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

Kastenessen’s touch. Cabledarm stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, in too much pain to sleep, or to hear. But Bluntfist’s eyelids closed, and she sank away. Onyx Stonemage resisted yawns—briefly, briefly—until they overcame her. Then Latebirth and Galesend slept as well. Soon only Coldspray, Grueburn, and Kindwind remained awake with Covenant and Branl.
    The three women regarded Covenant, obviously waiting to hear more of his own tale.
    As much for his own sake as for theirs, he began to speak. But he did not talk about what he had done and endured. He had no language adequate to Joan and the Ranyhyn, or to
turiya
Herem and Clyme, or to the Worm of the World’s End. Instead he spoke of Linden and Horrim Carabal.
    “At least now we know what the Ardent meant when he said her fate is
writ in water
. Or part of it, anyway. She gave us an alliance with the actual lurker,” who was nothing if not a creature born of water, made great by water. “Hellfire! How improbable was
that
? But there’s more. If she hadn’t brought down that flood above the Lost Deep, none of us would have escaped. If she hadn’t gone back to the Sarangrave, the Feroce might not have been able to give her my message.”
    She had used water to provide malachite for Jeremiah. And Covenant himself had broken her free from memories of She Who Must Not Be Named by holding her underwater. In retrospect, he trembled at his own daring.
    “Long ago,” he finished hoarsely, “I told her to
Do something they don’t expect
. If we ever find a way to stop Lord Foul, it’ll be because she’s taken him by surprise over and over again.”
    After a long pause, Rime Coldspray mused, “It indeed appears that many unforeseen outcomes were enabled by Linden Giantfriend’s last effort among the caverns. But the same may be said of any deed. If she had not retrieved the Staff of Law. If she had not accompanied your false son and her possessed boy into the Land’s past. If she had not dared all things to create a place for you among the living. Life is ever thus. One step enables another. For that reason, auguries are an ill guide. They tread perilously upon the borders of unearned knowledge.
    “Still we are Giants. We crave an understanding of your own deeds. Will you not tell their tale more fully?” She spread her hands in the light of the
krill
as if she wanted to convince Covenant that they were empty and needed to be filled. “Ignorance haunts us. It hinders rest.”
    Instead of saying, No, or, Have mercy, or, I can’t bear it, Covenant countered, “I’m not sure that’s true. I think it’s Longwrath who haunts you.” The Giants may have felt that they had failed him. “You need a
caamora
, and you don’t know how to get one. It eats at you.”
    The Ironhand did not contradict him. Instead she asked, “Are our hearts so plain to you?”
    Covenant shook his head. “I only think you need to grieve because I’ve known Giants for a long time. I can’t
see
you. And Kevin’s Dirt just makes me blinder.”
    Numbness was eroding his ability to
hold on
. When he could no longer grip, he would be effectively impotent.
    “Then it will comfort you,” interposed Frostheart Grueburn, “to hear that Kastenessen’s vile brume has faded from the heavens. His entry to the Chosen-son’s fane has unbound his theurgies. Also the decimation of the stars has ceased. While the remaining
Elohim
are preserved, it will not be resumed.”
    Faded—Covenant released his legs, sat up straighter. “Well, damn.” He had assumed that Kevin’s Dirt was gone—that its bale required Kastenessen’s constant attention—but he had not had an opportunity to ask for confirmation. “
Thank
you. If you hadn’t built this place”—he gestured around him—“I might be useless by now.”
    He had always been useless without friends.
    But the Giants were not deflected from their concerns. “Nonetheless,” Cirrus Kindwind remarked, still probing, “your ailment has gained force. And we fear that you will refuse Linden Giantfriend’s succor, as you once refused hurtloam in Andelain. It is your resolve that you must not be healed which most drives our desire to comprehend you.”
    Reflexively Covenant grimaced. In a quiet rasp, he said, “I don’t know how to explain it. Leprosy protects me somehow.” If Lena had not given him hurtloam when he first came to the Land, he would not have been able to rape her. “Sure, it costs me a lot. But it’s also a kind