wizard

The physical world, some believe, is held and permeated by the 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, Book One in the Chronicles of Ealiron.

A swords-and-sorcery tale of one warrior’s transformation by the forces of war, betrayal, wizardry and love.

The Keepers of the Eye are central to the world of Ealiron, where gods and immortals walk and the veils between the physical and the Otherworld are thin. The Keepers are an ancient order of wizards who maintain balance through a network of energy wells called iomors that feed and sustain the land. The Keepers’ ruling seat is the citadel of Eyrie, in southeastern Sourcesee.

The orders are arranged in levels of mastery, each of which corresponds to a kind of bird, a color and a tree. This arrangement draws upon the natural forces of interconnection and the frequencies inherent in the essences of living things. The Keepers of the Eye include nine orders of wizards; the highest, the Order of Dove, is rarely attained as it sets one’s path into the realms of immortals. Three lesser orders, called Keepers of the Crafts, have limited powers pertaining to a particular area of expertise.

The Orders of the Eye, listed from highest to lowest as Bird; Color; Tree; Rank: