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

meet her. “Well, Mom?” he asked before she could say anything. “What did you decide?”
    Instead of replying, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him hard, mutely pleading for his forgiveness. Then she took him with her to rejoin the rest of their companions.
    Stave regarded her return impassively, as if his resolve sufficed for both of them. But the Giants and Mahrtiir were more troubled. Grueburn, Cirrus Kindwind, and the others studied Linden with doubt in their eyes. Perhaps they worried that her desire for Covenant ruled her; that she would insist on waiting for him. But the Manethrall’s disturbance was of another kind. His sense of his own uselessness galled him like an unhealed wound. In the risk that Jeremiah wanted to take, Mahrtiir would be able to contribute nothing except his service to the Ranyhyn. He would have been better content if the loss of his eyes had killed him.
    Linden paused as though she wanted to be sure that all of her friends were paying attention. But in truth she was searching herself for courage, and trying to blink away her tears. She had always been vulnerable to the kind of paralysis that came from fear. From fear and despair.
    “All right,” she finally managed to say. “I’m willing to do this your way, Jeremiah. What do you need to make your door?”
    She suspected that it could not be formed of bone. Bones implied mortality, and the
Elohim
did not die. They could only be devoured. Or sacrificed.
    Jeremiah’s instant enthusiasm seemed to fill the gully from wall to wall. Indeed, it seemed to urge the stars closer so that they could hear him. Nevertheless his eagerness made him appear strangely fragile to his mother. What would happen to him if his intentions failed? Or if the Worm simply ate his door after he had gathered all of the
Elohim
in one place? How would he bear it?
    “Stone,” he replied at once. “A lot of it. In big chunks. I mean, really big. I won’t be able to handle some of them, even with Earthpower.” He flashed a glance around the Swordmainnir. “I’m going to need all the help you can give me.”
    “Forsooth,” Rime Coldspray responded in a noncommittal rumble. “If aid you require, aid you shall have. But of stone the Earth is a vast storehouse. Even this parched wasteland is rich in forms and substances and textures and indeed purities of stone. Surely, young Jeremiah, the portal which you propose cannot be composed of random fragments. Even the theurgies of stonework practiced by Giants demand rock of particular natures and qualities. We must ask you to name the stone which you deem needful.”
    Again Jeremiah did not hesitate. Where his constructs were concerned, he seemed incapable of doubt. “It’s green. More like a deposit than actual rock. I don’t know what it’s called, but I saw some when you took me across the Hazard. Green like veins.”
    “Malachite,” Onyx Stonemage pronounced; and Linden’s stomach tightened as if the word were a prophecy.
    Jeremiah nodded. “That’s it. But there it was just veins. I need plenty of it. It doesn’t have to be pure. As long as there’s malachite in the stone, I can use it.” After a flicker of thought, he added, “But if it isn’t pure, I’ll need more of it. I have to get the right amount. The less pure it is, the bigger the door has to be.”
    “Sadly,” Cabledarm put in before Linden or the Ironhand could speak, “we have seen no malachite since our escape from the Lost Deep. We are Giants, certain of stone. Our course in these last days has encountered no malachite.”
    Now Jeremiah faltered. “But you must—” he began, then stopped. After a moment, he admitted, “I didn’t see anything like it myself.” His enthusiasm was crumbling. “The
croyel
controlled me, but it didn’t control what I saw.”
    Caught in his emotions, Linden tried to help him. “Stave? The Masters scouted the whole Land. Did they find anything that resembled malachite around here?”
    The
Haruchai
shook his head. “We are not Giants. Seeking signs of peril, we observe in a different fashion.”
    Jeremiah’s consternation dominated the dusk. It demanded answers.
    Linden faced him with disappointment in her eyes. “Jeremiah, honey. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else we—”
    He cut her off. Ferocity flared in him as if he had suddenly become someone else: a creature of savagery and suspicion. His hands curled into claws. “That’s what you wanted to talk to Coldspray