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

awakening.
    How much time had passed? An hour since sunset? Surely no more than two? Nonetheless the star-strewn dark seemed complete, as if it were the last night of the world.
    Abruptly Hynyn uttered a loud neigh like a blare of triumph in the face of oncoming evils. And a moment later, the stallion was answered. From the distance ahead came a welcoming whinny. Linden thought that she recognized Narunal’s call.
    “There, Chosen,” Stave announced over the pounding of hooves. “Our companions await us where we last found water.”
    The Ranyhyn were running between low hillocks like mounds inadequately cloaked in scraps of grass. Vaguely Linden smelled water. But her attention was fixed elsewhere, straining to discern the presence of the Swordmainnir and the Manethrall.
    “At
last
!” Jeremiah shouted. Then he began to halloo as if he expected everyone who could hear him to know his voice.
    In moments, the Ranyhyn slowed their strides. Panting heavily, they dropped from a gallop to a canter, then to a jolting trot. Sure of their footing, they angled down into a gully where a small stream ran southward. As it muttered along its crooked path, it caught glints from the stars, a spangling of slight reflections which seemed to confirm that the lost lights were indeed becoming more distinct.
    Silhouetted vague and fireless against the faint glisten of the water stood ten shapes that Linden knew instantly: eight Giants, Manethrall Mahrtiir, and Narunal.
    At once, Rime Coldspray and her comrades raised a loud huzzah that startled the night, shivering in the air like a challenge to calamity. Jeremiah replied gladly, and all of the Ranyhyn whickered their approval. Only Mahrtiir voiced neither pleasure nor exultation. His reactions were more complex.
    As Hynyn, Hyn, and Khelen halted, Frostheart Grueburn and Stormpast Galesend surged forward to lift Linden and Jeremiah from their mounts. On Hyn’s back, Linden almost felt equal to the exuberant relief of the Swordmainnir; but when Grueburn set her on her feet, the Giants towered over her, dwarfing her with their open hearts as much as with their size. She had more in common with Mahrtiir. While the Ironhand, Onyx Stonemage, and Cirrus Kindwind greeted Stave with claps on his back and shoulders that buffeted him in spite of his strength, Linden walked on legs stiff with riding toward the Manethrall. When she reached him, she dropped her Staff so that she could hug him with both arms.
    Taken aback by her display of affection, he resisted momentarily. But then he returned her clasp. “Ringthane,” he breathed softly. “Linden Avery. Though I trust the Ranyhyn in all things, I must acknowledge that I have been sorely afraid. Also I am much vexed that I was not permitted to stand at your side. I am diminished in my own estimation. I must remember that I am Ramen and human. I must not judge myself by the majesty of the Ranyhyn.”
    As if she were answering him, Linden murmured privately, “Jeremiah saved himself. Now I don’t know how to help him.”
    Like Mahrtiir, she would never be equal to miracles. She had to learn how to serve them, as he did.
    But the Manethrall appeared not to understand her. “Help him?” he asked in a voice as low as hers. “His alteration is plain. He is transformed beyond all expectation or conception. What manner of aid does he require?”
    Jeremiah was already talking to the Giants, practically babbling in his eagerness to tell his story. But
caesures
and Stave and Infelice and Linden and the Ranyhyn and his racecar and Anele’s legacy and a construct of bone all tried to find words at the same time: they tripped over each other and fell and bounced back up like tumblers performing some implausible feat of dexterity. Laughing at his own happy incoherence, he repeated his verbal pratfalls until he occasionally achieved a complete sentence. And the Giants laughed with him, rapt and delighted.
    Only Stave stood apart. His native dispassion did not waver. If he took note of Linden’s exchange with Mahrtiir, he feigned otherwise.
    Whispering so that she would not weep again, Linden told Mahrtiir, “He doesn’t want to remember what he’s been through. I can’t think about anything else. No one suffers like that without being damaged.”
    The Manethrall stepped back to regard her with his bandaged gaze. Still softly, he replied, “That I comprehend, Ringthane. Who would if I do not, I who have lost eyes and use in a cause which exceeds