pyraxis | The Magician

There was never any question. The Magician has to be Gillian. The first person Fiona meets in Water Song, he's a merchant in the sea market who offers her uncommon kindness and shelter in his mysterious enchanted tent.

I've been revisiting the first chapter of Song of the Sons, since I've been exchanging it for feedback on a wonderful writing critique site. Gillian and his tent are the real stars of this chapter, and this painting has been sitting in the back of my head, in various forms, since the early days of developing the Water Song. Now I have the patience to render it fully.

The Magician is the first person the Fool meets in their journey. He opens the door into mystery and invites them to step through. To answer the Magician's call is to allow the potential of the unknown into your life, to look at what your deepest instincts are drawing you towards, and to accept that your unconscious has its own reasons. Those reasons are valid even if they initially make you uncomfortable and wary. Before understanding comes exploration, and exploration calls for courage and curiosity.

A brown-skinned man sits at a table, concentrating intensely on the tiny hammer in his right hand, the rod in his left hand, and the stone bead that they have just split into three fragments in a flash of light. Around him is a cluttered merchant tent, with shelves and chests containing goods of all sorts, from plants to scrolls to coloured yarn and cloth. Under the table is a half-covered basket of exotic fruit, and a large shadowed chest. In the foreground is another table, spread with meat pies of all shapes and sizes. In the background hangs a canopy made of brightly colored curtains.

The Magician

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