From Darkness Won - Jill Williamson [202]
The Light of the world is Câan!
We walk in the light when we follow our Guide.
The Light of the world is Câan!
Ye dwellers in Darkness with tar-blinded eyes.
The Light of the world is Câan!
Go, wash, at His bidding and light will arise.
The Light of the world is Câan!
More and more voices joined, until he was leading a mighty choir.
No need of sunlight in Shamayim we’re told.
The Light of the world is Câan!
For Câan is the Light in the city of gold.
The Light of the world is Câan!
So loud were the united voices, Achan could no longer hear the hecklers. A tremor danced in the air around him. A warm breeze swirling with the cold.
Arman hu elohim, Arman hu echâd, Arman hu shlosha beechâd. Hatzileni, beshem Câan, ben Arman. Say it with me and mean it with all your heart! Arman is God, Arman is One, Arman is Three in One. Deliver us in the name of Câan.
The wind grew louder in its battle of cold and heat. It began to howl. The roof trembled beneath Achan’s knees. The people continued to chant in unison. Achan opened his eyes. The wind had color now, black and green and what looked like… light. It swirled around the figure of the boy Arluk and Shung, who had tears streaming down his hairy cheeks. The boy turned his angry gaze to Achan, morphing back into Esek.
“Am I king?” Esek’s voice warbled through the wind. His hair whipped around his face, and he suddenly screamed in an unworldly voice.
Like Ôwr’s shining blade, a beam of light pierced the dark sky and stabbed down, lancing Esek through the chest.
Esek shattered into a flock of gowzals. The birds flapped in the heavy wind, squawked, and vaporized into mist.
Achan looked deeper, for he could see that the gowzals had not vanished at all, but gone to the Veil. And somehow Achan could see both places at the same time.
Two beings stood before him, side by side. Lord Nathak and a pale, thin creature with gangling arms and legs, black eyes, black lips, and black horns that coiled like those of a ram. The keliy. The Hadad’s master. A minion of Gâzar. The lance of light continued to beam down from the clouds.
“Be gone from here in the name of Câan!” Achan yelled. “Both of you. Your time in Er’Rets has ended.”
The keliy snarled like a rabid dog, but its legs slowly twisted into a funnel of wind. The creature reached out and grabbed Lord Nathak’s arm.
“No!” Lord Nathak cried. “I don’t want to die!”
The beam of light coming down from the sky swelled and crept along the roof until it met Achan’s boots. Achan could see dust and feathers floating in its golden glow.
The wind funnel spun faster. Lord Nathak and the keliy became indistinguishable from one another. The light beam grew, now encompassing Shung and Bran’s body, then Sir Kenton’s body, the entire watchtower roof.
And beyond.
The funnel sucked away. Vanished. To the Lowerworld, perhaps?
All was silent. Daylight poured from a widening hole in the clouds. And the sun continued to spread its light over the water and land below.
Achan limped to the battlement and looked out over the land. Twilight. The cover of Darkness was now nothing more than dark storm clouds. The sun shone through them, casting a riot of color in the sky.
Cheers chorused in Achan’s mind and rose up from the ground below.
Thank You, Arman! Achan closed his mind and offered a private echo. Thank You.
P A R T 5
IN THE LIGHT
38
The sun shone down on Castle Armonguard as if it were the first day of creation. But Averella had no time to enjoy it.
She and Jax recruited every healthy soldier to help transport the wounded to the lawn south of the watchtower. More than four dozen wounded had been brought there already, lined up like corpses on the grass. Sir Eagan joined them, and together they did all they could.
When two soldiers dragged Kurtz onto the grass, Averella thought he was dead. He had taken an arrow to his lower neck, just above the collarbone. It was remarkable he still breathed. She removed the arrow with the help of an elderly soldier and the arrowspoons her