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

Roger’s, human and fatal. With it, Kastenessen could deliver devastations that no other being of his race might attempt or condone.
    But he did not strike. He was not ready—or he saw no need.
    He had already taken Jeremiah, who stood on bare dirt. The boy had inherited this vulnerability from Anele.
    In an instant, less than an instant, a particle of time infinitely prolonged, Jeremiah passed through the eager malice and sadism of the
croyel
into pure fire, the catastrophic frenzy of bonfires. During that interminable flicker, his spirit was split. He seemed to become several separate selves, all simultaneous or superimposed, all cruelly distinct.
    Now he knew why Anele had chosen madness.
    One Jeremiah realized that he had been possessed—again!—and tried to scream. One stood in the white core of a furnace, while another interpreted every form of pain as delight, as agony perfected to ecstasy. One watched the Giants, who should have scattered, saved themselves. But they did not. Doomed and determined, they placed themselves in the path of Kastenessen’s savagery. And another Jeremiah relished the knowledge that he had become incarnate lava. The idea that his companions were about to die glorified him. It was for this that the Despiser had marked him. It was for this that he lived.
    Swift with glee, he moved to do his ruler’s bidding.
    Still another self remembered every horror which the
croyel
had inflicted upon him. He experienced again the misery of deluding Linden in Roger’s company, cringed at what he had done under
Melenkurion
Skyweir. Another aspect of his shredded identity fled for the safety of sepulchres. Another gibbered for the godhood of eternity. In that manifestation, he knew the keen pain of the
krill
against his throat.
    And one—
    One of the many Jeremiahs
understood
.
    This Jeremiah recognized the extremity of Kastenessen’s need for ruin. He remembered the forbidden love, potent as delirium, and altogether delicious, which had drawn Kastenessen to mortal Emereau Vrai, daughter of kings. He felt Kastenessen’s rage and dismay while he fought for his love against Infelice and others of the
Elohim
, who should have valued him more highly. This Jeremiah knew intimately the unconscionable hurt of Kastenessen’s Durance, his imprisonment against and among the
skurj
. This Jeremiah recalled in every detail the torment which had driven Kastenessen to begin merging himself with monsters.
    This Jeremiah understood why Kastenessen cared only for the utter destruction of the
Elohim
. More, he knew why Kastenessen had not acted directly against Linden, or indeed against Jeremiah himself, until now; until all of his surviving people were gathered in one place. Although Kastenessen had used Esmer with remorseless brutality, he had not delivered his fury in person because any absence from the proximity of She Who Must Not Be Named would have put an end to Kevin’s Dirt. His presence was required to channel and shape and direct the bane’s fearsome energies. And he had believed, or
moksha
Raver had persuaded him, that only the dire brume which hampered Earthpower and Law would make his revenge possible.
    Now Kastenessen had no more need for such stratagems. He had come in response to the fane’s call, but he was not mastered by it. He was part
skurj
and part human: he was in enough pain to refuse any coercion. No, he was here because he had achieved his desires. One of the Jeremiahs would carry out the last preparations.
    That in turn was why Kastenessen raised Roger’s fist, but did not strike. He had the power to shatter the fane, render it back to rubble. Nevertheless he withheld his blow, waiting for the certainty that every one of the
Elohim
would be destroyed.
    Nothing that happened in or to Jeremiah took any time at all. Part of him regretted that. He loved what he had become. He reveled in the purity of his given hate.
    Incandescent or incinerated in each of his separated selves, he flung himself at Infelice.
    It was for this that he—that Kastenessen—had planned and waited and endured: so that the highest and mightiest and most dangerous of the
Elohim
would be slain with the rest when he delivered his retribution.
    Three swift strides would be enough. Then Kastenessen in Jeremiah would wrap hate like molten stone around Infelice. He would hurl her through the fane’s portal, the entryway to extinction. After that, only heartbeats would remain until the summons was complete; until