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

in Garroting Deep. He might turn away when he saw that the danger of the
caesure
had passed. And she could only call out to him in one language: the speech of fire.
    Unsure of herself, she turned to Mahrtiir.
    The Manethrall considered the forest for a moment. Then he offered gruffly, “Here I am reminded of a tale concerning Lord Mhoram at a time when the forces of the Lords were threatened by an army commanded by a Raver. It is the same tale which relates the doom of Hile Troy. Risking much, the Lord approached Garroting Deep from Cravenhaw and raised fire in supplication. But he also dared to speak words of power, words which belonged to the Forestal. Therefore Caerroil Wildwood came.
    “But those words were not repeated to the Ramen. The tale is known to us only because it was shared by Bannor and others after the
Haruchai
had withdrawn from their service as the Bloodguard. They are a reticent people, as you know”—Mahrtiir sounded grimly amused—“and did not tell the tale fully.”
    “I wonder what they were,” Linden mused absently. Her ears strained for hints of Caerroil Wildwood’s singing: the poignant and feral melody of the Forestal’s strength.
    A
caesure
should have been inconceivable in this time. How could any lover of trees ignore such a threat?
    Apparently Caerroil Wildwood could not. When Mahrtiir had been silent for a while, and Linden’s trepidation seemed ready to burst out of her chest, she heard the first notes of a song that rent her heart.
    It seemed to arch from tree to tree as if it were setting every leaf alight. Its power was unmistakable, a force as fraught as wild magic. But its potential ferocity was muted, held in abeyance: perhaps because its full might was not needed to rid the Deep of two mere humans; or perhaps because the Forestal was curious in spite of his unrelieved wrath; or perhaps because he recognized—
    Breezes and tuned ire made the woods appear to waver like a mirage. Scraps of song more audible to percipience than to ordinary hearing spread like ripples. Boughs and roots added notes which should have been discordant, but which instead wove a dire counterpoint through the lamentation of leaves, the grief and objurgation of sap. Words that almost formed verses skirled through the grass at Linden’s feet:
days before the Earth
, and
its walk to doom
, and
forbidding dusty waste
.
    Wearing an aura of embattled music, Caerroil Wildwood appeared far back among the trees.
    His steps were instances of a dirge, ancient and unreconciled; irreconcilable. Lucent melody rather than light cloaked him in lordship. A penumbra of sorrow etched with gall and despair surrounded him as he advanced; and he seemed to waft rather than walk, as if he were carried along by the chords of his puissance. He was as tall as a king; his flowing hair and beard and his long robe were white with antiquity; the silver authority of his eyes judged all things harshly. He commanded homage from the trees as he passed, but it was an obeisance of appreciation and reverence, not of servility. The service here was his: the forest did not serve him. In the crook of one elbow, he cradled a gnarled wooden scepter as if it were the symbol and manifestation of every trunk and shrub and seed-born wonder that he had ever loved. Loved and lost.
    At her first glimpse of him, Linden bowed her head. Carefully she displayed the Staff of Law in front of her, lying like an offering across her hands.
    Please, she breathed in silence. Just look. Don’t decide anything until you look. I abandoned my son for this. If you don’t help me, I’ve abandoned the whole world.
    Beside her, Manethrall Mahrtiir stood straighter. He held up his head as if he wanted to emphasize his bandage, the ruined sockets of his eyes; wanted the Forestal to see that he was unafraid in spite of his blindness.
    At the edge of the clearing, Caerroil Wildwood stopped. He did not deign to come closer. He did not speak. His tune in its myriad voices spoke for him.
    My leaves grow green and seedlings bloom.
    I inhale all expiring breath,
        And breathe out life to bind and heal.
    My hate knows neither rest nor weal.
    Linden ached to sing with him. If she could have replied with melody, he would have known that she had no wish for harm: not here; not in any forest. But she did not know the rites and cadences of his lore. Even her own magicks were mysteries to her. She could not address the Forestal in his natural tongue.
    Still she had