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

Your purpose must be mighty indeed, to gather such a congeries of valor and puissance.
    “Ironhand, what is your intent?”
    Coldspray opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. With a bow, she stepped aside, referring the question to Covenant; or perhaps to Covenant and Linden.
    Covenant’s arms tightened momentarily. In Linden’s ear, he whispered, “This is the hard part of being a leper. I’m going to need your help.”
    Startled, she turned to him with questions in her eyes; but his only response was a twisted smile as he stepped away from her. The sailors and the Swordmainnir towered over him, yet he faced them as though his stature equaled theirs.
    “I hope you aren’t expecting me to be sure of anything. We have too many enemies, and they have too much power. And all I really know about the Worm is that we can’t stop it. But I don’t want to just sit on my hands waiting to die. The Despiser started all this.
Him
I think we might be able to stop. I want to put an end to his evil.”
    He pointed at the mouth of the Defiles Course. “I want to get into Mount Thunder. Up into the Wightwarrens, if that’s even possible. That’s where Lord Foul is. I want to go find him.”
    Briefly his shoulders hunched as if he were strangling his fears. “But there’s something else I want to do first.”
    While the Giants studied him, he gestured Branl to his side. Taking the
krill
, he held it up in his halfhand by its wrapped blade. Within its silver, he continued.
    “The Ironhand told her story. The Swordmainnir have been through hell and blood ever since they left you. Fighting Longwrath, fighting for Longwrath, they lost Scend Wavegift. Against the
skurj
, they lost Moire Squareset. And eventually Kastenessen killed Longwrath. All of that was bad enough. But now the toll is even higher.” Although Coldspray and Stoutgirth had already acknowledged their dead, Covenant insisted on the names. “Latebirth, Stormpast Galesend, and Cabledarm died for us, and Dire’s Vessel lost a man I never even met. You called him Slumberhead, God knows why. He sure as hell wasn’t dozing when he gave his life.
    “It’s too much. You’re Giants, all of you. You can’t ask yourselves to carry around that much grief indefinitely. You need a
caamora
. How else are you going to face what’s ahead of us?”
    The Ironhand glanced at her surroundings. “We have no fire,” she said harshly, “if we do not sacrifice yet another tree.”
    All of the ironwoods set ablaze by the
skurj
had burned down to ash, or had been extinguished by rain. There was no flame in the valley apart from Jeremiah’s experiments.
    “And I won’t ask you to do that,” Covenant assured her. “I promised you a
caamora
. I intend to keep that promise.
    “When I made it, I thought I could use Longwrath’s body. That seemed like a kind of acknowledgment. A way to make something good out of what he went through. But the Giants we’ve lost here have been mangled by the
skurj
. They already look desecrated. It seems disrespectful to use them.
    “So I’m going to burn myself.”
    To the sudden alarm of his companions, he added quickly, “I mean with wild magic. I’m going to light myself and hope that I can burn hot enough to console you.
    “It’s wild magic. It drains me. Hell, it even terrifies me. But it won’t hurt me. The only danger is that I’ll lose control. Too much might do more harm than too little.”
    Then he turned back to Linden. “That’s why I need your help. Your health-sense. I want you to watch out for me. If I start to go too far, I want you to stop me.”
    Seeing the raw need in his scowl, she felt a hammer pound in her chest. How could she stop him? Oh, she believed that he would not be harmed physically. His power was
him
. But the cost to his spirit might be extreme. His reluctance was necessary to him. It counterbalanced his extravagance: it was his way of managing his fear that he might commit havoc. If he damaged his friends—if he damaged
anything
—he would not be able to forgive himself.
    How could she stop him, except by possessing him?
    But he did not give her a chance to protest, or to ready herself. He ignored the apprehension of the Giants, the doubts. Before they could say that they did not want him to take this risk, he touched his wedding band to Loric’s cut gem.
    In the space between instants, he became fire.
    She could still see him. He stood incandescent in the core of a silver conflagration, a