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

rush, we will receive warning.”
    “Well, damn,” Covenant muttered. “I should probably be glad. At least that thing isn’t heading for Mount Thunder. But it’s
hungry
. It’s going to hit hard when it gets here.”
    Scowling, he went to the brook for water. Then he moved toward the nearest shrub and began to eat.
    Linden winced to herself. Covenant had seen the Worm before: she had not. But she imagined that it was huge and virulent—and she had no idea whether the Forestal would be able to stand against it. The fact that the
Elohim
were no longer physically present in this manifestation of reality might lessen the Worm’s impulse to overwhelm Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir. Or deprivation might make the instrument of the World’s End savage.
    More savage than it was already.
    She swallowed an urge to look outside the willow, confirm Branl’s perceptions for herself. The Humbled was not likely to be mistaken. And her concern for her son was more immediate.
    There are worse things than being afraid, Mom. Being useless is worse.
    As far as she knew, a sense of purpose was all that had defended him against the cost of his emotional wounds. Now he had nothing to build—and perhaps nothing to hope for.
    If so, she knew the feeling. But she had her faith in Covenant to steady her. And long ago, she had been assured,
You will not fail—
She wanted to share those gifts with Jeremiah if she could. They were better than despair.
    Praying that she would be able to give him what he needed, she beckoned. “Come on, Jeremiah, honey. Let’s go into your temple. We can be alone there.”
    He flinched. He seemed to hide behind the silted hue of his eyes. His manner said, No, although he did not refuse aloud.
    “I know that you don’t want to talk,” she offered patiently. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But I’m your mother. Worrying about their children is what mothers do.
    “Come on,” she repeated. “If you help me understand, you might find that you feel less alone.”
    Jeremiah opened his mouth, closed it again. He looked around at the Giants, and then at Covenant, as if he hoped that one of them would intervene. But the women only nodded encouragement; and Covenant’s attention was elsewhere.
    The boy avoided Linden’s gaze. Looking truculent and defensive, he joined her. When she turned past the willow trunk toward the fane’s opening, he followed, scuffing his feet in protest.
    Inside the construct, she found bare dirt between crooked walls supporting a ceiling that looked like it might fall on her at any moment. Gaps among the stones let patches of Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir’s shining into the gloom, but that glow did not lift the shadows from Jeremiah’s mien. He might have been little more than an emblem of the deeper night awaiting the Earth.
    Facing him, she put the Worm out of her mind; braced herself to concentrate on her son. He could not rid himself of his demons if he did not acknowledge them.
    He began before she could choose a question. “I don’t know what you think we have to talk about. I already told you. The Giants and Stave did practically everything. After that—” A scowl concentrated his features. Its tightness reminded her of the twitch at the corner of his eye when Roger and the
croyel
had lured her into the past. “They must have said what happened. The
Elohim
came. So did Kastenessen. Then Covenant showed up. Infelice took Kastenessen with her.
    “That’s
it
. That’s all there is. The rest was just waiting for you and trying not to think you were dead.” From his fists, small flames squeezed between his fingers. A caper of yellow light and shadows up and down his body made him look lurid. As if he were pleading, he added, “Nothing else matters.”
    Linden waited until he started to squirm under the pressure of her regard. Then she folded her arms over the Staff of Law, held it against her heart, and tried to be gentle.
    “Jeremiah, honey. This isn’t doing you any good. I’m your mother. I know that there’s more. But there’s something that you don’t know about me.”
    Her years at Berenford Memorial had taught her more than one way to probe the people who needed her.
    “I’m more like you than you think. There were a lot of things that I refused to talk about. I kept them secret. That hurt me, of course, but I could live with it. The part that I didn’t understand”—the part that she had been fatally slow to recognize—“was that I hurt my