The Tower and the Emerald

by Moyra Caldecott

  Inside the gem they saw the image of themselves – and what they had become.

  ‘Idoc,’ pleaded Viviane. ‘Release me. Let me go!’

  He turned to look at her, a terrible suffering in his face. As he hesitated, it was as though everything in existence was waiting and listening for his answer. There was no sound. No movement. The emerald light itself took on a different quality. It was now still and steady. It cast no shadow; it hid nothing.

  Everything was clear and in sharp focus, from the tiniest ant in the grass to the mightiest tree, from the darkest thought to the brightest. Idoc understood at last that he could never possess the woman he loved, because, in possessing her, everything that he loved about her ceased to exist.

  He spoke at last, and they could sense how painful it was for him to say these words.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘You are free. One day I will look for you again; and on that day I will be worthy of you.’

  Viviane stepped forward joyfully, colour flooding back . . . a life and a will of her own returning. She raised her arms and spun around, delighting in the feel of the air on her skin again.

  And then she paused to look back at Idoc. He was already beginning to fade from sight.

  The joy in her face died. She reached after him, calling his name . . .

  ‘Let him go,’ Olwen urged quickly. ‘He has chosen a new start . . . Is that not what you wanted?’

  Viviane dropped her arms. Yes, that was what she wanted – but something of herself was being torn away as she watched him go. She looked back at Caradawc – and he could see what she was going through. Would he ever be sure of her? Would she ever love him as she had loved Idoc – through everything . . . in spite of everything?

  Olwen touched his arm. ‘She loves both of you,’ she said quietly. ‘But no two loves are ever the same. You will lose her if you demand it.’

  Caradawc looked down at her. Her strength had supported them when they wanted to give up the quest. Her eyes were steady. He trusted her. Gerin stepped forward and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said in his deep voice. ‘Olwen knows.’

  * * * *

  None of them noticed the bird until it swooped. The huge wings flapped as the creature hovered for a moment, golden light rippling from its feathers, the air churning so violently that they had to cling to each other to prevent themselves being blown over. Olwen screamed as its beak lunged towards her hand. And then the mighty being rose to the sky, taking the emerald with it.

  Viviane ran forward, shaking her fist at the sky.

  ‘Bring it back!’ she cried. ‘Bring it back! The Green Lady needs it . . .’

  But the bird was already no more than a distant golden speck in the azure.

  They had barely taken the mystical jewel into their possession – and it was already gone. Shocked and stunned, they stood staring into the sky – Olwen sobbing to think how nearly she had lost her hand.

  A sound made them return their attention to earth. Standing at the edge of the lake, with the silver water lapping about her feet, stood the Green Lady, tall as a young rowan tree, her robe of leaves rustling around her, cornflowers and the magical five-pointed periwinkle in her hair. She was reaching out her hand to them in greeting, and as her sleeve fell aside, they could see the fine silver-green of her arm. Then she began to sing, her voice hauntingly sad.

  She sang of a love she had once had long ago . . . of how they had lived in peace and harmony . . . of how each and every being had enjoyed a place to be and purpose to pursue . . . how each and every being had flourished in harmony with each and every other . . . Then – and her tune grew more measured, more sombre – her lover had cut down the forests and drained the lakes; had ripped open the hills and covered the fields so that no living thing could grow there . . . He had wanted control. He had wanted power. Eventually he had power over all things . . . but it gave him no joy . . . For what he had power over had been changed out of all recognition . . .

  Angrily he had left her . . .

  Now she was going to call him back . . .

  The notes of her song flew out over the lake like silver birds. The hills gave back an echo as fine as harp music. They could hear the yearning in her heart. They could hear the name she called . . .

  Ny-ak appeared, tall and gaunt, his eyes hollow, his limbs like the charred branches of a tree that has been struck by lightning.

  ‘Why do you call, woman?’ he asked coldly. ‘We have nothing to say to each other.’ His voice rumbled across the lake like thunder, and they could see dark clouds gathering on the horizon. A wind sprang up and the reeds at the water’s edge were shaken like spears before a battle.

  ‘If only we still had the emerald,’ whispered Viviane, moving close to Caradawc. They could feel it – the coming conflict.

  So the two great angels confronted each other. How could he resist her, Viviane thought: she was as beautiful as a summer’s day in a green and temperate land. But he was angry. His human vehicle had deserted him; he had been crossed and thwarted at every turn. He was in no mood for overtures of peace. He raised his finger and pointed at the sun. A black cloud covered it instantly, and from that cloud poured down a thousand demons of darkness – tearing, biting, snapping, screaming, shrieking . . . while the four humans clung desperately to the oak tree at the water’s edge to prevent themselves being swept away.

  But the Green Lady turned her shoulder to the onslaught and summoned up her own forces. The sun was cleared of cloud again, and from the horizon of the dawn came a host of beings as clear as crystal, as refreshing as rain, spreading a net over the earth which, where it was touched, sprang into leafy growth – and the demons caught in it were turned to stone.

  Ny-ak watched the blessed transformation with bitter anger.

  He raised his arms on high and a whirlwind of foul air lifted up the grains of sand, the rocks, the twigs, the leaves, hurling them higher and higher until a solid tower of darkness stood beside them on the shore.

  Caradawc held Viviane close.

  There were no windows in the tower. Only a door.

  The Green Lady stooped and cast a small object at the tower’s base. They could not discern it, but it must have been a seed – for the foundations began to crack and a green shoot began pushing through the rock. Fissures spread rapidly, and from every one a growing leaf-bud emerged, until the tower had become a living tree . . .

  Ny-ak scowled darkly and drew the sword from the scabbard at his side. No lightning flash was ever as livid as the light that burned from that blade. The tree was felled . . . the tower with it . . . the earth shuddering to receive the debris.

  She lifted the lake in her long hands as though it were a cloak of silver silk. She threw it upwards – and as it floated in the air, it rained down a myriad fishes of diamond and amethyst. Then it fell on the flashing sword and clung to it, entangling Ny-ak’s arm and impeding his movements.

  Cursing, he shook himself free, the sword clattering to the ground wrapped in the embracing silk.

  ‘Ny-ak,’ she cried. ‘Why do you fight me? We could be lovers and all the world would benefit.’

  ‘Woman . . . I need power. How could I accept an equal?’

  ‘Then you will never know love at all,’ she answered sadly.

  She turned away from him and took a step on to the dry bed of the lake.

  Watching, Viviane and the others saw her pause and then, before their eyes, take root and turn into a tree.

  Astonished, they looked back at Ny-ak. Where he had been, another blind tower had risen on the ruins of the old.

  * * * *

  Weary as they were, Caradawc, Viviane, Olwen and Gerin all agreed at once to set off for home, and this time, the route seemed direct and uncomplicated. Viviane felt that a load had been lifted from her and, no matter how heavy and tired her limbs were, her heart was light.

  On all the journey they said not a word to each other: each deep in his or her own tho
ughts – turning over the events of the past days . . . wondering about the future.

  At the great gates of Castle Goreu, Cai and Elined came forward cheerfully to greet them, for all the world as though they had been a happily married couple for years. Behind them Rheged was grinning. He alone of the friends was not paired off, but he did not seem to mind. For the first time now Viviane felt that her husband’s home was her own home, and their future together would be a happy one. As though sensing this, Caradawc put his arm around her waist and led her proudly forward.

  Behind them Gerin lifted Olwen from her horse, and, to seal the decision he had made, held her close and kissed her long and deeply, in front of witnesses.

  Then there was feasting!

  Then there was celebration!

  Not one doubted that the dark days were over and all would now be well . . .

  APPENDIX

  The traditional legend of Lucifer’s Lost Emerald

  Story, comment and sources from Crystal Legends by Moyra Caldecott, available from Mushroom eBooks.

  * * * *

  There was once an archangel called Lucifer, Light Bringer, Star of the Morning. He walked in the City of Heaven as a prince, a favourite of the King of Kings, God of Gods. He was the fairest of the archangels, his raiment fine and rich, the diadem around his forehead studded with precious gems. In the centre was an emerald of the same substance as the emerald rainbow that spanned the sky above the throne of the King of Kings and reflected in the sea of crystal beneath the throne.

  It was through this emerald, as through a window in the mind, that Lucifer saw the full glory of God, and we, many regions and realms below the Heavenly City, catching the faint glimmer of it, were in those days encouraged to seek such a glory.

  The City of Heaven is beyond our imagining, but it has been said that it is built of gold as transparent as crystal, that its walls are of fine jasper, that it has twelve foundations, each of a different precious stone. From the first to the last they are as follows: jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolyte, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst. The city’s twelve gates are each of a separate pearl from the Ocean of Consciousness that has been since before the Word was first spoken.

  Beside a river as clear as crystal, flowing with the Waters of Life from the throne of the Most High, the Tree of Life grows, bearing twelve different fruits for the healing of all the realms of Heaven and Hell.

  In this city are many different orders of being, among them nine different orders of angels, the highest being the Seraphim who draw the hearts of mortals towards the Divine Love, the Kerubim, who pour forth wisdom, and the highest order of all, nameless ones, all-seeing, who occupy thrones close to the Throne of the Most High, Mary herself being one of these.

  Below these are other orders of angels, each created for a specific purpose, each with a fixed role to play and a fixed relationship with the Most High.

  All were satisfied with this rigid hierarchy, until the Lord of All Himself decided to introduce an interesting maverick into the situation. He created Man in his own image, different from the angels, independent, free.

  Pleased with his new creation and knowing that the very freedom he had given Man enabled him, potentially, to rise as high as the greatest angels – though at the same time it was possible for him to sink lower than the lowest – God demanded that the angels should bow down before Man. Some say it was Lucifer led the rebellion of those who, from jealousy of the freedom Man had, refused to bow down to him. Some say it was not, but, in the confusion and the fighting that followed among them – the loyal angels and the disloyal ones – many fell from the Heavenly City to earth and there made mischief among men, determined that they, the new created would never, no matter how hard they tried, aspire to Heaven to sit on the angelic thrones. In the Fall damage was done to Lucifer’s diadem, and the Great Emerald was loosened and fell like a green meteor in a shower of light to earth.

  Ever since that time Man has sought it, for with its recovery it is believed will come the power to see the Glory of God, and, by seeing, to reach towards it beyond the influence of the fallen angels.

  COMMENT

  A legend is often like a kind of cosmic rumour.

  There is an image, or an idea, mentioned either in the ancient oral tradition or in work of literature, and because it resonates so appropriately with our experience and expresses so felicitously something of importance to us that we have found frustratingly difficult to express, it takes hold and grows generation by generation into something of greater potency than it originally appeared to be, yet never far from what it potentially was. Other elements accrete to it, giving and taking power to and from the central stem.

  Such an image, an idea, is the war in heaven and Lucifer’s lost emerald.

  It appears first, to my knowledge, in the Bible, in the Old Testament:

  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . . For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will be like the most High. (Isaiah 14:12–14)

  And then in the New Testament:

  For if God spared not the angels that sinned . . . (2 Peter 2:4)

  And the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation . . . (Jude 6)

  It appears in the Middle Ages. Lucifer’s crown had been given to him by 60,000 angels. One stone fell to earth, and from it was carved a vessel of great beauty which came after many ages into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea. He offered it to the Saviour, who made use of it in the Last Supper. Later it became known as the Holy Grail.

  In c.1200 Wolfram von Eschenbach claimed that his story Parzival came from a Provençal singer named Kyot, who in turn had it from an Arab poet in Toldeo named Flegitanis. It describes the Grail as a miraculous stone that fell from heaven, the ‘lapsit exillis’:

  Those who took neither side when Lucifer and the Trinity fought – these angels, noble and worthy, were compelled to descend to earth, to this same stone . . . Since then the stone has always been in the care of those God called to this task and to whom He sent His angel. Sir, such is the nature of the Grail.

  By the power of the stone called ‘lapsit exillis’

  the phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes give him life again . . .There never was a human so ill but that if he one day sees that stone, he cannot die within the week that follows. And in looks he will not fade. His appearance will stay the same as when the best years of his life began, and though he should see the stone for two hundred years, it will never change, save that his hair might perhaps turn grey. Such power does the stone give a man that flesh and bones are at once made young again.

  (Parzival, Book IX, pp. 251–3)

  In Milton’s Paradise Lost the war in Heaven is described in great detail:

  He it was whose pride

  Had cast him out from heav’n, with all his host

  Of rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring

  To set himself in glory above his peers,

  He trusted to have equalled the Most High,

  If he opposed; and with ambitious aim

  Against the throne and monarchy of God

  Raised impious war in heav’n, and battle proud,

  With vain attempt. Him the almighty Power

  Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky,

  With hideous ruin and combustion, down

  To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

  In adamantine chains and penal fire,

  Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.

  (Book 1, lines 36 – 49)

  his hand was known

  In heav’n by many a towered structure high,

  Where sceptred angels held their residence,

  And sat as princes, whom the supreme King

  Exalted to such power, and gave to rule

  Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.

  Nor was his name unheard or unadoredr />
  In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

  Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

  From heav’n they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

  Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn

  To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

  A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

  Dropt from the zenith like a falling star

  (Book I lines 732-45)

  The references to the story are so numerous that I cannot quote them all, but I will give one more, this time from The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall (p. xcix) because he has gone into the ancient mystery teachings more than most:

  The Lapis Exilis, crown jewel of the Archangel Lucifer, fell from heaven. Michael, archangel of the sun and the Hidden God of Israel, at the head of the angelic hosts swooped down upon Lucifer and his legions of rebellious spirits. During the conflict, Michael with his flaming sword struck the flashing Lapis Exilis from the coronet of his adversary, and the green stone fell through all the celestial rings into the dark and immeasurable Abyss. Out of Lucifer’s radiant gem was fashioned the Sangreal, or Holy Grail, from which Christ is said to have drunk at the Last Supper.

  The Grail group of legends is one of the most powerful in the Western tradition and draws for its strength, as all good myths do, on our deepest human experiences and for its symbols on our earliest cultural memories.

  The Quest is our most universal and enduring human experience. The quest for meaning and purpose in our lives; the quest for reassurance that there is some kind of permanence or afterlife; the quest for love and satisfaction, both physical and spiritual; the quest for knowledge and wisdom and maturity. We symbolize it in our myths and legends constantly, often linking it with that haunting feeling that we have once had the very wisdom and knowledge and sense of purpose we seek, but that somehow we have lost it . . . Shambhala . . . Shangri-la . . . Eden . . . Atlantis.

  The Grail legends rise from this need to seek for something higher and better in our lives, and for the symbolism in them we draw on cultural memories from both pagan and Christian sources.