CHAPTER ONE
Orion was a strange child. That went without question among the residents of the village.
Even from a young age, he was never quite normal. When the other elf children ran and hid and played war, or read books, or even talked, Orion never joined in; then again, none of the others would have invited him to join anyway. He was regarded by his peers and even his elders as an odd boy, one who was better left alone.
Orion never minded, or even really noticed his isolation and seclusion. He had friends of his own to keep him entertained, friends that fascinated and awed him, and that were polite enough not to exclude him. Orion’s companions were the birds.
Birds of every color and breed, every size and shape, were a source of great wonder to him, and he spent much of his days doing nothing but lying beneath the dappled green canopies of the woods, hands cradling his head, and staring up with wide, vaguely feline eyes at the swooping, flapping, diving birds, a secret little smile fixed to his small, youthful face.
They’re so amazing, flying like that, he pondered to himself on one such day, as he did every day, it’s as if they’re lighter than air. I wish I was lighter than air, so that I could play with them, dancing up there in the trees.
His amber eye was caught by the silhouette of a rouge-plumed finch, which was swerving through the green tree branches with a very special agility, diving and rolling in midair to avoid the obstacles, while singing a melodious, chirping song that resonated divinely in Orion’s pointed ears. The little elf boy sighed in pleasure as he watched – this was far more engaging to him than any game.
But then the little finch descended from its lofty place among the branches to instead land on the leafy ground. It half-walked, half-fluttered across the forest floor towards Orion, stopping when it was only an arms-reach away, and then looking at him. The finch cocked its head to one side inquisitively, triangular beak chirping and black eyes alight with unabashed curiosity.
Following a compulsion that he didn’t fully understand, Orion reached out his hand towards the bird, slowly so as not to frighten it, his slender fingers poised to stroke the bird. To his slight surprise and immense joy, the bird did not recoil as he did so. Instead, it hopped a little closer with a tweet, to be directly underneath of his outstretched palm, apparently unafraid.
Hesitantly at first, but with quickly increasing confidence, Orion stroked the wild bird with his fingertips, feeling the soft brown and red feathers on its head. The bird clucked a little, with the mock exasperation of a child being showered excessively with the adorations of its mother. Orion laughed, a light, musical laugh, and continued to caress the head of the finch. It jumped into his opened palm, singing gleefully.
Orion’s laughter stopped abruptly, however, when the sounds of crunching leaves and shouting voices broke the tranquility of the moment. A group of children were running through the trees about a dozen feet away with sticks in hand, hollering and whooping; no doubt en route to the “enemy stronghold.” But when they saw Orion, reclined on the ground between trees, with the finch in his hand, they stopped almost as one to stare.
There was a brief moment of silence from both parties, but that didn’t last long. With another battle-call, one of the boys threw his stick like a javelin at Orion and the finch on the ground. To Orion’s dismay, the bird screeched shrilly and sprung out from under his hand in alarm, flapping rapidly to ascend away from the projectile.
But Orion could not fly away so rapidly, and as he hastily tried to get up, he was struck hard in the shoulder by the stick. With a shout of pain, the little elf boy crumpled to the ground, clutching at the bruise. A few of the other children laughed, but most just looked on with a mixture of scorn and pity. The group walked away again, and was soon reabsorbed in their role-playing.
Orion continued to lie on the ground, trying to massage his injury. Tears slid down his cheek and dropped to the forest soil in a slow, steady stream, and he bit his lip to try to stop from crying aloud, but he couldn’t keep his body from shaking with restrained sobs.
Overhead, the finch looked down at him from a branch sadly, and then flitted away. Orion followed it with his watering eyes, and thought to himself, One day, I will be able to flap away like you did. One day, I’ll be a bird, free to do what I want to; they’ll all be jealous of me. Yes… One day, I’ll fly.
…
It had taken months of waiting for Orion to finally encounter a day that would be perfect. But today, with the moon bright enough for visibility, the air warm and without a strong wind, and everyone in the village occupied with attending a harvest festival, he would at last join the birds.
Ever since the finch incident three years ago, Orion had been cast even further into his lonely solitude by the rest of his village. He came to be known as the “bird boy,” a name spoken with derision and accompanied by sorry shakings of heads. His parents, before they had died, had been respected members of society – but with his father killed at war, and his mother dead after giving birth to him, and no siblings to name, he had no family.
“How could a young elf of such fine breeding become so… strange?” the main matron of his orphanage would often be heard to say in despair to her colleagues; she observed whenever Orion would devour his meals. He did so with haste, casting nervous glances around at the other children, and fleeing to the outdoors and back to his beloved birds as soon as he possibly could.
When he was younger, Orion only rarely thought about his parents, and more with curiosity than sadness. He did not miss them, for he had never known them. But as time went on, and Orion grew older, he came to resent their absence; with increased age, he began to realize that he was friendless and abandoned, and he was angry that his parents had died only to leave him on his own.
He grew to fear and avoid the other children – after all, they gave him no companionship, so he never attempted to fraternize or engage himself in their games. Children, in general, are accepting beings, but are also easily influenced; Orion, after his singular instance of physical suffering at the hands of his peers, began to evade them like a deer a huntsman – running nervously away from any who came too close to him.
Through this, the other children, many of whom later attempted to be reconciliatory out of their guilt, were deterred from giving Orion a second chance. And at the time, he didn’t want one – it seemed far safer and easier to have no friends than take the risk of being hurt again. However, as the months and years passed, and the other children grew concrete in their exclusion of him, that changed, and Orion became aware of his loneliness. He wanted a friend, but there were no friends to be had.
The only consolation in his days was drawn from the time he spent with no companion aside from nature. Leaned against a smooth-barked tree in the woods, and sketching avidly what he saw in the skies. The birds’ songs were the only tune in his life, and one of his few sources of joy. Orion loved everything that flew, from the sparrows to the eagles to the dragonflies, and all were captured to paper by his nimble charcoal stick, and then nailed to his room walls, as Mother Nature’s guardians for when he slept. Mother Nature was the only mother he knew.
But on this day, Orion intended to change everything about his life. Now ten years old, he still had not grown much larger, and remained a comparatively small, thin boy with large, curious eyes. He was standing up on the topmost sturdy branches of a tall oak tree, balanced with one hand gripping the trunk, and both nimble bare feet on the limb ten yards off the ground.
The warm late-summer air with its lazy breeze rippled through his unkempt hair pleasantly, and the steady sounds of crickets and nightingales echoed through the dark sky all around him. Leaves whispered softly, and the distant din of festivity reached his peaked ears; everyone else in the village was occupied with celebrating the harvest – it had been a cold, long winter, and the crop cycles were thus delayed, making this year’s yield gathered later than normal.
Orion intended to fly on this night. Deep down in his heart was an assurance that had no logical root, and assurance that felt to him so natural and so evident that it could not be false; the assurance was that were he to be airborne, he would be able to swoop and swerve and float with as much ease as the birds.
I know I can fly. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to, he tried to reassure himself, looking down at the ground with some second thoughts. The leafy forest floor seemed to be a league away. Orion didn’t want to feel like he was being a coward, or giving in to irrational fears. So, trying to be as quick as possible, not giving himself further time to increase his doubt, he sucked his cheeks full of breath, blew them out, and dove out from his tree-branch, into the skies beyond it.
He fell.
The world flipped around him as he plummeted down to the ground. Orion wanted to scream, but found that he couldn’t; it was as if he no longer had control over his vocal cords. Fly, please, fly! he shouted to himself desperately in his head.
Then, miraculously, as if the sky was listening to him, he slowed for the briefest of moments, and stopped rotating crazily through the air; as if the sky all around were cushioning his fall, and obeying his commands. Orion dawdled long enough that he could clearly see the silhouette of a stooped adult elf standing between two trees across the clearing, watching him; but this wasn’t important. He was flying like a bird –
– Falling again, out of control once more, and the ground there to meet him. He slammed into the earth back-first with a hard thud that knocked the wind from his lungs, and a wet crack as his elbow slammed full-force upon an unforgiving rock.
As the pain in his body drove Orion to begin to feel light-headed, and he crept towards unconsciousness, his feelings were of total betrayal; at that moment, he realized that all his delusions of flight and of becoming a bird were merely childish fantasy. He’d been a fool to ever have taken them as anything but that.
Those dreams, which had fueled him for his whole life, had failed to catch him when he needed them the most. After all, he couldn’t fly, that was a certain fact – Surely that moment when he had felt as if he were hovering was a hallucination, an imagining – it had passed so briefly, he could not be sure it had even happened.
His vision faded slowly, and before it lapsed entirely into black, Orion perceived above his skyward face that the silhouetted elf that had been watching him was coming closer now, backlit by the full moon and therefore unable to be identified. Feelings of total humiliation racked Orion before he at last passed out; he had proven once again, plainly to the observer, that he was nothing but a foolish, idiotic boy. And then, at last, he saw no more.
…
Herbal aromas greeted his sensitive nose upon awaking once more, and with the whistle of a kettle, Orion realized that it was the smell of tea being made, warm and refreshing. Beneath his head, he sensed a soft presence – a feather-stuffed pillow. The young elf tried to push himself up, only to find that his left arm was unable to move. Peeking underneath the woolen blanket that covered him, he saw that it was secured to his body by a sling, and his elbow was fixed into place by a wooden splint. It ached considerably, and Orion groaned a little as this pain was sharpened, now that he was conscious.
A little craning of his neck allowed him to take in the room where he now reclined. It was a smallish bedroom, without much furnishing, save for a small table with a candle resting on it, and, opposite the bed and mounted to the wall, a rack that bore a sheathed sword. It was slim and slightly curved of blade, with an intricate hilt that appeared made of thin metal cords woven together expertly, and then bound with leather for the grip. The pommel was inset with a stunning sapphire.
Orion’s awed and slightly frightened gaze, however, was quickly averted when someone entered the room. By his bent posture, he realized that it was the same old elf that had seen him last night. But even despite this stoop, the old elf was significantly taller than Orion, with a shaven head and face, the better to display his crinkled eyes, thin, white eyebrows, and large ears. He carried in his wizened, scarred hands a tray, laden with two earthenware cups, and a teapot.
Seeing how his guest had been staring, the old elf smiled widely, an expression that instantly made Orion feel better; with twinkling eyes and wrinkly dimples, the stranger looked much less intimidating. Setting down his tray on the table, and then taking a seat (with some winces as his joints bent) at the foot of the bed, the old elf turned to look at Orion, and spoke in a pleasant voice.
“You’re quite tough, I must say,” he said, “After a fall like yours, I didn’t expect you to come-to again the next morning. Ah, such is the resilience of youth, I suppose. Would you like some tea? Oh come now, stop shaking your head like that; humor me, why don’t you, and just try it. I personally find it delicious.”
Orion sat up a little, being careful of his left arm, and then reached out with the right to accept a teacup. He hesitantly took a tiny sip, and upon finding that the tea was indeed very good, he drank some more, relishing the warmth it brought his body. But he tried his best to sound suspicious nonetheless when he asked the old elf a question.
“Who are you?” Orion questioned, giving back the cup, which he had drained. “And why weren’t you at the festival last night?”
“I am Lorimus,” his host responded, accepting the clay vessel, and pouring more liquid into it from the teapot. “And I left the festival early. I find that personally, I prefer the company of nature to the company of other people, sometimes, and on a night as perfect of temperament as last night– ”
“You do too?” Orion solicited keenly, finding that he respected Lorimus much more, and glad not to be alone in his mentality. “Er, like to be with nature more than people, that is.”
“Yes,” Lorimus responded, bemused as he gave Orion another cup of tea, “I know that you’re of that sort – don’t think that I haven’t heard of the ‘bird boy’ who loves the outdoors more than his fellow children. Now now, don’t blush like that, you have nothing to be ashamed of, do you?”
“I tried to fly, and I failed,” Orion murmured back, abashed and red-faced, “And look how that turned out. It was stupid… I’m no bird, and I, I don’t want to be!”
Lorimus looked at him for a moment in silence, and then spoke softly but firmly. “Boy, you are doing no good trying to lie to yourself, or trying to deny your own nature. I don’t tolerate that sort of thing. You can’t any more ignore what your heart tells you to want than to ignore what your eyes tell you to see. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so.”
With a softer tone, Lorimus continued, “Besides, you’re different than everyone else. It’s different people, like us, that change the world, you know. So shame in yourself will get you nowhere.”
“Different, like us? What do you mean, us?”
“Well, when I was young like you, many years ago, I too was regarded as strange; And I suppose I still am. My profession is generally seen as odd. But it’s also respected.”
“What profession?”
“I’m a wizard.”
“A… wizard?” Orion inquired skeptically and with total seriousness after a sip of tea, “If you’re a wizard, where’s your big hat?” This elicited a rich chuckle from Lorimus, and another smile. Orion didn’t get what was so funny.
“Oh, Orion,” Lorimus said after his mirth had subsided, “There are… many kinds of wizards. Wizards are people that are born with magic, obviously, but often with very different motives. I’m a Floromancer, for example – a wizard who uses the power supplied by nature. No, ‘uses’ isn’t the best word… well, as a wizard, one not only wields magic, but is wielded by magic, inhabited by it, almost.”
“Then why do you have that?” Orion asked, pointing to the sword mounted on the wall with his cup-holding hand.
“I have that because I am a soldier. I have fought in wars – to me as a person, magical prowess is secondary to combat skills, discipline, respect, modesty, and kindness. It’s more important to be a noble magician than a strong one, and therefore I abstain from using my magic unless totally necessary. Other wizards may think that it’s foolish to so underuse my abilities, but I respect the power that I have for the danger it could potentially be; to others, and myself.”
“I want to be a wizard,” Orion said wistfully, picturing in his mind’s eye himself as a brave hero, defeating evil with a sword woven with lightning and throwing balls of swirling energies at his foes to defend a mass of people, awestruck and admiring. Lorimus’ words of humility and respect were going more or less ignored.
A wry smile from Lorimus. “You may now,” he said with a grim smile, “But I assure you, that will soon change. You will not continue in your wizard’s training because you want to, but because you must.”
“Wizard’s training?” Orion asked with unveiled excitement, only to be ignored momentarily by the old elf.
“Perhaps not under me, but further in your never-ending education, I can guarantee, you will want to turn back, want to return to what you were before. That will never be able to happen. And yes, young man, wizard’s training, that is what I said, was it not? If you want to become a magician, you’ll need the tutelage, which I intend to provide.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly.”
“…Why me?”
Lorimus considered for a moment. He looked ready to articulate for a moment, but then took a breath, and started anew. “Because, Orion, I know that you have the potential to become one. I want to help you achieve that potential. So I’m giving you the opportunity to follow that path, if you so desire. It would entail living here in my house to undertake your studies, and of course working much harder than you have in your life – unless, of course, staring at birds is more challenging than it looks.”
Orion sat forward eagerly, too eagerly – he yelped as his injured elbow hit the bedpost. Lorimus started forward, but Orion held up his good hand in reassurance; it had not hurt too badly. The young boy spoke, his face flushed with anticipation.
“Yes! Yes! I don’t mind any of that! I want to be a wizard!”
Lorimus smiled briefly, but continued with a solemn tone. “Understand, however, that if you make this choice, the choice is final. Once you begin this journey, it is unstoppable, irreversible. The knowledge that you learn will change how you see the world, and not always for the better. Are you certain that you want to do this?”
“Yes!” Orion cried exasperatedly, “I’m absolutely, positively sure! Anything is better than being in the orphanage.” And with having to avoid the other children, he thought to himself.
“Wonderful,” Lorimus proclaimed, clapping his hands together and standing. “I will go tell the orphanage that you’re in my care; all I want you to do for now is get the rest you need to recover.”
“But sir,” Orion said, causing Lorimus to turn back and look at him from his route to the door, “I don’t think that the orphanage will let you just… take me… like this. They’re very, very strict.”
“Child, don’t be ridiculous! I’m your mother’s great-grandfather, surely that will mean I have at least some rights to you.”
With that, he departed, leaving Orion able to do nothing but blink in shock.
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