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

way beyond exhausted. They can hardly lift their arms. And we still haven’t done the hardest part.”
    Abruptly he stopped. He had no idea how to continue.
    “The hardest part?” Stave inquired: a mere breath of sound.
    “The roof. I’m making a temple. I mean, that’s how I think of it. It has to have a roof. But it won’t stay up until I brace it. That’s what your lump of malachite is for. They’ll have to lift the rocks and stand—” Simply thinking about such things hurt. “They’ll have to just stand there holding up the roof. And even if they can do that, I don’t know how they’re going to set the capstone. I can’t imagine—
    “It has to be just right, or it won’t work.” He struggled to devise scenarios. They were all cruel. “So even if four of them can hold up the roof, that only leaves two to lift the last piece because at least one of them has to climb up there,” adding her weight to the rocks on the shoulders of the other Giants, “and put that piece in place. I’ll probably have to be there myself to make sure it’s right.”
    Without warning, sobs crowded into his chest. If he let himself, he would wail like a child. He was tired to the bone, and all of his talents and excitements were useless now. He did not have the strength to complete his construct.
    “It’s terrible.” He restrained himself by gritting his teeth. “It’s all terrible. I don’t know how to make it better.”
    Stave did not react. For a time, he knelt motionless and said nothing, as if he had no interest in Jeremiah’s distress. Eventually, however, he bowed his head in submission.
    “Yet the attempt must be made.” He spoke as if the wind tugged the words out of him. “I will remain as I am for a time. Then I will come.”
    With that, Jeremiah had to be content.
    As suddenly as it had arrived, his impulse to sob faded. He had reached the end of his emotions. Now he felt emptied. Matters were out of his hands. He had done what he could. Anele’s gift of Earthpower did not make him mighty. It only made him vulnerable.
    Sagging into himself, he left Stave and stumbled across the wind back toward the Giants.
    But he did not go to them. He had nothing to tell them that they did not already know. Under kinder circumstances, they probably could have finished the task without him.
    Instead he made his way to his crude edifice. For a while, he studied the four walls and the northwest-facing entrance. Then he set to work.
    With negligent, futile ease, he tossed small stones into their necessary positions along the tops of the walls. Doing so did not require thought: it required only certainty. But soon he had done what he could. Then he had to wait for the Giants.
    Around him, the day grew darker. That was wrong: his senses were sure. The time was early afternoon, no later. Yet the vague illumination was fading. He had become little more than a shadow to himself, a wraith in a distorted dream. His construct crouched in the gloom like the base of a tower broken by siege.
    Carried by baffled gusts and blasts, the darkness gathered from the east, or perhaps somewhat north of east. It advanced in tatters like the wind, moiling and routed, then surging ahead. And its source was still distant, scores of leagues away. Nonetheless the fading of the light was a warning.
    “Ho, Swordmainnir.” Rime Coldspray sounded improbably far away. “Now or never. Behold! Night gathers against us prematurely. I know not how to interpret this augury, but I do not doubt that it promises ill. We must complete our purpose.”
    A chorus of groans arose: protests and curses. Across the distance, Jeremiah felt the Giants climbing to their feet as if they were struggling out of an abyss. Even Cabledarm stood.
    Leaning against each other, the Ironhand and her women came to stand with Jeremiah.
    He heard their exhaustion, their frailty. He seemed to taste it like charcoal on his tongue. He did not know how to bear it—or how to ask them to bear it.
    Because he was concentrating on them, a moment passed before he realized that Stave also had joined him.
    Several of the Giants greeted the
Haruchai
, but he did not reply. Instead he regarded the walls of the construct. After a pause, he announced thinly, “This is
suru-pa-maerl
. The folk of the Stonedowns formed such sculptures balancing and fitting stones to each other. In Muirwin Delenoth, Chosen-son, you devised a structure of marrowmeld. Now you have restored
suru-pa-maerl
to