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

struggles would have no meaning. He would be free at last of his inherited unworth.
    Moksha
urged this vision of Jeremiah’s future as if it were perfected delight. And Jeremiah heard the Raver. He recognized what the Raver wanted from him. But he was no longer listening. Within his secret silence, he cried out for the woman who had chosen to be his mother when no power in life could have required her to claim him.
    Yes, he told Lord Foul’s servant. Yes.
    Entirely dissociated from his real circumstances—entirely concealed from his possessor—he meant, Watch your back, you piece of shit. I’m coming for you.
    Just do
something
he doesn’t expect.
    Spasms shook the cave. Forerunners of temporal rupture broke chunks of rock from the ceiling, scattered debris across the floor. Grueburn staggered from side to side gasping for breath, barely able to stand. Canrik lurched back into the cave. He kept his fist clenched to stanch the bleeding of his hand. Desperation twisted his features as he searched for a way to aid the Giants.
    Ineffective as a cripple, Coldspray stood directly in front of Jeremiah. The one-eyed monster advanced on her, ready to strike. She waited for it as if she had come to the end of herself and could no longer raise her arms.
    But when it reached out to wrap her in a crushing embrace, she lifted the remains of her glaive and hammered the pommel into the creature’s good eye.
    As the light of that eye died, the blinded stone-thing lashed out. In mute pain, it tossed the Ironhand aside as if she had become trivial.
    Now, however, the monster could not see. Confused by its hurts, it seemed unable to locate Coldspray. Instead of pursuing her, it continued its advance. Swinging its massive arms, it came toward Jeremiah.
    One inadvertent impact would be enough. He would not survive even a glancing blow. Lord Foul’s plans for him—
    Inside Jeremiah,
moksha
Jehannum snarled an obscenity. Distracted, he snatched Jeremiah’s halfhand off the Staff of Law, drew a swift symbol in the air.
    The creature began another step. Halfway through the motion, it suddenly collapsed into dust: a pile of remains stirred only by the tremors rising through the floor.
    During that brief instant, Jeremiah took his chance.
    He had absorbed astonishing kinds and quantities of lore from the Raver, more knowledge than he could have named. Forbidding was a part of it. An expression of Earthpower called a Word of Warning was a part. The wood-magicks of the
lillianrill
were a part, as were the elaborate healings which the Lords had once wrought in Trothgard, and the music with which Caerwood ur-Mahrtiir had invoked a bower among the wastes of the Lower Land. He knew how the great tree-city of Revelwood in the Valley of Two Rivers had been fashioned.
    But that was not all: he had learned more. If he had been released, he could have devised a prison which would have snared
moksha
Jehannum until Time was extinguished. Given a few uninterrupted days, he could have repaired the damage that ancient violence had done to Mount Thunder’s heart. With a few years and a Forestal’s aid, he could have made a garden of the Lower Land.
    But the Raver had not released him, and he had only an instant. When his opportunity came, he did not hesitate.
    One small sip of Earthpower from the Staff restored his inherited theurgy. Then he rose up from helplessness to trade places with his possessor.
    In the space of a single heartbeat, he trapped
moksha
Jehannum inside himself.
    The Raver struggled, screaming. Of course he struggled. He knew everything that Jeremiah did. He had long ages of experience to guide him. He had frenzy and ripe terror. And Jeremiah was only mortal. He lacked the intransigent metal of a
Haruchai
. He did not have the great spirit of a Giant. He had no inborn capacity to defy possession.
    But he had resources which Lord Foul’s servant could not match. Linden had blessed him with long years of care and tenderness. Anele had given him power. He had learned how to walk away from the helplessness with which he had protected himself. And he was not afraid to grasp the Staff of Law.
    Moksha
howled horror at the ceiling. He thrashed and writhed, raked frantic claws across the barriers which Jeremiah raised against him, sank sharp teeth into the flesh of Jeremiah’s resolve. Wild and despairing, the Raver fought.
    Yet Jeremiah refused the fight. He did not need to measure his strength against his foe. Instead he relied on