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

might have been anger—made runnels through the dust on her face. When she was near enough to speak in a hoarse whisper and be heard, she stopped.
    Like Saltheart Foamfollower, the Ironhand towered over Covenant. The Giants had always been too much for him, more than he deserved. Trying to meet her gaze, he staggered until Branl steadied him.
    “Timewarden,” Coldspray breathed, “our need is great. We have expended our last strength, Lostson Longwrath lies before us, slain for our salvation, and Stave Rockbrother is much harmed. For these ills, we have no anodyne. We must—Ah, Stone and Sea. We must be more than we are.
    “Yet I discern that your need is also great. Indeed, I fear that it exceeds comprehension. Therefore I will speak when I fain would hear.”
    She looked like she might collapse, but she did not. Even now, she met the challenge he represented.
    “We deem that an alteration in Linden Giantfriend began when she was borne to the verge of the Sarangrave a second time.”
    Gloom held the plain. Beyond the stark brilliance of the
krill
’s gem, the preternatural twilight seemed to defy every sentence. A second time? When was the first? Was that when she had hurt the lurker enough to inspire an alliance?
    “There the Feroce conveyed a message, citing your command. They urged her to
Remember forbidding
. For that reason, she parted from us.”
    The Feroce had done Covenant’s bidding. He had no one else to blame.
    “Here we have fashioned a fane for the
Elohim
. It compelled them to come, and to enter, drawing Kastenessen with them. There its magicks will ward them from the Worm’s feeding.”
    Covenant stared up at her. Silver etched the lines of her visage, cut them into shapes that he feared to recognize. He believed the Ironhand, of course he did. Vast spans of time and knowledge were gone from him; but he remembered Jeremiah’s importance, Jeremiah’s talent. In some nameless sense, every future depended on Linden’s son.
    Chosen-son. The Giants had given the boy an epithet to call his own.
    Exhaustion abraded the Ironhand’s voice. “All remaining
Elohim
are now here. Therefore the Worm also must come. Preserved within the fane, they cannot be consumed. When the Worm destroys our edifice, however, they will have no egress. They will be eternally lost. For this reason, Linden Giantfriend determined that the Worm must be turned aside.”
    That, at least, Covenant understood. The Worm would come. It was coming. He wanted to ask, Then why gather all the
Elohim
in one place? But he knew the answer: to give them a chance. They were helpless otherwise. And their presence here would not hasten the Earth’s demise. Having reached the Land—and having been blocked from Mount Thunder—the Worm was bound to sense the location, the comparative proximity, of its final food. It would have come this way no matter what Jeremiah and the Giants did.
    But it was not here now. The crazy turmoil of winds might mean anything. The clotted darkness on the northeastern horizon had more than one possible interpretation.
    “Therefore Linden Giantfriend has invoked and entered a
caesure
. Accepting only Manethrall Mahrtiir as her companion, she seeks the deep past of the Land, where it is her hope that a Forestal will impart to her the forbidding which the world’s peril demands.”
    Without Branl’s support, Covenant might not have been able to stay on his feet. The deep past—Oh, hell. Joan’s death had not put an end to
caesures
. In spite of everything, Linden was still exceeding his expectations.
    Branl’s expression was unreadable, as inarticulate as a mask of marble. However, his gaze was fixed, not on Rime Coldspray, but on Stave. Mind to mind, the Humbled may have been asking the former Master for confirmation.
    How had Linden persuaded Stave to let her go without him?
    At the end of her determination, the Ironhand said, “If she succeeds—and if the Arch does not fall—and if she is able to return—she will endeavor to refuse the Worm from this place.”
    Covenant groaned aloud. Linden’s absence was his doing. He had pushed her toward a risk so extreme that merely hearing it described made his pulse falter in his veins. He had been pushing her ever since she had returned to the Land, even though every stricture of Law and Time had screamed against such intervention. If she failed, the fault would be his.
    But what else could he have done? He could not have acted differently without