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

the same time, that single dulled spark became heavier. Not bigger, no. Just more massive. And it leaned down on Jeremiah, pressed its intolerable weight against his heart. He did not breathe. There was no room in his chest for air. His heart no longer beat. It could not lift blood through his veins under so much pressure. He was becoming the sky, black and blank, infinitely desolate.
    He awoke with an enfilade trapped between his ribs. Memories of bullets whined past him and into him, furious as hornets. Wildly he floundered to his feet, frantic for relief.
    He nearly yelped when Stave grasped his arm.
    “Still your alarm, Chosen-son,” said the
Haruchai
, almost whispering. “There is no imminent peril. Dreams are not omens. They bespeak only your fears.” Then he added, “The Chosen slumbers yet, as do the Giants. Only the Ironhand and the Anchormaster stand watch with Branl. We do well to permit their rest.”
    Jeremiah resisted an impulse to cling to the former Master. There was no light: Branl must have covered the
krill
. Stave’s grip felt like the only certainty in a reality which had lost its moorings. The boy half expected to see the stars continue their shrinking spiral, their fatal deflagration. But of course they remained where they were, clinging to their fate.
    The air was thick with the complex reeks of the Defiles Course and Sarangrave Flat, of ironwood ash and drowned
skurj
and the charred corpses of Sandgorgons. Around Jeremiah, darkness clotted like blood. It filled every span of ground and hidden niche. When he considered the movement of time, he found that midnight was near.
    As quietly as Stave, he asked, “Where’s Covenant?”
    The
Haruchai
pointed down the valley. “There. He communes once again with the Feroce.”
    Jeremiah looked toward the marshy verge of the Sarangrave. At this distance, he could not descry Covenant. There was too much sensory clutter from the restless currents and predators. The lurker still complained over its pains, whimpering wetly. But near the wetland, Jeremiah spotted glints of emerald arrayed as if they had gathered to attend a potentate. Green flames fell and rose like sighs.
    Behind them, the Flat stretched eastward, growing darker with every league until its doom became the sky’s.
    Closer to him lay the benighted shapes of Giants. A few of them slept against the boles of ironwoods near the crest of the slope. They snored and started fretfully, troubled by their dreams. Lower down, but still above the chancres and spilth of battle, the other sailors and Swordmainnir had found patches of ground where they could feign comfort.
    Overhead carrion-eaters flapped across the background of the stars. Slaps and splashes from the Flat sounded like feeding. The contorted carcasses of monsters littered the valley-floor like rubble. Bleached in the Great Desert for millennia, the dead Sandgorgons smelled only of sulfur and Fire-Lions. But the gangrene fetor of the
skurj
clung wherever their blood had been spilled. If many of them had not been sucked into the marsh when the lurker’s flood receded, the stench would have been worse.
    Standing with Stave in the last night of the Earth, Jeremiah pined for sunshine. He craved one more warm yellow wash of light. Trying to summon clean fire, he filled his palms with flame. But the blackness of his heritage persisted. Covered by darkness, his magicks were visible to ordinary sight only as deeper blots, stark as stigmata.
    Stave still held his arm. “Chosen-son.” The former Master pitched his voice for Jeremiah alone. “It may be that the task which the Chosen has offered is too extreme. She has asked of you an achievement which has surpassed her. If you will heed my counsel, therefore—”
    The
Haruchai
paused, apparently awaiting a response.
    “Please.” Jeremiah was tempted to snort, Don’t bother. You can’t help me. Contemptuous laughter echoed in his ears as if it had become a part of him, a cancer too insidious and personal to be cut out. More and more, the coming end seemed like an act of kindness. But he did not sneer at Stave. Any suggestion that did not make him feel smaller—“I’ve already tried everything I can think of.”
    “It is this,” Stave replied. “Set aside those tasks which daunt you. As your knowledge of the Staff grows, your strength will also. For the present, strive only to meet present needs. The lacks and requirements of this company are many. Choose among them one which