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

every
Elohim
was inside.
    Until Kastenessen could unleash uncounted millennia of torment.
    Jeremiah was sudden. He was quick.
    Stave was faster.
    The former Master was scarcely conscious. He could barely stand. Nevertheless he kept his promise to Linden. Lunging, he grasped Jeremiah’s arm.
    Heat as fierce as brimstone savaged his hand, but he did not let go. Desperate and already failing, he delivered Jeremiah to the only protection that lay within his reach.
    As Rime Coldspray had done to Stave himself earlier, the
Haruchai
wrenched Jeremiah into the air. Off the bare dirt that exposed him to Kastenessen. Onto the stone roof of the temple.
    Into the direct line of Kastenessen’s intended attack.
    Then Stave collapsed again. He did not rise.
    But Infelice remained untouched outside the fane.
    Kastenessen howled rage at the heavens, but Jeremiah no longer heeded him. As Jeremiah’s feet left the ground, he crashed inwardly. His many selves seemed to smash against each other like projectiles, like bullets.
    The force of their impact stunned him. It numbed his mind. He no longer thought or moved: he hardly breathed. Instead he lay still, wracked by revulsion; as weak as Stave. He could do nothing except watch and dread.
    Kastenessen roared, but he did not strike. He wanted his full triumph. In moments, even Infelice would answer the fane’s call. Then—
    Already the last of the
Elohim
were passing inward. Their hope had become horror, and their features were written with dismay, but they had no power to reject their own natures. Two heartbeats, or perhaps three, no more than that, and Infelice would stand alone. Then she, too, would enter—and Kastenessen would strike.
    No, he would not. Not with Roger’s hand. Never again.
    While Kastenessen readied his blast, a Giant surged out of a crater behind him. Jeremiah would not have known who the newcomer was if Frostheart Grueburn had not shouted, “Longwrath!”
    Swift as a bolt of lightning, the man reared high behind the deranged
Elohim
. In both fists, he gripped a long flamberge with a wicked blade. It edges gleamed against Kastenessen’s lurid radiance as if starlight had been forged into its iron.
    One stroke severed Roger’s hand from Kastenessen’s wrist.
    Kastenessen screamed like an exploding sun. He staggered.
    Longwrath followed him to strike again.
    But Kastenessen caught his balance. Blood pulsed from his wrist, the tainted ichor of Earthpower and lava. He did not heed it. Wheeling, he swung at his attacker with his good arm.
    Power erupted in Longwrath’s chest. His armor had been damaged, torn apart at one shoulder: it could not withstand Kastenessen’s virulence. The wrought stone sprang apart, spitting splinters as piercing as knives. But the shards evaporated or melted at the touch of Kastenessen’s lava. Longwrath was flung backward, hurled away like a handful of scree. When he fell, he did not move again. Smoke gusted out of his chest as if his heart and lungs were on fire.
    Roaring once more, Kastenessen turned back to Infelice and the fane. Obscene heat mounted within him. He grew taller, blazed brighter. Acrid flames swirled higher, spinning about him like the birth-pangs of a cyclone. His sick brilliance stung Jeremiah’s eyes, but the boy could not look away.
    “Hear me, treacher!” the mad
Elohim
howled. “I am more than you deem! Yon puerile fane cannot compel me! Still am I Kastenessen! Still my pain suffices to destroy you!”
    Raving, he stoked his lethal energies, Earthpower and magma,
Elohim
and
skurj
, until they looked fierce enough to consume every life that had ever walked the plain. They were far more than he needed them to be. They would level Jeremiah’s crude edifice as if it had no substance and no meaning.
    Infelice had been appalled earlier. Now, strangely, she was calm. She did not answer Kastenessen. Instead she remarked to Rime Coldspray, “You think ill of us, Giant, and you have cause. But we are not as dark as you deem. For this also we laid our
geas
upon your kinsman. For this also he acquired his blade. Failing one purpose, he has served another.
    “He has not redeemed us, but he has weakened our lost brother. Now comes one who may achieve our salvation, however briefly. We cannot ask more of any who oppose the Worm.
    “You will forgive your kinsman’s passing,” she added sadly. “Alive, he would not lightly bear the recall of his deeds.”
    Then the bedizened
Elohim
faced Kastenessen across the