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

quietly, “my thoughts are awkward. I am uncertain how to speak of them.”
    “You’re a Giant,” Linden murmured. “You’ll find a way.”
    Grueburn offered a strained smile. She seemed to shake herself. “Toward you,” she confessed, “I feel more than friendship. Amid the perils of the Lost Deep, and at other times, I have cared for you, as you know. For that reason among many others, your place in my heart is great.”
    When the woman paused, Linden said nothing. Grueburn was not waiting for a response. Rather she was hunting for a way to broach her concern.
    Finally Grueburn began. “Some days past, while we traveled together after the Timewarden had parted from us, I chanced to stand with you while you and Stave Rockbrother spoke. Together you considered questions of Desecration.”
    Like a slap of wind, Stave observed, “Our words were intended for each other alone, Frostheart Grueburn.”
    “Yet I heard them. From that time to this, I have respected that they were not for me. Nevertheless my thoughts have turned often to matters of Desecration.”
    Linden swallowed a groan. She did not want to talk about such things.
    To Stave, Grueburn continued, “Here I do not ask you to reveal what you have foreseen, or indeed what your insights may be. I do not seek to probe your heart. I wish to unveil my own.”
    Her response seemed to satisfy Stave.
    Frostheart Grueburn returned her attention to Linden. Silver from the
krill
caught the lines of the Giant’s mien. With an edge in her voice, she said, “You stand at the center of all that has transpired. I do not deem it unlikely that you will continue to do so. Your deeds are potent to cause some futures while ending others. And I say again that you are dear to me. Therefore my spirits were lifted to soaring by the outcome of your union with Covenant Timewarden. I saw gladness in you, the gladness and relief which dismiss Desecration. But now—
    “Ah, now, Linden Giantfriend, some new darkness hovers in you. For that reason, I am troubled. If you will consent to speak of your concerns, you will ease my own. Comprehension will open my ears so that I am again able to hear joy.”
    In your present state, Chosen, Desecration lies ahead of you. It does not crowd at your back.
    Linden bit down on her lip; steadied herself on that small pain. Then she countered, “What are you afraid of?”
    Grueburn sighed. “Chiefly I fear that you sail a course which leads to the desecration of yourself. To my sight, it appears that you confront an impossible conundrum. You are a mother. You must preserve your son. Yet you cannot. You cannot ward him from the Despiser’s malice. Nor can you ward him from the world’s end. His doom—if he is doomed—lies beyond your intervention. His despair—if he falls into despair—is not yours to relieve. And in these straits, it may be that your distress is increased by your union with Covenant Timewarden, for how can a mother know gladness with her husband when her son is in peril? I fear the effect of this conundrum. Linden Giantfriend, I fear it acutely.”
    While the woman spoke, Linden turned away. Beat after beat, she thudded one end of her Staff into the sand. She wanted to rebuff Grueburn. The Giant saw her too clearly. Perhaps they all did. But she had talked about
trust
with Jeremiah; about the implications of withholding the truth. And the Swordmainnir were her friends. They were in as much danger, and had as much to lose.
    Facing the darkness, Linden replied, “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to explain it, even to myself.” Her horror at the idea of approaching Mount Thunder was too intimate to be named. “But I can tell you this much. Thomas wants to walk right up to his worst fear and look it in the eye, but I’m not like that. Lord Foul isn’t my worst fear,” no matter how much she loved Jeremiah. “And the Worm isn’t. Even having to watch while everyone and everything I care about dies isn’t. As long as Thomas is still alive, none of that is inevitable.
    “My
worst
fear”—this was as close as she could come to complete honesty—“is that there may actually be something I could do, and I won’t be brave enough to do it.”
    When her father had killed himself, she had been too young and little to stop him; but years later, when her mother had begged for death, Linden had done what her mother asked of her. Eventually she had learned to believe that there were worse things