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

stark black, as dark as ichor squeezed from the marrow of the world’s bones.
    “Jeremiah!” When Linden’s pulse resumed its labor, it pounded in her temples, in her ears, at the base of her throat. “What are you doing?” She had asked him to change the Staff. Instead her own darkness was changing him.
    He did not glance at her. “Don’t bother me.” His eyes echoed the hue of his flames. “I’m trying to concentrate. This is temporary. I mean, I think it’s temporary. I just don’t know what to do about it yet.”
    Scowling to himself, he muttered, “You’re stronger than I thought. I can’t figure out how you did it.”
    Linden meant to intervene. She thronged with objections, warnings, supplications. But Covenant stopped her. With his hand on her cheek, he urged her to face him.
    “Leave him alone for a while,” he advised softly. “He wants to try. Maybe this is how he has to learn. Maybe he has to go through you to get to himself.”
    Covenant may have meant, Maybe he’s starting to face his worst fear.
    Linden wanted to believe him, but she could not. Her father had kept her locked in the attic with him while he killed himself. Her mother had begged her to end her life. Linden had given her Staff to Jeremiah of her own free will; but she did not know how to distance herself from his peril.
    Yet what else could she do? She had already decided to leave him when last came to last. When there was nothing left for her except the dark.
    Instead of stopping her son, she clung to her husband as if he were the only defense she had.

    ut slowly food, diluted
diamondraught
, and the aftereffects of Earthpower steadied Linden. By degrees, she regained a semblance of calm.
    The same benefits wrought on her companions, the Giants if not the
Haruchai
, until the frenzy and desperation of battle began to fade. And as the Giants recovered, their need for tales grew.
    Clearly the newcomers and the Swordmainnir were well known to each other. But much had occurred since they had parted: both groups had much to tell, and to hear. In particular, the sailors wanted to understand the confluence of events which had brought about the crisis of the Defiles Course. Because they were Giants, they knew about Covenant and Linden; but everything that pertained to Jeremiah was a mystery to them. And the Swordmainnir were eager to hear how their people had contrived to arrive when they were most needed.
    When everyone had eaten, the sailors bundled up their supplies, leaving out a little food in case Linden or Covenant or Jeremiah wanted more. Then the Ironhand announced that the time had come, and her people gathered around her, aching and ready.
    Linden stood among them with Covenant behind her, his arms around her. Branl joined Coldspray so that the
krill
would shed as much light as possible for the Giants. But Jeremiah seemed to have no interest in stories or woe. His immersion in his task was complete, as it always was when he worked on his constructs. His eyes watched flames while his hands made them dance and gambol on the Staff, or gave them shapes that suggested Ranyhyn, flickering portals, evanescent
Elohim
. Gradually he attuned himself. Nevertheless his every expression of magic remained as benighted as the world’s doom.
    Perhaps to reassure Linden, Stave positioned himself near her son; but he did nothing to distract Jeremiah.
    The Ironhand began by introducing the newly arrived Giants, seven men and four women. Hurl Linden had already met. Their leader was the Anchormaster of Dire’s Vessel, the Giantship which had brought the Swordmainnir and Longwrath to the Land. His name was Bluff Stoutgirth, although he was lean to the point of emaciation; and his mien hinted that he was more inclined to hilarity than to command. Here, however, his manner was grave and grieving. His sailors and Rime Coldspray’s Swordmainnir had endured much together during their voyage to the Land. They felt their losses keenly.
    For Linden and Covenant, and for the
Haruchai
, Bluff Stoutgirth named his comrades—Etch Furledsail, Squallish Blustergale, Keenreef, Wiver Setrock, others—but Linden doubted that she would remember them all. Still she was grateful for the knowledge that they had come from Dire’s Vessel. That detail made the fact, if not the timeliness, of their arrival comprehensible.
    The Anchormaster offered to tell his tale first. It was, he suspected, both shorter and kinder than that of the Swordmainnir, though