The Tower and the Emerald

CHAPTER 1-2

She gazed around her in wonder. Although it was late in the afternoon, the summer sunlight still fell sweetly on the green grass and the flowers that grew amongst it. Behind her the same forest that had seemed so dark and dangerous when she was lost in it now, from this distance and from above, glowed richly with every pleasant shade of green. To the north, over clear grassland, she could see a thin plume of smoke and knew that there she might find people to take her in against the night.

She should have set off at once to seek them, but found herself loath to leave this strange place. She had heard of such mounds and such stones before, always as places haunted by demons, to be avoided at all costs. She was frightened and yet fascinated, and told herself that a few moments longer here would do no harm. In the sunlight all seemed innocent. The crystals in the stone occasionally flashed and sparkled, and buttercups, daisies and celandine glowed in the green grass. She climbed down into the ditch and up the other side — standing on the grassy edge to look at the giant monoliths that lay spread out around the circular summit. She felt her life was on the verge of a great change — and not just because of her impending marriage to Prince Caradawc. Whatever it was, she both dreaded and longed for it. She had been brought to this place for some purpose, and could not leave without knowing what that purpose was. She touched one of the stones nervously, but quickly withdrew her hand. Did she imagine vibration?

She took one step forward... and then another. She knew she wanted to move towards the centre. And she did not notice at first that with step after tentative step she was walking a spiral. She watched her feet press the grass and flowers down. She heard her voice humming a tune, but did not notice that the tune was unfamiliar to her — nor that she was beginning to sing phrases in a language that was strange to her...

Finally at the centre she lifted her head and looked around her. She suddenly sensed that no one had entered this circle since that ancient time when the huge stones were blown down — nor had any sound broken the silence until her song.

She was alone.

No, she was not alone.

Quickly, apprehensively she turned around, glancing over her shoulder. She could see no one.

‘Fool,’ she told herself.

She decided she must leave this place at once, her heart now beating fast, like a small bird’s caught in a trap. Finding that they were sweating, she wiped her hands against her tunic.

Then she tried to move — but she could not.

Fragments of thought that seemed not her own began to tease her mind. At first they were strange disconnected phrases in an alien tongue, and then — growing more coherent — what appeared to be sentences. At first she fought them, thinking that fear was driving her insane... but then she began to recognize the words... began to understand their meaning.

It seemed a voice was speaking to her, pleading with her... whispering: ‘Unwind the spiral... unwind... unwind.’ She shut her eyes, listening to the shadows of sounds that were not sounds crowding into that vast dark hollow which had been her mind.

‘Who are you?’ Her own thought-voice like thin smoke curled around the other... touched and dissolved. ‘Who? Where are you?’

‘I am at your feet... the earth holds me... ai aaii the earth holds me!’

She felt the other-pain, the other-loneliness, the long, long years, the centuries, the millennia of darkness, of waiting...

Pity became her heart... sorrow her breath.

She reached out her hands... they moved... they floated on the air... but her feet were still rooted... deep as a tree... to the earth...

‘The earth holds me...’ The other-suffering was her suffering.

‘I cannot move...’ Was it her own voice cried out or his?

‘I will help you,’ she breathed. ‘Help me to help you.’

‘Unwind... unwind the spiral!’ His words were unmistakable.

She swayed like a tree in the wind striving to uproot herself.

‘I cannot,’ she sighed.

Words came... other words... strange words she did not understand.

‘Say the words,’ he whispered. ‘Say them aloud with your earth-voice... your voice of throat and mouth... your voice of flesh... of life...’

It seemed to her the words were all around her and she reached up and plucked them, making them her own... singing them as she had sung walking the spiral into the centre.

Her limbs moved. She staggered and almost fell — and then found herself, step by step, unwinding the spiral... still in darkness... aware only of his voice.

As she walked, her step strengthened, the turning of the spiral easing, quickening at every moment.

Half done, her whole body shook with exultation.

‘At last! At last!! At la-ast...!’

She forced herself to stop moving. There was something in the voice that screamed within her — that made her shiver.

What was she doing? What was she, Viviane, allowing herself to do?

Who was this man? Why was he here... imprisoned?

‘Go on! Go on!’ he shrieked, but the violence in his voice made her even more hesitant.

She felt something was very wrong. What if...?

‘Pity me...’ he whispered. ‘Pity me!’

She felt his pain, but forced herself to open her eyes.

‘I must think clearly,’ she said aloud, and aloud she said: ‘Who are you and why are you imprisoned?’

A cold wind shook the grass at her feet, and then she experienced such a feeling of suffering and longing and pain that she could scarcely bear it.

‘I must know,’ she insisted. ‘I must.’

‘I was falsely accused...’

His words were everywhere. She looked from side to side and they were everywhere... invisible... inaudible... but louder than the thunder of a waterfall.

‘Pity me,’ he wept. ‘I was innocent. They pinned my soul to this place for eternity... They caged my soul that I might never live again...’

Pity filled her heart. She began to move again, eager to put his suffering at an end, knowing now why she had been drawn to this place.

She stepped lightly — as though moving along spiral lines, invisible, yet marked.

And then again she paused. The exultation she had just been feeling was somehow not the exultation of pure joy. There was something else... a sense of triumph.

She frowned. Behind words lay always other words... And these were the ones one should strive to hear.

What if those who had imprisoned him had reason for what they did?

‘Ask yourself...’ His voice was soft again — silence within silence. ‘Ask yourself who would be the innocent and who the guilty. He who lies here denied what rightfully belongs to every living being... or they who deny it?’

It seemed to her she saw the circle of tall stones standing erect, each transmitting the energy of sky to earth and earth to sky. Between them the force flowed from one to other, completing the ring. Within this ring, four priests and one priestess in cloaks of wolfskin and eagle feather, with golden torques about their arms and around their necks, stepped slowly and deliberately to the rhythm of the fatal chant-spell, gradually, inexorably, closing the spiral. Each face was masked: the mask of Judgement: set and hard and impersonal: but through the eyeholes the eyes glittered: some with triumph: some with fear: all with hate.

In the centre lay a man with both legs ritually broken: his handsome face the face of an angel... pleading with them for mercy... protesting innocence with words so persuasive that surely no one with a heart could remain unmoved. How many times had the powerful and the corrupt destroyed those who threatened them, she thought.

She started to move again, resolved to unwind the spiral, finding the strange words she had spoken before now coming easily to her mind. But this time there were changes in the sequence. She was trembling, almost dizzy with the turning. But now she was determined to make haste.

Stumbling, she finally completed the last steps and fell panting on to the grass. She was drained — exhausted — but well pleased with what she had done.

A cloud must have passed over the sun, for a sudden chill made her shiver. As she looked up, the icy cold that a moment before had touched her flesh now reached her heart. In shock she clambered to her feet. There was no cloud — but a dark and shapeless miasma over the land. The buttercups at her feet seemed dead... the grass scorched as though a fire had passed swiftly over it. The sky was clear and black as night — but without moon or stars!

Horrified she stared around her, her hands up to cover her mouth...

What had she done? Oh God! What had she done?

Then she heard a cruel and mocking laugh. She spun round, but the circle was empty... truly empty now. She knew that she had broken the ancient spell, and the prisoner was set free.

Suddenly she remembered.

She knew that she had not always been Viviane, daughter of Garwys, betrothed of Caradawc — but once was Fiann, priestess, and lover of Idoc, a priest turned sorcerer.

How sweet her adolescent love had been... the touch of him... his eyes... the turn of his head... Everything about him had made her heart beat faster. There had been a time when the whole of her life hung on a word, a glance, from him. She had even entered the priesthood to be near him.

When Idoc first lay with her the ecstasy had shut out all other thoughts, all other dreams. As his flesh entered hers, her experience of him had been total. But those early years had passed, and the handsome young man changed, becoming ever more remote and secretive, lying with her only rarely, and each time more selfishly and violently than the last, until her love and her body were so bruised and shamed that she swore never to let him touch her again.

Yet his colleagues honoured him increasingly as he passed with brilliance each trial and test devised for him. At last he stood so high among the adepts that he was named as successor to the High Priest.

She could see him now standing in the Holy Place, bowing his head as each ceremonial robe was placed over him: the white, the blue, the purple; and with each robe an ancient mighty Name, each Name a Power. She saw the marking as each Name was given: on the soles of the feet, on the palms of the hands, and finally on the forehead. She saw his eyes as the crystal and the rod of silver were placed in his hands, the circlet of silver and hawk feather on his brow. How many times had she run her fingers through that long, thick black hair, kissed that severe but handsome face, traced those winged eyebrows to the strong, straight nose? Ah, but he was handsome — magnificent in his robes. Surely now that he had so much, he would not demand more? Surely now that the long and gruelling training and initiation were over, he would relax and be as loving with her as he used to be?

But this was not to be. His very first act was to rid himself of the three priests who had not been wholehearted in his choosing. Two died suddenly, mysteriously and horribly, and the third fled for his life. They all realized, too late, that they had given power to someone who was either a madman or a demon. From that time on no one was safe — nothing was sacred. The High Priest found himself no more than a figurehead, powerless to interfere. The ancient laws were now twisted round to suit Idoc’s whim. Anyone who dared to cross him was cruelly destroyed.

At last, in desperation, realizing that his genius for destruction was not limited to their own community, but that his ambitions reached out across the whole country, the priesthood secretly planned to use a binding spell, the last resort of the desperate, a spell so fearful that whoever pronounced it risked his own life.