Her lower half came next, the serpentine stem too revealing of this particular woman’s true nature to be forever retained; and so the jarring, writhing body was shed as if nothing more than old skin.
She stepped forth with legs as smoothly and desirably contoured as that which had already sprung from the white softness of the lily.
Could any newly sprung fruit really be any more tempting than this?
Strange as it may sound, a great many people defend Lilith’s actions, claiming that – recognising the creation was flawed, quite rightly fearing it possessed not one iota of heavenly spirit – she wished to grant at least man with a fragment of her own angelic being.
Of course, she failed to realise that she was already too much of the darkness, endowing her descendants only with the recognition that they would never receive the light.
Now Adam heard the rustle amongst the bushes; wondered if He was walking amongst the trees. He saw instead, amongst the multitude of greens, the bright tones of countless flowers, the sparkle of purest, softest white.
Amongst all the incredibly beautiful things that surrounded him, that had been freely given to him, this was the most beautiful, most alluring sight of all. And, naturally, this newly arisen wonder of the already fabulous garden awoke within him far more senses than simply that of mere sight.
There was a scent, a scent like no other.
There were honeyed words, ones he could listen to, ones he could speak.
There was her skin, so delicious to touch, to taste. And she similarly touched and tasted his skin, his form, too.
And all this created feelings within him that had nothing to do purely with touching.
It all also created within her a son; a son they named Cain.
‘But I thought…’
The prince looked up from the images playing out before him within the amber, frowning in puzzlement once again as he appealed to the prioress for an explanation.
This story wasn’t the one he had read in his many teachings and trainings.
At first, the prioress answered him only with an indication that he must continue to watch the story being related by the magical stone. Here Lilith was walking away from Adam, heading back into the dark green undergrowth, until it hid her from his view.
‘There is another son to be born – of another father,’ the prioress said.
‘Another father?’
‘Of Samael.’
‘Samael?’ The prince found this supposed explanation of the prioress’s even more confusing than ever. ‘Yet I thought that Lilith was…’
His voice faded away uncertainly.
‘Samael?’ the prioress helpfully finished his doubtful question for him. ‘Yes, you’re right. Yet just as it’s said that the serpent is of neither gender but both, then why would you think such a thing impossible for Samael?’
Within the amber’s golden glow, Lilith was lying down once more amongst the green grasses.
And here she gave birth to another son by another father; to a serpent.
On the birth of this future Great Wyrm, this Shamir, the images the prince was watching began to fade, to drift away, slipping back into the darker hues of the amber.
‘I can’t see how any of this could help me discover the incomparable pearl,’ the prince admitted humbly.
‘It is just one piece of the many pieces you must gather together, if you are to overcome all that besets you,’ the prioress explained. She peered quizzically at the prince. ‘Besides: don’t you require this gem?’
The prince was briefly taken aback; had his bewilderment been mistaken for avariciousness?
Of course, he realised this may well be one of the magical gems being sought by his father’s knights: yet he had seen how the jewel would always miraculously appear within the breastplate, meaning it was being effectively stolen from its original owners.
He didn’t think it right that he should take this wondrous gem from the nunnery.
‘You seem doubtful?’ the prioress observed. ‘Surely, just touching the gem won’t harm it?’
‘Is this one of the jewels from Samael’s crown?’ he asked.
The prioress shook her head.
‘No, though I know of the jewels you mean. This, however, is a tear torn from a weeping world, one that recalls its original and true golden nature.’
The prince stared at the gem; from what he had witnessed of the confusion of the knights appearing within his father’s great hall, he presumed that they too had merely touched or grabbed the gem, and in each case had magically reappeared within the court.
‘I’m not sure how it works,’ the prince explained honestly, despite his temptation to take the priceless stone, ‘but I fear that if I do touch it, it and I might abruptly vanish from your nunnery.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that won’t be the case,’ the prioress said, slightly scoldingly. ‘Please: all you have to do is touch it…’
The prince shook his head.
‘No; I don’t have the right to take it.’
‘Yet you need it, yes?’
The prince gave a swift, embarrassed nod in agreement.
‘And yet – you won’t take it?’ the prioress continued.
The prince shook his head once more.
‘You need it here far more than I do.’
‘You must take it.’
The prioress took one of his hands in one of hers as she reached with the other for the glistening amber. Quickly, before the prince could refuse, she placed the gem in the middle of his palm, where it glittered as if it were some wondrous creature’s eye.
The prioress, the nunnery, all suddenly vanished.
The prince was standing within the great hall, facing the thrones and the glittering breastplate hanging above them.
His hand was empty.
The amber jewel glowed like a miniature sun from the breastplate’s seventh setting.
‘Oh no! What have I done?’ the prince wailed sadly.
*
Chapter 13
The abrupt appearance of the gem embedded within the breastplate caused far more consternation than the prince had expected.
Amber wasn’t one of the gems that the crone had described within her description of the nine stones decorating Samael’s crown. It was the first of the extra jewels required to fill the twelve settings waiting for them within the breastplate.
It was the first, too, to take up its place on the row lying between the split pentangle representing the shattered crown.
The prince hadn’t told anyone that he was the one responsible for the jewel’s unexpected appearance. How would he be able to explain that he had retrieved it from a nunnery, one that he had managed to approach through strangely magical means?
Unlike the knights, he wasn’t supposed to have undertaken the quest. He had travelled nowhere: he hadn’t even left the confines of the court.
The queen was particularly distraught by the discovery of the jewel.
‘Why is no one admitting to the recovery of this jewel?’ she demanded one day. ‘Does no one wish to lay claim to the honour of bringing it back here? Or does he wish to remain like some strange thief in the night, who brings a jewel to us, yet then sneaks away from court, before he is discovered?’
Of course, there was no knight newly arrived back at court who could conceivably explain that they were responsible for the jewel’s appearance. Although not as furious as the queen, everyone was understandably perplexed by this lack of a brave knight prepared to step forward and relate the adventures he’d undergone to retrieve one more of the sought after stones.
Fortunately for the prince, before more penetrating questions could be asked in the queen’s endeavour to solve this mystery, another jewel soon appeared within the breastplate.
It was one of laps lazuli, one of the richly blue evening sky, flecked with the gold of countless stars.
And this time, a knight also appeared before the court: and he, thankfully, was more than read
y to entertain everyone there by recounting his many glorious deeds.
*
Chapter 14
The Ass who Carried the Moon
The city was surrounded by an iron wall that soared so high, the sun could not shine into it from any angle.
It had been constructed eons ago, I was reliably informed, by a sorcerer; or, as they are called in their parts, a ‘galdyr’.
And this city was still one of the darker arts, of astronomy, astrology – even, it was also said of this strange place, arts that held sway over demons and spirits.
I was, of course, loath to enter such a terrible place of inequity. Yet my informants had assured me that it was deep within this permanently darkened city that the incomparable pearl resided, for many had seen it here, though none had been capable of retrieving it.
Indeed, a great many had never, ever returned from their quest. They had perished, to the extent that they had vanished completely off the face of the Earth.
Strangest of all, however, was that all the land surrounding this ominously dark city was pleasant, those toiling in its fields willingly putting their shoulders to the great ploughs they drove through the rich soil.
They worked every bit as hard as the overburdened asses who worked alongside them, poor beasts whom they treated with such surprising kindness that I could have sworn they were recognised as being almost human. And stranger still, everyone I met toiling here was happy, accepting their burdens almost gratefully, despite their claims to be of no higher status than that of a servant paying tribute to his master.
They received their wages within the city, yet it was a remuneration of labour that involved neither currency nor favours that had to be repaid: nor, indeed, anything that I was capable of fathoming.
They didn’t live in the darkness, they said; they lived in the light.
To seek their aid and goodwill, I shed and offered them my armour (rust-hued with its skin of dried blood), my shield and sword, all of which could be beaten into new ploughs. My horse, too, was there’s to do with as they will, I assured them; and despite it being sorely, perhaps mortally wounded during a fight earlier that day, they accepted it joyfully.
They accepted my gifts eagerly, offering me an opportunity of ‘payment’: and so I found myself being led through the darkness towards the centre of their city, where they assured me a towering temple lay.
As I was led there, I felt quite naked without my armour, which I had been raised to fight in almost since birth. I missed the security it afforded me, despite also relishing the sudden lightness of my limbs, the ease of unconstricted movement.
They closed two great doors behind me, leaving me on my own within this profound darkness.
Fortunately, it dawned on me that my eyes were gradually adjusting a little to what I’d only erroneously presumed was a complete and total darkness: and I flattered myself that I could see, lying towards the centre of what must have been a truly vast room, what at first appeared to be the picturesque dial of an elaborate clocklike mechanism, showing the planets swirling around a glimmering, gold flecked stone.
As my eyes became as one with the darkness, however, I saw that it was in fact a great shield, one so strong and heavy it might have been made by the iron smith of Mars himself, for it was one only a god would effortlessly wield.
From wherever the light came from to light up that relatively minute stone, I can’t be entirely sure. I wished only to understand what was expected of me, what this strange temple I knew so little of would reveal from within its inner trove of secrets.
Somewhere high above me, from somewhere so deep within the darkness that I couldn’t really contemplate what was happening, a small, bright light sparkled, as if someone somewhere had pulled back the most minute of openings within the temple’s upper reaches.
This narrow conduit of light fell directly upon the stone, upon the glittering flecks of gold; and, suddenly, the entire room was transformed into the night sky, with its constellations of stars, its long, milky band, its brightly glowing spheres.
There, there was Orion. There the languidly rising planet Venus. There the one carrying water, there the archer, half man, half horse.
And I was amongst them, able to freely move about them, to study them at my leisure.
Yet even amongst all these wonders, I saw something that stopped me immediately in my curious wanderings; a vibrantly glowing orb.
A pearl, I was sure!
I rushed closer, only to sigh in disappointment; for this was no pearl at all, being nothing more than the brightly glowing moon.
The moon with its sparkling crown of seven stars.
Together, they slowly arched through the dark spaces lying between this rich multitude of blazing stars. And as I drew closer still to this moon and its attendant stars, I saw the reason for their steady, plodding movement: for they were being carried by an ass, struggling under such a great burden.
‘What a poor beast to choose to carry such a fabulous burden!’ I thought. ‘Why, if a grand stallion had been chosen in its place, the moon and stars would be capable of rushing headlong through the heavens!’
As if capable of knowing my thoughts, the ass spoke sullenly to me.
‘Don’t just see what lies here, or what you wish you saw here,’ he scolded me. ‘See also all that doesn’t exist here.’
‘How can I see that which doesn’t exist?’
‘There’s no hunger here, unless you count hunger for knowledge. No war, except the warring within ourselves as we seek greater wisdom. No pestilence, bar the infection of wise words. There is even no death, for those achieving true revelation.’
‘So what is this true revelation?’
‘Everyone will receive true revelation when I reach and pass through the gate lying before me.’
Turning my head, I peered out into the darkness to see where he was headed. And would you believe it, there was no gate there at all? But there was, even more remarkably, the very brightest, the very purest of pearls, glistening so brightly it was almost blinding in its glow!
And then I realised, of course, that the ass was undoubtedly correct after all; for doesn’t the good book, the greatest, most sublime book of all, inform us most truthfully that the twelve gates of heaven are of pearl?
This ‘gate’ was undoubtedly the purest of pearls!
This time, there was no mistake – it was truly a pearl!
No wonder this foolish ash was slow in his approach! No wonder he was slovenly in his supposed haste there!
As one of God’s most lowliest creatures, he had no choice but to recognise that entry to this glorious city must ultimately be denied him!
I started to run towards it, of course. Yet the more I ran, the farther it appeared to stretch away from me.
Indeed, despite my running, the slowly plodding, over-burdened ass still lay alongside me
‘How do we reach it?’ I asked. ‘This gate, this pearl? Is it even possible?’
‘Of course it’s possible! Why else would I spend forever attempting to reach it?’
‘Is there no way of achieving it – quicker?’
‘It helps if the gate makes the effort to come towards me.’
‘What type of seeking is that? Where you expect someone else to do most of the work? Isn’t that laziness?’
‘Why? It spends all its time avoiding me!’
‘Then perhaps it sees you as being unworthy of its prize!’
‘Of course it does: there are far too many distractions, and so many lose their way.’
‘How is it possible to lose your way when it lies so clearly just directly ahead of us?’
‘Seeing isn’t believing: I know of a knight who sought the gift of true sight, only to fail in his quest because he believed only in what he could see.’
‘So, what did he see?’ I asked curiously, wondering if this tale might offer clues on achieving my own success.
‘He only ever saw what he wanted to see, of course!
’
And as the ass asserted this, he let me see the moon change upon his back, such that it related to me the scenes of the story he told.
‘This wandering knight, when arriving at a truly fabulous city, saw a city of canals, of richly cargoed ships in its harbours, believing he had found a city more wondrous even than Venice; and so he failed to recognise that it was truly a city afloat, with every building connected by the bridges he presumed were merely spanning the waters. He failed to see that the city moved towards and embraced the rich ships, ensuring they were always the first to appreciate these fabulous wares brought from every corner of the Earth.
‘Despite all these wondrous riches, however, the city’s most prized possession was a magical harp; a harp that could see inside people, read their very emotions, and play an angelic music that could instil that very same emotion in anybody fortunate to hear it.
More remarkable still, she could detect the anger of a storm, the calmness of a sea, the stolid indifference of a much-ploughed soil. And these, too, could be transformed by the harp into the most gorgeous music ever heard, her strings rippling like waves, her face – carved into the main body of the harp – weeping with the sorrow or joy of it all, the magical red jewel that gave her her remarkable gifts glowing like an extra eye within her forehead.
‘She would play in front of massed crowds who gathered in the city’s squares just to hear her wonderful music, to feel the emotions of lovers, of warriors, of lions, whales, and storm-wracked forests. For, briefly, they themselves were this lovelorn girl, this victorious king, this great, powerful beast or force of nature.
‘Our wandering knight, watching from within the midst of such an affected crowd, couldn’t believe the immense range of emotions he was feeling. Only when the music briefly stopped did he wake up from what could be termed an ecstatic trance, yet he still looked about himself in amazement; for the crowd still moved as one, like a vast sea with rolling waves, its swells and its ebbs.
‘Of course, nothing is more unstable than our emotions, of love, anger, hate, for they flow through us as unstoppably and uncontrollably as a flood of water: yet here was an angelic creature who could dictate the very state we were in, controlling the emotions that have such amazing control over us, would we truly know and recognise it.