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

stippled the woven rugs, the immemorial floor.
    No going back. Now or never.
    God help me.
    Linden delayed only long enough to say to the ur-viles and Waynhim, to the eyeless features of the loremaster, “You keep helping me, no matter how much it costs, and I still don’t know how to repay you.” Then she wheeled away.
    Clenching her fists, she raised her face to the leagues of blind stone above the Lost Deep. Rain spattered her cheeks and forehead. Its sheer age stung her eyes. In her mouth, the drops tasted like dust.
    As if she had always known what she could do, she invoked her wedding band. She had no more use for despair and recrimination; inadequacy. Only power would serve. Like a woman screaming, she flung a roar of wild magic into Mount Thunder’s gutrock.
    “
I’m here!
You lost me once! Come get me now!”
    Her theurgy could have torn vast stone to powder; could have brought the weight of the mountain crashing into the caverns of the Lost Deep. But her health-sense was precise. She did not hurl silver against the rock: she tuned it to pass through Mount Thunder’s substance, sharpened it to a pitch that only the bane would be able to hear.
    “Come and
get
me! I can save you!”
    Melenkurion
Skyweir was already falling. She felt its massive collapse like atmospheric pressure on her skin, heard it like the grumble of impossible thunder. At any moment, the Worm would begin to drink EarthBlood from the world’s heart.
    Slowly the drizzle became rain. Details among the mosaics blurred and ran as their melodies dwindled to liquid. The staircases slumped, shrugging thin streams from their sides. The shafts of the chandeliers bowed as if they had lost faith in themselves. Rills curled around Linden’s boots, flowing nowhere. Argent made raindrops as bright as exploding stars.
    “I can tell you how to save yourself!”
    She felt Stave’s hand on her shoulder. His touch seemed almost diffident as he asked for her attention. But she did not acknowledge him until her power and her shouting failed; until she could no longer sustain her summons.
    Silver stains danced like little suns across her vision as she turned back to her friend.
    Through a veil of rainfall, Stave told her, “It is enough. If your call is not heard, no other will suffice.”
    The ur-viles and Waynhim barked to each other like dogs, excited or fearful. The loremaster gestured resignation or encouragement with its jerrid. Water glistened on the skin of the creatures as if the fluid were dying, giving up its last magic.
    “Therefore I must speak,” continued the former Master. “I will not be vouchsafed another occasion to do so.”
    Linden glared and squinted, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. Wet hair straggled across her cheeks.
    “I must state plainly, Linden, that you have become wondrous in my sight. Here my life is forfeit. It may be that the bane will heed you. Me She will not suffer. In Her sight, all men are betrayers. I will be devoured.”
    Water streamed on Linden’s face, scattered from the lines of her jaw. Drops snapped against her skin. Here my life is forfeit. How had she failed to consider this? For hours, she had imagined her intentions as though they threatened only her. But of course Stave was right. He could not withstand the bane. She Who Must Not Be Named would not tolerate him.
    “As farewell,” her final companion told her, “I must say aloud that I regret nothing. My fears are gone. You risk much, as you have ever done. Whatever now ensues, know that I am made proud by my place at your side.”
    She Who Must Not Be Named only slew men; only killed and ate them. She had no other use for them. Women She consumed in an entirely different fashion. She craved the torment of their living spirits when their bodies were destroyed. Her hunger was for the anguish of their souls, undying and endlessly tormented. It resembled or confirmed or justified Her own agony.
    In some sense, literally or metaphorically, the bane was here because Lord Foul had betrayed Her; seduced and ruined Her with lies; gaoled Her within Time. Now She could only suffer—and feed on the sufferings of any woman who came within Her grasp.
Diassomer with fear and dread
—Unforgiven Elena, Covenant’s daughter by rape. Emereau Vrai, Kastenessen’s mortal lover. An Insequent whom the Ardent had called the Auriference. Hundreds or thousands of women across the ages of the Earth. As far as She was concerned, all women and every love