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

was drawn tighter. Grueburn gripped it with both hands. She began to move a bit more easily. Behind her, Scatterwit chortled, a sound as forlorn as a groan. The light of the
krill
reached farther down the cleft. It touched Kindwind’s head, flared like fire in Jeremiah’s hair. The wall on the left had begun to lean away from the river. The darkness overhead felt more open.
    The leading Giants must have found a place where they could stand; where they could gather on firm rock and brace their feet.
    “Soon, Giantfriend,” Grueburn panted. “Soon.”
    “It better be.” Jeremiah coughed the words. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
    Linden watched the silver on the walls grow brighter as more and more of the company moved past the
krill
. In moments, she caught sight of Branl. Where he stood, the left wall appeared to fall away. But then she saw that the fissure simply became wider. Beyond a rough edge like a doorpost, that wall curved back, continuing the crevice. The river ran there, tumbling more slowly between sheer sides now farther apart. Past the turning, rough stone formed a floor like a platform above the water, vaguely level, and perhaps ten or fifteen paces across.
    Bluff Stoutgirth and his immediate companions waited there, chests heaving. Coldspray had put Covenant on his feet. He stood squinting past the glare of Loric’s gem, impatient for Jeremiah and Linden. With Setrock and Furledsail, Bluntfist had taken the rope. Together they hauled as if they hoped to raise their comrades from a crypt. Silt caked their legs, but they ignored that discomfort.
    On the platform, some of the sailors began unpacking waterskins and bundles of food.
    Eager to slip down from Grueburn’s back—eager to put her arms around Covenant—Linden did not look around. Her legs stung as she dropped to the stone. Moving toward Covenant, she stumbled, had to catch herself. Then he was holding her tight. The urgency of his hug matched hers.
    “Hellfire, Linden,” he murmured near her ear. “I thought that was never going to end.”
    It was not ended now. The companions had merely found a respite.
    From the downward fissure, Stonemage herded Blustergale and Scatterwit out of the river: the last of the Giants. As similar as brothers, Stave and Branl came toward Linden and Covenant.
    Linden felt Jeremiah quench the power of the Staff. Instinctively she flinched. But the atmosphere here was kinder to her lungs. Although it was thick with dust and disuse, stale, acrid, the river carried most of its wastes and poisons with it. She could breathe without choking.
    When she had held Covenant long enough to ease her heart, she turned to her son.
    Jeremiah was sitting on the stone, hugging his knees against his chest in an effort to control the tremors in his limbs. He had dropped the Staff beside him. Dully he stared across the water, a gaze as expressionless as the far wall. Saliva collected on his drooping lower lip: a sight which Linden had not seen since he had emerged from his dissociation.
    She knelt at his side, put her arm over his shoulders. “Jeremiah, honey? Are you all right? It’s no wonder you’re tired. You’ve been keeping us all alive.”
    His eyes did not shift. He hardly seemed to blink or swallow. His voice was a low rasp, a scraping like the sound of a creature crawling on its belly.
    “It isn’t fair, Mom. It’s not. I’m so tired. I can’t go on. I can’t. But I have to have Earthpower. Without it—” Abruptly he released his legs, slapped at his face as if his weariness revolted him. “It protects me.
    “You don’t know what it’s like. That mountain is
huge
. And the Worm is in the river. It’s drinking every bit of Earthpower it can find, but it wants more. It wants it
all
.”
    Oh, Jeremiah—
    Uselessly Linden told her son, “You’ll get stronger. You’re already stronger. We’ll eat something, rest for a while. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll need you again. We’ll have to go back into the river. You’ll be able to protect yourself.”
    Leaden with depletion or despair, his head turned toward her. “What are you talking about?” He peered at her as if he were going blind. “The river? Why?” With one hand, he pointed up the wall. “That’s the way. It has to be. The air’s better there. You won’t need me anymore.”
    She frowned, momentarily confused. Then she stood to look around.
    Giants cast grotesque shadows, shapes that appeared to caper across the walls.