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

eyes, she located her son’s aura. His emanations conveyed the impression that he was crouching down inside himself; that he feared the touch of the vapors; that he wanted to flee.
    “I discern no cause for alarm,” Grueburn stated. “Do our foes deem that mere fog will affright us? We have endured the toils of the Soulbiter, and have emerged scatheless. We are not so blithely overcome.”
    She may have been trying to comfort Jeremiah.
    “Aye,” answered the Ironhand. “Yet fog occludes here as it does in the Soulbiter. Ready yourselves, Swordmainnir. Mayhap this brume is a natural exudation of the wetland. Or mayhap—”
    Around her, Giants tightened their cataphracts, loosened their arms and shoulders.
    “Jeremiah?” Linden felt an instinctive impulse to whisper. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”
    Stave stood at her back, impassive and silent.
    Covenant may have been yelling at the Flat, but his words were lost. The
krill
’s light did not penetrate the shroud over the Sarangrave.
    “There’s no stopping it, Mom,” Jeremiah replied like a groan. “You should see what it’s doing to the plains.”
    Linden grasped his arm. When he tried to pull away, she tightened her hold. “I said,
listen
. Maybe there’s a way out of what you’re feeling. Maybe Foul gave you those visions to distract you. Maybe he doesn’t want you thinking about other possibilities. Maybe your real problem is that you don’t know how to defend yourself.”
    Jeremiah’s tone changed. “Mom?”
    “You have Earthpower,” she explained, “but it isn’t a weapon. It’s like
orcrest
.” Or like Anele himself. “It doesn’t protect you. Maybe you wouldn’t feel so hopeless if you had a way to fight.”
    “But I don’t.” In spite of her grip on his arm, he sounded as remote as Covenant. “I’m useless.” He may have meant broken. He had learned that his desire to repay the Despiser’s malice was a foolish fantasy. “All I can do is watch.”
    “No.” Simply because her son’s distress hurt her, Linden wanted to raise her voice. She had to force herself to speak quietly. “Listen to me, honey. There’s always something we can do, even if it’s just changing the way we look at what’s happening, or the way we look at ourselves.
    “I think I know how you can defend yourself.”
    With her fingers, she felt his shock. “How?”
    “Linden Giantfriend.” The fog muted Rime Coldspray’s tension. “My heart misgives me. The Timewarden’s hopes fail. The Feroce do not come. And this fog—” She made a spitting sound. “Stone and Sea! I cannot persuade myself that it is natural. Some evil summons it.”
    Linden closed her ears to the Ironhand. “Try this.” She pulled Jeremiah closer. “Fill your hands with fire. You can do that. I know you can.”
    “Why?” He tried to draw back. He had failed earlier. “What good will that do? You just said—”
    She cut him off. “Just
do
it. Then touch my Staff.”
    “Mom!” he protested. “I can’t use your Staff!”
    “We don’t know that yet.” She strove to sound calm, but she trembled in spite of her efforts. “We haven’t tried it.
    “First your Earthpower. Then my Staff. After that, I’ll help you figure out what comes next.”
    Through her teeth, Coldspray muttered warnings which her comrades did not require.
    “Hellfire,” Covenant raged in the distance. The
krill
’s shining throbbed ineffectually. “I saved you from
turiya
by God Raver. And I told you not to sacrifice yourself against the Worm. If you got hurt, it wasn’t my doing. I kept my part of the deal. I’ve been keeping it. Now it’s your turn.”
    Linden felt his vehemence, but she did not hear an answer. Fog eddied around her head. She could barely make out Jeremiah’s features.
    He floundered in her grasp as if he wanted to resist and comply simultaneously. “Mom—?” His distress came in bursts. “I don’t—How can—? Don’t make me. I—”
    Just for a moment, she feared that she had pushed him too far. He was only a boy. And he had spent most of his life hiding. In effect, he had only known himself for a few days.
    But then he stopped trying to pull away. Flames appeared in his palms as if his skin had caught fire.
    They danced and fluttered, leaned raggedly from side to side like fires in a harsh wind. But they grew stronger as he gained confidence in them. By the measure of his needs, they were little things, no bigger than his hands. The sun-yellow of