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

I was in the same situation with Joan. I only got her ring”—he stifled a wince—“because she couldn’t hold it any longer. That didn’t make me a rightful wielder either.”
    He had experienced
rightfulness
. He knew what it meant.
    “Now that’s changed.” With a gesture that felt effortless, he drew a brief streak of argent through the air, instantly ready, instantly quenched. “So here’s what I think. It isn’t the getting that makes the difference. It’s the giving. The choice. And the
kind
of choice matters. Surrender is one kind. A vow is another. I didn’t just give you a white gold ring. I gave you
me
. That’s something the almighty Despiser is never going to understand. He’s clever as all hell, but he’s too self-obsessed or frustrated or maybe too damn miserable to figure out why he keeps losing.”
    Then Covenant thought that he ought to warn Linden. “But we still have to be careful. I don’t have enough health-sense to feel the effects of what I’m doing. And you have the Staff of Law.” It lay on the greensward beyond their clothes, its black shaft runed with auguries. “I don’t want to say wild magic and Law are antithetical. That’s too simplistic. But the energies are incompatible. Wild magic refuses boundaries, and Law is all about boundaries. If you hadn’t used the
krill
when you resurrected me, you would have torn yourself apart. That’s the
krill
’s real power. It mediates contradictions.”
    For a moment, he thought that he heard the wind outside the bower blustering bitterly against the willow. But the blast did not trouble Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s irenic singing, or ruffle his healing lumination.
    Still Covenant did not relax, in spite of his satiation. He sensed something unresolved in Linden—or he knew that in her place he would not be at peace.
    At last, she said, “Thomas, I love you. I
love
you. But I did a terrible thing when I forced you back to life. Waking up the Worm was bad enough. The Humbled were right about me. That was a Desecration. But I’m afraid that I did something worse at the same time. Do you remember what Berek said? I’ve made it impossible to stop Lord Foul.”
    Covenant tightened his embrace as if he imagined that he could protect her. He remembered Berek’s assertion perfectly.
He may be freed only by one who is compelled by rage, and contemptuous of consequence
. He recognized her fear.
    “Now we can’t save the world. We can’t stop the Worm. We can only try to slow it down. Before long, Lord Foul will get his chance to escape.
    “Thomas,” she insisted, “I
did
that.” In spite of all that she had done, she still found cause to accuse herself. “
I
did it.” Then she admitted, “But it didn’t feel that way. Oh, I didn’t care about the consequences. I can’t deny that. But was I ‘compelled by rage’? I don’t think so. I was just desperate. Desperate for you. Desperate for Jeremiah. Desperate for
help
. I didn’t know where else to get it.
    “Is that all it takes to ruin everything? Is Lord Foul going to get free because of me? Is the whole Earth going to die because of me?”
    At that moment, Covenant would have given the remains of his fingers to reassure her. But he did not respond immediately. He had good reason to be cautious. During his early visits to the Land, he had justified himself falsely too often, and the cost of his obfuscations had been too high. And her needs were not his. Her desperation was not the same as his. It was more intimate, or more personal, or simply more consequential. He had only raped Lena and betrayed Elena and destroyed the first Staff of Law. He had not awakened the Worm. In an earlier age, Linden herself had prevented him—
    Now he suspected that Jeremiah was more likely to be
compelled by rage
.
    He wanted to say, Maybe you’re right. Any one of us can destroy the whole world—if it’s
our
world. All we have to do is destroy ourselves. But he demanded more of himself.
    “Sometimes ‘desperate,’” he began, “is just a convenient name for being so angry you can’t stand it. After everything you went through—after Roger and the
croyel
and Esmer and Kastenessen and the Harrow and even Longwrath—you finally got to Andelain”—he winced at the memory—“and I refused to talk to you. Hellfire, Linden! Only a dead woman wouldn’t have been sick with fury.”
    She hid her face as if she were cowering; as if he had poured acid on her heart. “Then I’ve