The Sword of the Fifth Element — Peter Harris

A tale set in ancient Cornwall and the lost world of Aeden, about a young swordsmith named Calibur, and his wife, Rosa. It also features a rat, a rose, an anklebiter, a colony of icon-makers, a goatherd, a muse, a monastery, and a goddess.Calibur's troubles all begin one morning at the local market. He is selling swords to make ends meet, as usual, when a stranger's glittering wares catch his eye. He rashly trades all his swords for a little wisdom book - and an icon of a mysterious holy woman of great beauty. Bewitched by the book's promise of ultimate Truth, and maddened by a vision of the woman in the icon, he leaves Rosa to go into the mountains on a quest for Truth at any cost - and for the Perfect Woman of the icon.In the mountains he joins a hermitage, but becomes disillusioned with the ascetic quest for truth. He leaves the hermits to their disputations, and sets out for home. He becomes lost in the wilderness. There he is rescued by the woman of the icon whom he adores, but to his sorrow she commands him to honour the Goddess in his wife, and to return to her.He reluctantly obeys. But she has been taken far away, beyond the borders of the world, by the Boatman of Avalon. He must find the boatman, and prove that he is worthy to be ferried across to that other place. There he must find Rosa and with the help of Ainenia, the mysterious Lady of Aeden, and win her back from a Thorn Convent run by the Aghmaath. These are from the darkened world of Phangkor, and teach the absolute relinquishment of the will to life, and hate and despise the Goddess and love.Only together will Calibur and Rosa fulfill their remarkable destiny back on Earth - and at last find true love.The Icon of Ainenia can be read alone, but it refers to things more fully dealt with in the epic The Apples of Aeden, In the telling of the story of the Icon, it was inevitable that some greater matters should be mentioned, concerning the ancient Order of the Makers and the Nine Worlds. If this becomes a distraction, my apologies in advance; if (as I hope will be the case) you find yourself wishing to know more about Ainenia, Anklebiters, the Aghmaath, Avalon and the whole World of Aeden, there is a remedy: the 'Apples of Aeden' epic, set in the present time and based on the historical source book, 'The Ennead of Aeden', and the Diary of Shelley Arkle. Volume one, The Girl and the Guardian, is now available as an ebook.