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

Master watched the place where Linden and Mahrtiir had disappeared as if he hoped or feared that she would return almost immediately. They were all acting like there was no need to hurry. Like Jeremiah did not need them—or like the
Elohim
and the stars and the whole world did not need
him
.
    Wind skirled like travail around him, tugged at his pajamas. It carried dust from the gouged cliff, the fallen debris. Perhaps it would have stung his eyes if he had not been so full of Earthpower. Somewhere inside him was a small boy who wanted to cry because his mother had left him. But he refused to be that boy. The structure that he wanted to make both goaded and protected him.
    Somehow he swallowed the impulse to yell at the Giants in frustration. Here was another aspect of his confusion, his inability to resolve his own contradictions. The Giants were ignoring him—but they were
Giants
, and he had loved them ever since he had first seen them. When he and Linden and Stave had ridden to rejoin the Ironhand and her comrades, his response to the sheer size and wonder of who and what the Swordmainnir were had opened like a flower in his heart. They were Giants in every sense: he had no other word for them. And he had seen the delight in their eyes when they had gazed at him, the relief and welcome. They had made him feel that he was capable of putting his past behind him. Of cutting it off entirely. Under their influence, he had believed that he could accomplish something wonderful.
    If they rebuffed him now—
    Abruptly his frustration became chagrin. His health-sense was precise: he could see that he had offended the Swordmainnir. There was anxiety in the slump of their shoulders, worries aggravated by a great weight of weariness. And they carried griefs which Jeremiah did not recognize. But there was also anger. Their refusal to acknowledge his call was deliberate.
    He had to talk to them—and he was afraid of what they would say.
    Hesitating, he took a moment to scan his surroundings. Above him hung the gouge which his mother had made in the ridgefront. It and its slope of rubble faced the north, or a bit west of north. At odd intervals, chunks of rock and clumps of dirt still fell from the upper surfaces of the gouge; but they clattered harmlessly to the sides. Buffets of wind scattered the dust before it could settle.
    The ridge filled that side of the landscape. In every other direction, an almost featureless plain stretched out to the horizons, a beaten flat pocked with hollows like craters left behind by a barrage of huge stones or heavy iron, or of bolts of magic. In the cloying dusk, these hollows or craters gave the terrain a mottled appearance, as if it were stippled with shadows or omens.
    As far as Jeremiah could see, nothing grew or moved. Nothing lived at all. And no springs or streams nourished the plain. In this region, the foundations of the Lower Land wore only a thin mantle of dirt, soil so barren that it refused even
aliantha
.
    And over it all lay the pall of the sunless murk, an augury of the last dark. As Jeremiah gazed around, he noticed that the afternoon was waning. Evening was not far off. Then would come full darkness, the second night since the sun had failed.
    Even now, the stars were visible, as bright as cries overhead. He could have watched them wink out of existence, had he been willing to face them. But at night—
    At night, the Giants would have more difficulty doing what he wanted from them.
    The situation was urgent—and still the Swordmainnir rested against their boulders. They had promised to help him. Now they acted like they had changed their minds.
    He had to talk to them.
    His private turmoil made him awkward as he began to descend from the rubble. Whenever he was working on one of his constructs, he was deft and graceful, full of confidence. But when he felt stymied, his muscles forgot what they were doing. He fumbled at the rocks, jerked downward, lost his balance and caught himself like a child half his age.
    He hated being clumsy. He hated himself when he was clumsy.
    The curve of boulders where the Giants sat faced away from him. Like Stave, they were not affected by Kevin’s Dirt: they must have been aware of Jeremiah. Still they did not look in his direction. Earlier they had shed their armor and swords. Now they all rested against thrusts of stone. Only Stave remained on his feet, still watching the place where Linden and Mahrtiir had disappeared.
    Biting his lower