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

remarked, “We know little of these Feroce. We of Dire’s Vessel have heard your tale, but we have not lived it. Is it conceivable that they have turned aside from our purpose? If they are no longer ruled by their monstrous deity’s will, it may be they who mislead, rather than the waters.”
    Covenant shook his head. “I doubt it. They had a perfect chance to abandon us back at that lake, but they didn’t. The lurker still wants to live. They still want to live. We’re the only hope they’ve got.”
    Like him, Linden believed the Feroce. Nevertheless the company could not go where they suggested.
    She should have been grateful. Instead she wanted to scream.
    “I said,
wait
a minute!” Jeremiah demanded more strongly. “You aren’t paying attention.”
    Fierce as a blow, Covenant wheeled away from the Feroce. Bracing his fists on his hips, he glared past the spread of Giants and the mouth of the downward chute. “Hellfire, Jeremiah! Paying attention to
what
?”
    Jeremiah faced Linden rather than Covenant. “Look, Mom.” Black fire played across the spout of fouled water, skirled up the seam of the wall. “
Look
.”
    Linden stared at him, thinking, Don’t push me. I can’t.
    But he was her son. She could not refuse him. Trembling privately at the prospect of maggots, spiders, worms, she asked Frostheart Grueburn to put her down. When she stood beside Jeremiah, close enough to borrow some of the Staff’s Earthpower, she turned her senses toward the fused stone. Alarm hampered her, but she forced it aside. Unsteadily she directed her percipience into the water; into the wall.
    There.
    Instinctively she recoiled; closed her throat against a moan.
    The rock along the seam was thin. It looked thin enough to break. And beyond it—
    She bit her lip until she drew blood.
    —stretched a different fissure, a wedge with its tip at the seam. It was narrow, but it widened into the distance until it passed beyond her discernment. And it was full of water.
    No, she realized a heartbeat later, not full. Everywhere under Mount Thunder, the Soulsease had shrunk to a fraction of its former flow. Before that, it had been a mighty torrent. That hidden fissure had indeed been full. And the cave itself had been full as well: a fact which probably explained why the weight of water had not broken through the seam ages ago. The cave had served to equalize the pressure. But now—
    Ah, now the level behind the wall had dropped. The fissure had emptied itself until the water stood, waiting to drain, little more than the height of a Giant above the pond. If the rock broke, the issuing flood would be fierce. Still the Giants might be able to withstand it. Stave and Branl might. When the river found a new level, a new equilibrium, the company might be able to ascend against it.
    Writ in water
. God help me.
    Linden was not ready. She would never be ready.
    “Linden?” Covenant called in frustration. “Jeremiah? What is it? Damn it, I can’t
see
.”
    In a voice so small that she hardly heard it herself, Linden answered, “That wall is thin. There’s a crevice behind it. I can’t tell how high the crack is, or how far it goes. But if we break the wall—”
    She did not have the courage to say more.
    “That’s it,” Jeremiah confirmed more loudly. “That’s the way. We can go there.”
    The Swordmainnir peered across the cave in wonder. At a nod from the Anchormaster, Hurl and Wiver Setrock began to work along the wall to the right. “We are wise in the lore of stone,” Stoutgirth explained unnecessarily. “We will ascertain whether our strength may suffice to open the way.”
    While he waited for Hurl and Setrock, he sent four of his crew leftward to refill their waterskins from the clean stream.
    “The stone,” intoned the Feroce, “remembers endurance. It will not surrender to fists or blades.”
    “That’s not the problem,” Covenant muttered over the clamor of waters. With Coldspray’s help, he crossed the slick outlet, then scrambled toward Linden and Jeremiah. “The problem is control. Too much is easy. Just enough is hard.”
    Linden turned to him as if she were falling. When he reached her, she put her arms around his neck, leaned against him.
    “Oh, Thomas,” she whispered to him alone. “I can’t do this. I can feel She Who Must Not Be Named.”
    “What,
here
?” he breathed. Alarm tightened his grip. “Is She close?”
    Linden shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t know