The Sword of the Fifth Element

by Peter Harris

13

  The Faerie Child

  As the lovers journeyed together back to Avalon, accompanied by Chiseller, Rosa began to suffer the pangs of withdrawal from the apples of forgetfulness, and from all the teachings of false comfort in the Void, and she was sick and shivered even in the heat of the sun so that Calibur feared for her life, and by night she was assailed by demons that only she could see, and her womb cramped until she begged for the Phagzagira to come and take it from her, and then fumbled to find a knife or any sharp thing, and finding none, broke down and wept for the child she had never had.

  And she heard the voices of the Aghmaath in her head constantly, and when she resisted them they tore at her mind so that Calibur feared for her sanity. For Calibur’s sake she endured and did not turn back to the Void, but her despair grew even as she clung to life. For the thing which had grieved her if possible more than Calibur leaving her was still gnawing at her heart: she was barren. Yet she could not bring herself to say that this was the grief which was consuming her, and the icon seemed to mock her with its image of the child.

  At last it became too hard for her to go on. Calibur left her under a tree by the banks of a stream, and went to get her some water to drink. Rosa idly felt the grass under her hand, but her mind wandered in darkness. Then she felt something small and waxy under her fingers. Plucking the white bud of the flower, she looked at it sadly as it lay in the palm of her hand. She was about to throw it away when it began to open before her eyes. It had five waxy petals, white as snow. It was a padmaësta, the hopeflower, which opens only under the light of the Blue Moon, or at the touch of one who is favoured by the Lady of Avalon.

  Looking around, Rosa saw that many other padmaësta were flowering about her. She smiled, and looked up, her heart suddenly full of new hope. The tree was laden with blossoms. It was an appletree, sacred to the Goddess. Suddenly she felt her body flooded with light as she was swept up into Faerie. Then, as in a vision she saw Ainenia coming towards her from the stream, her long blue robes flowing in the spring breeze. ‘Why do you doubt?’ said the voice of Ainenia in her heart. ‘Just as your heart was opened and blessed, so shall your womb be. The child you have long yearned for will enter it this very month when the apples set on the trees in the sacred groves of Avalon.’

  Then Rosa, pierced with joy, cried out as if in pain. Calibur, returning from the stream, was afraid for her and ran to her side. ‘Did you see Her?’ whispered Rosa.

  ‘See who?’ asked Calibur, but she embraced him, and showering him with kisses, wept for joy. Then he knew that she was healed, and the sun warmed them as they lay together under the apple tree and the blossoms glowed like snow. And Chiseller sat and guarded their clothes, and bit the falling petals when the breeze swayed the tree.

  As the sun rose on the third day they came to the blessed shore, and they walked in peace along the pebbly beach, and talked as they had not done since first they met, now delighting in the differences which once they had condemned in each other, each eager to explore the wonders of the other.

  That night the Ferryman came, and bore them across the enchanted waters to the blessed isle, where they were married in the Great Marriage according to the custom of that land, and Ainenia and her maidens were there, and the celebrations lasted nine days and nights. That month was their honeymoon, and as the apples set in the sacred groves of Avalon, as the Lady had foretold, Rosa conceived. She glowed visibly now, Calibur thought, her heart and soul and body, and he marvelled that he had once been in despair at the thought that he should live out his life with her. Now it was as if he lived with the Goddess herself, and his restless heart was at home at last, with her, and everywhere they walked together they were in the centre of the labyrinth of Life. And they were taught the mysteries of walking

  always in Faerie and creating the life they had come into the world to live, as naturally as the spider spins its web, shining in the morning dew.

  One clear afternoon they climbed to the summit of Avalon with Chiseller, and there as they gazed out over the leagues to the High Plateau of the Tor Enyása where the Jewel of the Tree of Life shone in the sun, the Old Man of Avalon appeared, treading barefoot and silent on the warm smooth rock. His beard was white, and so were his robes. He carried a staff of thornwood, and there he stood smiling at them until they laughed out loud. He laughed too, for joy, and blessed them. ‘Well done!’ he beamed. ‘I foresee that you will be the father and mother of great wonders in Logres, because you have chosen to live as one, and complete the Great Work! Now in you the Fifth Element grows, and by it you will create magical things.

  ‘But now, I offer you the choice: you may stay in the World of Aeden where the Tree of Life still stands; or you may go back to your own land, where darkness and chaos reign, and seek to build there a foundation for Logres.’

  And they chose to return to share on Earth the wisdom they had learned. ‘My True destiny is to prepare the way for Logres to be founded in Britain, and only in Britain can we do this,’ said Calibur. ‘But now I do not wish to make any more swords. I have seen enough death, and wish only to nurture life. So I will stay at Rosa’s side and care for her, and protect her from the accusations of the ignorant.’

  ‘And we can rebuild the cottage, and raise ducks and grow roses again!’ said Rosa.

  ‘Of course!’ laughed Calibur.

  ‘Don’t be forgetting that!’ said the Old Man. ‘For the greatest things exist also for the little, and even ducks, especially when raised by Rosa, have a special place in the Goddess’s heart. But also, Rosa, expect a child, and prepare your heart to receive it. This fruit of your true love will be a child of the faerie isle, and will walk in Faerie.’

  Then Rosa held Calibur’s hand, and they knew they were blessed, and could bless, and would at last be fruitful in their union. And Rosa wept for joy. The Old Man took their hands and said to them, ‘As you are descendants of past generations, so will you be ancestors of future ones, united with them in the great tapestry that grows ever richer. May you live long in great joy!

  Then he gave Calibur a gift. It was a great emerald, one end facetted like a crystal, the other rounded like the hilt-end of a sword. Engraved in it were many runes. Calibur thought of the dream he had of the sword over the lake, and Gwynneth’s words about the Sword of Truth needing an emerald, and he looked troubled as he thanked the old man and enquired as to the meaning of the runes, while Rosa restrained the anklebiter from grabbing the gem. The old man said, ‘Take it, even if it is no more than a paperweight for your study, to remind you always of me, and of Avalon!’ But there was a knowing twinkle in his eye.

  ‘And now, farewell! But I will take the anklebiter. My cave will be home to him — if you took him with you he would only pine for his native world.’

  They said goodbye to Chiseller, who was growling anxiously, and Rosa spoke motherly words of comfort to him as she hugged him and kissed his bristly head. Then the Old Man departed, taking Chiseller with him, and Calibur and Rosa watched the sunset together in mingled bliss and sadness.

  On the next night of the Blue Moon, when Avalon passed close to Britain again, the Ferryman came to take them across one last time. Soon they found themselves sailing under a stormy sky off Land’s End, and they beached in the cove where Calibur used to walk, and said farewell to the Ferryman, and went up onto the green springy turf of the headland, heading eastward to their old home.

  When at last they arrived at the village, the icon which Calibur had painted for Rosa was admired for its unearthly beauty, and the way in which it held the essence both of Rosa and of Calibur, Man and Woman in perpetual blissful union, and of the eternal hope of the Child, and something else they could not put a name to. But the lovers knew that it was the image of Ainenia which shone through with the light of Aeden and the Tree of Life.

  In the days that followed, Calibur sold the smithy to his former apprentice and used the money to rebuild the cottage, with the help of those who had burned it down, who we
re now full of praise for the pair. ‘We don’t know what got into us,’ said one of them, and the others scratched their heads and agreed.

  Soon after they had moved back into the cottage, Rosa gave birth to the child which she had conceived in Avalon. They named her Zurcíra, which means in the language of Aeden ‘Bright eyes,’ since she was a magical child and her eyes sparkled with the memory of Avalon.

  And Calibur made Zircíra wonderful toys, and told her stories of Aeden when she was old enough. And he helped Rosa in the garden whenever he could, and made her a fox-proof and weasel-proof duck run, and they planted an orchard together, and later they had a boy, and he bit his sister on the ankle, so they named him Chiseller. Afterwards they had two more children, and they fed them all from the abundance of the garden and the orchard.

  Calibur, having renounced the sword, became a stonemason and sculptor, and his son Chiseller was his apprentice. But in the long winter evenings while Rosa spun and wove, he would paint icons — though none was as magical as the one he made for Rosa in the canyon of Baz Apédnapath. It hung in their bedroom, and often when one of the children was afraid at night and came into their bed, Rosa would take it down and tell them the story of its making, and the child would fall asleep holding it fast.

  Since they lived now in the power of the Fifth Element, none dared report them to the Church authorities, so blessed had they become, and full of power. And many in the surrounding villages were won over, and that part of Britain, now sunk beneath the waves, remained for many years a stronghold of love for the Goddess and Life, and even those who converted to the new religion of Rome still honoured the great Mother. So they lived out their lives in peace, and passed on their wisdom to their children, until the generation of the fall of Lyonesse, when it was lost in the great downfall, and the sea reclaimed it, and (it is said) the bells in the temples of the Goddess still ring in the depths beyond Land’s End.

  The icon of Ainênia was copied by many, and those copies were secretly copied by others in later times when the Goddess was forbidden, long after the original had been lost beneath the waves.

  Then when Rome relented and the Madonna was allowed to be revered, one of those copies was the model for new images of the divine Mother and Child, and in those images was to be seen something of the magic of Aeden, and of Avalon, and of true love.

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