by Peter Harris
9
The Icon-makers
The shepherd (whose name was Estanam, which means in the language of Aeden ‘Soul-hope’) was surprised to see Calibur again, but very glad of his company, and together they made the long pilgrimage to the Canyon, passing on the way the Applegate Vale where the beautiful Springs of the Wouivre rise before flowing down to Lake Avalon. ‘These springs come from the caves of the Lake of the Canyon,’ Estanam told him, ‘but we must go over them, to the High Pass and thence down to the Northern Gate of the Canyon. For the caves are sacred to the monks and priestesses of the Wouivre, and they allow none to enter them.’ And bathing in the Springs of the Wouivre, they felt the life of Aeden flowing into them, and they laughed for joy.
Finally they arrived with the flock at the High Pass, and with difficulty guided all the sheep up the narrow ledges and over the pass to the other side, where at last they saw the line of the great canyon snaking out almost to the horizon, ending at the feet of a distant mountain crag. Estanam said, ‘That is the Haunted Mountain of Kallaxzür, or Baldrock, sacred to the monks of the Wouivre, who make pilgrimage there every spring to unite the two Wouivre energies, of sky and earth, for the year to come.’
Arriving at the North Gate Estanam correctly answered the Nine Questions of the Gatekeeper, which were instituted by the Seekers of Truth to keep out the ‘ignorant riff-raff’. So they were granted entry into the realm of Baz Apédnapath, whose communities were strung out along great overhanging shelves high in the canyon walls. And they passed through the Courtyard of the Labyrinth and saw the Canyon, and far below, the deep green waters of the Bottomless Lake, where the monks of the Wouivre rowed longboats to and fro between their subterranean monasteries.
And Estanam took him to that guild of icon-makers which he thought would be most compatible with his hope. He was brought before their leader, an old man said to be a master of iconography in all its forms. The master asked Calibur, ‘What is your hope, what is your destiny?’ Calibur felt a rush of joy that he had come so close to his true destiny, and that he was among such people, who understood about such things, being dedicated to the portrayal of them in sacred art.
‘Sire, I am Calibur of Edártha,’ he said. ‘I have come to Baz Apédnapath to learn the art of iconography, to paint a divine likeness of Ainenia in the guise of Rosa my estranged wife, and of my own soul in union with hers, in the sacred Marriage of Opposites. And when I have won her back from the worship of the Void, I wish to return to my own world and forge a Sword such as that world has not yet seen, for the deliverance of my land of Logres, and to plant a seed of Aeden upon her soil that will grow into a tree of life for our people.’
‘Good! You have a large vision! Also, it seems you have already a passion for the heart of our work: the representation of the four elements and their union in the Goddess, by means of the Fifth Element.’
‘You use the very words of my old Teacher, Anselm of Avebury!’ cried Calibur. Then Estanam said, ‘It seems you have found your next Teacher. Farewell, and good luck! May you one day paint the icon which will bring your love back to you.’ And he departed for the villages of the North-east where his own love dwelt. Then Calibur laid out the sapphires and also the agathra of Avalon, amber from the life-sap of the jeweltree which the Old Man had given him so that he would be able to pay for his tuition, and the Teacher accepted them with thanks, especially the agathra, which was used for icon varnish, and glowed with the light of the Tree of Life. ‘Though it is our way to freely teach all who ask, if we deem them ready, and we receive from them help in our basic chores, and later, hopefully their support when they themselves become masters.’
Calibur replied, ‘Master, how long does this take? For I am a man in a hurry.’
‘Hurry?’ the old man repeated the word as if trying to remember its meaning. ‘My son, the basic training takes nine years — at least. But to become a Master, it is not possible to get to that by the passage of time, only by the pathway through the Labyrinth of life. That is your own journey to the sacred Centre of your life, which you must find in your own way and time.’
But Calibur did not hear his last words, so dismayed was he at the mention of the nine years.
‘I do not have nine years! I must return to my Lady within the year, or she will die. She has said she will lay down her life at the next festival of the Void. For she has become a devotee
of death.’
‘Then return, and when you have finished your business with her, come back and you may begin.’
‘But… I wanted to paint her an icon, to reach her heart, and turn her back from death.’
‘And you love her?’
‘Yes, I think so — though I cannot claim to know her
any more.’
‘But do you love her with all your heart and soul?’
Calibur hesitated, then suddenly he remembered his vision in the smithy so long ago, when he saw that beautiful soul, and he heard Gwynneth saying to him, ‘You have seen the image of the Goddess in me; and that is good. Now you must see her in your own wife — which will be even better.’ Calibur remembered his despair at those words, and blushed. Now he saw hope in them, that finally his heart would be whole and at one with his head. He remembered Gwynneth’s next words: ‘If you learn to love her, you will have the goddess. And if you have the goddess, in her you have all women. I am no different, in essence, from your wife — I am just another facet of Her, one that your heart seeks, because it is a part of what you yourself are, and long to become.’
Now suddenly he felt no more any division: his love was focused: his soul was in the Goddess, and in Rosa he was one with Her. ‘It is so simple!’ he thought.
‘I love her as my own soul, and with all my heart!’ he cried aloud.
‘That is better. Good! Now, I perceive, you are very near the centre of your personal Labyrinth. So there is some hope for you to achieve that which you desire within one year. You must follow your heart, and learn just that which you need to paint one perfect picture of your beloved, and into that put all your love, your passion, and your yearning for the Goddess. You must know your own soul, and portray it in union with hers.’ He looked at Calibur as if summing him up. ‘And, ideally, you will portray both your souls in union with the Soul of the World, and the Soul of the World in union with the Goddess, and the Goddess in union with the One. Then the Fifth Element will shine through the icon, and it will have the power to call her back from the brink — and perhaps many others also.’ Calibur nodded, though the task sounded completely beyond his powers.
‘Now, about the basics of the Icon…’ the teacher began in a new voice as he gave his introductory speech, and Calibur tried to listen intently to every word. But all he could think about was the perfect icon he would paint for Rosa.
The old master set him to work under the panel-maker, and the framers, gilders and varnishers, until he knew which were the best panel-woods and gesso coatings, frames and varnishes for all icons, the single, double and the triptych. ‘For you do not yet know the form which your icon must take,’ said the Master.
Next he was shown the basics of the art of the paint-maker, how to grind earths of red and blue and yellow, ochre and ultramarine, fine gold and silver powders and crushed diamond, and to mix them with the golden yolks of eggs and spring water to make tempera paint, which glows over the snow-white gesso and the gilding like the colours of the rainbow of the Goddess. ‘For if you do not know the essences of the substances which make the colours, how can you paint the essence and beauty of the soul?’ said the Master.
Then he was taught proportion and sacred geometry, which he loved greatly, remembering his early days learning from his father, and later the discussions with the hermits about the world as the book of the One, written in the language of mathematics and sacred geometry.
He remembered Anselm’s wisdom of the Five Elements, and decided he must paint a triptych, on the Left panel Love and Beauty, and on the Right Truth and Freedom; and then
in the Middle panel, the largest, he would paint the Fifth Element, the union of all in perfect harmony, in the form of Rosa in union with his own soul. And now that he knew what he would do, it seemed almost within his grasp, and he thought he might finish in a day.
But many days passed, and the master left him to study a single leaf for hours, or a bee or a fish from the lake far below, and sometimes his heart chafed against the slowness of his mind as it crept towards the mystic goal, and he heard the ringing of the blacksmiths’ hammers further down the Canyon, and he longed to hold a hammer and tongs again, and pound the red-hot steel into swords.
Finally one day the master allowed him to begin on the human face, beginning with the eye, ‘the window of the soul.’ And he learned to reflect in the eye a world of feeling, and the light of the Soul of the World. Then the contours of the face were to be rendered to show the miraculous bone beneath, and over the bone, the mysterious life which coursed beneath the skin, and finally the divine light which played upon the silken surface of the skin and sparkled on the hair like the hand of the Goddess Herself.
At last he was sent with the other students to copy the great works in the libraries of the community, and he was dazzled and dismayed by their beauty. But he learned to break them down into hands, and eyes, and background and foreground, light and shade, solids and glaze, until he saw the mystic whole as a harmony of many parts, and at times it even seemed to be no longer a mystery, but simply a tissue of techniques. Yet at other times something ineffable seemed to glow within the paintings, especially when the lightnings played on the Tor Enyása and the agathra varnish glowed, making the images seem alive with an inner light, and he stood in awe.
After that, he was set to work helping the master each morning by preparing panels and painting backgrounds, and gilding or setting gemstones into the icons, and in the afternoons he helped with a background on the master’s own latest creation, a great painting for the guild hall itself. And in the evenings he made side-panels for his own triptych, and painted Love and Beauty on the left-hand panel and Truth and Freedom on the right. But as for the Middle, the master told him to wait. ‘For if you are to paint the soul, you must paint from the soul,’ he said.
Finally one day the master said, ‘Calibur, I think it is time. You may begin painting your own image of the Goddess, in the likeness of Rosa, in union with your own soul.’ And he smiled as Calibur hopped around the studio and whooped until the canyon echoed with his cries of joy.
But it was to take many trials and false starts and heartbreaks before Calibur had the right outline, and many more before he had modelled the face. He meditated daily, and his soul grew brighter within him, and the Master saw that sometimes his face shone. He spent hours looking at the face of the icon before adding just one brush-stroke or two, or another thin layer of agathra glaze, then retiring. And he painted the eyes, and smile, and the contours of the skin, and the braided hair lifted by a breeze from Avalon.
As he worked, he felt the hand of the Goddess on him, enveloping him in love, and he felt the fire of the Fifth Element growing within, as he thought of Rosa and himself in union, and of their place in the great dance and tapestry of life. And this thought wove itself into every brushstroke, and he knew that he was painting from the soul. He began to understand the Master’s words, that painting is a journey far beyond mere likeness, where one might say, ‘Look, that is like a woman I know!’ to union of the image with its ideal object, when one would see and at once apprehend that object, a facet of the very Goddess herself, shining through the image on the sacred surface.
‘And then,’ the Master said, ‘the viewer may know that all is sacred, not just the icon, but all material things, and She in whom they live and move and have their being.’
But as Calibur painted, he knew that one thing was lacking: the image of Rosa-Ainênia in union with his own soul must result in something tangible. And he went away and lay, as he was in the habit of doing, on the edge of the canyon, and meditated as the sacred barges of the monks of the Wouivre glided beneath him on the dark waters far below. And he saw that there was a barge approaching from the northern end where he had never seen a barge before. In the barge stood women in long robes of blue, and in their midst one dressed in white with long hair of gold, and a garland on her head. Her barge drew near to the monks’ barges, and a dark-haired man dressed all in green, with a circlet of gold on his head, came from one of the barges and stepped into her barge. They stood together, and petals were thrown all about them, and joyful singing rose from the canyon as the man departed with the woman in the barge. ‘It is a sacred marriage!’ thought Calibur. ‘So the monks of the Wouivre are not as ours, celibate. They marry, and have children also, I suppose.’
Then he realised what he was to paint in the icon: a child. He laughed that it was so simple and obvious – or it would have been to Rosa. He leapt to his feet and ran back to begin work joyfully on the final element of the icon. He found a mother and child for a model, and as he sat drawing the child suckling at the breast of its mother a great desire came to him to be a father and to see Rosa as a mother.
One day the Master came around and saw a group of people staring at the icon, exclaiming, ‘It is the very image of Ainênia herself, and her blessed child!’ but Calibur was unaware of them, bending in rapt concentration as he added the halo. ‘It is ready,’ said the master. ‘The Idea and the image are one, just as your soul, and hers and that of the child are one. Now, build them a frame worthy of their beauty!’ And he gave him rubies and some of the sapphires of Avalon Calibur had brought, and diamonds from the mines of Baz Apédnapath, and precious tarazura, or jeweltree, wood which is strong as ivory but light as cedar and, flecked with gold and silver, holds the light of moon and sun within its grain. And the Master told him, ‘The Tree of Life itself is of this mighty kindred, which grows as high as the Canyon is deep, and its roots seek out all the minerals of the earth to weave its wood and give energy to its central Jewel, by which the Worlds are linked.’ For in the Tree of Life was a golden crystal, which is called the Heartstone of Aeden, or Arcra, and written as a palindrome thus: