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

want to learn how to handle my ring. I want you to learn how to use the Staff.”
    “I can’t,” he said again. “I don’t have any idea—”
    “Jeremiah.” She made his name sound like a reprimand. “We talked about this. Of course you don’t know how. But you can learn. You don’t even need my help. You have your health-sense and your own power. You can teach yourself.
    “And if you have something else to concentrate on, you might be able to stop seeing the Worm. Earthpower and Law can do all kinds of healing. Maybe they can cure those visions. Maybe they can even keep the Despiser from taking you again.”
    Taking the risk, she finished, “And maybe you can find a way to make the Staff clean again. I know that I can’t. That blackness is too much a part of me.”
    Jeremiah stared at her. The bleak torment in his gaze became a muddy roil. Its ambiguous currents twisted in unfamiliar directions, disguising their own depths. For a moment, she feared that he would pull away completely; that she had asked too much of him. That he would choose despair and dissociation.
    But then he reached for her Staff.
    “I’ll try. I can’t stand the way I am.”
    Blinking at an unexpected sting of tears, she said unsteadily, “Just remember what I told you. Start with your own Earthpower. Use it to touch what the Staff can do. You should be able to feel it. Then you’ll be able to do more. It won’t be easy at first. But you’ll get better.”
    He ignored her now. Already distracted, he stroked the written wood, familiarizing himself with its texture, exploring its arcane script. Briefly he considered its iron heels as though they held the secrets he needed. Then he surged to his feet, holding the Staff of Law as if he wanted to swing it around his head.
    Ah, God. Feeling strangely naked, bereft, like a woman who had just said farewell to her son’s childhood, Linden climbed upright. She was grateful for Stave’s firm grip on her arm, reliable as a corner-stone; but she had no words to offer her friend. Before she could do or say anything else, she needed to stop weeping.
    “I do not scry, Chosen,” the former Master remarked without any discernible emotion. “To my sight, the future holds only darkness. Yet I judge that you have acted wisely. The boy’s need is great, and you have other strengths.”
    Fortunately Stave did not appear to expect a response. Without a sign from her, he guided her toward Covenant.
    As she drew near, Covenant turned away from Rime Coldspray and the lean Giant. His gaze was feverish with pain, and the lines of his face had been cut deeper: he seemed to have aged years in the past few hours. Even without his memories of the Arch, he bore the burden of too much time. His damaged chest was the least of his hurts. At the core, he was defined by his rage for lepers; for the innocent victims of Despite. He hated the necessary fact that other people suffered so that he might oppose Lord Foul.
    Wincing whenever his ribs shifted, he held out his arms to his wife.
    Fearing that she had just sacrificed her son—the first step toward sacrificing herself—Linden stepped into Covenant’s embrace as if she were falling.
    It was a mercy that he did not speak. Words were demands. For a few moments, at least, she simply needed to be held. And no one else’s arms felt like his. Even Jeremiah’s hugs could not comfort her now.
    But as she leaned on Covenant, she felt his injuries more keenly, his bodily hurts and his aggrieved spirit. He held himself responsible for too much. And she had done nothing to ease or heal him.
    With her health-sense, she reached out for the Earthpower of the Staff. As she had done once to relieve a suffering Waynhim, she invoked healing from a distance.
    At first, she focused her heart on the distress in Covenant’s chest. But when she had restored the integrity of his ribs and cartilage, she turned the balm of Law on the scalds and exhaustion of the Giants.
    “Thanks, love,” Covenant murmured when she was done. “That helps.” His arms tightened around her.
    Rime Coldspray and several of the other Giants stood straighter. In spite of their sadness, they smiled.
    “Thomas.” Linden held Covenant closer. She wished that she could talk to him privately. The things which she had to say were difficult enough: she did not want anyone else to hear them. But she had learned to distrust that impulse. “I need to tell you something.”
    While I still can.
    He