The Last Dark: The climax of the entire Thomas Covenant Chronicles (Last Chronicles of Thomas Cove)

protect Jeremiah’s door—if we want to save the
Elohim
and the stars—we aren’t enough.” Not without Covenant. “We have to have more power.
    “So—” Briefly the consternation mounting in Jeremiah’s gaze undermined her, and she faltered. But she had prepared herself for this. And she had done as much as she could for him. The time had come to confront other concerns.
    Everything would have been different if she had known how to help him. But his needs were too deep for her to reach—and she had too little time.
    “So,” she began again, “I’m going to open a
caesure
and force my way into the past. Hyn can take me where I need to go. She won’t get lost. And I have Caerroil Wildwood’s runes. They should be good for something more than bringing Covenant back to life. Maybe they can guide me.
    “I’m not just too weak the way I am. I’m too ignorant. I don’t have any lore. All I have is emotion,” despair and love, joy and grief and dread, “and it isn’t enough. I want to find the Forestals and get them to teach me
forbidding
. There’s no one else I can ask—except the
Elohim
, and they won’t tell me.” They considered Jeremiah’s purpose abominable. “If I want an answer, I have to get it from the Forestals. Then maybe I can use that kind of magic to stop our enemies. Maybe I can even use it to keep the Worm away from Jeremiah’s door.”
    “Mom!” Jeremiah protested hotly. “You
can’t
.
Caesures
are
dangerous
.” In a smaller voice, he said, “And I need you. I need help.”
    Linden avoided looking at him. The sight might break her. Leaving him felt like committing a crime; but she could not make any other choice.
    “You’ll have help. You’ve always had help. But you can do what you have to do. I’m not worried about that.”
    She wanted to be able to say the same of herself.
    She had expected vehement objections from the Giants and even Mahrtiir; indignation and arguments; angry pleading. What she received was harder to bear. Her friends were shocked: that was obvious. But they did not react like people who believed that she had proposed a Desecration. Their emotions were vivid to her health-sense.
    What they felt after the initial jolt was hope.
    For a long moment, none of the Giants looked at her. Stave appeared to regard some private vista which was visible to no one else. Only Mahrtiir and Jeremiah kept their attention fixed on Linden. The Manethrall watched her as if he were probing her defenses, looking for an opening. Jeremiah stared with dismay gathering like stormclouds in his darkened gaze.
    Frostheart Grueburn was the first to speak. As if to herself, she mused, “Extreme straits require extreme responses. It cannot be otherwise.”
    “No!” Jeremiah snapped immediately. “Mom, you can’t
do
this!” He seemed to keep himself from howling by an effort of will that made Linden’s heart quake. “Maybe you can go away. Maybe you can make a
caesure
do what you want.” When he clenched his fists, flames dripped between his fingers like blood. “But you won’t be able to
get back
!”
    At that moment, he sounded unutterably forlorn.
    Dust bit at Linden’s eyes. She blinked furiously to clear them. Don’t say that, she wanted to plead. Don’t make this harder than it already is. But she demanded a sterner reply from herself. The Land required more from her. Jeremiah himself required more.
    God, she was tired—
    Meeting her son’s gaze with wind and dust and tears in her sight, she said, “I made a promise to Caerroil Wildwood. I don’t know how else to keep it. I don’t know how else to save any of us. I’ll find a way to get back.”
    Stave had turned his unyielding gaze toward Jeremiah. Manethrall Mahrtiir appeared to be suppressing a desire to speak. Tension mounted among the Giants, as restless as the wind. But the Ironhand still stood with her head bowed, studying the ground at her feet, saying nothing.
    “And I’m talking about moving through time,” Linden added before Jeremiah could respond. “Remember that. How long it takes for me won’t have any effect on you. If I can do anything that even remotely resembles what I have in mind, there’s no reason to think that I won’t get back before the Worm comes.”
    “But you won’t
get
back,” Jeremiah insisted. His voice shook. Nevertheless he made a palpable effort to reason cogently. “You can make a
caesure
now because the Law is already weak. I mean Time and Life and Death.