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

able to ascend easily, swiftly. Yet she grew weaker as she scrambled upward. Something profound within her had shifted. Her surrender to Covenant’s intentions had diminished her. The strength drained from her limbs at every step. Her breathing was a hoarse gasp as she gained the crest.
    Branl stood there, gazing at her with only argent in his flat eyes. He might have said something if she had given him a chance, but she forced herself to hasten past him; downward.
    She felt Stave only a few strides behind her. Covenant followed more slowly, accompanied by Rime Coldspray and Frostheart Grueburn. But Linden ignored them. Her attention was fixed on Jeremiah.
    He stood in a hollow between hills too old and worn to glower down at him. And he had indeed found grass: a patch of saw-edged grey-green blades growing stubbornly where a cluster of rocks had collected soil from the erosion of the surrounding slopes. In the ghost-light of Loric’s gem, those blades looked sharp enough to cut. Everything around Jeremiah was blades: the etched hillsides, the ragged edges of the rocks, the black lift and slice of the stream. To Linden, he resembled a child in the midst of shattered glass, heedless of the danger, about to take a step which would shred his soles.
    He did not see her. She had come from the south, and he was facing the northward crease where the hills slumped to close the hollow. His head was bowed in concentration. Waves of tension made his shoulders twitch: the muscles of his back bunched and released. Between his teeth, he muttered words which did not reach Linden.
    She forced herself to slow down. Yet naught transpires. Stave was right. Branl had seen no reason to take action because there was no reason. Jeremiah was only himself: taut with anger and dread, desperate to prove his worth, but untouched.
    She stopped a few steps away. “Jeremiah,” she panted. “Honey.” God, she felt so
weak
—Unmade. As if her refusal to name her greatest fear had been her only source of strength. “That’s enough. You tried. You can stop now.”
    Stave arrived at her side. Covenant, the Ironhand, and Grueburn crossed the rise toward her. Coming to bear witness—
    Branl trailed behind them, spreading the
krill
’s light as far as possible.
    Jeremiah lifted his head. Keeping his back to his mother, he made a scything gesture with his halfhand.
    Without warning, a silent shock jolted the hills. For one small splinter of time, the world’s Laws seemed to pause. Linden’s heart did not beat. Her lungs did not stretch for air. The stream hesitated in its course, poised and motionless. Stave became one more stone in the hollow. Covenant hung between one downward step and the next. Coldspray and Grueburn froze.
    Then a second shock released the hollow. Linden’s pulse hit like a blow on an anvil. Covenant lurched for balance. Stave readied himself.
    Instantly the air became attar, thick as the smoke of burning flesh, cloying as an inferno of incense. The heavens leaned down on Linden as if they had become lead. Even Stave flinched. Coldspray or Grueburn stumbled. One of them caught Covenant. Branl started downward with the
krill
raised.
    In Lord Foul’s voice, Jeremiah announced like a grinding millstone, “It may interest you to know, fools and servants, that your ploy has achieved its purpose. Your edifice stands, a worthy emblem of your wish to oppose me. Yet even there, your deeds work against you. Deprived of
Elohim
, the Worm hastens onward. It
hastens
, fools! The hour of my many triumphs approaches. You cannot thwart it.”
    “Branl!” Covenant gasped. “The
krill
. Give me the
krill
!”
    The Despiser and Jeremiah ignored him. They spoke only to Linden.
    “Nonetheless,” the crushing voice continued, “this callow whelp thinks to challenge me.
Me!
As guerdon for his puerile valor, I have given him a gift which will make him wise in the subtleties of despair. When I have need of him, I will claim him, and no endeavor of yours will suffice to redeem him.”
    If your son serves me, he will do so in your presence.
    “And you, frail woman—” Lord Foul’s mirth filled the vale. “You have become the daughter of my heart. In you, I am well pleased. Ere the end, you also will serve me.
    “Thus all things conduce to my desires.”
    Covenant snatched the dagger from Branl. “Is that what you think, Foul? Have you forgotten what we can do to you? Have you forgotten we’re
coming
for you?”
    “Forgotten,