He strode to the door and flung it open again. The macabre little sight-seekers, the voyeurs, were still crowded there, their bowl-shaped ears pressed to the wood, fighting over which should get its eyeball to the keyhole. When Idoc appeared they immediately fell back in terror, but he managed to seize one by its thin, bird-bone leg. Its mates shrieked with excitement as he dragged it into the chamber, then they surged forward again, obviously feeling no sympathy for the victim, only delight that they would have yet another drama to enjoy.
The voyeur itself was not so happy about being forced to take a central part in the action for once. It squealed and bit and scratched its oppressor, the weasel teeth and small filthy talons uncomfortably sharp. Idoc held the creature at arm’s length and shook it violently until it hung from his hand like a dirty rag. Its whole being seemed to shrivel with despair. Even the bulbous eyes, which had been such a feature of its face, retreated into the skull, leaving only two heavily lidded slits, through which Idoc could catch the glint of a venomous stare.
Idoc felt disgust at handling the creature, and looked around for something to use to tie it up while he interrogated it; but as he did so he noticed something that made him totally forget his prisoner. His grip loosened and the voyeur fell to the floor, as Idoc stooped to pick up a piece of broken mirror the size of a plate. For in it he could see as complete a scene as he had ever seen in the full mirror on the wall. Then he picked up another piece: in this too was a complete scene. He scrabbled on the floor picking up pieces one by one. Each, however small, gave back as much as the whole mirror had done. Now he had a hundred scrying mirrors – some small enough to fit into his pocket and carry about with him. Whoever had dared this dreadful deed had thought to cripple him, but in fact had served to make him even stronger. Smiling triumphantly, Idoc sat at his table holding up a piece of mirror the size of his palm. He was no longer limited by Caradawc’s human vision, no longer tied to the tower for his source of information.
Forgotten, the dying voyeur oozed yellow blood, watched by its companions to the last fluttering movement of its tiny hands.
* * * *
Gerin carefully related to Rheged everything he knew about Idoc as they rode away from Castle Goreu. Rheged was relieved to know that it had not truly been Caradawc his friend who had treated him so harshly. His back was still very painful from the thrashing, and his arms and shoulders ached from the torment of the manacles. Their priority now was to get as far away from Castle Goreu as they could, and seek a safe place for Rheged to regain his strength while they thought and planned what to do next. Rheged’s first thought had been to attempt to kill Idoc, but Gerin pointed out to him that this would be useless, for all they would achieve would be the destruction of Caradawc’s physical body. Idoc himself would still exist: he seemed capable of taking on any form, of appearing anywhere.
‘No,’ Gerin said. ‘This needs careful thought.’ Perhaps they should join Viviane at the Community of the Fish, and all decide together what had to be done.
‘And what about Cai?’ Rheged protested, ‘We can’t leave him behind.’
Gerin was silent.
‘I’ll go back for Cai as soon as I have you safely in Viviane’s care,’ he said finally.
‘No, you go back now. I can manage.’ But Rheged was swaying dangerously in the saddle, fresh blood from the lash wounds seeping through his shirt.
Suddenly they heard the sound of riders coming their way, galloping fast and calling out to each other. They could hear hounds, too. A hunt was on, but not for deer.
Gerin took Rheged’s bridle. ‘Hold on tight. We have to get away!’
He led the two horses into a stream, and they worked their way along it as fast as they could, hooves slipping and sliding on rounded pebbles. This ploy must have lost the hunters a little time, for the sound of them faded for a while – but not for long.
Their next ruse when they heard their pursuers closing in again was for Gerin to take Rheged on to his own horse, and send Rheged’s mount galloping off in another direction.
Their final desperate trick, when they feared at last they had been cornered at the edge of a precipice, was to send off Gerin’s horse too, while they themselves climbed over the lip of the cliff, clutching frantically at small outcrops and fibrous roots until they found a ledge just wide enough to hold them. There they stood, trembling and panting, backs pressed against the rock, praying to all the gods they knew that their pursuers would not dream that they had been crazy enough to climb down there. Luckily, above them a hawthorn bush in full leaf corkscrewed out of the cliff, affording some kind of screen.
* * * *
When Olwen returned to Cai’s room, Elined was sitting close to Cai, on the edge of his bed. They held each other’s hands and Elined was speaking fast and earnestly as though she had to make up for a hundred years of silence. She had created a burden for herself with her lie, which, with every passing moment, had increased in weight until it almost crushed her. Now she was trying to free herself of it.
Olwen stood unnoticed in the doorway for some time, unwilling to interrupt them yet aware of the importance and urgency of the message she must convey. At last, when she cleared her throat and stepped forward, they turned to look at her.
She had decided, though she understood very little of it, that something was very wrong in Castle Goreu. It was clear to her from the king’s behaviour, and Viviane’s earlier agitation, that the princess had not really gone to visit a sick tenant, but had fled for safety. And so, too, had Gerin and Rheged. The king was behaving very unpredictably and everyone else was confused and afraid. She felt bound to warn Cai of her fears now that he seemed to have regained his senses.
* * * *
Having seen her vision of the many Realms of Being, Viviane realized that her next task was to find Caradawc before his disembodied soul finally lost its normal desire to return to life in this realm, and drifted off seeking premature entry into the next. Brendan had already explained that this would be disastrous for Caradawc. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘although we talk of “realms” and “worlds” and “regions” and see them in images drawn from our experience on earth, they are not actually places where one can go, but states of being. And I fear Caradawc is not ready for this next state yet.’
‘But surely he could be born again on this earth in another body, and try again to reach that “readiness”?’
‘It’s not as simple as that. Death occurs always at a very precise moment in one’s “greater life”, no matter how random and ill-timed it may seem to one’s “lesser life”.’
‘But surely . . .’
Brendan held up his hand.
‘No more questions. I have no more answers for you now. I think it would be wiser to retrieve him as quickly as possible, before too much damage is done to his unprepared soul. Now, we’ll go into the chapel and I’ll light a candle for you. I suggest you look into the flame as you meditate and pray.’
‘You won’t leave me?’ she pleaded.
‘I’ve explained before,’ he said quietly. ‘I cannot act for you. It is you and Caradawc and Idoc who have the responsibility for these events on your shoulders and it is you and they who alone must lift the burden of them.’
He led the way to a small stone chapel, much rougher in construction than the main villa – where a hermit had once established his cell long after the Roman family had left and the house had fallen to ruin – but before Brendan had come from Ireland to establish his own, unusual, community there – a community that did not fit comfortably into the established church.
The walls were simply built without mortar, and Viviane could envisage the man choosing its stones in the valley, carefully and meticulously, knowing exactly which ones would suit and which ones not. She could see him toiling day by day, alone, lifting and fitting, patiently and lovingly, constructing a sacred place where it would feel right to him to pray.
Around the walls there were several small apertures, where stones had be
en omitted, too small to be called windows. She noticed that one of them on the west wall was now admitting a thin but brilliant beam of light from the setting sun, the very narrowness of the gap serving to concentrate and focus the ray. Around the walls were panels of rough carvings. She moved towards one and peered closely. It seemed to represent a mother holding up a babe.
Brendan, standing close behind her, traced the lines of the worn carving with his finger so that there could be no mistake.
‘The rays of the setting sun at midwinter fall there,’ he told her, ‘so that at the nadir of darkness there is a promise that the light will return.’
He took a candle from the small stone slab that served as an altar and lit it. Holding it high, he beckoned her to follow him. One by one, he illuminated other carvings around the walls, twelve in all, each illustrating an important moment in the life of the Christ when He was on earth as the man Jesus. Brendan explained how the apertures were so skilfully placed that each of the twelve carvings was separately lit at a certain significant time. It was as though the sun’s finger were pointing to them, reading them off in sequence. The hermit could thus regularly follow the teachings they spelled out.
An ancient memory began to flicker in the candle flame. Had she herself not once been part of a culture that built great initiation chambers for the living and the dead where the sun’s rays were used in just this way?
Father Brendan placed the candle back on the altar. It was now almost nightfall and the chapel was suddenly very dark. He knelt down in front of the altar for a few moments, bowing his head. And then he departed, pulling the rickety door closed behind him, so that she was left alone.
She was frightened, thinking how terrible it would be if the candle flame went out, because Brendan had not left her the means to rekindle it. But then she told herself that she was being foolish: after all the chapel was nothing more than a small stone room, with a door she could open, and beyond that lay the buildings of the community and all the light and warmth and human companionship she could need. But no matter how firmly she reassured herself of this, she still could not shake off the feeling that she was somehow utterly alone – far, far from anything or anyone she knew . . . and about to embark on a dangerous mission into an unknown which even Father Brendan seemed unclear about, though no doubt he had given her as much support and protection as he could to prepare her.
There was one small yew-wood bench in the chamber and she sat herself down on it now, directly in front of the faintly flickering candle. Straightening her back, she placed her feet together flat on the flagstones of the floor, her hands folded quietly in her lap. The discomforts of her body must not interrupt the work she was about to do.
Then she began to stare into the candle flame, taking deep breaths to steady herself. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast at first, then gradually slowed down. The flame seemed brilliant in the darkness – and within it that deep and unfathomable blue she always associated with the Realm of Spirit.
For how long she sat and stared, she could not tell, but it seemed to her the candle flame grew and grew, very slowly but steadily, until it towered above her. She was now looking at a door of fire, and knew that she must step through it. She knew also that the only way she could pass safely through it was to aim at the centre – the deepest and most vibrant part of it, the blue of the Spirit Realm.
It seemed to her that she stood up and stepped forward . . . Now she was ready to search for Caradawc, so she called his name, forming his image in her heart. Yet as she stepped into the door of flame she glanced back and saw her own body still seated immobile on the bench, eyes still fixed on the candle. For a moment she was startled and fearful, wanting to return. In that same moment the white-gold edge of the extraordinary door flared inwards, and she felt the searing pain of burning on her arm. She cringed, and almost drew back – but then a thought came to her: ‘You would not have been burned if you had not feared. So trust.’
She stood firm then, trying to master her fear, determined not to fail Caradawc. The flame still roared around her alarmingly, but the numinous blue light protected her in the centre. She moved forward again, and the flame seemed to flow away from her like water past a fast-moving boat.
On the other side of the door of flame she was confronted by what appeared at first to be a black void, totally without form or feature. She remembered she had seen a vision of Caradawc floating in such a darkness, calling for her help.
Again she could feel the fear welling up inside her, and now she feared to fear. She tried to remember instead her magnificent vision of the Tree of Life, and a thought came to her . . . Caradawc may have left the realm of Matter, but he probably had not yet passed totally beyond the reverberations of Time into Eternity. She was aware that there was quite a traffic between the realms closest to each other, and that if angels and demons and strange unearthly beings could pass freely from one to the other, surely Caradawc would still be able to share that facility.
Gradually it seemed to her that within the darkness, which had seemed so absolute before, there were gradations and variations. She could now distinguish clouds billowing around her, made up of creatures of every conceivable form – some reaching out to her, calling to her for help. She was filled with pity, but could think of nothing but the rescue of Caradawc. How would she ever find him? And even if she did, how would they ever be able to return to earth? She could nowhere see the door through which she had come.
She was becoming increasingly jostled – long fingers were tugging at her – spindly arms and legs were twining around her own like bindweed. She tore them off and pushed them away, but as fast as she rid herself of one, another was in its place.
‘Caradawc!’ she called frantically. Her voice seemed to go nowhere, but returned in a thousand different mocking guises.
‘Oh God,’ she thought, ‘what if I’m trapped here forever . . . neither alive nor dead? What if Father Brendan is an agent of evil and not of good, and has lured me here to my destruction?’
Despair is one of the most dangerous conditions of all, for in despair one is completely defenceless: all doors wide open and unguarded, an invitation to any trouble-maker to enter and take over.
For a moment Viviane hovered on the edge of despair, on the edge of ‘no return’. But then she rallied, forcing herself to envisage the mighty realms above, and all the splendours of existence. In that moment it seemed her strength increased and, in the distance, she saw a beam of light. She struggled towards it, believing now that she would surely find Caradawc. The would-be parasites that had beset her fell away, seeking a host easier to overcome.
As she approached it, the shaft of light seemed like a ladder passing through the darkness from the realms far above, to the realms that lay below. It was crowded with beings passing up and down. The impression they gave was very different from the one she had received from the other inhabitants of this region. Here there was no despair, no desperation: only a sense of hope and purpose.
She found Caradawc at last, hovering at the very edge of the light-beam, but seemingly incapable of making the final effort that would carry him into it.
She took his hands at once, and they turned and turned together, free floating now in light, spiralling close together, twining round each other as though they would never be parted . . .
Suddenly Viviane found herself seated again on the yew bench in the little chapel. Dawn light was shining through the tiny window behind the altar, shafting down on to the little pool of melted wax that had been the candle. She started up and looked around. Caradawc? Her arm was hurting, and when she looked down she saw there was an ugly red burn on the skin.
She leapt up.
‘Caradawc?’ she called. ‘Caradawc!’
Had she failed, then? It had all been so vivid – so how could it have been just a dream? And her arm was visibly burned. She must have passed through that door.
Then the door of the chapel creaked open and Father Brendan stood
silhouetted against the morning light.
‘I see you found him, then,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Where is he?’ she cried. She looked all round the tiny room but could see no sign.
‘I am here, my love.’ She heard his voice in her head, but could not see him. Frantically she turned to Father Brendan.
‘I want to see him! I want to hold him!’
‘You have brought him safely back to this realm, my child, but he has not yet returned to his bodily form.’
She could bear no more. Picking up the candle-holder she flung it with all her might against the wall, then crumpled onto the bench and sobbed.
‘I can’t do it! I can’t! Why won’t someone help me?’
Brendan stood beside her, letting her rage and weep. At last, when she was quieter, he murmured, ‘You are being helped, but not always in the way you think you ought to be. Remember, you cannot see the whole scene . . . only a very small part of it.’
Gradually she pulled herself together and wiped her face on her sleeve.
‘And Caradawc? Can you see him?’
‘No, but I know he’s here.’
‘How will we ever save him?’
‘Come, you are very tired. You must sleep. Decisions made in haste and weariness are not well made.’
‘I can’t leave Caradawc . . .’
‘You won’t have to. He will be with you – even in your sleep.’
She suffered herself to be led away, exhausted.
* * * *
The men in pursuit of Gerin and Rheged were obviously perplexed by the sudden disappearance of their quarry. For a while they milled about at the top of the cliff. Then they must have picked up the tracks of Gerin’s horse, for they moved off suddenly in a great hurry. Several of them had peered over the cliff edge, but the hawthorn bush hid the fugitives from view.
The drop down to the valley floor was precipitous, and the two young men were anything but comfortable on their precarious perch. As soon as they were sure Caradawc’s men had gone, they started to look at the possibilities of escape. It seemed impossible now that they had ever climbed down there, and equally impossible that they could ever climb up. Rheged groaned as the rock pressed into his wounds, the ledge being too narrow for him to shift his position. Gerin worried that if he did not get him off the ledge soon, he might faint and plummet to the rocks far below them. He anxiously scanned the cliff face for any handhold.
The Tower and the Emerald Page 15