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

remembered too well the charred remains of Cavewights, scores or hundreds of them. Her spirit still wore the stains of slaughter. She nodded to the Humbled, but did not speak.
    Stave came to her side. He gave her a grave bow, regarded her with his single eye. “In such straits, Chosen,” he remarked, “it may be that Giants are better able to ward you than one
Haruchai
. Nonetheless I will not be parted from you. I have accepted once an absence from your side. I will not do so again.”
    Of the friends who had first joined Linden after her return to the Land, Stave was the last. The Ramen were gone. Liand and Anele were dead. And in some ways, Stave had endured more than any of them. She had no words for her gratitude.
    Trailing behind Stonemage, Bluntfist, and the last of the sailors, Etch Furledsail stopped with Linden and Stave. Even among Giants, she was tall: a graceful and comely woman no longer young, with grey scattered through her hair, a gleam in her eyes, and a weathered face. “It may appear to you,” she offered, “that our intent for your protection entails needless hazard. I assure you that it does not. I dare not attempt true haste over the hazards of these rocks. Therefore we will bear you across the water.
    “Fear nothing,” she added. With a wave, she indicated Setrock and Hurl beside the seam. “Where one Giant may fail, three will succeed. And we are adept in water. Here it is noxious in all sooth.” She frowned at the pond. “Still it will not harm us.
    “Giantfriend, I ask only that you do not resist when the wall has been opened. To evade such torrents, we must move swiftly.”
    Linden said nothing. She had stopped listening. Her gaze followed her companions as they gathered on both sides of the flaw where she meant to strike, but she was not watching. Her attention had turned inward. While Furledsail’s voice passed over her, she searched for the door hidden within her, the specific intersection of intention and emotion and openness, of need and willed desperation, which gave her access to wild magic.
    Furledsail raised an eyebrow at Linden’s silence. Stave replied with a slight shrug.
    At first, Linden could not find her way. Too many things could go wrong. If she ruptured the wall, a tremendous amount of water would crash straight toward her. It would hit hard enough to make pulp of the Feroce, who still stood on the other side of the cave’s outlet. Or the Giants poised beside the seam might be struck by shards, caught in the cascade, torn away. Jeremiah’s concentration might falter again. Then the bane’s insidious fetors might overwhelm Linden. And she could not be sure that the company would be able to force a passage along the crevice behind the wall. If that crack held more water than the cave could release—
    Furledsail intended to carry her into the pond; into memories of horror and anguish—
    But then Covenant called her name. Jeremiah shouted, “Mom!”
    Steady as gutrock, Stave said, “You are Linden Avery the Chosen, named in honor Ringthane, Giantfriend, and Wildwielder. Much is asked of you, but much has also been given. The time for doubt has passed. Only deeds or death remain. On other occasions, you have dared Desecration. You need not fear it now.”
    Anchored by the voices of people who were dear to her, Linden closed her mind to the clamor of too much trepidation, too many possible disasters. She was not alone. Her husband and her son loved her. Her friends had faith in her. She could trust them.
    But they could not reach into her secret places for her. That she had to do for herself. And she knew how. She had done it before. She only had to retrace her mental steps.
    Following her health-sense inward, she found the intimate chamber of her power. It was masked on all sides by fears and sins, unforgiven, but it was a part of her nonetheless. She had a right to it.
    Now or never. How often had she said that to herself?
    When argent stark as lightning began to blaze from her ring, she did not hesitate. And she did not hold back. She was not Covenant, fraught with ungovernable potential. Causing
caesures
had required precision, supreme delicacy: attacking granite and basalt demanded only
force
.
    She delivered
force
as if she had suddenly become mighty.
    As the stone cracked along the seam, the whole cave seemed to shriek. Rubble and water burst from the wall like screams.
    Before Linden could snatch another breath, everything became chaos.
    An