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

become responsive and aware. He appeared to dismiss the past ten years of his life as if they had no power over him.
    Such things could not be dismissed.
    “Chosen,” Stave said as if he sought to call her back from an abyss. “Linden Avery.” An uncharacteristic timbre of pleading or regret ached in his voice. “Will you not harken to me?”
    She was not ready to hear him. She did not want to step back from Jeremiah. He vindicated everything that she had done and endured in his name. If she withdrew from exaltation, she would be forced to think—
    And every thought led to fear and contradiction; to dilemmas for which she was unprepared. No one could endure what her son had suffered without emotional damage; without scars and scarification. Yet she could not discern damage. In her embrace, he felt more than physically well. He seemed entirely
whole
, mentally and spiritually intact.
    That Linden could not believe. She knew better.
    “Mom.” Like hers, Jeremiah’s voice wept gladly. “Mom, stop crying. You’re getting me all wet.”
    For his sake, she tried.
    Long ago under
Melenkurion
Skyweir, she had forgotten the sensations of being a healer. Although she had cared for her companions in various ways, she had responded to their injuries as if her own actions were those of a stranger. But she had not forgotten what she had learned during her years in Berenford Memorial, tending the wounded souls of the abused and broken.
    Training and experience had taught her that an escape from unreactive passivity was a vital step, crucial to everything that it enabled—but it was only the
first
step. When a crippled spirit found the courage to emerge from its defenses, it then had to face the horrors which had originally driven it into hiding. Otherwise deeper forms of healing could not occur.
    She realized now that she was expecting a rush of agony from Jeremiah: the remembered anguish of every cruelty which the Despiser and Roger and the
croyel
had inflicted. That prospect appalled her.
    But when she considered her son clinically, she recognized that the outbreak which she dreaded was unlikely. Immediate firestorms of memory were rare. More commonly, a new form of dissociation intervened to protect the harmed mind while its new awareness was still fragile. Full recall came later—if it came at all. Jeremiah felt whole to her because his worst recollections had not arisen from their graves.
    For all she knew, they might remain buried indefinitely.
    Why, then, was she afraid? Why did she contemplate anything except her son’s restoration? Why could she not be content with miracles, as any other mother might have been?
    She could not because Lord Foul’s prophecies might still prove true, if the Despiser contrived to recapture Jeremiah—
    —or if events triggered more memories than he could withstand.
    She had failed to resurrect Covenant without his leprosy. Other restorations might go awry. With or without Lord Foul’s connivance, predatory pain lurked inside Jeremiah: she could not believe otherwise. Suffering as calamitous as his possession by the
croyel
might overtake him without presage.
    For that reason, she needed to remain alert in spite of her gladness. But she did not know where to begin trying to identify the truths buried beneath her son’s presence.
    “Chosen,” Stave repeated more sharply. “Linden Avery. I comprehend the force of your son’s awakening, and of your reunion with him. Who will do so, if I do not? I, who have lost a son, and may only yearn bootlessly for his return to life? Nevertheless we cannot remain here.
    “It appears that the Falls have ceased. Yet should the Unbeliever fail in his quest, they will surely return. And the wider perils of the world will not await the culmination of your release from sorrow. The last crisis of the Earth gathers against us. Also the Ranyhyn are restive. I deem that they are eager to rejoin our companions, and that they discern a need for haste.”
    Long before Linden was ready to release him, Jeremiah withdrew. For a moment, he gazed at her with gleaming in his eyes like the stars on the foreheads of the Ranyhyn. Then he turned toward Stave.
    Linden was too full of other emotions to be surprised when Jeremiah reached out and hugged the
Haruchai
.
    Although Stave did not respond, he suffered the boy’s clasp until Jeremiah let him go. But when Jeremiah stepped back, the former Master lifted his eyebrow as if he were mildly perplexed.
    “You