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

moving away. Maybe the lurker thinks it doesn’t need you anymore.”
    Covenant shrugged. He faced Jeremiah squarely, but did not respond.
    Feeling helpless and dismal, Linden asked, “Thomas, are you sure you want to do this?”
    “What else are we going to do?” Leprosy blurred Covenant’s eyes like pain or empathy. “We’re here now. If that’s a mistake, it won’t be my first. Most of what I do in life is just trying to make amends for things I’ve done wrong.
    “Anyway you heard Jeremiah. We don’t have time to try anything different.”
    Linden did not respond. She had already lost this argument.
    But Jeremiah was not done. “But why bother? I thought I understood. I mean, before I could see the Worm. Now I don’t. What’s the point? We’re all going to die anyway.”
    I have given him a gift,
oh, Jeremiah,
which will make him wise in the subtleties of despair.
    Linden might have tried to reassure him. Covenant might have. But the Giants silenced them by the simple expedient of bursting into laughter.
    Their loud mirth filled the valley. It seemed to startle the insects. Midges fled for the safety of the wetland’s mire. Horseflies and mosquitoes skirled away, whining. Just for a moment, even the stinks of the Defiles Course and the Sarangrave became less daunting.
    “Bravely said, young Jeremiah,” Grueburn guffawed. “A fine riposte.”
    Latebirth and Halewhole Bluntfist doubled over, gasping for breath.
    “‘But why bother?’” echoed Cirrus Kindwind. “Why, indeed? You make sport of our fears, Chosen-son.”
    Stormpast Galesend slapped Cabledarm’s back. Cabledarm aimed an elbow at Galesend’s ribs.
    Expecting Jeremiah to take offense, Linden flinched. At the same time, however, she felt a rush of gratitude. Too much had happened since she had last heard laughter.
    While Jeremiah fumed, the Ironhand struggled for gravity. She scrubbed at her eyes until her humor receded to chuckling bursts. “All paths lead to death,” she said when she found her voice. “This the Worm merely hastens. Nonetheless we must strive. How otherwise will we hold up our heads at the end of our days?”
    Linden watched Jeremiah wrestle with himself. He must have felt mocked. Surely he felt that? But he also loved the Giants. And their mirth was too open-hearted to sound like ridicule. Briefly his mouth twisted: he almost smiled in spite of himself. Then he mustered a conflicted glower.
    “Never mind. I wasn’t serious. Have it your way.”
    That may have been as much grace as he could muster. If so, it was enough for Linden.
    “Well, hell,” Covenant drawled as the Giants subsided. “Hellfire.” Then he fell silent as if he had run out of words.
    As if by mute agreement, Stave and Branl slipped down from their Ranyhyn. If the
Haruchai
were capable of laughter, Linden had never heard it. Here, however, she caught a glint that looked like amusement from Stave’s eye. Branl’s manner as he leaned Longwrath’s blade against the trunk of the ironwood hinted at the easing of subtle tensions.
    When Jeremiah dropped, dour and distant, to the ground, and Covenant dismounted, Linden joined them. The unfamiliarity of her wedding band or the aftereffects of wild magic made her finger itch. Holding the Staff in the crook of her elbow, she rubbed absently at the itch while she tried to think of a way to thank Rime Coldspray and her comrades.
    Twisting the kinks out of his back, Covenant made his way toward the nearest stream. The Ardent’s steed cantered past him to thrust its muzzle into the water, blowing bubbles as it drank. The four Ranyhyn followed more sedately. Hynyn’s wonted imperial air was subdued, and Hyn’s head drooped as if she were weighted down with farewells. Khelen cast anxious looks at Jeremiah, but did not hang back.
    After the Swordmainnir had loosened their armor, Onyx Stonemage passed around the remaining waterskins of
aliantha
: the last meal that Linden expected to eat. Covenant accepted treasure-berries. Even the
Haruchai
did so. Then Kindwind and Grueburn carried the emptied sacks to another stream.
    The valley’s insects had forgotten their fright. A few flying things with stingers found Linden. One raised a welt on the back of her hand: another, on the side of her neck. Irritated by those pangs, and by the region’s renewed fetor, she found herself remembering carrion. She remembered
being
carrion; remembered the howling anguish and condemnation of She Who Must Not Be