F.T. McKinstry

“Melisande lay in bed in the loft of her cottage in Graebrok Forest north of Odr. Wide awake and blinking in the dark, she listened to the mice above her head. Nearly a moon past, her swordsman had repaired a crack in the eaves before returning to the towers and yards of Merhafr, the great port on the Njorth Sea, where he served as a King’s Ranger. His name was Othin, taken from a god of wisdom, trickery and war. What such a one knew of carpentry, well, that was open to question. But he knew other things. Nice things.”

“Wizard is as wizard does.”

“The older a wizard grows, the more silent he becomes, like a woody vine growing over time to choke a garden path, deep and full of moss and snakes, running everywhere, impenetrable.”

“The forces of the sea give rise to imagination, which reflects them according to the nature and disposition of the perceiver. The sea itself is undifferentiated and without bias.”

“The strongest and most mysterious weeds often have things to teach us.”

“She held out her hands, cupped and holding a small plant.'The power to heal is the power to destroy,' she said with the faintest smile.”

“Master of magic, god of war, Odin wanders alone.”

“Lorth spoke a word and came into focus, though he had learned from experience that his features, the ghost-pale skin of a Northman with the gold-green eyes of a wolf, were almost as unnerving to a Tarthian as the shadowy form of a cloaking spell.”

“Hemlock's attentions had not only healed Aelfric's body of its wounds but also given him curious sensitivity. Aside from the voice in his mind, he felt things in the natural surroundings: the presence of beasts, the whispers of trees to the overcast skies, anger in the earth and sea. Ravens followed him around as they did wolves. And he had developed a rough ability to see in the dark.”

“In the calm, deep waters of the mind, the wolf waits.”

“Love is whole. Love cannot be divided from itself. Love knows all paths, where even gods and cats are blind.”

“Tortured Soul 101: The depth of despair one experiences during the creative process (as experienced say, in an abysmally blank page or canvas) is directly proportional to the scope and power of the work that emerges when it breaks.”

“Gardens are made of darkness and light entwined.”