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

gulf that separated their thoughts and desires, hers and his.
    “I have heard you, doomed one.” She did not raise her voice, yet it rang out, clarion and clear. “Now you will hear me. Cease your striving. Enter among your people. Permit your hurt to be assuaged. We have dealt cruelly with you, but we are also kind. While life endures to us, we will provide a surcease from all that you have suffered.”
    She may have been telling the truth.
    Now comes one—
    But Kastenessen had spent long ages in his Durance. He had made choices which exacerbated his fury. Infelice’s appeal could not reach him. For him, it may have been the final affront.
    He gathered flames until they burst from his eyes and his mouth, from every limb and line of his towering form. He was becoming a holocaust, devastation personified: a bonfire high and hot enough to ravage the plain. His reply was one word:
    “
Never!
”
    Yet he was not given time to release his accumulated hate.
    From the northeast, a burst of extravagant argent opened the twilight. It cast back the darkness, dismissed the sunless gloom. It was as bright as Kastenessen, and as complex, but immeasurably cleaner. And it was brief, little more than a blink. Nevertheless it was long enough.
    Out of it came riding Thomas Covenant and Branl
Haruchai
of the Humbled. Covenant held Loric’s
krill
.
    The shock of their arrival snatched Kastenessen away from his victims.
    Covenant rode a shovel-headed horse as ungainly and muscular as a mule. Branl was mounted on a Ranyhyn that Jeremiah had never seen before. And they were in a desperate hurry. Froth snorted from the nostrils of Covenant’s horse, the muzzle of Branl’s palomino stallion. Sweat reflected brimstone on their coats. They looked like they had galloped for leagues or days. Covenant lurched in his seat as if he were falling.
    As soon as his mount’s hooves struck the dirt, he pitched from his saddle. But he did not sprawl. Staggering like a holed ship in a storm, he managed to stay on his feet. Awkward and urgent, he confronted Kastenessen as if he had forgotten that the
Elohim
could reduce his bones to ash.
    In his maimed hands, the gem of the
krill
shone like a kept promise in an abandoned world.
    “You—!” Kastenessen began: a strangled howl. Rage clenched his throat, choked off his protest.
    “
Try
me,” Covenant panted as if he were on the verge of prostration. “Do your worst.” He looked too weak to withstand a slap. Streaked by conflicting illuminations, his face had the pallor of a wasting disease. Still he was Thomas Covenant. He did not falter. “See what happens.
    “I killed my ex-wife. I helped destroy a Raver. And I’ve seen the Worm of the World’s End. I am
done with restraint
!” His teeth gnashed. “I used to care how much you’ve suffered. I don’t anymore. If you think you can beat me, go ahead. I’m
wild magic
, you crazy bastard. I’ll cut you apart where you stand.”
    Jeremiah stared and stared, and could not name his astonishment, when Kastenessen flinched—
    —and took an alarmed step backward.
    Covenant advanced, holding up the
krill
. It blazed like havoc, unmitigated and unanswerable. Its argent covered him with majesty. The silver of his hair resembled a crown.
    Branl came behind him, but did not intrude.
    Kastenessen retreated another step, and another. Another. The passion in Covenant’s eyes drove him. He must have realized that he was being forced toward Infelice and the fane; but he did not stop. Perhaps he could not. Perhaps he saw something in Covenant, or in Loric’s numinous dagger, that cowed him.
    With every step, he dwindled. Retreating, he became smaller. Lava seemed to leak out of him and fade, denatured like water by his own thwarted heat.
    Covenant stumbled and wavered, and kept coming. Kastenessen shrank away from him.
    Giants let him pass. They watched as if they were as stricken as Jeremiah; as transfixed.
    Then Infelice spoke Kastenessen’s name like a command, and Kastenessen turned from Covenant to face her.
    Terror and loathing contorted his features. He conveyed the impression that he wanted to scream and could not because he feared that he might sob. Through his teeth, he spat words like fragments of torment.
    “You have earned my abhorrence.”
    Infelice’s calm had become irrefusable. Placid as Glimmermere, she answered, “We have. We will not ask you to set it aside. We ask only that you allow us to soothe your pain.”
    Her response