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

Swordmainnir with Jeremiah studied the monolith and its pediment. From her boulder, Cirrus Kindwind did the same. Winds flailed like indignation in all directions, outraged by affronts too distant to be answered.
    Without warning, Kindwind shouted, “Ware, Frostheart Grueburn! The stone shifts toward you!”
    It might move in that direction if Stave could use only one arm. Or perhaps the rim of the bulge above Grueburn’s position was simply weaker.
    Faintly through the tumult in his heart, Jeremiah heard Grueburn reply, “I have seen it.”
    She did not step back. Nor did Latebirth.
    Onyx Stonemage and Cabledarm readied themselves to spring forward.
    Under her breath, Coldspray murmured, “Be swift, comrades. You must be watchful and wary, but above all you must be swift. We can ill endure any loss of life.”
    “Or indeed any injury,” muttered Galesend, “worn and weakened as we are.”
    Jeremiah beat bruises onto his thighs and strove to see.
    There
. He had lost sight of Stave. The
Haruchai
had thrust his way into the cleft; or the shape of the jut masked his presence. But the monolith had moved: Jeremiah was sure of it.
    It did not move again.
    Then it did.
    At first, it appeared to lean back toward the cliff as though it sought to crush the force which had disturbed it. For moments as long as heartbeats, as urgent as cries, it hung in place, scattering scree from its base.
    With the suddenness of a calving glacier, the slab slid away.
    Silent as a cast-off leaf, it appeared to drift through the darkness until one end collided with the ridgefront. Instantly it broke apart, became half a dozen pieces. They rebounded from the impact, falling like a barrage toward the waiting Swordmainnir.
    Grueburn, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Stonemage were all in danger; but the threat to Grueburn and Latebirth was greater.
    “He is yours, Cabledarm!” Grueburn yelled. Jeremiah saw her and then Latebirth leaping down the jagged slope of the rockfall.
    Granite thunder boomed. Heavy shards pounded the rubble where the two women had been standing.
    At the same time, Cabledarm dodged a fragment which would have slain her. She surged upward. Unscathed, Onyx Stonemage braced herself; remained where she was.
    Above them, Stave also struck the cliff. But he twisted as he dropped so that he hit with his feet. Somehow he planted himself long enough to flex his legs and spring away. His great strength transformed his plummet into an outward leap.
    Arms spread like wings, he cast himself soaring into the mad roil of the winds.
    Cabledarm was there when he came down.
    In spite of his splayed posture, he was falling too hard, plunging like a chunk of the slab. Even a Giant could not hope to catch him safely. His weight and momentum would shatter bones, Cabledarm’s as well as his.
    But she did not try to catch him. She had other intentions. During the quick instants of his descent, she crouched low. Then she sprang to meet him, arching away as she did so; already pitching herself backward.
    Her huge hands found his hips. Her arms bent to absorb the collision. Then she gave him a prodigious heave.
    His force and hers flung her, helpless, down the side of the slope. She tumbled like a piece of the ridge.
    But she had redirected his fall. He was soaring again.
    Toward Onyx Stonemage—
    —who caught him in both arms.
    Like Cabledarm, she did not try to hold him. Instead she swung him in an arc and released him so that she seemed to throw him in the direction of open ground beyond the rockfall.
    He landed on his feet; dove and rolled to dissipate the last of his momentum. Then he rose to stand upright in the thick dusk.
    Jeremiah began running before the
Haruchai
came to a halt.
    The monolith was broken. Its burden of malachite may have been shattered, made useless. Everything may have been wasted. Even Linden’s ride into the chaos of a
caesure
—
    But Jeremiah was not racing to locate the outcome of his only hope. He was running as if his heart might burst to find out if Stave and Cabledarm were all right.
    In the east, a dull dawn announced the third sunless day.

9.
    An Impoverished Temple

    The company gathered around Stave and Cabledarm. Jeremiah fought down an impulse to babble. I can’t believe it! That was amazing! Are you all right? But he could hardly speak in any case. He was panting as though he had run an inconceivable distance, and had witnessed wonders.
    Stave’s arms and feet were latticed with scratches. His palms