On the Fly
By Bonnie Rutledge
Chapter 1

Lyrio knew this fact from experience. He remembered a promising youth full of expectations and dreams of what was to come. He remembered crushing disappointment. He recalled the day he learned that he could be good, but never good enough. He could recollect with devastating accuracy how his world had reduced to the twin impulses of the blood pounding through his temples and his breath rasping in his throat. His dreams dashed, he had nothing left but the next heartbeat, the next gulp of air, then the next after that. In one instant, he could have been anything. In a second’s rejection, he had become just another unremarkable body, counting out his existence in breath and breakfasts.

Lyrio had studied meticulously to reach that point of utter failure, for he’d never been a boy prime for sport. He had always been a taint too clumsy for a physical trade and too shy to wrangle friends that would do the labor for him. Wooden swords and tumbling were the pastimes of other children. Lyrio wrestled with books and ideas, and he had trained ferociously.

He had earned minor honors before the age of ten, hence the youthful hope and expectations of greatness. Just suspiciously clever enough as a child to get noticed, Lyrio has been recruited for adept training on Argoniss, where potential hung heavy in the air like a brimstone shroud. He could have been brilliant, but his wit had only survived the rigors of the school for a year; hardly an introduction to the learned skills of spell craft. The eyes of the adept administration took a stern view on natural talent, and Lyrio’s efforts to prevail through sheer hard work did not convince them of his worth. He’d been shipped home in his third term with his shame and regret for company, a crippling burden to the esteem of a boy--no, a young man--of twelve.

After twenty years, however, Lyrio Bregna had started to recover from his youthful disillusionment. He scratched his thin nose, flicking a bead of sweat that had gathered at the tip into the swarming marketplace. He watched with widening eyes as it landed on the fine sleeve of a haughty trader sneering his way in between stalls of homespun cloth and plump figs. Lyrio glanced about, checking for anyone who might have noticed his indiscretion as he twiddled with the high collar of his outer robes. The sun was sweltering, and he longed for a cool drink in the shade, but the note had said to wait. He couldn’t leave without the risk of missing his rendezvous. Lyrio knew that an opportunity lost was an opportunity lost forever.

No one had noticed his infraction, most importantly the trader. Lyrio was not keen on confrontation, in any form. He shrugged to himself and fought back a sense of miserable inevitability. In the dusty desert streets of the old capital, Mal Nassrin swarmed with incidental people; humdrum souls, forgotten as the city had been forgotten. They lived a chain of commonplace cruelties and shabby triumphs, interspersed with overwhelming insignificance. A stumble on the road to success was nothing in Mal Nassrin, for the citizens rarely did anything of note. What’s more, few would ever risk remarking anything out of the ordinary.

Lyrio closed his eyes, and a sudden, cool breeze swept through the market, offering relief to his pale silver skin from the baking heat. He sighed in contentment, basking in the gentle brush of the wind over his features while the bodies about him bustled, blinded by their daily routines.

The system worked to perpetuate the system. People toiled their lives away for their loaves of bread, only to have each slice taxed by the governor and the city councilors until only crumbs remained, and the simple, unimaginative citizens never complained. By and large, the men, women and children of Mal Nassrin were thankful for what they had. Those who weren’t robbed the others blind.

Lyrio had always shown a fair talent for learning, and he quickly learned to fit in with the system. Shipped back to the city from the magical elite, he’d slipped into a quiet, common existence working for the local magistrate. Simple desk jobs filled his plate at first: he accepted payments for burial licenses for several years, then became an auditor of the region’s quarry output and grain supply when his superiors decided he could count without slipping a few sanguil into his own pocket.

Lyrio droned through this tedious period of rudimentary occupation and average meals, merely existing. In his life to that point, he had never traveled outside of Mal Nassrin save for his year abroad in Argoniss. Once he left the shelter of his parents, he resided alone in the same two-room lodging on the fringes of respectability. As the years passed, only the walls of his office changed his scenery.

Then came a promotion that would be his evolution, that would breathe new life into Lyrio Bregna, reminding him of hope and expectations, dreams and longing. After more than a decade of bureaucratic paper-pushing, Lyrio found his salvation in the guise of the Narimiri postal service.

The most-entry level position as a postal officer brought security and respect in Narimir, for long-distance correspondence qualified as a luxury. Peasants would save for a lifetime to pay the fees for a proper funeral, so the cost of a hand-delivered letter fell far beyond their means. His customers no longer smelled of stale onions, their faces boasting street-grime and sweat. Instead, his patrons arrived groomed and adorned, either tidy people living tidy, comfortable lives, or citizens boasting what little consequence Mal Nassrin had to offer.

The soldiers of the militia who came to his window impressed Lyrio the most; their muscular bulk, the way they could march crisply yet seemingly swagger at the same time. Their sharp, commanding voices snapped him to attention. Lyrio thought them magical, these men and women with the power and the authority to order lives, especially their own. With loyal admiration, Lyrio believed this illusion his envy painted, and he spent many a spare sanguil on drinks for the soldiers that visited with official missives bound for Azmadisha.

Their confidence dazzled Lyrio. He would watch from across the table as they jested and tussled drunkenly with each other, reminded of the children in his youth with their wooden swords. He would imagine that he had not been born with gangly arms and legs, that he was centered and quick on his feet; wiry, deadly, and a surprise to the world.

Then, one day, word of an uprising came from the North. The rebellious rabble had blockaded the roads from Mal Nassrin to the coast, so that no carriage could carry news to the sea and sail it on to the capital. In an instant, the city militia needed Lyrio for guidance far more than he needed them. How could they call for reinforcements if no postal scout could break through the gauntlet?

However clumsy he saw himself in form, Lyrio could think like the wind given good provocation. The realization swept over him that--while he had failed the standards set by the adepts of Argoniss--he was now surrounded by nervous journeymen, desk barons, and tense foot soldiers that had never come close to tasting his brief tenure of accomplishment.

Lyrio Bregna knew the wind. As a boy, his kite could find loft in the stillest of skies. On Argoniss, the wind had been his downfall, for he had risked sailing alone in blustery waters no other young adept would have dared. The elders had seen his inborn gift of air for what it was and condemned him for it. Yes, the eyes of the administration took a stern view on natural talent. The Mageborn taint would not be tolerated within the hallowed halls of Argoniss, not if they could find it. Lyrio had been condemned to his placid, incomplete instincts, never to know the secrets the adepts might have imparted had he been just a bit stronger, just a shred more wily hiding his gifts.

Lyrio had a gust of inspiration that day. He thought of birds soaring in the skies above, then he thought of his childhood kites. He thought of the wind, the gentle breezes that had traveled with him for as long as he could remember, and he wondered. What if he could soar among the clouds like a bird? Could he devise a kite that would act as his wings?

Lyrio sent up a prayer to Thieron to guide his hands. Leaving the postal office to its confusion, he’d rushed home to his two rooms and worked through the night. In the morning, bleary-eyed and stubbled, Lyrio had hired a cart so that he could show his peers the results of his labors: a glider.

They scoffed initially, for what use was a flying machine without a pilot? With bravery and deceit Lyrio had not known he possessed, he told them of his gifts and swore that he could fly the glider, carrying it all the way to Azmadisha on his wind (and prayers, if necessary) for the good of Narimir. When they believed him, Lyrio was stunned. When his feet left solid earth for the first time, Lyrio was reborn.

The first trip was not easy. He was not strong. His body uncoordinated, the glider threatened to snap out of his grip, and veered off course more than once. Lyrio ached from his efforts, his muscles wrenched beyond their endurance. He feared he would plummet to the ground, but the wind remained with Lyrio, pushing him onward when his body would have failed.

The people on the ground could not see Lyrio’s doubts or his weak limbs. They saw only the results--their messages delivered, and the reinforcements posted in return. He received a medal for his ingenuity. It was silver with a fob of plain, blue ribbon, but a medal nonetheless. Lyrio would polish the small circlet and think of the adepts in Argoniss who, for all their study and spells, would never be rewarded for their toil. Knowledge was its own reward in those forbidden towers, and Lyrio told himself that he had found a better way of life.

He earned his own flock of assistants, every Mageborn with air at their command rustled from the local population to share his workload. The aerial messengers were considered part of the militia, a thought that could make Lyrio laugh nervously. He did whatever job came to him, but he tried to remain circumspect. Still, the militia enjoyed using their personal pigeons. In the years to come, Lyrio saw nearly every town in Tolmira from above. He witnessed the surge of death over the battlefields of the frontier lands and floated in the eye of hurricanes, emerging from both types of storm unscathed. With every flight, his arms grew less jittery, his spine balanced, and he gradually learned to control his aim through the sky. His flight times decreased, and he was rewarded again, this time with his own office. It bore a tiny plaque by the door with his name, and Lyrio polished it with the same hope as he did his medal.

Every now and then, Lyrio would notice a prestigious patron prance into the postal office, or, more often, notice their servants sent on the errand. Lyrio remembered their currency of invitations, trade agreements and persuasive letters to the emperor, recalled sitting in his booth and taking their casual coins, and he began to quietly doubt his worth once more. He still lived in the same two-room lodging on the fringes of respectability. He dined on slightly better food and carried a few extra spare coins in his purse every month, but all it would take to rob him of his shabby sustenance was an accident. A few months robbed of flying would render him a pauper. If his fortunes could be so easily crushed, had he truly accomplished anything?

The next day, Lyrio received the letter. It had been hand-delivered by his very own postal office, the junior-grade courier knocking on his office door and presenting the sealed vellum with eyes agog. Lyrio had questioned the delivery, of course. The only instances he had witnessed postal officers on the receiving end of their work were at anniversaries; congratulatory notes to honor long years of service. Lyrio was still two years short of his tenth anniversary. The vellum felt heavy and smooth to the touch and carried a faint perfume of bergamot. The unexpected weight of it made his hands shake as he broke the seal.

The message was simple:

A time and directions to a corner of the marketplace followed in discreet script. No signature, no explanations, just hope sealed in simple possibility.

Lyrio thought quickly. He asked the courier for the identity of the sender, but the boy knew nothing. Lyrio considered questioning the officers at the windows, but decided against prying. The message had suggested a clandestine meeting. If he displayed too much curiosity, the others would take note. Instead, Lyrio packed the letter inside one of his travel satchels, as if it was just another missive he was destined to fly to someone else. The courier left, lulled by the return of the pattern of the everyday, already distracted with thoughts of his next delivery.

Lyrio had come to the marketplace, longing for an opportunity. He waited and, as the minutes ticked by, hoped that he was not wasting his time.

A shout arose in the crowd. Lyrio could see a bulk of a man gripping the trader he’d flicked sweat upon, wrestling with him in the distance. He saw the flash of sunlight against metal, then he watched as the trader crumpled. The bulk of a man was left standing over his handiwork. The thug flexed his leather-clad form, shoving away any parties interested in justice, then the man methodically picked up a bound package from the ground, crooking it beneath one arm.

Lyrio observed with bated breath as this violent stranger began to stalk through the marketplace. The thug’s eyes flicked about the stalls and wagons, searching with specific intent, and he pushed aside bodies and merchandise as he went. Lyrio considered running.

Fleeing would have been safer, what with a madman storming through the arcade, but Lyrio could not abandon the temptation of the note’s promise. If he ran away like the majority of the frenzied crowd, he would never know what it meant. Where was his spine if, he quailed at the first sign of a feyborn on a public rampage? From tales, this was merely an average spectacle. A real man, Lyrio told himself, would make note of seeing a real, live, crazed mixling up close. Lyrio wanted to imagine himself a real man-a brave real man--very badly.

Suddenly, the stranger’s gaze landed upon his target.

Lyrio pressed into the stone wall behind him as the stranger dropped what he was choking and smiled, mouthing the word "Elf."

Lyrio reconsidered the importance of wealth, mysterious letters, and being a real man. Perhaps he had overestimated the lure of all three.

He was an elf. Lyrio did not think about it much. Few elves ever thought about their heritage, and fewer still ever encouraged the populace to notice the difference in their skin, the shape of their ears, or the coloring of their eyes unless they wanted trouble. Of those that did, the Cella were rabble and tended to die violently. Their distant kindred, the Verai, were warriors and also tended to die violently. With such a pattern of destruction, Lyrio had decided early on that it was better for an elf averse to pain and suffering to fit in, keep quiet, and to be accepted.

What had he done to deserve this turn of events? How had he found himself with a crazed half-breed barreling down on him in a public market? He hadn’t kept his nose clean, that’s what, and now he was being singled out in a crowd by a behemoth who appeared to enjoy the violent deaths of others for breakfast. Recognition was his reward for questioning his place in the world, for reading letters, for his greed and aspirations...

The madman pointed at him, his eyes hungry, his voice an incongruous, joyful sing-song. "Here, elf. Here… elf, elf."

People--unkind people--called elves that lived within the strictures of human culture assimilated. Lyrio preferred to think of himself as a nice and well-mannered fellow who just wanted to get along.

A nice, well-mannered fellow rather in a spot of peril.

The more rebellious and elitist sorts, the Cella and the Verai, both took exception to well-behaved, peaceable elves such as himself. They acted as if it was a bad thing to like a quiet evening by the fire, to shy away from anything sharper than a letter opener, and speak softly. The feyborn, who tended to be unpredictable on their best days and homicidal on their worst, could only be a nightmare to behold.

"I’ve done nothing! I’ve done nothing wrong!" Lyrio yelped compulsively. The madman must have confused him for someone else. He hoped, wished and shivered that it was all just a mistake of identity.

Assimilated. Complacent. Lapdog. He could see these words echoing in the feyborn’s glare. Maybe Lyrio was all these things, but wasn’t it terribly rude to kill him for it?

"I’m here for you," the thug snarled. Mosquitos buzzed about them both, drawn by the sweat of life. The mere act of speaking rumbled the feyborn’s shoulders threateningly, and Lyrio blinked as the insects disappeared one by one, concussed by a simple flexing of muscles.

Lyrio decided that he should faint.

Unfortunately, he found himself grotesquely mesmerized by the wind and swing of the feyborn’s meaty fist. Appalled at himself, Lyrio blubbered as the madman drew back his arm and clubbed him above the ear, bone and knuckles creating a satisfying clunk.

Never mind contusions and broken bones, Lyrio thought. As his vision swamped red and black, he wished he could die of embarrassment.