F.T. McKinstry's Blog - Posts Tagged "shapeshifter"
The physical world, some believe, is held and permeated by an otherworld, an invisible realm most often perceived in dreams, visions, and fairy tales. At certain points in time, such as twilight or All Hallows Eve, the natural boundaries between the physical and the unseen become thin. In certain places, this happens by virtue of location or meaning; such as bridges, caves or the edge of a forest. People who are sensitive to the otherworld are said to possess second sight.
Lorth of Ostarin, an assassin and the protagonist of The Hunter's Rede, is such a one. Trained by a wizard, he has more faculties than the average seer and does not shiver at the appearance of the strange. When the dark-cloaked figure of a woman with a wolf's face begins to haunt his dreams and visions, he puts it down to exhaustion and the stress of having a price on his head. But when a flesh-and-blood woman leads an armed company into the woods to hunt him, Lorth pales with confusion as, in clear sight of the men accompanying her, she draws back her hood to reveal what has, until now, remained safely in the dark....
She emerged into the light, cloaked in black and moving with the sinuous, primeval grace of all women. She reached up with a pale hand, touched the edge of her hood and turned, drifting like fog without a sound across the earth. A wolf gazed over the fire with pale gold eyes staring deeply, completely, until she turned away and vanished into the shadows.
The Hunter's Rede is available in print or ebook at the following sites:
Lulu (Paperback)
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble Nook
iTunes
Reader Store
Fictionwise
Double Dragon Publishing
Lorth of Ostarin, an assassin and the protagonist of The Hunter's Rede, is such a one. Trained by a wizard, he has more faculties than the average seer and does not shiver at the appearance of the strange. When the dark-cloaked figure of a woman with a wolf's face begins to haunt his dreams and visions, he puts it down to exhaustion and the stress of having a price on his head. But when a flesh-and-blood woman leads an armed company into the woods to hunt him, Lorth pales with confusion as, in clear sight of the men accompanying her, she draws back her hood to reveal what has, until now, remained safely in the dark....
She emerged into the light, cloaked in black and moving with the sinuous, primeval grace of all women. She reached up with a pale hand, touched the edge of her hood and turned, drifting like fog without a sound across the earth. A wolf gazed over the fire with pale gold eyes staring deeply, completely, until she turned away and vanished into the shadows.The Hunter's Rede is available in print or ebook at the following sites:
Lulu (Paperback)
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble Nook
iTunes
Reader Store
Fictionwise
Double Dragon Publishing
Welcome to Part Four, the final post of The Spooky Forest, a series dedicated to the stories in Wizards Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration.
Part Four: The Immortal Hunter
Wizards call him sioros, an immortal predator with the body of a male god, towering black wings and the claws and fangs of a mountain cat. To lay eyes on him means either heartbreak or death depending on how the winds blow that day. In "Eating Crow" and "Marked," one woman attempts to elude the hunter and pays with her heart; the other tries to bargain with him and pays with her life.
Eating Crow
It is never a good idea to anger a wizard. One witch causes enough strife to provoke a powerful mage to summon a sioros after her. But when she plumbs the utter reaches of her skills as a shapeshiftress to elude the hunter, she discovers the value of her own humanity.
Shapeshifting was Oona's life, a fluid existence she preferred to humanity. As a human, she would have avoided anything to do with the Master of Straif. A wizard of the deep flowing waters, the hollows of the earth and the implacable forces of blood and transformation, he had one black boot in the shadows.
And he loved his crow.
Oona, on the other hand, found the raucous creature too tempting. Tawny, lithe and driven by the lust of spring, she slipped around the eastern wall of the castle and climbed the spiky old hawthorn tree that grew there.
Most humans knew better than to cross a wizard. A cat did not care.
She landed with a soft thump in a bed of periwinkle. The crow called to the dawn. Nice of him to give her something to head for, though she would have smelled him easily enough without the noise. She crept on her belly through the shadows of lupine spires, tulips and daffodils until she spotted the bird on his perch above the crabapple tree. Fluid as sound, she changed.
She landed with a graceful flutter in the tree, a beautiful female crow with glistening black wings and a song for the male on his perch. He knew enough to be wary of her instant appearance in his domain, but curiosity distracted him. In that instant of miscalculation, Oona drew close and returned to her wildcat shape to finish her wicked deed. It ended quickly.
Marked
Falling in love with a god puts one woman outside her own kind. Losing her child to a sioros brings her to the stars with a plea that only a mother could make.
The constellation of Sioros, the Winged Hunter, sparkled on the twilit sky to the north. The towering cluster gazed down from a large star called the Hunter's Eye, which shone with steady, soothing light that Lorelei felt before she opened her eyes with a violent shudder. A fisherman's wife from Othurin, she had a simple mind. But in the light of the Hunter's Eye, her mind became a tapestry, silvery and glinting in divine patterns of arcs, lines and colors from which her thoughts fell most strangely.
She knew the name of the star, for one thing. Alberon. Yes, that was his name.
This elusive memory brought up another, crushingly accessible one. A mother's grief drew her up from the dead-cold ground. "My baby," she gasped, rustling in the breeze between day and night as a raging river flooding over a millwheel, splintering it. She staggered across the bloody path before the cottage, its hearth cold and windows dark.
Away in the distance, a woman screamed.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is available as an ebook from Wild Child Publishing (PDF, HTML, ePub, Mobi, Lit and PRC), Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook).
Customer review:
"If you enjoy a book for sake of an interesting story, this book is for you. If you enjoy a story for sake of how well it's written, this book is even more so for you. F.T. McKinstry writes in a way that involves all the senses. It's not something I read line by line, but sensation by sensation. Highly recommended."
Part Four: The Immortal Hunter
Wizards call him sioros, an immortal predator with the body of a male god, towering black wings and the claws and fangs of a mountain cat. To lay eyes on him means either heartbreak or death depending on how the winds blow that day. In "Eating Crow" and "Marked," one woman attempts to elude the hunter and pays with her heart; the other tries to bargain with him and pays with her life.
Eating Crow
It is never a good idea to anger a wizard. One witch causes enough strife to provoke a powerful mage to summon a sioros after her. But when she plumbs the utter reaches of her skills as a shapeshiftress to elude the hunter, she discovers the value of her own humanity.
Shapeshifting was Oona's life, a fluid existence she preferred to humanity. As a human, she would have avoided anything to do with the Master of Straif. A wizard of the deep flowing waters, the hollows of the earth and the implacable forces of blood and transformation, he had one black boot in the shadows.And he loved his crow.
Oona, on the other hand, found the raucous creature too tempting. Tawny, lithe and driven by the lust of spring, she slipped around the eastern wall of the castle and climbed the spiky old hawthorn tree that grew there.
Most humans knew better than to cross a wizard. A cat did not care.
She landed with a soft thump in a bed of periwinkle. The crow called to the dawn. Nice of him to give her something to head for, though she would have smelled him easily enough without the noise. She crept on her belly through the shadows of lupine spires, tulips and daffodils until she spotted the bird on his perch above the crabapple tree. Fluid as sound, she changed.
She landed with a graceful flutter in the tree, a beautiful female crow with glistening black wings and a song for the male on his perch. He knew enough to be wary of her instant appearance in his domain, but curiosity distracted him. In that instant of miscalculation, Oona drew close and returned to her wildcat shape to finish her wicked deed. It ended quickly.
Marked
Falling in love with a god puts one woman outside her own kind. Losing her child to a sioros brings her to the stars with a plea that only a mother could make.
The constellation of Sioros, the Winged Hunter, sparkled on the twilit sky to the north. The towering cluster gazed down from a large star called the Hunter's Eye, which shone with steady, soothing light that Lorelei felt before she opened her eyes with a violent shudder. A fisherman's wife from Othurin, she had a simple mind. But in the light of the Hunter's Eye, her mind became a tapestry, silvery and glinting in divine patterns of arcs, lines and colors from which her thoughts fell most strangely.She knew the name of the star, for one thing. Alberon. Yes, that was his name.
This elusive memory brought up another, crushingly accessible one. A mother's grief drew her up from the dead-cold ground. "My baby," she gasped, rustling in the breeze between day and night as a raging river flooding over a millwheel, splintering it. She staggered across the bloody path before the cottage, its hearth cold and windows dark.
Away in the distance, a woman screamed.
Wizards, Woods and Gods: Tales of Integration is available as an ebook from Wild Child Publishing (PDF, HTML, ePub, Mobi, Lit and PRC), Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook).Customer review:
"If you enjoy a book for sake of an interesting story, this book is for you. If you enjoy a story for sake of how well it's written, this book is even more so for you. F.T. McKinstry writes in a way that involves all the senses. It's not something I read line by line, but sensation by sensation. Highly recommended."
