A hidden realm of green and blue
Swirling, curving, flowing
In deep places
Nonlinear patterns of infinite variables
The source of life
Of fluid creatures
At one with the element of imagination
The realm of mystery
The primordial unknown
© F.T. McKinstry 2015. All Rights Reserved.
I am very fond of my aquarium. It’s not that large, but exists as its own little universe, green, fluid and tranquil. I keep freshwater fish and live plants. At one with the water, fishes fascinate me in a primordial, archetypal way. Each kind has its own personality; some are laid back, some are skittish and shy, and others are belligerent. They coexist peacefully, though now and then someone will feel the need to act rude.
I love to grow things in the earth world, so naturally I wanted to try my hand at water. In this realm there is a delicate balance between plant, water and fish that’s more obvious than that of the earth because it goes awry easily and when it does, things get bad in a hurry. It took me a while to get the balance right and now I’m vigilant about keeping it. This has given me a renewed respect for nature, which does this seemingly without effort.
The watery realms provide an interesting metaphor for painting, as the creative process when I’m moving oil paint on a canvas is watery in sensation and feeling.
My fishes would approve.
© F.T. McKinstry 2014. All Rights Reserved.
Stars shine in the dark as the moon looks away.
Away, disinterested.
A sword will cut the fair
And call it love.
Love, forsaken.
Come to my hand as a shell washed upon the sand.
From The Riven God, Book Four in the Chronicles of Ealiron.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
Kalein
Once upon a time there lived a wizard named Kalein who mastered the art of shapeshifting. With the grace of an immortal, she could become any creature, plant, tree or element in the forest. By this she reveled in the beauty and complexity of life.
The wise warn that spending too much time in other forms weakens the fibers of one’s humanity. The lore of wizards is rich with such tales; in time, these become folk legends of animals or trees that were once human and forgot themselves. But it is also said that the love of another will keep a shapeshifter on the ground in human feet.
A powerful mage named Caelfar loved Kalein with all this heart. She gave her love to him, but the pull of the wilds was stronger. One day, while picking flowers in a high meadow, she spied a crowharrow, a rare immortal hunter with the flawless body of a male god and the wings of a crow. He gave her no more mind than a cat passing through a garden, and vanished into the Otherworld, taking Kalein’s heart with him.
From that moment, Kalein forgot the warnings of the wise. She became the wilds, her human nature a mere reed in the rushing river of her life, a dream out of focus. She never saw the beautiful immortal again, as such beings elude the dimensions of mortal perception. One day, Kalein shifted into a sleek, silvery fish with an air of the strange that caught the crowharrow’s eye. He reached through the veil, caught her in his claws, sank his fangs into her tender flesh and ended her longing.
Caelfar, shattered and cursed by having used his powers to win Kalein back from the crowharrow’s thrall, erected a statue of his lover in the center of his magnificent garden, to remember her always. Standing in a pool, she has swirling fins in place of feet.
The Winged Hunter, Book Three in the Chronicles of Ealiron.
Tansel is a gardener with a healer’s hand. Fey, they call her.
Her aunt, a dabbler in hedge witchery, calls her cursed.
To the most powerful wizards in the land, she is an enigma.
© F.T. McKinstry 2014. All Rights Reserved.
She had asked the stars, whales, rocks, the sun and moon.
She had asked terns, seals, herrings, crabs, and the white horses that roamed the cliffs on the western coast of Waleis.
She had asked the trees and the north wind.
She had asked the dead, their pale eyes staring.
She had even asked the beryl spire focusing the energies of the earth into a mighty web.
But nothing in Ealiron’s creation knew where the mortal shell of her child had gone.
Until one came, bearing news.
As she released the snow-white gull to the north, her immortal lover twinkled with the silence of deep winter on the hard, gray land.
Legends of sailors and wizards collide when an Otherworld being discovers its destiny in a mortal’s imagination. The Gray Isles, Book Two in the Chronicles of Ealiron.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
In the Gray Isles, sailors tell a legend of a beautiful immortal creature born from the union of a star and the sea.
Wizards believe the birth of such a being heralds the annihilation of the realm.
One fey child knows the truth.
Legends of sailors and wizards collide when an Otherworld being discovers its destiny in a mortal’s imagination. The Gray Isles, Book Two in the Chronicles of Ealiron.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
Sunlight glimmered on new leaves
Stirred by a warm, fragrant breeze.
On the pads of a wolf, he moved
Over ferns, mossy stones,
The roots of ancient trees.
He followed the sound of water
And found a chasm.
It yawned before him, echoing with whispers.
He leaned over the edge
And gazed into the starless, endless Void.
“What is the true meaning of darkness?”
He looked up at the sound of his master’s voice.
On the far side of the abyss stood the Dark Warrior,
Creator of Ostarin.
The war god beckoned him to jump.
From The Hunter’s Rede, Book One in the Chronicles of Ealiron. A tale of one warrior’s transformation by the forces of war, betrayal, wizardry, and love.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
My woman has a wandering eye;
Yarrow, thyme and thorn.
She eyes the ocean and the sky
While stitching sails, forlorn.
I got a kiss, and then a tear
As she bade me go;
But on the waves, my heart’s in fear:
My woman’s in the know.
From The Gray Isles, Book Two in the Chronicles of Ealiron. Legends of sailors and wizards collide when an Otherworld being discovers its destiny in a mortal’s imagination.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
A deep river flows by the mage’s tower.
The water, gray, green and yearning for the sea,
Gropes at the foundations with swirling fingers.
Stone is patient.
The mage’s woman dips her bucket into the course;
She is weeping again.
The river catches her tears and knows
Water is more patient than stone.
Frogs call the rain;
The tide, though distant, hears all water.
The moon whispers it.
Night pours down from an unseen shroud,
Lifting the river above the reeds
To the tower stones, cold as the mage’s heart.
The river does not respond to words, gestures
Or sigils.
It cradles the woman’s boat
Like a womb,
Rising, falling, spinning her away
From the echoes of the tower’s fall.
“The River” was originally published in Volume 9, Issue 4 of Tales of the Talisman. This magazine features fine writers and artists of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Check it out.
© F.T. McKinstry 2014. All Rights Reserved.
See me, see you
The mirror is dark and full of light
Show me the landscape
Tell me of moons and water
My love in motion
From Raven of the West, a tale of desire and deception told on a fairy tale landscape of herbal lore, arcane texts, visions, and disasters at the hands of the powerful.
© F.T. McKinstry 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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