What’s that Mister?” Joe said reproachfully.
“These damn blasted witches!” Jee exclaimed.
“Cant say I know much about that Mister” Joe said cautiously. Joe was being extra careful, there could have been witches present and unless he wanted to be the main ingredient in his wife’s famous Frog Soup Surprise, he had better watch his tongue.
“Let me tell you about witches” Jee answered point his finger accusingly at Joe.
“Let me tell you about those damn blasted witches” Jee repeated, “Always complaining about something.” Joe knew this conversation well. It was the good old incoherent drunken ramble, common among drunks who were still conscious and still had some control over their speech.
“The magical community was well respected before they came along with their magical equality and all that marching down the streets saying they don’t have to cover their ankles! The shame!” Jee ranted. The issue with witches was brought about by the magical equality idea. The problem being that witches did not want to be equal to wizards, they wanted to be seen as better. After all, equality is boring.
“Quite distasteful if I do say so myself” Joe said quietly.
“And then, what did they do?” Jee rambled “I’ll tell you what they did. They took off all their clothes and chained them selves to the town statue in protest against some nonsense about wizards getting paid more than them!”
“For a good cause” Joe said absent-mindedly. Joe had quite enjoyed the protest; he took the brave ladies warm drinks here and there. After all he reasoned, it was important to support the cause.
“Good cause?” Jee spat, “Rubbish, witches don’t do anything to get paid for. Wizards are upstanding members of society providing an important service to the welfare of mankind!” Joe noticed how Jee avoided saying what the service was. Joe suspected it had something to do with staying out of mankind’s way. Joe felt it was time for some of his professional help.
“Look, here is one on the house” Joe negotiated. He took the glass and refilled it back up with Crunch. Jee took a generous swig and stared blankly into the bubbling beer. Joe was looking at the clock thoughtfully.
“Time for some food” Joe mumbled under his breath.
“Huh?” Jee asked.
“Bit of an idea I had. You see I noticed around this time people starting to leave for some well needed grub” Joe explained excitedly, “But people leaving you see, its not good for business. After all, I can’t serve beer to people that aren’t here now can I?”
“Guess not” Jee replied shrugging his shoulders and almost losing his balance. Even sitting down can be quite a tricky manoeuvre after two pints of Crunch.
“So I thought, why not serve food here?” Joe said smiling, “but then I remembered I couldn’t cook”
“Woman’s job cooking” Jee said trying to wink, but the fumes from the Crunch were making his eyes water.
“Well… erm… woman are just as equal as men!” Joe said rather loudly. He had been married for five years now and that sort of talk could end the holy matrimony abruptly. He had made that mistake before and found himself sleeping in the barn.
“Get on with it man!” Jee said. He was starting to get dizzy, and all of Joe’s twin brothers were making things much worse.
“Yeah sorry, erm… well I thought I would give it a try seeing as drunk people will eat anything.” Jee was looking down at the table. He couldn’t quite remember which one of the ten pints of Crunch was real.
“Worth a try” Jee said unconcerned. He wasn’t really interested. He was looking down at his hands, there where ten pairs of them. He carefully lined his ten pairs of hands up with the glasses of Crunch and picked it up. “Gotcha!” He said happily.
“Turned out to be a great success!” Joe said, “Although, there was another problem”
“Poison control?” Jee said while trying to work out which glass to drink from.
“Drunk people are surprisingly bad at carrying food,” Joe said thoughtfully ignoring Jee’s comment. Jee opened his mouth and tipped Crunch down his left shoulder. Completely oblivious to his miscalculation, he was staring into the empty glass wondering where the Crunch had in fact gone. Jee had a revelation, “Blast it, I’m drunk” he thought.
“Better give me some good food,” Jee said slightly swaying, “What’s on the menu?”
“Tonight’s special is rat Mister” Joe said.
“How is it cooked?” Jee enquired holding onto the table for some well needed support.
“We have a stone oven just in the back there,” Joe pointed to a door at the end of the bar.
“Stone baked then?” Jee said, thinking carefully, or trying to at least. Every time he tried to focus, his mind lapsed to the witch protests.
“Erm… quite literally actually”
“Interesting, I’ll have one of those then” Jee replied. He took his hands of the table and reaching for his coin purse. He fell backwards. As he fell through the air, time stopped momentarily, probably to gloat. As Jee crashed to the floor, heads throughout the bar turned swiftly. It was important to be on guard for bar room fights, it was even more important to pick the right side. After everyone realised it was a dumpy wizard attempting to get up using an imaginary seat to support himself they went back to their drinks. One man didn’t, he giggled at Jee and walked over to help him up.
“Upsidaisy” the man said happily and smiled broadly. Jee scrambled back on his chair, the man pulled one up and sat next to him.
“Hello, I’m Tellis, nice to meet you” Tellis said
“What sort of name is Tellis?” Jee said suspiciously. He went to pick up his drink, but it had moved. Jee looked around, it was now in Tellis’s hand.
“A human name I think” Tellis replied, looking into the glass thoughtfully.
“Hey that’s my drink!” Jee said, attempting to grab the glass, unsuccessfully.
“It’s poisonous” Tellis said knowingly.
“Only if you drink it!” Jee shouted.
“You are drinking it though,” Tellis pointed out helpfully. Jee quickly saw the underlying flaw in his logic. Tellis flinched and knocked the glass over. The last drenches of Crunch rolled onto the wooden counter. 
“How about another pint Mr Soup?” Tellis asked handing back the empty glass.
“If you’re paying,” Jee said suspiciously.
“Of course Mr Soup” Tellis confirmed. He handed Joe two pennies who shrugged and poured another pint of Crunch.
“Drink up Mr Soup, drink up” Tellis said. If Jee was slightly more sober and had been wearing his reading glasses, he may of noticed that Tellis didn’t take his eyes of Jee. Joe passed Jee an over flowing pint of Crunch.
“I would go easy on that stuff, especially after those killings” Joe warned lowing his head secretively. Jee sobered up instantly, for a few seconds at least.
“What killings?” Jee said. He tried to lower his head level with Joes, but he went too far. His chin bounced off the wooden table with a thud.
“They say suicides, but it just doesn’t add up,” Joe said almost whispering, “Wizards don’t kill them self’s and there has been a new corpse every day since Monday.”
Jee tried his hand at some maths, “it’s Sunday today, so that’s…” and tried counting days on his fingers. He got too Monday four times before giving up. Tellis smiled.
“That’s six days and six deaths. I might not be the smartest around but I knows when something isn’t right” Joe said and started polishing a new glass.
“Six wizards were killed?” Jee exclaimed. He didn’t read the newspaper; paper had no sense of decency and couldn’t be trusted with the truth.
“That’s what the man said Mr Soup” Tellis said tiresomely.
“Yeah so… just saying you might want to ease up on the Crunch” Joe said. He turned the glass upside down and peered up into his second masterpiece of cleaning.
“Suppose I could call it a night,” Jee grumbled. He held onto the table and stood up slowly. His head started spinning fiercely and the sickness kicked in.
“Goodbye” Jee said waving his hand dismissively at Joe. As he stumbled towards the door, a man took a great interest in Jee, or more accurately his noisy coin purse. The man finished his drink swiftly and stood up. He headed out of the door after Jee. Joe didn’t really see what happened next, there was a sigh, followed by a brisk movement, and then Tellis was standing over the unconscious man. Joe did well not to pay too much attention to this sort of thing, but what happened next made him wonder if he had been around Crunch fumes for too long. Tellis flinched suddenly, and then patted the door sympathetically. Joe could have sworn he heard Tellis say “Sorry” as he walked out of the door into the night. Mind you, Joe wondered, they didn’t call them strange-ers for nothing. He went back to polishing glasses.

The coldness of the night’s air chocked through Jee’s lungs, cutting his breath short and left him dizzy. Luckily Jee was too drunk to notice. He was staring at the various streets to choose from in a sort of absent minded way.
“The sun has gone away,” Tellis said. Jee jumped in a sluggish way and turned around to see Tellis stood there beaming at him.
“Huh?” Jee said squinting at him. Tellis suddenly flinched.
“It’s time to go home Mr Soup” Tellis said darkly, “Let me lead the way.” Tellis took Jee’s arm and pulled him gently along. Jee followed submissively and after a few minutes he replied, “Where are we going?”
“Home Mr Soup, home” Tellis replied, and then stopped suddenly. His pupils diluted past Jee’s vacant expression and then sharpened, he flinched once again. Tellis looked up and watched the clouds passing across the moon, and then he noticed Jee was watching him suspiciously. Tellis patted Jee.
“Its very cold tonight” Tellis said smiling. Then he froze, and started shaking. He flinched another couple of times.
“Damn!” Tellis exclaimed. He took a small black pill from his inner pocket and took it with a shaky hand. Jee was watching fearfully.
“Do you want one Mr Soup?” Tellis said after taking a few deep breaths. Jee was startled, something was not right, he carefully retraced what just happened in his head. Then it hit him.
“Pills shouldn’t be black, they should be white!” Jee said quickly pointing. Tellis stood in anticipation, he almost expected Jee to start jumping up and down to celebrate his discovery.
“Yes Mr Soup, how very observant of you” Tellis replied and let out a sigh of relief, “easy picking,” he said to himself.
“Yes…so erm… what do they do exactly?” Jee asked.
“Well Mr soup, they relax your mind” Tellis said. In the circumstances Jee could do with something of this nature, otherwise finding his way home alone could have been an adventure with no happy ending. Admittedly there was a fundamental rule about strangers, which all children had nailed into their heads by their parents. Jee could almost hear his mothers voice echoing around his head, “Don’t take sweets from strangers,” and although all children knew that this piece of advice had to be applied correctly. For example, it depended on how many sweets where being given out, and how strange, was the stranger. Jee applied the advice and concluded that pills were not sweets and anyway, Tellis wasn’t a stranger, he was, well… Tellis.
“Pass one here then” Jee demanded. Tellis pulled out another black pill and placed it carefully in Jee’s unsteady hand. He watched Jee pitifully trying to connect his hand with his mouth. Eventually Jee preformed a miracle and swallowed the pill. 

Tellis and Jee eventually arrived at Pinechip road. It was now the early hours of the morning and the earlier birds were doing last minute recitals for the upcoming show.
Jee was a foot away from his door before he realised it was ajar. He focused on the hole where he door should be momentarily before finally concluding that something was wrong.
“Appears you have left the door open Mr Soup”
“Door…” Jee said vacantly.
“Yes the door” Tellis walked past Jee and into the room, it was a mess. Tellis thoughtfully ruffled through some paper sprawled across Jee’s desk, then picked up books from the floor.
“Is their anything missing Mr Soup?”
“Don’t know…” Jee grumbled, “Could be.” Jee wondered about aimlessly until a vague memory cried out to him.
“Box…relic…my…box…” Jee gave up. Then across the floor he saw it. The box had a great tree carved into it and its branches intertwined throughout each side of the box. On some of the branches were acorns made from emeralds. Jee hurried over and sat down on the floor next to it. He picked it up carefully and peered inside.
“Blast it!” Jee cried out. Tellis raised his head and looked over.
“What?”
“It’s gone!”
“What’s gone?”
Jee stood up with some considerable effect and the help of a nearby table.
“I have to find it” Jee said. Tellis flinched. He shook his head and then his eyes locked onto the box.
“That box…reminds me…reminds me… mot“ Another sudden flinch interrupted his sentence abruptly. He quickly found his pot of pills in his coat and took some more greedily. He turned to Jee.
“Find, find what Mr Soup?” Tellis asked twitching slightly.
“It’s just an old air loom” Jee replied and stood up and headed towards the front door. As he drew closer he focused on a letter pinned to it. He cautiously reached out and slowly removed it from the pin. It read, “I have your relic. Town hall tower, noon.” The style and calligraphy was perfect.
“Lets go Mr Soup” Tellis said wondering past Jee out of the door.