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

and timbre were unmistakable. They spoke of shattering and calamity and irreparable loss.
    He tried to call a warning to the Giants inside the temple, but the words stuck in his throat.
    Instinctively he believed that Infelice was coming to prevent
the worst evil
. To kill him before he could be reclaimed by the Despiser.
    If so, none of his companions would be able to defend him. No Giant could stand against any one of Infelice’s people. And the Swordmainnir were too weak to don their armor or swing their swords. Stave was not even conscious.
    But Jeremiah did not flinch. He knew that Infelice was wrong about him. She would see the truth when she arrived.
    Forgetting Stave and Kindwind and water, he went to stand at the entrance to his temple as if he had become its guardian.
    The metallic clamor continued. It acquired intensity and ire. It was as sharp as knives forged to flense and flay. In spite of the distance, it cut. And it was coming closer. The Giants heard it now. The Ironhand and Bluntfist struggled upright, stood wavering with their fists clenched. Latebirth was at Galesend’s side, rousing her comrade. Cirrus Kindwind moved to join her.
    As Jeremiah reached the entryway, Grueburn and Stonemage emerged, supporting Cabledarm between them. They bore her a few paces to one side, lowered her carefully to the dirt. Then they stood over her as though they meant to fight for her.
    But the wrath and repudiation of the
Elohim
would not be directed at her, or at any of Jeremiah’s companions.
    He folded his arms across his chest; across the fouled blue and horses of his pajamas. He did not know how else to contain his trembling.
    Rime Coldspray took a position on his left. Halewhole Bluntfist matched her on his right. Together they waited.
    He expected to see forces gathering in the eastern darkness, anger as fierce as lightning, an army of eldritch beings. The shredded winds seemed to promise multitudes and violence. But when Infelice came, she came alone. And she did not arrive from any direction. Instead she incarnated herself in front of him like a star plucked out of the heavens. She was no more than five steps away.
    Involuntarily he blinked. Her brightness stung his eyes. She was clad in light: an elegant profusion of gemstones—emeralds and rubies, sapphires and garnets—all shining with their own radiance, all arrayed like garments woven of glory. Only the iron clangor and desperation of her bells contradicted her deliberate loveliness, her stubborn will to believe that she was the crown of Creation.
    Across the plain behind her, the wind fashioned illusions of movement in the hollows, illusions that made the ground look like it was squirming.
    Her vehemence seemed to appall the dusk. It buffeted Jeremiah’s bones. Now he saw that her many jewels resembled tears, incandescent woe. Her wrath was weeping. The suzerain
Elohim
’s form and raiment articulated fury indistinguishable from grief.
    “
Abomination!
” she cried. “Malign child! Thus you complete our despair! Better for us to be devoured by the Worm. Better had you never been given birth.
    “I am able to decline entrance only because I am Infelice. I cannot continue to do so. My people have not come only because I prevent them. I cannot continue to do so. Soon we must accept eternal absence and futility, eternal continuance in a void in which we can do nothing, and from which we cannot return.
    “This evil you have performed, though I have both striven and pleaded to avert it. In your heedlessness, you are a-Jeroth’s servant, and all of your deeds conduce to his designs.”
    Coldspray and Bluntfist glowered uselessly. Farther away, Stormpast Galesend tottered to her feet between Latebirth and Kindwind. Grueburn and Stonemage knelt like shields on either side of Cabledarm.
    Jeremiah should have been terrified. On some level, he was. Infelice had not given rise to the darkness mounting in the east. Her ire and lamentation had not caused the turmoil of winds. Something else was coming—
    Nevertheless his fears only made his hands tremble, only caused his heart to stutter. His crossed arms closed a door on that part of himself. Behind his façade, memories of the
croyel
barked in derision. Outwardly he faced Infelice as if he could not be daunted.
    In spite of her supernal powers, she did not know him. He was exactly what she believed him to be. At the same time, he was something entirely different.
    He raised his halfhand as if he