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

wreath. Though she was the highest of her kind, she had been wrong too often.
    “I can delay no longer. I must acknowledge that I am answered, as the summons must be answered. You have spoken truly. We are
Elohim
. We have no knowledge of
friends
.
    “This, then, is my word. Come what may, we who are great must now place our faith in you who are small.”
    Then she found a brief severity. “Be wary, Chosen-son. Your deeds bring perils which you do not foresee. We have given of our utmost, according to our Würd. Now we can do naught. If your companions fail you, you are undone.”
    Turning away, Infelice lifted a cry into the heavens: a resounding clang like a hammer-stroke on an immense gong.
    At once, other
Elohim
began to appear as if they had been brought by the winds; as if they had found their substance among the oneiric seethings that troubled the plain.
    One after another, they flowed like liquid light toward the fane, so many of them that Jeremiah was astonished. He had seen stars dying: he had not considered the number that still lived. Perhaps the relationship between these beings and stars was more symbolic than literal. Nevertheless the heavens had not been entirely decimated. Those
Elohim
that answered the call of Jeremiah’s construct resembled a multitude.
    The sight enchanted him. They were so beautiful—! One and all, they were lovely beyond description. To his human eyes, they were men and women clad in elegance, and accustomed to glory: innocent of mortality; untainted by the dross of inadequacy and the burden of suffering; immune to the woes and protests that could only be stilled by death.
    They were the
Elohim
, eldritch and fey: as cryptic as prophecies in a foreign tongue, and as ineffable as the beauties of Andelain, or the melodies of Wraiths. An uncounted host of them had already perished: a throng remained, craving life.
    They sanctified the unnatural twilight as if their coming were a sacrament.
    Instinctively Stormpast Galesend and Latebirth forced themselves to their feet. Even Cabledarm found the strength to stand. All of the Giants endeavored to square their shoulders, straighten their backs. In spite of their troubled history with the
Elohim
, they set aside their exhaustion.
    Graceful as willows, stately as Gilden, each faery individual paused only to exchange a nod with Infelice, who stood aside for her people. Each glided into the fane and vanished from sight. And Jeremiah watched them stream past like a boy who had become magnificent in his own estimation, full of pride. He had caused this:
he
. He had justified Linden’s highest hopes for him. Yet the swelling of his heart was not pride. At that moment, at least, it was gratitude. The success of his temple was not something that he had accomplished: it was a gift that he had been given. He did not waste himself on pride.
    For that moment, while it lasted, he soared above his secrets as if he had been lifted into the heavens.
    Exalted and transfixed, he could not brace himself against the convulsion that shook the ground like the onset of an earthquake. He had no answer for the blast of heat as fierce as an eruption of magma, or for the blare of savagery that seemed to repudiate the world. He did not understand the sudden cries of the
Elohim
, or the haunted look that filled Infelice’s eyes, or the frantic shouts of the Giants. He did not know what was happening until Kastenessen entered him, and all of his thoughts became anguish and slaughter.
    Ecstatic agony. Rage so great that it could not be contained. Pain too extreme to be called insanity.
    The mad
Elohim
struck the plain like a fireball flung by a titan. At the impact, the very ground under his feet seemed to ripple and clench like water, liquefied by ferocity. He came roaring with triumph and lunacy and hate: a monster who no longer resembled the people who had imprisoned him; damned him. He was not lovely, not graceful. His visage was a contortion of suffering. Interminable pains gnarled his limbs. His vestments were fire. His eyes blazed like the fangs of the
skurj
. From his kraken teeth, slaver splashed the dirt and smoldered. And he dominated the horizon; cast back the gloom until even the darkness in the east appeared to wither and fade. He had made himself taller than a Giant, as tall as one of the avid worms which he had once restrained.
    His right fist he held above his head, ready to hurl ruin at the fane.
    It was not an
Elohim
’s fist. It was